Its that time of year again...

How I love the Fall.  Things get so busy!  Between orders coming in like wildfire, patterns selling like hot cakes, family visits and parties to go to there is just not enough time in the day!

I love the colder weather, even though I am a cold person by nature, I HATE being hot!  Summer in Virginia tends to be long and relentless so every Fall it is the sweet relief I need to recharge my batteries.  We had a ton of rain this year during the Spring and Summer so there really aren't the traditional fall colors springing up everywhere like usual.  It was just too wet.  Everything is going from green to brown fast!  But despite the lack of colorful awesomeness that is usual I have been enjoying the cooler weather.  And with that cooler weather comes the yarn crafting bug.  I have been crocheting and knitting up a storm!  Working on a baby blanket for my new little one due in February, I've made several hats for her and hope to make a few more too :).

One thing that has been a big part of my Fall has been Pinterest.  I'm slightly addicted obsessed with Pinterest.  There are so many good ideas out there, from decorations to crochet and knitting patterns to recipes.  There is never a lack for new things coming up and I often find myself eating lunch or breakfast and browsing Pins. If you'd like to follow my boards click the button on the side bar.  If you don't/haven't visited Pinterest, I highly suggest it.  Much fun and inspiration can be found there.

I hope you all are doing well and hope you are finding all the inspiration you need for your crafts in one place or another. Until next time...

Sara

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

If you are hungry, do not read this post until you have eaten :)

Today is my husbands birthday.  Every year I make him a spice cake of some form or variety, as per his wishes. This year though I did not ask him what he wanted.  I just made him something I knew he would love, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip bread.

Now I must preface this with I did ask him if he wanted bread or muffins to which he responded, bread!  I found the recipe here and being the chocolate and pumpkin freak he is I immediately knew he would love it.  Super simple to make; just measure, mix, and bake.  The end result was delish! I probably would have preferred it with fewer chocolate chips and more pumpkin and spices but overall he is thrilled so I am too!

If you are looking for a nice fall treat give this a try; you won't be disappointed. :)

Business as usual...

Hello everyone!  Hope this little message finds you happy, healthy, and in good spirits!

I have had a few orders recently and been working to get them done, but in that time I have also been knitting!  I am suddenly quite taken with it.  I guess it is because back in the spring I taught myself how to knit Continental style and since then things have just seemed to click!  Knitting is so much easier and faster when you have good tension and less movement!  I started knitting my soon to be baby daughter a checkerboard blanket in pink and purple, and also made my first hat.  Its a little big for a newborn but will probably fit her perfectly next fall :).  I started another hat and this one seems like it will fit a newborns noggin much better.  Once I have the blanket and second hat finished I will post pictures of them.

I found an awesome recipe today.  Fall is sorta synonymous with apples and pumpkins in this house and the author of "Smashed Peas and Carrots" Blog was kind enough to share a recipe for apple strudel today!  I love apple anything and this looks so yummy!  Take a look here.

If you have any super yummy pumpkin or apple recipes, please share in the comments below.  I am always looking for a good treat for fall!

Sara

Baby Booties

Hello everyone!  Hope you are well this Monday!  It was a crazy weekend in the LBD house and even though I hate Mondays, I am glad to be getting back to some semblance of normalcy.

My son has been a huge crank-butt; we think he is teething, and so he has pretty much gone from perfectly happy to full on crying and whining in 0.2 seconds!  Thank God for children's Tylenol!  I dislike grumpy kids and my kid being grumpy is the worst!

On the crafting front, I have slowly been making progress on a new item.  I was able to make a new set of baby booties this weekend and I think they are so cute!  Tiny shoes are always darling, and crochet ones just take the cake!  These are made from a pattern I received for free from The Lovely Crow.  Super cute and modifiable for boys and girls! Available sizes are Newborn, 0-3 months, 3-6 months and 6-12 months.  I have the blue and brown set I made, Size 0-3 months, available for sale on my Facebook Page.  All you would need to do is let me know what type of buttons you'd like and I can sew them on then ship them out!  They are available for $20.00.  If you'd like to custom order a pair for your little one or one you know, just send me an email at sara.littlebirddesignsfxbg at gmail dot com.  I would be more than happy to make a pair for you.

If you want to custom order something else, be it hat, slippers or cowls, just let me know!  Hope you have a wonderful week!

Until next time...
~Sara

I'm back!

Hey gang!  I know its been a while; who am I kidding, its been a long time! But I am finally back!  I've been very busy around here with my son and being sick and tired pregnant with #2.  Things are finally looking up and I should be able to start blogging again.  :)

I have been busy in the crafting arena too.  I've been designing a few new hats, modifying some patterns and listing some things for sale on both Etsy and Facebook.  Definitely check it out!

We found out today our little #2 is.... a GIRL!  Exciting and crazy!  Now the hard part, finding the perfect name!  I'll keep you all posted as time goes on and as we near D Day for this little one.  I hope to make her some cute things; she is going to be a February baby so at least she will have appropriate weather for all the crochet and knit things I'd like to make. :)

Sorry its been so long and I will try to do better about communicating with all of you in the future.  I would like to post some different things this quarter; cool recipes, sweet finds, cute pics, and new item photos.  For now, I will leave you with these:

ankles crossed like a proper lady :)

She had her hands together like she was praying, so cute!

New Products being rolled out

I have started a new project.  Well, several new projects.  I currently have a "Tea for Two" set I am working on and have the teapot complete and working on the cups.  I've also started making some cute felt foods.  I started relatively small, a cookie, then made a cinnamon roll.  Both were easy; I had patterns to follow.  My latest creation was all my own design.  A yummy slice of watermelon.  Just perfect, nice pink inside, beautiful green outside :) See my pics below.

 Do you have any favorite foods you'd like to see made up?  Just comment below :)

Wordless Wednesday

There is just something about the way he sits on his feet that gets me every time :)

He really is only 21 months old; not that you would know it to look at him ><

Update

Phew!  What a long haul that was!  I finally finished knitting 2 sets of leg warmers and crocheting 2 hats for my cousins.  Took me a long time but I think they turned out nice.  I made the leg warmers to look sorta 80's-ish with bands of purl stitches in the stockinette stitch.  Crocheted hearts added on last to make the look complete :)

Now I am taking a mini break for the holiday and will start some new projects after Easter.  Maybe some new designs, maybe some new products. Maybe delve into machine sewing a bit.  Keep checking out our Facebook page to see any new items and patterns that might be listed.

Hope you all have a happy and safe Easter weekend!

Until next time...

Post It Thursday

Wordless Wednesday

My sweet baby playing with his Daddy.

Too cute!

I follow a few blogs and one of them posted about this super cute dress for little girls.  Makes me want to make one :)  Crochet and sewing, sounds fun!

http://www.prudentbaby.com/2010/07/quick-crochet-fabric-top.html

Manic Monday

Nothing too manic about today.  Just a normal Monday after a fantastic weekend.  Hope to get some great naps from my baby and get some work done.  I need to work on/hopefully finish leg warmers and get some flower clips made up.

Hope your Monday is not manic but very chill. :)

Until next time...

Big 100 Giveaway results

Thank you to all who participated in our Big 100 Giveaway!  The results are in and here is the screen print:

Laura Haasenritter

Congrats Laura!  I will be in contact with you about your item :)

Thanks again for playing guys and once we hit 250 fans I will do another giveaway, so spread the word about Little Bird Designs of Fredericksburg!

Post It Thursday

Sorry I missed Wordless Wednesday.  I guess I was working too hard and forgot to post it.  Here are your post its for today:

Too Cute Tuesday

Maybe I am just partial, but my son it too cute.  He never ceases to amaze me with the things he will do and "say".  I put "say" in quotation marks because, despite being sharper than I am, he refuses to speak.  But recently he has been saying little things like "oh yeah", and "I do!".  But the newest (and oldest) is E.T..  Thats right, E.T.; as in the alien everyone loved from the 80's.

My husband is a huge E.T. fan and has a two foot tall E.T. doll.  Once my son was mobile my husband gave it to him, since he seemed to love it so much.  He started making E.T. like word noises but I argued that he wasn't saying E.T.... but apparently I was wrong!  Tonight, after brushing teeth, we went to my son's room and there was my husband standing with the huge E.T. in his hands.  Jason ran in the room and yelled E.T!  Then he tackled the stuffed doll and kisses and hugged the poor creature :)  Too cute!

Even though Jason has never seen the film, he loves E.T!  Some things will always be in style; and in this house it seems one of those things will be a little alien named E.T!

Until next time...

Manic Monday

Crazy day today!  My son decided to take a 3 hours playtime break and was crazy awake... thought I was going to kill him-I was so tired!  Finally got him back to sleep and had to wake him up this morning :)  Had our shower fixed; yay! no more popping!  Work on some leg warmers and a little pattern testing for Mamachee*Crochet makes me happy.  Hoping to finish testing the pattern tomorrow so I can give my report to Tara :)

Hope everyone had a wonderful and stress free Monday, and here's to a great rest of the week :)

Until next time...

Big 100 Fan Giveaway!

OK gang.  Its time!  Time for the fabulous 100 FB fans giveaway!  All you need to do is like us on Facebook, follow this blog and leave me a comment on this post about why you like my products and you will be entered to win a custom made item.  Winner will be chosen using random.org and the numbers will be decided by order of blog post comments.

You must follow publicly and have your email address listed in your profile to be entered.  If you email address is not listed in your profile you can include it in your post comments like so: sara dot littlebirddesignsfxbg at gmail dot com.

Good Luck!

Facebook is in no way affiliated with this giveaway!

WIP Friday

Hello everyone!  Hope this Friday has been good to you so far!  I have deemed Fridays to be Work In Progress Fridays.  That means I will give you a glimpse into what is going on in my crazy crafting life :)

Today I am working on a set of leg warmers, still, and I also need to work on getting a pattern for a bunny/chick beanie for babies written up.  The first has been a WIP for a little bit, since it is the first large project I have been knitting.  I had a little learning to do in order to be comfortable with the pattern I was writing for them.  Now that I have taught myself to knit continental style things are flowing much better!  The pattern is being written up slowly but surely and should hit Etsy by Easter.  I will be looking for pattern testers in a few weeks so if you are interested in testing for me just leave me a comment below.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  See you on Monday :)

Until next time...

Post It Thursday

Wordless Wednesday

    My Boys sharing an Oreo :)

                                                            

Too Cute... Case

I have been searching for some new crochet hooks for a little while now and I thought I settled on a set on Etsy.  They are gorgeous, cute, and fun! I asked my husband to buy these for me for my birthday.  I was totally ready to plunk down the money to purchase those hooks and crochet to my happy hands content :)  Then I realized it was a ton of money for those hooks!  Plus, I am a SAHM and not really contributing to the family's income; at least not enough to warrant a large purchase on crochet hooks.

Now, for my birthday I did get some nice gift card and my sweet, sweet husband ordered the new iPad 2 for the family as all our birthday presents for this year.  As stoked as I am to get it, mid April, I still don't have any new crochet hooks.  So, I took one of my gift cards and purchased a new set of crochet hooks.  I am super psyched to get them in, but they are back ordered until mid April.  Mid April is going to be super awesome for new things!

Since I ordered new hooks my old case isn't going to work anymore.  My new hooks are the kind with a bamboo handle to make it easier on my hands when I work.  But they aren't going to fit into my little case.  Then I remembered I saw the cutest little case on a blog I follow.  They did a tutorial on how to sew a crochet hook case.  Super awesome and super cute!  I went to Jo Ann Fabrics and purchased my fabric.  I am so excited to start working on the new case!  Here is the fabric I chose...

I precut my pieces and all I have to do now is wait for my hooks to get here so I can measure out how big my spaces need to be for the hook pocket.  I will post on this again once I have the organizer/case completed :)

Until next time...

Under the weather

Happy Spring!  Hope everyone is having a wonderful spring day.  It was storming and thundering here this morning, and woke my son up at 7am!  While this is not a problem normally since I have to get up at 7:15 anyway, today it was NOT welcome.  I needed those extra 15 minutes!

I have had a sore throat since Friday and it has been getting progressively worse.  My husband worried about me so much he made a doctors appointment for me this morning; He was convinced I had strep throat.  A trip to the doctors office and a co-pay later, no strep.  I have terrible post nasal drip and, according to the doc, my throat looks like a cobblestone road!  So I have to gargle with salt water and take tylenol/motrin until I feel better.

My son came with me to the appointment and once we got into the room proceeded to freak out!  He thought we were there for him.  He has such a good memory; he thought he was going to get a shot!  Lucky for him, it was all about me today :$  Thankfully my check up went well, I have lost about 5 pounds and my blood pressure is spot on, YAY!

Here is hoping you all stay above the weather this spring.  May all the yuckies pass your home by.

Until next time :)

An uphill battle...

I find my new self-imposed job is hard on me at times.  My hands are sore, my fingers ache, and I have been letting other things that I need to do slide so I can complete orders.  Something has to give, but what?!

My husband thinks I should concentrate on writing patterns and keep the custom order shop closed or leave it open on an extremely limited basis.  I am wondering what is going to be best for me and my little business; I have no idea what the answer is.  Ideally, LBDFxbg would be a pattern shop with some custom orders.  But in order to build the business, custom orders are a natural stepping stone to a budding pattern shop.

How do I balance the custom orders with writing and being a mom/wife/babysitter full time as well? Any suggestions?

A new product

I work several jobs; I am a full time mother, wife, and babysitter as well as a budding entrepreneur.  My sweet baby is a boy, so I cannot put cutesy, girlie stuff on him to model.  But the baby I watch, Harper, is a girl! And this affords the the options of having a real life girlie girl model.  Today I designed a new product, a cute little headband with flower.  I made is during the kids naptime today and when Harper woke up... it was photo shoot time!  :)

Here are a few pics of the new product; as modeled by Harper :)

Working and working...

I really am working, I promise :)  I have recently redesigned my blog space; hope you like it.  I am working on finishing my custom orders for the month and then I will be off to pattern writing land!  Pattern writing, pattern writing and more pattern writing hopefully.  I have many things I'd like to see work themselves onto paper; hopefully it will all come to fruition.

I know I have been slacking on the blog front this month and I will try to do better in March.  I plan to do at least 2 posts a week, but no promises though.  I have been trying to train my son to sleep/nap in a toddler bed and the first part is going smoothly, the napping part... not so much :(  He just doesn't want to stay in bed, darn little booger :)  So with him being awake ALL DAY LONG, it has made non-baby watching work very difficult to accomplish.  But I am still here and still making headway, although that headway is not as smooth or swift as I'd like.  Pray for me my friends, trying times are ahead I suspect. :)

Until next time...

I love....

I love many things; Crocheting, knitting, baking, playing video games, all of them are very enjoyable!  So many things demand the time of a mother/entrepreneur and finding time to do the things that need doing and balancing that with time for myself can be very daunting!  I am trying to find a rhythm and I think I have found my solution... maybe. :)

I have "decided" to "work" four days a week, Monday-Thursday, and take the weekend off.  I need some me time; time to spend with my husband and son and also time to work on new and exciting things!  I also decided I will take two months a year and close my shop just to work on new things.  My pattern is starting to sell (thank the Lord!) and I feel that is going to be the way to get my little business really thriving.  So I need to start writing and creating little things, but with all the orders that have been coming in (thank you each and every customer!) I haven't had time to do any experimenting or create anything new :(  So with my new schedule I hope to remedy that.

Effective March 1st, LBDFxbg will not take any custom orders until April 1st.  This will allow me to create new things for everyone and I can broaden my catalog for all! Yay! If you'd like any items that need to be done for March, please submit them no later than February 19th so I can have them done for you asap.  Thanks for bearing with me as I get all the kinks wrinkled out of this crazy construction faze of LBD :)

Happy Valentines Day and hope you all have a wonderful day with your loved ones!

Until next time!

First pattern listed on Etsy!

Well, today is a momentous day for LBDFxbg.  Over the past week I have been writing and typing up a pattern for the sock monkey hat I recently created for my husband's aunt.  She wanted to use it for skiing, so a slightly fuzzy, bulky yarn was called for.  I loved working with the yarn I chose, which was Lion Brand Yarn Jiffy.  So comfy and nice! Here is the link to my shop on Etsy where the pattern is for sale!

In the process of writing the pattern I realized how much actually goes into writing something as "simple" as a crochet pattern.  Not only was it time consuming, but stressful!  You have to get the wording right, get the correct angles for pictures and "package" it in a way that is not only pleasing but fluid too!  I asked a very nice lady to read over my pattern and she did and gave just a few suggestions.  To add a hyperlink here, a more detailed description there and to rearrange some wording over there.  All in all, not too shabby for my "first" written pattern.  I put first in quotation marks because I have short handed other patterns for myself, but this one was for public scrutiny so it had to be perfect!  Thank you Tara at Mamachee*Crochet makes me happy! and EASY for your wonderful support and suggestions!

Now that I have written and posted the pattern for sale, I have an itch to write another one.  Not right now, but some time in the near future I suspect :)

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

New Amigurumi Finished!

Phew!  That was a long haul.  I was recently commissioned to make a 12" crochet doll for a friend I used to work with.  This is the finished product:  A little tan baby girl in a pink short sleeve dress.  She has on pink and white tights and little brown ballet slipper shoes.  On the bottom I felted "love you" in pink and red.  Little brown eyes and magenta lips.  Cute sweeping bangs and loose pig tails.  Super cute, thank you for the pattern Mamachee*Crochet makes me Happy!

New Bracelet being listed

Within the next few days there will be a new "Birds Nest" wire crochet bracelet being listed on my Etsy shop.  If you are interested, please check it out!

New Policy

In an ongoing effort to get my Etsy store up and running full time, all purchases and requests made via Facebook will now need to go through Etsy.  Its really simple, just go to my Etsy store, click on the link to "Request a Custom Item", and fill out the form.  Then I will convo you with the price of the item and advise you an invoice via paypal will be coming.  Pretty easy.

Happy New Year!

Well guys, I'm a little late in saying this but HAPPY NEW YEAR!  I know this is going to be a great year!  It is starting off great and I hope the momentum continues!  I've been busy with commissions and personal projects and have been loving every minute of it!  I hope this New Year find you all happy, healthy and ready to enjoy another year here on this marvelous earth!