After a brief intermission from projects over the past month, I'm back with more work for weddings. I'm definitely excited to get some things out for the wonderful ladies who are moving into the next phase of their lives.
This first project is for a dear friend who I have known for most of my life, and I am very excited to prepare some larger dish towels in the new basket weave pattern that I have been experimenting with.
Click "Read More" to see pictures and some new materials I'm working with!
After a long time, today I was given a plant. Honestly, it has been years since I had any, because one of my biggest skills is killing them. I can handle a dog, cat, and a turtle (and my husband too), but put a plant my way and I get nervous.
This time,I'm going to try it out. It's basil, so it also fits in with my desire to add useful things to my life. I love basil, and I already used a fallen leaf to spice my dinner.
I am a novice with plants, although it's not for lack of trying. I love plants: they help clean the air, make the room prettier, and this one is edible. I just don't know much about raising the to be healthy contributing members of my kitchen. So, I went to Gertens today, and I said that I needed a pot and some dirt. I'm sure the term normally used is "soil," but I just thought dirt better suited my planting history. So,here it is. My little basil plant. Healthy, and planted in organic soil so my nice little herb can help keep me healthy and happy in more ways than one.
And who knows, maybe this is just the start and instead of houseplants, I'll eventually be living in my own herb garden.
For Project AWARE's Shout Out for Sharks Month, I found this infographic from Surfmeisters that shows statistics on shark populations for eight species. The information is a very sad! Hopefully, as a global community, we can make enough changes to cease such highly destructive practices.
I'm going a little out of the ordinary handmade items today with a small PSA about oceanic conservation and saving sharks. The biggest reason, sharks are very important to our global ecosystem, and as many as 73 million are killed each year for their fins. The second reason - my family and I are relocating, so I'm just not working on projects this week.
As is evident by the vast majority of my products, my twitter feed, and the environmentally friendly way I try to live, one of my biggest passions is conservation. I absolutely adore sharks, and I appreciate everything they have to offer the world. That's why I donate proceeds to Project Aware at Christmas, and I try to make sure to spread the word about the wonders - instead of the horrors - of sharks.
One of the coolest things about sharks is how varied the 350+ species are. They vary in size from as small as 6 inches to 40+ feet. They'll eat things like plankton, crabs, conch, sea turtles, and even other sharks.
Most large species of sharks have long gestation periods - even similar to humans. Tiger sharks have interuterine mammary glands. These large species don't have the ability to recover from such drastic population decline.
But only 10 species ever attack humans.
Even so, when we enter the water, it's like we are going into an alien world - where we look like food. 68% of shark attacks are on surfers who are mistaken for seals or for sea turtles.
Texting while driving killed 6,000 more people in the United States in 2011 than sharks did worldwide.
Yet there are still people pulling out their phones while driving and states that have not passed laws against it.
But we're afraid to go in the water.
Our fear is unjustified, and helps perpetuate the dangers against sharks. | |
According to Project Aware: " Nearly one out of five shark species is classified by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) as Threatened with extinction. That doesn’t even include hundreds of species (almost half of all sharks) whose population status cannot be assessed because of lack of information. Scientists warn that, in actuality, a third of sharks might already be threatened."
The biggest thing that I would love to see is more protections to save these animals before the different species are pushed beyond repair. With this, I implore everyone to sign this petition to save such a wonderful group of animals.
 One of the things that I definitely advocate for is living life in a more environmentally friendly way. Since I'm a renter, I focus more on how I can reduce the amount of waste I produce so less of what I use ends up in a landfill. So, I decided to make some dishcloths this past week! I made a set of six, two of each kind.
One is very smooth and would be great for wiping surfaces or cleaning windows, another is a bit more abrasive because of the order of the stitches, and the last is a combination of the two.
Click "Read More" to check out each one after the break!
This week's tutorial is how to purl two together, abbreviated p2tog.
The basic steps to p2tog are the same as knit two together (k2tog), but they are done using purl stitches instead of knit.
The key with this stitch is to insert the right needle through two stitches instead of one.
Click "Read More" to continue after the break!
 For the past several months, my mom, sister, and I have been anxiously working on some kitchen renovations. While the vast majority has been done with contractors, we've completed yet another phase in the process, and we have had a new backsplash installed. This one is quite a bit different than the glass tiles that we were considering here, but they definitely work well with the rest of the house. Click "Read More" to continue after the break!
 I've toyed around with dragons a little bit over the last few months, and I made a lot of improvements on my last one. This one I made for my husband, after I finished my last dragon, he said that he wanted one for his desk at work. So, I did him in my shark blue with the forest green trimmings. As always, I added in the purple eyes. Click " Read More" to continue after the jump!
This week, I'm going to show the first type of stitch decrease called knit two together. This is normally abbreviated as "k2tog" in patterns. I use this decrease a lot in closing hats, mittens, and fingers. It works well, and it can be used in a lot of different places and pattern types.
One thing that is distinctive about the k2tog is that the first stitch (on the right hand side) tucks in behind the second stitch.
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Click " Read More" for the tutorial and a short video to Knit Two Together!
 One of the things I've been experimenting with since Christmas is making more hats. I've made plenty of stocking caps before, and I absolutely love to make something customizable for different people, but I've also been curious to try some more "standardized" patterns. This slouchy beret design of mine seemed like a good place to start. Since berets have a lot of stretch and a little flexibility, I wanted to try something different with the pattern too.Click "Read More" to continue after the jump!
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