CMAD-ness!

Ok, so I've actually been working very hard on all those projects that I had posted about when I was in my CMAD manic phase, part 1 -the buying phase. Part 2 has been the actual gittin'-down-to-bizness phase and has involved much cutting, pinning, sewing, knitting, measuring, and a bit of improvising thrown in for good measure.

I seem to work fairly well when given a timeline for projects. The girls had requested their costumes for Halloween so those were something that needed to be dealt with first. R requested a devil dress and A decided to be a bunny after much deliberation and many other costume ideas. At first, A wanted to be an "Ariel in her bride dress", then a "fairy", then a "cheerleader", and probably a few other ideas thrown in there somewhere. But, she eventually decided on being a bunny when we were at the fabric store looking through the McCall's catalog and she came upon the bunny costume pattern. I made doubly sure that was her final answer and once I was satisfied that I was not going to end up with an unworn bunny costume and 4-year-old in tears over the never-made bride's dress we went through the store and found appropriate white fabric (I love fleece - easy for me to work with and nice and soft and bunny-like), pink fabric for the inner ears, elastic, and a zipper. We also found a suitable pattern for R's dress and some great red fabric with a swirly pattern that looks like flames all over.

I got to work pretty quickly cutting out the patterns once we got home. A was kind enough to entertain herself in the playroom for quite a while that afternoon while I cut away to my hearts content. It actually took me about 1.5 hours to cut out all the pattern pieces and then cut out the fabric for the bunny costume. R's pattern was much easier...three pieces to cut for the dress compared to about 15 for the bunny! Here are the results of the hours spent cutting, pinning and sewing:

R's devil dress


A's Bunny Costume
(body in first photo - mitts, spats, and hood with ears in second photo)



Oh, and I forgot to get a shot of the back of the costume but there is a cute bunny tail attached at the back. I will post pics after tomorrow's halloween festivities of the girls actually IN their costumes.

My other recent CMAD adventure has been knitting myself a pair of socks. With the cooler weather upon us I was itching to get back into knitting but didn't want to commit to a huge project - especially because of everything else I'm trying to work on! So, I happened to have a conversation with a woman while in the waiting room at A's gymnastics class and found out about this great yarn that is dyed to allow you to make striped socks without ever changing yarns. Sounded like fun and I figured socks wouldn't take too long but I was a bit apprehensive of the whole "turning the heel" part of sock-making. But, when I went to the yarn shop to peruse the sock yarns I had heard about I got a lot of support and encouragement from the yarn store owner and from a couple of other knitters who told me to give it a try and ask if I needed any help. Well, I'm proud and excited to announce that just last night I turned my very first sock heel WITHOUT ANY HELP! I was kind of confused when I was reading the pattern but I just figured it knew better than I and followed it to the letter. Sure enough, I managed to make the heel and was able to, in hindsight, figure out what the hell the pattern was making me do with that heel. I like to be able to understand what I'm trying to accomplish but sometimes it is only after the fact, when you look back and see what happened that you can figure out how it all came together. There has got to be some kind of life lesson in that statement but I'm too excited to get back to my knitting to think it out on any profound level. So, without further ado he's a pic of my first ever nearly-complete sock! I have to finish knitting down to the toe and then of course, being in possession of two feet, I have a second sock to make.



I'll let you know when I get that second one done - maybe I'll even post a picture of my feet in all their cozy stripiness!

Oh, and as for a quick quilt update. I have not had much time to devote to the quilting what with the costumes and all but I did manage to finish cutting out the gazillion triangles for all the blocks. I ran into a bit of a snafu when I changed my colors around because I ended up not having enough dark purple fabric and my local store (that is closing soon!) didn't have more!! I frantically searched far and wide and found a midwestern fabric store that had some in stock. After about a week and a half in which I panicked and wondered if I was going to have to get a new dark purple replacement fabric I finally found and then received the new piece of fabric and was busy getting the pieces cut out and ready for the sewing phase!

And remember how I talked about my CMAD enablers? My MIL is a huge enabler and I have quite a few enabler friends. But, the scariest part is that I also have enablers right here in my very own home. The girls love to do arts and crafts and of course they need costumes every year and they ask for dress-up clothes and quilts and the like. So, they are big source of inspiration and encouragement for my obsessions. But, did you ever think that Rick would be another enabler? Yup. I am married to yet another enabler. I'm doomed. Here's the email he sent me this morning:

Subject: Link for you...

...I enjoy makezine, you'll probably enjoy this link as part of your daily surfing:

http://www.craftzine.com/blog/


So, I went and checked it out. I found this particular entry very romantic and original! And this knitting project looks fun and practical! Hey - I wonder if I have any black fleece hanging around? Time is tight but I'd love to make this for little miss E for Halloween!

I'm not sure he realizes what he has done.......