The birth and delivery of a monkey hooded baby towel for Baby Ru

I found out my brother and his wife were expecting a baby recently and I wanted to get baby "Ru" (Short/nickname for Ruark...not the actual name that is picked out) a gift.  I often go to www.thinkgeek.com for gifts because they are right up my alley.  There, I found these:

The shark and monster blew me away with cuteness, but then I nearly died at the $39.99 price tag (plus shipping, I'm sure).  Very soon after this, I remembered that I have rudimentary sewing skills and this would basically be a towel to a hood and decorate.  I could totally do that!  Then came the text messages to my bro about what to possible make.  We decided monkey, elephant, or cow would all be pretty good and fun.  Then came my research.



This pattern sold me on the "baby as the face" concept.  And this particular baby is cute as a button, so I was pretty excited about monkey at this point.

AND THEN I stumbled upon this pattern and decided that I must include hands and feet of whatever animal I choose.  This also further solidified my "no double face" theory.

Mr. Elephant was really at the top of the list of all of the styles I found, but the only way to make it an elephant was to put a trunk on the top of the head.  And then you'd also have to put eyes on it.  So, I am keeping this one in mind, but it turned out to be too complicated for my first attempt.

I was crazy about this guy because he was so different.  But, when it came time to pick a color, I had no idea what color octopi/octopuses/octopodes are (purple works, but I don't know the gender of Baby Ru and thought purple might not go over so well for a boy).  Nor did I know how to make that head.  Maybe next time, though.

This was about the only cow pattern I could find and I'm not crazy about. it.  I did realize that I could do a lot with it and it still be recognizable as a cow, but I couldn't think of a good way to do the black and white pattern on the body and head.  Perhaps in the future, if I can find a "cow patterned" towel, this can become a reality.

I found this to be super cute, but there's no way to do an owl without the face on top.

This is a moose and I only added it to my thoughts because it would be distinct with the antlers.

After I was inspired, I had to find something to tell me how to make a hood and possibly more.  I found this Pinterest board to be useful and this website in particular.

And then, I skip the whole "process of" set of pictures and get to the finished set!


Here are my models Phaux and Lyka (people seem to think these are both shots of Phaux) showing that the ears ARE in an acceptable place!  At least for dogs...

 

Here we are all layed out so you can see everything, but you're missing the cuteness.

 

And there it is!  Maximum cuteness minus one.  Will achieve maximum cuteness with a Ru Baby in its belly.

And there she blows!  The birth and delivery of a Tabitha idea.

The Good Ol' Days

Do you guys remember when I used to post blogs on here?  Those were fun times, huh?  I'm working up to another post.  Just give me a little more time.

{Cooking} Nerd Alert

Excited about these bad boys coming to town soon. Thanks, Mom!!!! 

PS They won't match my kitchen and I don't care. Because. They're. BLUE. BLUE!!!

PPS  After writing this post, they arrived at my Mom's house!  One step closer to me!

PPPS  Apparently you can't put things surrounded by "<" and ">" because they get mistaken for HTML and Blogger just eats them.  Title fixed!

Our Office Space

The crown jewel to our winter break was finishing adding popcorn to the ceiling and then painting the room.  AND adding this spiffy new ceiling fan.  It's quiet.  And effective.  And pretty.  And I'm done rambling about a ceiling fan now.

When I went to bed last night (why yes, we did take this project up to the last minute...thank you for noticing!), this is how the office looked.

Very important side story:  Do you see that glass and metal desk behind Jon?  What about the drafting desk at Jon's feet?  It turns out that those are not very useful when you have no hardware to them.  Jon finished painting Sunday night and we were excited and ready to move furniture in.  We brought in the glass desk, unpacked it, and realized that the hardware had been packed elsewhere when we moved.  Over a year ago.  We had NO IDEA where it was.  We spent that whole night looking and did not succeed.  Jon found it in the early evening of Monday.  Then we got to continue on our project!  I was very, very excited.

Another picture!

Office stuff!  In the OFFICE!

Winter Break for me

I was away from work from December 20th through January 1st.  I thought today would be really hard, but it really hasn't been.  Highlights with pictures...because everybody loves a multi-picture post, right?  Amiright?

This may not have been during break, but it cracks me up.  Lyka stole "his" spot and he didn't know what to do with himself.

Pajama pants were made after my only 2 pairs of pajama pants died.  I salvaged the waistband, pocket, and cuffs off of both pairs, but a strange size difference kept me from adding the cuffs to this one.

I was able to put the cuffs on this pair.  Oddly enough, I wasn't feeling this pair as much and it took me longer to get motivated to finish them.  It was like they were not playing nice with me.

So, of course, they split the day after I make them.  They are currently in my "think" pile.  Angrily.

Completely unrelated, this is Lyka's "worried" face.  She is the most sensitive dog on the planet.  You can see how Phaux is affected by things.

"Worried about what?"

I don't mean to end this abruptly, but...well...that's it!  More pictures to come! Office project in separate post.