Knitting Books!

The Mail man and I have become really tight.  Actually, he probably just thinks I'm a stalking nut that has cute kids that like to meet him at his truck to collect the mail (he brings them candy, he's really a nice guy and the children adore him.)

I have, despite being a mailman stalking nut raising mailman stalking children, at least kept him busy lately:

Sweater design has been very much on my mind lately.  I have several designs that I want to implement, but have run into some problems.  I can easily make a sweater to fit me, but I want to get into the design side that makes patterns for others and I've run into a few brick walls lately.  Therefore, the two design books in the lower part of the photo. 

There are numerous books and how-to's for designing your own sweater, but there is nothing for the aspiring designer.  Here's an issue that I'm having:  Grading a pattern.  That's where you have a pattern written out and you want it to be expanded to fit multiple sizes.   Some magazines cough: Vogue :cough tend to want to just add two inches to every number in the pattern.  But, just because someone is six sizes larger than me, doesn't necessarily mean that their arm length is 12 inches longer than mine!

So where do I find out how to properly grade a pattern?  When I queried designer Melissa Leapman on how to learn to do this, her answer was to read tons of patterns and reverse engineer them to find out how the professionals do it.  I'm currently doing that, but wouldn't it be cool if someone wrote a book on how to do this?  There's a large void in that part of the market.  Someone could make a mint writing a book like that.  Bonus points for them if they put in some info about the business side of creating knitting designs. 

Any designers out there listening?  anyone?

Fabric Baskets

I took a stab at making some fabric baskets today.  I used Jesse's pattern from over at her JezzePrints blog. 

Here's how my first one turned out:

This is a really nice pattern.  It didn't make near as much sense while I was reading through it as it did once I started making it.  My next few will hopefully look a lot better with neater, straighter edges.  This was my first time making one of the baskets, but I plan on making  a lot more. 

I used basic card stock inside the folded edges and it was plenty stiff enough to hold the edges straight.  As a matter of fact, if you look very closely, you can see it trying to pop out of the bottom just a bit. 

As usual, this took me way longer that it should have due to dumb sewing mistakes.  Sewing is not my forte.  However, if sewing is not my forte, then seam ripping must be.  I'm getting really good at that.  I'm hoping that one day when I'm all grown up that I'll be able to follow directions.   The fabric used was leftover from one of these skirts that I made last summer.

Here it is in action in a cubby above my desk:

It just fits which was totally not planned.  What you can't see in the pic is all the crap that I took out of the cubbies to make it look like I"m a minimalist neat freak.  In fact, I'm the exact opposite, less minimalist, more   Clutter 'R Us.

I'm off to make more baskets now.  I've got a lot more cubbies to fill if I"m ever going to hide all my sins.

Mantilla Blanket Progress

The Mantilla Blanket is coming along.  Slowly, but it's coming along.  I've slowed down a bit on all of my crafting over the past couple of weeks.  I think the kids have infected me with their school burn out. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.)  Nobody around here wants to do much of anything.  I think everyone's brain has gone into melt down.  I'm hoping to get fired up again once summer officially starts on Monday.

Here's how the Mantilla Doily Blanket looks now:

I'm really hoping it will stretch out a bunch more when it's blocked.  I'm still thinking that I'm going to have to add a bunch of rows to get it to the size that I want.  I'm on row 21ish and there are only 29 rows to the whole pattern.  I just have to decide where I want the repeat(s) to go.

On a completely different topic:
For those of you who are or were skeptical about the whole Swagbucks thing.  Here's how much I've earned and already posted to my Amazon account since starting Swagbucks in January:

Screen shot of my Amazon account:

Yep, 100 big ones.  That new Wii game system will definitely be making it's grand appearance on Christmas morning!  I've been earning the bucks and then using them to purchase $5 dollar Amazon gift cards.  Free money!  Now are you interested?  If so, you can join Swagbucks here and searching and earning. 

And no, I do not work for them or have anything else to do with them.  I just enjoy earning free cash.  :)

Edited To Add:  Here's a link to an Atlanta TV station (11 alive) that did a small piece on Swagbucks.

Seen Any Good Movies Lately?

Have you guys seen any good movies lately?  I took the Eldest to see Iron Man 2 yesterday.  It was such a fun movie.  I've seen reviews all over the internet saying that it wasn't as good as the first movie.  Wrong.  These people are so over-analyzing this flick.  It's exactly what I and many others were hoping for; a fun, exciting, blow things to kingdom come popcorn flick. And how could you ever go wrong with Robert Downey Jr?

Such great eye candy!


So what flick should I go see next?  Any suggestions?

Garage Sales, How Do I Love Thee?

It's officially Garage Sale Season!  Just to let you know, garage sale season occurs sometime between the end of Spring and the beginning of Fall, at least in my neck of the woods.

I've been scouring Craigslist looking for a trampoline for the boys and for an exercise bike for me.  I've become a blob and need to work it off.  I don't have the cash for a gym membership (which in all honesty I probably wouldn't use anyway) and I hate walking the neighborhood.  The cheapest that I have seen any bike going for is $40, so that was the price that I was going to pay.  Until today.  I got an air resistance bike for $5 bucks.  The only way you could beat that price would be if it was for free.  Sweet.

A side bonus of today's garage sale-ing was a big box of sheet music and lesson books for another $5 bucks.

All in all, it was a great day for garage sales.

Oh and to show that I have been creative over the past couple of days, check out what I've been doing with the boys:

A new Star Wars Cantina and Starship:

And a very cool castle:

Last September, as part of the Eldest's birthday gift, I bought 11 pounds of Legos off of Ebay.  It was a huge misc. assortment.  We had no idea what we would be getting.   I built everything in the above two pics with what we got in the box.  Not bad for a bunch of misc. pieces, huh?  The mini-figures were from some of the Eldest's other Star Wars sets.  But they worked perfect with my futuristic cantina.  As far as the boys are concerned, I'm the coolest Mom in Town.  Oh yeah.


Who said only Dads can build with legos?

Candlestick Refurbishment

Remember the candlesticks that were purchased at a thrift store to be used as a prop for a paper that the Eldest gave at school?  No?  Here they are as they were:

And now?  After a few coats of Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint and they've been given a new lease on life. 

I am seriously beginning to love this spray paint.  I've been walking around the house looking for things to paint.  The Eldest has been laughing his behind off following me around while I scout for things that need a little bit of paint love. 

Blob or Fish?

We went to the GA Aquarium (also known as the world's largest fish tank), but this time it was to attend Aquatech.  The Eldest's school, in conjunction with Lockheed Martin and a local college, had a show to exhibit some of the work that the students in the magnet program had done.  The Eldest had one computer project and one art project on display.  It was really cool (both projects and the show as a whole.)

It was held in the ball room.  One wall of the room was a giant window that looked into the Beluga whale tank and on another wall was a giant window that looked into the tank that held the whale sharks.  What a cool place to have this exhibition at.

The Youngest enjoyed it immensely:

Check out the bubble window that he was in.  It looks like he's in there with the sharks.

There was also a giant orange blob that I suppose was supposed to be a fish.  You decide.  Blob or Fish?

Mantilla Blanket Project Has Begun

I've been wanting to do a crochet project, but I've been kind of put off by the patterns that I've found out there.  One of the things that drove me to knitting was the practicality of it.  I could make and use more of my knitting projects than I could my crochet projects.   


Now I'm not saying that I don't like or enjoy crochet.  I crochet much faster than I knit.  I've been crocheting for um, way to many years to mention.  Let's just say since I was 8, okay?  Obviously I enjoy it or I would have given it up years ago (got loads of other crafts that just didn't make the cut like crochet and knitting.)   I don't like sweaters made of it, it doesn't stretch or  drape well.  I don't need toys, got enough toys around here already, thanks.  Doilies.  Nope, just dust catchers in my opinion.  Or are they?

Remember the Hemlock Ring Blanket that Jared Flood got everybody hooked on a few years ago?  Here was my take on it:

While it was knit, it was still a doily.  But a pretty doily. 

By the way, do you realize how odd the word doily looks after you've typed it several times?  Doily, doily, doily.  Yup.  Looks really weird.  I had to get my spell check up and running to make sure I wasn't losing my mind while typing it.

Anyway, this weekend, I decided to crochet me a doily.  On a size H hook.  With some gorgeous, gray, two ply alpaca from Lima, Peru.  I'm up to round 14 and there are 29 rounds in the pattern.  I will probably have to go back and repeat some rounds to get it the size that I want. 

It's approximately 12 inches in diameter at this point, but it will stretch like crazy once it's blocked. You'll be able to see more details then.  Right now it's just a furry blob.

The yarn is indecently soft.  Makes you want to get all neckid and roll in it.  I swear it does.  Sorry, you don't get pics of that.  :)

This is the Mantilla Doily by Coats and Clark.  Not terribly difficult, although I did have trouble with interpreting a few rounds.  It's been a while since I've looked at a crochet pattern.  It all looks like Greek if you haven't looked at it in a few years.  It's looking good so far and it promises to be a luxurious blanket that the whole family will be arguing over. 

Mother's Day Gifts

 We've been busy creating gifts for the Grandmothers around here.  The boys were very busy all week playing mad scientist with Melt & Pour glycerin soaps (with various teas, cocoa butter and vitamin E oil added in) and with Epsom Salt Bath Bars.  They loved every second. 

I, however, have not loved every second, but only because I started stressing out that we hadn't done enough for the Grandmothers.  So this afternoon I knit the face cloths to go with the bath stuff.  My hands are aching now, but it was worth it.

Face Cloths - I began with the Double Bump Dishcloth, but I modified it.  I cast on 23 and then followed the directions as written.


Have a great Mother's Day!

Crafty Links

Anybody who knows me well knows that I'm a research-aholic.  I will research a topic to absolute death to learn about it.  For the past week I've been researching two topics: Mother's Day Gift Ideas and Online Free Piano Lessons.  Money is a huge issue for both of these.  I have little to none, so everything has to be thrifty-fied.  Like that word?  Just made it up, but you can research it if you want too.

I thought I'd share some of the stuff I found out there in the Interwebs with you:  (most of these are from Instructables.com)

For Mother's Day:

Crochet Beaded Bracelets
Bath Salt Bars
Multi Strand Finger Loop Braiding
Wood Pendant Necklace 
Faux Tea Bags with Tea-Scented Soap 

I'm not telling what the kids are making for their Grandmothers (not that they probably can't figure it out from the pic), but here they are playing mad scientist:

General Crafting:
How to make lipstick with crayons (I am so going to order some molds for this.  I mean, do you know how many crayon pieces I have lying around this house?)

Cooking:
Fire-Breathing Dragon Cake!!
Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup from Scratch
Cough Drops - Viewing Comments 1-50

Free Piano Lessons:
Learn How to Play Piano, Free Online Piano Lesson, A Friendly Place to learn piano.   This is so cool.  A young guy who was fed up with all the fake play by ear stuff and wanted to have real lessons for people who didn't have money to go take their own lessons (that would be me at this time.)  He could do with a real camera guy, but otherwise, I'm really impressed.  His hair's kind of wild too, I guess it ups the fun factor a little.

I'm currently looking into piano curriculum for the boys.  I can teach them both up to a point, then I'll have to get someone else for them.  Anybody have any suggestions for what books I should get?  The boys are ages 9 and 4 respectively.

Stitches South 2010

Let's talk Stitches South 2010 shall we?

There was yarn galore at the Cobb Galleria last weekend, but I carefully avoided it.  I'm trying to be good and not blow the yarn diet.  Plus the prices there still felt too high.  But then, I tend to look for the "workhorse" yarns that give you more bang for the buck yardage wise (sweaterly speaking.)  I did drool over some amazing lace weight yarns though. 

I didn't quite avoid making a couple of other purchases though.  My one impulse buy was these silk caps that I walked by and made the mistake of touching.  Heavenly soft!  And such glorious color! 

The person running the booth gave a demonstration in how to knit directly from the caps which was really cool, but I will probably spin these up instead.

My next purchase was not on impulse.  I took a class while I was there with Melissa Leapman.  The class was basic pattern drafting 101.  The first half of the class concerned stuff that I was already familiar with, but the second half was really good.   She  had us learn how to design a drop shoulder sweater, which I had never done.  But she really blew me away when she put algebra into the mix.  I knew how to do the math the hard way, but had not even considered using algebra to get the same answer in half the time.  doh!

I want basic pattern drafting 102 now.  Like yesterday.  It was so much fun and I hope that I can retain at least a quarter of the info. that she threw at us.

But back to the non-impulse buy.  It was Melissa's book:  Cables Untangled: An Exploration of Cable
 Knitting:















Her cables are just gorgeous and I can't wait to use them.

There was more fiber on the whole than there was last year, which I was really glad to see.  That was my one big complaint from last year's Stitches South.  There were also more vendors here this year.  Oh, if I had just had some more pocket change!  I could have done some real damage to the wallet there.

Afternoon Fun

In lieu of having my pc, I've been knitting, reading and spending time with the Youngest.  Today he told me he wanted to build a robot.  I asked him what we were going to make it out of and he said, "metal.  Oh and we'll need oil..."  I did manage to convince him that he could make a robot that didn't need oil and this is what he/we came up with:

It's not very fancy, I'll grant you that, but you should have seen his face light up.  He hasn't put it down since.  Pringles can, aluminum foil, pipe cleaners, pompoms, tape, glue and sharpie markers.  All you need for an afternoon of fun.

Wanna see how happy he was?

Have a great weekend!

Yet More Computer Issues

Once again I seem to have technology working against me.  Besides the trials and tribulations of the blog kind that happened last week and is still not completely resolved, yesterday afternoon my computer decided to up and die on me.  This pc is about 6 months old!   It's hardware related, that's all I know at this point.  I'm blaming Dell.

I'm currently using my husband's dinosaur of a laptop to reach the outside world with.  So if you don't hear from me, I'm trapped behind ancient technology!  Of course, I'm lucky to have that.

I'll have a Stitches South report for you in a couple of days.  For now, I'm going to go harass the Tech Guy.

On a More Positive Note

Last night I made this Crochet Flower Hot Pad:

This was made using this free pattern. 

It was completed in just a couple of hours.  It's are really easy project that looks more complicated than it actually is.    It's a great way to use up extra cotton yarn from past projects.

Mods:
Did an extra round of sc to make it flatten out a little bit more.

Next time I make this, I will figure out a predetermined chain from the center point to connect the petals at. I didn’t do that on this one and it’s very noticeable.

Where did my comments go?

Dang it.  My comments section has disappeared.  The code seems to be missing from the new template that I put up on the blog.   I'm working on it now.  Keep you fingers crossed that I can get it back.

ETA:   It spontaneously showed back up for this post, but now all comments from every post I've ever made has disappeared.  I'm very upset about this and don't know how to fix it. Can anyone help?

Edited again to add:  Yikes!  Somehow, Blogger changed every post that I've ever written to not show the posts.  In order to get all the comments back up and running properly, I'm going to have to go back in and edit each and every one.  Why doesn't Blogger have a batch edit option?!!!!! 

Anyway, I'll ask you again and now you can actually respond.  :)   What do you think of the new look for the blog?

Milestones of A Four Year Old Boy

Today's been an eventful day around here.

First there was a yard sale where The Youngest found something that was right up his alley.  He's into vampires, ghosts, skeletons, anything macabre really.  He's weird.  He's also heavily into Mickey Mouse and friends.  So what does he find at a yardsale for .37 cents?  A 12 inch tall Vampire Mickey!

Then, The Youngest sold his soul to the devil.  We made an agreement.  For his entire life he's been dependent on a pacifier.  Over the past several months I've been helping him work towards getting off of it.  Scaled down for a child, it's akin to an adult giving up cigarettes.  His breathing quickens, his hands clench, his stress level soars and he starts shaking.  It's been incredibly traumatic for him, but the "papper" has to go.  It's disgusting and germy and I refuse to buy him another.  He's past the age of consent here.

Don't think I've been heartless over it.  It's been rough on all of us and watching him go through it has driven me to tears several times.  It's heartbreaking to watch your child go through something like this.

But he made a big decision today.  He decided (through some sneaky bribery on my part) to throw it away for a new toy.   He went through this:

To get this:

A real milestone for the little guy.

Changes

Notice anything different around here? 

Please be patient with the changes being made around here.  I'm far from being finished and will be tweaking periodically.  If you notice anything going all wonky, just ignore it cause I'm probably tinkering with it.

Like the new look?  Hate it?  Don't really give a hoot?  Let me know in the comments.

Thanks!

Shea

Plants!

I'm still hobbling around here like an old lady.  My hamstrings have never been very flexible.  I guess that happens when you're a geek couch potato that likes to read, knit or play on the internet all day.    But despite the hamstring issues, I decided that I must not have been quite tortured enough because today I went and got these:

 

I'm pretty certain that after tomorrow's digging in hard Georgia clay, I'm going to need a boatload of ibuprofen.   Like I've said before, I do not have a green thumb.  I don't have a clue where I'll put any of this yet or if it will even live once I've touched it, but I'm going to try anyway.  I do know that this is the only time of the year that I get the gardening bug.  It's not a permanent hobby for me.  Once it gets really hot around here, the plants will be in God's hands alone.  Hope they're tough.  :) 

I've also finally gotten all the wax and goo off of these babies and will be doing something to them late this afternoon:

That's it for me today.  Have a great afternoon!

Really Perfect Green Apple Tank

I finally finished the Perfect Green Apple Tank!

And I finally like it too.  Way more sporty now and it fits like a dream. 

Pattern:  Perfect Periwinkle Turtleneck Tube Vest by Stephani Japel
Yarn: Hobby Lobby's Love This Cotton! in Sage
Needles Used:  US sizes 5 & 7

Modifications:

1. To avoid the Here Come my Boobs effect and make the tank more sporty, I only did the ribbing on the sides and left the front and back stockinette.
2. Changed to smaller needle where the ribbing should have gone.
3. Also added waist shaping at that section by decreasing one at both edges of the stockinette on both front and back. Knit for 2.5 inches and then increased one at both edges of the stockinette on both front and back.
4. I-cord bind off to add a neat straight edge to keep the sportiness of the tank.
5. Used cotton instead of wool.
6. Only did the neck for 3 inches.
7. Took photo with my camera that matched the project. :P

Here's another slightly less blurry shot (sorry, the pics were taken at night and indoors) where you can also see the neckline:

I would not recommend this pattern for the beginner knitter, but only due to the amount of incomplete errata that comes with pattern.  Otherwise, this was a fun knit.

The Flying Plague

Yesterday I got the brilliant idea to work in my flower beds, which is laughable really, cause I'm so not the outdoorsy, green thumb-y kinda person.  I did have an ulterior motive though.

We have been plagued with mosquitoes this past couple of years.  I'm talking the seas turning red and first born dying kind of plague.  The kids are trapped inside the house all summer long because these big mean SOB's will attack and then suck you dry before you can even blink once.  Evil.  I'm still not sure why God created these little buggers.  They're one step away from snakes and spiders on the scale of evil creepy crawly flying things.

So, in an attempt to drive them out of our yard or at least to prevent them spawning in our yard (do mosquitoes spawn?) I decided that every bit of ivy in the back yard had to go.

I could have taken the easy way out and sprayed Round up all over it and walk away, but that would have been way too easy and made too much sense.   Instead, I got my gardening gloves on and began pulling it all up by hand.  This ivy went all the way around our back deck, under the deck and was climbing the trellis on the deck.  It took me four hours to get rid of it all.  During that time I found one ball, two bubble blowing sticks and my rose bushes.  I still have thorns in my body from the bushes.  I also weeded and mulched the beds that go around the deck.  We got smart on the ivy covering our privacy fence and used the round up spray on it.  We were afraid to pull it and then have our fence come down too.

Most of the ivy in the neighborhood is in our neighbor's yard.  It's hopeless to get them to do anything, but that's a rant for another day.  So all we can do is try and make our yard a mosquito free zone and hope that they don't come drifting over the fence.  Fat chance.

Today, I am hobbling around like a little old lady.  Aching back, hamstrings and hands.  I sound like a little old lady too.  Don't ask me how I'm doing, you might get a complete list of complaints.  Did I mention that I was allergic to exercise?  Yeah, I got symptoms galore.  :)

I did bang the heck out of my right hand while dealing with ivy and rose bushes yesterday and it's led to knitting complications today.  Couple that sore hand with knitting with cotton and you won't get a whole lot of progress.  I am putting (very, very slowly) an i-cord bind off on the tank sweater.  I'm hoping to get that finished by tomorrow.  Keep your fingers crossed.  I'd do it myself, except the fingers on my hand are rebelling at the very thought.