amelia studio

Rag!

Why, lookie there, I made a dishcloth! I barely, just barely, know how to knit, so I have been wanting to make some dishcloths for a while. Chris's grandma has passed on a few to us, and I am always disappointed when I look in the dishcloth drawer, and all I have left are store-bought washcloths. The knitted ones are the best. I thought about learning to crochet as practice for this, but I decided to stick with what I (sort of) know.

I used this pattern, and it worked well. I probably used the wrong kind of yarn. What do I know? It is cotton at least. I know that much. I ripped out half of my first cloth because I was doing it completely wrong. I am new to knitting, so I am still in the stage where knitting is like flying in a dream: as soon as you realize what you are doing you start falling and can't remember how to get going again. But I figured I could handle a rag.

No sweaters here, but a rag? A rag I can do.

V V V V V V V

So, how was your Valentine's Day? Growing up, this holiday was always just a day to celebrate having love in your life -- any kind of love, not just romantic. So I've never had the bitterness about the day that lots of people seem to have. It's a fun little break in the middle of February -- a month that so needs a glimmer of happy in the middle of it.

For this year's valentines, I pulled out my little stash of gouache. I came across it while cleaning my office, and thought it would be fun. It was leftover from the color theory class I took pre-children, so some of the tubes were unusable. (Blue in particular. Boo.) So I used purple. I don't think my gradient would have passed muster in my class, but it was still fun. I miss my design classes. Maybe I'll finish that degree someday.

The girls got mini Caboodles with new hairbrushes. (Remember Caboodles?) Lice has been going through E's school, so I made a gift out of something that was a necessity: separate hair brushes. They were a hit!

Chris and I made dinner for ourselves after the kids went to bed -- something we should do more often. It's hard to have dinner conversation with people throwing cups of apple sauce on your pants or complaining how we never eat anything good.

I hope you had a sweet holiday!

Jolly Lollies

The girls and I finished up their school Valentine's treats yesterday. We used this idea. I cut out the craft foam, but E was able to assemble them and attach signed notes to each one. Then we all amused ourselves by posing for the camera and in the mirror. C was very confused about my choice of mustache over lips. She kept asking if I wanted to be a boy. (She's super into gender designations these days.) Do I look like my dad with a mustache?

Under the Sea

This year I decided to be a little more helpful to our preschool PTA. I have been trying to tiptoe between being helpful and being full-on involved. I try to help, but I try to avoid meetings. I do not like meetings. At all. Anyway, I'm doing my best to be helpful in my own introverted way.

So I volunteered to work on decorations for the auction, which has an underwater theme this year. I was asked to paint some large cardboard fish. I also worked on some seven-foot-high sea grasses and coral, but those are at school and not done yet. Here are the fish. I used clip art from this coloring site and did my best to enlarge them onto the cardboard and paint them.

It was kind of fun to paint a little something, even if it was just clip art stuff. Oh, and cutting out cardboard octopi with a utility knife? Not for the faint of heart. That's why there's only one of those guys.

Holiday Weekend

Memorial Day weekend is always a triple holiday at our house. We also celebrate Chris's birthday and our anniversary. (eight years!) Here are a couple of the things I made for the festivities.

We generally make our own cards around here. This time I tried a little paper cutting. I'm not sure if I have the patience for this. (particularly considering that this card was completely rumpled by C just minutes after Chris got to see it)

I was much more within my comfort zone with the cake. Chris likes German Chocolate. I used this recipe for the frosting, and it's really good. I'm not a frosting person. But this is more like caramel than frosting. There's some more of this cake waiting for me as soon as I finish this post. So I'm in a hurry, people.

We also got to go out for the birthday/anniversary. Our very nice friends Chris and Adam watched the girls while we got a bite at One Bite and saw "Star Trek." I have never seen an episode of "Star Trek," and I've never seen one of the movies. Complete blank slate. But I still enjoyed it.

All in all, it was a pretty laid-back weekend. I got to finish the sixth Harry Potter book, and have moved on to the last one. I am a little too excited about the new movie this summer. I just now am reading the books, so this will be the first time I've actually read the book before seeing the movie.

I hope your weekend was as relaxing as ours!