Break Out the Needles!

After having abstained from knitting for the duration of my pregnancy(focusing on something that detailed triggered my nausea), I seem to be making up for lost time! I have completed three sweaters for Juniper in the past week!

First up is the Retro Baby Smock, which I knit out of two balls of Liberty Wool that I bought on our honeymoon last year. I love the colors and the stripes, it's perfect for Fall. 

 She's swimming in it, because it's the 6-month size. I knit another one in the 3-month size with long sleeves that I'll post later this week. I can't believe she's three months old! Today! Where did all that time go?

 I finished the cardigan with buttons I brought back from China.

June seemed to quite like it, even though it's so big!

I've also finished a lovely owl-themed cardigan that I'm excited to share! So much cozy goodness flying off my needles lately!

You know what else is awesome? My FAVORITE knitting designer, Stephanie Dosen of Tiny Owl Knits, has a new pattern out called...Juniper Wishing Scarf! So timely and perfect. You should check out her new book, Woodland Knits. I have so many of her patterns, I wear my Parseltongue hat nearly every day. (No, I was not paid to shill her designs, they're just that awesome!)

Sneak Peeks

Not much excitement here at Ft. McAwesome lately, but I have been working on some secret projects...intrigued? Here's a preview:

 Fun things are coming, and a couple tutorials(some burlesque-related) that I'm excited about!

In other news, I got a set of macro filters for the camera, since I'm too cheap/broke to spring for an honest-to-goodness macro lens. Essentially, the filters just decrease your depth of field, so you can get right up on your subject and be in focus, more or less.

In this shot, I have no filters, and I'm using a basic 18-55mm lens, and this is as close as I can get to my hexipuff.

Now I add the x10 close-up filter. Not bad.

For this, I added a x4 filter on top of the x10.

And now a x2 filter on top of the first two filters.

Finally a x1 filter on top of the whole shebang.

Comparison:

When stacking all four filters, I can't get the entire subject in focus, but I kind of like the effect. I've been playing around with the filters a little since I got them, and I think they'll keep me amused until I can afford a real macro lens.

On the chicken front, Marie seems to be taking a break from laying. She hasn't laid in a few weeks, but she's not sick or egg bound, so I'm too worried. Rosie has been laying consistently, Ada has been laying two days out of three, and Ruth has been laying every other day or every third day. 

Yesterday, Ruth laid an egg that was twice the size of her usual, and so big, we could barely fit it in the egg carton.

 Mr. Bear hypothesized that it was a double-yolker, and he was right!

In baby news, I am now in my third trimester! Less than three months to go, which is terrifying. We're making slow progress on the nursery, but I figure we'll pick up the pace after the baby shower when we see what we have and what we still need to get.

Obligatory bump pic! Please excuse the poor quality of my phone's camera.

I feel so big!

Pinterest Challenge: Bottle Vases

So...there have been lots of tutorials on Pinterest on how to turn wine bottles into vases or tumblers. Some of our dear friends are getting married, and wanted to try it, so we volunteered our space. Turns out it works pretty well!

What you need:

Bottles

Kitchen twine

Acetone(nail polish remover)

Bucket of ice water

Lighter

What we did:

Cut a length of kitchen twine long enough to wrap around the bottle four or five times. Then soak it in acetone(nail polish remover). Wrap the twine around the bottle, tie it in place, and light. Make sure your fingers are a safe distance away from the flaming twine.

Rotate the bottle quickly and evenly, so the flames run around the length of twine. This may take a few minutes, and you should be able to turn the bottle a good half-dozen times before the flames die down. Once the flames go out, immediately immerse the bottle in the bucket of ice water, with the neck pointing down.

The bottle should separate into two pieces with a loud "crack!"

Our first couple of attempts yielded somewhat uneven and rough edges, but after a bit of practice, the bottles started separating cleanly.

Obviously the edges will need to be sanded and smoothed, but overall we were all very impressed by how well this method worked.

In between adventures with flaming bottles, a couple of my friends managed to catch Ruth and say "hello". Ruth wasn't terribly interested in making friends, though.

Mr. Bear was worried Ruth might scramble and claw at Jessie, as we have both been on the receiving end of Ruth's social anxiety.

Pinterest Challenge: DIY Circus Marquee Letters

For our wedding, Mr. Bear and I decided on a vintage circus/carnival feel. I set to gathering inspiration on Pinterest, and stumbled across this tutorial on Ruffled:

We used much of the same materials: 2 sheets of foam board, 2 sheets of poster board, metallic spray paint(ours was gold), red spray paint, hot glue, and string lights.

Here's how ours came out:

The font I chose was Big Top. The extra flourishes made it a bit more challenging to cut out, but since the letters have walls, you can't really tell where any of the rough spots are.

We used round string lights from Target($13 per string of 25), and spray painted the inside of the walls metallic gold to really reflect the warm light of the bulbs.And here's how it looked on the big day:

They are now gracing the walls of our home, which is becoming more and more circus/carnivale-y awesome by the moment! Hurrah!