Warm Woolen Mittens

A couple weeks ago (geez, almost a month) I took a mitten-knitting class at the local yarn store. The thought was to make Bill some mittens to match the double-knit hat I knit for Christmas. After all, I had leftover yarn from the stripe in the hat; why not put it to good use?

So I began the mittens. It soon became apparent that I was not going to have enough yarn to do two. Either Bill was going to have to lose a hand or I was going to have to procure more yarn. And then dark Thursday occurred. At a doctor’s visit, the hat was misplaced, swiped by some sticky-fingered, greedy undergrad, and never seen again. Sad. But I could make a new one. After all, I had to go back to the store and buy more yarn already; why not knit a hat (and second mitten) to match a lonely mitten?

Unfortunately, the store no longer had either the stripe/mitten color or the original hat colors. I think to myself, the hat colors aren’t such a big deal; I can pick new ones and make a whole new hat! Just with the same stripe color to match the mitten. And if I special order the stripe/mitten color yarn, I can buy new hat yarn today to get started. After all, I have two weeks before I can do a stripe or a mitten; why not do the bottom half of the hat in the meantime?

Here they sit, waiting to be finished. I am to the stripe location on the hat, and the mitten is starting to feel very lonely indeed. I need that yarn! So now I’m without knitting project. I have an easy pattern for a laptop case that I can whip up in no time. After all, I’m just sitting around, biding my time, yearning for brown yarn; why not be productive while I wait and wait and wait?

Now I really am in trouble. No stripe/mitten yarn, and a finished laptop cover. Guess I’ll have to spend my time looking for somewhere to live in Boston starting this summer. Or something.

Project #4: Pending

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

In the spirit of the season (grumble grumble grumble), there have been increased opportunities and necessity for hot steamy warm-you-to-the-bones baths. Enter another DIY project from a couple weekends ago.

So you have a lot of little empty bottles and a big bag of epsom salts. What do you do? Make bath salts of course! With some creative back-up from Mom (okay, the whole idea was hers), I spread out some simple kitchen ingredients: a cinnamon stick, some star anise, coffee beans, a dried lemon peel. Alright. Four down; seven to go. What else? It needed to be something easily catchable (i.e., wouldn’t go down the drain or make a horrible mess), and good-smelling. Well, how about tea bags?! Every flavor (caffeinated or herbal) in the house went in to a bottle.

And ta da! A veritable treasure chest of bathroom goodies.

We let them steep for a couple weeks, and this weekend Bill got to try the inaugural bath. The verdict? Fun, although the tea bags mostly make the water look like, um, well, you’re taught not to do this in the swimming pool when you’re little. But this smells (faintly) much better and you can imagine all the good herbals refreshing and replenishing.

But the best part is each little bottle has a silly surprise hiding in the bottom:

So far we’ve gotten an ant, a wasp, and a butterfly. And the test capsule was a beetle.

Project #3: Relaxed Thumb Up!