It Was a Good Day

In the words of Ice Cube, "Today it was a good day."

As most of you know, I'm running this year for the title of Eugene Slug Queen.  I'm knitting my gown and I've also knitted a parasol to match.  Today, I finally finished it and put it on the umbrella frame.  It looks so amazing.  If I never knit another thing again, I'll be okay.  Because I have this.

Name: Parasol Fit for a Queen
Pattern: Frosted Ferns #7633 by Herbert Niebling
Yarn: Huckleberry Knits BFL/silk lace
Colorway: Weeping Willow
Yardage: approx. 500 yards
View more photos and details on my Ravelry page.

Please like my Sadie Slimy Stitches page on Facebook to keep up to date with my crazy slug 'trail.'

Also today, my family took a little road trip up to Woodburn, Oregon today to see the Tulip Festival.  Tulips are my favorite flower and I haven't been to the festival in a few years.  Here are some of my favorite photos from today.

Jell-O Art

I recently took my 5 year old son Bailey to a local art show featuring Jell-O art.  I have only recently heard of this art form from my friend Diane.  Diane makes amazing Jello-O art and even won this year's title as Jell-O Art Queen.  View her wiggly, jiggly Gelatinaceae blog here.

At the Maude Kerns Jell-O Art Show Diane gave Bailey a bag of unflavored Knox gelatin and some instructions so he could experiment and make his own art!  You pretty much just use a lot of gelatin, a little water and pour it into thin sheets.  Let it solidify, cut and shape and dry further.  When it's dry, it's very hard like plastic.

Bailey made a chicken and a flower.  His chicken was too thick and ended up molding before it could dry completely so we tossed it.  This very wet Oregon weather has not been cooperative in helping gelatin dry.  But his flower petals dried nicely.  He used 3 colors.  We dyed some of the gelatin black, blue and left a part undyed.  With the advice to use re-melted gelatin as glue Bailey attached his petals.  Bailey had so much fun he told me he wanted to enter the art show next year.  I think that's a great plan!

Lemon Marmalade

My mother-in-law is in town and she brought us tons of lemons from her lemon tree!  I didn't want them to spoil before I could use them so I've been busy.  This past week I've made lemon bars and candied lemons.  Today I made lemon marmalade.  I absolutely love marmalade but have never had a lemon version before.  When I looked around for recipes most call for Meyer lemons which these are not.  I finally found this recipe at  About.com and went for it.

Prep time: 25 minutes
Cook time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Total time: 2 hours, 55 minutes
Yields: 3 pints

Ingredients:
10 large lemons
4 cups water
4 cups sugar

Using a vegetable peeler, remove yellow part of peel in strips from lemons.  Cut stripes into 1-by 1/8- inch strips.  With knife, cut off all white membrane, or pith, from peeled lemons.

Cut peeled lemons crosswise into 1/4- inch thick slices.  In heavy non-aluminum 5-quart kettle combine lemon peel, sliced fruit and water.  Cover and refrigerate 3 to 4 hours.

Heat lemon mixture to boiling over high heat, stirring frequently.

Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until lemon mixture is very soft, about 1 hour.

Add sugar to lemon mixture and increase heat to medium-high.  Stir until sugar dissolves.  Heat to boiling and reduce heat just so mixture boils gently.  Boil uncovered, stirring frequently, until candy thermometer registers 220 degrees F., 45 to 60 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare three 1-pint canning jars with their lids and bands for processing following manufacturer's directions.  Spoon marmalade into hot jars, leaving 1/4- inch space at top of jars.

Wipe jar rims clean.  Seal with lids and bands.  Process jars in boiling water bath 15 minutes.  Cool jars on wire rack.  Store in cool, dry place.  Refrigerate after opening.

Let me share some notes and observations I made while making this.

• 25 minute prep time my butt!  Peeling and slicing all those lemons took at least an hour to do.
• I used 9 lemons and one orange.  No reason, just because I felt like it.
• I didn't refrigerate my lemons in the water bath (no room!).  Just used cold water and kept it on the counter for 3 hours.
• After I added the sugar, my marmalade never reached 220 degrees.  It stayed at 210 for an hour.  Around that time, the consistency was jelly-like so I called it good and ladled it into the jars regardless.  Turns out it was fine.  My marmalade is the perfect thickness.
• This yielded slightly more than 2 pints for me not 3.
• This is an awesome marmalade!  My husband used the word 'rich' to describe it.  It's definitely not a marmalade for the weak-hearted.

Valley Girl Swap

I got my package today!  My favorite Ravelry group Knit Knack had a swap! We picked a movie or TV show that we wanted our package to be themed about.  You can read about the Hedwig and the Angry Inch package I made for Amber here.  I chose the movie Valley Girl!

Georgia got me and did an awesome job with my theme!  She included two packages with movie quotes on them.  "Gag me with a spoon!" and "It's like sushi, ya know?"  Inside was a sewn spoon and a sushi toilet paper cozy!!  Hilarious!

She sent hot pink neon yarn and knit me a fabulous 80s inspired cowl.  Also she sent some jelly bracelets and a friendship bracelet.  So great!

Of course I had to put my hair in a side ponytail for the photo.

And a temporary tattoo!

She also sent some nail polish from Zoya!!  Midori and Kissy!  You all know how much I love my nail polish!  She included emery boards in a matchbook!  So cool!  I've never seen anything like that before.

Dark chocolate!

And she sent some things from her Dio de los Muertos shop!  A chicken toy for my kids.  My son Bailey is totally mesmerized by it.

And a Day of the Dead candle boat!  So cool!  I can't wait to try it out with the kids.  Click this link to see a video on how it works.

Thanks so much Georgia for everything!  I love it all!  Totally!  Like for sure!

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Swap

Once again, my favorite Ravelry group had a knitting swap.  This time, it was movie themed.  We all picked what movie we wanted our package to be created around.  I got Amber and she chose Hedwig and the Angry Inch.  What a great movie to pull inspiration from!

I knit her the Charlize shawl.  I've knit it before and it's a great pattern!  I saw at one point during the movie Hedwig wore a black shawl that was lacy.  Perfect!  The yarn I chose has actual silver spun into it.  The best part of this shawl?  When you lay it flat it looks like Hedwig's hair!

Name: Hedwig Hair
Pattern: Charlize by Vanessa Smith
Yarn: Kraemer Yarns Sterling Silk & Silver
Colorway: Black
Yards: 420
See more photos and notes on my Ravelry page.

Knit Knack's mascot is Helen, an owl.  I borrowed some felt from my friend Katie and made Amber a Hedwig Owl!

I also crocheted her a flower brooch with cassette tape.  So rock and roll!

I made her crazy glittery fingernail polish inspired by Hedwig's amazing make-up.

I dyed her yarn inspired by Hedwig's hair.

Lastly, I sent some candy.  If you've seen the movie then you know the significance of gummy bears, sugar daddy and German chocolate- with nuts!

Stay tuned to see what my buddy sent me!  My theme was the movie Valley Girl.  Can't wait!

T Shirt Dress- A Tutorial

I made this super comfy, super flattering awesome dress with only 4 t-shirts and under an hour.  I had these shirts and I never wore them.  A great way of upcycling them!

Take a shirt that you want to be your top and try it on.  How long do you want it?  Mark it with a safety pin, take it off and cut off the bottom at where you marked it.  (I was going to use the bottom of the shirt for ruffles but decided against it but that's why there are two other cut pieces.)

Take a second shirt and decide how wide you want the middle band of your dress to be.  Mine is about 6-7 inches.  Cut the shirt from right under the sleeves and then cut your band width.  (Again, I was going to use the extra for ruffles so I cut more bands.  Also, decided against.)

Now take a shirt that will fit comfortably around your hips.  Cut the shirt right under the sleeves.  If you stop here with 3 shirts, you've made yourself a mini dress.  AWESOME!  If you want it longer, grab another shirt.

Again, cut the fourth shirt right under the sleeves and then cut the bottom part in half.  Then cut along the edge on both sides.  So now you have two long strips.  Sew the sides together so you have one very long loop.

Here's how you put the pieces together.  Sew the top to your middle band.  The circumferences should be about the same but you can stretch and pull and ease the shirts together while sewing.  T-shirt jersey fabric is awesome for this.

Then sew the third shirt- the bottom to your middle.  Again, they should be the same size.  Try on.  Mini dress success!  Want more coverage?  Let's keep going!

Now you can either take the super long loop from the fourth shirt and bunch it into ruffles (look up the thousand of tutorials online to see how to make gathered fabric/ruffles) or you can pleat it onto your dress- which is what I did.  Evenly pin the loop to the bottom of the dress in four spots- front, back and two sides.  From there pleat and pin until all the loose fabric is used up.  Sew.  Viola!  A t-shirt dress!  I didn't hem my dress since jersey knit fabric doesn't unravel.  It'll just roll a little.  You can use the extra shirt fabric scraps to make more ruffles, fabric flowers, rosettes, appliques.  Go wild and look fabulous!

Make Your Own Nail Polish Rack

I came across this YouTube video Shit Nail Polish Addicts Say.  There's a bunch of videos of this genre going around but this one definitely spoke to me.  I could relate to several of the stereotypes in the video.

One particular part in the video caught me off guard.  She holds up a foam board and mentions having to make another nail polish rack.  WHAT??  I have never heard of making your own rack.  I looked into buying some in the past but they're so expensive or the shipping is.  Or they don't hold very many bottles of polish.  So I Googled this rack making business and found this YouTube tutorial.

I went to work!  I wanted to make racks that fit 50 bottles so my racks have 5 tiers and holds 10 bottles each tier. So my measurements are much different than hers on the tutorial. I picked up 4 foam boards at $3.49 apiece.  The foam boards I got were 22x28 inches big and each rack took slightly over 1 board.    The math is by far the most time consuming aspect of this project.  Triple check your measurements!!  I have a bunch of different shaped bottles so when I laid out my 50 bottles for the original measurement I made sure to include a variety to get a truer size.

I don't really have any place to put these so I bought two shelves from the hardware store.  The shelves and hardware came to about $21.  If you're also buying shelves, make sure to get ones that will support the weight of all your polish!  The shelves I got are long enough to hold 2 racks or 100 bottles of polish and support up to 100 pounds.

Since the only wall space I really have for the shelves is in my living room, I knew I wanted my DIY racks to be pretty.  I was given some fabric from a friend who was destashing her craft room.  I cut the fabric as the same size as my side walls and the front "lip."  I used Tacky Glue to glue them on. So easy!

From the 4 foam boards I was able to make 3 racks to hold approximately 150 bottles of nail polish for only  $14.  Yay!  I organized my polish by color since I'm not particularly loyal to a brand or collection.  Isn't my polish pretty?  So much nicer than being shoved in several shoe boxes.

Love Bytes

One of the best things about knitters is that you never have to wonder what to give them for a present.  Yarn!  Always yarn.  Even if a knitter has bins and bins of yarn, they need more.

For every birthday, Mother's Day and Christmas, my husband takes our two boys and heads them down the The Knit Shop to pick out a skein of Malabrigo worsted each.  It's great fun for them and I know I'll absolutely love whatever they pick out.

For this past Christmas, Bailey chose colorway Purple Mystery and Silas chose Bergamota.  Instantly, I knew that I had to knit a project that used the both yarns together.  What a great combo!  My kids apparently have an awesome eye for color.

The pattern Love Bytes has been in my Ravelry queue for nearly a year.  I first fell in love with it when my friend Angie finished hers.  Robot mittens??!!  Are you kidding me?  Greatest thing ever.  I need them!  And now I finally had the right yarn to knit them.

Pattern: Love Bytes by Grace Schnebly
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted
Colorway: Purple Mystery and Bergamota and scrap blue yarn
Yardage: Approx 220 yards total
View more notes and photos on my Ravelry page.