Oh, it's ON now...

This Stained Glass Window afghan is going to be the death of me.

I know I've told the story, but short synopsis... it's a big thank you gift for my boss.  I've been up, down, and all around about this gift.  At first it was definitely this afghan.  Then I had trouble finding the colors for it, because I wanted to do it just like the pattern.  Then I tried different colors and hated it.  Then I said, forget the afghan, I'll sew some stuff.  Then my sewing machine started growling at me.  So, today, my inner Tim Gunn said "make it work, Jennifer."  I trotted my happy self down to Hobby Lobby to find the best match for my next color of yarn. 

Let's go.

I get myself all settled on the couch with my 12 already started squares (which are actually circles at the moment), ready to continue on....just to find that the color I just bought is the same freaking color I already used.


The color of FRUSTRATION.

I really was this close to throwing everything in the garbage.

But the second color, which is supposed to be a tad darker than the third color, is so close and so almost hidden anyway that I decided I'd just use the same color for both the second and third colors. Yeah, that's confusing to me, too.  It's getting late and I'm frazzled. But anyway, it's not like my boss is going to be comparing the afghan to the pattern and say "Now, Jennifer, you were supposed to use a dark teal-ish color here and a turquoise color after.  This just won't do.  Gratitude not accepted."

Now it's just a matter of pride.  I'm whipping the dog mess out of this afghan.  Prepare yourself, Stained Glass Window... I'm about to own you.

And you have no idea how difficult it was to write this post without swearing.  I have such a potty mouth when I'm frustrated.

Chilling...

After a day of discovering the horrors that live beneath the couch yesterday, it was time to just relax.


Yay for finally putting the slipcover back on the ugly floral couch.

We need a new remote.  It's pretty worn out.  I'm the only person in the house not addicted to it, but it was Big Brother night and I am addicted to that.  I know, reality shows are evil.  I don't care.  I don't really watch anything but reality shows, and only a handful of those.  I just don't have time.  But the few I watch give me an excuse to veg out on the couch for a few hours a week, with the crochet hook, of course.

I am beginning the 6th row of Zoe's afghan.  I like to make the flower centers first since they're the most complicated part, with the cluster and popcorn stitches involved.  There are 8 squares per row, but I have enough green squares made for two more rows, so I only needed 6 flowers for this row.  When this row is complete, I'll be halfway finished.  And since I think it's taken me about 3 months to get here, I don't see me beating the time it took me to make my Babette.  Maybe if I can get a row done a week, but I really have other things I'm going to have to concentrate on soon.

Like these South Park amigurumis that Bill's aunt has requested as a gift for one of her daughters:

Source: etsy.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

I keep letting them slip my mind, and I really need to go ahead and knock it out.

I also need to get to work on my boss's thank you gift.  I had just about decided to take the sewing option and make a bunch of matching travel accessories... passport cover, shoe bags, luggage tags, etc.... but my sewing machine started growling at me today.  That can't be good.  I'm going to try to give it a good cleaning and cross my fingers that it just was ticked off about me trying to sew corduroy.  Corduroy tends to be a bit linty and it's thick.  And my machine needs to be cleaned anyway.  I'm not a good sewing machine owner.  Hopefully it's just feeling neglected and doesn't need a doctor.  But if I do end up making her an afghan, it's going to have to take priority over Zoe's blanket since I'm just kind of slow on the afghan making.

I need to really concentrate on time management going into the holidays.  I'm so bad at balancing everything that needs to be done and something always suffers.  Usually the housework.  And after today, I really don't want to let that slide.  Seriously.  I never feared the Closet Monster or the Under The Bed Monster, but if I have to fight the Couch Monster again, you might as well just throw that straight jacket on me and toss me in the padded cell.

I'm so glad we don't have carpet

I think from now on, my first advice to any new parent will be this:  rip out the carpet now.

When we rented this place, the landlady was very proud of her "hardwood" floors.  She's a tad delusional, it's just laminate (I think, I don't know the difference between vinyl, laminate, and linoleum) flooring with a hardwood pattern, and she probably thinks the bathroom looks like it has marble counters, too.  It doesn't.  It looks like someone smeared poo all over the bathroom - every small child who sees my bathroom for the first time says so.  I haven't been able to decorate the bathroom in the two years we've lived here because I can't figure out what goes with poo.

Anyway.  I have a love/hate relationship with our lack of carpet.  First, I can't stand to be barefoot.  Before we lived here, the first thing I would do upon coming home was kick off my shoes.  Now I usually don't take my shoes off until I go to bed.  And you never realize how sound-dampening carpet is until you don't have any.  I sometimes feel like my head is going to explode from the non-stop racket around here.  I know rugs would help, but then we get into the area of what I love about not having carpet.  Plus, a good room-sized rug is expensive and there's always something else more important to buy, it seems.

So, what do I love about not having carpet?  I love not having to vacuum.  There are a couple of noises that I can't handle - such as hairdryers, the AC in the van being on high, and vacuums.  I honestly never blow dry my hair unless it is sub-freezing outside.  So, not having to deal with the sound of a vacuum cleaner is very lovely to me. 

After you sweep and mop a few times, you realize how nasty floors get and I just have a hard time believing a vacuum can suck all that nastiness up.  I'm not OCD about cleaning (I honestly wish I were) or anything like that, but you see the bottom of a mop bucket enough (or a Swiffer pad or my Shark pad) and you think about things like that.

And, very important with my crew, it's hard to stain laminate flooring.  And have you ever tried to get gum out of carpet?  It's just much easier to maintain.  I know with all the stuff I've mopped up that our carpet would look awful by now. 

Yes, I miss having nice plush carpet between my toes at times.  I don't like stepping onto a cold floor.  But, it will have to wait until the girls are little older.  Just like couches that I don't feel the need to cover up with slipcovers.  And pretty much any other nice object.  Heck, if I had my way, I'd vinyl-coat the whole house, install some floor drains and just hose the place off once a week and be done with it.  Save me a couple of headaches.

Let's be honest... this is procrastination

So, lately, I have been trying to get ready for a visit from Bill's father and sister.  We haven't seen them in 2 years.  Living so far from Bill's family is pretty of sad.  Thank goodness for facebook, though.  They at least get little anecdotes and pictures on a regular basis.

But my house isn't ready for visitors.  And I'm a little stressed.

How stressed?

Let's just say that the other night I had a dream that Child Protective Services came by my house and I had to wade through knee-deep clothes and toys to get to the door. 

Isn't that terrible?

My coworker was working on a new lounge cleaning duty list and my head just about spun off of my shoulders.  All I could think was "I spend my evenings trying to clean up after everyone there, and it just irks me to no end to have to clean up after my adult coworkers, especially when I don't even use the lounge."  But I didn't say anything, because that is called a bad attitude.  Plus, I was cranky.  I had to leave this:


That's where I chose to eat lunch (in peace) lately

Yeah, I went from that to not even being able to park my butt at my desk before I had to take a billing call, so I was crabby.

It happens.

Anyway.

Here's a picture of my Dodo dressing like she's 93 instead of 3:



Those are knee high nylons rolled down to her ankles.  I bought them for a project that I never got around to and she found them and thought they were awesome.  I cracked up when I picked her up from school like that.  Her teacher was pretty amused by it, too.  I think her teacher is convinced we're just a family of nutballs.  I'm not sure why.  It's not like my 3 year old asks me to give her a fake lip piercing.


Oh, wait...

I think I derailed there for a minute.  I was supposed to be talking about cleaning my house, which isn't actually knee-deep in clothes and toys, I swear.  Yesterday I had to do some wall-washing though.  I believe in karma.  I believe in karma because, as a child, I was a terrible about coloring on the walls.  To the point that my parents gave up and just told me to keep it to my room.  So, of course, I have an incurable wall colorer also.  And the bad thing is that she LOVES to wash the walls.  You'd think that would be a good thing, but it's really not.  She leaves the walls drippy and streaky.  It looked terrible.  And Magic Erasers don't work on everything.  Like Sharpie.  And pen ink.  And nail polish.

You would think I never supervise my children, but I do.  The other day when I was reading a Junie B. Jones book, the mom said, "Junie B., do I have to watch you every minute?"  And I jumped up and was like "EXACTLY!  That's EXACTLY how I feel."  I can't even go to the bathroom without Isabelle pretending to be a water fountain.  (This was also the book where Junie B. draws a sausage patty on her arm, so it's probably my favorite one so far.)

So, I'm resigning myself to the fact that I'm going to have to just feel some embarrassment over the state of my home when Bill's family gets here.  I doubt his sister will care all that much, and I'm trying to tell myself that his father did raise three kids of his own, my husband being one of them and I can't believe I'm totally to blame for this whole "paying for your raising" thing.  I've heard some stories.  Like him punching a hole in the wall and chasing his sister with a lawn mower and pretending to be dead when he was in the ER.  He was no saint.  It's no wonder the child is a whirlwind of crazy.

Oh, but I do love my Isabelle.  She makes me absolutely nuts at times, but she definitely adds some bright colors to my life. 

I shouldn't be stressed.  I think I'll get this sign printed and hang it on the front door instead...

Source: flickr.com via Nancy on Pinterest

Be My Friend

I remember, when I was in junior high school, everyone made friendship bracelets out of embroidery floss.  Well, everyone but me.  I tried.  I ended up with a big curly, lumpy mess.  I just couldn't wrap my brain around how to make it work.... kind of like crochet back then.  I only learned to get past the chain stitch about 15 months ago.

I've seen mentions of them crop up recently online.  I'm not sure if they're making a comeback or if they have always been a tween staple and my friends' kids are just now reaching that age for me to notice again.  Either way, I've been thinking about trying to teach myself so that I can eventually teach Olivia.

Friday, the stars aligned and in one day I spontaneously bought an assorted pack of embroidery floss and had Olivia give me a reason to teach myself.  So I did.  It didn't click right away, but it did eventually click.  I even got all cocky and told Olivia I'd teach her once I figured it out.  And I did.

But for her, I didn't use floss.  Floss just seemed a little too fine for her 6 (almost 7)-year-old fingers.  I used yarn for her.  I don't know why I never thought of  yarn before.  It's perfect for younger kids.  It works up the same, it just makes a chunkier bracelet.

I think this is the perfect "gateway" craft for younger kids.  I don't know that Olivia's quite ready to manage a crochet hook and yarn... her fingers aren't quite dexterous enough.  But this will help so much in that department.  I think after she does this for a while, teaching her how to crochet will be much, much easier. 

Want to learn how (or need a refresher course?)...  here we go...

You will need:
approx. 3 feet each of two different colors of yarn
a safety pin and pillow OR a clipboard
scissors

To begin, holding both strands of yarn together, fold it in half and make a knot, leaving a small loop above the knot (this will be for fastening the bracelet)



Secure the knot to a pillow with a safety pin or tuck the knot under the clip on a clipboard.  Arrange the strands in the pattern you would like your stripes.  Above, I chose black, white, black, white (as Olivia would say, an a-b pattern).

The strand farthest to the left is your working strand, the one that you will make the knots on all the other strands.  Pull the second strand taught and bring the working strand over the top of it like so:



Wrap your working yarn under and through the hole and pull the working strand up to create the knot.  This is a forward knot.



There are other types of knots, but this is the basic knot and the only one I'll cover (because I don't know the rest yet!).  Repeat this again on the same strand.  You need to make 2 knots per strand or your bracelet will be all kinky.  After making two knots, move the strand you use used off to the left and move on to your third strand:



Make two knots, move to the fourth strand:



Your first row is complete!  Your working strand should be the last strand now.  You begin again, the farthest to the left again being your working strand.  Continue in this manner until the bracelet is your desired length.



When you are satisfied with the length, separate your strands in two like I have above.



Then I knotted the two strands in each section until I had two tails long enough to tie together (I just alternated the colors making forward knots)...



Secure the ends by knotting the ends like so (I hope this is clear....)



To secure on your wrist, you will pull one tail through the loop on the other end.



Then tie the tails together.  Voila!  A friendship bracelet made of yarn...



Yes, it looks tiny.  My kiddos are asleep right now, but I would bet money that it fits.  They have such tiny wrists.  We're going to keep making more until she's pretty independent with it and then I'll move in for the kill and break out the crochet hook!  So exciting!

Linked to:

How to make a mohawk!

OK.... I had promised a tutorial on my Punky Monkey and didn't quite follow through.  I'm going to make up for it now.  I've already taught you how to make a regular Sock Monkey beanie and the only difference between the regular SM and the PM is you replace the pompom with a mohawk.  I posted a really quick run-through of one of the ways to make the mohawk:  the loop stitch way.  Now I'm going to show you another way, which I think is much easier, but could be a little more time consuming, depending on how well you take to the loop stitch (which was not well for me).

The best thing about this is that you can use this for more than just the Punk Monkey.  You can use this technique to put hair on an amigurumi project... to make a wild mohawk hat out of any basic beanie... to put fringe on a scarf or other project... so it's versatile.  =)

You can use any yarn you like, of course, but remember the effect will be different depending on the yarn.  For mohawks, I prefer a bulky yarn like this:



Worsted weight yarn will work, but you'll have to use much more to make it look full and you'll need to keep the mohawk pretty short to make it spiky.  I also like bulky yarn because you can do other things with it that I'll show you at the end.

In addition to yarn, you'll need scissors and a crochet hook... the one you made the beanie with will be fine, but size doesn't matter here.

First, cut your yarn into about 40 (more or less depending on fullness and size of hat) 6 inch peices.  I just wrapped it around my hand and cut.  It doesn't need to be exact because you'll trim it later.



To make sure you're mohawk isn't crooked, fold your hat in half like so...



During the process, you'll want to make sure you check that you're not straying... it's easy to do.

You will insert your hook behind the post of a crochet stitch along the fold.



Fold your yarn in half and pull it through the stitch, making a loop.



Wrap the strands around the hook



And pull it through the loop, and tighten.



For my hat, I did two per row, stopping about 2 rows before the end of the taupe section of the hat.  That's it... super easy.



If you like how this looks, just give him a little trim and you're finished.  But... you could always pull apart the strands of the bulky yarn to give him a little kink to his mohawk...



You can also take an old hairbrush and brush the yarn (gently), giving him a really wild look.



Just take heed and use an old hairbrush that you don't normally use, or you could have red yarn fluff in your hair tomorrow... 

And another little reminder:  if you are making this for a baby or small child, the yarn could pose a choking hazard if it were to come loose (as would a pompom or tassels, etc.), so do use under supervision with small children.  But you knew that already.  =)

If you have any questions, just let me know and I'll do my best to clarify!  Now go get punky!

Monkey hair and snags

I had a request today for a tutorial on the hair on my Punk Monkey.  I had promised a tutorial on all my monkeys and never finished them up.  Slacker ;)

I have made my Punk Monkey hair two different ways.  The first way I tried was making a strip of loop stitch and sewing it on. 





I'm not even going to pretend that I could teach anyone how to loop stitch.  I barely figured it out myself and it's not my favorite stitch, for sure.  Here are a couple of videos that I watched to teach myself...




This one shows a slightly different technique, and depending on how you hold your yarn, it might be easier...

As with learning any new stitch, just practice and be patient.  I'm not very good with patience, and I almost gave up.  I persevered, so I bet you can, too.  ;)

Once you get the stitch down, you just make a simple rectangle.  Make your chain as long as you need it to go across the light part of the hat and then you will single crochet across.  Turn and alternate rows of loop stitch and sc until it's as wide as you would like, fasten off with a long tail and sew it onto the hat.  Remember, you have to alternate loop rows and single crochet rows or you'll have loops on both sides.  ;)  (I'm all about the wink tonight)

The second way I make the Punk Monkey mohawk is the same way I make my mohawk hats...


only not quite so wild, although that would be cool, too. 

I don't have any pictures of the process, so I'll work on making either a Punk Monkey or a Mowhawk Hat this week to get some.  Either way, the mohawk process is the same, and pretty easy, if not a little tedious.  But worth it.  I, personally, prefer it to the loop stitch method.

So, look for that soon.  I promise.

I seem to have hit a small snag in my Stained Glass Window afghan.  See, I want to keep the colors close to the pattern, because I like it and I haven't seen another color scheme on Ravelry that I like as well.  The pattern is written for Red Heart Super Saver, which I don't like to use. It's too rough.  I started with I Love This Yarn (Hobby Lobby's brand) and my plan was to find the Red Heart color and match it up with a ILTY color.  Except they don't carry any of the right colors in the store I go to.  I can order them online, but I prefer to compare the colors in my hand instead of figuring them out on a computer screen.  I'm kind of stumped for now.  I'll figure something out.

Oooh, and look at this...

Source: yarnyinspiration.blogspot.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

The blog it links to has apparently vanished, so there is no pattern, but it seems like something I can figure out.  It's kind of like a polka dotted Babbette!  It will be Olivia's afghan.  She approved.  She also offered to wash the dishes from now on so that I have more time to crochet so I can finish Zoe's afghan and start hers.  Yeah... we'll see.