Itty bitty toy Book Giveaway!

If you have been following my blog then you know that I´m on a mission this year to knit through the book itty bitty toys by Susan B Anderson.Thanks to Susan and her publicist Amy Corley at Artisan Books, I  am excited to announce that I am hosting a giveaway of Susan´s itty bitty toy book.  I, myself have all 3 itty bitty books and just love her work.

I had a short interview for Susan but she is very busy but she did point me in the direction of an interview that was done that answered almost all of my questions that I had for her. The interview was on the blog Petite Purls by AlegraWermuth. The only question I have now that is unanswered is if her current interest in knitting sweaters for herself is research into another book? I do hope that is the case because all of the sweaters that she had knitted so far I have enjoyed.

Here are the rules for the giveaway you get 3 entries if you follow the steps.
1) Leave a comment with your e-mail address in it
2) If you are or become a follower then you get a second chance at this giveaway so leave a second comment for your second entry.
3) If you blog about this giveaway and leave a link to it then you can leave another comment with the link to the blog post for your 3rd chance to win this amazing book.
4) If I don't get an address from the winner with in 2 weeks then I will pick someone else.
5) Will close giveaway on Saturday night so that I can take time to write my itty bitty update and add the winners name in the update.

Good luck everyone!

It pays to call.

I'm going to share with you something that every mother should know. IT PAYS TO CALL. When you are unhappy with a service CALL. If you didn't get what you ordered or got poor quality when you went through the drive through, CALL. They will let you come back later and get a free meal on them. If you ordered something and it was not up to par. CALL they might even give you a free gift to make up for their mistake.

Today I got my package from diapers.com. I had ordered my son's natural, expensive disposables plus nursing pads and method cleaning products. Well the method detergent opened in the shipping process and some of it was all over the box. I called and they are sending me a replacement for all of it. I can salvage all the packaged stuff and only half of the detergent. I did have to toss 4 of the diapers but otherwise I will be getting $70 of free stuff just because I called to let them know.

From Calling I have gotten free gifts, free meals and full refunds while keeping the product just because I wasn´t 100% happy with it. Those numbers on the food boxes are worth calling if one of the packages is open or you found a bug in your food (this has happened to me) they will send you coupons that cover at least 2 of a new product. For free.

The worst thing that could happen is they say you are poo out of luck but most of the time they will do something for your trouble.

Late Itty Bitty and Garden Update.

Yes it´s Monday again and I can´t believe that another week has flown by with out me noticing it. I remember when O was a baby I waited and waited for the first 6 months to go by so he could start eating food but now 5 months are almost gone since M was born and I´m just thinking "Slow Down" He is just growing to fast.

This week was spent on a surprise project. My friend in Iceland had her baby a little early so I decided to throw together a little something for her little boy. What do you guys think. It's a size 6-12 months so that it can be used a little longer. I almost want to keep it for my own son but I can make another for him. It's made with pure merino wool from berocco that I had in my stash. I didn't have enough of the chocolate so I added some baby blue. It's the baby sophisticate by Linden Heflin and a super quick and easy knit.

I knit a few rows of the Tea Leaf Cardigan but with the baby sweater needing to be knit ASAP I didn't do much.

I also had my class that I was teaching on making the Koala Baby from itty bitty toys by Susan B Anderson so I had to make another Baby Koala and it will be living at my local yarn store. The class went well. I would have wanted more time. For something like this you need a little more time than just an hour and a half. I think I was able to teach them to close the squishies and one of the ladies was learning how to knit front and back of a stitch for the increase. I also showed them how to graft the head on and the arm and all that fun stuff. Hopefully the next class will have more people in it though. Maybe I will teach the baby doll or the giraffe.
Baby doll was on hold since the little girl's birthday is over a month away.

 

My husband has a favorite pillow for laying on the couch but it had gotten so bad that the stuffing was falling out of the front of it. He hasn't found anything that is as comfy yet so in the mean time I made a cover over the old nasty pillow. I do have to admit that it is pretty perfect on size and squishiness. I'm thinking about doing some embroidery in the pillow case I made for it. I had flowers made from fabric to put on it but hubby was not a fan so Oh well. Do you have something that your husband can't part with but you would be so happy if it just suddenly vanished?

On to the giveaway note. If the person that I mentioned in my last post does not get back to me in 2 weeks then I will host a second chance to win the yarn!

Anyway, My garden has been going crazy lately and it's getting hard to walk around my beds to look for produce. So here are the pics.

 

Here is how much the watermelon has grown in one week

This is how much the winter squash has grown in a week.

 

The corn looks good

 

This is the Luffa and it's just going crazy. It just keeps growing and growing.

Squash flower

Cow peas

My sweet little man helping me take pics of the garden this morning

The roses that mom and dad planted when they were here.

 

Sunflower that I didn't plant but I really like so it gets to stay.

Double blooming day lilies that were here when we bought the place.

Day lilies that I got from the neighbor. She has lots of very pretty lilies

 

The heirloom rosebush in my back yard has a hip for the first time since I bought the house 5 years ago. I think I will try to grow the seeds. We will see how that goes. 

I Really like these cone flowers.

The crazy bed of roses and daylilies.

My big boy still LOVES his snooder (pacifier)! We ended up getting the flat kind that doesn't mess with his teeth.

He really enjoys coloring at the moment which I like because it keeps him occupied for a while.

And when M does this I get an opportunity to finish my blog posts.

Nutritious Tuesday- Banana Bread Make Over

Today's nutritious recipe is banana bread. This is a twist on something that I found in a book somewhere. I don't remember where but I changed enough so that it is mine. As you can see I'm using the applesauce that I talked about last week.

You will need:
2 tesp butter or margarine softened
3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 cups bananas (about 4 medium)
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup honey
1 teasp. vanilla extract
2 cups Spelt or whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup ground flax seed.
1 teasp baking soda
1/2 teasp salt
1/4 cup pecans or walnuts or both
1/4 cup chocolate chips

Itty Bitty Knitting and Garden Update.

This week I have been working on the Baby Doll because my neighbor's little girl's birthday is coming up soon and that is what I want to give her for her first birthday. It's an interesting knit. I'm knitting it on size 4 needles because I guess I knit loose compared to Susan but for some reason the head to body ratio doesn't seem right to me right now. I measured and counted my stitches over and over and everything matches what Susan wrote in her pattern. If I hadn't had sewed the head to the body all ready I would make the body just a tad bit longer. Anyway, I'm making hair right now and it's fun. I just don't understand why it isn't just made in one long carpet though. Susan if you are reading this I would love to hear your theory on why you did this.
Well on to my Cedar Leaf Shawlette. I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH YARN! I can't believe that I knit up this thing 2 times and even on smaller needles I'm not going to make it. I'm frustrated and my yarn store doesn't have any more of my yarn and if I want them to order more I will have to buy a whole bag of it and I can't afford that. I bought the yarn that I got on 40% discount and the girl told me that it should be enough for this specific project. Anyway, I guess I'm hunting Ravelry for someone that has this colorway in their stash and willing to sell it. It's Louisa Harding Grace Hand dyed in colorway 18.

Since the Sawlette is on hold I started the Tea Leaf Cardigan in my own hand dyed yarn. At first when I got the yarn out of the sun from baking for a few days and I rinsed and dried it, I thought I might not like it as a sweater for myself but I decided to cast on anyway and if I don't like it knit up then I can frog it and make a shawl or something else out of it. But as I am knitting with this yarn I'm loving it more and more. I'm really proud of myself for figuring out how to make this sweater with out paying too much for it. I would have loved to use the called for yarn but being a stay at home mom I just can't afford it.
These are the only two things that I have been knitting on this week. I've been playing with a few ideas to sew. I really need a needle case for my needles and I really want to make a case for our new iPad (I love knitting my patterns off of this and reading my blogs and I need something pretty to put it in). I have everything to make these things I just need to get sewing. I'm just so consumed with knitting this sweater. I actually have to force myself to put it down and work on the Baby Doll.

I've also done a bit of gardening this week. I'm actually very sunburned from a long day in to sun today taking care of our front yard. Hubby injured his toe yesterday after cleaning our A/C unit and was not able to stay on his feet much today. The front yard was getting pretty shabby so I decided to do him a solid and do his chores today. I mowed, and then since I have arthritis I couldn't use the gas weed eater so I went and bought an electric weed eater (for super cheep) and edged and weed eated the yard. I know I'm going to be the one edging most of the time anyway so it was time to invest in one of these. While at Lowe's I also had to look though their bargain bins and got 2 rose bushes and 2 cute little pink flowers.  I got everything in the ground except for one of the bushes.

My veggie garden is coming right along. I think I will be harvesting my first cucumber of the season in a couple of days and my tomato plants are producing some nice tomatoes. The beans are blooming and the sweet potato vines are spreading. Even the winter squash is getting female flowers on it in several different places.
Again I have over planted my square foot garden but i still want to grow more. I just can't wait for the corn to mature and to eat fresh corn grown in my back yard. I just love the fact that I am growing my own food. I wish I could have sheep and alpaca so I could grow some of my own fiber as well.

Here are some pictures from my yard both back and front.

I also wanted to share some pictures from my weekend with my men.

And last but not least
Drum role please



We have a winner for the sock yarn! It is CHRJ! Which said :

CHRJ said...

....and I'm also following....thanks (and your bear is lovely; reminds me of a teddy bear I had as a child)...

June 14, 2010 4:56 PM 

Please send me an e-mail at olofdrofn (at) gmail (dot) com with your address so that I can send you your yarn. Also thank you random.org for helping us pick our winner.

    Thank you everyone that took part in this giveaway. I will be hosting more soon. Either my own hand dyed stuff or other yarn. I also plan on starting to  make my own patterns after I finish knitting through the itty bittys so I might be giving away some of my own patterns.  I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend with their husbands, fathers and family.