Sushi anyone?

Sushi seems to be everywhere. Real sushi, vegan sushi, chocolate sushi, sushi fabrics, sushi playfood, sushi novelties. So I had a request for some sushi coasters and have been playing around with them still. When I got the request, I got a picture to help me with the design. Also thought I'd look around online and see what others had done with sushi or just images of it to get a better feel for it.

Myself, I've only ever had California Rolls. Not for lack of wanting to try some, just never been in a place to do so. One of these days we'll have to go on a date and have some. My hubby, one of the pickiest people I have ever met, actually likes sushi! Not sure which I'll use, the round or square that I've been making.

I did finish my round set, that was the one she chose.

The square set, I'm half through. And I did make just a change bowl as well, with the same round sizing.

I've just not had as much time to craft the past few days as my hubby has been home sick. He leaves for work, and comes home in a few hours. Stomach bug! Which means I gotta take care of him while keeping myself and the kids away. :) Really he's spent most of the time sleeping or laying some place and I wish I could do more for him. By the weekend it should have run it's course at least. Then we can just enjoy.

We will be celebrating my daughters 3rd birthday. Saturday, it's me, her and one of her friends going to Princesses on Ice. Sunday will be a little party, along with the Super Bowl. I asked her if she wanted to watch football for her party and she said yes. She spends football season with me watching our team (Go Broncos!) or picking the team to root for if we can't watch our game. Makes for a good Sunday together :)

Reading

My daughter has an already larger than life love of books. She has own 2 sheleves on our bookshelf and we go to the library every few weeks to pick up new books. She picks them out, I pick out a few, but mostly it's what she wants. Of course from the children's section. Lately she has been wanting to read chapter books. When she was a baby, I'd read to her while she nursed. I'm not sure how she caught of the books or cared, but it was a nice and quiet time for the two of us. They were books I've had since I was a child. And we'd picked up a few more to read to her then, ones she could grow with and possibly learn to love as much as either of us had.

One such book is A Wrinkle In Time. It's one I'd not read till I read it to her, but one my hubby really loved as a child. She has been asking me to read it to her now. Now anyone who has read to a 2 almost 3 year old knows how that can go! But when it's just the two of us, she listens as hard as she can, and repeats a sentence or two every few paragraphs. I don't know how long it'll take us to get through the book, but it is rather enjoyable to do in the meantime.

Although her favorite these days is still a library book we've picked up about dinosaurs. She knows daddy loved dinosaurs as a kid, so she always looks for books with them on the cover. This one is a fun one since it has a dinosaur a page, which can be lifted out and played with. She has a fierce and scary "ROAR!" for such a sweet little face.

I guess this post was just to serve as a reminder to us all, the importance of reading and that you're never too young to dive into a book!

What I do best

So I decided I'll come back to the dolls/pillows/voodoo stuff later. Save it for Mother's Day after all. That'll give me some time to figure out the best way to do it all. And go back to what I do best. I made my mom two things, one from a simple pattern I found online. I've always liked the idea of a mobeius scarf, and wanted to see how hard they really were to execute without a seam. It was tricky at first, like it says, but really not bad after the first round or two.

Here it is after getting the mobility back in the needles! Kinda fun to go round and round then.

And the finished mobieus scarf. I'll have to work on my color changes next time or find some different stitches that work up the same, front to back. But I still like the way it turned out. Added a bit of faux fur for texture and fun factor.

After finishing that, I thought it'd be nice to send some flowers as well. Being as it was after Christmas, when most people have no money, plus we'd just bought some new couches. Something we were really needing, the new ones are wonderful. My hubby picked them out, after we'd looked at a few together awhile back. He did pretty good with them too! The only thing I laughed at was he didn't want green as one of the color choices, and he came back with olive recliners! Anyhow, figured flowers would be easy to make up and a good use of odd yarns. Made up half a dozen, put on some stems, and then made a pot, which I then stuffed to keep everything more in place. Here's a pic of that as well. I have to mail them out to my mom now. I think she'll really like them. Be a nice reminder that we're thinking about her even if we can't be with her now.

Somedays...

It's one of my favorite things to say and it was all I was thinking yesterday when I wasted the better part of a day trying to make a doll out of my daughters old clothes. You see, I thought it would be a cute idea to make ones for the Grandmothers using each child's clothes that they've long since out grown. It'd give them something to be near to when they wanted to be around their grandkids and couldn't. Unfortunately, I'm still learning the sewing bit! I've made a few things for my daughter before, still working on a quilt for my son, and wanted to do these for Mother's Day. Then my mom went in for surgery this last week. She's out, she's recovering, but I still wanted to send her a sorta "get well" present and figured this would be a good one to do.

I had two dresses in mind of my daughters, one a houndstooth dress and jacket that my mom gave her, the other a velveteen maroon dress that I thought would look great with the other. So I cut out my pieces, stuffed my arms and feet (I do realize that this is not the way it is done and that was part of my folly, but figured I could try it. Made a bunny for my daughter's second Easter this way and it worked out ok. Of course his limbs were smaller and his tummy larger, he has his own issues though, being as I did the head seperate from the body. His poor neck flops everywhere! First one made and it was a learning process right?)

Back to it, arms and feet stuffed, put in the doll, sew it around. Flip it out and only half of it was attached correctly. Fix the feet, try it again. Well the feet turned out great and the arms still didn't work. So I set that one aside. My husband, big Navy man, is a much better seemster than I. He does all his own uniforms, great for me because he can be anal. And even put together the kids' stockings this year. It was the first year we'd had stockings. Here's a pic.

So I got to work on another doll, basically the same way, but not quite. Figured I'd try to sew the legs and arms onto the doll body and then sew around it all and stuff. This worked out fairly well, other than the fact that it now looks like a voodoo doll! Not sure if that is something you really want to share with people is a voodoo doll of your children. Although my hubby said you could always tell them it's so the kids feel it when they hug them.

One last try, victory! Now on to stuffing the body... I don't know enough about fabric really to be doing this. Seams broke. Thinking I'll just make some pillows instead. I'll post pics when they are done. Just trying to figure out what I can do with my voodoo doll. :)

Hello There!

Wanted to start out with a little introduction. MayRae came to be when I learned to crochet and knit last year and have just fallen in love with it. It's a wonderful stress reliever and great creative output. My kids like to play with the yarn and put in requests all the time. They've gotten a few things from me and give me good ideas of what to try and do. I'm not one for patterns, I'll look at them to get an idea of what I need to be doing, but it's easier for me to just let the yarn speak for itself and become what it is to be.

The name came after a few weeks of trying to think what fit me and what I did. MayRae is named after the women in my life who have taught and influenced me. That's the beautiful part of it. And the quirky fun bit is the pronunciation. I always think of The Princess Bride when I say it! "Maywag.... Maywag is the reason we have been gathered here todawy..." It's priceless and fun and a great learning experience as I go along.

I want this blog to be a great place to show the things I've been working on as well as a little about me. On that note, here's a pic of my latest daughter request. After making Timmy the Turtle

and Lilly the Pig,

my daughter asked for a Giraffe. He has yet to be named, but we'll see what she comes up with. He's a good friend even without a name!