Oden the champion! and other crochet news.

Oden won a prize in the instructables.com critter contest.  Thanks to everyone who voted for him.  I can’t wait to get my free yarn and my pro membership to instructables!  So exciting!

In other news, I am currently working on a gigantic market bag.  This is only the bottom and a tiny bit of the sides.  I don’t think the picture does it justice.  It’s really quite big.

This baby is going to hold ALLLL the groceries!

I haven’t decided whether to felt it or not.  I don’t have much experience with felting.  Well, at least not intentional felting; I’ve definitely shrunk my share of woolen items.   This bag might be a good candidate for experimenting, since it’s so huge that, even if I overdid it, it wouldn’t stop the bag from being useful.

Also, I had a stroke of brilliance and repurposed this wine box as a yarn holder.  It’s so perfect, as the little flap for the spout opens up enough to get a skein in there and then closes up enough to keep it secure and tangle free.  I can’t wait to empty more boxes of wine so that all my skeins have homes

In goes the yarn...

...NO MORE TANGLES!!

Tags: contest, critter, Crochet, instructable, market bag, oden, prize, recycle, repurpose, reuse, win, wine box, yarn, yarn holder

Elliptigo. Looks super dorky but I totally want to try one out.

Check out the Elliptigo.  The combination of ultra dorkiness and intense desire to ride one reminds me of  the Segway

Honestly, I want one bad.   I love the elliptical trainer and I love to bike standing up.  This thing was seriously made for me and I think the inventor is a genius.  Now who will cough up the $2,200?  I AM turning 30 in a couple of months…

Is the Elliptigo...

…the new Segway?

Tags: awesome, dorky, elliptical, elliptigo, segway

Tomatoes!

My friend Sarah planted a gazillion tomato seeds and I was a lucky recipient of a few of her overflow seedings.  Aren’t they cute?!?

The only thing is that I’ve never grown my own tomatoes, or anything edible, for that matter.  So, this is all new to me.

I went to the garden shop and spent 600kr (like 70 bucks!) on pots, soil, tools, etc.  Ummm….I’m not sure we spend that much on our tomato budget in a calendar year!  So I’m looking for ways to reduce the cost of testing out my green thumb.

I found this free project to make an inverted planter on instructables. I can only find 1.5 liter bottles here in Sweden, which might be a bit small for a tomato plant, but we’ll see.  Rossen is going to plant his little basil sprouts on the top.

I’ve also repurposed G’s baby bath tub as a flower bed.  (Thanks for the idea, Sarah!  She turned hers into a mini-greenhouse when raising the seedlings.)

Anyone got other suggestions on how to set up container gardening on the balcony for super cheap?   Or hints for keeping the plants happy?

Mommy’s little helper

Can’t wait to update with pictures of our first harvest

Tags: balcony, container, garden, gardening, plant, seedling, tomato

Vote for my critters!

Last minute plea for votes.

Bunbun

, Oden the owl, 

Belinda,

and Poppy

love you and want you to vote for them in the Lion Brand yarn contest on instructables.com.  If I win, I get $25 worth of yarn and a goodie bag from instructables.

But mostly I just want that warm, fuzzy feeling

Tags: amigurumi, bunny, contest, Crochet, doll, instructable, lion brand yarn, monster, mouse, owl, rabbit, vote, yarn

Woah. Knooking.

I had no idea knooking existed.  Knooking means knitting with a crochet hook.

I suck at knitting.

But I am OK at crochet.

And I’ve always wanted to knit because it’s much more versatile than crochet.  It can also be more refined.

See following examples of things that are possible with knitting, not so much with crochet:

From Lion Brand

From Independent Knitting News

From Lion Brand

I can’t wait to check the tutorials on Knooking.com and trying my hand.

Tags: Crochet, knit, knitting, knooking

Vote for my critters!

I entered two of my amigurumi creatures into the Lion Brand contest on Instructables.com.  If I win I get $25 of yarn and some other stuff.  Click on the pictures to see my entries.  The voting is between April 26-29.

Tags: amigurumi, contest, Crochet, doll, intructables, lion brand yarn, monster, mouse

Happy Easter Kerm!

Here are the color block eggs we made for Easter

The orange didn’t turn out very orange-y but otherwise I liked the idea.  I think if I did it again I would use something to make the black lines straighter.  Or maybe electrical tape or something.

Habit forging

I’ve just discovered Habitforge, which is a website that helps you develop good habits.  Apparently it takes 21 days to make a behavior second nature.  So, you input your goal (mine is to tidy up before going to bed so that I can wake up to a clean house) and then receive an email everyday asking whether you successfully completed the behavior.  If you click no, you go back to day 1.

I’m excited about this because I can keep track of my good work, an excellent motivator.  And I won’t be able to just kind of forget about my plan, as there will constantly be reminders popping into my inbox.  There aren’t exactly complicated stats to build around this, but a simple graph showing what I’ve done is satisfying enough.

I plan to start a new habit on Tuesday:  sweets and alcohol only twice a week each.  Hmmm…I guess that’s two new habits.   Maybe I should take it slower…

I’m so excited to see what a clean house and body I will have in just three weeks!

Tags: alcohol, cleaning, habit, habitforge, habits, self improvement, sweets

Food schmood. Walking in circles is all I need to sustain me…

…or so says G.  He’s never been a very good eater (unless it comes from a boob. Then, no prob) and since he started walking about a month ago, it’s gotten worse.

He sits in his high chair, swinging his head from side to side to dodge the spoon and throws his finger goodies (that mommy slaved over) on the floor until we give in and let him get back to exploring the apartment.  Half an hour later he is clinging to my leg in tears.  Why?  He’s freakin’ starving!   I hope this is a phase and that it passes soon.  Aaaaa-noy-ing!

Tags: baby, eating, refusing food

Nostalgia

I am just home from seeing the Magnetic Fields in concert.   Stephen Merritt’s voice was like a fluffy blanket of melancholy with a time machine plug-in; I was softly transported back to, oh, 1999 or 2000, and the fullness of being young, drunk and bored.

I actually cried a little bit, and not because the songs are sad (many of them are) but because I miss being young and carefree so much.  I was really cut out to be young and carefree.

Really.

I miss the days of drinking with my roommates whenever the spirit grabbed us, of taking that cute boy up to my room cause he happened to catch my eye, of dancing like a complete idiot because the song was good, of going to see a shitty band play in a basement just because they were playing.

Getting old sucks.

Tags: aging, college, concert, dancing, fun, magnetic fields, music, nostalgia, old, sad, shows, university