Category: Crafts

Shrug It Off

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It seems like it’s been a while since I’ve knit something beginning to end. I have a lot of projects lying around in various stages of finishing. There’s a mostly done baby blanket, three mittens waiting to be embroidered at Christmas time (there were four, but one got lost and needs to be remade), and the rest of the mittens that only have ribbing started. But I haven’t sat down and finished anything in a while. Mostly because it either doesn’t need to be done for a long time, or has no deadline at all.

This shrug/cape/shawl thing does have a deadline, however. My mom needed it done for her gala at work on April 30. She decided she needed a new one around March 20, so, with shipping time for the yarn from Knit Picks, I had a bit of a time crunch on my hands. Luckily, she picked the Gloss Lace yarn which is a blend of wool and silk and therefore could be spit spliced together. Which means I only had to weave two ends, the beginning and the end.

I made up for having only two ends to weave by dropping a stitch about twenty rows from the end and only realizing it when I was on the last row. So I dropped a couple around it to give myself yarn to fix it and did a lot of this:

It worked out fine, so I was able to finish in just over a week. Now it just needs a bath and a dry before I give it to her this weekend and take a final finished picture. Which you will be able to see Sunday on my Instagram or a few days after on my Tumblr.

You can find the details on Ravelry here. The pattern is Fairy’s Shrug (Drops 119-17).

Time to Swim

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The local swim school requires that kids be put in swim diapers until the age of four, regardless of their potty training status. Once they aren’t actively pooping their pants on a regular basis, it seems a bit wasteful to use a disposable diaper for every class. This is where the reusable swim diaper comes in handy.

Problem is, most over size two only come in a pull-up style. That works when it is dry, but wet swim trunks are tough enough. You don’t want to be dealing with a wet swim pull-up tangled in that mess. So i decided to make one that has side snaps. Best decision ever.

I found this pattern on Sew Mama Sew and we went on a trip to the fabric store after swim class one day. Couldn’t find any PUL material, so went for the ripstop nylon option. Got swim fabric (that the little one got to pick himself), and some black wicking jerset, plus fold-over elastic. It took a couple of tries, but I finally figured out how to get all the layers to stay together while sewing. Once I had that figured out, it was a really quick finish.

It also took a couple tries to get the snaps on the right way, too. But it is so easy for the kids to put on when it is snapped up and then even easier to unsnap and pull of at the end of class. It makes getting dressed after swim class so much easier.

More Kitchen Experimentation

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Last week I wrote about making a body butter lotion. I really like “sciencey” DIY projects like that. It’s always so cool to be able to make things like that myself. So when I came across a string of Lush substitute DIY posts on Pinterest, I knew I had to try them.

The first project I tried was the bath bomb recipe found here. Super simple, just four ingredients (I left out the colors). I don’t really get to take baths often, but I do like using those shower melt things to help with congestion. I tried one once that was just baking soda and peppermint oil, but it didn’t really have enough smell to it and washed away too quickly. But these new ones work great. Lasted a lot longer than the plain baking soda cake in the shower stream, too.

Another simple one I found was the sugar lip scrub. I didn’t bother pricing it out, but it uses so little of each of the ingredients there’s no way it’s not a better deal than the $10 it costs at Lush. Plus, it really is just things you probably have around the house. One tip for using that recipe, though: I had to add almost twice as much sugar to get the right consistency.