A few more completed projects

Three more projects are finished.  I completed the two embroidered pillows for Lucy and Lexi.  I also fit in a new idea I had for the upcoming little one.  I'm not sure what made me think of it, but I decided that it might be fun to make a photo cube with pictures of the family for the new baby.  I drew up a plan to knit the cube with different shapes for the frames.  I used clear plastic covers to place behind the frames to protect the photos.  The face colors of the cube is done in bright rainbow colors.  It worked perfectly to have a frame for the baby (pentagon), the momma (heart), the papa (diamond), the brother (triangle), the whole family (rectangle), and a mirror (circle).  I used a foam cube to hold the frames in shape.  It was fun, even though I had a little bit of a problem sewing the plastic into place.  All-in-all, not bad.  Now, I just have to wait for the baby to arrive to take the family shot and a photo of the baby.  Should be any day now.  I'm sure getting excited for my newest grand baby.

Sylvester the cat is for Lexi and Daffy Duck is for Lucy.

This is the photo cube with the mirror and Momma faces shown.

While I was working on these projects, my daughter asked me to make a church dress for Lexi, so I got right on it.  I already had some nice material and plenty of patterns.  She just wanted something simple and sleeveless.  She said she would just put a shirt under it.  Although sleeves are not a problem for me to put in, it does save a lot of time when it isn't necessary to do them.  Now that these things are all done, I need to get back to Joey's monkey.  I took a little vacation from it, so that I could do these other things.  I still have the arms, tail, and one leg to do to finish it.  Hope to be done by next week.

Here's my little doll in her new dress.

Could you be any cuter?

Jack Jack's dino

Jackson's birthday isn't until May, but I wanted to finish his pillow now because they are up from Pennsylvania and I don't get to see them often.  I don't know if we will be able to get down to see them before his birthday, so I wanted to have his dinosaur pillow ready for them to take back with them.  I just decided to do it about three days ago, so I had to work fast.  I used a pattern that I had for a toy, and like I did with the fish, I just enlarged it to make it pillow size.  I had a few problems with carrying the colors across the back this time.  I'm not sure why, because I have done this type of patterning before.  I was either getting it too tight, or too loose, and it wasn't looking quite right.  However, as I have said before, yarn is quite forgiving, and you can cover up some mistakes quite nicely.  I think the dinosaur came out looking okay, even though I doubted myself a few times along the way.

This dinosaur's spine was a nice way to use up yarn scraps.

I've decided to make embroidered pillows for Lucy and Lexi.  I found some old squares I had made years ago with an intention to make a quilt out of large blocks with embroidered Looney Tune characters.  Somewhere along the way I either used the other squares, or lost them, or something else, but I only had two left.  I decided they would make nice pillows for the little girls.  One is of Daffy Duck and the other is of Sylvester.  Now that the knitted pillows are complete, I can get back to embroidering.

WOW! I SEE!

It's incredible the way we get accustomed to doing things without realizing how hard it is becoming.  It is like with the sewing machine that was slowly dying on me and I didn't realize how difficult my sewing was until the machine finally just quit working and I got a new one.  Sewing became so much easier and quicker.  It is the same with my eyes.  I was so used to my old glasses that I didn't even know how much I wasn't seeing until I got my new ones.  It is amazing how much easier it is to thread a needle, or string a bead since that is what I have started doing again.  I needed some examples to share in my things that can be ordered or purchased and I didn't have any pictures of jewelry, so I made something.  That is when I really realized how much better my new glasses help me to see.  It was so much better that I actually made three sets yesterday.  See the side in things available for order or sale for pictures.

Zoe's Butterfly Pillow

Just a short note to say that another project is completed and I'm already on a new one...a monkey for my little monkey.

Butterflies are beautiful

This butterfly was a little more challenging than I had thought it would be.  It wouldn't have been much of a problem if I had not somehow miscounted my stitches with the first wing that I made.  When I tried to just reverse the stitches for the second side, I realized that I had more stitches than I should have had, so I tried to correct the mistake as I worked the second side...what I got was totally confused.  I had to finish the second side and try to reconstruct the first side to match the second side.  If that sounds confusing to you, that is because it was confusing to me.  Finally, by the time I got to my last wing side, I had everything worked out and it looked pretty symmetrical after all.  The body worked out just as I hoped it would, so that was great.  I used a technique that I learned about while making the elephant's trunk in the Noah's Ark play mat for the antenna by making a flexible cord.  It is stiff enough to stand straight out, yet flexible enough to bend.  I'm not as happy with the colors of the butterfly as I would like, but I try to use up yarn that I have around and this is what I had that matched well enough.

Now I'm really done!

Just like with any large project I begin, I have a difficult time finishing...not because I don't get to it, but because I keep finding something else to add to it.  I really thought I was finished with the baby things, but I came across a pattern for a really cute hoodie sweater on free patterns online.  I couldn't resist.  At first, I did not want to do a sweater because I thought my daughter-in-law Kim was going to make one.  She is just learning to knit and that was going to be her first big project.  However, she has very sore and cracked hands, so knitting is extremely painful for her right now.  She said she didn't mind if I made a sweater...so I did.  I started yesterday and finished the whole sweater, except for the hood.  I completed that this morning.
 

This is what it looks like.

Now I am back to working on the birthday pillows.  I have finished Dot's flower and have started on a butterfly for Zoe.  Again, I am making up the pattern as I go.  I have finished one right wing and have started on the first left wing.  I have to do two of each for front and back.  It will go much faster once I have finished one of each because the creating will be done.  Actually, the creating is already done as far as the wings go.  I just have to reverse the pattern for the left.  Sometimes that gets kind of tricky.  I have a difficult time with mirror images.  I have decided to do a boy sized monkey for Joey.  It is more like a stuffed toy than a pillow, but I think more appropriate for a boy.  I have made two of these monkeys before and I think they are really cute.  It will be just the thing for our little boy that we call a monkey anyway.

This is Dot's pillow.

I guess it is back to work on the butterfly while I have a chance to knit.  Joey is sleeping and Lexi is just being her usual happy little girl playing by herself.  What a good baby she is, even when she is sick with a cold like she is right now.  I feel so blessed with all of my wonderful grand babies.  I love them all so much and can't wait to meet our new little one...whatever it is since we don't know this time.