Carrot-A-Rangs

Betcha didn't know that Batman has a Carrot-a-rang did ya?

I'm not sure why he's having an obsession with Carrots right now and I'm not asking. If he's happy, playing quietly and not throwing tantrums, he can have all the carrots he wants to play with. Not one of them is making down his throat, but that's okay with me. Some days you have to pick your fights and this is not one of those days.

Have a great weekend!

The Faux Woven Scarf

Sorry for missing yesterday's post. I got into a major depressive funk and just wasn't feeling up to it. I also didn't pick up my knitting either. I don't knit well when I'm upset or depressed for some reason. But I'm feeling much better today!

This helped. He's been walking around for the past hour with a carrot saying "What's up doc?" over and over and over...


I've got an older project to show you today though. I dug this up a couple of days ago when it was cold:

Click to enlarge for details

It's a Faux Woven Scarf. It's so easy and fun to make. You don't use any knitting needles or crochet hooks to make it either. You use a sewing machine!

I gathered together a bunch of odds and ends of different yarns and ribbons, trying to get a good ratio of color to texture with a base color of black. I know there's some lion brand homespun and some novelty eyelash yarn in there along with some thin black ribbon as well.

The magic ingredient in making one of these is some water soluble stabilizer. Sulky makes a great one. This is commonly used with embroidery machines to stabilize the fabric that is being embroidered.

Now, get out your sewing machine and thread. That's the last of what you need to get started.

Figure out how long and wide you want your scarf to be. Cut your stabilizer to that length and width. Then, cut your pieces of yarn and ribbon to the same length.

Begin sewing the pieces lengthwise onto the stabilizer using a zigzag stitch on your sewing machine. I used black thread to coordinate with the other pieces that I had chosen.

Vary the space in between each of the pieces that you sew on. You want this to look very loosely woven in order to get the look above. Of course, no one says you have to match it exactly. It's your scarf, play with it until you get the look you want!

Once you have filled the stabilizer's entire length all the way across and the yarn and ribbon feel fairly stable on it, you can begin with the horizontal stitching. Change your stitch to a straight stitch. Beginning at the top of the scarf, start stitching across. You are going to stitch all the way down the length of the scarf. Again, vary the length in between your rows and make sure these stitches go on top of every piece of yarn and ribbon.

Don't worry if your stabilizer has bunched up a bit, you're not going to be looking for perfection here and it's going to disappear in the next step anyhow.

Once you have completed the sewing part of the scarf, it's time to get it wet. Run it under warm water and dissolve the stabilizer completely. I used acrylic yarns for this, so I didn't have to be gentle with it. If you use wool, handle it with care in order not to felt it! Although, that could look cool too with this technique. I might have to try it sometime. :)

Spread it out on a towel or other blocking surface to dry completely.

There! Simple huh?

As always, if you have any questions on this technique, let me know. I'll be glad to answer.

Worry about Owls

The Eldest's last basketball practice of the season was last night, and I actually had a pretty good time. While I was sitting there working on the Owls sweater, I looked up and noticed a small crowd of little kids around me, watching me knit.

They started asking questions and before I knew it, I was teaching two four year old little girls the knit stitch. They were so cute. I'm sure once they walked away they forgot what I showed them, but maybe later on they'll remember the strange lady that showed them what knitting was while their brothers played basketball and they'll want to take up the hobby. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

I was working on the sweater this morning while watching the show Treasure Quest on Discovery.com. I'm such a fan of that show. It's a lot of fun to watch. I'm into archaeology and treasure hunting stuff and love shows like that. So there I was knitting and I looked down at my project and started getting worried.

I'm not used to making a bulky sweater and this one looked awfully small. It felt tight and on the needles, looked way too small for me. I'm making the S/M size. I wanted a little ease built into the sweater to accommodate my nice little poochy tummy. Camouflage is your friend. (I'm sure exercise and dieting are too, but unlike Janice, who's an exercise fiend, exercise and dieting and I are just barely slight acquaintances, not really true friends.) Maybe I'm allergic to things that are healthy?

I ran a lifeline through the loops and put it onto my friend Endora. Have I told you how much I'm enjoying having Endora around? Yes, I could try it on my body, but it's nice to put it on her and walk around and get different perspectives on how the sweater is coming along. I even got out the destructions (instructions for most people) and a tape measure to make sure that me and my gauge were going to be happy with the results so far and guess what?


I'm pleased to say that my eyes must have been playing tricks on me. Fits fine and there's still a tiny bit of ease. Phew!

OMG! SNOW!

Yesterday, out of the blue, we got a mini-blizzard. When I left the house to go to church we had rain with a smidge of sleet mixed in. When I left an hour and a half later, there was at least three inches of snow on my car. Talk about weird.

We almost never get snow here. At the most we get one snow a year with about two inches accumulation. We got over three yesterday in an hour! That may not mean much to the people above the Mason Dixon line, but here, it's an event of huge proportions.

The kids bugged the snot out of me until I let them go play in it. It took the Eldest about 10 minutes before he had decided that he had had enough and he came racing into the house. We had to drag the Youngest inside. He could care less about physical discomfort.

Here's what it looked like on my drive back from church. Yes, Mom, I know that I shouldn't have done this, but I did still have two hands on the wheel as I clicked the pic.

I also did something really stupid. When I got home the car looked like this:


I pulled into the garage and went inside, stupidly forgetting that all that snow would melt and that the garage floor would be flooded. The hubby had a primo fit over the small flood. :)

Thanks to the folks who totally vindicated my knitting hatred! The dreaded Zara Cabled Pullover thingy has now been frogged and I've begun my Owls sweater. Details to come tomorrow.