2015 recap and 2016 resolutions

2015 went by so fast! Like many years, it had its highs and a few big lows. Unfortunately nine weeks after losing my grandpa, my grandma passed away in January. I'm so grateful we got one more Christmas with her after losing my grandpa but it was so hard to lose them so close.

There were a lot of bright spots in the year though. In the spring we finally felt like it might be time to have a third dog again. We had been keeping an eye out at the Welfare League's website to see if it looked like any dogs would fit in with our current crew. While we were looking, we learned about a dog who needed a home from one of our family members. We agreed to meet her and it was love at first sight. Foxy joined our family - a two (now three) year old chihuahua-German shepherd mix. She is everyone's little love puppy and I couldn't imagine not having her here.

I'm still chugging along in year two of my job and I got promoted this year! It's been such a great move for me, both in terms of my career and the amazing people I get to work with. J started Kindergarten; C is in third grade and tested into the gifted program!

We took a leap and bought an RV, which we took to San Diego for what is turning into an annual vacation for us. It was so great having a place to chill, with a kitchen to cook in instead of having to go out for every meal. The boys had a great time hanging with their cousins and riding around on bikes and hanging out at the beach. We took them to the San Diego Zoo for the first time too!

As in years past I also tried to keep up with a goal list, so on to the list:

• Blog three times a month - nope not even close. Things were so hectic and yet so ordinary that I didn't have a lot to say
• Make stockings by Christmas for each member of the family - 50% done. C and J both got to use theirs this year, but I still need to do E's and mine.

• Knit at least three pairs of socks - yep, in under the wire. I finished E's Christmas socks two days before Christmas. Funny enough two of the three pairs were for him this year. But he appreciates them so much.
• Make a shawl/stole - not quite. I'm about 2/3 done with a scarf/stole thing
• Sew an item of clothing - yep. Made four bow ties for the kids in my sister's wedding to wear.
• Make bread - yes!!! After being on my list every year, I made some on Monday! So worth the effort - especially now that I have my kitchen aid
• Make caramels - nope
• Make truffles - nada
• Lose 10 pounds - not even close
• Read at least seven books - blasted through this. I read at least 11; I think it was more but that's all I wrote down
• Learn to play guitar - nope and I think this will end up waiting a few more years
• Learn a new cast on/cast off - no. Most of my knitting was types of things I know how to do.
• Finish office/craft room organization - Almost. I got a new desk that can change heights so I can use it for typing on the computer or sewing, then raise it up if I want to cut fabric. I also got a new (old) file cabinet from my grandparents house when we were cleaning it up. It's super functional and nicer than mine but very 1980s wood and gold finishes. Doesn't match the room. So I sanded it down and am repainting it "Oxford Blue" aka Tardis blue. The handles are painted silver. It's actually sitting in the garage waiting for the last coat of paint. Then my beautiful office/craft room is done!!

So four done, six not and three half done or more. Not too shabby. I wish I had done a little better but c'est la vie. Now onward to 2016. I'm guessing grad school will be a time suck so this is a short but hopefully reasonable list:

• Get accepted into and start grad school
• Sew a skirt for myself
• Lose 10 pounds
• Finish the last two stockings
• Read 8 books (Honeymoon Suite - 4/12/16; Babyland - 4/15/16; Heart of the Matter - 4/19/16)
• Make truffles
• Blog 24 times
• Knit 2 pairs of socks

Happy 2016!

 

 

A Finished Object

I finished the Christmas stocking I was working on. We took a week long vacation to San Diego, which gave me plenty of time to knit - we planned our vacation to have a lot of down time this year, not so go go go, which I think was great for everyone. By the time we pulled back in our driveway I only had to Kitchener the toe (I'm prone to car sickness so I couldn't look at my hands long enough while riding to finish it).

I absolutely love the way it turned out! But I wanted to try lining it so that nothing would catch on the floats if I stuffed it. While I am not an experienced sewer, lining this ended up being super easy.

I found an awesome snowflake fabric at Joann to coordinate with the knitted snowflake motif. Then I laid out my stocking on the fabric, tracing it and adding a half inch seam allowance. I cut it slightly shorter than the stocking (up to the red ridge).

I cut the first piece out, then used it to trace the second piece (turning it so I wouldn't have two front side pieces and no backside pieces.

I wanted to have the right side of the fabric showing towards the inside of the stocking so I was careful to think through which way to sew it. Using my sewing machine I sewed so the right sides were facing each other, all around the stocking except for the top. Then I turned it right side out. I turned the stocking inside out and slid the lining over the inside out stocking. Once it was on the way I wanted it, I stitched the lining to the stocking using an overlock stitch.

The great thing about this particular stocking pattern is there is basically a ridge that forms on the inside near the top, which was the perfect place to attach the lining. Once I finished attaching it I only had to flip the stocking right side out and voilà it was done!

 

Update

What a hectic month! So much happened with family and work. My sister got married! I'm so excited for her and my new BIL is a great guy. I was one of the bridesmaids and my boys were both in the wedding too. I finished the bow ties that I was working on for the little boys.

I'm so happy with the way they turned out.

(Goofy kid modeling the tie at the wedding)

Speaking of this goofy kid, he finished preschool!

And C finished second grade! It's hard to believe that I will have two in elementary school in the fall. They're growing up so fast - J was about 6 months old and C was younger than J is now when I started blogging.

We also adopted a new dog. It was sort of unplanned. We had been talking about getting another dog but hadn't made a firm decision or found one who fit with our family. Then my SIL told us about someone who needed to re home their dog. When we heard more about the dog we knew she would be a perfect fit for our family. So meet Foxy!

She's two and about 30 lbs. She loves our boys and gets along amazingly with our other two. I'm so glad she joined our household.

On top of all of that I also had to travel out of state twice for work in the last month. Not so bad but certainly kept me hopping with all of the other things going on too.

And of course where would I be without my knitting. I finished a set of washcloths for the bride; paired with some Bath and Bodyworks soap and voila I had a nice gift.

Now I'm working on a couple of the projects on my resolution list. I've started the first Christmas stocking. I'm using some leftover acrylic worsted weight from my grandma and a size 7 needle. The pattern is Fiona's stocking and has a spot for customizing names on each one. I also was really drawn to the snowflake motif.

I'm also working on a lacy scarf with a great merino silk blend. This tends to be my more portable project and one that I pick up when I don't feel like eating a chart. It's lace but only has two alternating pattern rows, with a row of purling between each one. The pattern is Strangling Vines and it's perfect for anyone looking for an easy intro to lace. Bonus - one of the groups I belong to on Ravelry is having a lace along, so that is providing the momentum I need to finish it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bow ties are Cool

My sister is getting married next month and thought it would be cute for the little boys in the wedding (C, J, my nephew and BIL's nephew) to wear bow ties. Problem is she needs light pink ones. So far ever store we checked has black ones or plaid ones. Solution: sew them!

All the patterns I've seen seem very simple but I wanted to practice before I volunteered to make them. I found a great tutorial from this website. It basically amounts to folding a rectangle and sewing it, folding it and sewing it again, etc. Easy enough for this novice sewer.

I used some fabric from Ikea that had somewhat abstract automobiles on it. It ended up looking like swirled fabric by the time I was done, but that's okay. I'm really happy with how it turned out. Now onto four pink ones (using satin, eek!).

Bonus - I accomplished something on my resolution list, which was to sew something wearable.

 

 

Sewing a knitting needle holder

My double pointed knitting needles have been driving me crazy lately. I absolutely love knitting with them but until now I had no good way of organizing them. Instead they were all thrown in a bin together, which meant a lot of digging and using my needle gauge any time I wanted to use a set. So I started thinking about a way to organize them.

Another one of my goals was to get better at using my sewing machine. So for this year's resolution list I decided to join my ideas/goals and sew a knitting needle holder. I figured it would be a fairly easy project as it is pretty much all straight lines.

How did it go? Well...I sort of winged it. I think it looks pretty good for one of my first projects. There are some flaws but I can live with them. Here's how I got there.

First I had to figure out what size I needed to cut the fabric. I wanted a spot for all of my current needles plus a few spots for the sizes that I'm still missing (and will hopefully acquire some day). I figured 2" for each space would work - big enough for one set of the larger sizes and multiple of the smaller sizes. I also wanted to give myself a seam allowance so I went with 32" wide - 15 holders plus my allowance. I decided to cut the main piece 16" tall. My tallest needles are 8" and I wanted to be able to fold the top down so the needles wouldn't fall out the top. I'm pretty sure I cut more than I needed to but I'm still working on my precision. My smaller piece - the pocket piece a was going to be the same width but only about 5" tall (my shortest needles are only 6" tall so I didn't want it to come up too high)

I raided my fabric stash to find some fabric to use and ended up with a gorgeous turquoise blue for the big piece and a purple, blue and pink striped fabric for the smaller piece. To make my life easier (so I thought) I cut each piece twice as tall so I could just fold it over and hem. This was mistake number one - by doing it this way the stitching on my pockets was going to be noticeable on the outside of the holder.

So anyway I pinned the right sides of the fabric together on the smaller piece and sewed around the three unattached sides, leaving a small opening to turn it right side out.

Then I did the same for the bigger piece. (Mistake number two - I sewed all the way around the three sides. I had to get out a seam ripper to cut the opening so I could turn it the right way.)

Next I pinned the two pieces together and top stitched around. This step went rather smoothly until the very end. About two inches from the edge, my bobbin ran out of thread. No big deal, I'll just wind some more. Except the bobbin winder on my machine chose that moment to break. I know it worked earlier because I wound thread onto the bobbin before I started the project. I was so frustrated! Mere inches from the edge and I was stuck. So I did something I wouldn't have done if I were giving this away - I switched to a thread that matched a bobbin that I already had wound. In my defense I was using a really light gray and switched to white so it's not super noticeable.

My next step was to mark out every two inches on the striped fabric to mark out where to sew for pockets. Then I sewed them down. Here's where I would have been smart to only be sewing through one on the big pieces of fabric and then sewing the other down.

I'm really not too bummed though because even with all the trial and error here's what I ended up with - a very functional and rather pretty needle holder.

My flap idea even worked!

Then I grabbed a pretty ribbon and tied it together.

Ta da! Another resolution ticked off the list and a functional project to come out of it!

 

Knitted Christmas

This year I ended up knitting a few of my Christmas gifts. I love giving homemade gifts and I wish I had the time to make everything. As it was I barely finished and haven't had much time to talk about them until today.

The first thing I made (and probably my favorite of the items I made) was a hat and scarf set for my niece. My niece is super knit worthy - for her birthday I hinted that I had gotten her something really cool. Her response: "you made me a hat and scarf?!" Unfortunately I hadn't but now I knew what she was getting for Christmas. I picked out some variegated purple/green/grey in Sheepish as my niece loves purple. For the hat I used the Three Tams pattern from an old issue of Knitty (and used white Sheepish for the contrast color). The scarf pattern was Yarn Harlot's One Row Scarf.

My niece loved them! She was actually wearing them when I saw her this week, even though it was 75 degrees outside. Like I said, totally knit worthy.

For her little sister, I knitted a stuffed owl. My niece is so into owls so I thought it might be fun to knit her one (plus it would probably go over better than a hat would). I found an adorable giant owl pattern from Purl Bee. The pattern calls for super bulky yarn on Size 15 needles. I used Lion Brand Hometown, which is also a super bulky but recommends size 13 needles. I like the owl but I do wish I had gone with size 11 needles for a denser fabric.

My niece liked it. It's so big she could hardly get her arms around it!

Another project I finished was a hat for my aunt. In our family we do an exchange by drawing names and getting something for that person (like secret Santa but not secret). My aunt had seen me working on my niece's hat and joked that she hoped I would get her name so I could make her a hat. Well sure enough I did pick her! I used the Flora hat pattern. Other people who had kntitted the pattern mentioned in their notes that it came out big. So I switched to a size 6 for the body of the hat and a size 4 for the brim.

I tried it on before I gave it to her to make sure it fit and it fit me fine so hopefully it fits her well. I also gave her a bottle of wine to go with her present so I thought I'd have a little fun.

I made a hat for the bottle! The pattern is obviously not the same (I used Susan B Anderson's Santa hat ornament) but the yarn is the same.

My last knitting project for Christmas were gift card holders for the boys' teachers. They were nice, quick knits that added a little bit of personalization to the gift cards. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of them before I gave them away. But trust me, they were cute. I used a mini stocking pattern with leftover scrap acrylic on size 5 needles.

I also had two other non-knitted craft projects for Christmas. In my resolutions post I mentioned the sewing I did last year, with one of the items being heating packs for my FIL. These are so simple - just two pieces of fabric held right side together and sewn most the way around the outside, leaving a couple inches open. Then they are turned right side out and filled with beans. Lastly the opening is sewn shut.

The last project was a couple of ornaments for the babysitter. I made a batch of salt dough and rolled it out into two disks. I then had my boys press their hands into the dough and then poked a couple of holes at the top for the string. Since they were a little big I poked two holes in each to provide more support to the string. After I baked it, I painted the imprints of their hands and sprayed a glossy sealant on them. Then I ran some string through them.

Whew - I think that was all of the crafting fun around here!

For more finished objects, check out Tami's Amis!

 

2013 recap and 2014 resolutions

2013 was a pretty ordinary year but definitely had some high points. We took an epic family road trip at the beginning of the summer with my family. We visited my relatives in Iowa and and also detoured over to Mount Rushmore on the way home. In the process I also got to visit three new states. We also took the boys to San Diego for a long weekend with E's family. Plus E and I took a short vacation just the two of us to Las Vegas.

C finished up kindergarten and started first grade. He played basketball again this summer. He also lost his first tooth and is working on learning to ride a bike without training wheels.

J started preschool this fall and got to perform in his first school program. He's always such a bright, bouncing fun kid.

As with years past, I made a list of resolutions for the year as goals I wanted to accomplish. Just like other years I only made it through about 40% of the list. But that's okay - that's why I have a large list. If I miss on things it still doesn't feel like I completely failed. It also shows where my priorities change. For instance I didn't organize the pantry but I still worked on getting my house in order by fixing up the office somewhat. (I'm still working on some parts of it.

So where did I succeed? Well I finally lost the ten pounds that have been on my list for a few years. In fact I actually ended up losing 19 total. I knit a cardigan, which was done as a test knit. Unfortunately it was a little big to begin with and the aforementioned weight loss made it even bigger.

E and I did get an inground sandbox built for the boys. It's been great for them to play in this time of year, when it is so nice out here. I tried to garden again. It went okay for a while but then it got too hot out. E bought me an indoor garden set so I'm going to try again this year.

I used my sewing machine this year. I tried to practice by sewing a bear shirt for C. It doesn't look that great up close but it is actually shirt shaped and fits the bear so I'd call it a mild success. I also made some heating packs for my FIL. I made him one years ago with a hand stitcher but he really needed a new one. They looked pretty good when I was done. Definitely want to keep practicing though.

I also read more this year, reading five books. It doesn't sound like a lot but it's more than I had been reading in the past. I discovered my local library has a digital library available to subscribers so I've been taking advantage of that. It's super helpful since I can't seem to make it to the library during the week and they are closed on Sunday, leaving me only Saturdays to get there.

Now to this years list:

Read five books (Knitting Rules - 1/19/14; Things I Learned from Knitting; I've Got Your Number - 4/15/14; I think I Love You - 4/22/14; The Amazing Thing About the Way it Goes - 5/20/14; The Shopping Swap - 8/9/14; Shopaholic to the Stars - 10/24/14)

Organize the pantry (1/20/14)

Learn to play guitar

Learn a new cast on or cast off

Learn entrelac

Make a crochet project

Sew a needle holder (3/30/14)

Sew an item of clothing

Garden

Practice my frosting piping skills (4/8/14)

Make fresh bread

Make caramels

Make truffles

Lose 23 pounds

Blog at least three times a month

There are some repeats on my list - caramels, truffles and bread seem to be on my cooking "bucket list". 23 pounds is a really specific weight loss number, but it gets me to my goal weight. And if I did 19 in six months I should be able to do 23 in one year. I'm starting to get more comfortable knitting so I really would just like to expand my cast on/off variety. I'm kind of stuck on backwards loop and knitted cast on for the cast on types I know how to do. I can't seem to wrap my brain around it but I'll try again. After entrelac, I need to learn intarsia and then I think it will be a matter of fine tuning my skills, rather than big leaps. Maybe intarsia will be my 2015 resolution!

I kept some of my other goals the same but went more specific. I think that will help me have better luck at finishing. For example instead of blog more I set a specific amount (I pretty epically failed at this one last year). I want to practice my sewing so I set out two sort of specific projects. And I want to finish a whole crocheted project this year instead of the nonspecific "crochet more". Hopefully I can get to at least half this year!

Happy new year!

 

Update

Man, things have been busy around here lately! C started first grade and J started school for the very first time (preschool) a few weeks ago.

My first grader!

My preschooler!

Then we hit another milestone around here, as C lost his first tooth last weekend.

I have also knocked a few things off my resolution list. I just finished my fifth book for the year. I also busted out the sewing machine. I watched a Craftsy that was immensely helpful and then tried to see what I could do.

The results are super rough but I managed to make a shirt for my son's bear. It doesn't look too bad from afar but up close the uneven seams are pretty obvious. My straight seams are not so straight and the zig zags are not evenly spaced. I also didn't hem the neck. But for a first effort, I'm really pleased!

The other thing on my that I accomplished was definitely the most difficult - I've lost 10 pounds. I've been using My Fitness Pal to track what I eat and trying to bike ride more and this week I hit the ten pounds lost mark. I still have more I want to lose but this is a great first step.

And of course I've been working on my knitting. I've become somewhat hooked on sock yarn...

It does all have a purpose though. I bought a bunch of the it on clearance at Hobby Lobby. The bright multicolor pink yarn will be socks for my niece. The blue grey at the bottom and the brown will be a couple of pairs for C. The blue and green ball is a pair for J (I'm also currently working on a dark blue and black pair for him.) The other three are going to be socks for me. I can't remember what brand the blue and green cake is but I got it at one of the local LYSes. The dark blue at the top is a Zauberball (!!) from another local LYS. The last one is Candy Skein's August colorway, Blue Hawaiian. I never realized before how much I gravitate towards blue based yarn - I think my niece's socks are the only ones without at least a little blue.

Boy has it been busy around here!