Viking Tea Party

A True Friend and Saint

While I was on a last minute trip to Ohio (more on that another day), my friend Kim did something really neat and rather ambitious on her blog - she matched her friends to saints. Over twenty of them. That's a lot of work!

I was lucky enough to have been given Raymond, Mothers of Infants which was especially apropos as Emmett and I travelled solo to the states and it was really a challenge to my motherhood. A good challenge and one that wasn't as tough as I thought it would be (it helps that I gave birth to an angel) but a challenge never the less.

Kim is really amazing and I wanted to return this favor in kind. And I tried. I looked at lists of saints by name and by subject and nothing really encompassed everything that she stands for.

So I made one up.

Kim's saint is Saint Hyer...

 

Saint of the Cowboy Boot

I chose this saint not just because Kim loves her boots (and was even married in a pair) but because there really is a bit of her in a good pair of boots. For one thing, she's as colorful and quirky as the really unique kind - like the ones above that she mentioned on her blog some time ago. The past year and more has been difficult (to say the very, very least) but she remains sturdy, standing as tall as she possibly could in these circumstances. And, to continue this little bit of cheesiness, she's reliable. Always there with a comment or a quick email that just brightens your day - seemingly when I need it the most. 

I'm very fortunate to have met her all those years ago when her love of handsome celebrities (another thing she's really good at: posting eye candy on her blog) led her to put together the Knitter's Hunk competition. We may not have met up before I left for the UK but I think a night in Nashville for some music and unending chatter will happen some day, I really do.

P.S. Kim, I did an extensive search for a photo of Hugh Laurie in cowboy boots - alas, I couldn't find one. :)

Have You Seen the Little Piggies?

My favorite project in the My Space, My Time class that I took over the past few months was the pinch pot piggy project.

I haven't played with clay since high school and had forgotten how much fun it is! His a very imperfect little piggy but it was pretty amazing to see him come out of that ball of clay. I especially like the tiny little tilt of his head.

His trotters are pretty cute, too.

Some made them into tiny banks but I thought a little figurine for Emmett's room would be nice.

I really enjoyed the class and wish I had more time to do more creative things. While the class was on, Mondays were a guaranteed great day - getting to play with paints and clay and things and talk to grown ups just made the rest of the day easier to get through. Thankfully, a few of us are still getting together for coffee and I've met with a couple at play group as well. 

Now if I just had room for a kiln somewhere in this house....

Baby Shower, American-Style

Things have been a little stressful around here and last week more days than not were spent riding an emotional roller coaster that one had two speeds: sad and mad. Yesterday started out that way. I didn't even consider putting together my bag for knit group until it was nearly time to walk about the door which was Not a Good Idea since everything here as we make the spare bedroom a nursery, the third floor attic/office a storage room/spare bedroom and the conservatory a conservatory/office, is 100% topsy-turvy. Things you thought were there are actually who knows where and yesterday that proved especially true for the patterns of a couple of projects I'd wanted to finish.  So I threw what I could find in my bag and hit the pavement, running a little late. 

Imagine my surprise when I rounded the corner of our newly found quiet little alcove at Cafe Nero and heard, "Welcome to your surprise baby shower!"  

Baby showers aren't as popular here as they are in the US but Libby said they wanted to make sure I wasn't missing out on anything just because I lived here - how nice is that?  They even researched baby games!  You just don't realize how often you say the words "baby" and "knitting" at a baby shower put on by knitters until it's part of a game where you can't say them at all.  

Besides our little acorn's very first piggy bank (we've already started collecting 5p coins in a wooden acorn for him and have been looking for a proper bank for months) and his first "oh my goodness, push that button one more time and that''s going up on the shelf where you can't reach it" toy with lights and music (just kidding - it's very sweet and not loud at all) there were, of course, some beautiful hand knits!

What little boy wouldn't look handsome in this little cabled sweater? This was knitted (in my favorite color, no less) by fellow ex-pat Phoe who also kindly took photos and made the gorgeous flower arrangements.  This is going to be so cute with the little pair of jeans we bought last month and I'm already sad that, eventually, he'll grow out of it!

I've had this pattern in my Ravelry queue but I know it would have never turned out as cute as this one made by Alice (that's her on the right in the above photo)!  Again, he's going to look so handsome!  Matt and I are, no doubt, going to have the best dressed baby in Salisbury.

 

I've been looking at tag blankets for awhile now and am so glad I never actually bought one because this one that's handmade by Libby is so much nicer!  The bright color ribbons have so many different textures that I even found myself absentmindedly playing with the tags and the back is lined with a sweet, soft, blue Peter Rabbit fabric.  I already know it's going to be a Little Acorn favorite.  

Thanks so much to Libby, Stephanie and Phoe for putting it all together and to everyone else for coming - I had a really wonderful time!  It's hard to believe that the next time I meet up with the Poultry Cross Knitters, our little boy will probably be asleep in his pushchair or cuddled up in his Moby wrap!

 

Phoe also posted about the shower so to see more photos (especially more of a very pregnant me), hop over to her blog, A Life of a Photographoe. :)

Woodland Stitched Awesomeness

Thanks for all the anniversary and baby boy wishes!  We've been doing a lot of baby shopping over the past few days and the dining room table is currently heaped with cute little outfits covered in puppies and monkeys.  We have quite a few things in blue but brown is really popular now, too, which I love.  We might have even already found our "coming home outfit".  :)

But today I wanted to show you my favorite gift so far: little woodland creatures by Chris that are perfect for our woodland theme nursery!

Look!  A squirrel!

How cool is he?!  Check out his tail!

 

And here's his little friend the turtle...

I love the print choices.  They're perfect for the shell and skin.

I can already tell our little boy likes them as he's been kicking me like crazy as I've been playing around with these photos.  :)

And there's more!  Chris also made these gorgeous, colorful bibs.

 

Note the hippo down there in the right hand corner!  For some reason all of these remind me of going to the beach.  Maybe because it's so hot here that a dip in some cool water sounds like the best thing in the world....

Thanks again, Chris!!

New Friends, Tea Sets and Tickets

I met up with a new friend, Squiblet, from the Sunday afternoon knitting group today.  Like I said before, I love Matt but it was really nice to hang out with a girl for a little bit.  After showing me some of the sewing/craft shops in Salisbury (yaay!), we went to a cafe I'd not been to yet called Polly's, for tea and cake and, I think, had a great time.   It's nice to have someone to ask what seem like silly questions like where are the best places to shop for clothes - although when you're in a completely new country, that's really not such a silly question. 

As if I didn't have enough tea and sweet things, I came home and had lunch and decided a good book and more tea was a good idea since I'd yet to use the tea set for grown ups that my mother-in-law gave me the other day.

Note, Ginny, the tray and mat - now that I've unpacked it, we use it almost daily!

Ugh, unfortunately now I'm feeling all full and lethargic and not at all like doing any unpacking.  We got a lot done yesterday, though.  We unwrapped the amazingly well packed (by the moving company, not us) grandfather clock and took all of our broken down boxes, packing popcorn and paper to the recycling facility.  It felt so to good to get it all out of the house and getting the giant clock out of the pile of boxes makes me feel like we've really made progress - it was huge.  Unpacking is a slow process but it's definitely starting to feel like our home around here.  

Oh, I saw someone get a ticket just a little bit ago for parking on our street which is reserved for residents only during the day.  It seems like a strange thing to blog about but I was fascinated by his thoroughness.  He wrote the ticket and then took photos of the front of the car and then a couple of the inside or possibly just the front windshield due maybe to a missing or expired parking sticker.  After all those pictures, he took one of the restriction sign which was only a few feet away.  Then he finished up the ticket, put it in an envelope with sticky tape on it, taped it to the top of the window on the drivers side, took a photo of it on the car and then wrote in his little notepad for several minutes before finally setting off in search of other villainous vehicles.  See?  Really thorough.