It’s a little late for halloween pictures, but I had to take these after halloween.  The costumes were made in the eleventh hour and there was just no time for pictures, plus it was weirdly hot here so wearing wool wasn’t really that fun.  I used the Purl Bee pattern for the bunny hat and just changed the ears to make a cat and dog.  The kitty tail I just made up as I went along and as I went along I noticed I didn’t have any velcro, so I had to steal some off a bag. I used wool felt for the doggie and mostly fleece for the kitty and though the wool is wonderful and natural the fleece actually worked better.  It was a little harder to sew, but stands up better to kid life.  These hats are great for dress up, but I think next time I would use some elastic instead of the ribbon ties, or nothing (because really they’ll stay on just fine). Otherwise you’ll be tying and untying and freaking out that someone is going to strangle themselves.  This was actually the first time I made my kid’s costumes–I do think halloween should be a homemade holiday, but it can be a royal pain in the butt when your children want to be something different every other day.  Somehow my 3 year old decided what everyone should be and stuck with it for a week (I was to be a fairy and I did make the wings, but wire hangers are a lot harder to bend then you would think and I looked like a smashed fairy).  So even though they hardly wore the costumes on halloween, they are getting plenty of use these days.

Tell the great thrift store gods what you need and you will receive (sometimes). I said I needed more color in my life and shazzam! A bunch of bright, awesome prints in the bargain fabric bin at my local thrift store. A buck a piece, not bad seeing as the management likes to jack the price up whenever her little heart desires. Sometimes they’re $4 a piece, sometimes they’re tagged with outrageous prices, and it’s always the same shit. But I’m very happy with what I gots, now I just have to figure out what I’m going to do with it.

So we went to Morocco. It was our honeymoon–five years late, but our honeymoon nonetheless and now that we have two little kids I think the time to ourselves was much more appreciated. And thanks to my wonderful in-laws we were able to get away for a whole week.  We spent a few days in Marrakesh in a very simple riad, which was nice because Marrakesh is a crazy, frantic place.

We were dodging mopeds and surviving the hard sell, but also eating some damn fine food and drinking mint tea all over the place.

We took a bus to the coast to a town called Essaouria, where we had the best meal of all. Right on the ocean in a little shack, we pointed to fish we wanted and they slapped it on the grill.  I really have no business eating seafood in a land locked state, I now realize. I ate piles of shrimp and sardines and washed them all down with a fanta (why can’t I get an orange fanta in the US? what the hell? and why is it so good?).

We had an amazing time and there is too much to show here (but there are a few more pictures on flickr).  It made me realize I need a lot more color in my life and I need to get to the ocean more often.

One more picture, because who else is going to get excited about huge piles of yarn straight out of the dye vat?

I’ve been gone for a little longer than I expected. Right after I wrote that last post, my computer died (maybe my computer reads my blog). So I learned to live without internet for a while, which was probably a good thing. My handy dandy husband wrassled up a computer for me to work on and I’m figuring out all new ways to do all the old things.  While I was away from the internets, we took a fantastic trip to a foreign land.  I’ll be back tomorrow to tell a bit about it, but now I’m going to bed because right when we got back I got the flu. ugh.

I’m going to step back from this blog for a bit. I think some time away from the computer is what I need right now. Visit all the super crafty folks on my links page while I’m gone.

Be back in a couple weeks…