Knit Happens

It's been a bit since I've last blogged. I've started a few posts, but nothing is really funny. So you're not going to get funny. Sorry. This is real life.

I've decided that I needed to take up a new hobby. My main hobby right now is playing sports (soccer and ultimate frisbee). I enjoy both immensely, but I had a game on Tuesday in sub 40 degree weather and I still have several bruises from last week's game. So I need to get into something that I can enjoy that I will be able to do when I'm unable to play soccer anymore. Hopefully that day is far into the future, but hey, I gotta start now. 

So I picked knitting. Mainly because "watching tv" isn't a good enough hobby for my own pride, and let's face it: I watch a lot of tv. Now I have something productive to do while I watch tv instead of surf Facebook or play Candy Crush on my phone. (although most of the time I do those two things instead of knit anyway... I'm working on it!)

My first skein and knitting needles

Can I just say that knitting is not as easy as I thought it would be. I started my "project" at least 7 times and wasn't getting it right. I finally decided to just do 10 stitches instead of 25. It was bad. I pulled the whole thing apart on purpose and on accident a few times. It really is a miracle that I haven't unraveled all of my clothing items. Even though most of them are not knit. I'm sure I could find a way to do.

So now I'm making a super skinny scarf for myself. It's not perfect, but I'm making progress. I would take a picture of it in progress, but it's still kind of embarrassing. (Actually, I thought I had already taken a picture of it, but apparently I didn't, and I'm too lazy to go take a picture of it right now.)

I showed my "scarf" to my mom this past weekend and she asked me why I didn't just cast off and start on a project with more stitches. I told her that I'm really happy about my little skinny scarf. That, and I haven't watched the video on how to cast off yet...

I may never show any of my knitting projects to the blog world...

Lackluster Halloween Craft Night

I am extremely excited that it's fall. I love the crisp air, falling leaves, and pumpkin treats. I chatted with my roommates about having a roommate craft night. They seemed excited. So I went and purchased some white fabric to make some simple ghosts. We had the paper, markers, hole punches, and ideas for all the other projects in a simple craft book that I purchased last October.

So as we started crafting, it became clear that my roommates weren't really into the crafting part, but they did make sugar cookies into Halloween shapes that I happily ate. So I set off to do some simple crafts on my own.

When you think of Halloween crafting, you probably imagine something outstanding that my friend Elizabeth recently made like this:

Elizabeth's Craft Night

You can tell she has mastered the hot glue gun and knows her way around Michael's. A crow, a skeleton, and tons of spooky goodness.

Then you can take a look at my sister-in-law's Halloween spirit. Her house is a Halloween zone! 

My sister-in-law's Halloween decorations

When you compare these to my measly crafts, you walk into my house without mentioning the Halloween decor. On a scale to 1 to 10, I earned a big fat LAME-O. 

I mean, take a look at my simple pipe cleaner spider...

Simple spider that took 15 minutes

 And I labored diligently to hang a few bats and ghosts from the lights in my living room. I'm pretty sure Elizabeth would approve since they all have googly eyes, but still, they don't capture the Halloween spirit that I was hoping for.

Simple ghosts and bats that took the rest of the evening

At least I tried, right? That's the spirit? Well, I have three more weeks to pull out all the stops... But I might just eat cider, donuts, and candy, and be content. 

Pinterest Project

I wrote on my goals for this semester to do two projects that I saw on pinterest. Well, It's February 5, and I've done them both. It's nice to accomplish goals.

This is spray painted toilet paper tubes and then hot glued on a blank white canvas. I learned that toilet paper tubes are really difficult to paint. They soak up a lot of paint. But I am happy to own a hot glue gun, even if it's the cheap $3 one from Wal-Mart.

It makes me happy, and that's all that really matters.

Happy February!

My next project... hmm... What I really need is a sewing machine so I can hem all of my pants.

Getting Crafty

I joined pinterest over Christmas break and saw some craft projects that looked interesting. I don't know why you would look through all the stuff on pinterest and not do anything about it. That's definitely no fun.

So I decided to create my own paint swatch project to recreate "Starry Night" to some degree. It didn't turn out as good as I was hoping. But overall, not a bad effort for my first pinterest project.



Here are the paint swatches.



I had a star hole punch from my scrapbooking days that I used to punch out hundreds of stars from the paint swatches.



Putting it all together





The final product