New Projects with Old Yarn

The Ravelympics have come and gone, and while I must say I was glad I participated, I didn't get as much done as I thought I would. Right now I am knitting more than I did during the Ravelympics. Below are a few of my latest projects. They were all knit with yarn from my stash (my husband is so proud!). I've linked the pattern where I can:

Cuff Bootees by Debbie Bliss, from the book Simply Baby. I was able to shape these nicely for the photograph, but these have to be one of the strangest looking booties I've ever seen. One of the ladies on Ravelry described these as a bootee for Frankenstein's child, and I have to agree!

Waffle Knit Dishcloth by Deb (Homespun Living Blog). This is a quick and easy pattern but with nice texture to it. I've used this dishcloth and love it.

Spiral Eyelet Socks by Sandi Rosner. I just finished these socks this afternoon, and love, love, love this pattern. The yarn was some given to me by my cousin, so I'm not exactly sure of the kind it is, but I think it is a bamboo blend. It seems a little stretchy, so even for my thick feet and ankles the socks are a little loose.

Easy Knitted Booties by Bundles of Love. If you're looking for a quick project to knit for a baby shower or new baby gift, this is it! I used the knit 2, purl 2 ribbing; next time I'll opt for the knit 1, purl 1 ribbing.

Valentines

Seems all my time right now is spent on knitting for Ravelympic projects, but I did make a few Valentines. Filled the boxes up with chocolates and gave some to Sydnee to give to friends. The rest I kept with the best intentions to give them away to church teachers, but - surprise - I forgot them at home this Sunday. I did give a couple of them away.

Ravelympics, Here I come!

So I heard about the Ravelympics from Sydnee (see her blog here). I had no clue what they were until I looked them up on Ravelry. Something I've been missing in the land of fiber, it seems. Sydnee and I are both going to join. It appears you have to join under a group, then post under that group which "events" you are entering. Events are things like Cable cross country (making things with cables), charity curling (making things for charity), sock hockey (making socks) - you get the picture. The Ravelympics start when the 2010 Winter Olympics start and end when they end. I'll be posting what I'm going to make once I've decided and posted my entry on Ravelry. I've decided to join under the Over 40 Team. That decides that Syd and I can't be on the same team. Wanna join? C'mon over to Ravelry!

Catching Up

Happy New Year! Ok, so January is already half over, but hey, I am known to be a procrastinator!

I am on a crochet kick right now. Don't ask me why. Wait, I know. I was given a trash bag - and I mean those big dark green leaf trash bags - full of yarn. My mom went to visit my aunt and she was getting rid of it. I'm very sentimental about things - too sentimental - and I have a hard time getting rid of anything that was given to me by someone I know. That is why I had to go to Target and buy a few big plastic bins to put all this yarn in. After all, it looks so much better in a plastic bin that it does in a garbage bag. So good in fact, that I don't feel so guilty about hoarding my stash of yarn, even if it is acrylic!

These projects are all from free patterns on Ravelry. You can view them and the patterns on my Ravelry profile, stitchnscrap.

This is a scarf I'm making for my daughter. It is double-knit so that there isn't a purl side. It's the first time I've tried double knitting, and although it is time-consuming I love the end result.

A baby blanket I'm crocheting. Very easy pattern. Great use of stash yarn.

Quick and easy crocheted purse.

These three hats are all made using the same pattern.

Not quite done with this one. Am planning on making an edge in a different color and not adding the ear flaps.

So, I want to blog about my favorite scrapbook store. Since I'm a visual kind of person, I check my pictures to see if I have any of the store. Nothing there. That's ok, I think, I'm a Little computer savvy (with a Capital L), I'll just surf the web for a picture. Hmmmm, nothing there, either. Looks like today there is just the written word for this post. However, if you're reading this, you have probably either been to Treasured Memories, or at least heard about it.

I went there today and let me tell 'ya, there is a SALE going on! I found items for .10, lots for .25 and even more for $1. They are selling products at sidewalk sale prices to make room for the new products soon to be coming in. My reason for telling you this has two purposes: One, this kind of sale doesn't happen very often, and I'm all for sharing the love - and discounts! Two, I WANT TO SEE THE

NEW PRODUCTS!

I'll admit I'm a big sucker for new stuff, and I am chomping at the bit to see it, touch it, feel it. So, go on, get yourself to Treasured Memories, 1510 S. Wells Ave., Reno. You can find their website here.

Comment on this post, let me know what you think and/or what great deals you got. I'm going on my scrapbook retreat next week, and when I return I will pick a random winner from the comments and they will win a fun goodie bag, full of wonderful scrapbook or card making items. So comment away!

First There Were Three

It really started out at Cropapalooza last October. I had heard of Stickles, kinda knew what they were, but never really played with them. Then one of the croppers embellished a card with them and I was wowed. Ok, so it's just a glitter glue, but I fell in love. I bought three - Burgundy, Copper and Platinum. These three colors went on my Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas projects. Then...

More was added to my collection. What to do with them? Cards, page layouts, you get the picture. Shortly thereafter...

even more was added to my collection. Luckily, these bottles are small and don't take up much room. I spent a weekend just making cards and adding Stickles to some to make them sparkle. Love them!

A simple card with Stickles added over the patterned paper.

Thank you cards made using Fiskars border punches.

Stickles around the flowers of the card on the right.

I went Stickle crazy on these Fall cards.

I love using up scraps to make cards.

Yep, my dining room table really is under all that.

We've graduated from Cake Decorating 101

Erin and I finished our basic cake decorating course. Still don't think I've got the knack for decorating, but Erin does. We decorated a cake together. I love making the roses but I really need to practice.

Erin signed up for another cake decorating class. This one is going to be learning about fondant.

See those confetti-looking squiggles? Yep, that's caused by a hole in the bag of frosting.

Erin and I are taking a cake decorating class at Michael's. What fun, I thought. I'm a kinda creative person, I should take to cake decorating like I've taken to other crafts, right? Oh, noooooooo. After three classes I have decided that I am definitely not a cake decorator. I didn't even take pictures of the first cake I made. Looks like I'll just have to stick to scrapbooking. And knitting. And card making. And crocheting. And...

I made two cakes - one for each of us. We had to frost them before the second class. Our first class the teacher gave us a lot of information and went over what we would be doing.

I landed up having to make four batches of frosting - that's 16 cups of powdered sugar! My kitchen was a disaster and I never could get the frosting smooth.

Class #3's results. I now have a lot more respect for cake decorators. This takes a strong, steady hand, and other things which I obviously don't have.

Still on a card kick for some reason. I signed up for a crop on April 4. I'm excited about that since these days I don't seem to get a lot of scrapbooking done unless I'm at a crop. Here are a few of the cards I made. Simple cards, trying to use up some of my stash.

Gotta Love The Cricut

Paper crafting.

Gotta love it.

And the Cricut makes it even better!

I got to play with some cartridges borrowed

from a friend (thank you Kazie!) and made

just a few things.

The two cards below are made from the Wild Cards cartridge






Can't remember which cartridges this one is from...

This Dumpling Bag is just too cute!!

I've had this pattern for quite a while, so,

why haven't I started it until now?

I was asking myself that same question when I was knitting up

this too cute bag.

It's knit on size 13 circulars so it is a very quick knit.

Every bag I've knit from

She-knits

has been a quick knit, which is one of the reasons I love them.

I used yarn (Brown Sheep Bulky) I had left over from other bags.

While I love the way this yarn felts,

I'm not super happy about the shedding afterward.

Do all wool yarns shed this way?

This bag only took a

couple of days to make.

Now that's my kind of

bag.

The Dumpling Bag by She-Knits.

You can find this pattern and more here.

Cool Hat

I love this hat, and to make things even better, it was really easy to knit up. I had it finished in just a couple of days. The pattern is found in the book, Knitting for Peace, by Betty Christiansen.

Also finished up a scarf I had been working on since December. A version of my favorite color, purple!

Beads, Beads and More Beads

I have an addictive personality, and it really shows through in my crafts. I start doing something, decide I enjoy it, and many times about go overboard doing it. Thus, the beaded bracelets. I made bracelets until my eyes were seeing beads even when they were closed. And what, you ask, am I going to do with all of them? Why, stuff them in my drawer with the rest of my loose jewelry, of course! Here are my newest creations.

I love the green round beads, even though I can't think of a thing to wear them with!

Doesn't the middle one remind you of Oreo cookies?

This morning I went to a class to learn about jewelry making, gardening, and freezer meals. Crafts, food and menu planning. Three of my favorite subjects! This was one of a series of classes put on through my church on subjects similar to these. For the jewelry section we made bracelets. The one I made was green and orange, in honor of the Fiskateers group I'm in. I love the colors. This is my daughter modeling it.

The freezer meals we sampled were breakfast burritos, egg and muffin sandwiches, chicken quesadillas, Avocado Dip, and chocolate chip cookies. All of the food was yummy! I really like the idea of making food ahead of time and freezing it. It really cuts down on the prep time, especially for us at dinnertime. If you'd like any of these recipes, just comment or email me and I'll get them to you.
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The gardening section was so informative. Who knew I should be preparing my soil right now? I am not much of a gardener but have always wanted to learn more. I can't wait to try all these new ideas on my vegetable garden this year. Now, if I could only get my peach tree to thrive in this Northern Nevada climate. . .

I'm typing this from my new laptop I received for christmas. This is actuallly my first blog post with pictures that I opened and saved on the laptop. A big deal for me because I am so computer challenged. And the blog post wasn't even planned! Here's what my thought process is doing inside my brain these days: Today the whole family cleaned house (you can read more about the why the need to clean the house from top to bottom here) I needed a little break so I went outside and started to clean out my car. I found my sock project bag in the car with these socks. The socks reminded me that I needed to take a picture of them to put on my Ravelry account. I got out the camera, snapped a couple of pictures of the socks, 'cuz I'm loving them so much, then remembered that I needed to take an "after" picture of my craft room - after it's been cleaned up. I have such a short attention span! Needless to say, after the camera was in my hand I got practially Nothing done in the way of cleaning.

I loved knitting these socks - one of them only took me 3 days to finish! You can find the pattern here

The yarn I used was Dancing by Knit Picks. Yarn from my stash.

A close-up of the pattern work. Tilt your head to the left and you can see the hearts made with yarn-overs.

A much cleaner craft room!

We are deep cleaning the craft room. We're rearranging furniture, adding a tv in the hopes that will motivate us to use the treadmill, and I am throwing away A LOT of stuff.

Don't these two pictures look like I have a neat, orderly craft room?

Ok, now see below for the REAL picture. A lot of the stuff in the middle of the floor came from five bookcases/shelves, which we are downsizing to just three.

We've done the rearranging, and the room looks much better than this. I will post "after" pictures when we're finished. I've even cleared a space on my craft desk, and made some cards tonight: