Plath’s Adventures

I’m not very organized. I have good intentions, and will spend entire afternoons organizing an area in my home, only to have it demolished a week later and in complete disarray.
See this pocket chart?

I bought it to keep our homeschool week supplies organized. Not very organized anymore. See the pocket chart on the other wall for our daily schedule? I had hoped to keep us on track using it, but it’s not very beneficial since Eleanore can’t read. It’s beautiful with the watercolor cards, but pictures would better serve our home.

See this shelf? It’s supposed to be a self-serve shelf for Eleanore for art supplies, puzzles and manipulatives. Now it’s just a catch-all.

I could seriously go through my home and show example after example. What’s my point here? My extreme disorganization is one of the reasons I LOVE pinterest and ravelry. They’re both places to keep my projects, ideas, inspiration and recipes organized without adding more clutter to my home. I used to have piles of paper patterns, homeschool art and lesson project ideas and recipes printed out cluttering up my kitchen and bookcase, but now I don’t need to. If I didn’t have ravelry, I know I wouldn’t have been organized enough to complete my 52 projects in 52 weeks. Yes, you read that correctly. I successfully completed 52 knitting projects in 2011!
A few of my last projects of the year:

a simple wooden ring toy for Adelaide for Christmas

a fae folk hat for Eleanore that she won’t wear

a celtic neckwarmer for me out of madtosh yarn
Still need to grab a picture of this… (see above for comment on organization lol)

and a scrappy soaker for Adelaide

I will not be attempting 52 projects in 2012. I have knit almost nothing so far in 2012, except for half the waistband of a pair of longies for Adelaide. I just do not have knitting mojo right now. We did get out the sewing machine today though and whipped up a few things. I needed to patch the patch on a pair of my favorite jeans. I’m just not ready to throw them out yet, and the vintage sheets I’ve been thrifting make the perfect patching fabric.

I also used a vintage sheet to sew up a quick camera strap cover. Super simple and I love that I can change the look whenever I want to.

I have plenty left of this sheet to hopefully sew up a summer dress for Adelaide.

Eleanore even got to help with her first sewing project! We used yet another vintage sheet scrap to sew a quick drawstring bag. She loved sitting on my lap, feeding the fabric through and doing the back stitch button.

She immediately declared it her lego horses’ new home.

We had our first Halloween event this morning, so I figured it was time to unveil the costumes. We headed out to a Halloween party at a local working farm where we got to ride the hayride, play a few games and join in on a parade with the goats and a runaway pig. It was great fun!

Eleanore is a bat this year. Here’s a better picture of her wings:

I used this easy tutorial I found on pinterest, and Adelaide is a spider. I just winged her costume, adding stuffed felt legs to a pair of sweatpants and long sleeve tee. I then knit them both black hats. Really easy, but I’m pleased with how they came out.

Adelaide is growing up so much lately. She’s climbing onto things now when she spots something she wants.

She’s really taking to food these days, eating two, if not three, meals a day with us. She just had her first pasta the other day and enjoyed it. Her favorite food is definitely applesauce though, after mama’s milk of course.

Eleanore has done lots of pumpkin crafting and learning this week (our homeschool theme of the week): watercolor painting, a tissue paper pumpkin collage, a painted paperplate pumpkin, we even made and have played with orange playdough this week, as well as learned about the pumpkin life cycle with various books and these montessori cards. I worked on a little needle felting, whipping up this pumpkin the other day while Eleanore played with a jack o lantern felt activity I cut out for her.

However, the real highlight of the week was the crafting done by Jason. We went lamp shopping last weekend, as the dim lighting in the living room was getting to us every evening. Well, we saw a floor lamp we both liked, but Jason said he could make it. He definitely succeeded, and built and finished it that same day.

I like it so much more than the one in the store! We still need to get a new lampshade and a larger harp for it, as we just used what we had at home, but our living room is already so much brighter. I need to get a better picture of the top, as the harp is screwed into a branch that came from a tree in our yard. I love it!