It's Been Far Too Long...

I need to apologize!  For anyone who may have regularly reading my blog, I'm sure I've lost you, but perhaps I can reach out to you again!  I warned that I may blog less often after school starts, and I was more correct than I thought!

Although school has started, I have been doing some crafting.  Here's a little rundown of some projects:

This is the elephant I made for my fiance's nephew.  It turned out so cute!  I ended up doing the i-cord bow in the car on the way to the church, then finish it on the way to the house.  It was a tight finish, but it got done in time!  The baby's 2-year-old brother grabbed it and ran off with it right away!  I don't know if I'll be doing another stuffed animal soon, but looking at how cute it is makes me think about it for sure!

I did it!  I've completed my first Christmas present for the year!  This is the aptly named "Not your mother-in-law scarf" since it's now for my future mother-in-law!  I finished it a couple weeks ago and am now onto other Christmas presents.  I need to get moving on those, though!

This is one of those other Christmas presents.  It's my first chart-reading pattern, and it's not too bad!  I'm going to take the pattern and also make a matching scarf to go with it!






And now, for the big news....if you were reading closely above, and have read other posts, you may have noticed that I typed "fiance" instead of "boyfriend."  That's right, I'm engaged!  This is new news, and I'm excited to get to work on planning the wedding, which, of course, will bring on some fun crafts!  So far I've put together a binder for planning purposes.

Here's the front cover.  I just used a simple blackout di-cut on the cricut for the bride and groom and the decoration on top.  I used a silver Sharpie for the writing.

It's a nice, thick 2-inch heavy-duty binder.  Light blue and brown are going to be our colors, so I made the side match (we didn't now those colors when I made the front).

These are my current tabs.  I'm not sure if I'm going to change them or not, so instead of writing on the little slips of paper, I write on the actual tabs using an overhead marker so I can erase it if I want.  I'll see if I leave it another week, then I'll write them in for sure.  These markers stay pretty well, but I do get ink on my fingers sometimes!

I have two pencil pouches in my binder.  One is for pens, pencils, sticky notes, and a highlighter.  The other that you can see better here is for business cards and small brochures so they don't get lost.  

I hope to keep this up a little better in the future, although my head is already swimming with wedding stuff!  Keep watch for more Christmas gifts and wedding crafts!

Emily

Help Me Please! Pyramids

Tomorrow marks the official beginning of in-service!  I am so excited to be getting back to school.  It's lovely to have the summer off, but I don't have a family to take care of, and my summer school only runs four weeks, so that leaves me time to do want I want, and then some.  It leaves me with empty time as well, since most others are at work during the day.  I can't wait to see the kids!

I was looking through one of those wonderful, goody-filled teaching catalogs, and I came across this awesome product!  It's red, green, and yellow, put into a pyramid-type shape that lies on its side.  I can't remember the exact wording, but the green side says that the student doesn't need help, the yellow says the student needs help, but can continue to work, and the red says that the student needs help and cannot continue to work.

I thought that they were a wonderful idea, but there was no way I was going to pay $12.95 or whatever they were asking for them.  Instead, we made them!

First, we took a piece of 8 1/2" x 11" piece of red card stock (Nice, scrapbook paper.  We have to use these all year!), and divided it into three sections by folding (hamburger way...with the 11" wide).  I have a paper cutter that has an attachment for making creases for nice folds.  That's what we used to make all the folds on this project so they'd be neat and even.  We also made a crease at 5 1/2".  You'll see why in a bit.

Then, we cut it in half (hot dog way).

This is the base of our pyramid.  Next we took pieces of yellow and green scrapbook paper, and made a single-fold piece that will match up with two-thirds of our red piece (some were yellow, some were green).

This we glued onto the red piece so that one yellow side would show, and one would not.  This helps to strengthen our pyramid.  DO NOT glue either the yellow or the green paper to the side of the pyramid with the extra fold in it.  Looking at the second picture, you can see that I'm leaving that fold on the bottom.

The next step is to cut a "single" out of either yellow or green paper - the opposite of what you just put on.  This will be the final side of our pyramid.

And now you've finished!  The reason for the fold on the bottom is so the students can fold it up and put it in their pencil box when they don't need it.  The last thing we need is extra stuff on our desks!

Happy School Year!

Emily

Almost Back to School!

It's August, and my lack of blogging is due to the fact that I've been at school getting set up for the new year!  I'm so excited for this year.  As of right now, my class has doubled in size from last year (from six to twelve!), which I think is great.  Sometimes six is great, but sometimes it limits what you can do with a class.

Because I've been at school, I'm spending less time crafting, and spending less time on here.  I'm sure that I won't be as frequent as I was once school starts, either.  I will be able to start posting some school ideas, though!

One thing I tried was putting magnets on the back of those 3M hooks instead of one of the sticky strips.  In theory it was great!  In reality, though, they weren't strong enough to put anything on.  I wanted to hang my coin chart on these, but the magnet wouldn't hold it.  I will do this, though, if I can find stronger strip magnets.  Here are some pictures of the basic idea:

My fingerless gloves are moving along slowly.  It's not usually a good idea for me to not put a deadline in a project, yet if it's not really for Christmas or another event, deadlines won't mean anything to me.  That's a mindset I really should get over.

I'm past the gusset on the first one, and am working on the palm.

Please excuse the flowery couch.  You'll see it a lot in this post!

I've also started a new project.  Surprise!  My boyfriend's sister is about to have a baby.  I felt bad that I hadn't started something sooner, so I decided to make the baby a stuffed animal.  I've never made one before!  I'm knitting a cute elephant.  The only change I'm going to make is to make an i-cord bow to put around it's neck.  We still don't know if the baby's a boy or a girl, so once we know I'll pick either a nice blue/green baby yarn I have, or a little bit of the pink yarn I'm using for the fingerless gloves pictured above. 

I started the elephant using a pretty light blue yarn that I have, thinking I'd just go pick up another skein the next day.  Unfortunately, they had the yarn but not the right color, so I had to buy new yarn!  Here's a lesson:  have ALL the yarn you need right away!  I'm saving the two panels I finished, though, because I'm going to check for this color yarn every once in a while, and if I find another skein I can make another elephant with what I have completed already.

I'm trying a new bread recipe tonight.  It's already puffed up nicely!  I'll write more about it after the boyfriend has tested it later this week.

Emily

Purse Re-Vamp

So I tried baking a whole two loaves of bread again, and AGAIN they came out flat!  Well, not flat like flat bread, but definitely not sandwich-bread sized.  The extra honey worked to sweeten it a bit (not even 1/6 cup extra), but next time I think I'm either going to try the 8" pan, or put the whole thing in one loaf pan, since my pans are coming out half-full.  The recipe says it's for two loaves, but it works out differently for everyone.  Another question I have is whether I need to get my yeast to room temperature first.  I use bread machine yeast so I don't have to activate it before putting it in the recipe, and I store it in the fridge.  Perhaps next time I'll try that as well.

For weeks I've had a purse sitting here awaiting repair.  It was a cute purse that I made with a pattern I bought at Hancock Fabrics on sale.  It pattern is Simplicity Learn to Sew 2164.  I made bag "c" and I even made it a bit bigger so my planner could fit in comfortably!  I had some reservations about this bag after using it, though.  I felt like the handles were going to come off, some of the seems for pockets were showing, and sure enough, when I put my keys in one of the front pockets, the pocket started to come off!  :(  I like the purse in general, and I wanted to repair it.  I also realized in the process of ripping stitches out that I'd never taken pictures of it, so here are some pictures while ripping:

I'm very proud of this pocket...I added it without a pattern!

I also added interfacing to the bag to make it more substantial.

I learned a lot while re-doing some of the purse.  My problem with the front pocket was that I had sewn it on, but when I sewed the actual bag together, I didn't sew in far enough to cover that seem.  There were many places like that, so I ended up just sewing another seen closer in.

My other main problem was my worry about the straps being weak.  I decided to sew them in differently than just the top-seem, so I sewed them in like this instead:

 

It worked beautifully to steady the straps!  Unfortunately, in the end, I found that I'd sewn the straps on backwards, so I had to go back and rip all that nice, tight stitching out.  It took me longer to take that out than it had been to do all the other repairs on the bag in general!

Another problem is now the purse is too short.  There's no where for the button on the front to be places, and the strap is too short for my liking.  I'm glad I did this because now I know how to make it a better bag next time, but I'm not sure what to do with this bag.  I only did repairs to the front, patterned part.  Perhaps I could take out the lining and use that to make a new bag?  Who knows!

Here's a picture of the purse as it is currently:

See how there's no room for a button anymore?

Now it's August and I'm going to start doing more for school, so watch for some classroom pictures!

Emily

Time Is Flyin'!

Whew!  Last week came and went without me realizing what day it was!  The week was odd to start with because my boyfriend and I took a day trip to Port Washington for his birthday, so I got home that night feeling like it was Sunday, and not Monday, then we had a jam-packed weekend of working at my church picnic, then going to my cousin's wedding, and mass choir on Sunday.  I did happen to get a bunch done last week, though!

I'm most excited about my BREAD!  I made REAL bread!  The kind that uses yeast and rises!  Here is a picture of my first loaf:

This is a recipe broken down into 1/3 to accommodate my pan size and how much wheat flour I thought I had (I really found another bag later on, after I had bought a new bag).  It's short because I didn't want to make a half a batch (which would be one loaf) because my pan was 8", and not 9", and I didn't want it to overflow.

I took pictures to document what was going on, and to also help me see how much the dough had risen.  Here's the first rise:

After this I shaped the dough and put it in the pan, then let it rise again.  Here's the second rise:

I was so amazed at how it rose!  The bread turned out to be delicious.  It's a honey-wheat bread, ad the moment I had a warm slice with butter I told my mom I was heading over and brought her the bread to taste, which was still warm!  She loved it, as well as her friend and my sister. 

I tried making another batch the next day since it was so good.  I made a full batch of two loaves; one for me and one for my boyfriend to take home.  They didn't work out as well as I'd hoped, although they were still good.

The main problem was that I was trying to get to my cousin's baseball game.  I started the bread too late (I've calculated that it's a 6 hour process total, including the rises, so there are times where I can run out).  I found ways to retard the rising of the bread by putting the dough in the fridge, but then it rained and the game was postponed, then postponed again, until finally I decided not to go.  Well, during that time I'd put the dough in the fridge, then took it out again, then put it back in, and so on.  It didn't rise happy.  It also wasn't as sweet as last time.

Today I'm going to make another full batch:  one loaf for now, and one for the freezer.  If I'm going to bake my own bread during the school year, I need to get into a routine that will make it possible with busy weekends and only evenings free.  Freezing one loaf will be part of that routine.  I'm going to work my schedule around my bread today, instead of working my bread around anything besides my chiro appointment (easily done - those don't take long!).  I'm also going to add a touch more honey since the big loaf wasn't as sweet as the little loaf.  We'll see if that works!

Last week I was getting bored with my two knitting projects:  the scarf and the baby blanket.  I think it's the fact that they're not a challenge for me.  They're great for knitting when talking, or knitting when I'm tired, or knitting in places like the car, but not so much when I'm idly watching my favorite British shows or sitting at home by myself for long periods of time.  I decided I needed more of a challenge, so I'm making something that I've wanted to for a while:  fingerless gloves!

Here's what I have so far:

Normally I like to do things like this on a magic loop, and two at a time.  I didn't want to have to figure out thumb gussets on two a time (I've only made one mitten before, and it came with a BIG gap in the thumb gusset!), and I kind of want the challenge to figure out how to make a pair of mitten or socks on dpns and have them come out the same size.  The one pair of socks I made on dpns came out nicely, but one was a half an inch longer than the other.  There are many factors that can go into this happening:  inaccurate measurements, tension while knitting, etc.  I'm going to try to keep my tension steady, but I'm also keeping track of rows.  Now, if my tension isn't steady, the number or rows won't matter so much, but it will at least give me a guide as to about how many rows I should have on my second fingerless glove.

The pattern is called "Reversible Rib Fingerless Glove" and can be found on Ravelry.com.  I'm using leftover sock yarn from a pair I made my mom a couple years ago.  It's Gems Merino Wool and the colorway is called Cardinal.  I really like working with this yarn!

Oh, I put a poll up about crafts on the right side of the page.  If you haven't answered it yet, please do!

Emily

Good Progress and a Birthday!

This past weekend I was helping out with my boyfriend's play.  It was great to watch the first night, and then I got roped into helping (I was glad to) for the next few nights.  It was a 2 1/2 hour play, so it gave me plenty of knitting time!  I decided to work on the baby blanket, because that yarn was light enough to see even in the dim light.  I got a whole ten rows done during one show!  I'm also starting to be able to see the pattern much better than I did before.  It's still somewhat masked by the texture of the yarn, but it is still visible.

I have approximately six inches done on the blanket, and I estimate that I am about one half of the way through one skein of yarn.  Maybe a bit more, since four skeins would equal four feet, and the blanket won't be THAT long! 

The scarf for my boyfriend's mom is something I'm being careful with.  Twice already it has started gathering in the wrong direction, so I make sure to watch and make sure that it's going the right way, and I make sure to count my stitches often, since I'm going from 48 to 24 to 48 again.  Taking this bit of time every few rows is definitely worth it!  I'd rather take a minute and count it to make sure I'm staying on track and fix a problem right there instead of finding it ten rows later!

The scarf is about 18 inches long now, and I'm through one skein and onto the second.  Remember, these are much smaller than the blanket skeins!  I have five skeins set aside for this scarf.  It's about a foot a skein, which turns out to be five feet long.  I'll have to start testing it after four to see how long I want to make it.

Pita Bread Update:

I told you that some of my pita breads puffed up and some didn't:  Here's the proof!

They are quite thick and a bit too chewy because of that.  Next time, definitely thinner and wider!  Still good to eat, though :)  My next project is to try baking an actual loaf of bread!  Or maybe a mini loaf.

Yesterday was my boyfriend's birthday and I gave him the apron that I made for him.  Here's a picture of him modeling it for me.

It's adjustable strap makes it easy to fit anyone, although it looks long here.  He is excited about the pockets I put in the front since he doesn't have any grill trays, either.  Time for him to start baking!  :)

Emily

It's a Pita!

Today I went to make lunch, and realized that the new pita's I bought about two weeks ago (I say new because they were unopened) were all moldy!  Very sad.  I've been meaning to try making pita bread for weeks, so I decided to roll up my sleeve and just do it!  I found a simple recipe at cooks.com called Homemade Pita Bread.  It only has four ingredients:  yeast, warm water, flour, and salt.

It was easy to put together.  I am learning to not be afraid of yeast.  I have not had luck with it in the past, but I would love to be able to make my own breads! 

I wasn't sure if I kneaded them enough, and I was worried because they didn't seem to be rising under the towel like I thought they would.  Here are four or my six pitas pre-baking.







I was so excited to find that they puffed up!  Here are my first two post-baking pitas.

I wanted to take a picture of a couple in the oven, but I have a feeling that they didn't puff up well because I opened the oven.  Here's a tip:  DON'T OPEN THE OVEN!!!  Of course, I was the one as a kid who kept cupcakes from baking up well because I was playing the piano too loudly...

Yes, those are on my baking sheet upside down, per a tip I found online.

And here are my pita breads!  I hope they taste good...they were so easy to make!

Enjoy!

Emily

On to New Projects!

I love casting on a new project!  Now that I am done with my wedding blanket, I can cast on new projects without guilt. 

I've started a Gathered Scarf, which is funny enough called "Gathered Scarf for your Mother-in-Law (or not)", since it's for my boyfriend's mother for Christmas.  It's a nice, easy, fun knit.  I got through one of five balls of yarn in just a weekend, although I then had to frog half of it out because it was bunching the wrong way.  Here is a picture of the front so far:

Here is a picture of the back.  Here you can see why I couldn't just leave it when the scarf started to bunch the wrong way.  It looks like you can just push the ruffles back, but you can't.  

I am using Knit Picks City Tweed DK in Plum Wine.  I have five skeins set aside, and measuring what I have done, that will be plenty.

I have also started another "Surrounded" blanket!  I'm glad that I still enjoy this pattern enough to make another blanket!  This time, though, it's a baby blanket.  I just found out that someone I know is about six weeks along, so I'm not going to say who it is, but I've started a blanket for the baby.  It will be about one-fourth of the size of the wedding blanket I made, and since I understand the pattern I will have less trouble knitting it.  I'm making it out of Bernat Baby Coordinates in Iced Mint.  I have three skeins, and will need a fourth, but I'm not afraid of not being able to get the yarn.  Here is a picture of my beginnings:

It begins with an i-cord cast-on, which looks difficult, but really isn't.  The only advice I can give when doing this pattern is to make sure not to make the i-cord too tight for the convenience of picking up the stitches for the first row.  It shouldn't be very loose, but I'm a tight knitter, so when someone tells me to make sure it's tight, it's TIGHT!  That made the first row very difficult to do.  Now that I'm past that obstacle, it's smooth sailing now!

Here is a close-up of the cast on edge:

I also made sure to use stitch markers to mark both when I cast on, and then later my stitches in the pattern, so it is set up as before.  This helped a lot when I was trying to count out over 100 i-cord rows and stitches.  


Happy Knitting!


Emily