Month: September 2014

For as long as we’ve been married (15 years!), my husband and I have hosted what we call our “Apple Party.” It started out small, and as the name suggests, involved picking apples at a nearby orchard and then returning to our house for a dinner party. Over the years, it has grown exponentially in size, and along the way, we stopped going apple picking and just focused on the party part.

You can read all about it in the article my husband wrote for New Hampshire Magazine here. (I wasn’t quite expecting such a big spread. In the printed version, there is a full-page picture of me and Jason … good thing I knew the photographer — my mom — would do an excellent job!) But I also wanted to highlight the craft project we did last year:

I got the idea from HERE. They are confetti “poppers.” I prepped all the tubes (This was a last-minute idea, so I actually ordered 70 empty toilet paper tubes from someone on eBay!) ahead of time with the balloons and tape, so the kids just had to decorate them with stickers if they wanted. The only downside was that I way underestimated how much confetti they would go through, and we ran out pretty quick. (I don’t have a shredder, and it took a long time to make that much confetti!)

I also just realized I never wrote here about the photo booth I made for that party. You can read the tutorial I wrote for AP a few months ago here, but basically, I turned a refrigerator box into a photo booth (I got the box free years ago from an appliance store when I made Parker a castle for his 4th birthday), and set up my iPad with a photo booth app.

I had planned to let people print their pictures on the spot but my printer was not cooperating. It was just as well, since our guests took hundreds of pictures throughout the day and evening! I’ll definitely be pulling the booth out again for this year’s party. It has held up pretty well just being folded flat and stored in the garage. We’ve even lent it to other friends.

We are heading back to our summer cabin this weekend, probably for the last time this year now that the weather is starting to get a bit chilly. This fall is especially sad because one of our wonderful neighbors passed away a few weeks ago. He had been in the hospital for most of the summer, but we were hopeful he would pull through.

Early in the summer, I made him this quick quilt, and his wife told me he really loved having it on his bed. I can’t find the exact tutorial I used to do the circles, but this one is similar. It was pretty tricky because I had to piece together large sheets of freezer paper, and it was hard to keep the circles from stretching, so I was not very happy with how wonky it ended up. (Even though it looks like just two blue rings, I basically had to follow that circle technique four times: a layer of blue, then white, then blue, then white again). I do think for a smaller circle, this technique is really quite good.

I didn’t use batting, but used a thick, plush fabric on the back, and kept the quilting pretty simple. The logo comes from a Boy Scouts camp that is on the other side of the pond.

Two friends _ one near, one far _ recently had baby girls, so I decided to knit them some gifts. I was so proud that I finished this first sweater a month before Baby #1 was due, and promptly mailed it off to my friend in Australia. I found this free pattern on Ravelry (Rolled Edge Raglan Baby Sweater by Joan Marie)

This is exactly the style of sweater I wanted to make for Parker before he was born, when I got as far as buying the supplies and a book of patterns and then failed miserably in actually learning how to knit. (I did sent the yarn off to my husband’s grandmother, who made an adorable sweater for me). Ten years later, I finally made one! This one is was not perfect, but it was pretty cute! Note the past tense: I mailed it to Australia and it never arrived! 🙁

So, after the baby was born, I got back to work, and tried a different pattern, “Cascade” by Raya Budrevich.  This one, I’m happy to say, arrived, and my friend loved it. The little leaf border is so cute, I couldn’t resist adding ladybug buttons.

For Baby #2, I went with a dress that supposedly will stretch as baby grows, and be wearable as a tunic later. I have my doubts about that, but for now, it is a cute dress. (A free pattern called “Longevity Shirt/Dress on Ravelry)