Goodbye old couches...

Have you ever had furniture that had been handed down one too many times?  My couches were given to me from my brother who had received them from one of his friends.  By the time they came to me, they were not in the best condition.  After being sat on every day for three years by myself and three different roommates over the years, they were ready to go.  When I put them in the garage, I could see all the memories of the past few years.. Nail polish, red wine stains, fake eyelashes (thank you Claire. :) haha), and a list of other forms of makeup as well.  Luckily, my mother felt a little sorry for me and helped me get new couches.  This is what the living room looks like now: 

There are still a few things I want fix up in the living room and with the rest of the house:

1. Redo the coffee and end tables (paint and redo the glass top)

2. Put up pictures on the far wall in a photo collage.. 

3. Change the small bedroom into an office

4. Redo kitchen cupboards (paint a cream/ivory color, add hardware)

5. New front porch (new porch, new screen door, columns)

6. New windows

7. Bathroom (new tile, bathtub/shower)

8. Pave the driveway

9. New siding

10. Finish basement

The first 4 on the list are things that I can actually do myself and are within my budget.  The last 6 are things that I would love to do, but that may take some time and additional funds.

Do you have a long list of things to fix up at your house?  What types of things need done?

Children's things..

Some things that I've completed this summer.

These past two weeks, I've been on a children's knitting spree.  It all started when I was getting ready to travel to Canada for Mark's cousin's baby shower.  What better gift then baby booties?  At my knitting class, Kris has a sign on the door that says, "Knot a Yarn Shop".  She does however have some yarn for sale and faces increasing pressure to turn her husband's photography studio into an actual yarn store.   Anyway, I bought really soft cream and green yarn from her and cranked out these:

Pattern: Ann Norling Infant Set III by Sandi Rosner

I like these because they are constructed like adult socks.  The eyelets for the tie were fun to do and I love the contrast of the green on the cream sock.  They are super soft and hopefully she'll send a picture of the baby wearing them.

The baby booties were quick knits and made me realize how fun it is to finish something really fast.  I decided that my nephews and cousin's baby girl MUST be in dire need of winter things.  Yes, it is just the beginning of August, but a knitter must be prepared for the coming seasons. haha 

My cousin Tyler has a little girl who was born premature.  She's doing great, but is still a tiny little thing.  I've been wanting to learn how to do some color work and so I took the opportunity to try on this little winter hat.  Although it wasn't complicated, I love how this hat turned out.  I've done stripes before, but for the blue 'dots' I switched back and forth every other stitch from purple to blue.  It was so much fun knitting something pinkish/purple.  I may make a flower to add to the hat later.

I used Lion Brand's Vanna White yarn.  Not the softest ever, but I have  two whole dresser drawers filled with the stuff.  It will also hold up better for little kids.

I used the same pattern to make hats for two of my nephews.  The hats for my two youngest nephews are still a work in progress.  They will also have matching mittens.  

The hat on the left was knitted with the same yarn as the baby booties.  It's super soft and my oldest nephew loves it.  Hopefully it will last a long time and he can give it to his baby brother when he outgrows it.  The one on the right was made with Vanna's yarn.

It's been so long!

It has been such a long time since I posted anything at all!  There really is no excuse except that my user name and password were forgotten and I didn't want to deal with trying to figure it out.  However, all is well now and new posts should be fairly regular.  


First, I'd like to thank the one person I know who actually checks to see if I've posted anything new: 
        

My wonderful boyfriend Mark is always encouraging me to continue with my blog because it's his favorite.  (Yes, he's so sweet that he exaggerates how much he enjoys reading about knitting. lol) 

Anyway, back to the knitting!  This summer I've worked on quite a few different projects.  During the spring I began knitting socks.  They are awesome!  Before starting to follow patterns,  socks always seemed impossible.  The people who actually knit socks were experts in my mind.  Now I know that just because you can knit socks does not mean you are an expert by any means, but it does show growth and improvement.  

The first socks were completed in the spring.  These are knit on size 3 DPNS with Noro 'Silk Garden Sock Yarn'.    I forget the lot and color numbers... 

These socks are about a size 7.  They still need blocked. I love the stripes and that they aren't perfectly aligned, but are obviously the same colors.  I am already looking for some sort of shoe so that I can wear them to school in the fall.  They were so much fun to make.  The pattern was just an easy ribbed sock pattern from Ravelry.  

The next pair of socks were just finished at the beginning of July.  I used the same ribbed sock pattern but used a knit behind, purl ribbing at the top.   I made these for a teacher at school who retired.  I'm not quite sure that I will give them to her because they don't actually match.  

These were made from Zauberball Crazy 1537.  They were supposed to be self striping.  I loved the orange, blue, green, and yellow that was all kind of mixed together.  I made these in a size 8-9 so they are just a little too big for my feet.  This makes me really sad because these socks are so comfortable.  The yarn was amazing to knit with and is really squishy without being bulky.  Hopefully someone in my family or friend group will think the mix/match colors are interesting and funky and will want them.  

And so it begins....

Today begins my 30 day challenge of eating only what is in the house (or what my roommate Claire makes and wants to share or what I can scrounge off of my parents).  I'm trying to cut costs in my budget so that I can start saving instead of always dumping money into paying things off.  I think the beginning of this month will be ok... I have all kinds of sauces and pasta and frozen shrimp, chicken, and fish.. However the end of the month may be kind of dicey.  I can't wait to see empty cupboards at the end though and know that I've finished food that has been in them for probably a year.

30 Days of Not Buying Food

After looking at my financial situation, it has become apparent that if I want to get some things completely paid off (like my car), that I need to buckle down and stop spending money.  The extremely outrageous cable bill has already been removed from my list of monthly expenditures in favor of Hulu and Netflix.  Other then gas which is necessary, food is my next highest item on the budget.  There is SO much food in my cupboard right now.  It has been there for a long, long, long time.  My goal for this month is to only buy milk, eggs, and very little else.


Starting Wednesday, I am going to start posting my 'emptying the pantry' recipes. I'm sure some of them will be wonderful and others will be kind of sad.. The good thing is that I do have some meals frozen and my mother is giving me strawberries and some lunch meat before her trip to Vegas... This should be interesting!

Christmas Stockings... again..

Thank goodness for all this knitting!  It keeps me extremely busy and keeps my mind off of the lack of cable television at my house.   Anyway, since last Wednesday, I've almost finished the tops of three Christmas stockings for my nephews.  Hopefully, tomorrow I'll learn how to turn the heal and complete them before next week.

I know that these are stockings, but I love the green stripes so much I want to make a scarf with the extra yarn...  who wants a scarf?

A few weeks ago, I decided to make homemade sugar scrubs to give as Christmas gifts to parent volunteers that help in the library.  They will also make a nice something little (and inexpensive) add on to gifts I give family and friends.  


What started off as a great idea for presents turned into me becoming obsessive about making tons of scrubs.  After starting with citrus mint, I found a vanilla brown sugar scrub recipe that is beyond amazing.  It has been in the teacher bathroom for a little over two weeks and is gone.  It seems to be a huge success.  Most of all, I have used entirely too much of it and it was supposed to be gifts... I'll just have to make more.. I think I will do that right now.. :)


Recipe: Under the Table and Dreaming by Stephanie Lynn

Citrus Mint Sugar Scrub

 Speaking of Christmas stockings, and presents, here is my brand new Christmas tree.  Usually, I run to Lowes or a local parking lot selling trees, but this is the first holiday season that my roommate has lived here and she's deathly allergic to pine trees.  My wonderful mother brought over an artificial tree today while I was at work! :) It is perfect, was very easy to set up, and fits my room nicely.  Someday, a real tree will litter my living room with needles, but this year I'm very happy with this artificial one. :)

 <--I took this from my sister, I think? 

Christmas stockings and 'My So Called Life'

It's been such a long time since I've blogged!  This is mostly because I haven't finished anything.  The wine colored cardigan sweater just needs the sleeves and finishing work done and I'll be able to wear it.  Although knitting this has taken a very long time, it has been such a fun project.  The faux cable twists look really pretty and the yarn is such a great color.  Hopefully I can post the finish product soon.


Last Friday, Knit1 opened their store for a wonderful Black Friday event.  All yarn was 20% off.  They offered wine, food, and open for people to knit.  I ended up buying quite a bit of yarn, probably too much! Luckily, most of the yarn has a project to go with it.  


At tonight's knitting class, Margaret gave me the Christmas stocking pattern.  I have four stockings to make. They will be gifts though, so I'm just going to focus and try to get them done as quickly as possible.  I ended up purchasing the Addi Turbo needles (16" size 9) because the size 6 that I'm using for my sweater are SOOO incredibly amazing.  I never knew that the needles could make such a difference in how much fun knitting is, but these making the yarn glide very smoothly. Yes, I am completely aware of how dorky this makes me seem. :)


Anyway, pictures of all my still unfinished products will make their way onto this blog sometime very soon in the future. 

Baby Mila.... haha