Mother's Day 2012

Made my mom one of my packable beach totes for mother's day since we were on vacay down in AL that week.

  Made from dec weight fabric so its sturdy, but not too thick and bulky.

 Homemade label, see this blog for instructions.

And it rolls up for easy packing.

Saturday around the house:

I am very thankful to have a few days at home this weekend.  We had planned to go backpacking up in Vermont on the long trail, but it looks like its raining all weekend up there.  We may still go up later in the weekend for a day hike.  Anyway, here's what I've been up to:

Started off the morning by poking around the "garden" a bit.  We live in a condo, so it's more or less containers on our deck, since we can't plant anything in our big beautiful shared lawn.  We're trying a few Earthboxes this year on our upstairs deck, we'll see how it goes.  Here's a little photo tour:

 6 pepper plants (2 red bell peppers, 2 Hungarian reds, and 2 pimento peppers) & 2 tomoatoes (a black cherry and I think a German Strawberry), all lovingly started from seeds by Jared & Tori

 Radishes, carrots, and 3 bush bean plants in the city picker, also a few flowers coming up and some lemon thyme courtesy of Robin :-)

 Romaine lettuce, I just trimmed it for salads a few nights ago which is why it looks a little sparse

 Our first strawberry blossom, trying these in a hanging basket

 Sugar snap peas in a hanging basket, just lowered these this morning so they have more room to grow

Mint, smells heavenly

Then went for a walk downtown.  Picked up a coffee along the way at Higher Grounds.  The East Hampton Garden Club was having an outdoor plant sale and art show in the center of town.  Also stopped by my two favorites the Red Door Boutique and Anything Goes.  Both are always worth a stop if you are ever in the neighborhood. 

Then I came home and whipped up this little headband.  It's so muggy here today and I just cut my hair short again and needed something to hold it all back while I worked around the house.

Then I proceeded to finish redecorating the table.  The spring decorations were getting a little old.  I was able to incorporate some of the shells we found & a photo from our recent trip to Dauphin Island, AL (more pictures to follow soon).  The blue wicker place-mats (69 cents a piece) and white frame ($3) were Christmas Tree Shop finds, what a deal!

 

Made a surprisingly good lunch from the little food we have left.  We didn't buy groceries this week in efforts to use up what we had on hand since we had planned on going away for the weekend.  But I threw this delicious pizza together using a leftover pita shell, a bottle of pizza sauce, fresh mozzarella, Italian seasoning, and garlic!

Now I'm off to go crochet outside for a bit and finish the laundry before B comes home from work.  By the way, I finally learned how to crochet this week (with the help of You Tube) so that I can do this granny square sampler afghan crochet-a-long.  It's a pattern created by Blair based on a 1970's Better Homes & Gardens pattern.  The original is a very cool design, but the colors are hideous!  Each week this summer she will be posting instructions for a new square on her blog, with instructions on how to sew them all together at the end of summer.  Here are my week 1 squares:

Speaking of yarn crafts, one last thing...or two rather.  My knitting got two really cool shout-outs this week...  The first, was a hat that I had knit for Burkett's sister, Aili, which she happen to wear in a Helly Hensen photo shoot.  Also be sure to check out Aili's Helly Hensen video here (scroll about half way down).

 (sorry for the crappy picture, I took it with my old phone)

Second, a photo of another one of my projects was selected to use as a featured photo for the pattern on Ravelry.  Check out the Warm Up Hat pattern on ravelry, mine is the pink one with white trim.  Another project of mine was also featured a while back on ravelry, also check out the Little Pill Boxes Pillow, mine is the top photo.

Never too late for a few pictures...

We've been very busy this spring and my blog is just one of those things that I haven't been keeping up with. And I've got lots of trips, photos, and projects to share with you! In the meantime, here are a few gratuitous pictures from my Birthday and Easter!

This what I came home to after work on my Birthday! Burkett surprised me with a pile of presents (apparently he had been stashing away cards and presents as they came in the mail) and a home made cake (chocolate cake with chocolate almond frosting).  Didn't he do a great job!!

Here are a few from Easter.  We ended up having a few friends and Burkett's family over for a big feast and a gorgeous afternoon on the lake.

 And here are some of my Easter decorations.  I made the wreath and the place-mats!  Apothecary jar (with Cadbury Mini Eggs of course) and birdcage are from Michaels.  I'm not sure if you can see them, but the collection of small shells are one's that Burkett had picked up for me at his guys day at the beach down in Milford earlier this spring. 

Gearing up for vacay!

Spent the past weekend finishing up a few gifts & projects to take on vacation. I have been wanting to make a new beach bag, but need something light weight and easy to pack. After searching the internet and usual craft blogs, I came up empty handed in terms of a pattern, but did come up with a few features that I liked. So I combined these with a few ideas of my own and came up with this lovely little bag!

And it does this for easy packing...

Favorites from this past week in photos!

A case for my lovely new iPad

So I bought an iPad this weekend...since the iPad 3 is just coming out, I got a great deal on the iPad 2. Even though it's the previous version, I think this is the most technologically up to date I have ever been, with my iphone 4s and now iPad. Trust me, I was the one still walking around with a flip phone during the blackberry and iPhone 1&2 days. But I love it, so of course I had to make a case for my new toy.

I started out using this tutorial but it came out way too tight...so I got out the seam reaper and started over, doing it my own way. Here is the end result!

Valentine's Day in New Hampshire

Burkett and I splurged for Valentine's Day this year with a trip to New Hampshire.  We found a killer deal for the Mountain View Grand a few months ago on Groupon, and Valentine's Day weekend just happened to be one of the few weekends available during ski season that didn't have a blackout date, so off to New Hampshire we went! 

The hotel was absolutely amazing.  It's a historic hotel nestled right in the middle of New Hampshire's White Mountains.

Loved this little nook at the end of our hallway...

We also stopped at the outlets and EMS in North Conway, skied 2 days at Cannon, and visited the New England Ski Museum, which was a pleasant surprise.  We didn't even know New England had a Ski Museum, but stumbled upon it on our way over to the tram at Cannon.

And now for the knitting section of this post...it turns out the Mountain View Grand has a knitting history.  Apparently a group of women from Whitefield, NH lead by one of the owners of the MVG used to knit mittens and other winter accessories that were sold in the gift shop and through R.H. Stearns Co., a former Boston department store.  What's even better is the skier pattern featured on some of their mittens.  Really wish I could get my hands on this pattern.  But for now, here are a few pictures from the display case in the MVG lobby.

My First Sewing Machine

This has been a week of firsts...my first week rounding at St. Francis, my first week back in lab at CAIRD since my fellowship, first time getting my car stuck in the snow this season, and the list goes on. So it seems fitting to finally jump back into blogging again with my first post of the year being about my FIRST SEWING MACHINE!  Needless to say I'm thrilled.  Enough of the firsts and onto the good stuff, pictures!

My lovely new machine, it's been very easy to learn.

And now for a few of my first projects...of course I would need a dust cover for the machine.  Plus I found this really great remnant at JoAnn's that goes very well with the craft room decor.  The pattern was a Simplicity Project Runway pattern that just so happened to be on sale for a $1.

New throw pillow for the coach, with a removable cover so I can wash it! No pattern, just made this one up as I went.  It was also a remnant found at JoAnn's, I thought the print was very fitting for our cozy little lakeside condo. 

Handmade swaddling blankets for my dearest friend Krista who is expecting their first in May!  One side is white flannel and the printed side is cotton.  I borrowed this idea from Martha Stewart and embellished it a bit.

And now for my current project, I am making my first quilt!  I am making the Easy Four Patch quilt from a book I bought at JoAnn's back when I was in college and using some fat quarters bought for another project that never got completed.  Already have the top pieced together and need to get quilting.  I'm think I will likely end up tieing it, as I've already got my eye on another pattern and Denyse Schmidt's new Aunt Edna fabric!  Maybe I'll actually try to learn machine quilting for the next one.