Already Planning for October

If you are keeping up here and read last week’s Shop Info post, you know that I have enough custom orders to keep me working for the rest of the month! However, I still have tons of ideas for regular shop items for all of you to enjoy without having to make a special request. Next month I am hoping to have enough downtime to get to such ready made items for my shop including:

Wall-E Set: Eve cocoon & Wall-E plush
also listed separately: 
Eve cocoon
Wall-E plush

Minion Set: Minion hat, Gru logo overalls, banana plush/rattle
(you pick: 1 or 2 eyes)
also listed separately:
Minion outfit (hat & overalls)
Minion hat

Yoda Set: Yoda ears hat, Jedi robe/kimono top, light saber plush/rattle
also listed separately:
Yoda ears hat
Jedi robe/kimono top
light saber plush/rattle








Customizeable Roller Skates: Black or white skate boot with choice of wheel/lace/stopper color
(made to order, 5 day wait time)

Customizeable Chucks: Standard white sole and black stripe with your choice of shoe color
(made to order, 3 day wait time)

Customizeable Mary Janes: Standard white sock with your choice of shoe color
(made to order, 3 day wait time)

I'm hoping to get the first three sets finished early in October (or even late September if I have time!) as I think they would be great for Halloween. If you are interested in any of these, please contact me and instead of a ready-made item for the shop, I will do a custom order for you!

Lemon Raspberry Pie

Back in May, my sister's friend made a wonderful Lemon Raspberry Pie for her birthday. After weeks, maybe even months, of not hanging out some of my girlfriends and I decided to get together for dinner last Wednesday. I thought it would be a fun treat to bring dessert, so I decided to try and duplicate that pie.
I used a short bread crust recipe that I found on All Recipes. There was a little bit left over, so I got about 9 cookies out of it as well. This shortbread is delicious! I highly recommend it.

my first (somewhat blind) attempt

after I broke down and went to the store for more raspberries and a lemon

For the rest of the pie, I followed a recipe I found at Very Best Baking. I'm not quite sure this is the recipe my sister's friend used, but it sounded very similar. It also tastes very similar. In hindsight I probably could have asked her, but after some googling I found a bunch of almost identical recipes and I know she found it online so...that was that! The only thing I did different was use raspberry preserves that had seeds and left out the lemon zest (because I bought the supplies before looking up recipes...I know, bad form >.<).

A had a few hiccups...not quite enough Cool Whip as I was using leftovers from a 16oz tub I bought earlier this summer, and the raspberries I bought on Sunday had already started to go bad by Tuesday! This was the most disappointing. I only had about half my container, so I broke them apart to better cover the bottom of the crust, and I set aside 6 small ones for decorating the top. The Cool Whip situation was easily overcome by making a thin topping and not quite going to the edges which gave a nice yellow perimeter from the lemon cream.

I wanted to do the scalloped crust, but my pie plate has no lip so there wasn't even a way for me to attempt and fail (although Susann says it is super easy as you basically pinch and pull the peak while pushing in the V).

The results were just as delicious as I remember, if not quite as fancy looking n_n

Susann's Pie

Free Dinosaur Plush Pattern

Welcome back to Free Pattern Friday. This week's installment is for a knit dinosaur plush pattern that I found online. I have not made him (yet!), but I did read over the pattern and it seems pretty simple and straight forward. There is some shaping and he is knit in the round, but an advanced beginner should not have much trouble.

photo (c) Ruth Jenkinson

I'll report back when I have time to make him for myself too! (Although, if I change my idea for little E's birthday gift...maybe he will get made in a week or two n_n We shall see...)

More Custom Orders

Wow! I was expecting September to be a slow month, but the requests just keep coming in! This is great news for the shop, although it is pushing back my planned ready-made and customizeable items. Don't worry though--those ideas are still there and just keep growing over time!

So last week when I was delivering the First Grandson set, another coworker saw the cap and asked if I could make one for her son now that fall is coming up. She was thinking navy, but left the color choices up to me. I went navy with a gold border. I delivered it yesterday and she was thrilled! As an added bonus, she had just picked up a fall shirt in the same colors so now her little boy has a fall outfit n_n

The customer that ordered the penguin plush for her niece, just put in another request for a turtle plush for her daughter. At first she asked for the turtle to be green, but then she mentioned her daughter's favorite color is purple. I decided to go with a sea foam green body and a purple granny square shell.

Another request that came in last week was for a pair of skates and a beanie with a paw print, in blue and green. We decided on royal blue skates with neon green wheels and laces, and a royal blue beanie with neon green paw print. So far these are still in the designing phase, but I've got the hat chart figured out at least.

The train set is still in the works, but has gotten pushed back. Luckily this is an order for a friend and she has no real due date. It is just a gift she wants to give, and unless she wants to wait until Christmas there really isn't an event as the baby was born in spring (the request came though during summer). Everything is designed, I just want to get the baby's current age so I know what size to make the conductor's hat.

I am also working on a personal project for a friend. Her son turns 2 this month and his party is Curious George themed. I definitely want to do a George plush, but am playing around with ideas to go with it. Currently I'm debating between a yellow hat or a cardigan.

I also think I've finalized the 3 Strikes for Sean donations. I decided to make two pairs for boys and two pairs for girls. For the boys I am sending in soccer cleats (in white and red), and Chicago Bears logo cuffed booties. For the girls I am sending in purple mary janes and pink flower sandals.

And that should take us through the end of September! Whew...

Happy Labor Day!

I hope you all have been enjoying your long weekend (at least those of you also residing in the U.S.). My boyfriend came home from university to visit so we spent every day seeing a different group of friends. It was a ton of fun.

I went out and saw World's End on Friday. That was a really funny movie, as to be expected of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. It was a little sadder/darker at some instances than I would have expected, and there were definitely some twists I didn't see coming, but it was still a lot of fun. There were also a ton of British actors that I recognized in this movie.

Saturday and Sunday were game nights with different groups. Cards Against Humanity was Saturday, and Settler's of Catan and Munchkin (plus Fu and Impossible in one game!). Both were good fun. Even though we finally figured out In the Year of the Dragon back in July, we have yet to play it again with other people. Maybe next game night...

Today the boyfriend went back to Macomb, so I spent the evening with a buddy of mine. I introduced him to the British TV show Spy and he is now hooked! It is a very funny show and streaming for free on Hulu. We also spent the evening knitting. I finished up a hat for an order and started playing around with color schemes for a plush turtle that is due by the 27th. More on those Wednesday n_n

Well that is all for today, see you Wednesday with a progress report on my shop and orders!