Here’s her birthday banner in action.

There were plenty of friends for Mike and I to hang out with but little Sesame had some buddies to play with too.

There were cupcakes to be eaten. They’re carrot-pineapple cupcakes with a little cream cheese frosting and since the birthday girl loves birds (or bees, as she calls them), I decorated them with bird’s nests made from kataifi (shredded phyllo dough) and little jelly bean eggs.’ The frosting is colored with natural colorings- raspberry for pink, blueberry for lavender and turmeric for the yellow. I made a ton of cupcakes and only had one left after everyone went home. I want some more!

There were also a few presents to be opened. Sesame loved all her things but her stuffed dolphin and Hello Kitty purse and wallet were definitely the biggest hits.

I actually made her pretty party dress! It’s the first thing I’ve sewed using a real pattern and with things like gathers and buttonholes in a long time. I got the pattern from that*darn*kat on Etsy and it was really easy to make. I want one in my size!

It was a fun birthday party and I can’t believe my little girl is (almost) 2!

I cut the triangles out with the top edge along the fold of the fabric, so they’re double sided. They’ll probably flip around when the wind blows them so I wanted them to be pretty on both sides. I folded them with the wrong sides together and sewed along the edges using the rolled hem stitch on my serger. (side note: My husband is awesome. When I told him I was sewing the flags he said, “You’re not sewing, you’re overlocking.”) The letters are cut from white felt and I attached them with fabric glue.

I attached them all together by sewing a length of rick-rack along the top edge. I can’t wait to hang them up for her party!

Now that she’s nearly 2, Sesame is getting to be quite helpful around the house. At least she thinks she’s helping. Here she’s trying to wash the dishes. She mostly just got water all over. Notice where she’s standing- not on the platform of her learning tower, but on the rail. The kid is fearless.

She’s wearing some shorts that I just finished knitting. She wears a wool soaker (or woolly as we call them) at night so these will be nice for the summer. They’re a short version of the Perfection Pants that I’ve knitted before. I used one skein of Cascade 220 Quatro that I had left over from a cardigan I knitted. I embroidered some flowers to make them a little cuter and added some extra stitches in the bind-off of the cuffs so it made a little ruffle. It just needs a drawstring. They were falling off of her when I took this picture- her little bottom is not really so square shaped.

Here are some highlights from our Easter and Grandparent extravaganza:

1. We were able to find a happy vegetarian, organic breakfast place when we stopped in Medford, OR on our drive down. I never would have guessed. (Of course, Sesame mostly just ate butter.)

2. Stop #1 was Mill Valley, CA to stay with Mike’s parents and Sesame tried her hand at dying Easter eggs.

A few eggs were smushed in the process and she did taste the dye but we managed to get a bunch of pretty eggs at the end.

3. She got the hang of the Easter egg hunt pretty quickly, though at first she pointed to the eggs and wanted someone else to do the hard work of actually picking it up and putting it in her basket.

She sure spent a lot of time admiring her pretty eggs!

4. Grandma Diane made a fabulous coconut cake for an early Easter dinner.

Okay, the cake was for dessert, not dinner, but it was the highlight. Thanks to Grandma, Sesame got her first taste of cake batter and loved it, of course.

5. We met my mom at Traintown and waded through a sea of a thousand excited toddlers. Here are the 2 grandmas together on the train. The best part was the petting zoo but we were too busy feeding the animals to take any pictures.

6. Off to Napa to stay with my mom for a few days and Easter egg hunt #2, this one actually on Easter.

Sesame got smart this time and didn’t let the basket hold her back. She set down her basket in a central location and then ran back and forth from egg to basket. Yes, I did make her dress. It’s the same pattern as this one and I’ll share some better pictures another time.

7. We visited a friend’s chickens and had fun feeding them pretzels and trying to catch one so we could pet it.

Mike was the successful chicken wrangler.

You know you’re in Napa when the chickens have wine boxes to lay their eggs in.

It was cool to see adult versions of some of the same breeds that we have. I can’t wait for ours to grow up!

It was a fun trip and now we’re tired.

Sesame is more and more interested in playing with her dolls lately so I whipped up a super simple ring sling for her to use. I chose a ring sling so that she won’t outgrow it any time soon and I hardly had to do any measuring. Unlike the clothes I make for, she loved it immediately! So far she’s carried around 2 of her dolls, a teddy bear and a little stuffed puppy (not at the same time) and she’s getting pretty good at putting them in the sling herself.

This only took me about 1/2 hour to make and I’ve written up my instructions below so you can make one for your favorite little person. I used velcro to attach the fabric to the rings so that if she pulls hard enough, or get it stuck on her, it’s easy to get it off. She’s still pretty little and having a closed loop of fabric around her neck would make me nervous.

Supplies:

1 piece of fabric about 20 inches by 45 inches (add a few inches if you’ll be turning under the edges and seaming)

2 metal rings, 1.5-2 inches in diameter

A couple inches of velcro

**Please note that this sling is only meant to hold a doll, never a real baby! I know you’re smart but I feel like I have to say that anyway. The rings I used came from a hardware store, but you could find some at a craft store. Slings for real babies use specially tested rings and have really secure stitching to make sure it’s safe. This sling has none of that.**

Finish the edges on all sides. I used my serger (the 1st time I’ve used it without any frustration, thank you very much!) to do a simple rolled hem. Of course, you could could turn under the edges and seam as well, but then you’d want to start with a slightly larger piece of fabric.

Gather one short edge to make it smaller. I did 2 accordian folds that meet in the center as you can see in the picture, then pinned it into place.

Cut your velcro pieces and pin into place. My pieces are about 3 inches long and the strips are 2.5-3 inches apart. I sewed 4 lines across this edge, catching each of the long edges of velcro in the seams.

Thread the end with velcro through both rings and attach the velcro. The picture shows the 2 seams that show on the right side of the sling.

Fold the other end in half horizontally and thread through the rings.

That’s all there is to it!

1. The weather has been nuts. It’s spring-like one day and hailing the next. It’s confusing but we still manage to get outside and enjoy the sun, even if it is a bit chilly.


(Why yes, that is my clapotis you see in the bottom of the stroller. The bright rainbow blanket was crocheted my one of sesame’s many great-aunts. We rarely leave the house without something handmade.)

2. We all got the flu. Thankfully not the puking kind, but the fever,chills, lay on the couch and feel like you’re going to die kind. Oh, and it lasted forever. I’d feel better and think I was getting over it when suddenly the 102 degree fever would come back. We freaked out about Sesame’s temp of 105 and took her to the doctor but there was nothing they could do so we came home and slept for a week. The only nice part was that my busybody toddler finally snuggled with me.
3. My mom came to visit and Sesame called her grandma for the 1st time (well, technically “gam-pa” but we knew what she meant) and it was nice to see them have so much fun together. The hysterical toddler screaming “GAM-PA” through her tears as we drove away from the airport was heartbreaking though. She is no longer welcome on trips to the airport to drop off visitors.
4. I made a ton of cashmere hats and I’m getting them all listed in my etsy shop. they’re made from recycled sweaters and have cute springtime designs on them. Just in time for Easter!



5. Sesame decided she was done sleeping in a crib and decided that the best way to tell us was to fling herself over the edge in the middle of the night. Thankfully her only injury was a bit of rug-burn on her cheek. We got a toddler bed the same weekend and she loves it and sleeps really well in it, though the actual putting her to bed part is nightmarish.
6. I’ve been knitting and finished a pair of socks but don’t have any pictures yet. You’ll just have to trust me that they’re gorgeous.
7. I made an awesome find at Title Wave, the bookstore that sells library cast-offs. All these relatively current knitting magazines for $1 each! That’s the best $5 I’ve spent in a long time.



8. Mike and have planned an awesome garden for this summer and have started planting some cool stuff. I’ll share it all with you as soon as I get some pictures. We’ve stopped being members of our CSA, even though we love it and it’ll be sad to not be supporting Laura, “our” farmer anymore. I hope she understands. It’s just too much money right now so we’re going to grow a bunch of our own veggies this summer. I’m really excited!

I love this little dress! Like everything I’ve knit recently, it’s making wasn’t without a near-disaster. It was almost ruined when I put it on the little ungrateful toddler and she had a screaming fit and yanked at it so hard that she totally stretched out the buttonholes and I was afraid for the hand-stitching. Luckily it survived (with lots of buttonhole reinforcement) but not until I took a time-out from her,’ though lying down on my comfy bed while’ mentally fixing I dress I just finished making and trying to tune out the sobs of “mamaaa, mamaaa” and little toddler fists pounding on my door is not very relaxing.

I shouldn’t have been too surprised. She was crying just seconds before I took this picture, I thought she was going to ruin this sweater with the yanking at the neckline the first time I put it on her and she even had a fit when I first made her wear this little cardigan and it’s made of cashmere and silk! What a terrible mom I am. She doesn’t cry about new store bought clothes so I’m trying really hard to not take this personally. At least she gets over it and is usually more cooperative by the second wearing.

The pattern is the Two Summer Sundressand it’s pretty darn clever. The straps can uncross to add a little more length and the straps have 2 buttonholes too. This one can grow with the kid. The yarn is Cascade 220 Superwash so the whole thing can go in the washer. I will definitely make more of these, although I may have to try machine sewing my knitting, something I’ve been avoiding. I hand-sewed the skirt to the bodice but it was a little tedious.

Finally, a sunny day and a willing husband! Here are pictures of the cardigan I finished last month. I would show you my face but it was sunny and I’m all squinty. I love it (the cardigan, not the squinty face). It’s so simple and cute and warm but not too warm. It’s just a basic top-down raglan and I saw the horseshoe lace pattern on this cardigan and loved it so I added it to mine. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to close it so I employed the knit-now, decide-later method and as it turns out, I can just shove the buttons through the knitting so no buttonholes are necessary. Simple and easy.

The best part?’ I got this fabulous hand-painted yarn (blue mountain fiber arts icelandic) in a yarn swap! The color in the first pic is more accurate. Someone took my crap and I got this. It’s hard to imagine it being someone’s crap but then again, that’s probably what someone is saying about my unwanted yarn.

One more thing I love- signs of spring!! It really is coming.

In the last week we’ve had snow and ice and lots of overreacting byt weather forcasters but this weekend the storm really came! We have about a foot of snow and it’s still coming down. This is Portland, people! We usually get a little snow and some ice but this is nuts. The first pictures are from yesterday when, with chains on the car, we could get out and go to a Christmas party.

Today there’s no leaving the house but we can sure play in the yard! Sesame liked “sledding” until she fell in the snow and her hands got really cold. I realized that I am a failure as a knitter because my baby has NO MITTENS! Really- how long would it take me to knit some? Maybe an hour? What is wrong with me?

Those pants she’s wearing are her Noro pants I knitted her last summer. I don’t think I ever blogged about them. I love them and wish I could knit myself an adult pair! Her cute blue hat is one of my recycled sweater hats that I sell on Etsy. I loved that one and had to keep it for her. Unlike last winter, she likes wearing my hats now and that makes me a happy mama. A similar hat actually made it onto the front page of Etsy on Friday. I just happened to see it and it made me feel a little like a celebrity. Do you see it?’ It’s the blue hat near the bottom of the screen.

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.

Back at home, the evidence that seseme is now a toddler is mounting. Oh, it’s mostly a joy but when I see her climbing up onto the dining room table, I miss the days when she’d stay put on a blanket on the floor.

Her sweater is finished and she actually got to wear it. If you look closely you can see that it’s dirty because not only did I let her wear it, I also let her (gasp) eat in it. I love it and it looks really cute on her though that’s nearly impossible to photograph. It’s the Toddler Tunic by Staci Perry (ravelry) and all I changed was to lengthen the seed stitch areas at the edges and I added some flowers using scrap yarn from this stash.

I knit the sweater with recycled yarn from a huge J. Crew cotton sweater that I found at the bins. It was such a huge sweater that I could probably knit myself a matching sweater but I’m not that kind of mom. The yarn was really annoying to knit with because it’s a bunch of tiny threads that aren’t plied together. Several times I came across a spot where a few strands were broken but I just ignored it and kept knitting. I’m sure that if I throw it in the washer, some of those ends will start to poke out but she’s only going to be able to wear it for this one season so I think it’ll be okay.

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.