Cats + Felt = Love

I tend to make a lot of felted items. I love how they look and how durable they become after the felting process. Little did I know, cats seem to love felted items as well. Doesn't matter where I put them, one of the cats seems to find them, curl up and sit/sleep on them. Below is some photographic proof.

Two kittens, one bag.

James just chillin'.

 Tiny Magnets lookin' pretty adorable, if I do say so myself.

Vega gets into the action as well.

Magnets figures that there is room for her as well. "Move over Mom!"

The bag is smaller than Vega but she tries anyway.

Maggie tries this one out as well.

Now don't get me wrong, the furry little buggers lay on everything. Coats, pieces of paper, flyers, projects I'm currently working on, everything. But something about felt just draws them to it. And it's the WORST fabric to try and get cat hair out of.

Until next time! I'll probably post about my attempt at auditioning for the Food Network's Recipe to Riches! And no, I didn't make it on the show. Jerks.

 **** Come visit my new site at www.thecraftinista.com ****

What I spent the last two months of 2011 doing!

I can finally post about the Christmas presents I made since the last one has been received by my sister. This year I was ambitious with my gifts. I made not one but two crocheted blankets among all of the smaller items I made for friends.

For my sister Rebecca and her boyfriend Robby, I decided to crochet a ripple blanket. They just moved in together and I thought it would be a nice item to make them for their new place. It was my first time trying a ripple pattern blanket and it was pretty easy once you got the rhythm of the pattern down. I found an easy to follow on Attic24 and it can be found here.

And as much as my sister loves the blanket, I think the cats even loved it more! Any time I was working on it, they seemed to find their way on top of it.

 

For my Mum's present, I made a pretty basic granny square blanket. It worked up pretty quickly and it contains about 17 different colours. I used the same yarn for both - Lionbrand Home Spun. Once you washed the blanket for the first time, it was so incredibly soft. It was hard parting with either blanket as I just wanted to snuggle up in either one.

And the cats weren't the only ones to like the blankets. Here is a picture of my Dad when he was released from the hospital, snuggled up in the blanket as well.

My Dad had a rough couple of months towards the end of the year. Along with a broken leg and ankle, he was hospitalised with bilateral pulmonary embolism followed by a bout of pneumonia. Luckily he's doing much better now and I cross my fingers that nothing else happens to him. Also, early happy birthday tohim as he turns 51 on Tuesday. Happy Birthday Dad!

 **** Come visit my new site at www.thecraftinista.com ****

Oh man, I'm such a slacker.

Ugh. Seriously, it seems every year I do this. And by this, I mean I completely neglect my site and I get a little slackerish on the crafting. Lots of things have happened since I last updated in March. I moved out of the city and moved into a house in the town of Bedford, Nova Scotia and I got a new job and am now working as a travel counsellor. No more apartment living! No more crappy job where I get no respect or am appreciate for my hard work! Hooray!

The kittens have gotten huge. They are no longer kittens in my eyes but rather small cats. The younger of the two, James, went to a new home last week. The other kitten, Magnets, is staying with me and her mother Vega. As much as I would have liked to have kept both kittens, money is tight and if they had gotten sick at the same time, I wouldn't be able to afford to take care of them. James ended up going to the home of a friend of mine where I know she (yes, she, we got the sex mixed up when she was born but the name James stuck) will be taken very good care of. Plus, when you knit and/or crochet and you have three cats, people start calling you a crazy cat lady. I'd rather avoid that if possible :)

Maggie sitting pretty in my bedroom window. She's totally not a kitten any more!




Baby James relaxing on my bed. I love the little white stripe on her nose :)

Now for some crafts! So I've done a few things. Made a couple of hats, a few pairs of slippers, half a dozen dishcloths, a couple of handbags and a few other small items. My new bedroom happens to have a glass door so I needed to make something to cover it. Today I made a curtain to cover it.

Before

After

I love this fabric! The purple has a pretty sheen to it and it matches my room perfectly!

Alright, time to sign off. I hope to start posting more often! If not, have a great summer :D

 **** Come visit my new site at www.thecraftinista.com ****

Cupcakes, birds, hats, kitties, snow and even more snow!

Ahhhh....time for some updates!

Nova Scotia has not seen this much snow in years. It seems like we've been dumped on by snow at least once a week. By the time we recover from one Nor'ester, it seems like another one is just around the corner!

The upside to all of the snow? Sledding! Although I went once about two years ago, it ended in a disaster. My first run down the hill resulted in me crashing, using my face as a brake and suffering a concussion. This time was a success though - no injuries and fun was had by everyone. And we went at night, which is fantastic for two reasons -

1. No small children. I always fear I'm going to run one of them over. Plus, they always show me up by never falling off their sled and they can go further than I can. They are tiny, little jerks I tell you!
2. Halifax is really pretty at night


Next update - my family has gotten larger! Don't get too excited though - I just got a new cat. My friend Angel found a tiny, malnourished cat outside of her apartment building a few weeks ago and I took her in as my own. Her name is Vega Bond! Although she's pretty cute and likes to snuggle a whole lot, she's finding it hard to adjust to The Captain and Weeze but she's getting there. And she likes to shred toilet paper...all the time. Hopefully she'll grow out of this.


Now for a few craft updates! I've made a few things recently but am behind on what I was to complete. I've started a lot of projects, but as per usual, am having a hard time completing them. I need to buckle down and get to to work.

First up, I made a pretty simple striped hat with a flower. The pattern for the flower can be found in one of the Stitch 'N Bitch books, The Happy Hooker.


I also whipped up a cute little amigurumi bird sometime last week. I found the pattern for a set of Love Birds on the Lion Brand website and made one but never got around to making the second. Click here to find the pattern but you will need to be logged into their site.


Tomorrow I am heading to a potluck at a friend's place and I decided to make cupcakes. It's been awhile since I made them, mostly because when I do bake them, I can't eat just one - I eat like five. And oddly enough, when you're trying to lose weight, eating 5 cupcakes doesn't help! I made up a batch of cookies and cream cupcakes with and vanilla bourbon buttercream frosting. They turned out pretty friggin' awesome. Can anyone say "Nom nom nom"? Oh wait, I can! Nom NOM NOOOOM!


 **** Come visit my new site at www.thecraftinista.com ****

Holy eff, it's been awhile.

So yeah, it's been awhile eh? I've been keeping myself busy but I have admit that I haven't really done a lot of crafts in the past few months. I've done the odd project here and there but nothing substantial or even terribly interesting. I knit a few dish clothes and crocheted a couple of amigurumi pears, which I've done in the past a few times before. Fall is just around the corner though and that's usually when I bring out of my crafting guns. We shall see.

Although I haven't been crafting, I have kept myself busy this summer. I joined a dodgeball team with a league here in Halifax. We play every Monday night and it's a lot of fun. I forgot how much I enjoyed being on a sports team....and throwing balls at strangers. In July I went camping in PEI which ended my ten year streak of not being on a boat and a whooping 12 year no swimming streak. I went to my family reunion where a ridiculous amount of good food and alcohol was consumed. Got a couple of sunburns and doubled my freckle count. Took a road trip with two of my favourite friends to Montreal just to go to Ikea. Oh yes, it's been a good summer.

One thing I have been doing this summer is bake. Oh yes, I love to bake and lately I've made things that have even impressed myself. Last week I made pecan cinnamon buns. They were seriously one of the best tasting things I have ever made myself. They were that good. I have to hold back from making them everyday though.

Drool....


















And if those aren't enough, today I think I made the best chocolate chips cookies that I have ever created as well. I know it sounds like I'm full of myself and my baking skills but seriously, mad skillz, I suddenly have them.



Well hopefully this gets me posting again!

**** Come visit my new site at www.thecraftinista.com ****

Time for a change....and new shelves...and a new scarf......

I'm such a neglectful blogger but it's for a good reason, I promise! Although I've been crafting, I haven't been spending much time around the computer as of late. At the beginning of the year I decided that I needed to make a change in my life and it needed to be drastic. I eat horribly and do little to no exercise whatsoever. I was lazy and I did not care. And then one day in January something clicked in my head and I decided that I was done with that. I've stopped gorging on my favourite, yet very unhealthy foods (I miss you poutine and ice cream) and decided to get up off my lazy fat ass. I eat healthy balanced meals and make smart snack choices. I walk between 5-15 kilometres a day and try to do pilates or something similar about twice a week. It's not really as hard as I expected as I don't think of this as a diet but rather a lifestyle change and apparently I have waaaaaay more willpower than I could have ever imagined. I'm not counting calories or spending hours each day in a gym. I just eat much better than I once did and try to be more active and so far it's paid off. I've lost at least 30lbs to date and I fit into the size of jeans that I wore in high school! I don't have a goal set and I'm totally okay with that. Yay!

Now back to the crafting...

Last week my Dad came to visit and brought new shelves for my bedroom that he was going to help me put up. He picked out some pretty rad silver brackets and had the wood pre-cut for me.



Good choice, Sir, good choice.

Once the brackets were hung, the fun part began. Anyone who knows me, knows that I like to have each room of my home be perfectly colour co-ordinated so it wasn't a surprise that I was going to make these shelves black, purple and silver - just like everything else in my bedroom.

I started by covering the wood with purple and silver paint and just swirled it together.



Once this was done, I covered with with a crackling medium and followed it up with a layer of black paint.





Groovy eh? I gotta say, I like how it turned out. They match purrrfectly with my bedding.



Obviously I still need to fill the shelves with stuff, but you get the picture.



Cupcake encouraged me while I worked on these. And by encouraged I mean she slept and made purr noises every now and then.

Let's see, I know I've done a few other projects recently as well. Oh yeah, I frogged the noro scarf and started a new one. I much prefer the new one as I used the smaller needles so the stitches weren't so huge.



Unfortunately as Spring has seemed to arrive in Nova Scotia already, I don't have much more time to even wear scarves without dying of heat exhaustion. But because it turned out super colourful, I don't care, I'll wear it anyway!



Time for bed. Peace out!