I did it! I actually used my sewing machine!

My son has a huge Spiderman TV pillow. He loves reading on it and watching Wiggles or Thomas the Tank on it. Mommy(me) acidentally ripped it a few months back while we were cleaning, and the tear has slowly progressed over time. My son actually tripped over it, so I decided I couldn't ignore it any longer and decided to try to make a pillowcase cover for it. I had some Finding Nemo fabric that I had bought to do curtains for his nursery (he had an aquarium themed room) but had never got anywhere with it. I bought a new sewing machine a few years back, and couldn't figure out how to thread the thing! Well, several years later, I figured I'd give it another shot. I guess something clicked this time cause not only did I get it threaded, I also figured out how to get the stitch tension working and everything! I'm so proud of myself. I know it was only sewing two and a half straight lines, but BABY STEPS! I think my next project sewing will be sewing simple square blocks for a quilt.

I'm flashing you! (Flash Your Stash)

Since I'm trying to catch up my blog, I decided to be funny and see how much yarn I've accumulated. When I set everything out, I realized it took up my entire bed. I now admit I have a yarn addiction.......LOL. I cannot hide it now. It's out in the open. I just have to get to work and thin it out some! I need to add that this is just my personal collection that I keep in a chest in my bedroom. I have a small Rubbermaid bin of my church yarn on top of my chest right next to my yarn carry all, which has MY looms, the "group" set of looms, my loom books, and my pom pom maker. I also have a huge Rubbermaid tub full of yarn at my church for my "Knit Wits"(my church group) to grab when they need yarn. Well, let's get back to work. The house isn't gonna clean itself.

Mother's Day and Hobby Update!

My mother's day weekend went really well. On Saturday my church had a Mother's Day luncheon, where the men cooked and waited on us. It was nice; my hubby dressed up with black dress pants and dress shoes and a white dress shirt. He ended up being one of the servers. The menu was gourmet fruit salad (a cheese and pear dish), chicken salad, asparagus, croissants, and cake (mine was carrot cake that my son was REALLY happy to take off my hands- he got a hot dog and chips). Hubby did a really nice job; I was so proud of him. On Sunday, my dear hubby gave me a very nice card and money....LOL. He knew I had been wanting some new looms. I had wanted to buy a preemie fine gauge loom from Isela and Sam at www.decoraccentsinc.com but Sam injured his hand so I decided to wait a few weeks for him to heal and then order it. So in the meantime I had learned that the new Knifty Knitter loom set had come out at some of the Hobby Lobby's. I even got a 40% off coupon from the internet from the wonderful people at the KK discussion group on Yahoo. The nearest Hobby Lobby is 32.94 miles from my house, according to Mapquest. On Monday evening, all three of us loaded up and took a trip. I ended up driving, which was fun. I wasn't even sure they had it, but I'd never been to a Hobby Lobby anyway so I figured I'd at least check it out. Turns out that they HAD it! Yippie! I also found some other smaller looms that I hadn't found anywhere else. I was in heaven. We ended up eating dinner at McDonald's because Aiken had a really nice, toddler friendly playground that my son ADORED! It was set up like a tree house with a little tree for children ages (9 months to 2). My son (being a little daredevil) went all the way up and went right to the big slide. I think he was born without a fear gene.....LOL. I ended up getting an Asian salad and ate half (yes I do eat out.......LOL..... I just usually get salads with meat). It was good, but I'm not used to edamane (sp?) which is soy beans. Why don't they just call it that?

I also ended up finding some Star Wars fabric on clearance for 1.00 a yd (Hubby is a fan), so I'm attempting to make a cover for my son's torn spiderman TV pillow. I have a sewing machine, but I've only taken it out of the box once, so we will see if I can do this or not. Pray for me......lol.

My Harry Potter scarf is slowly coming along, because I've got other projects competing for my time. I also had to borrow a friend's die cutter machine to cut out tags for my church mission. So far we've delivered 120 baby hats, 6 pairs of baby booties, and 28 adult hats to Soldiers overseas. The baby hats and booties are going to children at the Medical College of Georgia's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Here is a picture of my mother's day loot.....lol.

PS: The yarn was on clearance from 4.99 to 2.00 each at Michael's. I liked it and wanted to make a small shawl.

The Big Day!

Everything went really well. My son was SPOILED. I am so proud of my cake. I'm sorry not to have posted recently but it's been a hectic around here. The cake was designed to look like a race car. I also made sandwiches for the little ones in transportation shapes. I had Bologna and cheese trophies, chicken salad trains, and PB and J cars. Of course we had fruit salad (Yummy Yummy --Wiggles reference--heh heh), chips, and grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, homemade lemonade and soda. His party was Hot Wheels themed. Since we had little ones, we decided to make gift bags so they wouldn't feel left out when it came to gift opening time. We included coloring books, a Hot Wheels car, a small play doh set, a some race car gummy bears, some candy, and assorted trinkets like balls, noisemakers, hot wheels chalk and other hot wheels party items. I really loved making the cake. I will definitely do it again. My only issue with the day is that it was cloudy so it was too cold for the boys to go swimming. Ah, well. They still had a good time. After Mikey went to bed we ended up playing cards with some friends who had attended the party. It was a great way for me to unwind from the day.

Update: hobbies in progress!

I've been to another cake decorating class. We did the shells, star and swirled flowers, faces, dots, and parts one and two of the wilton rose. I did okay with everything but the rose. I just can't seem to figure it out. (Did I mention that I'm left handed? LOL) I've really got to practice. My Harry Potter scarf is slowly growing, but I had to stop to make some adult and child hats for my church mission charity. The group is looking into making cool ties for soldiers stationed overseas for the summer months. I'll post pictures as soon as we get them going. My son is turning two tomorrow, but his actual party is this Saturday. I've already got the goodie bags made up and I'm planning on doing most of the food on Friday so I can decorate for the party while he takes his afternoon nap. That's the plan, anyway. We bought this Six Flags Water Park inflatable to set up in the back yard for the guests plus he's got his outdoor stuff for the kids to play with. I hope all goes well. I'm been hovering at the same weight for almost two weeks now. I don't think I'm getting in enough water and protein. I also need to find a better vitamin system. My hair is falling out and my acne is getting pretty bad. I keep reminding myself that it's temporary; it's supposed to stop after six months out, but I wish it would get here already........LOL. Well, that's about it for now but it's a lot for my plate!

My other hobby!

I'm currently taking a Wilton's Cake Decorating Class. My son's birthday party is in less than two weeks. Tonight was week two of the class. I just had my first ever experience with decorating a cake. It, of course, was in the shape of my son's favorite obsession, a car. I did a "test run" using the actual pan I'm using for his party, since I had to take something for the class anyway. I figured I would do something that I wanted to actually learn...... (i.e. the car cake pan). I think it turned out pretty good, considering I've never touched a cake before other than to eat it (lol).... I decided to let my dear hubby take it in to work, so he and the other soldiers eat it..... They do plenty of PT so they can work it off! Let me know if you like it! Night All!

Harry Potter Scarf progress!

I've been knitting away! My Harry Potter scarf has begun to take shape. I actually didn't follow the posted pattern below, but did it a little differently (30,5,7,5, repeat). I think the gold rows are too big, so I will use the original pattern for another one. Oh well, it will be good so the nephews can tell them apart.

Unraveling the Mystery of the Harry Potter Scarf!

I have been looking everywhere for a Harry Potter Scarf pattern for my KK's. I did find one on the yahoo KK discussion board, but when I got to start making it, I started thinking that this couldn't be right. So I got looking online for a picture from the Movie of the characters with their scarves. I did find a good picture, so I'm posting it. With the picture plus the help of the pattern I had, I came up with this variation. I"m using a 2 over 1 method with a single strand of Red Heart Super Saver in Claret and Gold for a Gryffindor Scarf.

Knit 30 rows first color,3 rows second color, 5 rows first color, 3 rows second color, and repeat from beginning. Knit to desired length (This is a long scarf so I'm estimating 1 1/2 times the child's height would be good-just use a measuring tape.) and end with 30 rows of the dark.

Colors: Gryffindor: Dark Red(Burgundy,scarlet) and Gold
Hufflepuff: Yellow and Black (for this House the light is the predominant(majority) color; the others are dark as primary color. Therefore it would look mostly yellow with little black stripes.)
Ravenclaw: Dark Blue and Bronze (book) or Blue and Silver (movie)
Slytherin: Dark Green and Silver

My thanks to the ladies to have posted attempts to decode the mystery before me. I hope my nephews will love this as much as I do! I'm debating making one for myself as well...
Until next time.......... Constant Vigilance!

It's ALL About ME! (Yeah Right...)

Well I'm a 28 yr old mommy to my son, who is about to be 2 at the end of the month. I stay at home with him and try to keep the house from looking like a tornado went through it....lol..... the tornado being my toddler. My hubby is a Staff Sgt. for the United States Army, but this will be his last year of active duty. I named this blog the shrinking girl and her hobby because I had gastric bypass on December 20,2005. At the time I weighed 339lbs. Now just a little under four months later I weigh 256 lbs and still loosing. To keep myself occupied on something other than food, I started finding hobbies for myself. Enter my addiction, the Knifty Knitters. I quickly realized I could only make my family only so many knitted hats, so I started a group at my church to make hats for babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Medical College of Georgia (my son is a former patient of that facility). In about 6 weeks, we have delivered 82 Hats and four sets of booties to MCG, and we've sent 14 Adult Hats to soldiers serving in IRAQ. I hope to add a pic of the hats that the group did, but I don't currently have a picture. We currently have about 14 members, with more showing interest every week. I'm loving it!

Right now I'm adding a new project for myself. I want to knit two Harry Potter scarfs and two matching hats for my nephews (ages 10 and 4) for this coming Christmas. I've bought the yarn and found the KK pattern on the yahoo group for KK owners. I found a website that makes Harry Potter Patches (patchpalace.com) at a very reasonable price so I'm ordering a set to hand sew on the scarfs once I'm finished for a really authenic look. I can't wait to get started.

Another interest of mine is that I just started taking a Wilton's Decorating Class. I'm doing this so I can decorate my son's birthday cake. It's really funny if you think about it cause I can't eat the cake.Another reason I'm taking the class is the fact that I can't stand the cakes at Wallyworld (too sugary and half the staff aren't trained very well). My mom's parents actually ran a cake and donut shop when my mom was a kid and teenager and my mom still makes the most gorgeous cakes. So I wanted to see if I had just a little bit of her creative genes hidden somewhere in my body...lol. I just went to the first class this past Monday. I was so shocked about how much stuff I needed for the class. Thank God my state refund just came in, because my grand total was.......... drum roll, please........... 84.32 for supplies..... And I still need to go get toothpicks, parchment paper, foil, crisco, powdered sugar, and a few cake mixes. Thank god Michaels at least had a special that the class itself was half off.....lol.

My son is obsessed with cars, especially Hot Wheels( see the picture?). So in honor of that obsession, his party will be Hot Wheels themed. I also found a Wilton Cake Pan that is a 3D Car Cake. So that will be what I get to practice on for next Monday's class. The teacher told me to bring the unfrosted cake as my "practice" before I actually make it for guests on his party on the 29th. Until next time!

Setting Up My Blog!

I did it! I've taken the plunge and started my own blog. I wanted to show what I was working on to my other loomers. I discovered the knitting looms at Michaels back in January and caught them on sale. An addict was born that day... heh heh. I can't wait to start posting my projects.

My current hobbies are:
Knifty Knitting (looming)
Wilton Classes
Home Canning

What I've done in the past (and some I pick up now and then):
Knitting
Crocheting
Embroidery
Cross Stitch
Scrapbooking
Stamping

What I've attempted but not very good at:
Sewing


Keep in mind that this is my first blog (I've never even made a website before) so bear with me. It's a work in progress..... More to come!