Customizing a Crib

When Lucky was 10 months old, we were finally ready to set up his first crib.  He had been sleeping in a pack'n'play in our room until we moved into a two bedroom apartment at 8 months old.  I didn't want to spend thousands of dollars on a fancy crib, we got a highly rated one from Ikea and decided to spoof it up with some Spoonflower decals.

Note: about a month after we ordered the decals Spoonflower discontinued the decals.  They now offer peal and stick wallpaper which can be cut and used with a similar effect.  A 2 ft swatch is $7.50.  

We picked a design called Under the Sea, Watercolor by dennisthebadger.  This designer has many FANTASTIC designs.  We also considered the dinosaur design before we knew we settled on the ocean themed nursery.

We selected the Sundvik Crib from Ikea in black-brown.  Each side has two well defined sections that would be perfect for decorating.  We only wanted to apply the decal to the top panel.  It measured 26.75" x 14.75".  (Make sure you measure your own, don't just take our word for it!)  We knew that two 30"x30" decals would give us all the design we needed with decal to spare.

Since the decals are removable, I wasn't concerned about the placement or positioning.  I just crossed my fingers and started adding it.  I figured that if I needed to I could always trim the decal down some more, but it ended up fitting perfectly!  

If you don't want to go with custom printed decals, you could get some from the store that don't come in a huge sheet and artistically stick them to the end of the crib to make it fit your decor.  

Now all that's left is to assemble the crib and move it into his room.  

We have some fun ideas about what we will do with the leftover decal strips, and it isn't just putting the designs up on the wall.  Stay tuned for some fun ideas for what you can do with these remnants.  

Lucky has never slept in anything that wasn't a pack'n'play, so we were a littler nervous about how this transition would go.  

I think Lucky loves his new crib, don't you?

Happy Birthday, Lucky!

More pictures and commentary coming soon.  We've got a lot of amazing crafts planned for Lucky's birthday party.  Stay tuned! 

A Tiny Crochet Whale

Do you think I like whales?  Lucky's nursery has an ocean theme (but mostly whales because that is what is available), his first birthday party is also under the sea with many whales... and now here I am making some crochet whale appliques!  

I pulled some Brava worsted yarn out of my stash (tidepool) and a size 3.5 mm hook.  Each whale took between 1-2 g of yarn, so I stopped keeping track as I moved onto different scraps of worsted yarn that I had around.  

Not only does the pattern include step by step pictures, but there is also a VIDEO tutorial! (I will admit that I didn't watch the whole video as it was 14 min long, but it is nice that one is available if anyone should need it.)  I wasn't sure if we were supposed to join the rounds, but the video helped me find out that you do it in a spiral.  If you don't want to watch the video, there are excellent step by step photos to help you make it though the project confidently.  

The whales were really fast to make.  I made 6 in the course of an afternoon.  I think it takes maybe 15 minutes to make one.  This is a super cute motif.  I can't wait to figure out how to incorporate this into other projects! 

What do you think?  (Now, you really should say that you like both versions as Lucky's party is in a week.  I wrote this post back in August and I hope that I'm done decorating the hats by now!)

 

Spinning "Tickled Pink"

 

I haven't done any spinning for a few months.  I'm super excited to be spinning the May 2014 coloway from my Into the Whirled subscription, Tickled Pink.  Just setting up Sandry (my wheel) again to start spinning has me tickled pink.  (I knew this was a good choice for my first project after a few months!)

I've never spun polwarth before but I"m excited to try.  The fiber seems "sticky", in a good way that it sticks to itself, not in a bad way in that it makes my hands feel bad.  It might be hard to draft, but I think that it will spin up in to a great strong yarn.

I decided that I would N-ply the yarn, unless I love the way the singles come out.  This is a great way of plying without having to plan out how to split the yarn in advance.  2 ply is more fun, but I just have to do a bit more planning.

Turns out polwarth drafts like a dream.  The fibers are so sticky that it almost wants to draft and spin itself!  Cross your fingers that Lucky doesn't get into my spinning now that he's awake.  I store the fiber ton top of the wheel and then hope that I can keep him distracted from unraveling my work.  

I finished the singles in one afternoon.  How on earth was this possible?  I'm a very lucky mama because Keith was playing with Lucas all day so I could have some time with my wheel.  (Spoiler alert - I finished the ENTIRE SKEIN in one day!)

This fiber was so sticky (again, the good kind of sticky) that I swear it would ply itself.  I had NO issues with breaking the entire time and have a spindle full of fluffy 3 ply yarn.  (Since I'm a novice, self taught spinner I'm not sure if you would technically call this 3 ply or just N-ply... hopefully I'm not butchering the terminology.) I really like N-plying.  I see it like a huge crochet chain that is then twisted together.  It always feels very strong to me.

16 wraps over 3"  (5-6 WPI, a bulky yarn.)  How often have I tried to get a true bulky yarn?  I finally have little enough twist for a very fluffy, bulky yarn.  Wahoo!

50 wraps * 4 ft/wrap = 200 feet = 66 yards.   I have made 26 projects (according to Ravelry) using between 30 and 65 yards of yarn.  Most of these are baby hats and amigurumi, and are frequently out of much thinner yarn.  I wonder what I'll make out of this.

I finished the yarn by winding it onto my homemade niddy noddy and set the twist with hot water and let the yarn dry on the niddy noddy.

When I went to the fiber fair this summer I saw someone spinning and her singles were SO thin and perfect.  I really want to practice spinning up thin yarn again to see what I can do.  I've had much more success in not overtwisting my intended-to-be-bulky yarns, maybe I can have the same success with thinner yarns?  Wish me luck!  

Spinning started 8/20/14
Singles completed 8/20/14
Plying completed 8/20/14

Chunky Crochet Bow Tie

Ever since we moved into our new apartment I feel like my yarn stash is out of control.  I am really trying to make an effort to use up my remnant scraps of yarn so I have less I'm hanging onto "just in case" I need it.  With 16g left of the Chilean cotton yarn I used in the Blue Beary Hat, I decided to make a matching crocheted bow tie.  I pulled out my size I crochet hook and prepared to whip up a cute accessory.

The pooling is CRAZY cool.  I got in the sweet spot of of the repeat to get a regular pattern.  I was a little concerned about how the pooling would turn out using a variegated yarn for the bow tie, but this is just SO cool.  I know there are ways to calculate the repeat to get the pooling to happen in awesome ways, but I've never tried it before.  I don't think I would have achieved this if I had tried.

I followed the pattern as written with one exception, I twisted the bow so the seam could go up the back rather than being on the top or the bottom of the bow tie.

With the last two yards of yarn, I held it double and crocheted a chain to be the neck band.  But I was only able to chain 25 sts, not 50.  It wasn't quite long enough to tie around a neck.  So I did a single stranded chain for the neck band.  I chained 55 sts on the I hook.  It was too thick for me to slide through the band I wrapped around, so I used a needle and sewing thread to secure it to the back.

Guys, I DID IT!  I used 100% of a ball of yarn with NO remnants!  This is something that is completely gone from my stash, and it makes a wonderful baby gift for the newest little guy in my life.

I like this bow tie so much that I'm going to need to make one for Lucky.  Hopefully I'll love another one as much when I use a different kind of yarn...  I couldn't resist trying the to-be-gifted bow tie on Lucky.  He didn't love wearing it but oh boy did he look dapper.

Crochet bow tie modeled by 10 month old Lucky

Crochet bow tie modeled by 10 month old Lucky

Knitting Yarns: Writers On Knitting

When my Aunt gave me the book Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting edited by Ann Hood for my birthday I didn't know what to expect.  I wondered if it was a novel, because it certainly did not look like any knitting book I'd ever seen.  It turns out that this brilliant book is a compilation of essays and personal true stories on what knitting has meant in the lives of many famous writers.  The back of the book lists many names that I'm familiar with, including Sue Grafton, Barbara Kingsolver and Ann Pachette.

Last December, 2 month old Lucky didn't give me a lot of time to read for pleasure, so I saved the book until this spring.  I like to read a few chapters while I take a bubble bath.  I think that I am stretching this book out as far as I can go.  I am delighted to read the way that knitting is so important in the lives of other people, and it is especially nice to read these stories written by people who really know how to spin a yarn (oh yes, I went there!)

I don't want to spoil anything from the stories themselves, but I will share that the book comes with 6 knitting patterns. Since this book is printed on conventional book paper, there are no pictures and correspondingly there are no images to accompany these patterns. I turned to Ravelry to see if I could get a better peak.  (Besides, I realized that I needed to add this book to my pattern library.  I love being able to search for patterns that are in books/magazine issues that I already own, but I digress.) The patterns provide a little bit for every knitter: socks, fingerless mitts, coffee cozy, lacy wrap, sweater and a head wrap.

Please keep in mind that these knitting patterns aren't intended to be a learn to knit book.  Think of them as the sweet icing on top of the delectable multi-layer cake of this book.  I can't wait to keep reading!  I've discussed the role knitting has played in my life in interviews and a bit here on ChemKnits, but from reading this book I'm considering working on my own piece.  What has knitting meant to you?

Breaking KoolAid Grape Yarn

"Breaking" Dye is when you start with a single color of dye and you see different hues in your final yarn.  Food coloring based colors that frequently break are purples and blacks becausee they contain a mixture of blue and red dyes which bind to the yarn at different rates.  

In the past I've seen some great pictures of yarn dyed with Grape KoolAid that has broken into reds and blues, but when I tried it myself I got a fairly solid color.  Of course, this first attempt was using a 20% wool blend AND I was adding wet yarn to a dyebath that was heated slowly.  My more recent expreience with breaking yarns has come trough adding dry fibers to a hot dyebath so that the reds will strike the parts of the fiber that enter the bath first.  I decided to give this a try in my most recent dyeing experiment.

I mixed 4 pack of Kool-Aid Grape Unsweetened Soft Drink Mix in 10 cups of water.  100g of KnitPicks Palette bare yarn.  As you will see in the video, the colors started adhering to the yarn almost immediately.