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.

Shawl Haul

When I'm knitting, I get into these kicks. I will knit similar items for months.  One year EVERYBODY I knew got socks for Christmas.  Couldn't knit enough socks.  Right now it's shawls.  I love shawls.  Big, small, chunky, lace weight, triangular, rectangular, half circle.  Stripes, solids, variegated, beaded.  There is a shawl out there for every type of knitter.  My favorite kind to wear are shawls bordering on scarves- shawlettes or scarflettes.

After I updated my Ravelry project page, I noticed that I had cranked out 4 shawls in 35 days.  Whoa!

Name: I've Got Nothing Else to Knit!

Pattern: Hitchhiker by Martina Behm

Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Mediumweight.

Colorway: Bag Lady

Yardage: 380 yards

Days it took to knit: 11

View more photos and my modifications
on my Ravelry page.

Name: Green Thing

Pattern: Charlize by Vanessa Smith

Yarn: Pagewood Farm Chugiak Hand Dyed Sock Yarn

Colorway: Maple Leaf

Yardage: 450 yards

Days it took to knit: 7

View more photos and my modifications
on my Ravelry page.

Name: Candy Striper

Pattern: Betiko by Lee Meredith

Yarn: Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball

Colorway: Cranberry 

Yardage: 459 yards

Yarn: Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball

Colorway: Schatten

Yardage: 184 yards

Days it took to knit: 15 

View more photos and my modifications
on my Ravelry page.

Name: Slugasana Scarf

Pattern: Effin Scarf by Loretta McCollough

Yarn: Feza Yarns Alp Natural

Colorway: 714

Yardage: 231 yards

Days it took to knit: 2

View more photos and my modifications
on my Ravelry page.

Halloween 2011

 Another Halloween!  Most people think of their year in terms of January through December.  I measure mine from Halloween to Halloween.  You can see last years post here.

 This year I had two costumes.  My sister in law, Shelsea had her birthday earlier this week so we went out dancing.  I went as Pippi Longstocking and she was Batgirl!

For trick or treating, I went as Raggedy Anne, my husband went as Waldo's doppelganger, Bailey wanted to be "a vampire so scary it scares me" (his words, not mine) and Silas was Yoda.

I got my Raggedy Anne costume from Nobody's Baby (Facebook link).  They're a local vintage shop that also rents costumes.  They're amazing.  I found the Waldo shirt at Old Navy on clearance.  Since it's grey and red we thought he would be one of the many Waldo doppelgangers that you find in the book.  Close, but no cigar sort of thing.  I knit his hat with some worsted wool yarn I had in just a couple of hours. Glasses and cane came from Nobody's Baby.

Bailey's vampire costume was easy.  We had the suit and he borrowed the cape from a friend.  We gave him some scary make-up.

Silas' Yoda costume was a lot of fun.  I used the Felted Baby Yoda Hat by Sunshyne Leland.  I made his robe out of fleece just sort of making it up as I went along.

Our pumpkins.

Happy Halloween!  See you next year!

Bailey turns 5!

My oldest son Bailey turned 5 years old!  I've compiled my favorite photos of him from the past year- one from every month going back to his birthday last year. 

Bailey on his fifth birthday.

Bailey on his fourth birthday.

Inspired by Katie Aaberg.

Holo Glitter Frankenpolish

Did you know you can make your own nail polish color?  Take an empty bottle, mix colors together and there you go!  There's a huge community of nail enthusiasts who make their own polish.  It's called frankenpolish or frankening.  Today I made a holographic glitter nail polish.

I bought this holo glitter for $2.99.  Called Glitz by Fantasy Makers owned by Wet N Wild.  The best time to find this stuff is during Halloween so get yours now!  I also bought Sinful Colors Wet Glaze for $1.99.  It's just a clear top coat.

I made a funnel with some paper and poured about a third of the holo glitter into the clear polish.  A quarter of the bottle would have been sufficient but when it comes to glitter I go balls out.

Mix it up really well and viola!  The glitter will settle to the bottom during storage so just make sure to shake it up before you use it.

Nails taken in shade.  Pointer finger has one coat.  Middle finger has two coats.  Ring finger has one coat over Wet N Wild Wild Shine Black Creme.  Pinky finger has two coats of glitter over black.

Nails taken in direct sunlight.  Now I've got an amazing glitter top coat for less than $5 and I have a bunch of glitter left to make more.  Maybe I'll add glitter to a creme polish next.