Day 18-21

[ladythmpr]

The twins' birthday was this past weekend along with their school's Fall Fest, and I was too busy and too tired to post.

Day 18

I washed all the fabric for K's costume to be...



...and made two dozen allergen-free cupcakes for the Fall Fest (not pictured)

Day 19

I did some stitching at the Fall Fest...



...And made some very quick earrings for my kids' morning birthday present (like stockings at Christmas, K said)...



...And baked a double batch of brownies (for Coffee Hour at church on Sunday), a single batch of brownies for F's cake, and a double-layer yellow cake for K's cake (not pictured).

Day 20

I frosted F's cake...



...and then I frosted K's cake...



...For my kids' birthday present from my Mom, we went to a ceramic painting place, and the kids painted "sugar" skulls, and I put another layer of paint on the black lines of my bowl...



...And then when I collapsed after dinner, I put a few more stitches into the #MadXStitchalong...



Day 21

I took the kids to the park after school and went to work some on the Stitchalong, and discovered that I'd put in an extra 2 rows WAY UP THERE, and had to frog a bunch, and then just could not face any more...

Day 22 - More knitting and Netflix...

[calzephyr]

It's been a tough day at work. More knitting and Netflix is in the cards! Here's a progress picture. I love the yarn. It's called Copehagen and looks like it belongs in Ponyland. We're starting to run out of daytime around 5:30, so stay tuned.

Days 12 - 20

[antuhsa]

I was on vacation for all of last week, so I didn't have time to post until now. I did get a lot done though!

Day 12
Unfortunately, I had to skip this day because I was travelling. I took much longer than I had expected to reach my destination, so by the time I finally got there, I didn't want to do anything anymore.

Day 13 - Cooking
I made borscht (Eastern European beetroot soup)! A Polish friend made it for me years ago and I loved it, but I somehow never got around to making it myself. I don't know if I made it in the 'proper' way, but it was very good nonetheless. I forgot to take pictures though, again. I keep eating my food before remembering to take out my camera :/

Day 14 - Cooking
I made banana chips. The friend who was on vacation with me brought a lot of bananas. I don't like them much, but I do like banana chips, so I tried to make it. I took two bananas, sliced them very thinly and put them in the over on a low temperature for a few hours. They were really nice and crispy at the end, but they didn't taste as well as I had hoped. I'll look up a recipe if I ever decide to do this again.



Day 15 - Sewing
I repaired the lining in my winter coat. The stitching had come undone around the armscyes, making the coat less waterproof in that area, so it was high time to repair it.

Day 16 - Sewing
Repairing the lining in my coat was so relaxing, that I finally felt ready to tackle a sewing project I've been wanting to finish for months: a sleeping mask. It's an easy project and I had the fabric already cut out and everything, but I always found excuses not to work on it. One of my main goals for NaCraMaMo was to finally finish this and I'm super happy to say that I did it! On day 16, I just sat on the sofa with my sewing supplies, calmly handsewing while my friend was watching a movie. It was the most relaxing thing to do and I enjoyed it tremendously. I was almost sorry to see it finished and wished I had taken supplies for more sewing projects with me.


The mask. The flowery cotton was left over from another project and the black cotton on the back comes from a shirt that was falling apart.

Day 17 - Sewing
I remembered I had some bias binding with me and decided to sew that onto the edges of my sleeping mask, because I wanted to do more sewing. Once again, I had the most relaxing evening and wished I had more sewing projects to work on.

I'm very happy that the mask is finished though! I wear sleeping masks all the time because I wake up immediately if there's even the smallest ray of light in my room. My previous sleeping mask was falling apart and smelling badly, however, so I'm glad I can finally replace it.



Day 18 - Bookbinding
I had also taken a lot of bookbinding supplies with me on vacation, and with all the sewing done, I had the time to work on that. Because of my inability to say no to fun creative projects, I suddenly have 8 bookbinding projects right now, so it was high time to get started. I folded the pages for three books and put them in the press to ge the air out, so I could continue with them the next day.

Day 19 - Bookbinding
The three bookblocks came out of the press looking nice and neat, so I made templates for where I wanted the sewing holes to be and pricked them.

Dag 20 - Bookbinding
I sewed one of the three bookblocks. I'll do the other two later this week. I don't need to go beyond the sewing stage for these books yet, so once I've sewn them, I can focus on the other 5 books I have to make. It's a bit overwhelming to have this many bookbinding projects at the same time, but also very exciting. Luckily I have this week off from work as well, so I hope I'll be able to get a lot of work done!

(Sorry for the lack of pictures this week btw. It's just that photos of folded sheets of paper aren't that interesting, so I'll post more bookbinding pics next week, when I've made more progress with my projects)