Author: Marie Haigh

I started knitting 15 years ago right around the time of my marriage and the birth of my niece.

Sunday Snapshots (of taking pictures)

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I love to take pictures. I take pictures almost every day.

Elly is quite used to me carrying my camera bag with me everywhere. Often if we are headed out the door, she’ll hand it to me.

She is also quite used to me taking pictures of her. She doesn’t mind it a bit. Quite the contrary, she encourages me to take more pictures.

This picture was taken when we were visiting Target. As we were walking out of the store, Elly saw a mother taking a picture of her daughter who was sitting on one of the big red balls. You can see the young girl in the background posing for another picture. Naturally, Elly wanted me to help her climb up on the red ball and take her picture too.

The picture above was requested just yesterday morning after Elly laid all her babydolls on the couch and then curled up next to them under a pile of blankets. She was proud.

This next picture was requested because Elly thought she looked funny hanging upside down.

She was right.

Other times, Elly will be playing with her toys and then abruptly stop and announce that she needs to find her camera. Off she runs into her bedroom to get her camera and take a picture of her toys.

It’s so cute.

The Walls Hate Me

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I’ve written about the walls in my dining room a few times and my stripe design.

First, I sanded, primed and painted them.

Then, when sanding off the primer and paint didn’t work, I scraped all the prime and paint off.

Next, I painted with an oil-based primer and painted a top coat of latex paint in white. 

While measuring out my stripes, the paint peeled up in one spot.

It’s small, but I don’t dare put up painter’s tape since it will likely peel more paint off. And though I swore I would run to the hardware store and buy beadboard because hell was going to freeze over before I scraped the walls down again, I have yet to visit Loews.

After living with the dining room walls white below the chair rail for 3 weeks, I know now that I do not want them to remain white. I love color. I need color.

So, we are on to plan B which involves more paint. Surely, more paint will solve my problem.

I’m thinking a base coat of yellow and an allover stencil of orange on top. The stencil will look similar to the scrolls on the fabric I am using.

Or should I go with a base coat of orange with black scrolls on top? Since the kitchen is next to the dining room, maybe I should incorporate turquoise into the colors.

Yellow and turquoise?

Whatever colors chosen,  I’m going to have a colorful house by the time I’m done. Oh yeah!

Sunday Snapshots (of Elly’s knit skirt)

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Though I finished knitting the 3-tier skirt in August, it wasn’t until last weekend that it was cool enough for Elly to wear it.

It’s a pity I didn’t get any pictures of her dancing for her favorite part of the skirt was the fact that it twirled when she spun.

A few days later when I was encouraging her to wear a skirt over top of her leggings, she asked me if I had made her that skirt too.

And then when she saw me hand mending an outfit, she asked what I was making for her.

On both occasions I just smiled and laughed.

Almost Done Christmas Shopping

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The lion’s share is done.

I realize most people don’t start their Christmas shopping until December. Some even wait until a week before Christmas. I’m too much of a nervous Nellie to do that. Besides there are some key benefits to finishing early.

Finishing early allows me the necessary time to make at least one handmade gift for Elly. I’m working on two this year: a yarn boa and an apron.

The apron will be a larger version of this one as she has skyrocketed in size since this picture was taken a year ago. The design allows her to put the apron herself, something my independent girl loves to do.

More importantly, finishing early allows me to dedicate the entire month of December to baking cookies, cakes, gifts and pies. This year is going to be even better because I now have a little helper in the kitchen with me. She has become quite the decorator of cupcakes. The trick will be to limit her intake of frosting and sprinkles. Or I could just make more icing.

Princess Elly

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Happy Halloween!

Elly was indeed a princess.

The tiara was short-lived though. During the day, she ran without anything on her head.

At night, she wore a fleece purple hat that matched her sweater quite well. As you may recall, this was Elly’s flower girl dress turned inside out.

I assured her that her headgear wouldn’t matter. Everyone would know she was a princess.

And they did.

The haul Elly got from our neighbors was astounding. After an hour, Elly was having to stuff the candy in, crushing the candy and chips below.

She woke up this morning singing the ABC song and asking to go trick or treating again.

Sandy and the Pin Oak Tree

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Hurricane Sandy swept through the Northeast causing much destruction.

Thankfully, we were spared.

Not but a block away on York Street, trees were down along with a power line.

Our lights flickered many times but the longest we lost power was for a few short seconds.

The worst that happened was our pin oak tree littered our yard with broken branches. Some of the branches were quite large and made a dreadful noise when they hit the roof, but no damage was incurred.

It is good. It would have broken my heart to lose the pin oak tree. It’s an extension of the house.

Sure it makes a mess every time a heavy wind blows through. It also makes a mess every Spring when the strings of pollen fall to the ground. Then, in Fall, it drops what seems like a million leaves. I am constantly cleaning up after it.

Yet, in Summer, it earns its weight in gold. To be able to walk out of the kitchen door in the oppressive heat and be immediately enveloped in an umbrella of shade is amazing. I live under the shade of the pin oak all summer long.

My father-in-law as well as my chimney sweeper recommended that I cut the tree down. It’s too close to the house. If it fell, it would destroy our home. I don’t believe I had anything nice to say in return.

I’d rather move than cut the tree down. It’s one of the things that made me fall in love with this house along with the corner hutches and the arched doorways.

My heart goes out to those who were not spared by Sandy.

Sunday Snapshots (of painted pumpkins)

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Yesterday, Elly and I painted the two pumpkins she had picked out last week.

After drawing a happy face on the first pumpkin, Elly drew a line from the eye to the top of the pumpkin and announced that it was a pirate. Dan was so proud.

The paint is already flaking off because I insisted that we use Crayola washable paint rather than acrylic paint. Acrylic paint would have stuck better to the pumpkins, but it also would have stuck a bit too well to Elly and to my clothes. Elly tends to paint aggressively when she gets into a zone. Paint starts flying.

There is still the big pumpkin to decorate. Since we are stuck indoors thanks to Hurricane Sandy, we’ll have oodles of time to draw a face on it and carve it out. It’s a family affair because Dan is responsible for cleaning the guts of the pumpkin out.

Update: Elly loved helping Daddy carve the pumpkin though she refused to help clean out the seeds. She didn’t want to get her hands dirty. Ha!

Strands of Yarn

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A few months ago at a yard sale, I bought 4 bags of yarn.

On the way home, I thought of all the projects I could use the little odd balls of yarn in, starting with another skirt for Elly.

As is often my habit, I took my loot over to my neighbor’s house to show her my good fortune. As I pulled it out of the bags, my heart sunk. Something was dreadfully wrong.

These bags weren’t filled with little balls of yarn. The yarn had been meticulously cut into strands measuring a yard long. It must have taken hours to cut it up. Why would anybody do such a thing? More importantly, what was I going to do with a bunch of yarn strands?

My neighbor was equally bewildered. Yet, she said there was nothing to be done for it. If I wanted to use the yarn, I would have to tie it back together. Unfortunately, anything I knit with the yarn would have a thousand knots in it.

She was right, but I didn’t love the idea. So, I did nothing for a month with the hope that I would come up with a better plan.

Watching Elly play with the fabric boa I made her for last Christmas gave me the inspiration I needed.

I had used this tutorial to make it. It was lovely because it required no sewing. I just tied strips of fabric to a foundation strip of fabric measuring the length of the boa.

Now what little girl doesn’t need a drawer full of boas? Hopefully, I’ll finish this one in time for Christmas as well.

The funny thing is the yarn strands have to be cut even shorter. It works best when they are about a foot long. Since some of the yarn is slippery, I double knot them onto the foundation yarn, which is nothing but 4 strips of thick t-shirt yarn measuring 60 inches in length. Elly loves using scissors so she is our big helper.

2 Ways to Hem Jeans

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There are probably more than two ways to hem jeans, but the two methods I used in hemming the stack here are the simple turn under hem and the reapplication of the original hem.
Here they are side by side.

The jeans on the right were hemmed by just cutting off the excess and turning the raw edge under twice. I chose this method on these jeans because the original hem was worn down and frayed, since it had been walked upon for a few months or maybe years.


A closer look

The jeans on the left have the original hem sewn back on. It took me more time to do it this way and it was a bit harder on my machine because there were more layers of denim to sew through, but as you can see, it looks tremendously better. You’d have to look hard (or be a seamstress) to notice the jeans were hemmed at all.


A closer look

The Pretty Poppy has a wonderful pictorial tutorial on how to save the original hem on jeans. The only step I added was to trim the side seam allowances in order to remove the extra bulk rather than trim around the seam and unfold it. I opted for this technique since thankfully the seams on these jeans were not welted. I also ignored her advice to turn the thread tension to the highest setting. It simply wasn’t necessary or advisable. Depending on the weight of the denim, I kept the tension between a 4 and a 7. However, her advice to use the proper needle is spot on. A needle designed to sew through jean fabric is best. There is no way a universal needle would have stood up to the abuse of sewing through at least 5 layers of denim fabric.

I still have 1 pair of jeans left to hem. Despite buying petite, the jeans are about 3 inches too long. Oh, the joys of being short.

Making a House a Home with Pictures

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This wall has always been our picture wall from the day we moved into this house.

You can see it here in the first picture Elly took on my old point and shoot camera.

Yet, for the past 4 years, it hadn’t been updated.

Even worse, there were no pictures of Elly in the house aside from one tabletop frame. There are close to a thousand pictures of Elly in my online Picasa photo gallery, but none had been printed and placed in a frame.

So, this past month, I have been updating baby pictures of my godsons with more recent pictures as well as adding more pictures of family.

Elly’s picture got the star treatment it deserved.

It’s a 16 by 20 poster print. The picture is one of my favorites: Elly playing tug-o-war with Jake.

I even framed my favorite piece of her artwork.

The whole house feels brighter and happier.