Walk all over me, why don'tcha?

I made a rug last month.



Pattern: My own, using my handy-dandy Harmony Stitch Guides.
Yarn: Some old Aunt Lydia's Rug Yarn that was given to me by my mom.
Comments: I... well, it's a rug, right? Utilitarian and all that. I'm not all that woohoo about it, because I really don't like the colors, but I had the yarn and I was sick of having it in my stash, so I made it to use up the yarn. I was willing to overlook the blah factor of the colors, because it is utilitarian, but you know what? It's not even functioning well as a rug. Yeah, the yarn is a bulky acrylic spun up to be a real workhorse yarn. But, one thing about acrylic is that it's got very little heft to it. And so this rug is constantly getting kicked about and folded over on itself and I'm always having to set it right again. I don't want to use it on the linoleum areas in the house, because it would be too slippery AND folding all over itself and being generally a nuisance. If I had pets, I'd consider using it as a mat under their food dishes, but really, this rug has turned out to be fairly useless. I think it's going to Goodwill. Not only that, but I have a knitted rug on the needles right now with the same yarn that I think is going to Goodwill with it. Maybe someone else will come up with a better use for the yarn.

It's a shame, because I like the look of the stitch pattern as a rug, but I think it would have turned out better in a bulky, rough, wool yarn, possibly felted slightly in some colors that suit my house a bit more. Eh. Live and learn. Perhaps when all the dust of the rennovation has settled and we have the new flooring in, I'll give it a try again in some Peace Fleece.

I'm alive! (So far.)

Well, it's time I poke my head above the construction dust and reassure people that I am still alive. Things are moving along well, thanks to the week long visit from my dad, during which time he put in about 10 hours of work a day on various projects. My dad is the hardest worker I know. Rome wasn't built in a day simply because my dad hadn't been born yet.

I've taken tons of photos and plan to share this week. Lots of crafting, LOTS of home improvements. So, let's begin shall we?

Today, I bring you the progress on the bathroom. Along with the tale of woe. I know many of you have heard this already so just skip to the photos if you've heard it all before. Let's recap:

Tile Man came and continued to work on the bathroom. There was a mix-up with the floor tile, but we just thought it meant it would take another day or two for it to be done. Also, he apparently didn't figure into his estimate some of the minor drywall work that needed to be done to finish the tile. So, that added some time, too, while Adam finished that. (We asked him to give us a quote where Adam had to do nothing else in order for the tile to be done. And he didn't. Or he changed his mind or something. I really hate how contractors can hold you hostage with your house.) Also, he called on the Saturday after he started work wondering if the floor tile was in, because he was moving to California the following day and would come lay it for us if it was in. A-wha?! Adam nearly lost it completely at that point, but we called and figured out that we had had a bad game of Telephone going on where we would say something and he thought we knew and he would say something and we thought he meant something different. So, we couldn't hold that against him even though it would have been nice had he outright told us at least once rather than assuming we knew he was leaving the state.

*ahem* I'm letting the frustration get me all out of order. He put the wall tile in and after the big misunderstanding, he came back from California the following week for a day to lay the floor tile and fix a few things he'd screwed up. When I went in to see the tile after he'd left, (i.e. gone back to California) I noticed that he'd laid the entire floor of the shower stall 1/4 inch below the lip of the drain. So the water couldn't drain. There would have always been a puddle. We ended up having to rip it all up and starting over. That damaged the sheets of tile, so when we reinstall it, we will have to piece in tiles one by one in several spots.

Seriously frustrating. These are the BIG issues we had with the guy. There were plenty of minor things that we just grinned and ignored. We paid him way too much for what he did. Between my mom's home renovation 15 years ago and this experience, I have no trust for contractors anymore. At all.

Anyway, the walls look lovely. Let's see some photos!

First, the photos from before Tile Guy came:

This shot shows the icky floor tile.


This shot gives you a look at the walls for the shower stall.

And, after:

The shower stall. The floor of the stall is white just because Adam used white concrete to raise the floor level before putting the tile in again. It's still not been retiled yet. Isn't the wall tile pretty, though?! I'm totally blissed out with how it turned out. The blue tiles are 1" tumbled glass. LOVE it!



The new floor. I wanted to have black grout so that it looked like a 30's bathroom, but Tile Guy wouldn't do it, because black grout will bleed into the tiles. I don't know what they did differently in the 30's, but I wasn't going to argue. I just wanted it done. (Also, Adam ended up grouting it, because of the mix-up with the floor tile and Tile Guy moving.)

Since these photos were taken, the toilet, sink pedestal, and shelves have been reinstalled. Adam is getting close to being done with that room, though, so instead of doing more in-progress shots, I'll take more photos when it's all done.

The next post will be crafty again, I promise!

Slideshows may be annoying, but they are really fast to put together and post!

Here are all the scary "before" photos from the bathroom. (Click that sentence. Then I had to click to option to go full size before it would play for me.) I believe we started this in January '06. So, a year and a half of bathroom limbo and we're close to being done. Finally. I will post pictures of the tile in progress when I have a few more spare moments. In the meantime, I think you can agree that this room really, really needed some attention.

I cannot think of a subject today.

I have been so busy in the last month that my head is starting to spin round backwards. I do have photos. I just have no time to edit and post them. And that's been getting in the way of my posting anything, but I'm starting to forget things about my crafty projects, so I need to get them down despite the lack of photos.

First, I finished the afghan I was making for the afghan for Afghans Mother's Day drive. It's packed up with a baby sweater I made for my daughter when she was a baby and she never wore and I think 7 hats for adults and babies and will go out in today's mail if I can make it to the PO in time.

Second, I'm taking part in a crap yarn swap over at swap-bot.com. It's a two part swap. You send some crap yarn from your stash--not necessarily crap but something that has been in your stash for ages and you can't figure out how to use--to your swap partner. Your swap partner then uses that yarn to make something for their swap partner. My shipment of yarn arrived on Saturday from my swap partner and a) she sent me a ton of stuff and b) it was, for the most part, fairly awesome stuff. There were a couple of hanks of novelty yarn (ok, I will classify that as the crap. ;) ), but in addition to that, there were 2 different balls of mercerized DK weight cotton, and a hank of ANGORA/WOOL blend! Hi! Angora!!

So, I looked at it all and there were some yarns that clearly would work with some and some that would work with others, but nothing was coming to me idea-wise as a way that I could use everything. I went to my downstream partner's info page and tried to get some inspiration there and was coming up empty.

And then it hit me. I had a couple of hanks of crap yarn in my own stash that I'd been struggling to find a use for. (It didn't go to my swap partner in the first phase, because if I had sent her all the yarn from my stash that I didn't know how to use, she would have gotten a very, very large box.) So, I went and got those two balls, which, incidentally were black, mercerized cotton, and double stranding it with the hank of black Bernat Soft Boucle that came in my package, I started knitting a stockinette rectangle. And, immediately, I was really, really happy with what I saw. The mercerized cotton toned down the boucle-ness of the boucle and makes it look much more sophisticated. I don't want to say what the rectangle will eventually become, because there aren't many people in the swap and it wouldn't be all that hard for my downstream partner to find my blog. So stay tuned on that.

It occured to me, also, that 2 of the other yarns that were sent to me could be used to create a motif of something that my downstream partner says she's very into. So I found a free pattern to make said motif in thread and I'm going to upsize it to work with the yarn I have to put on the project when it's done. I think this is going to turn into a project I'm sad to see go. I'm so glad I signed up for this swap, because I would never, never, never have bought two of the three yarns I'm using in this project, but the premise of the swap made me work with what I got and I think it's going to be something really great. While I was digging around to get the yarn out of my own stash, I was already looking at what I had with more appreciation.

And finally, my Dad is arriving for a visit on Saturday. The Tile Guy messed up the tile in my shower stall right before he left town and so we had to rip it all up and my husband will be redoing it after work throughout the week. And, Wednesday we start framing in the play room to turn it into a bedroom and the carport to turn it into a dining/homeschool room. I need to purge the playroom and figure out how to arrange furniture so that it's out of the way, but our house is livable. While all this is going on, the deadline for the swatches for the book projects are fast approaching. I'm hoping to have all the swatches for one of the projects done by tonight, another project done by tomorrow providing the yarn arrives, and then spend two days each on the swatches for the last two things. My life can be very boring and mellow for months on end and then WHAMO everything will hit at once like this. So, bear with me, but I know right now that I will be MIA for the next few weeks.

Now I feel bad about being all slackery

I was blogtipped today! My slacker, slacker blog was blog tipped! Oh, the kick in the pants that was!!

I haven't been posting the last week, because I have been so. very. busy. We had the means to finish decorating our bedroom, so I jumped at that. But that can't just be an easy task. Oh no. Not when you are a vintage-loving cheapskate like myself. Finishing off a room means scouring the Target clearance shelves and driving to every thrift store in town looking for something juuuuuuuust right. Luckily, it all panned out. I'm waiting on some curtains that were out of stock at Target, but other than that, the room is done. Yay!

We've been living in a semi-limbo, too, with the tile in our second bathroom. We had one of those situations you hear about where two people come together with person A thinking person B knows something and so never says it outright. And person B occaisionally says something that reinforces this belief to person A. But really, person B knows nothing and so one day, they both have a rude awakening. In our case, Tile Guy assumed that we knew that he was moving to California the day aftrer our bathroom was supposed to be done. Unfortunately, some of the tile had to be special ordered, which meant that it would take another week before it could be finished. It was a rather large assumption, and one that left our bathroom 2 days from finished and everything that should be IN my bathroom in the middle of our very small bedroom instead. The situation has all been sorted out. He's coming back tomorrow to finish it. But in the meantime, getting ready in the morning takes almost twice as long and crawling into bed at night is akin to walking through a mine field.

On the craft side of things, I have nothing exciting to share at the moment. Well, at least not with pictures.

I finished Gina's Fat Bottomed Bag for her birthday. It. Was. Amazing. As much as I loved the first one, I totally adored the one I made for Gina. And when we were done, I took the girls to the mall and Kai helped me pick out a flower pin for it that was absolutely perfect. And then I wrapped it up in the back of the Blazer in the mall parking lot and we drove it right over to Gina. And I didn't have the camera. So I have not one single photo. I am totally bummed, and plan to fix that the next time I see her, so stay tuned. I'll give the stats now and then when I have photos, I'll add them to this post.

The Stats:
Fat Bottomed Bag for Gina
Pattern: Fat Bottomed Bag from The Happy Hooker (Modified Green Version, see below)
Yarn: One and maybe a quarter hank of Peace Fleece worsted in Siberian Midnight.
Hook: H
Notions and Sundry: 2 6-inch round bamboo handles, a flower broach from Dillards (because I get my PF so cheap, the broach ended up costing as much as the combined costs of the rest of the supplies for the bag!), fabric for lining.
Modifications: The yarn for this was a bit thinner than the yarn the bag called for. So, I used a smaller hook, worked the increases for 2 more rows, the non-increase portion for 2 more rows, and the decreases for 2 more rows. Then I measured guage and realized that even though it was thinner yarn, I was still on guage. Go figure. Still, it was ever so slightly larger and I really liked it that size, so I'm not complaining. Plus Gina just had her third baby not long ago, so now there is room for a diaper and some wipes if she wants to travel light. Also, while working on it, it dawned on me that wool may not be the best choice, given it's propensities to stretch, so when I lined it, I didn't just line the pouch part at the bottom, but also the tabs that fold over the bamboo handles. It made the bag feel very solidly build and durable. It was very, very hard to give this one away.

At the moment, I'm working on a highly practical, super simple afghan for Afghans for Afghans' Mother's Day drive. I was trying desperately to get it done before some new yarn arrived on my door, and didn't quite make it. It needs to be finished asap, though, so I can ship it off in time, so I'm hoping I can wrap it up in 2 days. I'm doing it as a single crochet granny, but just working around instead of stopping and turning, so I don't have to pay any attention to it. But now that I'm 10" or so from being done, it's taking longer and longer to make it around as the square builds. So 2 days may be optimistic.

And, new yarn at my door? Could it be so? Aren't I supposed to be doing No Yarn for a Year? (ahem... sort of?) Why am I not hiding my head in shame? Well, I feel like sharing today, so I'll let you in on something. Shortly after the last Crochet Me went live, I was contacted by a publisher putting together a pattern book on crochet for the home, and inviting me to submit. After I finished squeeing, I put together a 5-item proposal. (Did I mention we're redoing the decor in our house? I was already planning 4 of the 5 things anyway, so her timing was fabulous.) She liked 4 of the 5 ideas, so I've been swatching and sketching and drawing and frogging and figuring and pulling my hair out and ordering yarn and waiting for yarn and basically trying not to go nuts. I'm still in the process of being accepted, but really, just being invited is a big, flattering step for me. Some of the yarn arrived yesterday and was the WRONG SIZE and I nearly fell over dead on the spot and their customer service was already closed for the day. (One of the joys of living in Arizona...) So I'll be dealing with that today and crossing my fingers that the correct yarn will arrive in time for the swatch deadline.

And that, my friends, is the last week in a nutshell. Today I need to run to the post office and do some yard work and then get crackin' again on the project backlog and sroject swatches. I will someday post pictures again, I promise. I don't suppose there is some young, hopefuly photographer/web designer out there who would like to come get me caught up on my photography, edit it, and add it to my posts?

No one?

Not even for cookies?

Oops...

So much for updating regularly. Once a week is still regular, right?

Things have been busy. What can I say? The last 36 or so hours, the girls have had a stomach something-or-other and so I've been doing lots of laundry and cleaning lots of carpeting and patting two lethargic little girls on the head and reassuring them that things will get better.

While doing all that, Tile Man came and preped the bathroom to receive its tile. After 2 years, it's looking like I should have a completely finished bathroom by the end of next week.

And there was much rejoicing!

And, on top of both of those things, I've had some good stuff going on that I don't really want to talk about yet. But it has to do with meeting one of my major crafty goals for the year and will involve quite a bit of work between now and the end of next month. So, I'm not going to have tons to report for the next 6 weeks or so.

I have managed to figure out some of the issues with my camera (Thanks, Michelle!) and my business website should relaunch soon and I should be able to get some more photos up in the next day or two of some more FOs. Namely, a few more adult-sized hats and some baby hats for Afghans for Afghans. And, right now I'm in-progress on my SIL's birthday present. It's another Fat Bottomed Bag from The Happy Hooker, but I'm making it in Peace Fleece this time with a smaller hook. I wasn't all that excited about it to start with, because I couldn't figure out how to embellish this particular color of PF that was the only one I had enough of to make the bag. But then it dawned on me, and I'm totally excited can can't wait to finish it to show it off and really, really want to make another for myself. Ugh.

Pictures soon!

Photos!

Ok, I got some good shots of my finished projects. Still no luck on the stitch markers, but I think I know what the problem is now and will tackle them later.

Ok, the bag:


The Stats:
Pattern: Fat Bottom Bag from The Happy Hooker (the gold version)
Yarn: 2.5 hanks of Cascade Fun in color 0280 used with a thread of white, size 30 crochet cotton.
Hook: I
Other bits and pieces: vintage plastic handles, Pin from Claire's Boutiques ICING line, white fabric scraps for lining.

This project worked up fast and was very easy. Lining was the roughest part, but just because I don't do well with gathers. To cut out the lining, before making the tabs to attach the handles to the bag, I put a piece of folded fabric on my cutting mat, folded the bag in half and laid it down on the fabric, and then used my rotary cutter to cut the fabric about 1/2 of an inch away from the bag edges all the way around. I seamed the bottom "curve" of the fabric, then hemmed the sides and top. Then, I tried to do tucks on one side, but got the measurements a bit off, so for the other side, I just did gathers so I could adjust as I go. And I don't stress about it being different on either side of the lining, because it's just for me and how many people are going to see the inside of my bag?

My only beef with this bag is a minor one, and that's that when you set it down, it flops all over the place and comes open. That's an easy thing to fix, though. I'll be sewing a snap into the lining to take care of that.

I am totally smitten with this bag. I wore jeans and a t-shirt to go to the yarn shop yesterday and I took this bag with me even though it was way more glam than I was. I just love it to bits.

The hat:

Pattern: A free one from Jimmy Beans Wool.
Yarn: A strand of Reynolds Lite Lopi in natural, and a strand of some verigated wool that I have forgotten the name of that I got from Ms. Pink sometime last year. It was leftover from the bag she made for her One Skein swap partner. I ran out of it about 10 yards from the end, so the crown is a strand of the lopi and a strand of SWTC's Optimum in Turquoise. It coordinated, and the motteling made it less noticable.
Needles: 10.5 US
Notes: I only knit 4 rows between the first and second decrease rows, because I knew I was going to be close.

This is a great pattern for bulky wool, or if you want to make a scrappy hat with a couple of strands of worsted. It's very thick and warm, and it worked up in about 2 hours. Maybe 3. It's going off to Afghans for Afghans for their Mother's Day drive.

I'm not a slacker! I swear!

Ok, it's been a few days. I think the whole camera-exploding thing threw me off. And now, I'm having a really difficult time figuring out how to get good shots from our new camera, so I've been spending a lot of time fighting with that. But I've still been knitting and crocheting.

I started and finished a Fat Bottom Bag from The Happy Hooker, designed by Julie Holetz. Click her name and you'll see her website, which opens with a photo of the bag. But mine is made in a totally different yarn, in the "gold bag" style from the book and I can't wait to get a decent shot of it to share, because I luuuuurve it.

Also, I've decided to work through my scrap box and make up some stuff for charity. I started crocheting a hat, ran out of yarn, frogged it, started again with a larger hook because it was so stiff anyway, ran out again, frogged it, and then knit it. I finished it last night while watching a TiVoed 24 and had 1 yard to spare. *phew* Then I cast on for a baby hat and should finish that today.

But REALLY my goal for today is to figure out where in my house/yard I can get proper lighting to make the new camera happy so I can get photos of all those FOs and get the shots I need to relaunch This Is Spiffy!, since that was supposed to happen days ago.

Oh, and also, Crochet Me went live the other day and the response to my Reduction Tote has been so positive and encouraging. Thanks, everyone, for all the warm fuzzies.

Ok, off to fight with the camera!

Let's talk here, people.

Ok, you all need to learn to crochet.

And not just you, Ms. Pink. I'm talking to all y'all.

Let's discuss:

1. Crocheting is faster than knitting. It's practically instant gratification. Last night, I sat down and crocheted a cotton washcloth in an hour. AN HOUR.

2. It uses 1/3rd more yarn per square inch than knitting. This might sound like a negative, but:

3. Couple 1 and 2 and you get to use more of your fabulous yarns. Which, in turn, allows you to feed your fiber obsession without feeling like a crazy cat woman. And since as far as I know, there is no Yarnaholics Annonymous, there are many out there who need to keep their stash movin'.

4. It is very much in style at the moment. Don't believe me? Check out Interweave Crochet. Or Crochet!(But don't let the yarns they use fool you. They seem to have a knack for hiding good designs under questionably chosen yarns.) Pick up a copy of The Happy Hooker. Oh, and don't forget Crochet Me. FREE, fashionable patterns for all skill levels, yo. Have you seen the new edition? Or old ones, for that matter?

5. You only have one stitch live at a time. If you hook falls out, the whole thing doesn't fall apart before your eyes. Frogging is less stressful. It's easier to transport without worrying about your needles jabbing through your bag or dropping stitches.

6. Crocheted lace? Infinitely easier than knitted lace, if just for the reasons mentioned in #5.

Skeptical? Check out the stores the next time you are there: embelishments, trims, skirts, hats, accessories, sweaters, ponchos, wraps, etc, etc. Despite the fashion industry classifying them all as "knits", much of what you're seeing is actually crochet. I'm not going to say "it's not your grandmother's crochet!" because, you know what? It is. A lot of the stuff out there is based on styles that were around in Grandma's time. They have been tweaked and made in better yarns with up-to-date styles and they are fabulous. Think there is no way for "grandma's" fashions to be brought up to date? What, you think wedges and a-line skirts popped out of a designer's brain, fully-formed, last year? Now, I'm not anti-knitting. In fact, for the last year, the majority of what I've done has been knitting, mainly because it finally clicked and so I've been enjoying the novelty of it. But, crochet is always my first love.

No real update. A video instead.

I have cast on 3 times so far for the linen kitchen sheers. I just am not paying close enough attention to the pattern is all. Do, you know, that makes it slow going.

Since that is all I have to report, I'm linking to a video. It's by Billy Reid. His stuff is hillarious and can be found on YouTube or at Very Tasteful.