For My Next Trick, I'm Going to Need a Knife and a Jar...

Lookee what I made using a pool noodle, duct tape, clothesline and some fake flowers. I'm like crafty McGuyver! 

I got all the supplies from the dollar store and it cost me $8 total. I totally can't take credit for the craftiness, I got the idea via pintrest. You can find out how to make your own here.

P.S. To those non-Kinsel's reading this blog, the title comes from an old home movie where my big sis Jenn does a magic trick. After she is done my other sis Bek pops in and says "For my trick, I'm going to need a knife and a jar...".  Alas, whoever was filming turned off the camera at that point, so we don't really know what she intended to do with that knife and a jar.

Finally!

I finally finished EJ's birthday blanket. It's only a couple of weeks late- right? I think it turned out cute (and so what if it isn't TOTALLY square).

However, I swear on Chester and this blog that I will never, never, ever, NEVER do another blanket in all single crochet. This thing took so freakin' long to make!

I'm a Happy Hooker

If you come to my house after the girls go to bed (or on Sunday afternoons) you'll find me here, in my chair, working on my latest "project". Yep, I've become a happy hooker, or, as DMP prefers to call it, a crochet-ist. Whatever.

I decided to teach myself to crochet last January after we decided that this year we were going to do "homemade" Christmas. Plus, I knew I had two neices coming and I wanted to make something for them. Actually, I started out teaching myself to knit, but I'm a little impatient and it felt like it was taking too long :).

After my first "practice" project (a scarf that is still missing it's tassels), my first "big" project was a blanket for baby Amelia. I think it turned out really well. It was also my first experience "winging it"- or doing something not written in the pattern. I added the shell/scallop border because it didn't look "finished" to me. Here she is modeling it with Grandma-

Cynj nicely told me that while they've gotten crocheted blankets in the past, they don't use them. I actually appreciate that since it takes FOREVER to crochet a blanket and if it isn't going to be used, what's the point? Plus, I don't want to be the crazy aunt that makes things out of yarn that everyone hates :) Yet.

Anyway, I decided to try my hand at hemstitching a border on a couple of flannel blankets I made (I made one for Amelia, too, but didn't get a picture before I sent it to her). This was fun, and very different from working with the bigger yarn.

Here is baby Jane modelling the "cupcake" blanket. I'm a big fan of this edge- it is different than the typical "shell" border and can be more "masculine" I used this one for a blanket I made my boss for his new son (that I should get a picture of before I give it, huh?).

Lest you think I'm leaving my own kiddos out, I made a blanket for Birdy for her 2nd birthday. After weeks (literally) of work, she wanted nothing to do with it. It has only been recently that she decided it is cool enough to join the set of 4 (!) blankets that must be used to tuck her in at night. It is cute though, and super-soft!

EJ is also getting a blanket for her birthday coming up- that's the one Chester is helping me make in the first picture.