{I'm BACK! }

My camera finally arrived in the mail!! (Thanks Dad!) and so I can show you my (not so many) knitting accomplishments since I've written last.  The weather has finally broken and it was only about 62 this morning, so I'm hopeful that soon my knitting mojo shall return. I'm even sipping Chai Tea as I write which is definitely a good sign.

The FO completed furthest back is this sweater, which I have been promising a picture of for AGES.  It's from the pattern Shrug This by Toni Kayser.   It's a free one on Ravelry but it's also been published in the One Skein Wonders series.

I made it from two skeins the most SUMPTIOUS yarn I've ever come across and the colours just screams of fall. The body yarn is Superwash Merino Aran by the Unplanned Peacock, who is local to SW Virginia, and the ribbing is in Pales DK (held double, I think) by Gaia's Colours. Both are discontinued but if you can find them used on the Ravelry exchange they are well worth the extra trouble to find.  The length is longer than the pattern as written with lots of waist shaping put in.  It turned out this length because I just wanted to knit until my yarn was gone but it's actually a little but awkward.  I haven't worn it out of the house yet because it's been so hot, but ripping back the length a bit may not be out of the question. 

The buttons are cut from antlers! Oh my goodness I love them!  They've been in my button tin since I got them for Christmas two years ago from my mom waiting for just the right project.  

Okay, on to my knitting from my trip home.  The plane rides and layovers are always long and annoying, so I decided on some intricate Fair Isle to keep me busy.  At the top of my queue for a long time has been Selbu.

I used Marks and Katten Fame Trend for the background and some Knit Picks Palette I had kicking around for the cream pattern.  I loved knitting it and watching the stripes appear and the pattern take shape.  I really think this was my most favorite pattern to knit ever.  Unlike lace, it's instant gratification!  I totally recommend giving this one a try.  The chart is an easy one too.

That's it for completed knitting for the past month. Crazy, right? I have a couple pairs of socks on the go right now, but they really aren't interesting or complete so I don't think they count. lol

Other FOs include non-knitting (really, non crafty) type things such as.... CARPET!  Our landlord GRACIOUSLY paid for new carpet in our rental home and I can not be more pleased.  We've been here for almost 6 years now and he said he wanted to reward us as good tenants. Yeah!  We did all the heavy lifting though in that we completly moved out of our house and then back in to it two days later.  The Uhaul never moved! lol  Here's a peak at the difference:

BEFORE: 40 years old, dingy, stains, holes, and no padding:

AFTER: bright, clean, and NEW!

It seriously feels like a new house!  I love it but it was  LOT of work.  It's like we moved but without moving. lol We're still unpacking  a few boxes and I've taken one huge load of miscellaneous junk (to me) for the Goodwill.  I made a few tough calls so that our house wouldn't feel cluttered again like before.  I gave away my wedding dress.  Hopefully it'll find a home with a bride on a budget who doesn't mind a little alteration.  It was a gorgeous gown but it was just taking up a LOT of space in my tiny closet. 

I'll wrap up with a couple of photos from home:

My sister and her two oldest girls:

(I'm sure she'll love me for the no-makeup pic. hehe But the girls are cute!)

And the baby, her youngest and my Goddaughter:

doing her fashion pose. hehe

They are getting big too fast and seeing them once a year is not often enough.

{We Built Bookshelves!}

**Edited to add questions and answers at the bottom!**

I'm sure I've written to you folks about the inconveniences of my home.  One of them is storage (but doesn't everyone complain about not enough storage?) but the layout of the house is kind of annoying too.  The square footage just isn't used very wisely.  A prime example is our hallway; at 5 feet wide by 20 feet long, it's almost wide enough to be a room, but not quite.  I've dreamt of bookcases in this hall for EVER, but we all know how expensive good bookcases are.  I really liked these one here, but yeah... $400 each? So not gonna happen.  Plus we have some pretty super high ceilings in this old house, like 10 feet throughout and I wanted to be able to take advantage of the height here.

A plan was born.... we're gonna BUILD them. By Ourselves.  Armed with this tutorial from Popular Mechanics, I drafted up some to scale drawing to plan the heights of each shelf, how much moulding, etc.  I wanted them to work well for this house, but then when we buy a house in oh, 4 or 5 years, I want to be able to use them in that house too.

The Plan: 3 separate bookshelves, each 2 1/2 feet wide by 7 feet tall, then base moulding and crown moulding to tie them together. All anchored to the wall, and to each other in the back.

There was cutting outside, and then building inside:

We used whitewood for all the structural parts and then inexpensive wood paneling for the backs, but turned backwards so the raw wood was showing.

 

It took us about a day and a half of work, but here they are finally standing up, just missing their shelf moulding:

Once I saw them here like this, I decided I liked the raw wood look for a while.  I was thinking first I'd paint them white, like my inspiration bookcases, but then I was thinking that since we bought real wood for all of it, not mdf or ply, that it would be sad to paint.  I began to think about staining.  In the end I think I've decided I like how they are now in this house, and when we move somewhere more permanent, I'll decide then what colour they should be.

After dinner yesterday I started to pull books from everywhere: the shed, under the bed, in plastic storage bins in the office, from under our nightstands, and from the older not as nice bookshelf in the living room.... holy macrel.  I don't think I believed we'd FILL the cases just yet!

But there ya go.  They're pretty much full.  I had no idea!  Now we have about half a dozen free plastic totes for organizing the shed today!  Maybe I'll be brave enough to take pictures of that too. LOL We'll see!

You've never seen two people more proud of themselves this morning than Mr. Pie and I.  I think this is the beginning of a lot more furniture being built around this house.

Edited to Add:

I've had a few questions so I thought I'd put them here at the bottom, okie?

How much did lumber cost?  We spend about $250 on the 1"x10" lumber, plus the trims, for all three bookcases, then the backing for all three was about $50, so a total of $300 for all materials.

How much lumber did we use?  It was 10 -  1"x10"x10' and 3 - 1"x10"x8', then 10 feet of base moulding, 10 feet of top moulding, and I think 6 - 8' sections of 3/4" shelf trim, and 6 - 1/4" x 1 1/2" x 8' side mouldings.  The other part we added was some 1x1's to hold give the shelves some support, so I think we bought 6 - 8' sections of that those too.

Was this hard?  It was labour intensive for sure.  We're lucky that Mr. Pie had most of the tools we needed like the electric saws and whatnot.  We did decide to invest in an electric nail gun since we know that this won't be the last of the furniture we build, but it totally crapped out on us half way through.  We hoofed it old-skool with a hammer and nails the rest of the way. That sucked.

How much time did it take?  not counting the whole day sucked from our life in the lumber store,  it was about 8 hours one day, and about 4 hours the next day, so about 12 hours total with both of us working.  Mostly I did the measuring and the holding, and Mr. Pie did the operating of spinny blade tools.  It's probably best that way. hehe

Thanks for the questions!

Linked to: http://www.bystephanielynn.com

and http://www.flamingotoes.com/

{For the Love of Collages! (updates)}

So, finals are over and I've survived.  I got A+, an A, and A- and.... a C.  Yes folks, it is my FIRST EVER anything less than a B+, and it is a C.  It has come to me in the form of Multi-Variable Calculus and I worked HARD for it.  With that in mind I should say that I am proud of the grade I got (I PASSED!) but it's still just a teensy bit hard to say.  It bring my 2-year GPA to 3.77. *sigh* 

With the summer plans still hanging in the balance (Hello, Advance Auto? I really REALLY want to intern for you over the summer, preferably paid, but I'll take unpaid.  Call me?)  I've been doing other things to keep busy.

I've been knitting. Are you surprised?  I thought I would attempt Nightsongs , but in a 100% organic worsted cotton on #9 needles to make it a nice quick around-the-neck shawl.  I knit it in 2 days, and now it's blocking:

Soooooo... couple of things.  I really managed to screw up this chart. lol It's one of those free lace patterns that while BEAUTIFUL, you kind of have to know a little about lace knitting in order to be able to figure it out.  It's only two charts, one for the body and one for the edging.  I screwed up the body enough that the edging pattern didn't fit at all.  So I just left it off. lol  Then, when I went to block it, it wouldn't block straight across the neck edge, so I hope it'll wrap okay. Also, it's taking a million years to dry, but I guess that's just the worsted weight cotton talking?  Overall, I'm happy with it I think and I hope that my friend who is graduating on Sunday likes it.  I'm planning another like this in the future for me.

Fiori Del Sole is coming along.  I'm almost 4 repeats done of the main body pattern, then I start the 19 edging charts. hehe I'm just kidding, it's more like 8. But that's still a lot of charts.

Yesterday I had a VERY successful trip to Goodwill!  At Goodwill I either have no luck at all, or all the luck in the world.

Pictured above is a fanTASTIC tulled (tooled?) leather belt with a belt buckle I can replace ($1), a new looking pair of mary-jane style Naturalizers ($2.50) a great 70's style blue dress with an elastic waist, which is the perfect perfect knee length on me ($4) and a very cute knee length skirt ($3.50). This was my one maybe-ish purchase. It's kind of puffy on me, but if I wear a long fitted shirt I think it looks good. Time will tell.  Oh, and also a pair of Adidas track pants for working out in ($3.50?).  THEN, there's the finds I'm particularly fond of:

This floor length dress is made out of pajamas material and i'm in LOVE with it. ($4) I do need to shorten the straps just a bit I think, though. And also,I just realized that maybe i'm wearing the wrong size bra. huh.

AND... la piece de resistance!

A new ceramic lamp!!  Do you see that price tag??  And it WORKS! I don't even need to rewire it! (which I was prepared to do).  She needs a coat of spray paint and a new lamp shade. Stay tuned!!  All in all I spent $25 yesterday at Goodwill.

I also have very exciting other news!  Mr. Pie and I have the next whole week off together!!! I'm so excited!  We couldn't remember the last time we had one whole week with nothing to do except be together.  We have lots of home projects planned, like building library book cases, but weather must cooperate for that to happen.  Our recent weather doesn't leave me entirely too hopeful.

That's HAIL on our front porch!  I hope we have fun pictures to show you soon of home-type projects.  Right now I'm going to go help Mr. Pie plant the veggie garden! YAY!

-this post brought to you by picasa collages

{The Green Pepper Problem}

Namely, we have too many!  You guys haven't seen our tiny backyard garden for a while, have you?  It's really taken off!

First came the cayenne peppers and the grape tomatoes, but Mr. Pie has been keeping up with those pretty consistently.  They're starting to all ripen at once now so I imagine some tomato sauce or salsa or something is in our future.  The jalapenos are coming slowly and steadily, not quite out of hand yet, and we're still waiting on the large tomatoes and the carrots to fully ripen and grow.  BUT.  The green peppers are totally out of control.  We have them coming out of our ears!

Here's the close up of the bowl:

So here's our dilemma: we can use tomatoes for tons of things, and the cayenne we've dried and ground to powder for cooking... but what the HECK to we do with 3 dozen green peppers??  We've bbq'd a few for dinner, but didn't like that as much as we like the zucchini or squash the same way.  We've stuffed them and baked them a few times, but you can't only do that so much. 

I haven't braved canning just yet and don't really have the money at the moment for those supplies. So I'm looking for ideas either to preserve them somehow, or maybe bake them in something ala zucchini bread... or is there another meal that you like using green peppers?

Thanks in advance!
-Drowning in Produce

{Garden Update!}

Oh my gosh our garden plants are growing like crazy! We've started to see the first tiny green tomatoes appearing and we've already enjoyed our first round of cayenne peppers!


Here's a pic we took yesterday:

We have, in order from the far left to the near right: carrots (barely visible back there), jalapenos, yellow peppers, cayenne pepper (hiding), small tomatoes, large tomatoes, and asparagus (in the red pot).  Pretty soon we'll have an almost salad! hehe

In Icarus news, I'm knitting away on my fourth repeat of chart 1.  I think I've decided to only do four, which would make the finished blocking length about 66 inches, which would be a-ok with me. lol  Chart 2 here I come!

{Updates Continued}

I'm loving the fact that school is out! I think I'm finally starting to believe that I don't have homework to do. hehe  I've been a busy girl, despite a horrific head cold.  I'm whiny, still in my pajamas, but doin' stuff!

Look what I can do!

So, apart from the fact that I'm a dufus who doesn't know how to attach purse handles the right way (what a rookie mistake! LOL that'll get ripped out tomorrow)  look what I did!  This is my first attempt at a bag of any kind and I'm pretty darn proud of myself.  It's fully lined and I've added that pocket to the outside and a pocket on the inside.  I even lined the outside pocket! Also, check out the pretty red trim around the top!  It makes me smile. :D

 

 I think the inside pocket needs a button, so I'm going to add one.  I made the pocket a little wide to be practical, it kind of flops open, ya know?   Maybe one of my buttons made of antler? That would be way cool.  What do you think??  I love that my machine has a cool 4-step auto button holer AND buttoner!

Popeye Update

I think the vaccinations plus the worm medicine have messed with his tummy a bit.  He's been sleeping a lot today and is still nibbling slowly on his dinner from last night.  Is this normal, guys?

Popeye on the New Ottoman

Knit Picks Order

Yep, I got my Knit Picks yesterday! MAN I love seeing that box on the front porch!  Some of what I got wasn't terribly interesting: their purple plastic stitch markers, a couple of cable needles and a longer wire for my needles, BUT! Some of what I got was WAY cool!

 CotLin in Whisper(grey) and Cashew (tan)

These will be for some fun dish clothes to take with me to the craft show.  The one for May was canceled because the organizers realized they had planned for Memorial Day Weekend (which I thought that was the point? hehe)  so I'll be at the one in June.  This is good, I have more time to make stuff.

Shine Sport in Cream

Some kind of baby item, maybe? Or perhaps slippers? I haven't decided.  This stuff is super soft!

Crayon in Light Blue and Flamingo

These will be baby items too, I think.  Maybe little tiny hats, like the kind you put on babies in the hospital to tell whether they're a boy or girl? hehe  SUPER soft and 100% cotton - I love it!

I also got one new book from them yesterday and three for my birthday! WAHOO!  I'll write reviews tomorrow. :) Have a nice evening everyone!  I have to go blow my nose now.... hehehe

{So Much To Catch Up On!}

 First of all, I'll update you on Popeye's visit to the vet this morning. Thank you to everyone who asked about him! He and I feel very loved.   It was just worms, as we suspected, so he got worm medicine, his vaccinations and some flea medicine.  He did really well and didn't fuss hardly at all.  I'm super proud of him. :)  Okay, on to better stuff!!


Baby Sweater

The Mister and I have been busy bees on our long weekend! I told you that I finished a baby sweater, right?  Here it is!

Presto Chango by Valerie Wallis

I knit this cute little guy in Peaches and Cream 100% cotton, worsted weight, and it worked up like a dream.  It was kind of an odd construction.  You start knitting at the bottom of the back, add the stitches for the arms to either side, then knit up until you bind off the back of the neck, then knit down the front. hehe This was my first attempt at buttons, too! You see, up until now my family has been telling me that buttons on baby sweaters are a no-no, but I SUPER attached these ones with a ton of thread.  They aren't goin' no where! hehe

Craft Desk

The Mister and I both are pretty crafty people.  He enjoys painting models for war games that are very tiny and intricate and also does some woodworking here and there.  I of course knit, but then I also got that sewing machine for my birthday that I've started to play with and just well... it's annoying to always be hauling everything we need out to the dining room at the other end of the house and then have to put it all away again to clear off the table.  Our solution? We were inspired by Anna at Knock Off Wood to build our own custom craft desk across from our computer desks in the office.  We needed the surface area and we definitely need more storage for all our crafty accessories. 

That side of the room has a fireplace on it, but as you can see it's not functional.  We only rent this house, not own, so making the fireplace functional, or taking it out all together was out of the question.  It's a shame though because it takes up that entire wall and makes it almost totally unusable for any furniture.  That door beside it? One of THREE doors that goes in to the bedroom.  It's a little redundant.

Here's where we're at today:

There are three 20"x20" bases (the side one is turned because it's beside a dresser) made out of fiber board, and then the top is a really pretty stain grade pine that we bought 24" wide.  Lowes cut this ALL for us, which is so so awesome!  Seriously? With the pieces cut when we got home it went together just as easy as any piece of Ikea furniture I've ever bought.  About 2 1/2 hours to get all three bases and the shelf together.

We're waiting for a pretty day outside now so we can cut all the 1x2 trim for the bottoms, paint the base units white and stain the top.  I'm thinking a nice warm natural cherry colour, followed by some satin polyurethane. According to weather.com that won't be happening until Thursday.  And that ottoman?  We picked that up at the Habitat For Humanity Restore for $20!! It's a Pottery Barn Ottoman!!  I adore it!!  

I also got a Knit Picks box today, but I'll wait to show you that unit tomorrow! hehe

{A Productive Saturday - So Far}

This morning, with 5 days of vacation ahead of us, we headed out to the next city to check out some garage sales and the Farmer's Market.  The garage sales were all a bust, but we did buy some plants from our garden!  We hadn't planned on actually planting them until tonight, but surprised ourselves by doing it in the midday sun.

do you think I need some of these instead of the paper? hehe

the whole garden (yep, the whole thing). That's our composting system 

in the blue bins in the back.

We planted: yellow pepper, cayenne pepper, cherry tomatoes, big tomatoes, asparagus, and carrot seeds.  We have plans to add jalapeno peppers too.

While we were playing in the dirt, these were cooking in the kitchen:

banana muffins

When I saw we had some frozen over ripe bananas I jumped right on these!  Made the kitchen smell sooooo good.  I baked them in the new muffin tin I got from my family for my birthday! It makes a larger muffin, which I like, and I didn't have to use a cupcake sleeve! It's no stick! My favorite? You just turned the cup *INSIDE OUT* to wash it! Isn't  that fabulous?

We had some hard news today too... our Popeye, he is sick.  He's got a vet's appointment for Tuesday morning.  Don't worry, we're taking good care of him.

the box isn't quite big enough

I'm three quarters of the way done on this baby sweater too. It's an odd construction.  I'll tell you about it tomorrow. :)

{My New Computer!!}

Mr. Pie built me a brand new computer from just parts! They came in little sepatate boxes and he turned it in to a working piece of equipment! It's beautiful!

Not everything loaded yet, of course, but I look forward to nerding out on some MMO's soon!! (If you don't now what an MMO is, then I'm too embarassed to tell you! hehehe!) ;)

My Mr. Pie is the best EVA!

{Cleaning Con't}

We are both sore but the house feels soooooooo goooooooooooooooood! As you can see, the kittens were even pooped out. ;)

I even got some crafting in! I decided my new clean dining room table needed a new table runner. Since i don't have a sewing machine, these were done with Stitch Witchery. I decided after I took these photos that I didn't really like the birds, so I took them off and left just the ruffle as my "something girly."



So here it is on my table now:
It may need a little ribbon trim or something, but I haven't decided, so for now it's just a little something new. Be sure to come back tomorrow, I have an FO to show you! YAY!

{Cleaning!}

We're taking a short break at the moment before we dive in to the next couple rooms of cleaning. But here's picture evidence of the work we put in yesterday and this morning:

Before: Dingy Cabinets, the top being used for storage, and the kitty litter box down beside (you can just see the top of the litter bag)


After: bright white cabinets, a recycling bin where the kitty litter box was moved from, and no storage on the top of the cabinet because....


... we installed a new shelf in our laundry/pantry closet! This is right in the kitchen too - you can see the folding door closed in the photo above. We always had the wire shelf there but now we have the "stuff we don't need to get to very often" shelf. I also moved all the canned storage in to here too so we can see what we have and what we need to buy. (note to self: need more chicken stock.)

I'm LOVING this!


more updates to come! :)

ps - I have no idea why the washer had to be installed sideways. The dudes who delivered and installed them put it that way. *shrug*? It looks weird in the picture, though. lol

{First Project: Check!}

I am so excited about our big cleaning plans that I hopped on one project that I could do myself without a trip to the hardware store. I spray painted the chandelier!

Here's a picture of my dining room before:

and of course you saw a picture of it (albeit in the dark) in yesterday's post.

And here it is now!


Doesn't it fit in so much better? I'm very happy with this free transformation. I would have preferred to do something with the little glass covers, like maybe throw them in the garbage, but without something to replace them they'll stay for now. hehe

{Project: Spring Break}

Mr. Pie and I have spring break off together. It's been sooooo long since we've had a whole week off of school and work at the same time! We thought at first that we would try to head out for a few days and grab a hotel in a new city and do some exploring, as we like to do. Or grab a hotel for a night in a city that we know and love. We kept procrastinating on those plans though and couldn't really figure out why. Usually if we're procrastinating it means our hearts aren't in it.

Then today we were talking about our plans again and started listing a key project (or two) around the house that we may also want to get done... and then THAT list started growing. We decided in the end that we would spend the whole week getting all these little projects done instead of going out of town and in the end we would feel a lot better about it.

So, here's the list of all the stuff we want to get done on our spring break.

Bedroom:
-pull out all the furniture to dust baseboards/window sills, clean carpets, wash curtains
-close up this weird vent we have that is actually the back of an old useless fireplace, do the same to the front in the other room. We're thinking silicon
-clean the blinds with bleach in the tub
-clean out closet? (eep!)
-empty out all drawers and find a ton of stuff to donate

weird back of fireplace thingy that blows
dust in to our bedroom

Bathroom:
-scrub it down from the ceiling to the floor
-pull up the weird plastic border stuff we thought we could get away with using instead of baseboards
-remove the peel-and-stick tile that is shifting on the floor and replace with tiles that are the right size so they stay put
-install quarter-round
-block up that weird hole in the closer that the cat uses to go in to the walls. Organize linen closet
-sand off the paint on the cabinet and re-stain it some colour close

this cabinet was going to be painted white at the same time we

painted the walls, but then I decided I liked it as is

oh dear god that's embarrassing

Living/Dining Room:
-move furniture to clean baseboards, rent steamer to clean the rugs and carpets, wash curtains and soaking blinds in the tub with bleach
-buy & install real curtain rods. Burlap window valence? Whatta ya think?
-spray paint the brass coloured chandelier with the bronzey colour. What do you do with those glass pieces? Spray 'em white? Etching spray to get rid of that ugly flower pattern?
-move the bookcase over 3"

Burlap valences to hide the blinds under?

Chandelier Before

Kitchen:
-scrub from the ceiling to the floor
-put a new coat of paint on the kitchen cabinets
-spray paint that weird metal cabinet thing the same shade of white
-install a new faucet to replace the one that's not going to last much longer
-build a little box to lift up the small kitchen cart we're using to extend the counter space so it's the same height as the counter
-organize the shelves beside the laundry.

weird white metal shelves that need to be the same colour white


wheels need to come off and then add a small
box underneath to boost up the height

Backyard:
-build a composting system (the one we have now is just a blue garbage bin and is hard to turn)
-buy some really big planters to start a small garden this spring. Fill with compost and get ready to plant!

an example of a possible compost bin
using wood pallets

I'll need to make a list of all the materials we'll need from the hardware store so we only have to make one trip. The big ones are about an hour away and it would suck to have to keep running back and forth. We've got our work cut out for us but I'm actually really excited to get all this stuff done! Wish us luck!

I'd love to hear your opinions on all the questions I asked in the midst of my list! Is everyone else in the mood for Spring Cleaning too?