Anya carved me a crochet hook! It works quite well — she borrowed it to make me a scarf.
Category: Crafts
Sofa Blanket Progress
The sofa blanket is getting really big — still need a few more rows before Scott can cover his feet and shoulders, but it covers the sofa completely!
Crochet Project: Anya Scarf
Anya taught me how to knit, and I am slowly knitting her a scarf … but it’s more of a fancy going out scarf than a “keeping warm” scarf. I found the same yarn that I am using for our sofa blanket in a variegated color (Tidepool), and I used that to make a really warm scarf. I started off knitting, but the Bernat Blanket yarn doesn’t knit well for me — I managed to get about three rows in after more than an hour of working on it! Took that out, grabbed a crochet hook, and used double crochet stitches. Two days later, voila! She’s got a warm, snuggly scarf. Just in time for … 60 degree weather. It’ll get cold eventually. And her scarf is standing by!
Shopsmith 10ER
We picked up a cool woodworking tool at a local auction — it’s a lathe, table saw, and drill press all in one!
Knitting – Finally
I learned to knit and crochet at the same time — crocheting was something I could do easily but knitting? It was awkward and never really worked. I’ve always suspected I was just doing something wrong — if only someone who knew what they were doing could spot it. I even managed to teach a friend of mine to knit, and she couldn’t show me what I was doing wrong.
I got Anya a knitting book — it wasn’t quite enough for her to figure out knitting, so I let her find a few videos on YouTube. She has gotten to where she knits quite well. At first, she was using pencils — but I got her some knitting needles with little cats on the top. And she decided to teach me how to knit. Casting on — check. Knitting — not a check. It’s this strange awkward motion and the yarn ends up way too tight on the needle. So she sat and watched what I was doing — corrected the couple of things I was doing wrong, and …
I am actually able to knit now (yes, there are a few mistakes … but the tension is reasonable and it’s reasonable looking).
Macrame Project – Hanging Plant Basket
I have eight spiral knot “arms” on the plant hangar — it’s starting to look like a sea critter!
The trick that I’ve found to macrame is managing the cords as you work. It’s rather difficult to make knots with four eight foot cords. Gathering the working cords into individual bundles (and, since I am doing square knots where two cords are being wrapped around a pair of cords … I gathered two of the cords into one bundle) makes the whole process quicker and easier.
The tie around the “active” cords then matches up with the string color on my knot diagram — which is great for remembering which of the two knots you just tied!
Macrame Project – Hanging Plant Basket
Scott got a hoya earlier this year, and it is about time to transplant it into a larger pot. He wants to be able to hang it in the window to get plenty of light — so I’m making a basket to hold the plant.
The main part of the planter is 16x 18 feet strands that will be folded in half an arranged as four sets of four strands. Additionally, I need a 6.5 foot strand to wrap the hanging loop and another three foot section for gathering at the base of the loop. Wow, it takes a lot of cord to make a plant hanger.
Hanging loop followed by four groups knotted as: 7″ of spiral knot, 4.5″ straight then single knot, and
10″ of square knot. Then the groups will be changed to form a diamond shaped net that will hold our planter.
I got all of the cords cut, taped off the ends so they don’t fray, and am starting to make the hanging loop.
Since this is such a huge pile of strings, I grouped the strings that will be knotted together. Once they were grouped, I coiled each group up and used a bread time to hold the coil. I’ve still got a big pile of strings, but only the four I am actively working on are eight feet of hanging strands.
Sofa Blanket Update
It’s getting bigger!
Sofa Blanket
I’ve started making a new blanket using Bernat blanket yarn. The pattern alternates between half double stitches and triple stitches (although the first and last row are half double stitches).
Body Butter, Take 2
I tried making body butter last year — it was not a success. There were fairly large chunks of solid oil. It worked, they melted eventually so it worked. But it wasn’t something I wanted to give away to friends. In researching, I found some people add sweet almond oil to the mixture. The amount of almond oil I found in recipes online proved to be way too much — the melted oil mixture never congealed. I ended up doubling my coconut oil, shea butter, and cocoa butter amounts. The oils became solid. When I started the mixer, there was liquid almond oil coating small chunks of solid oils and the chunks got somewhat liquidy. I still have really fine grains of solid oils, but they melt quickly.
Initially, I used a cup of coconut oil, a cup of shea butter, half a cup of cocoa butter, and half a cup of sweet almond oil. Added another cup of coconut oil, shea butter, and half cup of cocoa butter.
I melted it all in a pot then transferred to the mixer bowl and set the bowl outside to cool off.
Once it had hardened, I used the whisk attachment on the mixer at a high speed for five minutes or so. It fluffs up a lot! I think the trick is to not let the oils fully solidify. My initial plan was to whip the oils as they cooled … but it took so long to cool that this approach was not practical. Setting the bowl outside to cool worked, but it needs to be checked frequently because there’s evidently not much time between “totally liquid” and “solid block”.
