Kitchen Calendar

I have pretty much ignored our kitchen since we moved in a year and a half ago. This past fall, I started spending more time in the kitchen and realizing how it was cold and hard and blah and started to look for ideas to make it warmer and more comfortable and maybe even a little pretty. It started with a looking for a few little things to make it more functional - a shelf to go in the freezer and prevent the avalanche from coming every time we opened the door, a place to hang our dish towel, that kind of thing.

Then I found this calendar and realized that it would look awesome in the kitchen....but the colors didn't look quite right. Luckily, I had the time to make a knock-off with colors that work better in our kitchen....and here's the result. Even before I got the calendar printed (at FedEx/Kinkos, nothing fancy) and had just moved Pete's painting and hung the empty frame on the wall, the kitchen looked worlds better. I made the mistake of creating the calendar in Powerpoint instead of Photoshop and it didn't print as well as it hoped, but as long as you stand at least a foot away it looks great! I marked birthdays and holidays with a black dry-erase marker on the plexi from the frame, and it looks pretty awesome (if I may say so myself)....even thought it's near impossible to get a good photo of it.

Operation: homey kitchen is officially on!

Frogged

I've been crocheting a lot recently, including trying a zillion different hat patterns with this yarn and continuing to not find one I like. This pattern is one of the most loved and discussed crochet hat patterns on Ravlery. I've tried to make it five times, with three different yarns. I still hate it. I'm officially giving up on it and never trying it again.

Shower Power

Lately, Champ's schedule has also included a romp in the wet tub after we take our showers in the morning. We don't often catch her in action, but you can find a little trail of wet paw prints across the bathroom floor almost daily, and if you try to pet her when she walks by you in the hall in the mornings, you usually end up with a wet hand! Who knows why rolling around in a wet tub is so appealing.

If you're interested, I've been crocheting away this weekend, and you can see some of my latest projects over on Flickr - specifically those last two in the bottom row.

Crochet, Crochet, Crochet!

I did not do a good job of getting photos of my finished crochet projects while I was on vacation! I
hadn't taken a lot of photos before I gave Christmas gifts because I knew I couldn't post them, and I intended to force my family into a mini crochet fashion show so I could get photos while I was in Virginia. I needed photos of the hat I sent Emily for her birthday last February, the hat I sent Mom in September, and the scarf I made Claire for Christmas (unfortunately the hat I made Ben didn't fit him, so I need to start a new one). I got photos of not a single one of those things. Maybe Emily and Mom will read this, take photos, and send them to me so I can share them, too! ;)

In the meantime, here are a few photos of the scarf that I made for Pete's mom. I wanted to make something that would match the hat I made her last year without being super matchy-matchy, and I think it worked. The purple yarn here is the same that I used for her hat, and the granny pattern is similar to a few rows of granny-esque stitches in the hat as well. Hopefully it's keeping her toasty warm out in Wisconsin! If you're on Ravelry, you can find the project details right here.


I still have some of the multi-colored yarn (seen right here) left. I love the colors, but I haven't figured out what to do with it. It's not enough for another entire scarf, but too much to just write off...suggestions welcome!

I'm also working on an blanket that is a belated Christmas gift for my newest niece, Adele. I don't have a very good progress shot, but here's a bit of a sneak peak. Sorry for the quality, the photo was taken with my phone...you'll have to be patient and wait till I can get the entire thing finished for a better look! I'm not joking about the patience, it takes much longer to make 76 individual squares and put them all together than I thought it would! Next time: afghan pattern made continuously instead of with granny squares. The up-side is that when you're making 76 of the same pattern square over and over again, each one looks a bit better than the last!

Bonus!

You get a second post today, because after I got home from my wander to admire Christmas decorations in Quincy Center, I got busy making an advent calendar for our house! It doesn't look exactly like it did in my mind's eye, but it's pretty close...and it's full of chocolate. I haven't heard any complaints. ;)

Please forgive me for the color bizarre-ness in these photos - crappy crappy lighting in our living room, especially after the sun goes down. The top photo is probably the most color-realistic. 

If you're wondering what was on tv (below), it was Veronica Mars who kept me company while I made this. Well...really it was Logan Echolls, because I love him. Shhhh....don't tell Pete! I am tearing through this show! They do such a great job of sneaking in one last little cliff hanger at the end of each episode that it's causing a lot of late nights and unproductive days off. Each time I think "just one more episode" and then end up with the "MUST! KNOW! WHAT! HAPPENS! NEXT!" problem. It very Lost-esque like that. And also in the whole "long overarching story line which has lots of twists and turns" way, for that matter.

Moving on....above is a glimpse of the treats in our calendar - Hershey's Minis, mini Toblerones, and Lindt peanut butter truffles. nomnomnom. When I told Pete I was going to do this, he told me that we didn't need more treats in the house and it was ridiculous. But guess who is busting into the treats first these days?!?

If you want the (sketchy) details: I chopped the corners off of plain white envelopes to make the bunting-like triangles. I made the little squares on each of them using clip art I downloaded from the Microsoft site and then added the number for each day in PowerPoint. I cut out each square and then stuck them on an envelope corner using spray mount adhesive. And then I cut up some yarn I had in my stash, threaded a yarn needle, and poked two holes in the back of each triangle to string them up. A few clear pushpins to hang them on the wall, and there it is. I already know I won't repeat this same thing next year, I have another idea I think I'll like better. But hey...this is working, and I can recycle all of it when it's time to take it down!

ETA: If you're interested, there are a few more photos of our other Christmas decorations on Flickr...and if I get around to doing some more decorating, I'll add to that set.

Christmas Crochet

This turned into someone's Christmas present!

Mittens

The mittens I made Ben for Christmas were too small, so remaking them a bit bigger...

Just some soft, warm surprises going in the mail to some unsuspecting lucky folks tomorrow...

PS - and now I'm all caught up from before Christmas to current...phew! That was a lot of work!

Mittens for Kittens

As it turns out, crocheting mittens is a) not as hard as I thought it would be and b) fun! I made this pair to test the pattern I made Ben for Christmas and then tossed them into the donation bag.

Photo by Pete

I made Pete take some pictures of the two hats I made for myself. He did a very good job. You can see a few more pictures of them here.

Ten on Tuesday

1. Let's start with some talk about our weekend, because it was very nice. We flew down to DC Thursday night and were staying with our friends Pat and Becky. Friday was awesome because we had no plans for the day, so we just bummed around the house with Becky for most of the day. Friday night we got to have dinner and drinks with Whitney, who is stuck in the US while she waits for her visa to be processed so she can go back home (London) to her new husband. Stinky for them, but bonus for us!

2. Saturday I got up and wandered around Eastern Market for a few hours, chai in hand. I got back to Pat and Becky's just in time for pancakes, which was awesome. Saturday night was Jenn and Jason's wedding (the reason we were in DC), which was very fun. And a reminder of just how long and painful Catholic wedding ceremonies can be. Especially when the priest takes a 5 second pause before every sentence. And sometimes in the middle of them.

3. Sunday we headed out to my sister Jen and BIL Jon's house to meet up with the fam and celebrate Mom's birthday (which was on Saturday), and were surprised to walk into the house and find my brother David was there as well. Apparently Jen had done some scheming and got David down there to surprise Mom, which in turn surprised the rest of us. It was good fun, and any time Jen and Jon cook it's yummy! I think this was the first time since Christmas of 2006 (or was it 2007?) when we had all of us together. Of course there are photos, and of course I haven't gotten to editing them yet so I haven't posted them yet. Hold your horses, Emily.

4. Also on Sunday, I got to chat with my sister Jen about some of the little stuffed animals she crochets. She is definitely a much more advanced crocheter than I, but the very cute penguin she had lying around inspired me to give some amigurimi a shot, and I decided on the pattern for these ninja minions because...well, it was free and it seemed like the least complicated of any I've seen! The finished product is what you're looking at above, although I didn't do eyes because I don't have any black thread or yarn to give me little slanty eyes with, so I'll try to acquire some this weekend. I'm pretty happy with it, especially as I learned both how to change colors and how to do a decreasing stitch.

5. I think next on my list of things to crochet will be a new scarf for myself. I found a chunky yarn that I love, so just need to find a pattern I like and start crocheting...and hopefully that will happen before I actually need the scarf!

6. I'm starting to get over my "I got cheated out of summer" feeling and enjoy the cool weather we've been having...although it's been so cold in the mornings that I'm snuggling under a blanket when I'm checking email and weather before I leave for work! It might be time to start closing some windows around here.

7. Champ is currently sitting on the arm of our chair, staring straight up at the paper lantern that hangs next to it, completely still. She is one weird little cat.

8. You know what else was awesome about DC over the weekend? Sleeping in a bedroom directly next to a bathroom (no crossing the apartment, going downstairs, and crossing the apartment again to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night), and not having a 6am furry wake up call.

9. Even awesomer than that? Coming home to cats so well fed that they didn't even provide a 6am furry wake up call!

10. I know Biggest Loser started tonight, and I know that some of you are waiting for me to talk about it. Here's what I have to say: I'm not wasting my time this year. They lost me with the 3 hours season finale in the spring - too much time wasted on montages and repeating footage. Surprisingly, I'm not sad about it at all...I think Biggest Loser has run it's course.

finger knittin' good

I found a "how to" for a finger knit scarf (via whip up) a while back and have been wanting to try it since. I'm still trying to get used to the idea that I can actually make shit, so every time there's something new I want to make, I test it out with this crappy yarn I bought ages ago for $2/skein. In fact, I unraveled a test of a scarf pattern in order to start the finger knitting. That was in part because I knew I'd never finish the test scarf, and part because I wasn't sure how much yarn I would need...in the end, I didn't need much.

Anyway, my point is that tonight, while watching more of How I Met Your Mother (Season 2, we started from the beginning a few weeks ago), I finally gave the finger knitting a shot. And this is the result. Is it really a scarf? Or is it a garland? In this picture it's wrapped around my neck eleven and a half times. Yeah. I kind of love it. It's also rather warm. And I love me some warm.

Check the photo out large on black!

I can make shit!

Holy crap! I actually made something! This little bowl?! Yeah, I made it.

I have phases when I want to be crafty, and I try crocheting something (usually a scarf, because I always thought that seemed like the easiest thing to make) and never finish. Not this weekend, folks! Lately the crafting urge has been out of control, and this weekend I spent a lot of time browsing crafting and crochet sites and blogs and finding patterns of things I'd like to make. I thought I should start with something simple, and I found the pattern for this bowl. It's not perfect (not even close, actually), but it's pretty dang cute and I love it. I felted it after I made it, although just barely because that's something that may be just beyond my crafting skills. At least for now!

Now I just need to decide what to do with the bowl!