Mouse-a-touille!

Lilly, our precious little neighbor - the two-year-old who can put a smile on anybody's face - who's laugh is infectious, had a birthday this month too!

I had long been planning my gift for her - ever since Susanna visited in April and we both purchased the book BIG LITTLE FELT UNIVERSE. It took me a couple of months to narrow down what I wanted to make, but in June when up at Papa's house for a project weekend, I got busy and made this:

A basket full of fruit and vegetables (and a mouse - eeek!)

 

My favorites are the carrot and head of lettuce. The carrot pattern is in the book, but the lettuce wasn't. There was a pattern for a leaf of lettuce, however, so a little imagination and I was able to turn one leaf into a whole head of them.

 

 

This mouse is similar to the one I made my Mom for her birthday.

The pattern is available here.

The basket was crocheted out of Wool-ease Thick & Quick.  It's a bit of a squeeze to fit everything into it, but I figured that since she's two these toys will end up all over the house soon anyway!

Time Out: let's celebrate

In the midst of our current home project scramble, Mike had a birthday!

Though we plan on celebrating with our family at the end of the month, we couldn't let his actual birthday pass by without some acknowledgment. So we celebrated with pizza and cannoli!
But before Mike could sit back and relax with his Italian delicacies, he had to help Papa and I move and assemble furniture, as we attempted to put the house back together after drywalling, painting and carpet installation (note new shelf in above photo).

We fired up the cob oven on Saturday and made all sorts of delicious pizza combinations: my favorite was the Prosciutto + Figs + Blue Cheese.

We even got to finally introduce Rebecca & Ryan to our cob oven!

Though a little tentative at first, they quickly realized that char & ash only serve to enhance the flavor.

We continued Mike's birthday celebration on Sunday with a birthday party for 2-year-old Lilly, our beautiful neighbor and friend, and a child who has some fantastic facial expressions.

Meoww... grrr... Meow

While we work on painting the house, poor Roople has been relegated to the basement and yard. The paint is almost dry, so in no time at all he'll be back roaming the house and tearing things up.
 

Needle-felted Roople in Maneki Neko form.

Roople probably doesn't mind the basement too much, as he only has two objectives in life: to annoy me, and to eat. Since his food is in the basement, he really only misses out on annoying me.

The Dream... is a little more realistic now

Weeks have passed - feels like days. Mike and I have spent the last several weeks working on the upstairs bedroom. We've been working on it over the last few years, but there have always been more pressing matters to attend to. With an impending visit from Sara and Bobby in three weeks, we set a deadline of having 2 bedrooms by the time they arrive. We don't have any illusions that the room will be finished, but "habitable" is our goal (we feel we've reached the point where our guests might be a little sick of sleeping on our couch).

With this goal in mind, Mike finished all the electrical last month, and with the help of our friend Bobby they got all of the eave insulation installed. Next came the plumber to make sure that our plumbing was set up for a sink in the upstairs room. Then Mike and I spent a couple of crazy nights ripping out trim and scraping paint in preparation for the drywallers.

Insulation - the cat kept sneaking up here to sleep in the insulation then would itch like crazy all day.

 

Mike hates small spaces - but he suffered in the little space over the kitchen in order to get the last of the insulation in.

 Pink Panther insulation installed - drywall next!

 The little cubby on the left is a built-in shelf for shoe storage and the door on the right provides access to the eaves, if needed.

Over the fourth of July weekend the drywallers arrived to finish the insulation, install, tape and mud drywall, and finally to put a light orange peel texture on all the walls. They finished on Sunday afternoon, at which point Mike and I, along with sister Susanna who graciously volunteered to come help us paint, jumped right into the project.

 

 Susanna masterfully taped with her trusty "green frog" tape.

A coat of Kilz

We managed to finished priming upstairs on Sunday afternoon.

 Photo from the top of the stairs - closets on the right.

And we got almost two coats on the walls by Monday evening!

 Mike made sure that there were lots of electrical outlets so that we can arrange our furniture in a variety of configurations.

 These closets are 3x the size of my current one downstairs.

 

The large alcove will be where our sink goes and the small alcove to the right will be built-in shelves.

We've got carpet installation scheduled for next week, then we get to work on the baseboards and window trim - the end is in sight! While this work was going on upstairs we also had contractors in to patch all the holes we put in the wall downstairs when we redid the electrical. They patched, then floated and textured the walls to give them a consistent finish. Susanna got primer and one coat of paint on those walls by the end of day Monday, then continued her generosity by extending her train ticket home by one day so that she could put the last coat on the walls on Tuesday while Mike and I were at work.

Thanks Susanna!

Gray Cat, the Amineko

 Gray Cat basks in the sun on his special throne (courtesy of Mom).

 

 Gray Cat sniffs the mint.

 

Gray Cat looks at me with disdain and superiority.

Last month I got Hello My Name is Amineko from the library. This is a fascinating book - not because it's well-written (it's really not) but because it's a craft book full of photos of crocheted cats. There is only one pattern in this craft book. All the other pages of the book are dedicated to photographing crocheted cats sleeping, eating, playing, hiding, relaxing, etc. I admit, the photos are pretty cute. But I was shocked to find that there was only one pattern. However, it's a pretty easy pattern - crocheting in the round - and the color variations could be limitless. The nose was supposed to be stitched felt, but I needled felted it directly to the cotton yarn. This pattern is also available for free on Ravelry.

Everybody's Brewing

Mike and I have been spending a lot of time driving out along the gorge on weekend evenings in search of good views and good beer. We went to our favorite restaurant in Hood River a few weeks ago and the bartender recommended that we check out Everybody's Brewing in White Salmon, WA.

So the next weekend we headed back out along the gorge, crossed over the river at Hood River, drove through Bingen and up the hill to Whilte Salmon.

 

The brewery is in an old brick building with "Goodwill Lodge" on the canopy in low-contrast letters. Needless to say we drove by it the first couple of times. If you look closely, their logo is on the door and an authoritative neon sign in the window tells one to "GET IN HERE".

  

They have about 10 beers on tap, and my favorite was the Daily Bread Common Ale. Mike tried the Goodwill IPA. I was pleased to see that they have 3 IPAs, so there will be plenty more to try on our next visit. While it was a bit chilly, we ventured out to the patio to take in the wonderful views of Mt. Hood and some glorious green hill that reminded me of Heidi.

To keep in the spirit of the Gorge and Beer, this last weekend we headed to Stevenson, WA to check out the Walking Man Brewery. While their beer is good, the overall experience was decidedly less pleasant and no photos were taken. In the future I will enjoy Walking Man beer from the comfort of my favorite restaurants. There was an excellent ice cream joint in Stevenson, however...

Sun: the cherry on top of my day

The first weekend in June turned out to be a beautiful one here in the Pacific Northwest. Mike and I spent it with Papa at his house on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington. Per usual, Mike and I headed up with a couple of projects in tow. Mike brought materials to build carriage doors for our shop (a work in progress, in itself), while I brought my felt and sewing supplies to craft a birthday present for Lilly's upcoming 2nd birthday (more on that later).

 

Mike laying out his design for the carriage doors.

 

The view from Pa's hot tub

 

Homemade pizza! We tried a variation of Alan's Flammkuchen: sour cream, sauerkraut and pears.

I had gone light on the sour cream and kraut thinking it might be too much - Papa piled more on. It was very tasty and I would definitely do this combo again - thanks Alan!

Our dinner table

We took a day trip up to the Skagit Valley to catch Aidan's final game of the season. Our little man hit a home run! He was very cool about it, didn't say much, but I could tell he was really happy to have made such a good play with his family around. 

Aidan had quite a fan club present: 4 grandparents, 2 aunts, an uncle and both his parents (even dad was home from Alaska for a week!).

 Aidan was pretty thrilled to be able to leave the game in Grandma Joyce's mustang. As he climbed in, a teammate shouted, "sweet ride, Aidan!"

 

The shop doors in their unfinished state. Mike managed to get them all built before we headed home, now it's just some finishing work and paint. This was our first door project and we learned a lot; particularly about gluing and clamping. Luckily Pa was around with lots of advice and huge stash of large pipe clamps. 

Work In Progress: A new doll

A new work in progress... This doll is a variation on my previous dolls. I've been playing around with the pattern by adding thumbs and toes (covered by those kicks) and a new method of applying hair. This doll is also smaller than my previous dolls, by virtue of the fact that I used DK weight yarn rather than worsted weight. I found this cotton yarn in the sale bin at the Mill Ends Store and went with it because it was a nice flesh color. I also added  pipe cleaners to her limbs to give her a little more poseability - it also helps her to stand up.

I whipped up the overalls out of flat felt, and added a couple of antique brass buttons. I had made an extra pair of converse for Vanessa's duck that were too small, but amazingly just fit this doll.

The hair is a 100% wool roving yarn by Twilleys of Stamford (Freedom). I was able to needle felt it directly onto the doll's head and I'm really liking the way it turned out. I'm constantly changing my method for applying hair to dolls, but I think I would do this one again.

As you can see, the poor doll is missing a face. I just haven't decided how I want her to look... in the meantime she sits on the shelf with the perfect poker face.