Thursday, August 18, 2011

Knooking!

I finally found the Leisure Arts Knooking kit at Wal-Mart when I was shopping before my trip to New Jersey. I was excited, so I bought a skein of Red Heart Super Saver (Yeah, I know) in pink so I could mess around with it.

Needless to say, I had a little trouble getting the hang of it. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out which way to put the hook through the loop on the string. Finally, I had to watch a video on their website and I got it. Then, I would keep forgetting which way to wrap the yarn.

Also, I have trouble figuring out how to count rows in knit. Crochet is easy. =-P

So I frogged and knooked and frogged and knooked. Finally, I decided to try making a scarf out of the stockinette stitch (knit one row, purl one row) just to see how it goes. I did manage to drop a loop, even though Knooking boasts no dropped stitches. But I haphazardly added a stitch in the area that I lost the stitch, and kept going. I used a piece of thread and sewed up the loose loop and now, you can barely tell that I messed up. Yay!

Here's a pic of what I have going on right now...

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After doing that much, I have decided that knooking is fun, but I think I'd still like to learn how to knit better. But I will finish it the scarf. :-)

Friday, August 5, 2011

Mystery Plant!

We have a deck in our backyard, and ever since we moved here, there have been this giant, unruly bushes growing on the other side. Finally, my mom and dad ripped these bushes out and planted normal plants. It really opened up that area, and makes it easier to see my nieces and nephew playing in the backyard from the deck.

This summer, though, we noticed that there were three plants growing in the flowerbed that no one had planted. There were two growing in the flower bed, and a third, little one, growing out of one of those long flower box things that you can put under windows or whatever. The technical term escapes me. We wondered and wondered what could possibly be growing there in that flowerbed. And the plant seemed to be growing quickly. Here are some pictures.

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You can see how big it was already. Since then, it has grown even more, and we finally have fruits growing. Now, I had HOPED that it would be a pumpkin plant, because I thought that would be awesome to have homegrown pumpkins. But, after some research into the leaves of various plants, I finally have to conceed that it is not a pumpkin plant. This is what we have:

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Butternut Squash. I'm trying to remember if this is what I decided I liked at some point last year (when cooked right) and I'm still not sure. It might be. Anyway, the plant just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and is starting to grow into the yard and onto the walkway from the deck. It's climbing over all the other plants that are in the flowerbed. Hopefully it doesn't choke them out.

It's funny and exciting to have a random plant growing so well away from the rest of the garden, and if this IS something I like, maybe we can grow some more like this next year.

Pod B!tch

Who knew that when I started dating Mike, I would become immersed into his world of paintball. I go to his practices (on the occasion that I can), attend tournaments, and even take weekends to go to national tournaments. At these national tournaments, I am on their roster for the team, so that I (and a few others) can be in the pits with the boys, cleaning off hits and filling up pods so they have enough paint to play. The running joke with the woman I do this with is that we are "Pod Bitches." One, Wendy, even has that on the back of a shirt, which is awesome.

Amber, yet another woman in this group, is ordering me a custom bracelet from Wrist Band Connection that will have my name, as well as the words "Pod B!tch."

Going from this idea, I crocheted a hat. Here it is:

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And here:

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To make it, I copied the pattern, mostly, from the "Boy Beanie" pattern that is in the Stitch and Bitch: The Happy Hooker book. I ignored the rows of HDC and made them all double crochet rows. Then using a graph paper notebook that I bought, I mapped out the pattern of the letters (which is the first time I've ever done that). I'm pretty happy with the results, but I'm not sure that I would actually wear it...? Maybe. Depends on the weather in New Jersey next week I guess.

My next goal is to make one that is in a single crochet, because I think the letters couldn't be so stretched out. Also, I wanted to learn to knit hats (scary) and then maybe make one that way as well. While I love crocheting, I have to admit that when it comes to text on a hat, knitting gets the point across better.

Does anyone know how to knit a hat without double pointed needles? I have a couple of sets... but... I'd rather not. Haha.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

You'd think she'd know...

A while ago, on Ravelry, I found these really cute Angry Birds patterns for crochet. I didn't realize it at the time, but apparently you had to pay for these patterns.

Now I'm pretty sure this person was not a part of the company who had the license to sell Angry Birds products and make a profit off of them. You'd think she'd know, as I believe she is a frequent seller of patterns, that you can't make money off of something that is the likeness of a copyrighted product.

So now, those patterns are unavailable because she was asked to stop selling the patterns for a profit. Why was she selling them in the first place? If you look on Ravelry, there are tons of other patterns of people like Mario, characters from Despicable Me etc... and these patterns remain on the site. Because no one is making an illegal profit off the likenesses.

I hope that someone else comes up with the patterns and doesn't try to sell them so I can make them.

I feel bad for ranting about this person, but I mean, come on!