New Toy.

A brand new, all-mine circular saw and a good bread recipe. What more does a girl need?

Featured Post at New Dress A Day! And, a fun little wall-hanging

Almost famous!

Until this weekend I had pretty much forgotten that I'd submitted my summer sweatshirt re-size to Marisa over at new dress a day.

On Saturday I had an epic marathon day of parent conferences (28 in nine hours!), so needless to say I was feeling slightly overwhelmed and a bit beat by the time I got home around 5pm. Imagine my surprise and delight to open an email from Marisa saying that she had selected the sweatshirt re-size I had submitted to her in the summer to be featured on her blog on the 18th!

there I am!

Head on over and check it out, as well as her many other posts. Marisa started several years ago with a year of daily low-budget/no-budget dress transformations and now she's kind of a big deal. I'm excited and honored she picked my project. It's almost like I'm famous now, too.

Project Updates: Knit Edition

I've slowly been going through my project bags and baskets and bins in an effort to finish the various knitting projects I've started over the years, or to revise projects that have been finished but sit dormant. A little round up of things I've checked off the finish & fix list over the past few weeks, or that I've been motivated to make some progress on.

Entrelac Infinity Scarf 

This was a "regular" scarf that I had knit from two skeins of this colorway, plus a third skein of a close-but-not-close-enough colorway. The other skein had too much bright red and pink to really blend well, and I just wasn't happy with it. I completely ripped out the scarf and reknit it with the two matching skeins. I sewed the two ends together and viola! An infinity scarf - and just the right length (diameter?) for doubling over to create a cozy cowl. The pattern is an entrelac stitch, which creates a bit of a basketweave pattern. I'm digging it right now although it uses a bit more yarn because of how it is constructed. The yarn is variegated, which gives the blocks of different color but the pattern can be done with any number of colors for each square or triangle.

new cowl!

Lightening the Load: A Bit of Housekeeping for the New Year

so much space. and it's all mine. 

Since moving into the house I've realized that I have a lot of stuff. At times all of it (most of it) has held some value to me, and plenty of it continues to hold value. But a lot of stuff I've held on to "in case I need it." And "in case" hasn't happened yet. Of course, now that I have a house, a tiny part of me is trying to reason that I have all this space - I may as well spread things out! But I don't necessarily need to have to spread out - I like having the space.

But it's also the new year, and I'm feeling a bit like I need to lighten the loads that make up parts my life. That and I like a good method of procrastination from things that should be done, like cleaning, or lesson plans or grading.

Little Lion Man - a Stuffed Friend

I meant to post this ages ago when I finished the project, but neglected to take a picture back then. I finally got a few pictures, so here it is!

Lions are kind of a "thing" for our family, so it was inevitable that I ended up knitting a little lion this past summer as a baby shower gift for the niece, who arrived this fall. She is pretty cool so far.

Tobaggan Sideways Cardi - ReKint project

ripping out the old sweater.
therapeutic, despite the gazillion
little balls of yarn I ended up with

A lot of people who know me know that I have a tendency to rip knitting projects out - both partially finished and fully finished - when I realize I don't like how something is turning (or has turned) out.

Yes, a ton of man-hours go into knitting something, especially a sweater, but in reality, I'd rather spend twice that time and really like something, then finish a project and feel "meh" about it. Sometimes I'll pass a sweater on to someone else, but often they sit rarely worn, or even unworn, for a year or two (or seven) before I decided I've had enough and am motivated to rip the sweater out and knit the yarn into a new sweater or other creation.

Make-Something-Monday: T-shirt Necklaces

It's been a few months since my sister and I got together for make-something-monday. Okay, it's been since March, but we have thought about it! We finally made a plan for last night and opted for another t-shirt-based craft.  

tri-color t-shirt necklace

I pinned the t-shirt necklace awhile ago from this site, but there are a ton of blogs out there with the same/similar craft. We're not out to reinvent the wheel here folks, just share our version of things. This is fairly quick and easy, and requires little skill beyond cutting fabric. And your cut lines don't even need to be straight!

Christmas Cards, 2013 edition

The past few years I have been a bit ambitious and made cards with individual designs; last year was the paint-chip theme and quite a few cards were designed with the recipient in mind. The year before was a mixed bag of different designs, both catalog-collage & stamped. Back in 2010 I cut out a crazy amount of paper snowflakes that were the cover of each card (by the way - I found a dozen or so extras when I was gathering supplies for this year!). 

This year I stayed simple with two designs, and minimal prep: just folding the cardstock, punching approximately 90 little snowflakes (give or take the few that may be under the couch or that the cat absconded with) that were affixed with glue tape, and stamping.

House Project #4: The Kitchen! & Kitchen Cupboards, Part II

As many of you know, I teach at a ski academy here in Vermont. Over the last few years I've gone to Colorado with the Alpine kids when they travel for their November on-snow camp. This year I didn't end up going - a bit of a disappointment, but also a chance to get a few projects done. I switched over my seasonal clothes, I sorted and rearranged the guest croffice, I organized the mancave, and I took on the kitchen.

I had already painted the inside of the cupboards, back when I first moved in, but needed a chunk of time to finish the exterior of the cupboards, and to update the rest of the space. Cue several weeks sans-students, mix in some Australian series' on hulu, and voila, a mostly finished kitchen/dinning room. The walls are a really nice blue, called harbor haze (a nod to my five years on the island), and the trim is the same woodland snow seen in the laundry room and reading nook. The handles on all the cupboard doors and on the drawers were spray-painted with several coats of semi-gloss black.

This space had the most amount of work that has needed to go into it prior to painting. Two of the walls had wallpaper, the cupboard doors and handles all needed to come off, a hole or two needed patching, and there was some scary crap under the stove. All of the cupboards and trim in the house is stained wood, so it all needs several coats of stain-blocking primer before painting. I've given the trim all several coats of the primer, and at least two coats of the trim paint although I may go back with a third and fourth coat as I'm noticing the dark still coming through in some areas. I also realized half-way through the first coat of the wall color that they had painted over a layer of wallpaper at some point. Someday if I get really ambitious I'll redo the walls, but for now it came out pretty nicely.

kitchen, pre-move-in: stained-wood cupboards, flowered wallpaper & a plaid valance

House Project #3: Reading Nook

This corner of the room is at the front of the house, to the left of the front door once you've entered. For the time being, the space is a combination of a reading area and the "mudroom." I wanted a space to hang coats and leave shoes without having to go all the way to the back room (and entering around the back of the house doesn't make a lot of sense right now), and a space for most of my books, a table with some plants, and an armchair from my granddad's house.

pre-move-in. note the lovely drapes, circa 198? and up for grabs to the lowest bidder