And now for a little look back at our trip, from a crafty perspective….

Four kids down the line, a car seat cover can get downright mangy; shabby and dingy in a way that, yet another, washing just won’t help.  Such was the case with Little Rosebud’s seat.  I shopped around for a new cover for a bit, but they were all:

a) ridiculously expensive

b) made of toxic materials

and

c) downright ugly

As such, I decided to make my own.

It felt like I was finishing up this project on our way out the door, but really it was completed a day or two before we left.  It was, however, started a long time before that.  In an act of brilliance stupidity, I decided to cut up the old cover, to use as a pattern.  That way, reasoned I, it would be sure to be a perfect fit (to my credit it is!).  And then something came up while I was in the middle of it, I can’t even remember what because it’s been that long. And even if I could remember, I would be far too embarrassed to admit just how long my beloved daughter road around town with her car seat covered in a bath towel.  I know part of it was that I was having trouble with my machine, yes, my old machine, because it’s been that long.   It actually became an on-going joke, with my friends all stopping to check my work table every time they came over, to see if it was still there, as all the while it sank deeper and deeper under the pile of other projects.  It’s absurdly pathetic, I agree.  I’m terribly flighty when it comes to crafting, it’s a wonder I ever manage to finish anything!

Getting back to the cover though, I love this canvas that I found at my favorite little fabric store.  It’s just so pretty!  All of the car seats in our car (and yes, all 4 kids are still in them) are black and blue, as this one was before, and I was just sick to death of it.  Something a little different and a little more feminine makes for a nice change of pace.

And one in action shot, featuring Little Miss Posie herself, right after she snatched my hat out of the center aisle (where we had all sorts of things stacked.  A week and a half long camping trip with 6 people = a. lot. of. stuff.)…

As I was packing all the last minute things, on the morning we were leaving, I could not for the life of me find any of the Wee Girl’s good sunhats.  I did pack one so-so one, that doesn’t keep the sun off of her as much as I would like.  Nothing to do but pack the supplies to make one, right?  Because, as already established, that’s just the way my brain works.  So into a sack goes my favorite bonnet pattern, needle book, thread, ribbon, pin cushion, trim and the leftover fabric from Màiri Rose’s Easter dress. This is why I’m the girl you want around in a crafting emergency, because even while, literally running out the door, I remember to grab the vintage ric rac…

A couple days of hand sewing on the beach and by the campfire and it was done.  I changed the pattern a bit and just sewed some ties on the sides, instead of running a ribbon across the top, to make it reversible.

This one saw a lot of action during that trip.  And a lot since.  Though it should probably be noted that I found the “missing” sunhat at the very bottom of the diaper bag, a day or two before we headed home.

It’s a good thing I can laugh at myself.  That way I don’t have to feel bad when everyone else does.

Yet another example of my firm belief that every problem has a craft related solution…

Somehow all of our camping cups seem to have been regulated to play kitchen and sandbox use, as they’ve grown too damaged for actual use.  Steve did a lot of looking around and couldn’t seem to find replacements anywhere.  This baffles me, as just a couple of years ago we had no problem tracking down some good old granny-ware locally.

My solution was mason jars, because I’m nearly as obsessive about them as I am about wool.  And then of course, I came up with the idea of covering them with wool.  Mason jars don’t break easily, even if there were to break, the “cozy” would more or less contain  the pieces.  The pints are just about the perfect size.  And the cover keeps your fingers from getting burned while at the same time keeping your drink tea warm, and you know how seriously I take my tea.

My original plan (oh, you’ll just love this) was to knit up one of these per family member, in the car on the way to the campground.  It’s true, I suffer from severe delusions of crafting grandeur.  I started off with a pattern I found on line.  The resulting cover took forever and turned out rotten.  I frogged it.  The yarn was too thin to work properly anyway, which had been my gut feeling all along.  We arrived and I moved on to other things.  The day before Father’s Day, I found Steve sipping his coffee from a jar wrapped in a cloth diaper and decided to re-visit it.  This time I made up my own pattern, in thicker yarn, and whipped the one above up in an afternoon of knitting 5 minutes here, 5 minutes there, whenever I had the chance.  It went very quickly and I feel a little more justified in thinking I could have made several in a car trip.  I could have churned out three of four of these, easy, in that amount of time.  Which was all I really expected to accomplish.  Maybe for next year.

The remainder of the trip was spent knitting from a delightfully big ball of purple wool, with thoughts of autumn.