Modified Tornado Pattern

Click on the following link for a PDF version – Thrift Stick Mitten Gloves Pattern

Thrift Stick Mitten Gloves Pattern - Page 1

Thrift Stick Mitten Gloves Pattern - Page 2

Thrift Stick Mitten Gloves Pattern - Page 3

Baby Blanket Pattern

This is a scan of the pattern I used for the basketweave baby blanket.

Basketweave Blanket Pattern

I’m Not Fat, I’m Just Big-Boned

I just read an article about this lovely lady who is trying to be the world’s fattest woman. If she cannot acheive that lofty goal, she has instead decided to go for world’s fattest mom. This other lovely lady now holds that title. Wow! After reading that article on Ms. Salt I think I wanted to vomit. And then laugh. Then maybe cry. But all that emotion and thinking reminded me of . . . me! I am still struggling with my weight. Obviously nothing like either of those women, but about four years ago, when I started a heavy duty medication regimine, I put on quite a bit of weight. Probably about 50 pounds all together, from skinniest to fattest. Lucky for me, I have lost about half of that so far. I am now down to 165 as of last night! Yea! It has come off slowly - VERY slowly. But that’s not what matters. What matters is I am losing it. Over the last month and a half it has been coming off at an average rate of 1 pound a week. I think I put the weight on over the course of the first year. Then I stayed at my heaviest for about another year, then the last two years it has been going. It seems like I will lose a few pounds, keep it off for a while, then gain part of it back, but then lose more. So far it has steadliy been going down.

Also, since last summer, I completely quit taking the medications that had originally caused the weight gain. And since then, it seems like it has been MUCH easier to lose it.  So, I thought I would celebrate by documenting the occasion on my blog! It also reminded me of something screwed up though. In the article about the world’s fattest mom, Ms. Salt, it said something about her having a thyroid problem and that was partially to blame for her weight gain. At the end of the article, there were also some comments and one of the readers said something about also having a thyroid problem but she didn’t weigh THAT much. And so I was reminded of a similar situation that happened to me.

When I first put the weight on, I was going to a clinic at Federal and Colfax. Since I was on Medicaid, it was basically the only place I could go for low cost health care. It sucked. But since I could get my birth control shots there for $20 a pop, I didn’t have much choice. One day I was in there getting my depo shot and one of the providers came in and started talking to me about my weight. At this point in time, I was definitely overweight. Technically, according to my BMI, I was considered obese. In my defense, I have NEVER been overweight. Growing up, I was always short and thin. I was a tiny girl. I was always in the bottom percentile for weight and height for my age. During high school I was pretty thin and after graduation I lost more weight. Even during and after my pregnancy (I got pregnant very young, at age 19) I was skinny. Then I hurt my knee and being on pain meds for almost a year put me down to about 110 pounds. After recovering from surgery I started lifting weights. I actually put on a few pounds but it was pure muscle. My average weight through my early 20′s was about 130 but I was in excellent shape. So when I started taking my new medications and I put on a few pounds, I didn’t think much of it. I have never had problems losing weight. However, 20, 30, then 40 pounds later, I started freaking out. I tried to diet but even if I ate healthy, I was so hungry all the time, and I was eating so many calories every day, it didn’t matter if they were healthy calories or not. There were just too many of them. I had talked to my psychiatrist about it and she said that the meds I was taking actually affect your hunger responses. It make you feel hungry all the time. It is a scientifically proven fact that people taking this medication do not feel full after eating a typical meal and it was shown throughout their studies that patients gained a significant amount of weight.

Anyways, the provider came in and was telling me that I was overweight. Duh! I tried to explain to her that my medication had been affecting my eating habits and I had just recently gained the weight and that I was trying really hard to take it off. She suddenly interrupted me and asked “Is the medication putting actual fat cells into your body?” I answered, “No, but it makes me really hungry and. . .” She interrupted me again and said, “So then your medication is NOT making you fat.” Wow. I sure have had the wrong idea this WHOLE time about how your body gains and loses weight. See, I thought that when you ingest excess calories, even if they are not composed of fat molecules, you gain weight. And I also thought that since some chemicals, especially psychotropic medications, affect your hunger function and cause you to eat more and not ever feel full, that those chemicals were contributing to the weight gain. I also thought that your metabolism can affect how quickly you burn those calories, even if they are not composed of fat molecules, and if there are too many you will gain weight. BOY WAS I WRONG! Apparently, the ONLY way you get fat is by ingesting actual fat molecules. All you people out there with thyroid problems, or taking birth control, or have just quit smoking or anybody who has recently gained weight from a medication are really just lazy stupid people who are mistakenly excusing their weight gain on an imaginary chemical reaction that is not really taking place in your body, even th0ugh the scientists and doctors that created those medications say they are. You are all just eating TOO MUCH FAT! So then this bitch goes on to say that all I have to do is eat only 1,200 calories a day and excercise an hour a day. Oh, that’s all. So even though I was eating about 2,500 calories a day and still feeling like I was starving, I just had to eat about half as much and be ok. Then, in my already over-scheduled day, I just had to find one tiny hour to spend exercising. Ok, so the best part about all of this was that this woman was fat! And not just a little chubby, she could easily be classified as obese. She had at least a good 50 punds on me. She was shorter than I was and weighted at least 200 pounds. I think my mouth may have dropped open and I think I said something like “Are you fucking serious?” or something like that because she went on to tell me that between all the fat bitches that work there, combined they had lost over 100 pounds. I almost punched her in the double chin. I looked her straight in the face and asked her, “So you’re telling me you only eat 1,200 calories and excersie an hour a day and you still are that fat?” And she said, “Oh, yeah I’ve lost weight.” BULLSHIT. I couldn’t take it any more. This fat fuck was sitting there telling me according to my BMI I am obese and she has a way higher BMI than I do, and tells me I have to cut my calories and exercise and hour a day when obviously she has done none of those things. And, to top it all off, even though I have never been fat a day in my life, I just suddenly happen to gain a third of my body weight at the exact same time I started new meds but that is definitely not causing the weight gain, even though my REAL doctor says it is, because my meds are not made of fat, even though every legimate source of nutrition directly contradicts that bit of advice. Because some tubby little bitch that works at an under-funded public medicaid clinic who doesn’t even have a medical degree knows more than nutritionists, dieticians and even the FDA. News Flash! Apparently the ONLY way you get fat is by consuming fat molecules. Not by consuming too many calories, or having a weird metabolism or any other physiological or psychological problems. Wow, I sure needed to be set straight!

Crochet Revolution

Ok, I have been slacking. I haven’t done any posts for a few months. But my life has been boring lately with nothing going on. (NOT) Anyways, I had the most wonderful/awful experience this weekend with my latest experiment, crocheting. Or as this woman (mis?)spells it, “crotching.” I have been working on a baby blanket for a charity. They insist it must be crocheted, not knitted. I don’t understand why you can’t knit for this particular charity. But they were insistent that it must be crocheted and absolutely NO KNITTING. I am comitted (not completely by my own free will) to completing this so-called baby blanket by January 29th, 2010 which also happens to be my golden birthday! Is it a wonderful birthday present to be released from these bondage chains of volunteering by being freed of my eternal damnation, err “commitment”, by finally turning in a blanket which will be unknowingly bestowed on some poor infant who must endure the torture of being trapped in it’s carrier under two pounds of Love crocheted into some horrid contraption designed to be a cross between a saddle blanket and a gunny sack? ABSOLUTELY!!!! That is the best present I could ever ask for. Anyways, I’ve been procrastinating on this thing for two months. I had to wait until after Christmas was over so that all my gifts were done (a miracle in itself). Then since I got my Denise interchangeable needle set from my Grandma, I HAD to make just one small project with them before I subjected myself to crocheting. So I ended up with approximately 2 weeks to complete a blanket with 165 rows and a 4 row picot-edged border that calls for 3,200 yards of yarn. That works out to 3 Pounds of Love. The Lion Brand yarn Pound of Love really does weigh a pound. I don’t know about it really being made of love so the name is only half true. But can you imagine a baby being under a blanket that weighs 3 pounds?!? Considering the average newborn weighs about 8 pounds, this blanket is over 1/3 the gross weight of a baby. Yeah, no wonder this is for charity. They have to give them away for free because if they sold them, they might be liable for any suffocations that most likely will occur. So, if I had 15 days, I would have to crochet 11 rows a day.

When I signed up to do the blanket, I had never crocheted before. I had a really hard time reading the directions in the books I had so I looked on Ravelry.com and found some links to tutorials on youtube. I had actually tried to crochet when I was first learning to knit but I couldn’t quite figure it out so I focused on knitting. So I kind of knew what to do and after watching the videos it didn’t look too bad. I did the first couple rows back in October and then it sat until two weeks ago. When I picked it back up, did a few rows and re-read the pattern, I realized I was doing it wrong. I was supposed to do all the stitches facing the front on the first square, then the back on the second. I was alternating them each row instead of them facing all the same way. So I ripped it out and started over. I even paid attention the second time but I still got it twisted. The THIRD time I started over, I finally knew what I was supposed to do and was able to get it started. FINALLY. Or so I thought.

The picture on the pattern is crappy. It’s a photocopy, probably of another photocopy, of a 2 inch black and white picture. So it’s pretty much impossible to use it as a reference as you are working. Even so, from what I was seeing of the picture, my blanket didn’t look right. I tried a few different variations on the stitch I was using but nothing seemed to look quite right. So I just kept going. It was close and I thought maybe the picture is so bad, I am just imagining things. So I got about a third of the way done.

Saturday morning I was sleeping in. There is a show on the public access station called Knit & Crochet Today. I have heard about it a few times and I have wanted to watch it but it’s only on in the morning on weekdays so I haven’t seen it. But Shawn knows I have been wanting to watch it and apparently it came on. Since it was pushing 10:00 he went ahead and woke me up to watch it. Side note: The tall blonde bimbo host that crochets on that show is the biggest dingbat. I really wanted to watch the knitting part but the crochet part was on first. So as I watched it, the lady started talking about how to make a granny square and she said something about doing some double crochets.  As I watched her do them, a sense of horror began to dawn on me as I realized she was doing them a different way than I was. The basketweave crochet pattern of the blanket is done by alternating sides of  double crochets around the posts of the row directly beneath. Basically, it’s an entire blanket of double crochet. In my defense, deep down inside, I kind of knew I was doing it wrong. First, it didn’t look like the (crappy) picture. Second, I was lifting the middle loop up with my left hand as I pulled the yarn through. I thought it was weird that I had to do that because I thought you were supposed to be able to pull through all the loops with just one hand. I have never crocheted before. Third, it was HIDEOUS. It was so thick and stiff you could barely fold it. And it was super itchy. Shawn told me it reminded him of a saddle blanket or a gunny sack. And it looked stupid. Without the extra width of the third loop, you could barely see the difference in changing the direction of the stitches. Lastly,it was taking an ungodly amount of time for me to do the stitches. The pattern estimated it should take 50 hours to complete the blanket. It was taking me about 45 minutes to do one row. With 165 rows, it would have taken me approximately 123.5 hours.That doesn’t add up. So I kept watching her and figured out I was only pulling through 2 loops instead of three.

Now I had already put a significant amount of time into this monstrosity. And only having 6 days to finish and turn it in, there was NO way I was going to start over. The problem though, was the stitch looked different when I did it the right way. Not totally different, just kind of different. Different enough I could tell, but hopefully not different enough a non-crocheting person could tell. (Fortunately for me, the lady who I am giving to at the charity has NO idea how to crochet so I think I am ok.) So I went ahead and changed techniques at the end of the next row. In retrospect, I should have waited until the next block, when the group of rows reverses sides, but also in retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have made this thing in the first place. So, now I am 2/3 finished with a half Quasimodo’s donkey’s saddle blanket half semi-decent hand-made looking baby blanket. Like I said, it’s a good thing they are not trying to sell it. Another problem is now the squares are a different size. Since there is now some give to it, each square is about 1 1/2 times larger than the first ones. So the blanket is not rectangular. It’s more like a trapezoid. And speaking of shape, who the hell makes a baby blanket thats 3 1/2″ by 5″. That’s not a baby blanket, that’s a snuggie. Fortunately, it’s going a lot faster and a lot easier. I also figured out a better way to hold the yarn and the hook in my right hand. It’s kind of like how I hold the yarn when I am knitting, over the middle finger and under the ring and index. I am now down to 20 minutes a row.

I think this would be a nice blanket if I had done it right from the start. But I didn’t. I am really anal about my knitting projects. If there is a mistake, I always make sure I go back and fix it, even if I have to rip it out and do it over. That’s one of the things I don’t like about crocheting. Since the stitches aren’t live, you can’t drop just one back and fix a stitch, you have to rip it all out and do everything over back to where the mistake is. Also, I didn’t allow myself enough time. I guess I can always tell myself this was my first crochet project and I can blame the fact that I didn’t know exactly what I was doing. But in the end that just makes me look like an idiot because why would I agree to something I didn’t know how to do? Learning experience!

Yes this blanket is full of life lessons.

1. Don’t ever buy a ball of yarn that has either “Pound” or “Love” in the name.
2. A horse blanket CAN be used as a baby blanket.
3. So can a gunnysack.
4. If you are crocheting something crappy, make sure you give it to someone who doesn’t crochet. They will not notice the difference.

There are probably more, but I need to finish this blanket before Friday. So, whip! whip! BACK TO WORK!

Knitting Revelation

Two days ago, the blizzard started. It was snowing so bad that we got out early at work. There is nothing better than snuggling up on the couch with my most comfortable, warm fleeces socks, a blanket and spending the night knitting while there is a blizzard going on outside. The feeling you get when you are warm and dry in your cozy home while it is freezing, dark and hostile outside is very comforting. So I was happily knitting away when after about 4 hours had gone by and all of a sudden my right hand started cramping up. I am very motivated about my projects and if I want to get a certain something done by a certain time, there better be a damn good reason to keep me from getting it done. I have wasted many a good night’s sleep trying to finish some stupid project I just HAVE to get done. So I was not happy that a cramp was going to keep me from getting 3 more feet of knitting done before bedtime. Since I taught myself how to knit, I have watched a lot of instructional knitting videos on the interntet. I have seen quite a few where it looks like the person is knitting faster than the flash. I actually had to watch one two or three times to make sure it wasn’t on some kind of time lapse. I swear this woman I saw knit ten stitches in about two seconds. When I very first started knitting, and I read the section on how to hold the yarn in your hand (the picture in the book I was using showed how to weave the yarn over and under the fingers in your right hand to control the tension) I didn’t really get it. So, I ended up holding the yarn between my right index finger and thumb and almost making a fist with the other fingers around the yarn. It was very painful after a while to keep my fingers crushed against my palm. But that was the only way I could keep any kind of tension. It has been causing problems this whole time but I never really thought about changing it. There have been times where my hands are actually sore the next morning and if I try to knit the next day, there would be serious pain in my fingers, hand an wrist. I always kind of had the feeling it was not a good thing but never really did anything. Until two nights ago. The cramping was so bad I couldn’t keep going. But I couldn’t stop, not with 3 usable hours before bedtime! So I decided to try the “correct method.” I strung the yarn over my right index, under the middle finger, over the ring and under the pinkie. I felt like a gimp. The stitches kept falling completely off my needles and the knitting was so tight it was bunching up in a big ball. However, after knitting a few awkward stitches, I realized what I was doing looked just like the superwoman speed knitter in the videos I had seen! Before I was bringing my whole hand, wrist and forearm in one giant engery-burning, muscle-cramping, time-wasting motion ALL the way around the needle. With the new way, all I had to do was basically make a little circle motion around the needle with my index finger. It was faster and it didn’t hurt! But I was so clumsy. I forced myself to finish the entire row. And it did take a lot longer than usual. But I could tell if I got good at it, it would be a lot faster. I did a few more rows with the new method and it felt a little better. When I got really frustrated I went back to the old way for a few stitches but it just wasn’t the same.

For the rest of the night I fought with my project. I wasn’t good enough at the new way to feel comfortable and the old way felt clumsy and hurt my hand. I was screwed. Also, the stitches using the new way were so tight the gauge changed. Luckily, I was working on the cover for my Swiffer WetJet mop so it is the one thing I have made so far that it didn’t matter what the stitches looked like (that’s another reason why I keep going). I went to bed pissed off.

However, the next day (yesterday) I tried it again. The first few stitches felt awkward and fell off the needle. But after the first row, I started to fall into a new rhythym. I did about 5 stitches really, REALLY fast without thinking about what I was doing. When I realized I had kind of zoned out, I knew it was starting to come naturally. I got off really early again yesterday because of the everlasting blizzard and so I was able to get a good long marathon knitting session in. By the end of the night, I had finished the mop cover and my hands didn’t hurt! I have turned a new leaf – I feel born again! I forced myself to learn the correct way and now I am much better off for it. Yea, I am going to celebrate by knitting the entire weekend! (Maybe)

Mom Hooked Me UP!

This weekend I went over to my mom’s house. I wanted Devon to help me make my Halloween costume. I am going to be a red lego. I needed a few things so we went shopping. First we went to Target. I was talking to my mom about some of the “critical” items I am missing from my apartment. First, my stove has been burning anything I put in it in under 6 minutes. So my mom suggested I put an oven thermometer in it and check the temperature. (When I put it in the oven later that night and turned the dial to 300 degrees, the thermometer went up to 600 degrees in 20 minutes. I was afraid the oven was going to explode so I turned it off. I think it’s broken!) Then I said “Man, I really need a new tea kettle.” Shawn and I were driving to our friend’s house a few weeks ago when we saw a house with a big sign outside that said FREE STUFF. I got two thermoses. They are awesome. They are brown plaid and they are totally retro. I seriously think they were made in the 70′s. One is small and one is large. They’re great! I use them all the time. I also got one of those insulated coffee carafes. It is light blue plastic on the outside and insulated aluminum on the inside. Since I got it, I have been making tea at home. It actually keeps the tea hot for almost an hour if you screw the lid down all the way. I also got Shawn hooked on drinking chai. It sucks to try to pour scalding hot boiling water from a pan. So when I told my mom Iwanted a tea kettle, I was actually trying to get one out of her for Christmas. To my suprise, she blurted, “Let’s get one now!” YEAH! It is really cool, white and black and very modern looking design. She also got me a replacement flourecent bulb to use in my new terrarium I am building.

 Then we went to Hobby Lobby and the shopping streak continued. I got pins, a thimble, an embroidery hoop, a hot glue gun, a fabric cutting board, a bodkin and t-pins. She also got me all the stuff I needed to finish my costume. I kept asking her for more stuff and whatever she didn’t buy me, she gave me from the house. I got her old steamer, so I can block my knitting, a really cute backpack with woodland animals on it I will use for backpacking and camping, an old vintage (70′s) knitting bag my mom used to use and I think she actually made it, and the most important thing of all, a book light. It is one of those little lights you clip on to your book so you can read in bed without turning the lights on. I have been hoping for one of those ever since I started knitting.  I like to knit in the car (it seems like such a waste to just sit there while I could be knitting), especially when we take our trips to the mountains. Nothing like trying to knit and 4 wheel at the same time! I’m suprised I haven’t poked my eye out yet. And since it is getting dark earlier and earlier with the winter coming, it seems I am stuck in a dark car without my knitting more often. No More! I clipped the light on to the visor and it shines down on to my lap. It is just bright enough I can see my needles but not too bright that it bothers Shawn while he is driving. Yea, now I can get in at least an extra couple of hours knitting a week. Sweet.

After I got home from the shopping spree, I went down to my mom’s basement to get a few craft thing for my costume when I discovered my mom’s yarn stash! She wanted to show me all the stuff she had down in the basement and when I saw the yarn and my eyes started popping out of my head. She told me if I organized it, I could take it! What a deal! I was going to do it at her house because she said she wanted to keep a little bit of it, but I ran out of time because the costume took FOREVER so I took it home and forgot to give some of it back. A brief history of the yarn drawer – when I was little I used to love to do crafts. It’s a little ironic that I like to knit now because I used to do crafts left and right when I was young. However, I never learned to knit. Now that I know how, I remember all the little things I did as a kid and think, “Wow that would be really cool to have all that stuff again!” I used to have a loom. I totally wish I had one now. So this yarn was the leftovers of the stuff I used when I was little. There were god’s eyes and little straws used to weave and a home made knitting knobby made from nails stuck in an old thread spool. Also, it is all acrylic and it is all REALLY bright colors and pretty ugly multis. So after I got it home, I started working on untangling and sorting it. I found these little cardboard organizers I used to use. They are ingenious. You just cut little slits in either end of the cardboard and wind the yarn around it. You can make a whole little row with 5-10 different slots per card. It took me the entire day on Saturday to get it all straightened out. I am so proud! 

Mom's Mystery Stash

 There was also a bunch of embroidery thread but I still haven’t gotten through all that yet. Embroidery was my main thing when I was little. I remember doing that more than anything else. There is a lot of thread left. So now, I feel like Christmas came early and I have enough stash yarn to make toys for everybody! I am totally set. Thanks mom!

Re-purposed Aquarium

Kamikazee is dead. I don’t know what killed him but he died last week. I don’t know if it was something I fed him or if it was the temperature in his cage. I just recently added a black night heat lamp that I wasn’t using before. I was worried with the weather getting colder and having moved his cage under a window that he would be too cold. I put a thermometer in his cage and the temperature was like 110 degrees when he died. I may have fried him! So he wasn’t moving and sometimes that happens so I wasn’t too worried. Then two days went by and his eyes sunk into his head. Then he was bleeding from his eye. Yes, definitely dead. I couldn’t bring myself to dispose of the body so I made Shawn throw him away. Putting a lizard in the trash is the equivalent of flushing  a dead gold fish down the toilet. Somewhat irreverent, highly effective.

Now, I have an awesome, custom made shelf with two large EMPTY aquariums. I haven’t replaced Sid Fishious. I still need to get a lid for the 29 gallon fish tank. Pupek likes to jump inside it and play in it so I will definitely need something to keep her out. I also need to get a new hood with a light. I found a glass top at Petco for $15 that should work to cover it. I just need the light.

But what to do with the lizard cage? I think I’m going to make a terrarium! I’m not really ready to get another bearded dragon. Kazi was the most vicious terrifying dragon I have ever met. I was telling Shawn I think I get the strangest, most dysfunctional lizards ever. Stubby, the first beardie I ever had, only had three legs. Someone in his cage chewed his arm off when he was little. Since I was working at the reptile store and they can’t sell maimed animals, they were going to euthanize him. I felt bad and took him home. Out of all my beardies, he was definitely the most personable. He always liked to play with me and when he got excited, his little stub would spin around in circles. When I moved to California, I couldn’t take him with me so my sister took him. I’m not going to place blame and say she killed him. I will say he perished in her care.

The next beardie was Einstein. That was the most ironically named pet I have ever encountered. He was dumber than a doornail. Being a former class pet, he was used to being babyed. He would only eat if being hand fed. You had to dip your finger in apple sauce and hold it up to his mouth. Then you had to wait while he took his sweet time licking it off. He was so slow, he couldn’t even catch crickets. I would put them in his cage and he would try to catch them. He would stick out his tongue but he was so slow, he would totally miss them and get a tongue full of sand. I think he died of malnutrition. (Not suprising)

Then there was Kamikazee. I knew he was a pig when we first got him. The lady at Petsmart said he would eat most of the crickets that were put in the cage. When beardies are small, they put the whole litter in one cage and they create a dragon heirarchy. The big one gets the best, the little ones get nothing. He was obviously at the top of the chain but I had no idea of the horrible trait that got him there. When I first got him, he wasn’t too bad. I even remember I took him to work, since the Petsmart was next door and I got him on my lunch break, and he sat on a little log in the window until I went home. He must have been in shock from the move. When I got him home he started to get more aggressive. He would try to eat you through the glass. If you put your finger up to the cage, he would smash his head into the glass trying to bite you. If you actually put your finger IN the cage, well, you can imagine what would happen. Then as he got bigger, his bites got badder. When he started drawing blood, we quite trying to tame him. A couple times Shawn suggested we turn him in to the reptile store in our neighborhood but I just couldn’t bring myself to get rid of him. I couldn’t understand why he was so aggressive. Apparently in the wild, the bearded dragons are so docile and friendly, you can actually pick them up and play with them. Not Kazi. So when he died Shawn was trying to make me feel better and reminded me that he was mean. He wasn’t my favorite beardie but I still felt bad.

So, since I can’t seem to get a decent bearded dragon (or a cat for that matter. I don’t want to go into the weird cat streak I’ve been having. Pupek finally ended that!) I am not going to replace him right now. Shawn doesn’t like snakes and I can’t afford any other lizards I would like to get. So, I am going to make a terrarium. Since we live in a north facing basement, it is impossible to grow plants. I think the UV light I had used for the lizards should work for growing plants. I am going to replace the substrate, and plant a plethora of succulents and exotic plants. I have some cool rocks I might throw in there and I think I will keep the grapewood driftlog that Kazi liked to sit on. I will finally get to stretch my green thumb again. Without the back yard area that only goes with the upstairs unit and no light to grow anything inside, I am definitely missing my botanical friends. I will update and post some pix when I am finished

Big Business, BABY!

I made a niffty little sweater for my disposable coffee cups. (I like to get coffee at 7-Eleven and if I’m ballin’ maybe Starbucks.) I used some of the leftover purple yarn I had and I tried a cool-looking cable pattern. It was the first time I have ever attempted a cable AND it was knitted in the round using dpns. Wow. I thought it might be kind of complicated and actually the first couple rounds were difficult on the dpns. But once I got a decent start to hold the needles together it went just fine. Also the cable pattern was relatively simple. There was just one cable, the back was ribbed, that had a twist at the bottome and a twist at the top. Easy enough. It turned out really cool.

My Fabulous Coffee Sweater

The coolest part of it is though, is that I think I’m going to talk to the owner of the local coffee shop and see if she will let me sell them there. (Don’t worry anybody I will make up my own pattern – no illegal copyright violations!)  She sells a lot of crafts from local artists there. I have seen jewelry and hand-made soaps this past summer. I will have to make some more up to take in to show her. I am going to make about 5 different ones with all different colors/patterns. I just got a book back from my mom that I had when I was young that was a needlework guide. I was using it for embroidery but it actually has a ton on knitting. It has some great stitches that I want to try in different combos. I have some in mind that I think will be cool.

Maybe I’ll conquer my last knitting frontier – color work. I would like to make a least one with a snowflake pattern (blue background, white snowflake). I downloaded a really cool, free program that is supposed to be used for crosstitch. It lets you lay out patterns and colors on a grid. But I like to use it for my knitting patterns. I used it to come up with a color pattern for Devon’s tesselating fish blanket. It works well, you just have to think of the squares as knit stitches, not cross stitches. *Side note – In that book I just got it had a picture that showed that you can cross stitch over the knit stitches. I think it actually looks better that way because it creates little squares instead of the little v’s duplicate stitch makes. I’ve also seen a lot of examples of people embroidering, needle felting and doing other things to embellish their knitting.

I also need to come up with some catchy names for this doohicky. So far I have come up with – Coffee Cozy, Coffee Sweater, Cappucino Coat, Mug Muff, Latte Liner, Kup Keeper, Com-fee Grip (thanks Shawn). I want one with tea in the name but I can’t think of anything right now.

Also, I found a pattern that goes around a regular coffee mug. It is adjustable, with a couple buttons at the end that attach through the handle of the mug. Since it is adjustable, you can use it on ALL of you coffee mugs. I think I’ll take a couple of those in also.

I also want to start selling glasses cases at my dad’s optometry office. I found a really cute pattern for a glasses “holder. It looks like a little head. The bridge goes over the head’s nose and the arms go over the ears. You’re supposed to set it somewhere, like by your bed or bathroom, where you take you glasses off so they will be safe. You can make the heads look like anything you want, muppets, monkeys, funny faces, etc. Also I will make little pouch-type things like the ones that come with Oakleys that you can slip your glasses or shades into. I asked dad about it the other night and he said that he didn’t mind it I used his office as a store front.

Star Stitch

I have learned a new knitting stitch. In the pattern I am using it’s called a Star stitch but I have also seen it called a Daisy stitch. I am making a scarf from a neutral (cream to brown to black) textured yarn. I thought the stitch looked really cool until I actually learned how to make it. You have to purl 3 together then leave the stitches on the left needle, wrap the yarn around the other needle then purl 3 together again! OMG it is horrible. My hands hurt so bad after the first night I did it I couldn’t work on it the next day. I actually had cramps in my wrists and hands. So I tried to work on it some more this weekend and I started to get a blister on my index finger from struggling to push the need through the 10 million yarns you have accumulated by the last part of the stitch.

I got upset with it and tried to avoid working on it on Friday. I ended up finishing all the loose ends (pun intended) I have not gotten around to doing. I put my signature half R’s on all of the finished projects I have. My cousin Iris sent me a message asking me if I was going to put them on all of my things and Shawn has been bugging me to put them on his hats. So I finally got them all on.

Then I actually finished my camera sweater. That was something else I have been avoiding. Since it is made out of bamboo, it ended up stretching out REALLY bad after putting my camera in it for a few days. It stretched out so bad the camera was actually falling out of it. I was so pissed off at it that I thought Iwas going to have to either re-seam the edges so it would be smaller or try to block it to shrink it or else just rip it up and start over. After reading about blocking bamboo I decided that was not going to be an option. (That and I don’t have an iron…) Apparently it doesn’t shrink. It only grows, and grows and grows. Then I read a really great blog about lining hats. It said you can change the shape and size of a knit hat by lining it either smaller or larger. You just sew the hat to the size lining you want and it changes the shape. So I thought I would try it with the camera sweater. I got a sewing machine for FREE! last month from some really nice lady on freecycle. But she said the tension wasn’t working right. So I have been avoiding it too. I took it over to my parent’s house on Friday and my dad looked at it. I guess the foot that feeds the fabric through as you sew wasn’t working. Also the bobbins were screwed up. And the tension wasn’t right. After a couple hours, he got it working. Now I can start an even bigger amount of unrealistic craft projects. So I seamed the microfiber lining with my new sewing machine. Then I pulled the knitting tight around the microfiber and stitched it together by hand. By the time I got all the way around the top, it had pulled the edges in enough that the fit was perfect! I was so happy. I seriously thought I was never going to get that stupid bag to fit my camera.

So yesterday, with all my project to-do’s finished I had no more excuses not to work on the scarf. Once I got going on it, it actually started to go better. I am getting the hang of the stitch and am now catching the yarn the first or second time I pull it through, not the like before where it was taking four or five times. With my frustration level down and the stitches being made easier and faster I actually got about a foot done last night. I am almost half way done. Also it is using a lot less yarn than I was expecting.

I want to make a matching hat a mittens because even though it is frustrating, I really really like the way the stitch looks. I wasn’t able to find any patterns I liked that used the star stitch. I found one hat that used it but it also had rows of another stitch and the top part was done with stockinette stitch. I didn’t like it. So, I think I am going to make my first pattern. I know what I want to do with the hat, that should be easy. But I’ve never made mittens before so I will probably need to make a pair first so I can understand the process and the patterns a little better. Then I will make a pair of mittens with the top of the hand with star stitch and the palm something else (probably just stockingette). I want to do all of them with the same yarn as the scarf. Wow, I will have something that coordinates for the first time in my life!

I also decided last night that I want to line the scarf. It seems to be a little on the thin side. Plus, it’s not outright itchy but I know the neck can be more sensitive than other places and the yarn I’m using is not the softest stuff in the world. I found some “furry fleece” at JoAnn’s that looks like it would be good. I don’t think there were very many colors so I might just use regular fleece. I should be done with this thing by the end of the week. Just in time for the cold weather! I definitely need some warm wear things. I was trying to scrape the ice off the truck on Saturday and I really could have used some mittens. And a scarf!