Stars, Candles & Phoebe

More Santa Lucia makings... this one is for my special Baby L. I finished up C's crown minus sewing on the elastic on one side.



The girls and I took a trip to our local Bee supply store the other day (Thank you Dionne and Yvonne for letting me in on one of Portland's best kept secrets!) to stock up on some advent necessities.
Can you guess what I'll be doing the next few days?



Although, I started one and it separated because it's too cold in our house (as you can see in the picture), so I have to wait until we get a good fire going and then try again.



Yarning along and knitting along - on to actual knitting. Forgive the photo, I was out all day getting groceries (seriously... three stores = all day grocery shopping) and unable to get a picture until the sun was setting on a cloudy, rainy Oregon day (hence, the sweater thrown on the table alongside my groceries to put away). C's Phoebe sweater is coming along nicely. I finished up one front side and am now working on the other. I might be able to finish it in the next week or so, that is if I can stop myself from sewing. I did have a minor setback over the weekend, though. I have been copying the pattern out of the book onto post it notes, (so that the girls don't see me knitting with the book and figure out what I am making) and I somehow managed to copy part of it down wrong (probably in a sleepy state). I ended up having to rip out quite a few inches of knitting due to that mistake, but now I am back on track. I am on skein number four now and I have to admit I am a bit anxious about my yarn calculations. I was hoping to have enough for the sweater and to make one for C's doll. Not sure if that will happen or not.

Speaking of sewing I have a question for you: Now that K's first winter dress is done I am moving on to the girls' Santa Lucia dresses. More details on that later, anyways, since I want them to be fast and easy dresses I am using this simple pattern. I am hoping to alter it by making the length longer, the neck higher and the sleeves long. How do you go about making a short sleeved pattern into a long sleeved one? To alter the neck area I am thinking I should just add an inch or two to the pattern piece??? Does that seem right? This all seems so silly to me. I remember back when I made my own patterns and now look at me, I have forgotten everything. Oh well, it will all come back to me, eventually... right?

What are you working on? Happy creating!

P.S. I am hoping to talk to our school store owner this week about those pocket people kits from the Heart of Advent post but if you can find the supplies locally (or online) my friend Dionne just posted the tutorial for the ones she made (that were displayed at Heart of Advent). More details about the treasure candles coming, too!

Stars, Candles & Phoebe