little black cardi

So many times I have wished I had the perfect little black cardi to throw on.  It seems as essential and timeless as the little black dress, but for some reason, I didn't have one!  The remedy for that tragedy is this Kelly Cardigan from Erica Knight's Classic Knits.  This is my third Kelly Cardi, being a sucker for it's simple classic shape and wearable style.  Plus it's knit in Kidsilk Haze used double.  Well, OK then! Bliss.

I bought the yarn for a great price from a fellow Raveler and immediately cast on.  But black is tough on the eyes (just try to tink black KSH!, arggh) and I kept putting it down for months at a time.  But last week I decided to get on with it and finish it already, it's a very quick knit after all.  I wore it to knitting group today and I can't say it got much notice, it's not that kind of sweater.  It's that essential kind of sweater that will be worn all seasons, when I need the perfect little black cardigan, which will probably be often.

Sorry about the head lobbings, but my face has had some scary grins on it lately, I hope it's not a permanent affliction.  A few Ravelry notes are here.

rhinestone buttons

I'm standing in front of my dining room shelves recently re-done.  I'm just a few weeks from being finished with the whole shebang and I'll take pictures.  In the meantime, here is the DR with the walls in a dark smoke called Temptation by Benjamin Moore.  Absolutely love it all so far.

This weekend we went to a mardi gras party and we wore these Diddam's masks.  I bought the big flashy one for me and the smaller more discreet one for my hubbie.  But the smaller one wouldn't fit over my husband's nose (sorry honey) coz it's kind of a child's sized mask I think, so he had to wear the larger, spectacular one which he hated because he didn't even want to wear one in the first place, so isn't that kind of funny?

And then I had this great nail polish to match.  We were all black and silver and gold, perfectly mardi gras-ish.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and hope you have a sweet day filled with LOVE!

watery blue Water's Edge

Does this look familiar?  I've knitted Water's Edge from Coastal Knits before and love it.  

I wear it all the time and it gets lots of notice and compliments. 

I loved knitting it and love wearing it, 

so cast on immediately for another one in the same yarn, 

this time in an ocean blue called Sapphire Blue.

Kidsilk Aura is a favorite yarn of mine.   Aura is lightweight but warm.  

The downside is there is a bit of an itch to it, even fine kid mohair can be a problem for sensitive skin.  But since this is a cardigan, I'll always have a tee underneath it.

I finished the cuffs and neck/front edging with a 3 stitch i-cord bind off.  

This finishing technique mimics the little pleat before the 

ruffled peplum and it makes for a beautiful finish. 

I have a tiny snap at the neck and it looks pretty open or snapped up.  

I love it!

I have a case of Coastal Knits startitis with 3 knits from that book going on simultaneously,

Wildflower Cardigan, Sand & Sea Shawlette and Bayside Pullover.

It's a great book in case you don't have it yet, I love all the patterns.

Ravelry link.

baby moose twins in sprinkler

Have you seen this?  So dear.

edibles

I found these sweeties on the "sweetest" Etsy shop.  Can you believe they are all edibles!  Gorgeous!

Decorative File Folders DIY

Redemption at last!  Finally a reason why I saved scraps of wallpapers of rooms and houses past (and present).

A bottom drawer of my guest bath holds 40 (!) years of wallpaper scraps.

I loved the way they turned out.

I used this simple tutorial found here.    I cut the wallpaper a little larger than the folder and then folded it in half.  Outdoors I opened the folder and sprayed it with Alene's Tacky Spray Glue, then lined them up together and smoothed it out.  I used a rotary cutter and mat to cut along the straight sides of the folder edges and used scissors around the tab.

Very easy, very fast and very pretty!  But mostly I like that I'll be able to see my old wallpapers every day!

Fayer FO

Kim Hargreaves pattern from Cherished.

I was wearing this sweater the other day while running errands with my husband.  We were walking in a neighborhood and he looked over at me and said, "Is that a new sweater?"  When I said yes, he asked if I had put it on Ravelry yet!  Ha ha, isn't that funny, he knows the word Ravelry.  Got to love that guy.

Rowan Alpaca Cotton, a Christmas gift from hubbie.

Anyway, I pulled out my phone and hopped onto a cute front porch step belonging to strangers and he took a few quick pictures.  I had to crop my head, my expressions were just awful.

All the pertinent information is here on my Ravelry page, naturally!

vintage cute

I have a box of embroidery transfer patterns collected over the years.  The transfer patterns are heat transferred to cotton fabric with a hot iron, then embroidered.  Used for baby quilts, table and bed linens, anywhere you would want to embellish with embroidery.  And really, what doesn't look better with a little embroidery embellishment?

A collection that spans over 70 years, my grandmother's, my great aunt's and mine.

Here are two relatively new ones.

Here are some older ones.

Most of them are Aunt Martha's transfers, still readily available.  I don't think she has discontinued one design, EVER!  JoAnn's Fabrics always has a great selection.

Here are some early 1930's Aunt Martha packets originally selling for .10 each.  They still stamp!

Some early McCalls dating from the 1940's and earlier.  Those dancing teacups crack me up.  25 cents each!

The price has gone up to 30 cents!

Vogart is no longer available, but found this great site.  Apparently they are pretty collectable.  Love these pin-up gals.

I have a few posts in mind that will showcase some of the quilts made with these.  So cute!  Hope that post will be in the next few weeks.  Also, numerous tea towels have been made, but those are mostly long gone to the rag bag or worse and made before I even thought of documenting my crafting with a photograph.  Anyway, I knew you would enjoy seeing these, they are really precious, don't you agree?

Happy crafting!