I was a vendor in Crafty Wonderland‘s Super Colossal Holiday Sale in December, which was a success despite freak Portland snow and ice. In case I wasn’t sure before, I am now convinced that Portlanders are nuts about handmade stuff. I love love love this city. Due to my underemployed status and Mike’s of being laid off, I had no money to spend and it would have been sad to spend all day among such fabulous handmade goodness if it weren’t for the fact that my mom just happened to be visiting that weekend.

These were the goodies we found under our tree on Christmas. (Thanks Mom!)

First up, a completely adorable onesie for sesame from B Hive Designs. In case you’re thinking, hey I’d wear a shirt like that, you can. I’d totally buy it, except for the money thing and the fact that I’m not into matching mother-daughter outfits. It was cool to get a onesie from B Hive because the lady behind those cute prints bought one of my hats at Crafty in October and was nice enough to mention it on her blog.

This is not really a cupcake (though sesame was super proud of herself for climbing up to the table to get it and was caught eating the sprinkles off the top). It’s a bath fizzy from MeMe Cosmetics and it really does smell like summer. I also got some coconut lip balm that I love because other than feeling nice on my lips and being all natural, sesame likes to take it and swipe it across her cheeks. What’s not to love about a toddler who smells like coconut?’ I could just eat her.

Adorning my bare wall in my new tree-house office I have this fabulous calendar. I’ve admired Sweet Bonny online and am super excited to have 12 awesome designs to put up on my wall!

Not to be left out, Mike got this nice notebook with a beer theme made by Two Guitars. Fitting, no?’ Beer and guitars are two of Mike’s favorite things. Now he can write down all his thoughts on beer. Or something.

In other (etsy) news,I’m starting to make more water bottle covers made from recycled sweaters and I love them all. Sesame wanted to keep this one for herself. I can’t say that I didn’t want her to have it but it was a custom order so off it went.

One of my hats made it onto the front page of Etsy again just before Christmas! There’s my cashmere hat in the 2nd row. I was excited to see it there. That little navy blue one is actually still for sale. It could be yours!

If the picture below looks blurry around the edges, it’s not just you. Someone smeared her grubby little fingers on the camera lens. It gives it kind of a Holga effect, don’t you think?

To make up for our lack of Halloween spirit, we celebrated Dia de los Muertos and had so much fun! We went to the Someday Lounge and decorated the sugar skulls in the picture above. Lots of people and kids were dressed up and had their faces painted for the occasion. Sesame and I both wore pink and black knee socks with skulls but they didn’t make it into any picture. Then we went on a parade around downtown and through the North Park Blocks.’ Our procession was led by an awesome samba group called the Lions of Batacuda (video link) and as the Someday Lounge aptly put it, they are a marching band fit to raise the dead. It was great fun, even though we got caught in a downpour during the procession.” Then it was back to Someday Lounge for a dance party on the sidewalk and hot cocoa inside.

Even sesame got into the harvest spirit and sampled several apples. She isn’t a big fan of them at home but food is often more exciting when we’re someplace new.

Look! It’s her ruffly striped cardigan I knitted at the beginning of the year. It’s still a little big but totally wearable if I roll up the sleeves. Every time I pick her up I just want to squeeze her and never put her down because it’s so soft.

Crafty Wonderland was fun and successful. Check out all these coffee sleeves I made for the show! I don’t have nearly this many left over so it was a good day.

Now that the show is over, I’ve been working on my knitting projects. Mike’s sweater still looks like a giant mound of yarn but there really is a nearly completed cardigan in there! I knit this adorable sweater for the baby toddler but it’s not quite done so I’ll wait to show you the whole thing.

I’d also like to give a shout out to Katie of Start To Finish Supplies who won my coffee sleeve! Look for it in your mailbox soon, Katie!

You may remember this sweater from a while back. The sweather that I loved for many years that finally got too many holes to wear. Well, I have transformed it into this!I felted it, embroidered it with spiderweb designs and added a lining and handles. The handles are just plastic tubing from Home Depot with some orange Lamb’s Pride threaded through it. I love bags.
That’s armwarmer #2 in the bag. The lining is a fun comic book print. I sewed 2 pockets to the inside and I matched the fabric exactly! I was quite impressed with myself. You can barely see them in the picture. One pocket is the lady and the other is the beach scene.I finished my corset pullover! It just needs a light blocking and then you’ll get a modeled pic and all the details. It fits nicely and I’m really happy with it, which is exactly what I needed after the modern bustier disaster. Sorry I never posted a photo of that, by the way. Blogger freaked out on me and then my mom came to visit (so fun!!) and then I figured out how to fix it. Details to come.

In honor of Project Spectrum, here is a beautiful rainbow of flowers. Pioneer Square was all decked out in flowers in honor of the Rose Festival last weekend. Here’s an ariel view and a picture of me and my hot, tired pup.
I love Portland. I also love knitting again, now that I am reminded that I can do something right!

I hope your week is off to a great start, fabulous blog readers.

I try to make myself feel better by saying that I knit 2 mother’s day scarves and 2 silly apple cozies in the meantime, proving I can finish things. But there’s really no excuse. I’ve had plenty of time. The sunny weather has again turned rainy and grey so I couldn’t even wear it if it were done, I tell myself. Again, not a worthy excuse. I could have finished it before the weather turned bad again.

I’m afraid of screwing it up in the final moments. It’s knitted beautifully, the grommets are perfectly aligned but I’m afraid my sewing will mess it up. I need to get over this. Tonight, people, I will finish the stupidly named but very pretty Modern Bustier.

Ah but the finishing will not end there. I have finished knitting all the pieces of the corset pullover. Here is the 2nd sleeve. It will not sit in my basket for weeks. It doesn’t matter that I have other projects I want to work on or that I enjoy knitting more than finishing. I will finish this in a timely manner.

I must admit, though, that once I finished this sleeve, I started something else. I have a good reason. Really, I do. Mike and I took the MAX downtown on Thursday night and the thought of sitting on the train with nothing to knit was terrible so I knitted this: It is much more suited to Portland’s current weather than a summery cotton shirt. Sad but true. I finished it last night but I will not start the other until I finish seaming my other things.

We took MAX to the Rose Festival Waterfront Village. A fancy name for a carnival and we went because it was the 1st night so it was free. It was grey and rainy (no surprise) but still fun! We rode the ferris wheel. I hadn’t ridden one in years so it was really fun!This is the carnival as seen from the ferris wheel. It’s blurry because the ferris wheel was moving.

The carnival didn’t have tickets for the rides, they had a credit card thing that you add money to and gets scanned at every ride! Everything is getting so modern. I liked tickets better. One benefit (maybe) is that the ferris wheel lady forgot to scan our card so we got to go on another ride for free! We picked a spinning ride and this is Mike, mid-spin.
On a completely unrelated note, I greatly enjoy seeing other blogger’s lovely pictures of their cats. You probably are aware that I have a dog, but I like cats too and even have 2 of them. but they are greatly under-represented on my blog.

Because of this my letter K for the abc-along is for KITTIES! Before you get too excited, my pictures are boring because my cats are not nearly as interesting as yours seem to be. They sleep all the time. When not sleeping, they are outside far away from the camera.

This is Gatsby.I found him on Craigs List and after a rocky start he’s a happy member of our household. He was freaked out by the dog even though the dog didn’t bother him and then he ran away and we didn’t see him for almost 2 weeks and I felt really, really horrible for losing him. Then he appeared on our front steps and wanted to come back in. During his adventure he must have decided that the dog is better than whatever he encountered while he was gone. His favorite thing is to get petted. Mike says he’s pushy and needy while I just think he’s lovey and snuggly.

This is Ramona. The pest. She is the prettier of the 2 and she has extra toes on all her feet. I got her before Mike and I got married and while he did help pick her out, she lived with me. After we got married, Ramona decided Mike is a million times better than me. She’s a traitor. She lets Mike do whatever he wants to her but if I just walk by her the wrong way, she hisses and attacks me. Sometimes I think Mike loves her more than me. The only time Ramona ever wants to sit on my lap is when I’m knitting and I don’t want her on my lap. I’m convinced she does it just to spite me.

I don’t want to leave you with Grumpy Ramona so here is something more cheery. These pretty cotton prints were on sale the other day. Check back for some sewing projects in the future!

I have been knitting and watching the olympics. In my last post I talked about Kirsten and Lisa’s party and their lovely country flags. She posted a great picture of us and our flags. You may remember that I chose Japan and lastnight I had my 1st opportunity to see a Japanese athlete compete. It was a speed skater and he won his race but I don’t know if he got a medal because I didn’t stay up to see the whole event. I was very ecxited to see his race but Mike is still waiting for his 1 Venezuelan dude to show up on NBC. I have a feeling he may have to wait forever.