Crafts and Cooking

Mantaining my sanity lately has involved a lot of knitting, and I’ve fallen in love with J&P Coats LusterSheen. It’s an acrylic sport-weight yarn, but it looks and acts like crochet thread (and is usually stocked in stores with the crochet thread, next to the Speed-Cro-Sheen and Knit-Cro-Sheen). It’s soft and comes in pretty colors and knits up into a beautiful fabric that shows off fancy stiches really nicely. I’ve been looking for a light-weight yarn that I could substitute for the expensive stuff in all of the knitting magazines, and was almost going to break down and try out … Continue reading Affordable Knitting Yarns

I hid from last weeks parting blast from winter by watching Buffy re-runs and knitting this vest, dubbed the Zipper “See My” Vest due to the spontaneous outbursts from the Simpson’s soundtrack that this project seemed to enduce in onlookers. My full project writeup includes a link to the source pattern, which I found online. It’s a great basic pattern that I’d encourage any knitter to check out.

I am slowly building a collection of old home economics and household management guides, and I would love to find a copy of this 1800’s book just added to Project Gutenburg: The American Woman’s Home, or Principles of Domestic Science, by Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe. And, yes, it is the same Harriet Beecher Stowe. Take a skim over the topics covered in the introduction, as described in the table of contents: The chief cause of woman’s disabilities and sufferings, that women are not trained, as men are, for their peculiar duties–Aim of this volume to elevate the … Continue reading Vintage HomeEc

I’ve been tempted by The Friday Five as a device to inspire entries, but in practice the questions tend to be more personally revealing than I want to answer on a regular basis. Photo Friday, on the other hand, is the same idea but with photographs. This is definitely something I want to do. I’m not thrilled with my submission for this week’s theme “Stop Sign” (see right-hand column), but my goal is to at least try to produce something each week. [via Medley]

I’ve been on a knitting and crocheting tear lately, but I discovered a whole new dimension to being the crafty type – making your own tools! Not that I’ve tried it yet, but this guide to making home-made knitting needles is calling to me. It’s so obvious that they’re only pointy dowels, and yet I never would have thought of this myself. [via not martha]

I’m way overdue in finally photographing the quilt I made over the holidays, so to make up for it, I’ve put together a fairly extensive write-up about this bargello style Christmas quilt, including scans of the graphs I used in designing it.

Last year, I made a resolution to reduce my unread book pile, which was only a moderate success (how I managed to read over 50 books last year and still have a stack of 90 still staring at me is beyond me). This year, I’m turning my attention to my absurdly large yarn stash, which is spread across too many rooms to even show you a picture. I will not buy any yarn this year unless it is to make a present for someone, and even then I will consult the stash first. As a first step on this project, … Continue reading Stash Reduction Project

This page’s sidebar images were taken near my house during the long cold snap we had during the end of January; I’ve put together a larger (in number and size) collection of my favorite images from my visit to Cascadilla Creek.

Awwww – I want a Sock Dog too! Clearly cutest with neat patterned socks. [via not martha]

More than just an extensive origami site, Oriland follows through on it’s promise of “Origami Galore”, but even if you aren’t a paper folder you (or your kids!) might enjoy exploring Oriland Kingdoms (requires Flash). It’s a beautiful interactive animated world based on origami models. Just look around, or click on the “Origami Quest” tab at the bottom of the page to learn about the puzzles you can solve while exploring the kingdom. Not challenging, but very pretty. And if you are a paper folder, there are some nice free patterns on the site. I think the snail is particularly … Continue reading Origami Kingdom