Crafted Exchange & Another Crafty Pay-it-forward

I love making/crafting things for other people, and as a crafty gift-giver, I also appreciate receiving crafted things from others. I bet Billy through some friends in town he was visiting earlier this winter and discovered he crochet's. I think we are kindred fiber-crafting spirits. Out at the bar one evening, he decided he really liked my argyle headband, and I decided I liked the bright pom-pomed hats that he's been making like crazy. So we decided on a craft exchange!

Fruity Wall Art

Remember Crafternoon in Driggs? While on a ski vacation to Driggs to visit some college friends, I went a little crazy with my friend K's watercolors and made a slew of fruit & veggie-themed cards. I've since used most of them (it was three years ago, after all . . . wait, THREE years? Eesh, time flies!), but had a few still in my card collection. This year I've (kind of) committed to slowly working my way through my stock of craft supplies, and so I decided to turn a few of the leftover cards into wall art with the help of an 8x10 canvas I also had on hand.

Knitting at the Olympics!

And why wouldn't you knit whilst waiting for your teammate/athlete to take their run?

TV screen shot courtesy of my friend B

Clearly a die-hard knitter who never passes up the opportunity to get one more row in. . .

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!