Just a thought

Pin-Up

Pinterest is having it's first Meet-Up tomorrow in Venice. Anyone going?

Tah Dah: Very Hungry Caterpillar (Updated with Pattern Idea)

So I realize I've been super quiet. Our Red Roses winner is patiently waiting for her CD. It's taken a little longer than I would have hoped because she's really interested in getting it signed & I was out of town last weekend so I didn't see AJ at church. I'm working during his Mass this Sunday, so I'll be sending it with Dad to get autographed... assuming AJ is in town. I can't keep up with him. :)

I had to scroll through past entries to see if I had already shared this next project. I'm REALLY excited about it. My bestie is expecting a boy & her favorite book growing up was The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I absolutely love Eric Carle's illustrations and decided to try to make a baby "cocoon" & hat that looked like the caterpillar in the book.

I started with some Araucania Pomaire Solid that I received as a gift & had left over from the Forest vest. I bought a couple different colors of Araucania Patagonia, which is more "bumpy" with it's thick/thin texture. I think the tonal dye on both of them coupled with the bumpiness mimics the look of the paintings pretty well. I actually kind of wish I could have replaced the Pomaire with a similarly colored Patagonia, but it's a hard yarn to find and the price on this little piece got out of control anyway.

I improvised it for the most part. I think the cocoon itself might be a little big, but I'm not too concerned. The hat was just a basic baby hat shape with a rolled brim. I made the face out of scraps of Knit Picks Shine.

Overall I'm really happy with how it turned out. Such a quick knit and a satisfying result. The momma already has the book, so I bought a little Very Hungry Caterpillar rattle to go with the set. The family baby shower is a book theme, so I plan to give it to her then. I'm hosting the friend shower and have a whole stack of gifts I'm giving at that one. :)

For those asking for a pattern... I just free handed this and have no idea what I did. HOWEVER... you could just knit a basic baby hat pattern (like this one) and then crochet the details from this pattern. I just knit a tube for the cocoon. Basically something like this with alternated colors. Have fun!

Now what to do with the left over weird yarn......

Red Roses Winner

If you're wondering if you won... please see the original post!

Red Roses

Update: Jessica Fernandes is our big winner!

Jessica wrote: My favorite song by AJ is "When we say" because that was the first song I heard with him. It's amazing and it's actually one of the two and only songs I have ever cried while hearing. As far as my favorite craft I would say bracelets. Colorfull in everyway possible! By the way, sorry to hear about your mom. Hope you feel better, though it's always hard to lose someone. At least AJ's music will cheer you up!

Jessica.. email me at liacreates [at] gmail [dot] com to give me your contact info!

If you've been around here a while you know one of my favorite musical artists is AJ Rafael. AJ has been playing piano at my church since he was a child. He's incredibly talented and for the past 6 years has worked full time on his solo career. He's had a lot of success marketing himself on youtube and has used that success to spread the love. He did two VERY successful fundraising concerts at our church and has raised thousands for Autism Speaks through his series of concerts called Music Speaks.

This year AJ worked with some outstanding musicians and recorded his first full-length album in his friend's house. Still unsigned, his album Red Roses was picked up by a distributor & will be sold starting tomorrow in Target, Best Buy, f.y.e and Barnes & Noble nationwide! You can also download it on iTunes & Amazon.

There's really no way to express just how happy I am about this. I've been a fan of AJ's for a long time and I'm so happy to see him succeeding. On a personal level, AJ and his mom were a huge support for me when my mom passed away. AJ's mom is a surgical nurse at the hospital my mom was in during the last week of her life. Ms. Rafael would sit in the waiting room with me and just keep me company while I was there all night. AJ and his choir sang at mom's funeral and went above & beyond, even going up against the head of the music ministry when she didn't want to allow us to use some of the music we had selected.

To make this all the more dear to me, AJ's release date is June 7th... which is the anniversary of my mom's passing. I know if she were still here she would have made me drive her all over town picking up AJ's cd everywhere they'll sell it.

To celebrate my boy's success, I'm giving away one copy of Red Roses to one of you!* You can preview all the songs in the video below. AJ features a lot of other amazing talent on this album. It has broad appeal, strong lyrics, great vocals and you can play each and every song around your kids. :)

To enter: Leave a comment below telling me your favorite song and your favorite craft! On Friday, June 10th I'll randomly choose one comment & send you a free copy of Red Roses and a special treat selected just for you based on your craft!

Be sure to leave some kind of contact info! Email, twitter, whatever...

I'm so excited to share this great music with you! And for those of you who don't win... the cd is a bargin! Look for it!

*Open worldwide... but if you're in Canada I'll have to wait until the postal strike is over to send it out!

Edit: OK, worldwide assuming it's legal to ship there from the United States. :)

Lucy Swap (Caution: Pic heavy post)

I recently participated in Round 4 of the "We Love Lucy" group swap on Ravelry. All the folks in the group are fun so I knew it would be a fun swap. I didn't know, however, that my partner was going to spoil the crap out of me. We were required to send yarn, something handmade & goodies totally about $24 USD.

Here's what came out of the package:

Isn't it pretty all wrapped up? I love the gift bag, too. So cute.

As I unwrapped the little gifts I found a treasure trove!

First, the yarn. Norah gave me some awesome Fyberspates Scrumptious DK.

Scrumptious is right. It's a great single ply worsted weight that has a similar look as Malabrigo. BUT it has this great sheen and amazing softness due to it's 45% (!) silk content. Holy cow. I love it.

Then there were these two amazing skeins:

What's particularly awesome about her giving me Riot is that I just commented a couple days ago about someone else receiving this same yarn in a different colorway on the Lucy forum. It's a wool acrylic blend that is super soft & has amazing long repeats. I couldn't be more pleased with the color.

Norah also went above & beyond in the handmade department too. She made these adorable lizard bookmarks to go with the book she gave me.

I particularly like the one with the tongue! :) And the book looks like a great summer read.

She also felted this cute little bag to put the awesome knitting bracelet in!

The bracelet has knitting related charms and cute felted purple balls. Totally my color.

The other handmades are a lipgloss holder with some awesome gloss inside and a little chain to hang it from my purse (how did she know I always lose my gloss in the bottom of my huge bag?) as well as this beautiful "friendship ring" square. I plan to tack it up on my inspiration wall when I finish converting the spare room into my craft room. :)

Then this is where she totally blew my mind:

Ok, first off, I love the little coin purse! And I REALLY love that she put a coin in it because it's totally bad luck to give a purse without money! :) But in her card she wrote that she added the cupcake charm because she knows I bake cupcakes. I can stalk better than anyone I know and I can't for the life of me figure out how she knew that! Did I post a blog about it? It's not on twitter. I have NO idea how she knew this but I LOVE the charm. I'm actually moving it to my "real" charm bracelet, which I've been adding to since I was in high school.

And ok, last picture:

CHOCOLATE!!! :) I'm seriously salivating over the Cadbury bar. The black box is some super fancy 71% cacao dark chocolate. Norah said this is to enjoy with my wine. :) I think it deserves a special bottle so I'm going to be cracking open a bottle of my favorite dessert pinot that we picked up at Homewood in Sonoma. YAY!

There is also a cute magnet that says "Go without a bra- it pulls the wrinkles out of your face" (HAHAHA!) and this adorable little bird ornament. It will be hanging from my lamp in my bedroom I think.

If you haven't tried a swap on Ravelry I really recommend it. For me, I don't have many friends who craft (or at least who crochet or knit) and it's great to share fun packages with like minded people.

Tah-Day: Owlet

I finished this a few weeks ago, but forgot to share. I'm pretty thrilled with how the cabled owls came out. My sister picked it up and said "Hey! Are those owls??" so I think I'm going to skip the whole button eye thing and just leave it as-is. I'm worried the baby will eat the buttons anyway.

Close- up of owls

The whole shebang

I'm super excited to give it to the mammas... but the shower is still a couple months away. Le sigh.

If you're interested, you can check out the specs on this baby on Ravelry.