Cafe Wristers and April Plans

Oh, hello April. What happened to March? I was busy and lazy you say? Well, that's probably true.
Here's what I wish I could have accomplished during March:
-Finish a crochet project I started
-Read more than one book
-Actually write something worthwhile

Well, no sense in grumbling about the past. Here's April, the weather has gotten cold again, after that trickster March with 80 degree days in Michigan. I'm determined to read more, crochet more, and complain less (probably won't accomplish that one).

Mike and I have also started working out. Been at it about a week and a half now, going a couple of days a week. In addition, we are trying to eat healthier. For example, today will be day 3 of no high fructose corn syrup! And if my scale is to be trusted, I have lost about 2 pounds. My goal though, ideally, would be 30, but realistically, 20-25. Ha.

Anyway, I received my recent edition of Crochet Today in the mail, and there was a pattern for these adorable wristers. I also remember that I had a loan skein of Encore yarn that I bought at a LYS, simply because I felt guilty going in there, chatting with the woman, then not buying anything. So I used that yarn and made these:

They came out a little bigger than they were supposed to since the yarn was thicker than the pattern called for, but that's alright. I also didn't add as many rows to the bottom cuff. They are short little things in the picture, and I figured adding more rows would make them too long. Now I just need a fancy French cafe to go to, and I'm all set!

Hopefully I will be around more this month, as I plan to finish some other projects and start some new ones. I would like to crochet a Flying Spaghetti Monster, as well as make up a pattern for an Atheist messenger bag/purse. 

Have a lovely Wednesday!

Happy Halloween!

It my favorite time of year! Halloween! I'm passing out candy tonight for the first time in a long time, and I'm pretty excited about it. I love little kids in costumes. They're so cute!

Anyway, I crocheted some Halloween costume accessories this year, and I thought I'd share them.
This first one is a hat I made for my niece. It's a witch hat with dangling spiders. I got the pattern out of an issue of Crochet Today.

The next two pictures are of pieces I made for my own costume, which was a gnome. I'm afraid of gnomes, I think they're creepy and that they come alive at night. But I thought I'd face my fears and dress up like one for Halloween.
Here's the hat, which is simply the witch hat, minus brim:

Here's a flower necklace (from a pattern on Ravelry):

And of course, here's me and my boyfriend. He, of course, is a Flint Tropics player from the movie Semi-Pro with Will Ferrell


And finally, this is a little pumpkin my mom and I put together. I made the hat on a round knitting loom.

Hope everyone has an enjoyable night! Happy Halloween!

ASUS tablet cozie!

I thought I wrote a post about this, but apparently not!! So here we go!

A few months ago, I bought the ASUS eee pad transformer. I love it. But that's beside the point. I needed something to put it in to protect the screen until I could buy a case.... which I finally did today, btw.

I used some of my Bernet Cotton Stripes yarn that I bought on clearance at JoAnns a while ago. I figured that would be the best choice, because the cotton thread seemed less likely to scratch the screen.

I can't remember what size hook I used, but it was probably H. I used double crochet, and just made one long piece, then (badly) sewed up the sides, and added that little flap with holes to be held down by those two green buttons.  Yes, I'm not happy with the way I sewed the sides together. I think I was being lazy and decided to crochet it instead of whipping out the yarn needle and doing it nicer. But oh well. Life goes on, right?

There it is, open and closed. I mostly like that it's pinks and white, which gives something I picture being a boy-ish product a little bit of a feminine touch. Not to mention my "flower in the water" background. Ha.

On a side note:

GO DETROIT LIONS! While they still look a little pitiful sometimes, like getting 245984938725 penalties during the game and not REALLY playing until they get to the second half, they still won, and they are still 5-0 and they still have now won 9 games in a row (including the four last year).

I think I'm going to modify my blog right now to go with the Lions colors.

Flower Hat and Scarf

I feel entitled to complain a bit here, so I'm going to.

Been having one of those blah days. No motivation to do anything, and I could pretty much sleep all day... and all night probably. I'm feel depressed about the whole not having a job and not sure what to do about it/still waiting for HP to quit being douches (which apparently will be in November) and I've been stressing about if I should go back to Kohls or not. It's not fun. And it's bringing me down. I also feel lonely, as my parents are gone, my older brother is in Chicago, my little brother is passed out on the couch and the boyfriend is working late tonight. I'm so lame, I don't have the TV on or music playing as I sit in my computer chair and list around on the internet.

So anyways...

Over the weekend I finished a hat/scarf set for the 14 year old daughter of my friend Amber. I love the colors she chose, though my hands have suffered from using so much Red Heart Super Saver (I didn't buy it, so I can't complain). But still, I'm proud of the way the project turned out, if not the pictures. Couldn't get the lighting right and I was using my phone.



Yes, as you can see, it's not the best picture, but you get the gist. I actually really enjoy crocheting flowers, so I was glad that the flowers on the scarf turned out okay, except for the one that only has 5 petals instead of 6. But Oh well.

Hopefully she enjoys it, since winter should be upon us soon.

Its-a Me! Mario!

I started this project in September of last year, and finally finished a few weeks ago. I've been too lazy/busy to post anything on here, but here I am at last, being a little more productive than usual (and avoiding working out for the moment).

This blanket is made up of 234 little 4" granny squares, that I sewed together with a yarn needle using various left over colors to minimize the amount of random colors seen in the seems. Ha ha. Seen in the seems. Anyways, I'm pretty proud of this blanket, and hope that one day, when I have my own place, it will sit in a place on honor on the back of my couch, that is, unless I actually complete my attempt at making a Detroit Lions afghan, which will then hold a place of honor.

It's big enough to fit completely over my double bed.

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On a semi-unrelated note, my mom and I have been making Scarves for the Special Olympics, and I have managed to complete one so far. This one, I used a size N hook and doubled up on the yarn. Hopefully I can actually make more than one, but we'll see.

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...



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. :-)

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:



And here:



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.

A New Hat

It's silly, but I have been doing the double crochet stitch wrong. I don't know when or how I managed to come up with this random... thing... but it took until about a month ago for me to realize how wrong I was. And go figure, after this realization, I now know why all my hats always turn out wrong. Ta-da.

So today I spent an hour making a new hat. I followed the pattern for the "Boy Beanie" in Stitch and Bitch: The Happy Hooker. And guess what!!? It turned out the way it was supposed to!

See!

The flower is from a pattern called "Spring in the Winter" which is in the same book. I'm really excited that it turned out right. Go me. So now I can just remake all the hats I ever made for people and effed up on.