Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Holy crap! I wrote a pattern!

Back in April I made my b-in-law some fingerless mitts because his hands were cold. I actually bothered to write down how I did it. I made him two pairs and did the second pair differently than the first pair. So, I'm posting how I did it.

I'm not the greatest pattern writer. I had to have help with the rectangle granny square to make it readable and understandable. So, if these patterns are a bit confusing, I'm sorry. I didnt ask anyone to help me with writing these out. I pretty much wrote them out as I was making them, and saved them in Word until I decided tonight to post this.


fingerless mitts


(this is the first pattern, wrote it out kind of basic)

Fingerless mitt

Chain 25

Hdc in each sts for 9 rows

Row 10: chain 2, hdc for 5 sts, ch 2, sk 2 sts, hdc in each sts to end of row

Rows 11 to 18, hdc in each sts till you have 18 rows

Fold lengthwise and sew or crochet up the side to finish off.


(this is the second version. Basically the same as the first one, except that I changed the chain-up part from a chain-2 to a chain-1.)


Fingerless Mitts
(Make two)

Foundation Row: Chain 25

Row 1: half double crochet in 2nd chain from hook, half double crochet in each st to end of row.

Row 2: Chain 1 loosely. (you don’t really need height on this one, and just doing a loose ch-1 gives you enough height, and you dont end up with that loopy look on the ends that a ch-2 gives you sometimes) Half double crochet in each st till end of row.

Work in pattern to Row 10.

Row 10: (thumbhole row) ch 1, hdc in next 5 sts, ch 2, skip next 2 sts, hdc in next st. Hdc in each st to end of row.

Rows 11 to 18: hdc in each sts to Row 18.

Fold lengthwise and sew or slip stitch up the side to make a tube.

(Optional) You can crochet around the edge of the openings to give it a more finished look. I did that for one pair of fingerless mitts I made for my brother-in-law. I didnt care for the edging on the ends of the mitts tho)

I took pictures, but then over the summer I was a bit sick, and now dont remember which of the mitt pictures I took was which. I used the same color yarn for both pairs, and I guess now it doesnt really matter which one was made first. At least you can get a basic idea of what they looked like when I was finished.

fingerless mitts

fingerless mitts

fingerless mitts

fingerless mitts

Friday, September 17, 2010

I watch too much HGTV

(wow...3 new posts from me in one night...)

Ok, I did a remodeling project in my bedroom last winter. (had a fancypants desk built custom for me) and then this summer, my parents and I decided we needed to remodel the bathrooms. (their bathroom really needed it. The guy who remodeled their bathroom in 2005 was a complete moron. Bathroom building is apparently a skill...at least according to Mike Holmes on "Holmes on Homes").

So, my bathroom was the first one to get re-done. No pictures yet, I'm waiting for the shower doors to arrive and for the shower head to get put back on, plus we have to repaint (the entire house) and re-carpet (the entire house). The house has needed some new paint and carpet for quite awhile. (my dog, TinyMonsters, has been dead since 2006 and it still looks like we have a live dog living here) Plus, after having my desk built in my bedroom, my bedroom still needs new paint, and my carpet was ripped up a bit by the desk installer. So, my room still needs to be finished too.

We cut out the cheesy fiberglass shower insert that the bathroom came with when it was built. ("we" meaning the contractor got out his sawz-all and surgically removed it in small pieces). I picked out some new tile, and some tile installers came and built a new shower floor (properly waterproofed!) and tiled the walls from floor to ceiling. Oh, and I got a new tile floor in the bathroom to match. About the only thing I didnt change in the bathroom is the sink and cabinet. (bye bye old toilet, getting a new one soon!)

I picked out my shower door today. (changed my mind on the doors my mom had picked out for us the other day. I found out how much mine was going to cost and had a serious attack of "whaaat? How much?!?". So, I went back to the glass store this afternoon and got one that was priced a little more realistically. My mom still gets her INSANELY PRICED shower door for their master bath, since I was able to pick out a nice door for half the price of the one mom had picked out for me, and my dad will stop crying uncontrollably about how much that door was going to cost. I swear, he looked so happy this morning when I told him I was going to cancel the freakishly expensive door and get a cheaper one.

It's amazing how guilty I felt over the cost of that door. My dad had told them go ahead and get it, and I just had this worrying guilt over how much it cost in the bottom of my stomach. I just couldnt do it. The contractor seemed a bit annoyed with me when I called him this morning to tell him I was changing it.

The doors that my mom had picked out for both bathrooms was 3/4 inch clear glass. (they had 1/4 inch glass for a little less, which was what we'd decided to put into my bathroom until I panicked about the price). When I got to the glass store, I picked out an opaque glass called "Glue Chip" (yeah, I dont know what that means either) that kind of reminds me either of ice crystals forming on a car windshield, or of fossils of leaves in rocks.

My mom will still get her clear glass shower doors, which I think is ok, since she's got the master bathroom and it would probably look really cool with clear glass doors...and I'll have glass doors that I wont have to squeegee after every shower to keep them clean.

I'll probably post a few pictures of the before and after pictures of my bathroom once I get the doors installed and the shower head put back up. I love the tile. I cant wait to wash my hair in the new shower. I hate my parents current shower. It was poorly made, and "probably" not properly waterproofed. (eeeeek!! I'm afraid to see what happens when they rip up the old tile in there) The walls are made of marlite (kind of a fake marble looking stuff) and when the contractor was looking at that shower, he reached up and wiggled the top of the marlite walls and freaked when the wall wiggled. The moron who installed those walls five years ago apparently didnt use any adhesive (and probably no Durock, concrete board) behind the marlite...we're pretty sure the only thing holding up the marlite is my mom's grab bars.

and since this is a crocheting blog, I'll mention that I havent gotten much done crochet or knit-wise this summer. I made a couple of shawls, and am mostly finished with a giant granny square afghan. I started another new shawl with some sparkly yarn the other day and that's half finished. Bought more of the sparkly yarn (Hobby Lobby's "I Love This Yarn" Royalty Blue with sparkle) and am considering an afghan with that.

Also got some "I Love This Cotton" from HL and crocheted and finished a pineapple doily with that earlier this summer. My aunt starched it for me and it actually looks pretty cool, even if it is made in crochet cotton and not crochet thread.

I discovered Knitpicks earlier this year. (well, I knew about them for a few years, but then I actually bought some stuff and fell in love with their needles). I started a practice sock from the toe up on 40in circs. I have a toe and part of a foot, but havent gotten much past that. I may have a sock in a few years. I bought so many knitting needles I needed storage for that, so I went to WalMart and bought myself a toolbox to keep them in. Then I kind of hurt my right hand and didnt do much in the way of crocheting or knitting over the past few months. Hand is getting better, so hopefully I'll be cranking out some stuff soon...probably not that sock, but maybe a few more crocheted shawls.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Ok, I think I fixed it.

I checked the settings, and I dont know what happened to my blog. I dont know if Blogspot changed something in the past few months and I didnt notice it, or what. Somehow my blog had the archives hidden, so every post I'd written for the past five years was not showing up.

After I got done panicking, thinking I'd lost every thing, I dug into the dashboard of the blog a little bit, and I think I fixed the archive stuff, and whatever was translating my blog titles into Hindi was some setting for transliteration. (WTF?)

I think I got that fixed too, since the title for this blog post seems to be in English (for me at least)

It's been a long annoying summer (annoying health problem bugging me that made me ignore my blog for quite awhile. I'm fine, btw)

I didnt realize there was a problem until someone emailed me to ask if I'd closed my blog.

No, my blog is not closed. I dont know what happened to the settings, and hopefully that doesnt happen again. Can someone comment on my blog and tell me if things look ok?

Thanks!

ओके, थिस इस वेइर्द.

I was starting to type up this post, and when I typed in the title, the English letters turned into what looks like Chinese. Totally weird. Hope my blog isnt having a problem.

Can someone post a comment to me telling me if my blog is readable (in English) and tell me how far back my posts go, because I got an email from someone earlier today saying that a bunch of my posts are missing.

edited to add:

I googled the weird text in the title of my post, and had it translated. It translates out to what I actually typed. (should say "ok, this is weird", and it's apparently in Hindi.

I'm not Hindu. I've never been to India, (American and damned proud of it too!) and I dont know why my blog would suddenly have it's titles being translated into Hindi. This is just freaking weird!

if I have to, I'll start a new blog somewhere, but I'm going to see what the hell is going on with this one.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

9.11.2001, Nine years later.

Photobucket

Apparently we've forgotten about it. It's still a big hole in the ground. When I say "we", I mean "they"...whoever's in charge of rebuilding the WTC and building the memorial. Because there's probably going to be a mosque built there long before the towers or the memorial are built.

I havent forgotten.