Pinterest Project: Travel Map

A friend of mine loves to travel, and she is going so many places this summer before she starts her freshman year of college. One night, I was browsing Pinterest, and I came a across The Dating Diva's DIY Travel Map. It is one of my favorite pins. The tutorial is perfect.

It was super easy and super cute. I also think it is a great conversation starter to hang up in an entryway somewhere. I think I'll make myself one of these. (That gives me an excuse to travel more, right?!)

And now for the pictures...once again, pardon the awful pictures. Eventually, I will remember to take nice ones.

Pinterest Project: Card Table Makeover

Lately, I've been addicted to Pinterest. And I mean addicted. There are so many pins, and not nearly enough time to tackle them all. Most recently, I decided to tackle the card table make over.

We had a very old, very dated card table that was begging for a new chance.

Please pardon the crappy cellphone pictures. I had intentions of going back outside and taking better ones, but the weather didn't cooperate and then I decided to give up. 

With a little bit of spray paint, magic happens:

 And then, a staple gun and table cloth transformed the table itself to this...

 And, sadly, I forget to take a picture of the finished set, but you'll get the idea. 

A few notes:

I looked at many blogs before I discovered a method that worked the best, and I still had to recruit some help from my ever so skilled and handy father. 

Taking the table apart and stabling down the new covering was super easy. Just a few screws here and there and done. Easy to take apart and easy to put together. Sounds good to me.

The chairs, however, were another story. Drilling out the rivets was okay, but the tricky part was putting them back together. No matter what size rivet we used, it just wasn't working.  Then my dad, being as creative as he is, suggested using screws along with this nifty little thing they use for license plates:

Worked like a charm! And not using rivets means it will be super easy to change the chair covers when I decide I'm tired of them and want something different  something spills on them and they need replaced.

These are some of the tutorials I followed for inspiration:

This chair one was great and this pin helped for the table. 

Happy Halloween!

Hello, all!

I have been neglecting my blog, because, honestly, I haven't been knitting lately.

Shocking, I know...

....but Pinterest has been inspiring me! I've been sewing and doing all sorts of other crafty things. Hopefully, I'll blog about them soon.

So, anyway, I will leave you with the most recent Halloween wreath that I made.

At first it looked like this:




 ...but I thought that looked too plain and too much like the one I made for Easter. So I added this...

 

 The web stuff was a pain to work with, but overall, I suppose it turned out okay.

FO: Baby

One thing I can say for sure, is that I have way too much baby yarn. I don't even know how I ended up with half of the baby yarn that I have, but hey , you gotta use it, right?

For some reason, I just have this urge to buy all new baby yarn, but I won't let myself do that. Therefore, I am working through my stash and making as many baby sets and blankets that I can. Then, and only then, I will buy more yarn (hopefully!).

The blanket was just your typical washcloth blanket pattern. It's quick, worked well with the yarn, and it's suitable for a baby boy. You know, a win-win situation. ;-)




The booties, once again, came from my "go-to" pattern. They're really cute and super easy. I probably made both of them in a half hour or less. The pattern can be found at Ooo Baby Knits.

Then I made this hat:





Let me just say that I loved making this hat. I think it is so adorable. And the fact that it has a tie-closure instead of the typical crown decrease? Well, that's just very unique, and it also makes the hat a little adjustable which is always a plus!

The pattern came from Just Another Pattern Blog. Overall, the pattern was very simple and very easy to follow. However, I had a heck of a time with it because it was the very first project that I knitted from start to finish on DPNs. I think once I practice using DPNs more, I would make this hat again. I really did like that pattern, but I wasn't used to using the DPNs and I would usually have stitches fall off of the needles.

I also have many more projects to show, but I'll save those for another time.

FO: Easter Wreath and Circle Cloth

Last year, I made a wreath for Easter. It was rather easy and quick to as well. The baby yarn (which I had leftover in my stash) always made me think of spring and Easter, I already had the wreath form and I got the ribbon at Pat Catan's for 97 cents! So, overall, I'd say this probably cost me less than $5. Not too bad if you ask me.



I didn't follow a pattern for this, but I think I do recall seeing a pattern (or something similar) on the Lion Brand website recently. It was very, very easy. All I did was measure the wreath form, and knit a tube that would fit around it, sew it up and then make/attach the bow.

I even think I will be making more for other holidays, too.



Also, my mother is in desperate need of some new dishcloths. I mean, her's have gotten very bad. Look and see for yourself:



So, slowly but surely, I am begining to replace all of them. This time, though, instead of making all of "Grandmother's Favorite" cloths, I wanted to make some fun ones and try some new things.

The first pattern I tried/finished was The Circle Cloth. You can find it here on Ravelry. For being the first time I ever knitted with two colors in that manner, it worked up very quickly. The pattern was easy to follow and very fun.

Finally an update of FO's....

Hello, all!


I've finally had time to update with some pictures of what I have finished recently. I have several other FO's, but they need some finishing touches before they can make their appearance here on the blog.


First off, we have what I knitted for my Italian project. We had to take something we like, make it Italian related, and write a paper on it. That was easy enough for me! I knew it had to be knitting related! And since, knitting for babies is very popular in Italy, I made this...



There isn't a pattern for any part of it. I just made it up one morning as I went. I knitted a little "dishcloth" to represent a small baby blanket, a hat, and a pair of booties.




Also, I made myself a sweater dress.



I am actually pleased with the final outcome. When I first made this dress, it was way too big. So, right before I was ready to CO I frogged it back all the way to under the arms and tore out the extra stitches that it said to add for the underarms.

 It turns out that it was still a bit too big, and I didn't want to frog it again. It looks okay with a belt, but I think if I have time (or when my Nana comes back!) we'll take in the sides and make a seam so it will fit better.



I used Juliet Romeo Juliet's pattern for her "Simplest Sweater" which I found on Ravelry. I really liked the pattern. It was very easy to follow, which was awesome since this was the first garment (other than a hat or beret) that I knitted in the round. The only things I did differently were knitting it longer to make it a dress and keeping the sleeves short. I did like this pattern a lot, and if I were to make another dress from it, I would be sure make less increases so it will fit better.

Hopefully, I will update again soon.

Until next time....

Oh, Baby...

Life has been really busy as of late and that really cuts into my knitting time, which is not good at all. I have so many things I want to knit, but I just don't seem to have the mojo to do it. Don't you hate that feeling? I went a long time without knitting a project until I found out I was invited to a baby shower. Slowly, my mojo started to come back because  I love knitting for babies. The projects are quick, easy to take places and are oh-so-freakin' cute.

Remember this dress from a few months ago?



Well, I made this shrug to go along with it.



I love the shrug! It was a super quick knit and perfect for the dress. I love the texture that the Rich Man's Garter stitch gives to the sleeves. It really "dresses up" the stocking st pattern. Plus, I finished it over the weekend, so it really didn't take much time at all. The pattern is called "Vinni" and you can find it here.

But, you can't just give one knitted gift at a shower. You have to knit some more things, right? Well, I sure did.

I made this little adorable hat.



I love the texture that the purl rows gave to it. You can find the pattern for the "Purl Stripes Baby Hat" here.

Then, I used The Dishcloth Turned Bib pattern again and made two bibs to give as well.



Come to think of it, I made a headband to match the dress but I forgot to take a picture and I forgot to wrap it with the dress. Oops! I'll have to blog about that next time.

Although, when I knitted these, my mojo slowly began to come back. Plus, it just so happens that a friend of mine asked if I could knit four dishcloths for someone. She said that this person wanted fall colors, and it just so happens that I have a good anount of fall tones in my stash right now, so this is what I came up with.





So, lastly, that leads me to what is on my needles. Currently, I have two projects on the needles, but I just don't feel like working on either one. I'm working on another potato chip scarf and an infinity scarf, but for some reason I just get so tired of working on scarves. I think I'll try to start something else tonight, but I'm not sure what yet.

Until next time...