Origami wrap sweater

Happy weekend....I hope you all have a good one planned! Yesterday I had a day off and spent some time getting my sew on. I found a great tutorial for a sweater wrap....and I think it's been in my favorites for the better part of a year. : )

I had found this fabric in the red tag bin...I like to shop there when the red tags are 50% off.

It's a lighter-weight knit with a subtle gold zebra print. I have been tending to use knit fabrics that don't require as much finishing on the edges. Could be a bit of a cop-out due to my skill level, but also helpful when my time for sewing is...shall we say....limited by my two little rugrats.

The pattern I used is fairly easy. I cannot remember how I found it, but here it is.....click here. It is a free pattern. Love! As she recommends, I pinned it up and tried it on to make sure I had it right before starting to sew.

Fabric laid out and folded.

Pinned in the corner....just 6".

You then pull down the corner part to make two sort-of triangles and a line down the middle.

Here is the tricky part....bringing the top of the triangle down to meet the sewed part so it makes a T.

I snapped a pic pointing where you would put the seams to make the T.

Sewing.....

Here is the sewed part, wrong side.

And right side....

And here it is on. Please excuse my fancy sweats look. First I tried it on this way and figured something was wrong. It's upside down! But...this could be good for warmer weather if you wanted something more sleeveless and more cropped.

Ah, the right way. Nice and long.

I think when I wear it, I'll consider belting it, too.

I'm pretty pleased! Would be good over jeans, skirts and dresses. It was easy-peasy lemon-squeezy (as my son would say), too. I'll post a pic of it styled once I break it out without the high fashion sweats look. ; )

Party Time......

Time Travel Thursday at The Brambleberry Cottage

Fridays Unfolded at Stuff and Nonsense

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Show and Share Day at Just a Girl

Simply Creations Link Party at Simple Home Life

Addicts (not so) Anonymous Addicted to Decorating

Sunday Showcase Party at Under the Table and Dreaming

Project Parade at The DIY Showoff

Creative Bloggers' Party and Hop at Homemaker on a Dime

Tip-Toe Thru Tuesday at Crayon Freckles

Pinspirational Thursday at The Artsy Girl Connection

Make the Scene Monday at Alderberry Hill

Sunday Salvation at Sassafras Salvation

Tuesday Talent Show at Chef n Training
Flaunt Your Flowers  at Tootsie Time
What I Wore/What's Up Wednesday at Rae Gun Ramblings
Sunday Roundup at A Rosie Sweet Home
Overflowing with Creativity at It's Overflowing
Manic Monday at Silo Hill Farm
Mannequin Monday at Artsy Girl Connection

Gardening '12 Hits and Misses: Misses

Hey, there....hope all of you lovely people are hanging in there this week. I will tell you what, my school has gotten its money's worth on me in the recent past.

Wow. That's all I got on that. For now.

So....as fall is upon us, I like to reflect on what went well or not-so-well this year with gardening. If you've kept up with my sporadic blogging this summer, you know that I've been less than pleased with the growing conditions Little Miss Mother Nature has imposed on us all. She is a fickle one, I tell ya.

As to end on a positive note, let's start the first of this two-part series with the downers.

I think nothing, NOTHING, was more disappointing than this garden bed. I had such high hopes for it.

Clearly, there was a whole lotta nothin' going on here. For the last several years, I had planted Profusion zinnias in this area (and in a similar area at our old house). They would get quite large and fill in the space so well. But...in this spot, there is a lot of yellow throughout the season and the orange/yellow combo was not doing for me so much. I talked with a worker at the plant store and she steered me toward impatiens. This area faces east. So, I tried New Guinea impatiens on one side of the garden and the traditional type on the other side. The NGs were just PATHETIC. I can't see myself committing to those again anytime soon. 

To add insult to injury, I decided to plant salvia along the back of the bed. I was envisioning  a nice bright blue with a hot pink-ish color from the NGs. Well...

The salvias have come on only in the last 3-4 weeks. Ummmm, I didn't wait 3+ months to have you start blooming now. Ugh. The only upside is that you can dry these....or, if you have a mild winter in our area, they might overwinter. Hm. We'll have to think on that one.

The traditional impatiens did much better. I will post those in the positives.

Pretty much anything that was directly sowed into the garden did not do well. Green beans? No. Zinnias? No. (this broke my heart)

I did plant this squash plant my neighbor gave me......it was huge and had really nice yellow flowers....but no squash.    ?  ?   ?

I had a really nice crop of sunflowers, but I did not realize how much they would dominate the garden, space-wise and shade-wise. This did not benefit my direct-sowing.

There you have it. The worst of my year in the garden. Stay tuned for a more uplifting post...

Party it up with Legos

As I've mentioned on my blog, September is a birthday-heavy month with my son's and husband's birthdays two days apart in the middle of the month. Last week, we hosted family and friends to celebrate seven years for my baby boy. It sure doesn't seem like it's been seven years.....

Our boy is pretty obsessed with Legos. I used to be obsessed as well.....my brother and I had a cardboard box of Lego pieces and we would spend hours building things. So, the apple does not fall far from the tree!

I was trying to think of a theme and I thought about Legos.....I Googled it and tons of ideas popped up. Off we went.

I made the invitations. If you're not making a ton of them, it doesn't take too much time. I cut the little Lego shapes out of colored paper and glued them on....then wrote the essential info.

I raided the local Lego store for some supplies. They had minifigures for a few bucks apiece, so I bought a few for game prizes. The guy at the checkout also let me have a bunch of Lego magazines and posters....I told him I was having a Lego party. We were trying to keep a low budget! I used the magazines for goody bags. I also used a poster on the front door for decor.

In the goody bags--magazine, Lego coloring pages (Google this), Lego candy bricks bought at a local candy store and a few other candy treats.

For table decor, I filled a vase with Lego pieces and stuck a few pinwheels in them. If you can't find pinwheels you like, they are pretty easy to make. (Google is your friend)

Activities......we did two games plus a building challenge. The first game was to guess the number of Lego pieces in a jar. Pretty self-explanatory! Our next game was Pin The Head on the Minifigure. This took a little more prep time. I used my interactive white board at school to trace a minifigure. It would have been way tougher for me to freehand it. So, I did a top, bottom, two hands and a head. I then traced the heads and cut them out. I did stack the head paper so I could do a 3-4 at a time....I also drew a face on each one. I preaffixed tape to them and kept them on a tray. I put my husband in charge of running the game....the kids think he's pretty funny.

For the building challenge, we sat the kids down to make something and they had to come up with a title for it. I put MegaBloks and Duplos in the next room for the 3-and-under set. I had cut some Lego shapes out of construction paper and wrote everyone's name on one. My husband and I circulated as they were building and we came up with funny awards for each kid.....for example "One Sweet Ride" for a car and "Tallest Antennae" for a really tall creation. Most of the kids were occupied for a good 10-15 minutes and enjoyed the awards. We awarded the certificates while they were eating cake.

Speaking of cake, I also tried my hand at making a cake. I had some tips from a friend that helped a bunch. Basically, I made a 9x13" cake that I cut in half and put icing in between the layers. I also made cupcakes and used four of them to make the dots on the brick. I froze all of the pieces and that way, I was able to trim off the sides of the pieces to make them look more Lego-like. 

I also iced it frozen to eliminate a lot of the crumbs coming off the cake. I made buttercream icing and used gel food coloring to make it a red color. I presented it with some Lego vehicles and minifigures. It was a hit! You can email me if you have questions about how to do all of that.

A bit of work, but not too bad if you spread it out a little over several days or nights. All in all, it was a hit!

Party Time......

Time Travel Thursday at The Brambleberry Cottage

Fridays Unfolded at Stuff and Nonsense

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Show and Share Day at Just a Girl

Simply Creations Link Party at Simple Home Life

Addicts (not so) Anonymous Addicted to Decorating

Sunday Showcase Party at Under the Table and Dreaming

Project Parade at The DIY Showoff

Creative Bloggers' Party and Hop at Homemaker on a Dime

Tip-Toe Thru Tuesday at Crayon Freckles

Pinspirational Thursday at The Artsy Girl Connection

Make the Scene Monday at Alderberry Hill

Sunday Salvation at Sassafras Salvation

Tuesday Talent Show at Chef n Training
Flaunt Your Flowers  at Tootsie Time
What I Wore/What's Up Wednesday at Rae Gun Ramblings
Sunday Roundup at A Rosie Sweet Home
Overflowing with Creativity at It's Overflowing
Manic Monday at Silo Hill Farm
Mannequin Monday at Artsy Girl Connection

A beautiful day at a new park

Well, we made it through our mid-September birthday bonanza....unscathed. : ) We hosted family and friends for a Lego party for a seven year-old on Saturday. Some pics of that to follow. We had just beautiful weather here this last weekend, so we decided to head downtown on Sunday for a nice little birthday outing.

We went down to a new park in Cincinnati. I have to say, the city has done a really nice job with a few parks lately. We visited the updated Washington Park, which is across the street from the historic Music Hall in Cincinnati. Once upon a time, I became affianced near that building....; )

It was a derelict park, with not much going for it at all. Now they have really cool water features, a gated kids' play area, an urban dog park with fountains for dogs, a gazebo for performances and a nice open space that was hosting the Celtic Fest that day.

There were some GREAT plantings....I loved the pennisetums in this bed.

Interesting yellows/oranges and dark ornamental peppers.

Massed bloodgrass. Love it.

I liked the dark maroon plant in this bed with the orange/yellows.

I think these pink plants were vinca.

Old cannon from the old park with some great swaths of color.

More pennisetum and spider flowers, too.

An incredible amount of hardscaping in this park.

The gazebo, which I think is original to the park, but updated a bit?

VERY cool interactive fountain. We brought a change of clothes for the kids.

There was a wall with steps and cascading water. Very cool!

Music Hall with fountains.

I think it was Napoleon who said that the square in front of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, Italy was the "the drawing room of Europe." I've been thinking that this is a beautiful front porch for Music Hall.

Cut flowers #3

Good evening, all. I hope all of you lovely people have been doing well! I've finally come up for air. ; ) The beginning of school always throws me for a loop. It's a bit crazy, trying to get back into the routine. I know you all feel my pain! We also have a few mid-September birthdays, so once we get going with school, we have birthday plans right around the corner. More on that to come.

The garden is winding down a bit, especially since the growing season has been a bit long this year. There are a few plants certainly showing it. I cut some flowers for my son's party this weekend and I thought I'd share them with you.

First up, I have some potted sedums that are in flower. These stems came from some of my mom's plants at her cabin. I don't often cut sedum, but they look nice.

Vinca. These plants last quite a long time in a vase and usually root in the water.....and then you could pot them up.

My cosmos are still going strong and looking good! I have a few different colorations that have emerged and I'm pretty partial to these.

The sunflowers are petering out. They have been going strong all summer--until now--and this vaseful was about as many nice-looking blooms as I could find.

Last but not least, my fave of the group. Salvia, caryopteris (blue mist) and perennial salvia with sweet potato vine. Why have I never used the sweet potato vine in a little vase?

It's time to squeeze as much as we can out of the garden for the next several weeks until frosts come.....: )

Party Time......

Time Travel Thursday at The Brambleberry Cottage

Fridays Unfolded at Stuff and Nonsense

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Show and Share Day at Just a Girl

Simply Creations Link Party at Simple Home Life

Addicts (not so) Anonymous Addicted to Decorating

Sunday Showcase Party at Under the Table and Dreaming

Project Parade at The DIY Showoff

Creative Bloggers' Party and Hop at Homemaker on a Dime

Tip-Toe Thru Tuesday at Crayon Freckles

Pinspirational Thursday at The Artsy Girl Connection

Make the Scene Monday at Alderberry Hill

Sunday Salvation at Sassafras Salvation

Tuesday Talent Show at Chef n Training
Flaunt Your Flowers  at Tootsie Time
What I Wore/What's Up Wednesday at Rae Gun Ramblings
Sunday Roundup at A Rosie Sweet Home
Overflowing with Creativity at It's Overflowing
Manic Monday at Silo Hill Farm
Mannequin Monday at Artsy Girl Connection

The shrub that ate my garden....

Happy Labor Day weekend to all of you. I must say, although this is the "unofficial" end of summer, I am a huge fan of a holiday weekend devoted solely to giving laboring people a day off.

Not to mention...we just finished our first full week of school here and it was quite a long week. I'm glad to be putting all of this beginning-of-the-year stuff behind us....

We are also anticipating the arrival of the Remnants of Isaac here. While I welcome the rain wholeheartedly, I'm hoping it doesn't totally wash out everyone's outdoor plans. :)  Much could be said about the unusual growing season we have had....but I think a picture says it best.

Yes, there it is, the shrub that ate my garden. 

I have learned a lot from this shrub this year. First of all, let me say that I really love this plant. It is caryopteris 'Blue Knight'....also known as blue spirea or blue mist shrub. It provides a shot of color in late summer/early fall after most other perennials have had their day in the sun. My particular plant is just a few years old. I bought it in the bargain bin of our local fall plant outlet sale at a nursery. I think it was $3.

Since we had such a mild winter, everything started blooming out about 4-6 weeks early. This means that it was big by June and starting to put on bloom. I actually called my favorite garden radio show to ask about it. Yes, I am a huge gardening GEEK. I was advised to cut it back and let it bloom again.

Well, I did and it is. So....admittedly, this plant is probably too big for its location. At this point, you can't see the Knockout rose behind it. While I am absolutely loving the bloom on it, I need to make a decision.....

1) I could leave it where it is. Clearly, this go-'round has shown me that I can cut it back. Perhaps next year, I cut it back to the size I prefer in mid-June. I'd hate to lose the blooms, but maybe it would work.

2) I could move it to a place where it can just grow to its heart content. I really love it, so I don't want to move it away from its place of prominence, but I have another place in the front that would work.

I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, enjoy some pics of it....

Clearly, the bees like it....

If you have this plant, I'd love some words of wisdom!

Have a GREAT weekend!