A trip and more toys

Last weekend Sam and I drove down to Washington, DC for Passover with his family. I've never been to a Seder before so this was going to be a totally new experience for me. I also hadn't met all of his family on his dad's side before either. As far as all that goes, we had a lovely time and his all of his family members were very nice!

Sam was gracious enough to drive both there and back, which gave me some prime knitting time that I was overjoyed to have. We also had some down time on Saturday and decided to head over to the National Zoo.

I grew up in Maryland, just outside DC so I have some pretty great memories of going to the National Zoo. Now I have one more...

We had so much fun! We we even able to meet up with Sam's good friend from college who works down in DC now.

I have to admit, I was just super excited to get out and have an adventure. Work has been a bit stressful and it's nice to get away sometimes!

In knitting news, I've been making stuffed animals like crazy! First, I was commissioned to make a pink elephant for a little girl who will be turning one. They wanted it as a keepsake so I was happy to make it and embellish it for them. It's my first Etsy sale!

I pretty much stuck to the Elijah pattern (rav link) for this one, though the embellishments were all mine. She's one lucky elephant too, because I decided to use some of my merino/cashmere/nylon sock yarn to make her scarf!

This really is one of my favorite patterns to make because it just turns out so adorable and most people can't handle the cuteness!

Along that line, my coworker asked me to make a pig for her. I was more than happy to, but when I looked up pig patterns, there just weren't any that met my "cuteness standard." Seriously, it has to make you fall over with cuteness before I'm going to knit it!

So what did I do? I modified Elijah of course. Pretty heavily actually, but you can definitely tell that's where the inspiration came from!

I've decided to name her Annabelle. She even has a cute little curly Q tail that I added to her.

I modify the face slightly and the nose quite a bit to make it come up a little farther on the face. I made the ears up as I went along until they were perfect.

I'm quite proud of my little piggy. I hate to say it, but I think she's the cutest pig anyone's ever knit... if I do say so myself... :)

What I've been up to...

Just a quick post. I'm about to be off for the holiday weekend. Sam and I are traveling down to Washington, DC for a three day weekend. Before I go, I thought I'd check in and write a quick post (you know, to assure you all that I'm still alive!)

I've been busy working on a quite a few projects recently. One of which I was inspired to make to help take better pictures...

Yep, I made myself a lightbox. It took me all of about ten minutes and cost me three dollars. I bought some posterboard for the back drops in three different colors. So far, the white works the best, but with the right project black or blue might work.

I've also been working on some teddy bears that I'm super proud of. The pattern is loosely based on Otto by Ysolda Teague. I changed quite a few things though. The body is more like the elephant, the legs and arms are slightly different, but the ears I totally changed.

I wanted ears like a real teddy bears so I made them up as I went. My first attempt was just not right at all... but the second was perfect (at least I thought they were perfect!) I'm so proud of those ears. I get such a charge from creating something right out of my imagination! I was so excited that I couldn't wait to make something else up! We'll see what I come up with next.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and if you're traveling, have a safe trip!