Kool-Aid Hat Project

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

I came up with something fun to make for H's little friends, and he got to help! We made custom colored hats, using wool yarn dyed with Kool-Aid.

First I got some Fisherman's Wool from Lion Brand, and wound them into long skeins using these iron chairs. The loops ended up being about 9 feet, and I first made up a test hat and measured to see how much yarn I'd need for each. Then I remembered about pom-poms, so I wound those separately. See the little tiny skeins on the left side of the last picture? Those are for pom-poms.

H was super excited about this project. Here he is getting ready to pick out the color combinations. I only helped by suggesting: "What colors do they like? What colors do you see them wearing?" otherwise the combos were all chosen by him.

Color combos! We ended up picking three for everyone, so a couple of these are still waiting for the third color choice.

Everything was dyed on the stove top. H helped put the packets in the water and by stirring the yarn.

When it first goes in the pot, the water is colored, and within 30 minutes we saw the yarn soak up the colors, and the water went clear.

Rinsing out in a glass bowl in the sink. With wool yarn, you have to be careful not to agitated too much, and not to switch temperatures too fast, or else it will felt.

Hanging out to dry on our decorated balcony. This worked perfectly because there's a ceiling fan above it.

Then I wound it on the niddy noddy, which H thinks is a hilarious name. Casper then inspected the yarn :)

Here's a sequence of three yarns. Soaking in the dye, wrapped up in a towel and hung to dry, and then wound into a ball.

This was a fun color combination. I worried that the purple would be too dark, but once it dried it looked great.

Pretty yarn! I love how the colors looked different at each stage.

I then knit them up together on my knitting machine, and stitched them up.

All finished! We made 6 hats, one for each classmate (and one for H), and then an infinity scarf for his teacher.

Here they are all lined up, and me modeling the scarf. So much fun!

Toddler Rain Jacket

I've been looking for a rain jacket for H. We're in the middle of the biggest storm in many many months. See, the last time we had any kind of rain, (sprinkling for a day and a half) I made him a lovely little flannel-lined laminated cotton jacket. I stayed up late finishing it, but I should have checked the weather report - no more rain!

Fast forward to now, and of course it doesn't fit anymore! D'oh. I knew I didn't want a repeat, but he needed something to put over his clothes for puddle stomping.

I found this adult vinyl slicker at the thrift store for $2. It has a logo of something sporty, which got mostly cut off (you can see it under his left arm in the lower right "after" pic.)

We tested it out as-is and it was quite hilarious. The hem touched the ground and he got his boot stuck in the elastic.



Here are the steps I took to reconstruct it, and it went pretty fast as it's a pattern and shape I've sewn before. I knew it wasn't going to be 100% waterproof, but I kept the hood intact, and the back is one piece, so it should do a pretty good job.

First I cut the elastic hem off so I could see the shape. Then I cut the hood off and estimated the height (removed pull cord.) I measured his arms and I was going to use the original gathered cuffs, but decided to re-sew them without elastic, so I traced a pattern piece and made them a bit roomier. The goal was to have it go over clothes, including a warm jacket if needed. Then I cut the front, including removing the zipper and the front pouch. I traced the arm holes from a pattern, and sewed it all up with a long stitch.

Someday I'll make him a nicer one that's lined and waterproof, but this is pretty good for a quick project.



We also got our Christmas tree this last weekend, and H got to help pick it out.



And he enjoyed the spiced cider.

Christmas Trees and Scarves

Our power came back on, after 4 1/2 days. Not enough time for me to exhaust my candle collection, but long enough to thaw everything in the freezer... Oh well :) We have our tree up, but haven't had a chance to decorate it since the power outage.

I think 25 days of Christmas was a little too ambitious for me =) I hope to have many holiday-themed posts this year, but I can't promise all 25.

Yesterday I put up my office Christmas tree, which I've had for 6 years now. It's a tiny little thing, less than a foot tall. I used to decorate my cubicle walls and put lights up, but this year I'm in a shared office, so I don't have as much space. While I'm not complaining about that, I kind of miss my old decorations.

I think I'll get some new ornaments for the little tree, and maybe put up a festive background. I also like putting up a little greenery candle ring as a mini wreath. They smell so nice!

For Thanksgiving we had a great visit with my husband's parents. My mother-in-law also loves working with yarn, and she gave me this beautiful mohair, which I made into a scarf.



I love the colors, and it's SO warm! The iPhone white balance is a little off, but this one is more true.

I call it my Very Hungry Caterpillar scarf =) 

25 Days of Christmas Inspiration - day 1 and 2

I've decided to post every day from now until Christmas with ideas, recipes and other inspiration for the holiday season. Enjoy!

Today you get two day's worth, because our house has been without power for two days now. That's part of living in the mountains, but we got hit pretty hard this time around. Here's a shot from my neighborhood

Fortunately, there's more than one way to get home, so we were able to get around it. And here's hoping we have power restored very soon.


I thought I'd start things off with something good to eat! Whether you're throwing a party, giving them as gifts, or enjoying them yourself, it's always good to have a stash of great recipes at hand.

 Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites

These look absolutely fabulous! I haven't tried them yet, but I have a feeling they'll be on my list this year. Yum! Here's another take using a different pretzel shape. 

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate and mint is one of my favorite combinations, so I'll definitely be trying this one also.

Lastly, here's a new take on the traditional gingerbread house. Super cute!

Mini Gingerbread Houses

Kids or no kids, these look fun. I like the idea of using them for place cards at a holiday party.

New Leaves and Merry Christmas

My apple sapling is doing great! (History here)

It's got new growth, check it out:

And here's a Merry Christmas from a sleepy Casper.

Awwww....

The Big Christmas Post of 2008

I thought I'd never get around to posting these, but here we are in the middle of April, and I'm finally showing off my Christmas presents!

First of all, I'm very excited about this batwing shawl pattern. I made one for my mother-in-law in a turquoise wool (one of her favorite colors,) and one for my mom in a pretty purple. Most of these pictures were taken late at night on the 19th or 20th of December, hence the tired look on my face =)

I'll definitely be making this pattern again, and maybe one for myself even. I had a little trouble understanding the pattern at first, but once I got the hang of it, the shawl worked up quickly. Ooh, I had my black hair still here (look closely you can see red roots.)

Posing by the tree, with our little husky ornament. Yes, this is what our tree looked like. It was decorated more later... Maybe on Christmas day...

Here I am on my own blog without makeup. The horror!

;)

I chose a heathered purple for my mom's shawl, also in wool, and in the same pattern. I wish I had a better shot of it, but it's the same shape.

I love this pattern.

My oldest brother is a connoisseur of all things Maltese, so I made him a traveling / relaxing mask. The design is the flag of Malta. Inside it are little beads, along with peppermint and homegrown lavender.

For my dad's girlfriend, I made another shawl, in a soft sage green. I've never worked with bamboo before, but I was very pleased. It's extremely soft, and has a light shimmer to it. She's modeling it here in their dining room which looked very festive.

For my father-in-law I was looking for a hat pattern that was ribbed, almost as if it were knit. However, I'm still not a fan of knitting, so everything here with yarn is crocheted.

Our Christmas tree modeling the hat. The yarn is a grey wool, held with a lace-weight blue yarn. I think the blue yarn is mohair, but I can't confirm that, because right now I have an extremely comfy cat on my lap, so I can't reach my stash to check the label.

And moi trying it on. I wanted a cuffed-look, but it wasn't turning out quite right, so I ended up stitching it down.

For my middle brother I made a set of coasters. The yarn is wool and soy, and it's the first time I've worked with striping yarn. I like it! It's especially fun for small project sets, where you get a random yet coordinated color scheme.

One of the first coasters had a knot in the middle, so I made it into a catnip-stuffed mushroom. The cats went crazy for it =)

Also here you can see a problem I had with binding off the original few. I later found a way to do it almost seamlessly.

This is another color scheme I made for a friend of mine. I also have a set of these up in my Etsy shop.

For my youngest brother I made a little crocheted Bender. Unfortunately he has no arms. I didn't finish them in time, and sadly I still haven't finished them. One day, Bender, you can have arms to wave around and hands to hold beer with.

There were two other unfinished projects. I started some fingerless mitts for my dad, but it was a good thing I didn't finish them in time because I was making them too small. I corrected that, but I still had to do a couple more fittings to get it right. I'll post pictures of those later.

And finally, I was making something for my husband that got set aside with the house purchase and all that chaos. Another "one day" :)

So I'm thinking I'd better get started on Christmas 2009 pretty soon...

Christmas, Lemon Curd, and Beads

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I finished all my gifts but three. Two of them I gave anyway, with an IOU to finish. One was my dad's fingerless gloves, and I'm glad I did, because they weren't going to fit right if I had finished without him trying them on. Then my husband's gift I didn't finish and didn't show him yet. I ran into some modifications needed, and I realized that it'd be best if he waited to see it. Pictures of everything will be for the next post.

I always associate lemon curd with Christmas. I had tried making some lime curd from this recipe, and I think it turned out well. But it wasn't until yesterday I finally got around to making the lemon curd. The dozen or so lemons I picked from my mom's place had been staring at me every time I passed the kitchen.

There's something extremely satisfying about enjoying lemon curd on homemade bread. I haven't made bread in awhile, and this turned out a little dense, but not bad. I didn't realize that I was running out of white flour, so it turned out to be about 1/2 whole wheat, instead of the 1/4 I was going for.

I decorated my office cube a little bit. I always put up this bit of greenery with wooden beads, and this year I added tiny stockings with my team members' initials on them. I tried to keep them well-stocked with chocolate goodness.

A friend had a Christmas open house, and I made her these little wine tags. I had fun picking out the charms to match the seed beads. I realized after I got home that the red was a bigger bead, but I think it looks alright. I want to try making more of these someday.

Speaking of beads, a friend has inspired me with her jewelry-making. I have been really enjoying browsing through Fire Mountain Gems, and I've placed two orders with them so far. I just realized that their quantity discounts don't apply only to a single item, but are accumulated. That's dangerous to know :) For inspiration, check out their gallery. Wow.

Gift Update

Here's a quick update on the Christmas gifts. I know this would be much more interesting with pictures, but you'll have to wait :) And of course some items are more involved than others.

Finished: 2

In progress: 5
90%
95%
10%
5%
5% - started last night :)

And two more left to start, possibly 3 more still. Some of those I don't mind too much if they're given in January.

I also get distracted with non-Christmas gifts, one of which I'll be finishing and showing off this coming weekend. I'm also doing a general holiday thing, which I prepped this weekend and hope to get out next week sometime.

If I make everything again next year, I think I'll start in April...