Scraps & Sketches

Making: 

 

Gathering scraps and extras for art journals. I signed up for the "Art Journal All Year E-Course" by Elsie & Rachel.

Loving: 

This super cute drawing of DJ Lance of Yo Gabba Gabba by Darcy.

xoxo,

Amy

Lala Love

Happy belated new year, friends! I'm hoping to blog more frequently in 2012, even if it's just short and sweet posts, like progress photos of projects.  I've been flirting with the idea of renaming this blog or starting a new one that shares personal posts mixed with crafty ones.  "Early Bird Special" was originally a collaboration with a friend 5 years ago, and I feel like the name and concept don't really apply to my life now.  Also, I'm kind of sick of dealing with people using the EBS logo without my consent, to promote their company sales.  But with a name like "Early Bird Special", what did I expect?

I'm kind of leaning towards, "Short & Scout."  It would be a play on my girls' names.  "Short" being for Harper and "Scout" for Darcy Scout.  I admit, I'm a little apprehensive to change simply because I don't want to lose any readers or downplay the info here on the EBS blog.  What do you think?  Consider a blog name change / "re-branding", or leave it alone?

So I mentioned before that I started crocheting, and I've actually been doing a lot more crochet than embroidery lately. Today I'm ready to share a couple of crochet projects with you!

Darcy and I have been in love with Lalaloopsy dolls for a couple of years now, starting back with they were "Bitty Buttons" dolls. My friend Dana shares a love of Loopsies with me too, so it's fun to go ga-ga for Lala together.  (Hi, Dana!)

Anyway, Allison Hoffman of Crafty is Cool came up with an amazing pattern for Lalaloopsy inspired amigurumi dolls.  I wasn't confident enough in my amigurumi skills to try making the doll, but I did think I had the skills required to make the dolly dress.  Darcy only had one Lalaloopsy doll, Pillow Featherbed.  She's the one who wears pajamas, so I decided to make the dress to see if it would fit a real Lalaloopsy doll. 

 

It does! Darcy and I were both very happy with how it turned out. Allison’s pattern suggests using a baby weight yarn, but I didn’t have any on hand, so I used a worsted weight yarn (Vanna's Choice) & an E hook. Since the worsted weight yarn made the dress a little bit bigger & bulkier than the original, I dropped 1 row on the sleeves and the bottom layer of the dress.

I definitely want to make more of these dresses, but try using a finer weight yarn next time.  The worsted weight does seem to make the dress stiffer than I'd like.  Darcy and Harper received a few new Loopsies for Christmas, so I have justification to make more dresses.  ;-)

Over the weekend, I decided I wanted to try making an amigurumi doll, and used Allison's doll pattern as somewhat of a guide.  I referred to her pattern for the head and the undies.

I wanted the scale of my doll to be considerably smaller than Allison's, so I made the arms and legs pretty tiny.  I'm attempting to make an amigurumi Lalaloopsy Littles. They're the new little siblings of the bigger Lalaloopsy dolls. 

Aren't they cute?! This week I'm working on getting the hair and face just right, then I'll start working on her outfit.  I am very nervous about the hair, since I've never done it before.  I worked on it quite a bit yesterday, and I was not happy with how things were looking.  So today I'm probably going to remove the mess I made yesterday, and start over with the hair.  

Maybe I'll come up with something I like by the end of the week, so I can share a new progress picture with you.

Happy Stitching! 

Amy

Unicorn Girl & The Floss Box

Today I'd like to tell you about one of my favorite websites for embroidery and cross stitch designs, The Floss Box! Emily is the cute creator behind The Floss Box, and I never get tired of looking at all the designs and saying, "AWW!!"

She's been around for a while, and I remember hearing about her a couple of years ago from my pal Rachel of Average Jane Crafter. If you keep up to date with Rachel, then you're aware that she's not only a craft geek, but a space geek. I think Rachel mentioned "The Planets" embroidery patterns, and I remember thinking how cute and clever the entire series of Science embroidery patterns were.

I'm sure a lot of you have been loving and stitching tons of patterns from The Floss Box for a while now. But just in case you've never heard of her, I think you'll like what you see.

She has lots of embroidery and cross stitch designs, and last week this cross stitch design caught my eye on Pinterest.

Spring Unicorn Girl cross stitch by The Floss Box.

I quickly bought it after seeing it. But last week, she released the embroidery pattern! Yee-haw! I jumped on that project immediately.  Darcy is pretty much obsessed with unicorns right now, and she was pretty excited. 

The one below is the embroidered version stitched by me.

Darcy insisted on lots of pink and purple for the girl and the unicorn. I love the way it turned out & so does my little Unicorn Girl.

Come back tomorrow for another vintage pattern share, won't you?

xoxo,
Amy

Stitchosaurus

I don't know if I've mentioned this on my blog before, but my 2 year old daughter Darcy is obsessed with dinosaurs. She goes crazy anytime she sees anything about dinosaurs. She has approximately 30 different dino action figures and can correctly identify at least 10 different species. I never imagined my little girl would love dinosaurs this much. She makes our hearts swell with pride.

A few weeks ago I was browsing Etsy, and stumbled upon my new favorite cross stitch designer, andwabisabi. She had a Brontosaurus among her collection, so I bought it for Darcy.



I started this piece last night around 8pm and worked on it for about an hour, then finished it around 10am this morning. So it went pretty quick.

I also bought some cute dinosaur fabric from another Etsy seller, and I'm planning on using that as the main fabric in a quilt for Darcy.


She really goes bonkers for this fabric. When I pulled it out today for the cross stitch photo shoot, she squealed and said, "My dino covers! I just wub it so much!" Then she ran over and started counting all the dinos.

We're going to be moving to a bigger house (same city) next month, and I'm focusing on these colors and other dino goodies for her room.

What things are the kids in your life currently in love with?

xoxo
Amy