A problem and a solution.

So my kid has these three adorable onesies for summer:

Problem is that I’m not really a just a onesie kindof a mom. It’s cool for sleeping in but I don’t want to take her out and about without pants on. Not ok with that. Because, really, pants always beats no pants. May as well start that rule now along with the “You will eat what we eat when we eat it I’m not a short order cook and this isn’t grandma’s house” rule. So I thought that with my newfound sewing abilities it would be fun to try to make her a little skirt to go with them. I pulled out one of her skirts to use as a “pattern” and noticed that it was about the same size as a fat quarter…

And the wheels started turning.

Would it be possible to make 2 skirts out of nothing but 3 fat quarters? And could I make those skirts match all of these little onsies?


Yes. Yes I can.


It was a pretty simple process. Cut, sew, elastic, done.


I will model this onesie without even putting it on.  I am that fierce.

And they turned out completely adorable.

I like wearing skirts. They are fun to play with.

The best part is that I used up every scrap of fabric that I bought. That’s new for me. I usually walk in to the fabric store, get all giddy with the possibilities, spend an hour lamenting fabric choice, and then walk out with about a million more yards than I need.

Whatever, Mommy.  That's how you build a fabric stash.

I will absolutely be making more of these!

I'm ALLDONE with this modeling gig.

Oh and in other news I figured out the “Networked Blogs” thing. So if you want to follow Life in Cleveland via Facebook there’s a link on the sidebar.

The First Day of Summer

So big things are going on right now at Life in Cleveland. The most notable is that I now have a steady childcare arrangement*. So once a week I’m going to be able to rock out the Destination Yarn. I haven’t been able to do much lately what with a toddler and a husband who’s working insane hours* so this is HUGE.  I’m so, so excited to be back to the dye pots.

It also means that every Monday there’s going to be a shop update.  Today’s offerings?  The entire America The Beautiful Semi-Solid Series:


Purple Mountain Majesties, Sea, Shining Sea, Fruited Plain, Amber Waves of Grain, Spacious Skies

I thought that it would be the perfect time to redye these what with the Fourth of July coming up. They are wonderful for any of your more complicated and patterned projects:

Sinuosity Socks designed and knit by Knitting Nonstop (Dawn) out of Sea

Summer Lovin’ socks knit by me in Spacious Skies

And look stunning in lace:

Traveling Woman Shawl knit by AndiRN out of Purple Mountain Majesties

But it’s summer. And I’m not really in the mood for complicated anymore. I want to sit by the pool and relax with some simple stockinet:

Baby pools count as pools, too.

So I took all of the colors from the America the Beautiful series and created this:

Available Here.  It’s kettle dyed – which is a different technique than I usually use. I allowed the colors to play together in the pot:


 The bleeding and mixing created new, deeper shades and tones:

An American melting pot, if you will.  (HAHAHAHAHA I"m lame)

The result is similar to when I tried this same thing last year… but not quite. With this technique things aren’t exactly repeatable. So just like last year this is a limited edition color. I dyed one batch and when it’s gone it’s gone.


Happy Summer, Everyone!

*She’s going to hang out with my mom one day a week.  Grandmas?  Are the BEST.

*being an architect pretty much sucks right now.  But he still has a job and a job that he likes so we’re way ahead of the game in a lot of ways.  Despite the crazy hours.

Happy.

So a quick list of things that are making me very happy right now:

1.) Destination Yarn Trunk Show at River Colors

I’m super excited to be doing a show so close to home. Also on July 17 the Cleveland Craft Coalition is having their "True Colors:  Exposed" show in the same building. It’s going to be an awesome event and a great way to support local artists. Yay for Cleveland Art!

2.) Walking

SO much better than crawling. She’s an actual for real toddler now.  She’s also using her new found skill set to run away from me whenever possible.  Of course she is.

3.) My New Cell Phone: we finally after much debate decided on Samsung Mythics. So far I’m loving it.   The touch screen is pretty sweet and I've been using it as an mp3 player constantly.  I might actually get caught up on History of Rome!  Plus it even takes pretty decent pictures:

But I’m also missing a lot of people’s info. Please text me you # if you want me to have it!

4.) The new season of True Blood. Waiting sucked. I’m so glad it’s back on. And in two weeks? We meet Alcide:

Truebies & Newbies: Sookie & Alcide

Yay!

Just some more adorable.

So you know what’s even cuter than one little pillowcase dress?

Three Pillowcase Dresses!

That’s kindof all I have to say about it. Except that this time I felt confident enough in my sewing skills (or lack thereof) to actually buy fabric.

Although my the fabric amounts / sizing of pillowcase dresses are… iffy… at best. I ended up with WAY more fabric than I needed. Enough to make a reverse dress, too!

But then I realized that my dresses were ridiculously large. Like they probably won’t even fit her next summer they are so ginormous. Not sure why I thought I had a 5 year old when I cut the fabric but whatever. She’ll wear them eventually. And in the meantime I had enough scrap left for a dress that fits her now:


Yay for way over estimating yardage!


Whatever you say, mommy.  I'm pretty sure this is just going to get in my way...



The ties are a bit small on the now dress… I may replace them with ribbons:

Probably not, though. They get the job done.



SEE.


SEE.

In other the baby is cute news… check her new trick:

She can climb in and out of a rocking chair! Thrilling, I know. If you want even more thrills there’s a few more videos of it on Flickr. Honestly I’m just crazy excited about this because it’s another step on the path to walking and standing. Yay for walking!!!!

Finally!!!

So before now all attempts at getting this kid to take any sortof step while not holding on to a piece of furniture have been met with a brick wall of stubborn.   Any bribing/cajoling/tricking/tempting with tasty treats and she just looked at me like “NO.*” 


And then sits down. 

I DO MY SELF.

Nothing has worked.  And honestly I decided a while ago that the more I try the worse it will be . I didn’t want to turn this walking thing into a Battle of Wills.  I just had to be patient and wait for her to decide on her own that it was time.

Today was that day:

Ok so that video isn’t the greatest. She was pretty tired by that point since by the time I was able to sneak away and get the video camera she had done that over and over and over again. The point is that she tried.

And tried.

And tried until she was too tired to even stand. The good side to the stubborn is that when she sets her mind to something she is willing to work at it. I give it 2 weeks before she’s flat out running.

YAY!!!!!!

*aka “Bitch, please”

Going Green (because I'm cheap)

So you know what’s really expensive?   Swiffer wet covers. You know what I buy a lot of because I have a toddler who refuses to walk and no dog*?  Swiffer wet covers.  So I did a little Ravelry-ing and found this pattern.

FREE PATTERN: Ballband Dishcloth Reusable Swiffer Cover

And a few hours later had this:

I knit it in Sanguine and Azure kitchen cotton because I just got the ten year anniversary invite for my fraternity and I’m excited about it.  I was a charter member of my chapter so seeing that little project make it to 10 years is pretty cool.  Besides why not have a swiffer cover in Alpha Rho Chi colors?



Although don’t look to closely – the seams basically suck. Whatever. It’s a mop cover. Didn’t need to be pretty.

Although it kindof is anyways...

Here’s what it looks like after I used it in the living room/dining room/hallway:

Yuck. But Yay! It did a great job:

I figure if I knit 4 of them I’ll have enough to clean my entire house without giving PnG any more of our hard earned monies.

I’m calling that a win.

Also a win?

Summer.  Although the 5 teeth she's getting right now AT THE SAME TIME have put quite a damper on our style this weekend.  I forgot how brutal back to back to back to back to back sleepless nights are.

*any house cleaning advantage of not having to deal with dog fur is completely canceled out by the crumbs. OH THE CRUMBS. And lets just not even speak of the area around the high chair. Ugh.