Feeling Rather Self-Congratulatory

I did it. I sewed something. A Woodland Elf Hat for Eleanor! I have been reading the lovely blog Angry Chicken, which lead me to the blogger Amy Karol's wonderful new book Bend-the-Rules Sewing, which in turn lead me into a crafting frenzy. I can't tell you how excited I get when I look at the cool things that she and all of these other (primarily) crafty women are making. It seems that many of them are also mommas, approximately my age, with kids close in age to Eleanor and Henry -- it feels almost like an electronic connection to some long lost friends.



Anyway, back to the hat that I am ever so proud of. I had a bad time last week when I found that some sort of little worms were eating my sweaters. They even got to the cashmere sweater that Vince gave me for my birthday last year and it made me cry. So when I found that the pattern for the Woodland Elf Hat can be made with a sweater, I decided to turn my sorrow into joy. I got out the old sewing machine -- a hand-me-down from a childhood neighbor named Eleanor as well -- which wasn't working, and with sheer will and determination I read the manual, cleaned the lint, oiled the gears, and got it going.



Now our Eleanor's ears will be toasty with this soft and sweet little hat. I decided that I like sewing with a machine too, it is relatively fast (even for a beginner like me) and it can be quite precise. In fact, I like it so much that Eleanor, Henry and I went out in the pouring rain yesterday to get a few supplies for other projects at the fabric shop. It is probably a good thing I had the two of them demanding most of my attention, otherwise I might have spent a LOT of money!



By the way, I don't have any clue how photographers get child models to do what they want. Trying to get a shot of this darn hat was like trying to brush Eleanor's teeth -- nearly impossible!