army surplus

My sweet friend had a baby boy and I asked her what type of image she wanted me to embroider onto a blanket.

"Do you want a critter, a person, or a vehicle?", I asked her.

She wanted a jeep.

"A jeep?", I questioned. I think I may have stared at her blankly for a second or two.

But yes, she was sure, she wanted a jeep. And her husband has a jeep.

So she was getting a jeep.

At first I was not sure what kind of fabrics I was going to use with this jeep.

Then I remembered that we had an army surplus store in town, and I had been wanting to go for a while now. This was the perfect excuse! Perhaps I could find some fun army stuff to go with this jeep.

I was very excited about my little field trip. I drove to the other side of town and pulled into the parking lot.

It was a little intimidating at first, because there were some interesting characters milling about, but when I heard the country music playing in the background, I felt a lot better.

There was so much fun stuff to look at. Old bags and such.

And then I found what I was looking for.

Patches. Oodles and Oodles of authentic military patches. I was in heaven.

Mr. Serious Sargeant-Pants stood behind the counter and politely asked how he could help me.

"Can I have that U.S. ARMY patch?", I asked, pointing at the display. He searched the bins and came up empty handed.

"There are no more", he said. Still serious as can be. No smiling here.

At this point, I was on complete overload and did not even know where to start. So I asked him to explain some of the patches--A request I very quickly began to regret, as he launched into a full-blown monologue on the history of each and every patch know to mankind.

And his soliloquy might have been very interesting, had it not been approaching the dinner hour(aka piranha hour) and John was at home watching 4 little boys.

I nodded my head and said "oooh and ahhh" and "how neat" like a total moron as he droned on and on. He claimed to have studied patches for over 30 years.

I asked to look at a few more patches and before I knew it, he was pulling down the "U.S. ARMY" patch from the display and let me buy it. I guess it paid to listen to his shpeel!

And no, I did not tell him I was using these patches for a baby blanket.

Nor did I mention that I was looking for a patch that had some rust-colored accents that would match the rust ric-rac I was using.

Shhh, that will be our little secret...

Back at home with my plunder(After embroidering his name and birthdate).

I had a lot of fun combining the patches.

Here is the finished product. I later found out that my friend's family had served in the military and so that makes this blanket a little more special!

And it was no trouble to slap a few patches onto a onesie. My kind of project, I tell you!

The set all together.

My head is still spinning with ideas for future projects.

They've created a monster!

You all know how I love beanies.

Well,

Inspired by my crafty friend Becca,

and

Advised by my talented seamstress-of-a-sister Jessica,

the two of them have created a monster--they taught me how to make beanies!

Someone stop me! You may never see the fuzzy head of my baby ever again! Or quite possibly, I may OD on beanies altogether, and never want to see one again. Only time shall tell.

I made a pattern on butcher paper and hurried off to get some fabric.

My first beanie had some issues. It was fine as long as you did not roll it up to give it a cuff. If you rolled it up, the seams stuck out. Yuck.

But I really wanted a cuff. The problem plagued my wee brain all through the night, as I tossed and turned in bed. I was feeling very insulted that I could not figure this problem out.

A phone call to my sister in the morning solved the problem. She is so smart. Thanks Jess ...and Becca, for giving me the idea!

The green beanie actually ended up being a gift for Lorie's dearest little Benjamin King.

I was happy to be able to make a matching green beanie, because the beanie I bought him a few weeks ago did not match the onesie as well.

And here is the blanket I made to go with the onesie and beanie.

The houndstooth and marled grey fabrics are made of wool.

And here is the set all together.

My Twain doll

As I sat embroidering yesterday, I remembered something from my childhood. As a kid, both of my cabbage patch kids were boys: James Bennett(my first born) and Lincoln Sheldon(my preemie). Do you remember your cabbage patch kids' names? And both of my sisters had girl cabbage patch kids.

Interesting, No?

Even before Finn was born, my mom had a hunch that I would have all boys.

Now how did she know that?

I am not sure, but here I am years later, holding my baby boy Twain doll.

And for the most part, he really is a complete doll.

(the boy doll I embroidered was an image from the Black Apple.)

Twain, at 5 months:

You LOVE to be on your tummy and scoot around in circles.

Almost every time I put you on your back, you flip right over. You are rolling around everywhere.

You love to grab your feet

And you love to suck on your hands.

You are pretty laid back, especially when we are on the go, running errands.

You are definitely a thumb sucker. My first baby to really suck his thumb.

And when you suck your thumb it usually means you are about to fall asleep.

Or it means you are hungry. Your very first(and only food) that you eat is mashed bananas.

I am soso happy that you are finally old enough to eat something.

Whenever my boys turn around 4 months old, I start to feel very worn out and overwhelmed from being their only source of food. And so it is always a relief when I can start giving them something to eat.

Things have been pretty hectic around here lately. Time is going by SO fast. I cannot believe Twain is already 5 months old.

This photo below is a bit blurry, as is my life at times, but it's how I want to remember it: Sitting, enjoying my baby as life races by in a blur.

How I love this baby doll!

look who's here...

After moving past the mushroom/fun guy/fungi theme, I quickly settled on an owl theme for Twain's birth announcement.

I wasn't originally intending to use an owl, but I found a cute baby owl cartridge for the cricut, and was smitten by its sweet simplicity.

The baby owl cartridge was new and scheduled to be released at the end of June.

In the meanwhile, I ordered Twain some organic onesies and beanies, and made him a rough-applique owl onesie.

Enters girl and camera.

After manipulating my camera settings and getting everything situated, Twain would start to fuss.

Click.

and click.

Oh boy. This was not going to be easy.

Enters John. The ever present voice of reason.

After the umpteenth shot, he exclaims "Enough already, for crying out loud! Just pick a photo. This one. Or that one. They are all fine!"

Fine????

Over things such as this, John really is from mars and I really am from venus. I wished he would come to my land of fairies and unicorns...and at least humor my attempts at capturing the magical and elusive picture of the perfectly coo-ing baby.

I was perfectly willing to wait indefinitely for Twain to acclimate to my camera, so I could get the shot I wanted. But John? Not so much. He wanted me to move on so he could get his tidy house back.

persistent girl + camera + screaming baby + unsympathetic husband = very frustrated girl.

And that girl may or may not have snuck in one more attempt the next morning, before throwing up her arms in despair and settling on a photo.

Meanwhile June turned into July and there was still no release date for the baby owl cricut cartridge. I was getting ants in my pants here! I called the company and they were not sure when it would be released. I was dismayed, mind you, having revolved my entire announcement around the silly thing. But I was not willing to sit around waiting much longer. I was going to have to improvise.

I kept trying to make the announcement more elaborate, but this just made it look worse. Sometimes less is more. So after all this fuss, here is my simple little announcement.

I used a different cricut cartridge to make the yellow branch seen above.(And no, I did not cut it out by hand, as some have asked me:)

And here is the back.

I wanted to use the die cut of the baby owl here on back, but since it was not released, I had to use a bitmap instead. Such a sad tale.

And here are some runner-up photos, where Twain was not wailing his head off.

And of course, the photo I ended up using.

It's a good thing I enjoy wasting wiling away my time playing with cards like this...