2011 CM4: Trivety

In addition to Miss Sadie Joy, my family drew my mom and dad in our Giberson Christmas lottery.  You'll have to wait to see what I gave my dad because it's one of the more impressive and extensive things I've ever made.  For my mom, I did a sampling of littler presents...nothing very grand but all given much thought and made with love.

At the beginning of November, my mom had knee surgery.  I'll save you all the gory details and all of the reasons it's totally unlikely that my mom would rest through the prescribed recovery period and just suffice it to say that I went down to Jersey for an extra week before Thanksgiving to help out.  In the midst of helping to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner, I noticed that my mom was in need of a few things in the kitchen: kitchen towels, potholders, and trivets.  So I set to work on putting together a lovely little set of trivety* goodness.

*Trivety is a word that I have invented to mean having the properties of a trivet, which are to save whatsoever you desire from getting a nasty surface burn.  You're welcome, English language.

I originally thought about buying plain towels and appliqueing on them and making potholders from scratch, but then I got reasonable and went to Target.  I found a set of blue kitchen towels that I liked and set to work crocheting a few trivets.  I started each using this book of crochet motifs and then improvised my own extra rows if the pattern was too small.  Here's how they turned out:

(Click to see in more detail.)

I made a few of these a while back just because I wanted to make them.  I didn't know what I would ever use them for, but I wanted to try my hand at some crochet motifs beyond the simple granny square.  I really enjoyed making them but since they didn't have much utility, I forgot all about them and hadn't made any since.  But recently, I've been using them as trivets and hot pot lid grabbers.  They are absolutely perfect when you have something that's too hot for your hand but not quite hot enough to justify putting on the full oven mitt.  So there you have it: trivety pot lid grabbers.

So...towels, check (thanks to Target).  Trivets...check (thanks to the magic of crochet motifs).  Now for the pot holders.  I found some simple potholders (also at Target) that I intended to embroider.  But as impeccable as my hand-stitching is, it is not one of my speedier skills, and that Christmas clock just doesn't yield to embroidery.  Also, I figured that potholders need to hold up in the washing machine, and I didn't want my handiwork to unravel.  So I decided to use fabric paint instead.

I had done freezer paper stenciling once before on a lion burp cloth for Judah.  (It's cooler than it sounds, but it has gone missing, so I can't prove that.)  The lion was pretty detailed but it was nothing compared to my idea for the potholders.  I wanted to copy the design on the set of towels I bought.  But my freehand drawing skills are just not up to snuff with my visionary skills.  So I brought the towels up on the Target website and traced them.  Then I traced the design onto freezer paper and proceeded to cut it out with an exacto-knife.  Twice.  (Because you need 2 matching potholders, obviously.)  I ironed my stencils onto the potholders, sponge brushed the paint in, peeled off the stencil, and voila!  Custom potholders to match the kitchen towels!  (For a thorough tutorial on freezer paper stenciling, check this out.  It's even Harry Potter themed.)

The paint ran a little, which is disappointing.  I'm not sure if I used the wrong kind of paint or just applied too much or if the design was too intricate to hold up or if I didn't iron well enough or if the fabric isn't conducive to this procedure.  But in the end, they are still functional and prettier than they were before I put my hand to them, so I am satisfied.

And now my mom has a complete set of kitchen linens to cook the day away without further damaging the nerve endings in her hands.  How perfectly trivety!

A Little Dish

I have a friend named Lexi who I love. She is fun and creative and just a lovely person. One of our most favorite things to do together is to paint pottery. You may remember the Harry Potter pitcher and the pear plate. Both of those were done at Glazed pottery painting studio in Gloucester with my dear friend Lexi. It had been ages since we'd gotten together, so we finally set another pottery painting date back in April. I was hoping to paint a travel mug for my mom like one I had made for her two Christmases ago that has since broken. But Glazed was out of travel mugs, so I decided to paint a little dish instead.

I have a sickness for cutting boards and little serving dishes. I swear I have at least 7 or 8 other dishes that house crackers and some sort of spread. But this little dish will be used for crackers and homemade preserves when I do my next craft show. I have no idea when that will be or what preserves I will have made. But when that day comes, I will be ready because I now have this little number:I painted it to match the display cabinet my parents made me for Christmas. It includes my business name and a secret little sparrow that will be revealed when it's time to refill the preserves. It turned out a little more lime-y than I intended, but such is life. It's so hard to tell what color something will be once it's fired and the ceramic paints take on all their shiny brilliance. It's also hard to photograph shiny things. But I love how my mosaic coffee table is reflected here:
Overall, I'm quite happy with how it turned out. So happy that I am determined to do some craft fair research so I can use it. Which will also mean making some more inventory to go along with it and a subsequent etsy shop (hopefully coming this summer). Finally. Crazy what a little dish can spark, don't you think?

Handmade Goodness for Me

Disclaimer: I did not make either of the things highlighted in this post. But I can't help sharing them with you. They are just too cool. And they are handmade. So they still fit the genre of my blog, even if I didn't make them. End disclaimer.

This year, my favorite two Christmas presents came from my parents. One was such a happy reminder of where I've come from. The other, a wonderful encouragement for where I am going.

Over the past several years, my mom has been putting together a book of Traditions.
It includes all of our family recipes, stories, and holiday traditions from New Year's Eve to Christmas. I cannot even begin to describe how blown away I am by this book. It's all typed out and organized in plastic sleeves with blank pages included at the end for us to add our own traditions. It's all laid out by holiday and also includes a section of top secret jam recipes. This is a HUGE undertaking. My family has a lot of traditions. And I am so impressed by and proud of my mom for putting this together, for digging up all of the recipes, for the long hours in front of a computer, for documenting stories that will now never be lost to future generations....I am just overwhelmed to bursting over this little book, which is now one of my most treasured possessions.

My other favorite present was another very large undertaking. When I arrived in Jersey on December 23rd, I saw it wrapped up under the tree. I really wished I hadn't seen it because now I would be trying to figure out what it was until Christmas morning. For the next two days, my mind was a constant battleground between my incessant compulsion to figure it out and my intense love of surprises. Was it a dog house? I'm not allowed to have a dog in my apartment. Maybe my parents bought me a puppy and would keep it until I lived somewhere more pet-friendly. No, that didn't make any sense. Don't think about it. You want to be surprised. Maybe a giant bird house? But I live on the 2nd floor with nowhere to mount a bird house. Stop trying to figure it out. You'll ruin the surprise. A large manger scene? Tiny apartment = no room for a large manger scene. Think about something--anything else! Let it go so you can be surprised!!! But of course, when you're trying really hard not to think about something, that's all you can think about. Thankfully, the present was something I couldn't have imagined.

My parents made me a display cabinet for when I do craft shows. How awesome is that?!? It was my mom's idea, and she brought it to my dad. And my dad designed it and my mom improved on his design and he improved on hers and then he made this lovely cabinet for me:
I love this cabinet for a couple of reasons. First of all, its things like these that make me understand why my parents got married. My parents are two very different people. I don't think I can do justice to their differences here. Please just take it for granted that my sisters and I were always puzzled by the match. But when they brainstorm and create something together, it's nothing short of magic. From designing and building our house to staging Revolutionary War reenactments in our backyard to landscaping a garden, one of them will have an idea and the other will figure out how to make it work, and their artistry and creativity feeds off of each other until the lines get blurred and you can't tell what's Gary and what's Niki. It's just something wonderful and new.

The second reason that I love this cabinet is because it's beautiful! I knew that my dad was a gifted carver and artist, but I had no idea he could make furniture. Pretty freaking sweet.

And third, I love this cabinet because it will make my display awesome. This promotes me from casual crafter to serious business person. And to me, this isn't just a cabinet. This is my parents saying, "You can do this." And that means the world to me.

They didn't paint or stain it because they wanted me to pick the color. I knew right away what I wanted. So I went out and bought some lime green paint. When my dad saw it, he said, "If I knew you were going to paint it that color, I wouldn't have made it." He was joking. Mostly. I told him I wanted to thin the paint so the grain would show through, and then I wanted to wax it to give it an antiqued look. In my head, it was awesome. My dad needed some convincing. But it was my cabinet, and I was free to do what i wanted. So I helped him sand it. Then we wiped it down and vacuumed it to remove all of the sawdust. We mixed the paint with water, and I got to work painting it. Once the paint was dry, we rubbed minwax all over it. (This was backbreaking work.) We let the wax pull the grain out, and then we buffed it all over. (Jason helped with this part because I was too weak to get the desired buff.) And then we stepped back...and it was glorious. Exactly what I had envisioned. The wax toned down the lime green so that it turned out a perfect blend of funky-retro and classic-antique. The perfect stage for my lines of crafted goodness to come.

Here it is full of handmade goodies made by every member of my little family:

And with that, I am fully 100% caught up with Christmas posting. [Hooray! Streamers! Confetti!] So now I just have to catch you up on January... [insert the sound of a balloon deflating.] Someday I will be on top of this blogging thing. Really.

Celebrations, Cotton, Cooking, and Catching Up

Last week held an even more important event in my life. If you're finding it hard to imagine what could be more important than Harry Potter, I understand your difficulty. But it's true. Because last week, Jason and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary! [hooray! streamers! confetti!] Goodness, I love that man. He is the very best husband in the whole wide world, and I am one very lucky girl.

But enough mushyness, and onto the making! Looking back, it turned out to be a very creative week for me, which surprises me a bit because I didn't really set out to make anything. Here's a list of the random creative ventures from last week:

1) Jason and I redesigned our apartment. First, we switched our bedroom with our guest room/study/craft space because our multi-purpose room was smaller and quite crowded. Then we went to Ikea--oh how I love Ikea--and got a new rug for our living room and a new duvet cover and new sheets for our bed to make it a little more summery. (After all, the 2nd anniversary is the cotton anniversary... although I'm pretty sure our sheets are mostly bamboo.) Then we got a dresser (see below) for $15.00 at a yard sale and scoured it of all its dirt and dust and spiders, and it is now a very organized storage space for all my fabric. (Don't worry...I made triple sure that all of the spiders were gone before putting away my precious fabric.) Our guest room is now our favorite room in our apartment, and we actually spend time in there happily not tripping over each other.

This would be a great i-spy picture, don't you think? Can you find 2 turtles, a tiger, my teddy bear Night-Night, and at least 25 fish? How bored are you really?

2) As part of our anniversary celebrationing, Jason and I went back to Russell Orchards (where we harvested the strawberries for the jam) and picked blueberries and the most beautiful raspberries I've ever seen.

Although I didn't make anything out of the berries, I greatly enjoyed eating 2 quarts of raspberries in 2 days. Well, I let Jason have a few.

3) I made another loaf and a half of banana bread. (It was identical to the last batch, so I didn't take a picture.)

4) I made a batch of the famous Niki Giberson spaghetti sauce, which is always a creative venture because I have no idea how much of each spice I'm supposed to throw in there. I'm getting better at guessing though, and this batch was quite good with very little altering along the way. (I've found that it helps to add a little salt, which brings out the flavor of the spices.) It seems that whenever I ask my mom for a recipe for a favorite meal, she's very good at telling me what ingredients to use, but when I ask for quantities, she usually says something like, "enough" or "until it's the right color" or "when it tastes good." Even though this can be a little frustrating when I'm trying to curb my homesickness with the exact taste of her home-cooked goodness, it's made me a better, more confident, and more creative cook than I otherwise would have been. Thanks, mom!

5) I'm not sure if this was a July-make or not, but I picked it up from the pottery place in July. This is a plate that I painted to go with my pear fondue plates.

It seems I always have two much fruit to fit in the little serving sections of my fondue pot, and using a bunch of separate bowls is quite inconvenient when you live in a malicious dishwasherless apartment. So I'll use this lovely little dish to supplement the fruit choices without over-supplementing Jason's dirty dishes quota. (Yes, Jason does almost all of our dishes. Have I mentioned that he is the best husband in the world?)

6) I also collected fabric for a few projects to be given as gifts next week when I'm in Jersey. I plan on finishing them up this week and then posting about them after they have been received. Be excited. They're pretty sweet!

And now...finally...I am all caught up with July. [hooray! streamers! confetti!]

Catching Up 1: You Light Up My Life

I know, I know. It's shameful that I'm so behind. But better late than never. April 19-25, I was on the youth group Philly trip, which did not leave much/any time for making anything. I believe before I left, I said I was going to "make the best of it," which I did, and in the long run, it's good that I went (even though I am still making up time at work for vacation days I didn't have and will be doing so until the beginning of June. Lovely.). Anyway, by Sunday night, I had a bit of energy, so Jason and I put on a movie (Ocean's 11 maybe? 12? 13? I don't remember) and painted together. And this is what we painted:
Jason found these little beauties in some very convenient little kits at the Target dollar spot back in February or thereabouts. He brought them home as a little surprise with the promise that we would paint them together at some point. After a week of wrangling small town high schoolers and junior highers in the very urban context of west philly, but still wanting to make something, this seemed like the perfect time to whip out the menorahs. Relaxing, creative, kinda silly face time with my husband. Exactly what I needed.

So this is the infamous project which brought me back to me ethnic roots. Even though I sadly know very little about Jewish culture, I am quite proud of the fact that my mom's mom was Jewish, which means that by blood, I am among "the chosen." I know. You're jealous. Don't worry...I've heard something or other about a "new covenant" so you're probably covered, too. L'chai-im!

7752 knits later...

7752: That's how many stitches are in this scarf.
64: That's how many inches long it is.
3: That's the number of years this project has been on the needles.
630: That's how many minutes it took me to make it.
76.13: That's how much I would have to charge to break even on this scarf if I paid myself at minimum wage for the labor.

I am not a very fast knitter. I'm decent at keeping a somewhat consistent tension, but I've never ventured very far into the world of knitting patterns. I have some sweet books with some patterns I definitely want to try. But I can't find the motivation to sit and figure out how to do anything fancy. The 3D nature of knitting makes it so much easier to learn by being shown than by reading it in a book. If I lived a little closer to my mom or to my sister Amy, I'm sure I would get more into it. But as it is, this is about the extend of my knitting skillz: endless garter stitch...knit, knit, knit, knit, ad infinitum!!!

And that's what this scarf is. 19 knits per row, 8 rows per stripe, 51 stripes in all, knit with your everyday, average cotton yarn on US size 10, 6 mm needles. In retrospect, the thin needles with the thin yarn made this an ill-planned project, and had I known how long it would take me to finish, I probably never would have even started. But now that I'm done, I'm glad that I persevered for the sake of my original vision: a tightly knit Gryffindor scarf.

This is my first striped scarf. Rather than ending the yarn at each stripe, I just fed the unused color up the side, which makes it just a touch sloppier than it could be, but all in all, I don't mind it. It has a front and a back, but I like the funky mini stripes on the back just as much as the traditional stripes on the front.I contemplated adding fringe or some other detailing on the ends, but quite honestly, I'm a little sick of staring at this scarf. I started it in January of 2006 for a friend who I have unfortunately lost touch with. Over those three years, it's moved with me 6 times to 5 homes in 3 states, a little ghost of adventures gone by. Casting it off the needles was a bittersweet endeavor, but I was mostly happy to close the chapter on this scarf's production. 3 years is a long time to stare at an unfinished project!

A little note on scarf finishing: I didn't have a yarn needle, so I tried to make one out of cardboard so I could weave the loose ends of yarn back into the scarf. After about the third or fourth time through, my little cardboard needle fell apart. Sad day. But then I had the ingenious idea of using a crochet hook. Why has no one ever told me about this?!? It was so easy and fun and definitely my favorite part of the 10 and a 1/2 hours of making. Crochet hook, people. It's the way to go.

As a special bonus today, I also want to show you something I made a few weeks ago: my Harry Potter pitcher! I made it to go with my Harry Potter dessert set. (Oh yes...be jealous.) Basically, I have the very best sisters in the world. They were my matrons of honor, and for my bachelorette party, they took my girl friends and me out to a pottery painting place, and everyone painted either a plate or a mug in the colors and theme of one of the houses at Hogwarts. (Then we went back to Megan's house and watched High School Musical.) When I finally got home from the hospital after my honeymoon (a long, sad, pneumonic story), the first thing I did was run/wheeze over to my Harry Potter dessert set, which had been fired and was waiting for me to behold its glory. I had 5 mugs and 5 cups and a serving platter. But where to put the butterbeer?? Well, problem solved.Happy [Harry Potter] Holy Week, everyone! (Is that okay to say?)