Elijah the Elephant

Elijah the Elephant
Originally uploaded by elletrain

Here is my latest finished project...Elijah the Elephant. He was knit for Clancy Dabbs, my cousin's new little boy. This was a really cute end-product, but a little tedious to make for my taste. It's not difficult though and is such a cute gift. The pattern is by Ysolda Teague, http://ysolda.com/. She has a lot of adorable patterns. Because I did the stripes with left over yarn from the crocheted baby blanket it only took one skein of the green/grey Debbie Bliss Cashsoft DK. He was my first toy to knit and I'm so glad he turned out well. It was a big effort to pick up all those stitches for the ears and limbs. I hope little Clancy enjoys him for a long time :)

Apparently I've been busy

I just realized how long it's been since I made a post! As you can see, I've been more involved with tweaking the design of the blog than with blogging itself. Here is a recap of what I've been up to:Pinky and I with my dad, Christy, Jon, Elliot and Cassie at our Engagement Brunch hosted by Dad and C. It was such a lovely brunch! Here is a picture of Pinky and I at one of the lovely tables decorated with Christy's beautiful hydrangeas.

This week on Tuesday I decided to paint an accent wall in our living room. I love Color Splash with David Bromstad on HGTV and he definitely inspired me to do this. At first I chose a muted blue/teal to go on the wall, but it wasn't quite right. Then I tried out "Painted Turtle" by Behr and it was perfect. It almost looks like the color the shadows are on the lighter green of the living room. I couldn't be happier with the result. Sorry for the blurry-ish iPhone photo, but at least you can see the color contrast.

Today we're getting the house picked up and ready for my brother to visit on his way helping a friend move back to Arkansas. We're so excited to have company!! I'm off to get ready and buy some fresh flowers to have in the house. I've been buying them weekly now, but I especially need some when we have guests coming! Happy weekend everyone! If you're around East Nashville, there's a small craft show going on tomorrow near 5 points. Check it out!

Mattie gets a haircut and I get new fun things

So, it gets super super hot in Nashville in the summer and I have a very poofy border collie. I usually get her Summer Smoothie haircut at the groomer's, because I have attempted to perform this act myself before and I know the outcome. But this year Pinky insisted we do it on our own. He ordered some clippers and was intent on 'saving' us the money. After 3 hours, a mishap with the shop vac (it blew Mattie's clippings all over the hall upstairs), an aching back for me, and a scene where it looked like Mattie literally exploded all over the backyard, we ended up with this...

It's a little rough around the edges and I would definitely not show you a close-up, but I found there's a tiny adorable dog under all that fur!!! I mean, I think she's adorable to start with, but how cute is she with a tiny body and a giant head! Here she is quite skeptical of me and is letting me know she was not happy having to sit still for 3 hours. Her reward was getting to play in the sprinkler for 1/2 an hour though, so I know she thinks it was worth it :)

In other fun news, I recently got my first hoola hoop! I'm taking a class at my neighbor's hooping studio, Hooprama, where I've been taking Zumba for almost a year now. I have to tell you...it is SO fun!! And a great workout for the abs. Here is my lovely hoop she made for me!

The part of town we live in, East Nashville, is a superb community with really interesting people. The listserve is well-used by our area and I recently found someone through it that was asking for new sewers. I've sewn a few napkins and the odd straight line here and there, so I emailed her. Look what she sent! A beautiful sewing kit with ALL THE PIECES ALREADY CUT OUT! Wow. Now this is the sewing I can get into. I loathe cutting out fabric. But I really do enjoy sewing. She needed people to test out her kits and give her feedback. I happily agreed and got this great package in the mail last week. I'm hoping to put my skirt together today. I'll let you know the result and eventually where to get these awesome kits!

Finally, yesterday I received beautiful yarn in the mail to make a new project. The sweater is called "Thulstone" and is from Louisa Harding's book Little Cake. I've had this book for a while and am excited to start a project out of it now.

It's a gorgeous striped cardigan with pretty edging. I'm making it out of Knit One, Crochet, Too's "Second Time Cotton." It is a nice weight, slightly textured cotton yarn made from recycled mill-ends. The lighter color I bought is actually more grey than the photo shows, and the edging will be in the muted teal color. I'm very excited to start it this afternoon!

Well, I'm off to trim Mattie's cut up a bit and then take the fur to my hair salon. They are sending their hair clippings from their cuts to help clean up the oil spill and have agreed to send Mattie's bag o' hair clippings along with their next shipment. I'm excited that all that work not only created an adorable summer version of my dog, but that it is also going to be put to good use. Check with your local salon and get them to send in their clippings as well. Go get a trim and help out the clean up! ♥

Calligraphy Kit

Look at what I got in the mail yesterday!! It's a beautiful calligraphy kit from Emilie Friday. It's so lovely!! I'm going to attempt to hand-address all of our envelopes using a newly learned more formal handwriting. We'll see how it goes, but kudos to Emilie for such a gorgeous package of goodies!!

Happy weekend everyone! We are about to give my Mattie-girl her summer haircut...at the groomer's they call it a Summer Smoothie. Here is a picture of us from last summer when she had her cut. She looks so cute in it!

Glass sculptures and baby birds

We've had a great weekend with my mom and stepdad in town. Some amazing dinners out at our favorite restaurants and a very productive weekend as far as wedding planning is concerned. Here is a list of the restaurants we visited, if you're ever in Nashville looking for somewhere excellent to dine:

-City House (amazing food using many local ingredients - a twist on classic and Southern food)

-1808 Grille (a new restaurant in the Hutton Hotel where our wedding guests will be staying)

-Marche Artisan Foods - (great brunch and the location of our rehearsal dinner)

-Rumours East (our very favorite wine bar and neighborhood restaurant - try the mussels!)

-Shalimar (best Indian food in Nashville! - now open on Sundays...yay!)

In addition to eating, we also stretched our legs a bit yesterday and visited Cheekwood Botanical Gardens. They have an amazing exhibit going on right now with artwork by glass artist Chihuly. He designed the sculptures for the space and they're brilliantly hidden among the beautiful landscape at the gardens and in the mansion. The exhibit runs through October 31st of this year, so we're excited to suggest this to our wedding guests as something to do during their visit. Visit chihulyinnashville.com for more information. Here are some of the beautiful pieces:

Lastly, we've been watching our little birdie friends this weekend. They are in a tree right outside our kitchen window and are at eye-level in their nest. It's been so fun to see them grow so quickly!! This little birdie left the nest yesterday. He was protecting his brothers and sisters from the crazy lady with the camera, before he ventured out into the world on his own. He's so adorable!!

Here he is peering out from the leaves after he attempted to fly. Good luck little guy!

Happy Memorial Day everyone. We have a relaxing, uneventful day planned. Lunch with a good friend who is visiting in town. And that's about it! We will probably grill something for dinner and just enjoy the day. Enjoy yours, too!! xoxo

Oops...

Apparently I haven't blogged about my finished crocheted baby blanket yet! I thought I had. Again, I've already posted pictures on flickr and Facebook, but I would love to have them here on my blog as well. Sally already received the blanket and I think she was very excited and happy :) I'm so pleased with the finished product and it really was so much fun to work on. Thanks again to Lucy of Attic24 for creating the original, the inspiration for this one. Her blog is SO lovely...please check it out if you haven't already. Currently, she has me really really wanting a caravan of my own to decorate and take on weekend camping trips. I'm a bit obsessed. I think Pinky is tired of hearing about it. Think I can add a caravan to our wedding registry?? ;)

You've Got Mail project and finished shawl

I ran across a very interesting project today on Facebook...it's called You've Got Mail. A guy named Carl, in Austin, TX, has started a project promoting the art of correspondence. He's encouraging people to send him real snail mail, hand-written notes, cards or letters or even random objects. He once received a coconut in the mail! He's compiling this into a project and I believe will present it as an art piece at the end. I wanted to send him something that spoke to my interests and as I was looking through my knitting stuff I realized I had one sock that I knit a while ago on vacation. I didn't love the yarn color and I probably will never get around to making it's mate.

SO, I tacked a handmade postcard to the sock, put some stamps on, wrote Carl a little note and put the sock in the mailbox to go out tomorrow. I believe our mail carrier will have one of three reactions: 1. not take it (I obviously hope this doesn't happen- I put almost $1 worth of postage on it! and yes, I'm still using Christmas stamps in May); 2. be annoyed that people try to send random stuff through the mail, put the sock in the mail bag, but only after running over it with his/her mail truck; 3. (this is the one I hope for) that it will be hilarious and make his/her day or at least give them a bit of a laugh. We'll see! I think Carl responds to you with a written note when he receives a piece of mail. I'll let you know. I hope to hear from him! Check out his Facebook page here if you're interested in participating. Let me know if you do!

Now, onto other knitting related items. I finished my striped shawl. I have posted photos online, but haven't blogged about it yet, so here it is! I love the color combo and how the overall product turned out. The crocheted edge was fun to do and I am making a point now to do more stripes in my knitting.

I hope everyone has a lovely Memorial Day weekend. My mom and stepdad are coming to visit. Yay! Sorry family, but it's about freaking time someone came to see me! It's been almost 2 years since ANY of my family came to Nashville. Family fail. Let's see if we can make the next two years a little better, shall we?? xoxo