Category Archives: arts and crafts

Knitting Projects

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I have a stash of yarn. There was a particular project that I had held off on until I was pregnant … a baby blanket. I sorta felt like if I started a blanket before I became pregnant that it would somehow jinx the getting pregnant part. But then, weeks and months went by and I completely forgot of my intentions. Until a few weeks ago, wherein I hustled this little project out.

knitted baby blanket in eggplant

knitted baby blanket in eggplant

It is a very easy pattern. I’ve done several dishcloths using a similar pattern, and just expanded it significantly to create a large blanket. The idea behind the diamond-shaped blanket is that you start by casting on 5 stitches, then continue to increase each row until you get to the halfway point. Then you begin decreasing each row until you get back to 5 stitches on the needle. I reviewed a lot of patterns and one suggested adding a little hood at the end, which I did. However, the husband suggested, upon project completion, that the hood looked a bit pointy. He says it reminded him of the cartoon “The Point” which I had never heard of, but after hearing him talk about, now I want to see it.

Anyway, E. from the vp suggested a pom-pom for the hood, and did I mention she also has a pom-pom maker?

hood with pom-pom

hood with pom-pom

Last weekend I started my second project … infant hats. The first one (I finished it yesterday) is pretty small, so it’s definitely newborn. Using double-pointed needles, I did an inch of ribbing, then just knitted in a round, and 2 inches later began decreasing each row to create the crown until the end. Wasn’t quite sure how to finish it so there’s a little notch at the top.

baby hat

baby hat

I’m not a great knitter. My skills end at “beginner”. But I enjoy doing it. And it gives me something to do while vegging out in front of the tv.

I’m back! Here’s Jack.

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It’s been a while! Sorta busy but things went haywire for a bit, including our home computer going kaput and having to take it to an actual PC Doctor to get it fixed. Here are a few tips. 1) Get a frikkin EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE. It’ll save yourselves a LOT of heartache. Or at the very least it will save you some $$. We finally went out and purchased a small one, the Maxtor One-Touch 4 Mini. We got the smallest one, 160 GB, which is more space than we’ll probably ever need. Had we been backing up all along we wouldn’t have had to go to the PC Doc. So that’s my first advice.

2) Now that I’m at two, I can’t remember the second tip. But that first one, it’s uber-important so it counts as two.

Next. Halloween is coming up. Remember my jack ‘o’ lantern from last year? Well, take a look at this year’s:

Yes We Carve

Yes We Carve

The stencil is courtesy of www.yeswecarve.com, and I also posted my pic on their site, too. Take a look. Maybe not as exciting and intricate as some of the other pumpkins on that site, but a feel-good project nonetheless.

The husband complained that the Obama logo looks too much like a logo for a bank. “It’s not scary enough,” he says. So earlier today I did another pumpkin, just for him. It’s not scary, either, but at least it’s more traditional.

Giggling Gus the Pumpkin via chattycha on flickr

Giggling Gus the Pumpkin

I’ll post a nighttime photo later on. Much better, eh. Let me just say, get thee a pumpkin stencil! Makes it sooo much easier. Plus, the Metropolitan Market pumpkins are about 200x better than the QFC ones. And, this one was less expensive, too. One of the easiest jack ‘o’ lanterns I’ve done to date. Not that I’ve done all that many, but here’s to years to come.

Squirrel-o-ween

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From flickr.com

And I thought my jack’o’lantern was impressive (I didn’t really, but I sure do like it).

Check out this one, which as seen on CuteOverload.com.

Our puppy Max looooves squirrels. He even knows the word, squirrel. To disguise what we’re talking about in front of him we have to say ‘chipmunk’ instead. Soon he’ll probably learn that word, too. If this pumpkin was sitting on our stoop, he would attack it every five minutes.

Say hello to Jack

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I haven’t done one of these in ages. So here was my attempt:

With the lights on:

With the lights off:

Not too bad, considering my decade-long layoff. Many thanks to the husband, who refused to hand over the glue when I asked. The center of my first “O” broke off and I wanted to glue it back on. Ha. He suggested toothpicks to keep things together. Brilliant!

That was sew 2005

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I am tired of swag.** When I receive swag from trade events, etc., I try to give it away or not accept them in the first place. I don’t like to accept things from companies, lest it appears that my journalistic integrity is compromised. I especially hate free t-shirts. I seem to not be able to get away from it, however, especially at work. There seems to be a t-shirt, jacket, or something for every all-hands meeting or team event out there.

The one free t-shirt I really wanted to wear, but never have, is the one I received when I raced in Opening Day in 2005. I see this more as a gift, like a ‘thank you for racing in this awesome event.’ And since it’s an invitational, it’s not like the 5K fun run where anyone can sign up and everyone gets the “free t-shirt” that really isn’t free, since you’re paying the race entry fee. I was more than OK with receiving a t-shirt for Opening Day (truth be told, I was REALLY excited for getting a gold medal since I was racing with an awesomely fast crew). Only thing was, out of all of the shirts we received, just one was a small, for the coxswain, of course. There might have been a men’s medium here or there, but somehow I ended up with a Men’s XL. What the hell am I supposed to do with a Men’s XL?

Well, I think it was Jody from rowing who triggered the idea to just tailor it so it would fit. That was two years ago. Today I actually did the dirty work. I also hemmed an apron that the husband purchased at Crate and Barrel last year during a post-holiday sale. It’s only taken me 10 months to do that. Yay.

Below is a pic of the shirt I trimmed, laid on top of a Men’s Large shirt:

That’s just a Large. Originally, the XL (and, yes, I should have snapped a shot before I cut it up but who thinks ahead like that?) was much larger. I cut 7 inches from the bottom; I took in 3.25 inches from both sides. I basically had to get rid of the short sleeves altogether, and then sewed up the arm holes another 3 inches on each side. Then I cut off the collar ring (what the heck do you call that thing?)

Voila! It only took 2.5 years.

I can’t wear this to many other places than the gym. But, hey, a new gym shirt. Yay gym!

**On a side note … SWAG, according to Wikipedia, stands for “Samples, Wearables and Gifts”. I always thought it meant “Shit We All Get”.