Tangled party pics and how-to

It's a Tangled party! I'm sure there's some pun involving knitting and the name of the Rapunzel movie, but as my husband and I have had about 3 hours sleep in the past 48 hours in preparation for our daughter's birthday/work/grad school/fixing a lawnmower with a bent blade, I'm all out of puns. And energy. And polysyllabic words.

The invitations were super cute but I'm not posting them because I don't want to share my address. I made long, tall purple rectangles, punched out a square "window," inserted a braid made from embroidery floss and tied with a purple ribbon (anchored with a dab of hot glue) and backed it with plain white card stock. There's a good example on Martha Stewart's website (I don't recommend Martha's punch because it is overpriced and, if you watch the video, even Martha can't get it to work.) I was able to get three invitations printed per letter-sized page. I purchased bright yellow envelopes from Office Max.

I drew Flynn's "Wanted" poster -- if you want to make one, I don't exactly have any tips as I did it freehand. However, the other things are very do-able. The lantern pinata was made by my husband with two balloons, paper mache and colored tissue paper. We filled it with plastic lizards of different colors (like Pascal, the chameleon), rubber ducks for the Snuggly Ducking and "Tangled candy" printed with the images of the movie characters). 

Using the same paper I purchased for the invitations, I made the flags for the bunting and for the "boats" (blue jello for the water and oranges for the boats with toothpicks and paper sails -- reminiscent of the boat Flynn took out on the water to show Rapunzel the floating lanterns). Other food was "pub grub" -- pigs in a blanket (easier than sausage rolls), fruit and cheese -- all served in frying pans ("Who knew, right?") and a basket of apples in case Maximus drops in.

We taped paper to the fence for the kids to paint like Rapunzel and provided palates cut from cereal boxes and topped with washable paints. In the front yard, we used two yellow, plastic tablecloths tied together, wrapped around the trunk and hanging down like Rapunzel's hair.

I unrolled four skeins of cheap, yellow cotton yarn, tied it with purple ribbon and wrapped the banister.  My knitting/crochet friends will be happy to know that yarn will be repurposed into placemats.

The cake was topped with a tower made from cupcakes leveled off and topped with an ice cream cone. There's a wooden skewer going straight through the cupcakes and to the bottom of the cake. If you've seen the movie, you'll know frying pans were Rapunzel's defensive weapon of choice. So the cake was served on "frying pan" plates (black paper plates with black plastic knives glued to the bottom for a handle).

I cut out Pascal heads and glued googly eyes to them and glued them to party blowers -- those were a big hit.

I found super cute party favors at Party City -- tiny watercolor paint sets with a loop at the top. We used yellow ribbon to make them into necklaces -- all the kids loved them. They came 12 to a pack and you could choose regular or ones with Rapunzel printed on to case. All the kids were walking around with them on. Really cute.

Other than the sudden cold front that moved everyone inside after the pinata broke, it all went off without a hitch.  I'm so tired. But I'm really happy. After dinner tonight, my daughter turned to me, unprompted, and said, "Thank you so much for the nice birthday party!" So that's awesome. I'm so lucky to be a mom.

Sunshine with a chance of Cloudette

A little dirt and sunshine

This is the fastest project I have ever knit. In fact, I finished so quickly, Little Knotty couldn't wait to try it on -- so in this picture, it hasn't yet been blocked (that's why the sleeves are curled under a bit). After this picture was taken, Little Knotty covered herself in dirt. I washed it and it blocked easily overnight.

Little Knotty picked out this yarn herself. The colors are Firefly and Ice Cream, by Spud and Chloe. I think she looks like a little burst of sunshine -- which fits her personality quite well.

Recently, we had some storms come through at night. The thunder and lightening put a bit of a scare into Little Knotty. But I found the perfect book to alleviate her fears: Cloudette by Tom Lichtenheld. It's a story about a small cloud who learns to make a big difference. We've read it a few times and, the last time some thunder rolled through, Little Knotty called to her daddy, "It's Cloudette! And her big mommy!" No tears, no worried-face, just smiles. Thank you, Mr. Lichtenheld.

Victorian knitting

Today, I volunteered at the Heritage Farmstead, an old Victorian Farm north of Dallas. It was sheep shearing day at the farm so there were shearers, wool carders, spinners and me -- demonstrating how to knit socks "the old fashioned way" -- or as I like to call it, "knitting socks."My trusty sidekick was with me, charming visitors and waiting for her friends to arrive so they could go on a tractor ride.

On the back porch, demonstrating knitting.

In the old school house

Playing in the back garden while I knit on the porch

Waiting

Watching sheep shearing

Snack time

Perfect reaction

This is why nearly all my knitting time goes to projects for this kid -- have you ever seen such a smile? Awesome. After all that work, that's exactly what a knitter wants to see.

The pattern is my take on the Blue Sky Alpacas Eyelet Baby Blanket. As you can see, there are no eyelets (except in the ruffle) and it is quite a bit bigger than a baby blanket -- it's toddler-bed size in fact. BabyKnotty has outgrown all her lovely hand-knitted baby blankets. She proved it to me one day by pulling her blankets up to her chin and urgently stating "See? See?" as she wiggled her calves, ankles and little feet, all of which were quite clearly sticking out in a most un-baby like fashion.

So we bought out all the Manos del Uruguay Maxima from my LYS, and my sister picked up two more skeins for me from a LYS in Austin.

I followed the stitch count for the Blue Sky pattern but used circular US size 11 needles -- this was after a lot of experimenting to see what would make the proper width for a toddler bed. I skipped the eyelets because I remember the discomfort of attempting to keep myself warm with an eyelet blanket while watching Saturday morning cartoons during the early 80s -- back when there were Saturday morning cartoons and I was young enough to want to get up and watch them. The eyelets always left little open circles of chilly, no matter how I twisted the blanket around. I figured if I was going to make a blanket this size, I wanted it to be functional for many chilly mornings for years to come. So no eyelets. And then I just kept knitting the length of the blanket until it reached 51 inches -- toddler bed length. The ruffles were a snap -- so easy and they knit up really quickly. That colorway is Meltaway Mints -- I ended up with one skein plus a little extra. I think it will be a hat and mittens set for her in the fall.

Next up -- a lot of dresses, skirts and tops using Oliver + S patterns, some Lisette dresses and a bag for me and this little dress using Spud and Chloe in firefly and ice cream (yellow and white).

Friday Night Knitting Club

So here's the little miss, modeling a scarf made from one skein of Baby Alpaca Grande at The Woolie Ewe. We popped in this morning to scope the joint for newbie-knitter-class supplies. The owner pointed us to this - and it's on sale. Whoop! Only $10 for that soft, soft lovely. -- Let me interject here to tell you Little Knotty's spontaneous, non-prompted proclamation as we walked into the store: "Be very patient," she said pointing to herself. I was quite amused.

As we walked around the store, she showed off her mom-knitted poncho to the nice ladies at the back table, and she picked out several toddler-sized sweaters on display and asked me "Yeah, Mommy can do?" So I guess I need to make some more sweaters for her...

Here's more of the Baby Alpaca. There were lots of good, chunky starter yarns on sale. I think I can get everyone a little scarf kit together for about $20.

I walked out with a test-skein of alpaca. Little Knotty walked out with a cupcake from the staff of the Ewe. Now I have to find a suitable meeting place. Somewhere where yarn, snacks and wine meet...

pon-CHO

So the other day I wore my poncho -- the one I made with yarn I bought at the Quarter Stitch in the New Orleans French Quarter, waaaaaaay back when. Little Knotty was enthralled and told me she wanted a pon-CHO too. So we walked into the Yarn Stash Room -- which my husband still insists on calling "our office." She chose this Chunky Mochi. It was one of my last-yarn-buying-at-Loops purchases and was originally supposed to be a hat. But since the hat hasn't happened yet, and would, like all things, be cuter on Little Knotty than me, I agreed.

Mr. Knotty and I watched Munich that night and I was glad to have somewhere other than the very-violent-movie to focus my attention. This knit up very quickly and with just two skeins on Chunky Mochi, plus a little scrap yarn (Drops, I think, left over from the purse I knit my mom).

Little Knotty is a very appreciative knitted-gift receiver. She has been proudly showing off her pon-CHO to everyone.

Cross-stitching, or How I Lost a Month of Naptimes

People are always telling me to sleep while the baby's sleeping. That is such good (and totally impractical) advice. And if I had taken it in the past month, I never would have finished my first cross-stitch project: a family portrait. Yay!

I got the inspiriation* from a Martha Stewart tutorial, then changed it up to fit my family. Getting the goatee right without turning my husband into a giant bobble-head was the toughest part. I used graph paper snitched from my husband's science-stuff stash and my daughter's crayons to plan it all out, then used some large-blocked cross-stitch fabric to make it easier. I could do about one item per naptime - a Bears sweater, my curly hair, a much-loved purple blanket. The Great Dane took two naptimes.

Contrary to my memories of learning how to cross-stich as a child -- and then refusing to cross-stitch as a child -- this was actually pretty fun. I might make another one, if I can pick an appropriate subject.

*According to the comments section, Martha got her inspiration from an Etsy seller, but gave no credit. I have no idea.