In February I finished probably the most special labor of love I've made yet. My little sister is due with her first baby in May, and I started this blanket within weeks of finding out she was pregnant. Certain that she was having a boy, I ran out and chose the yarn with that in mind. As a pile of skeins, the yarn looked a LOT more gender-neutral than the blanket turned out. I held it on the needles just after the darker blue row knowing I'd need to add some pink should the baby not, in fact, be the boy I was so sure she was having. As often goes, I was dead wrong! =) And I couldn't be happier about it. I adore this blanket, and it was an absolute joy to knit. Knitting projects are so perfect because they're portable, can be worked on when you have time, and give you plenty of time to think about and pray for the recipient. I can't wait to see pictures of my sister's little bundle of joy wrapped in this sweet blanket.For those of you interested, I doubled the width as the finished blanket in the pattern was really, really tiny. I used this pattern and this yarn (purchased from Hobby Lobby but also sold at JoAnns) and this tutorial for winding the yarn. After buying the yarn and knitting most of the blanket, I read some terrible reviews. But I used 9 skeins in almost every color available in the entire line, and I absolutely loved it. I never had any of the problems people complained of.
It's a prayer quilt/
I loved both of these projects and had such a great time making them. I hope the recipients are blessed by them!
Using the cotton swabs, scrub both sides of each penny, then drop them into the water to rinse.
Dry the pennies on some paper towels.
Then drop them back into your piggy bank!
Next I painted the inside of that taped section with the wall color to seal the tape and let it dry.
The widest stripe in the room is chocolate brown. When the base coat of wall color was dry, I painted the entire stripe chocolate brown. When it was dry, I removed the tape and was shocked at how little it ran. After all that work I was thrilled with how little touch-up I'd have to do.
It's important to mention that you really need to wait until the paint is completely dry before beginning the next color. I let mine dry overnight. Next was the red stripe. I wanted it to be one inch inside the chocolate brown stripe, so I lined up one inch wide painter's tape just along the chocolate stripe edge. For example, the top piece of tape pictured is lined up with the top edge of the chocolate line.
The next step is to paint just inside the tape with the chocolate brown paint since this is now the base color.
When this was dry, I painted the red.
Then I removed the tape revealing a one inch chocolate border on either side of the red.
To finish, I repeated the taping for the navy stripe. I wanted the navy to be a much thinner line, so I used 1 1/2 inch painter's tape along the edge of the red line. This way the navy stripe was one inch wide. So I taped, painted the red in between, let it dry, then painted the navy blue stripe. The result is the picture at the top.
And here it is hanging on the stroller.
Here's the stroller satchel I made. It's got two large pockets (for wallet, keys, etc.) and one small outer pocket for my cell phone. Simple, yet practical.
I got a resounding lighter-cabinet response from my last kitchen makeover post. I already had the materials I'd need to test it out, so I did one cabinet door yesterday, and I love it! For some reason painting those wood cabinets was intimidating to me...so permanent! But the second the paint touched the surface, I was hooked. I used a color called "Muslin Wrap" which was a muted white, and I made my own glaze with glazing medium and a walnut stain.
