under the bridge

Walking along Latah Creek with Maya. 

winter nature

The paper wasps left this behind.

Some unknown animal left this blood. 

Maya and I went for a decent walk on Sunday. Five miles? Six miles? I don't know for sure, but by the time we returned to the car, I was ready for pancakes. It was all arranged perfectly because I had pancakes waiting at home. All in all, a nice little Sunday.

zut alors!

I felted this narwhal as part of Catherine's Christmas present. I also felted a colossal squid for Monika. Of course, I took pictures of neither squid nor narwhal, so I'm forced to rely upon the proactive photography of my sisters in order to document the little beasties. Hmm. Still waiting for some squid shots. Oddly enough. Monika. Monika...

So many cables!

I finished my cable scarf that I had been working on. You can find all the details about the pattern, the yarn, and the inspiration right here. Now is the part where I will show off the finished product and you can all "oohh" and "aaahhh" over my cable talents. Genevieve will help me showcase the scarf by standing on it...

Throw your diamonds in the sky!

I've been extra excited about glitter and sparkles lately. Those recent shiny cravings inspired this cheap, but satisfying craft project. I made some glitter diamond garlands that are good for decorating on special occasions or (in my case) every single day of the week.

First off you buy some glitter paper at the local craft store. 

I picked these three different shades of sparkle at Michael's for $1.99 each. Next step, grab your fiskars.

I cut all the paper into strips about two inches in length.

Then you cut the strips into squares (I eyeballed it). From there I made the squares into diamonds.

You could do any shapes. Circles, ovals, squares, diamonds, clubs, spades, hearts, etc.

I saved my scraps because the little triangles would also work well for this project.

After you have them all cut...

and separated into colors,

You sew them together! I used clear thread so that it won't show. Using clear thread is kind of a pain because it jams all the time (at least it does for me). My sewing machine had no problem drilling through these card stock diamonds, but as you may recall from my basket tutorial, my machine is a champ.

This is what it looks like on the other side. I chose to alternate my sparkle shades,

but you can certainly use the same color sparkles for the whole garland. Whatevs, it's up to you.

Ta-da! I went ahead and strung them up on our dining room light fixture which, let's be honest, needed a little pizzaz. 

It catches the light during the day and ever-so-slightly moves around like a little mobile. 

Definitely worth it and oh-so-satisfying.

warm and fuzzy

My latest jewelry endeavors. Felted heart rings and necklaces. 

Sisters, won't you be my Valentines?

iJealous

Look what Kara from Knitting Lemonade made! 

So cool, right? Looking at it makes me absolutely giddy. Absolutely. Giddy. Visit Kara's blog for all the details.

Snow week...

People in Washington experienced a rare event last week...snow. It was called snowpocalypse, snowmaggedon, and any other snow/disaster pun around. I documented the four days we had snow. There's still snow on the ground, but it's the gross melty, ice, slush stuff that everyone hates. I also got to try out these new chain-alternative things called auto socks. They worked wonders! All-in-all, we got close to 2 feet in 2 days. It was cray cray.

Behold, Olympia snow 2012!

(These pictures were taken at my house, or at work at the State Capitol.)

Backyard

Bigelow (neighbor)

My car, buried.

My car unburied with auto socks on.

Nick's car.

The perfect snow outfit. We also used plastic cutting boards to dig our cars out.
You see, Olympia really doesn't get snow. We didn't have shovels.

Main road next to Puget Sound.

This is where Peanut went in the snow. Turn out, she hates the snow.

After she was placed in the snow, she sat on top of the toilet and warmed up like a weirdo.
We call this position "turkey" because she tucks her paws under like little wings and looks like a turkey.

Sunday Scents.

I am crazy for this Sugar 'n Cream scents yarn!

This soft peachy pink 100% cotton yarn smells sweet like something from childhood.
Not quite My Little Pony scented, but along the same lines.

If you're interested, some things that do smell like My Little Ponies are:

L'oreal Colour Rich leGloss

and my all time fav conditioner, abba in the Color Protect formula

If you know any other products out there that smell of that sweet plastic goodness of our youth (My Little Ponies for us sisters; Ben says they smell like He-Man), please comment and let us know. The sisters love this scent!

Best Friends!

I just fell under some scrutiny by my boyfriend, Bennett, for looking at pictures of my dog on my laptop, while (to his dismay) she was sitting right next to me. So what? I can't get enough of her right now. Notice I said right now, I would like to say that I definitely can get enough of her sometimes.

This post is going to get me tons of eye rolls but I don't care.

Her Ladyship Olive

Best Friends!

She may look cute...

But don't be fooled.

She can be a pill just like Catherine's bad kitten.

I like pictures where you can only see her dumb little eyes.

And I also like it when she looks posh.

I also have some great pictures of Lucca too. These are my favorite pictures of little Luc. Ben took these one afternoon as he followed her around the yard. He could have easily helped her and fixed her dumb ears, but just like any good documentarian he refused to interfere.

Lucca trying to climb Olive.