Knit Mode

Last year when I impulsively bought a pair of knitting needles and a ball of yarn, I wasn’t sure if I would like knitting. While I was curious about knitting, I had never done it before so I didn’t know if it was a hobby that would last. I didn’t want to invest a lot of money on supplies that I wasn’t sure I would ever use, so I wanted to start out slow. Thus, every time I needed a different pair of needles to match the thickness of the yarn I had, I would buy my needles individually (which is fine in the short term, but not so great in the long term).

I finally decided that I just needed to get a set of knitting needles because it would be cheaper overall and would give me more sizes to work with. Working with just a couple of needle sizes is very limiting; I like to look over knitting books and find cute projects that I want to try, but as I didn’t have many of the needles sizes it sort of put a damper on things. Now that I have a knitting needle set, I feel more motivated to try different projects and use different types of yarn.

The individual needles I had been using were aluminum but my new set of knitting needles are wood, and I have to say I think I prefer the wood. It’s really not surprising since I love wood items in general, so naturally I would like the look and feel of my new wooden needles; they feel light and have a warmth and softness about them that I appreciate. My new set has needles from sizes 0-15; I’m not sure that I’ll use all of the sizes, but it’s nice to have them just in case I need them.

Lately I’ve been in knit mode, mostly doing so in the evenings when I can half-watch semi-interesting television shows, and I’ve broken in one pair of new wooden needles working on my first non-scarf project. It’s time consuming for me to knit anything, but one of the things I appreciate about knitting is that you can knit for an extended period of time or just for a few minutes—every row counts. And it’s pretty satisfying to see the knitted piece you’re working on get longer and longer as you get closer to finishing.

Twisted and Dropped

I decided that it was time for me to try other stitches in knitting (besides the basic knit and purl stitches) because eventually I’d like to do more complicated knitting. I had most of a skein left of some purple yarn and thought that I could use it for a scarf using stitches I haven’t used before. Looking in a knitting book, I thought I’d try a purse stitch that used a yarn over and purl two together repeatedly that seemed easy enough. I found some videos online and tried the two different stitches and they didn’t seem too difficult.

Cute Animal Wares

Every so often I’m a sucker for cute animal things. (I mean who doesn’t love an adorable little dog or cat?) While sometimes I would receive cute animal items as gifts, I admit that more often than not, it was me doing the purchasing; I would buy containers, toys and stationary merely because they were cute (and thus irresistible). Yet as the years pass, I’m less inclined to buy these cute animal items (as I do not have the room or need for them), but here are some cute animal wares I've accumulated over time:

Vintage Advert Notebook

I finally broke down and bought a binding machine. I’d been eyeing one online for quite sometime and when it happened to be on sale at a local store—I gave in. I’d resisted the urge to get one for a while because I didn’t need one but as with most crafty items I wanted it. [Sigh.] I really just tried to avoid the inevitable…and that never really works.

Since my mom’s birthday was just around the corner, I thought it was the perfect time to test my new binding machine by making a notebook. My mom enjoys classic Hollywood films from the “Golden Age” of cinema when screwball comedies and musicals reigned supreme, so I wanted to reflect that time period in the notebook I made for her. I had purchased a stamp that had various newspaper ads from that 1940’s and thought that I could use it to create a cute cover.

DIY: Braided Yarn and Duct Tape Bracelet

Using the same yarn and duct tape I used in my Yarn and Duct Tape Necklace, I decided to create a braided bracelet; I thought multiple braids would create a nice texture.