Yarn Pirate Shop →

I thought it might be fun to buy H some felt play food for Christmas, so I went on Etsy and searched “play food”. There were some cute things to buy, but then I found Buggabugs patterns and fell in love.

The first thing I did was email a link to my mom. She wanted to make some toys for H and I thought these were perfect. She bought a lot of patterns. I wasn’t planning on making anything, but then I read about a bunch of Melissa & Doug toys being recalled due to toxic paint. Well, crap. We had some of the recalled toys, which were promptly thrown away. We also had some of their play food. Since the paint was chipping off of all of it I threw those out as well. So we were in need of some new play food.

I bought 4 Buggabugs patterns- Fruits, Vegetables, Pancake Breakfast and Homemade Bread. She emailed the patterns to me right away. They’re PDF downloads, and all of the pattern pieces fit on a sheet of regular paper, so no need to tape a bunch of peices together to make the pattern.

The patterns are pretty easy to sew, depending on your sewing skills. If you’ve never sewn anything in your life they might be a little frustrating. And it definitely helps to have a sewing machine. But the directions are so well written even a beginner sewer can follow them. Oh, and I bought all of the supplies I needed for all 4 patterns for $30. And there’s a lot of stuff in each set. I didn’t even make all of the pieces.

Some of the pieces go together quickly. Most of the things I made from the Pancake Breakfast set were really simple (I skipped some of the more complicated ones because I didn’t think H would play with them). It took me an hour or two to finish the panckaes, bacon and eggs.

Some were more time consuming. This pineapple took 3 hours. The grapes took about 3 hours too. It was fun though. I promise there was minimal swearing involved. Oh, and in case you’re wondering how I managed to sew all of this stuff with a very active toddler- I did all of the sewing while he was asleep or playing with grandma.

Here’s the stuff my mom made. The Grocery set. We have lots of fun playing store with this one!

This one is tons of fun too! Three Little Pigs. H loves the story and will happily play with this set for a long time. He loves to huff and puff and blow the houses down.

There are lots more that she still needs to sew and I keep finding new patterns that I want to try, like the Waffle set.

I love that these toys encourage creative play too. We are getting ready to plant our garden and have been looking through seed catalogs and talking about what we want to plant this year. The other night H got out his felt food and planted a little garden of his own on the rug. Corn, potatoes, a pineapple and pancakes.

It really made me smile to see him playing garden on his own. I can’t even tell you how happy it makes me that our little boy knows that food comes from the earth. He still talks about picking tomatoes with me last summer. I’m kind of going off on a tangent here, but I’m glad that we’re raising our children to value knowing where their food comes from.

We spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s day turning our home office into a playroom.

I should have taken a “before” picture because it was piled high with computer stuff and boxes. But here’s a picture of what it looked like when i was getting ready to have a baby almost 2 years ago. It’s quite the multipurpose room! (I hated the wall color so much!).

The first step was to paint the walls. I sent the guys to Home Depot for some low VOC paint and they came back with this nice yellow color. After the paint was dry we started moving toys in.

The toy storage stuff came from Ikea. They’ve been great, although H is very hard on the drawers and we’ve had to replace two of them already (we bought them in June).

It feels so good to have most of the toys out of the living room. It almost looks like adults live in our house now instead of a bunch of kids and dogs. H adores his playroom. The first thing he says when he wakes up in the morning is “Mommy! Go downstairs and PLAY PLAYROOM!”. When people come over to visit he drags them in and insists they play legos or trains. I’m hoping to get some naps in on the futon with the new baby while H plays. We’ll see how that goes…

Ok. I know a lot of you are waiting for the post about the felt play food. I’m working on a post for this weekend. I have to take pictures of a few more things. It’s so hard to take pictures of stuff with an almost 2 yr old offering his assistance.

We had a very nice Christmas full of family, yummy food and handmade gifts. Well, some handmade gifts anyway. I don’t think there is a grandparent alive who can resist buying noisy, battery operated toys for their grandchildren.

I didn’t do a lot of knitting because my crafty energy was focused on sewing. But here’s a little knitting:

I actually knit something for my husband! This is the second thing I’ve knit for him. I made him a pair of socks a few years ago that he hardly ever wears because they make his feet too hot. I don’t mind, because we have so much in common that we even have the same shoe size. I made H a pair of these slippers this winter and thought hubby could use a pair too.

Slippers

Pattern: Felted Slippers
Yarn: Various scraps for H’s slippers, and Cascade 220 for T’s, double stranded to make nice, thick slippers.
Needles: 10 1/2 US
Details: These were really quick and easy. Each slipper took only a few hours. I sewed a leather sole onto the bottom of H’s slippers. Hubby is on his own though. He’ll just have to be careful. Both T and H love their slippers.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned H’s skeleton obsession here, but he is obsessed with skeletons and anatomy the way other 2 year olds are obsessed with dinosaurs. I think it’s pretty cool. I made him the skeleton doll a few months ago (details on what I did here) and decided that he could use a nice skeleton quilt to match.

I used mostly stashed fabric, cut into 5 1/2 inch squares, and the Trip Around the World pattern. It was a great stash busting project! I used about 6 yards of fabric with the backing and everything. It made a nice dent in my huge pile o’ fabric. H loves his skeleton quilt too. It must be present for naps and bedtime, and I have a feeling he dreams about dancing skeletons as he snoozes under his quilt.

I also sewed a TON of felt play food, but that’s going to have to be another post. It was so much fun to make and H loves it. I just love toys that encourage creative play.

I also received some lovely handmade gifts this year. My grandma made us this wonderfully cuddly flannel quilt. I’ve already taken a few naps under it. It’s going to be great for when I’m camped out on the couch nursing a newborn all day long too!

This might be one of my favorite gifts ever. My MIL made me a whole bunch of dishcloths! I love using handknit dishcloths and some of mine are getting pretty threadbare. I mentioned to my MIL that I could use some new ones, thinking maybe she’d knit one or two. I never expected her to crank out so many, and such adorable ones at that!

I’d say it was a pretty good year for handmade gifts. They’re always my favorite, both to give and receive.