Mock me no more!

Several months ago I discovered the wonderful, long-striping colors of Boutique Unforgettable yarn.  I bought six skeins; three in brights and three in muted shades.  The brights were loads of fun to play with. Remember this?  And this?

Yeah, well that shawl tried so hard to be loved.   I wore it precisely twice, and both times I felt like some weird middle-aged woman who got lost in the fashion sense of yore.  I see shawls everywhere in magazines and websites and they are often displayed beautifully on the 20-ish model.  The shawls looks young and trendy. Alas, somewhere things take a seriously wrong turn once draped over my shoulders.

Every morning, as I'd ponder the offerings of my wardrobe, that shawl would call to me from the shelf.  "Why won't you wear me?  I'm beautiful with soft shades of plum and orchid!"  And I would pretend I couldn't hear it's cries because I'm not a shawl person.

Last week I'd had enough of its guilt-infused ways, so I ripped out all it's stitches and rolled it back into balls. Seven days later, this pullover was born.

It's perfect.

Because it's been so dang cold this month, my husband has started wearing scarves again.  He pulled out one I made eons ago when I was first learning to crochet and wore it to a meeting where apparently, it was coveted by others.  He asked me to make two more for gifts, pretty please and thank you.  While I'm at it, I figured the pattern was worth writing out and making available to others.  And so, I'm pleased to present my second "official" design, the Chill Chaser Scarf.   Someday maybe I'll type out all the unofficial designs and make a book or something.

Chill Chaser Scarf

Click the Chill Chaser Scarf over there in the right side panel to get the pdf pattern. ---------------->

Why doesn't she have a movie deal yet?

It snowed yesterday.

We had to make cookies because that's the thing to do while the beautiful snow is falling.

My daughter made her gingerbread man into Wonder Woman.  She's awesome like that.

She must have the special extra-long toes that some people have because she can carry her Magic Lasso with her foot.  Sadly, I can only pick up dropped pencils with my toes.  That must be why the Justice League recruiter still hasn't called.

Latte on a cold day.

The most comfortable sweater pattern I've ever made is by crochet guru Doris Chan.  The original is done in brown and cream and is aptly named Tall Latte and is found in her book Everyday Crochet (which anyone who A-crochets and B-makes sweaters should own).

Last month I embarked on an experiment in pattern modification using this one as a guide.  First I made the pattern mostly as written, but modified a few things to fit me better like lengthening the sleeves and body, and omitting the increases for the hips.

Then I wondered how it would look if I shrunk the whole thing down into a girls' size by using a really skinny yarn and a hook 3 sizes smaller than what the pattern called for.  That resulted in Small Latte, modeled on my daughter here.  It must be comfortable because she's worn it to school a half dozen times already, and we all know kids will not wear anything that itches or scratches or causes them to be ridiculed by their peers. Score one for mom.  She also requested added length, so this is quite a bit longer than my first version.

Lastly, I'm a huge fan of the sweater-dress-over-leggings trend because it looks pulled together yet feels like wearing ratty old sweatpants.  This experiment successfully resulted in Latte Grande, accomplished by adding extra hip increases at two points to make the skirt part.

All of these projects showcase my newfound love, slip stitch ribbing.   Finally I have found a ribbing that looks just as crisp as knitting, without actually touching a knitting needle!  

Slip Stitch Ribbing

After all this I'm going to relax into something simple, like a scarf or cowl.

Halloween is all about pretending to be something you're not.

And my costume was cheap too.  The last two days I've been Ultimate Mom!  But now that the Halloween festivities are officially over, I can go back to feeding my kids pancakes and eggs for dinner and ignoring the dust bunnies that waft by as I crochet away in my happy bubble of bliss.  

Whenever we have pizza, the kids love taking the leftovers to school for lunch the next day. Since I don't have a trapezoidal tupperware suitable for pizza slices, I started doing foil-gami over the leftovers. Over the years we've had bulls, kites, hearts, kids faces, and lots of other things.  Pretty easy...all you need is some foil and a sharpie.    Last night it finally occurred to me that this is an idea worth sharing! Duh.

Horton the Elephant

Foxy!

My husband makes fabulous homemade pizza.  He combines interesting toppings and they're often quite gourmet and delicious.  Last night he dug through the fridge and ended up tossing this together:

Grape tomatoes, artichokes, BACON!, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh mozarella, and homemade basil pesto.  

The crazy city we live in does not do Trick or Treating on Oct 31.  They do it the night before and call it Beggar's Night.  I know, right.  Who makes up these crazy ideas?  Anyway, it ends up stretching out the event into a two-day fiasco, so on Beggar's Night we had this gourmet feast.  (I needed something quick because....CANDY TIME!)

Mummy Dogs, Dracula Hearts and Bats Brains.
Bwhahahaha!

Ok, so I wasn't really Ultimate Mom this week and I never will be.  But at least everyone showers daily. Just keep the bar low and it's all good.  

We did go to a Halloween Party a couple of weeks ago and the four of us had a theme going on.  You'll never figure it out.  ;-)

Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom

Some cheap t-shirts and 2-yards of yellow felt. This years' costumes cost about $12 total.  Perhaps instead of striving for Ultimate Mom, I should embrace what I truly am: The Frugal Fairy.

Besides, they LOVE having pancakes and eggs for dinner.

Stripes!

Who knew self striping yarn was so versatile?  I can't get enough of this stuff.  Makes projects look so complicated when the yarn does all the magic.

I'm in a rush today, so here's a quick photo dump of recently finished objects.

This last photo isn't mine, but a friend from my knitting group shared the idea with me and found the pattern for it.  Isn't this the most awesome Lego Brick Scarf?  I have a ton of scrap yarn in assorted colors to use up.  This might be the perfect project for it.

Bring out the Boots! (and other ramblings)

Even though the days are still pleasantly warm, the chilly nights have me thinking of fall and fall crafting projects of all kinds.  My daughter, like most tweens, loves her boots.  Casual, dressy, patent leather....she wears them all.

Today I experimented with some new self-striping yarn called Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable.  I know, I know... Red Heart has such a bad reputation for being icky and scratchy.  Their new boutique line of yarns is anything but.  This stuff has fabulous colors and great stitch definition.  You'll probably be seeing it frequently in my projects.

Anyhow, here's how the boot toppers turned out.

Ribbing end up

Crochet shells end up

Here's what the yarn looks like in the skein. The colors are delicious!

This color is called Parrot.

I'm using the same yarn in an experimental design for a boyfriend cardigan.  Alternating the striping yarn with a solid gray makes an interesting effect.  It keeps my attention too, because you never know what the next row will look like.

I've also uncovered the sewing machine after a brief hiatus.  Just didn't have the time for a lot of sewing the past few months.

See, what happened is that a new store called Stitch opened downtown in the East Village - a fabric and yarn store (!!!) I stopped in last week to welcome the shop owners and see what they had for sale, and stumbled upon the Perfect accompaniment to a fabric I already had in my stash.  Add in a cute pattern (This is Simplicity 2396), and I just had to drop everything and whip out a crochet project bag - and it's REVERSIBLE!

This is the fabric I had in my stash.  

And this is what I found down-town, at the new Stitch.

And, since patterns were on sale, I couldn't resist the one for animal hats with the attached paw pockets (Simplicity 1795)  These only took about an hour each so I'm sure by winters end, we'll have a whole zoo.

Despicable Bathrobe

We've had some unexpected expenses lately, so I put myself on a self-imposed yarn diet.  It's not so bad though, forcing myself to use yarn from the stash.  There are only oh....14 sweaters worth of yarns in there.

I also am on a quest to either finish WIP's (works in progress) or rip them out and use the yarn for something else.  Ripping out is where this purple yarn came from.

In it's first life it was an afghan.  I bought it thinking the long stripes of color would be so pretty as an afghan, but it just wasn't working out.  The yarn is fickle.  It's boucle, so you can't see the stitches well at all, making it hard to do any sort of detailed pattern with it.  So the unfinished afghan was stuffed into the closet in a time out.

When the weather turned a bit cold, I starting dreaming of a longer-length coat/jacket/sweater thing.  Something that could be tossed over anything for those days when it's chilly, but I don't want a full coat.  This pattern is by Doris Chan and can be found in her book Everyday Crochet.  The original pattern has a shawl collar, one of those that flips back and rolls slightly.  I love the look of shawl collars but this yarn wouldn't have it.  I did a simple single crochet edging instead, and it really shows off the striping in the yarn nicely.

 My son wanted to know why I was crocheting a bathrobe.  For weeks I've held firm that this is NOT a bathrobe, it's a coat-jacket thingie.  But now that it's finished and I see myself modeling it there, I concede that it does, in fact, look very bathrobe-y.

Whatever.  I'm wearing it anyway.  I'll be that weird lady at the grocery store buying cat food in her "bathrobe."

In other news...

My kids have been obsessed with Despicable Me for months, more so since the sequel came out July.   All over the internet are pictures of the minion cupcakes.  I caved and bought the twinkies and the kids made these today.  My 10-year-old did the faces.  I think she did a great job.  Piping frosting isn't the easiest skill to learn.

If we try this again we will use black instead of brown coloring.  There needs to be more contrast between their features and the color of the twinkie.  They're delicious!

Never-Ending Afghan of Doom has been Conquered.

It all started on November 15, 2011.   An event with such happiness, such promise of beauty.  And then the day arrived when I couldn't bear to look at the thing any longer, so I put it in hibernation.

The 2012 summer Olympics arrived, and again the afghan emerged to the light of day.  I had a quest!  10 days to finish the thing and win a virtual gold medal.  Could I do it before closing ceremonies?

No.

The task was too big, too daunting.  I failed.  Hanging my head in shame,  I rolled the afghan up inside a quilt and stuffed it into the closet like an unappetizing burrito.

Until two weeks ago.  The kids went back to school and things started to feel a bit like fall.  From somewhere unknown a burst of optimism and energy emerged, and I dragged that thing from the closet depths like a crazed woman.  This time, I was determined to finish it.

And yesterday, I did.

If I ever, Ever, EVER start making noise about a motif-based afghan again, I need you all to come over here and start beating me with sticks.   No matter how beautiful the end product is, it's not a good idea to make 24 triangles, 35 squares, and 48 octagons all separately, sew them all together (honestly, this is the part that's truly dreadful), and then put on a border.

But it's done, and I did earn a medal after all, of sorts.  I'm giving myself a medal for Longest Project Ever, coming in at just under two years from start to finish. November 15, 2011 - September 3, 2013.  Whoa.

Normalcy, resumed.

The children have begun another school year!  Regularly scheduled programming can now commence.

Crash Course in Summer

Thank you to everyone for nagging reminding me to update the blog.  Yes, I did return from my trip and yes it was fabulous.  The cardi was exactly right for the weather; in fact I could have used another!

I didn't blog at all the entire month of June.  That's because Summer showed up and chaos ensued.  I was not prepared.  I forgot that schedules need to be maintained, activities planned, and expectations communicated or somebody loses it and starts screaming like a crazed maniac.  Yeah, that statement could apply to any one of us who live here, truly.  We all had a day (or four) when our throats were a bit hoarse by bedtime.

But, I tell you all with hopeful optimism, JULY is a fresh month!  JULY we have started anew!  JULY will be blissful like summertime should be.

July also happens to be heavily scheduled and planned with lots of camps and activities.  (Yay!)

I do want to highlight the fun things that happened in June, because there was fun.  Really!

While I worked from home, the kids made piniatas!   These are so easy and fun.  Take an empty cereal box and cut the top flaps off.  Then cut down each corner about 1/3 way.  Bend the narrow side flaps in until they meet in the middle and tape them together.  Cut off the extra from the front and back of the box to make the curved top.  Then, cut tissue paper into strips and fringe it.  Glue it on in rows and taa-daa!  Piniata!  We bought a couple bags of cheap candy from the dollar store to put inside.

My daughter did a quilt-in-a-day event for kids at the library.  It was completely free;  thanks to the volunteer time of the local quilting guild, lots of donations and a grant.  This is the finished quilt she made in just four hours.

Not to be outdone, by son came home and started piecing his own lap-sized quilt top.  He likes the modern black and whites.

 They've also taken every Lego brick we own and have been diligently building out a massive Lego city.  This thing is huge.  It takes up the entire dining room.

You've seen the Mansion before, but I confess to stretching my building skillz and creating the grocery store and apartment building.  I'll get some close up pics before demo.   The kids built everything else.

 Here's a neat little tip.  Dumping the Legos on the floor results in lost pieces and angry feet when they get stepped on.  I found this cheap toddler pool at the store.  It's only 6" high and about 3' diameter, so it's perfect for keeping things contained while the city is under construction.  And it deflates for storage!


Remember this magazine picture I shared a while back?  Well, it's almost done.  Hours and hours and hours of crochet work...

...and I HATE it.  Really.  It's fits well, but the skirt flare is so much that I feel like a cross between Minnie Mouse and Alice in Wonderland wearing it.  It's not at all like the photo in the magazine.  Two hours more and this would be 100% complete, but I'm going to cut my losses now and unravel it.  The yarn will get used for something I"ll actually wear.

ick icky ick!

In other crafting news, my daughter and I are entering some things in the state fair this year.  We've never entered before.  It will be exciting just to see our stuff on display, even if we don't bring home a ribbon or two.  The deadline is a month away so I need to get busy selecting my entries.

Anyone have a Space Bag?

I have two planned trips this summer and the first is coming up quickly.  It's still far enough out that I'm unsure exactly what the weather forecast will be, but the internet is full of helpful information like "temps fluctuate wildly," "often breezy," "average temp between 50 and 90 degrees."

How does one pack for that, exactly?

50 degrees means jeans and long sleeves.  90 degrees means dresses and sandals.  In between could be a crazy hodge-podge of layering.  Oh, and did I mention that I'm trying to do this with only my carry-on bag?   So far my must-take list includes 3 pair jeans, 3 dresses, 4 pair shoes, assorted short-sleeved tops, and then long sleeved things to layer over everything else.

I made this cardigan special for the trip.  Hope it's not too granny.  I wanted something warm that can be worn with both jeans and sundresses, because we're just climbing out of the Longest Winter Ever and I don't want to wear anything that resembles a coat, jacket, or windbreaker again until at least October.
 

Why is packing the hardest part of travel?  Gah!  The next trip should be easier.  Because Texas is always warm, isn't it?

I smell like a princess.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there.  I hope today you were given the appreciation you deserve.  I've been showered with love and it's truly been a wonderful day.

The kids let me sleep in until 9 am, and then they gave me presents.  Presents!  I love presents.

One of those gifts was a sampler of Vera Wang's Princess perfumes: original, Night Princess, and Preppy Princess.  Delightful!  I love them all.  Plus the kids scored big because there were TWO gift-with-purchase promos going on.  Buy Vera Wang and get a tote bag, plus spend X amount of dollars on fragrance and get a purse.  Woohoo!

This is huge, and will make an excellent pool bag this summer.

The purse is a beautiful shade of teal blue.  I don't have a blue purse so I was excited to get one, but unfortunately it's too large to be used as an official purse.   However, it's just the right size for a crochet project bag!  See...I've already moved in.

A whole afghan project will fit in this thing!

My son wrote a lovely poem for me and framed it.  Here goes:

Makes good food
Our best mom ever
Told many stories
Hugs and kisses for me
Eight years with you
Roses for you

Awww....

My family also took me out for lunch to a fabulous local mexican place.  I snarfed down my enchilada combo before thinking to take a photo.  Splurged on a delicious mango margarita - very similar to the ones we enjoyed in Cancun a few years ago.

In somewhat disappointing news, one of my most favorite yarns ever is being discontinued.  Caron Spa, a lovely soft bamboo yarn, will soon be no more.  Luckily I found out about this before it becomes really scarce, and I ordered myself 6 sweaters' worth.  Yeah, I may have gone an eensy weensy bit overboard there, but I figure I can always resell what I don't end up using myself.

Joy!

 Later this evening I'm going to start a cardigan project with that light stone colored yarn in the lower left corner.  I want something light that will look good with jeans and t-shirts as well as layered over a sundress.

Next post I'll do a show n tell of the Most Versatile Pattern I've Ever Found.  Stay tuned!