Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – Earth Day DIY tips

It’s Earth Day on 4/22 and I figured it’s fitting to throw out some DIY/upcycle ideas for the knitter. I’m all about saving money and reusing what I can (my hubby calls me an eco-nazi but I see it as being frugal and resourceful) so here’s a few cool things you can whip from stuff lying around the house:

1: Sock Blockers from wire hangers

Stainless steel sock blockers $16!

This idea came to me after seeing this set of Bryson wire sock blockers being sold for $16. I immediately thought, ‘Hey, those look like bent wire hangers!’ Lo and behold, I just pulled the hangers with my bare hands and they looked almost identical to the one in the catalogs. They work great and I can hang them on shower rods after washing them.

2. Inner cone to hold fragile yarns

Toilet paper tube

Ever have laceweight or kid mohair yarns tangle into a giant mess when you’re knitting from a wound cake? Center pulling these yarns don’t work and they quickly fall apart. The best way would be have them wound onto a sturdy cone to hold its structure but unless you’re a spinner or a weaver, chances are you can’t wind stuff onto cones.

However, I bet you’ve got a ball winder and plenty of those cardboard toilet paper tubes hanging about, right? Well just replace the ball winder’s plastic tube with the toilet paper tube, place a folded up napkin/paper/anything you can shove into make the tube stay in place, wind yarn onto the tube. When you’re done winding the yarn, simply remove the whole tube and knit from the outside of the tube. No kinks, no mess!

3. stitch markers from champagne cork wire

This one involves pliers and a wee bit of elbow grease. You know those cork cages on top of sparkling wine bottles? It seemed like such a waste to just chuck it in the trash so I took the thing apart (it’s two long pieces of medium-thin wire. Slightly lumpy but plenty pliable).

Using small pliers, I cut the wire into shorter lengths and bent them into jump rings. I then attached paper beads (rolled from old yarn labels no less) onto them. Free stitch markers!

4. End caps for stitch holders

Using old wine corks, simply stick your knitting needle tips into where you inserted your corkscrew and voila, now you don’t have to worry about your stitches falling off accidentally in your knitting bag.

5. yarn bras from fruit wraps
When you purchase fruit in boxes or receive them in gift baskets, they come covered in a protective mesh wrap. Simply remove this wrap and use it to hold your center pull cake/skein to prevent it from falling apart.

6. mini bobbins from bread bag holders

Those little plastic bread bag “ties” that often have the sell-by date printed on them. I save all of them to hold yarn ends together. Sometimes, when I have yarn ends dangling from a garment, they tend to tangle together and make a big mess. So I simply wrap the long ends onto the bread ties and remove them when it’s time to weave them in. Keeps things tidier. The Costco bread bags come with larger plastic closures which will work perfectly for intarsia colorwork bobbins (but I hate intarsia knitting so I might never use these.)

Spring is here!

Things have been slow in the “stash down” department since I’ve signed on to become a sample knitter for a local yarn shop/yarn distributor. (get paid to knit? A total win in my book, although the pay is minimal…they provide the yarn and pattern and pay per yardage that is knit.)

So far, I’ve been knitting nothing but sample swatches and while it is fun to play with all these new (and expensive) yarns, my enormous stash is sitting still going nowhere.

At least I was good about finishing up the few projects that I had going right before I signed up to become a sample knitter (a seemingly neverending cabled baby blanket for my sister who is having a baby boy in June, a pair of basic socks using leftover sock yarn, and an alpaca lap blanket that I’d been plugging away for an entire year simply because it was all stockinette stitch and 350 sts+/row. 18 skeins of DK weight alpaca yarn. HEAVY)

This week, I’ve achieved what some of us in the yarn hoarding circle often see as a sign of “too much yarn” : I broke the 1000 mark on my stash page. Yep, I did it. Some of my Rav friends were wondering what the hell was going on all week because I was updating my stash like crazy with new pics and all. I wasn’t buying new yarn but logging in the actual amount/color of yarn I had. You see, I was sorta in denial about my “under 1000″ stash by having a lot of yarns grouped together as “mixed lot” just so I could keep the numbers artificially low. But that proved to be a pain in the ass when I wanted to do a search by color. So I decided to face the music and accurately enter all the yarn I had, which jacked up the number of yarn entries. Yes, yes. I think I’ve hit SABLE (Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy). Crap!

In other news, I’ve rearranged some bins in my craft room to get ready for a crib. (I’m not turning it into a full blown nursery by the way. Just a crib in the middle of the room and that’s it. The yarn ain’t going nowhere. Sorry baby, your room decor is yarn, yarn and some more yarn.)

With just two months left to go, I guess I better get crackin on some layette stuff. A baby blanket and socks should do. Now if I could only get all these sample swatches out of the way….

You’re Killing Me, USPS!

So today, the U.S Postal Service announced price increases all across the board, making it even more expensive to mail items. And the international shipping, wow. To anyone doing international swaps or trying to mail yarn abroad, get ready for sticker shock. Your postage might cost more than the yarn itself.

And that about effectively ends any intent on my part to destash anything online. I mean why bother? By the time I send the bag of yarn via priority mail and deduct paypal fees, I might as well be giving away the yarn for free. But if I jack my prices up to cover all the fees and my purchase price, no one will buy the yarn. So, there’s a Catch-22 for ya.

I could imagine a lot of Etsy and Ebay sellers going crazy as we speak….

Rock Bottom (of yarn budget)

Uh-oh. Now I’ve done it.
I spent all my “fun” money and have no more to spare. (It was bound to happen with all my crazy spending)
That means the dreaded “yarn diet” and abstaining from all yarn sales. Waaaaaah!!!

To stave off temptation, I will have to not spend time stalking online yarn shops and destashes. What will I do to fill my time? Oh, yeah, I can finally sit my ass down and knit some of the yarns I’ve hoarded. It’s about time! LOL

And the Winner of the “I’ll Never Knit This Again” Category is…

Brain Hat

The Brain hat by me!!!!

The local knitting guild I belong to holds a contest every year for three categories of knit items that fall into the year’s theme. 2012 was hats and seeing that I couldn’t possibly compete for best design or best use of color, I went for what I do best. Wacky stuff!!!

Hence the brain hat, a knitted hat with miles of icords sewn on to resemble your cerebral cortex (or a coral reef for that matter). I didn’t think much of this since the icords could be made with my Embellish Knit cord maker, a hand cranked gizmo that pumps out knitted cords of thin yarns and I could just whip up a hat.

What I didn’t anticipate was how long it would take to crank out an entire fingering weight skein’s worth of icords. (1.5 hrs, not including the learning curve mistakes I made in the beginning) My arms were about to fall off from holding up this thing for that long.

And the hat. A snug fitting all stockinette hat. Sounds easy, right? Fingering weight and size 2 needles took a very long time. On retrospect, I should have just knit the hat portion in worsted weight cuz who’s gonna know the difference?

Finally, the pinning and sewing on of the icord. That’s about a week of my life I’ll never get back. I had to take frequent breaks because my neck and back was hurting from crouching over this thing for hours. I had to often ask myself, “Why did I decide to make this?”

Well, lo and behold, the day of the contest and I won, with a sweet $25 gift card to Happy Knits, an LYS I like a lot because they have a really modern vibe and a separate children’s playing room to boot. Yay! Totally made the whole thing worth it. My kids get a kick out of it too, trying the hat on and pretending to be zombies.

Make Room for Baby

So I’ll be having a baby girl in May (yes, I’m pregnant!) and need to share my precious yarn room with the baby, since that’s the only available room in the house.

The funny part about finding out I was pregnant way back in September was that I received a Lion Brand newsletter via email with an intro to this book called Make Room for Baby:

Hey, that’s me!

It’s a children’s book about a knitting mom who finds out she is pregnant and has to clean out her craft room to make room for a new baby. Ummm, is someone stalking me? LOL

The El Cheapo Guide to Wool Wash

You don’t need to spend a fortune on those fancy pants wool washes (a la Soak, Eucalan, Kookaburra, etc) to get your handknits clean.

Some people use those horse shampoos like Mane N Tail, others regular shampoo, and if you’ve got really dirty items, dish detergent works too.

Me, I use those complimentary toiletries that I’ve swiped from hotel bathrooms. You know the ones I’m talking about: Those no brand shampoo and conditioners that leave your hair feeling really dry and stringy (Unless you typically stay at 5 star resorts where they stock Aveda, Matrix or some fancy salon brand stuff, in which case, save them for your own hair)

Use me, I’m free!

My in-laws, who travel quite a bit, have a habit of bringing home hotel toiletries with no intention of ever using them (I think they just feel like they’re entitled to them since they’re paying for the room stay) so I’ve got quite a stockpile of these little bottles of shampoos and conditioners.

Well, hello free wool wash! (shampoo to clean the knits, conditioner to soften any rough feeling woolens) I’ll save my fancy hair products for my own hair, thank you very much.

Black Friday/Cyber Monday

I don’t particularly celebrate Thanksgiving (my not being American has nothing to do with it. More like, my family lives abroad and I don’t quite understand why we must all eat a bunch of food that don’t taste all that great – namely turkey, mashed potatos, pumpkin pie and all the other fixins that I never liked on a certain day that probably had pilgrims butchering Native Americans. But that’s just me being a big old party-pooper with no holiday spirit.)

On to the more interesting topic of Black Friday/Cyber Monday bonanza.

Some people go crazy and wait outside in the freezing cold for hours so they can “storm the castle” (the castle of consumerism, perhaps?) and grab whatever schintzy item is on sale for 80% off.

Me, I absolutely hate crowds and waiting in line so avoid any retail outlet as much as possible (i.e. stay home all day)

Today is American Express’ Small Business Saturday, a promotion they have been holding for three years straight. If you are an Amex card holder, you simply sign up to receive a $25 credit for spending $25 or more at your local small/independant retailer.

Do I smell free yarn? I signed up both my card and my husbands ($25 X 2=$50!) and will be heading over to my LYS shortly. Luckily, I live in a city abundant with LYSs, so even though many small retailers don’t accept American Express, I was able to find three shops that does accept the said card. Woo-hoo! Nothing like having money to burn on yarn! (I’ll take pics of my haul later and show you all the glory)

Cyber Monday tends to be a different story for me though (no crowds, no lines) so who knows what will happen come Monday? But so far, I haven’t seen any “must buy” deals so Monday can very well result in no purchases. And I’m fine with that. Why? Because I already have several packages en route from purchases made several days prior to Thanksgiving. It’s all good! LOL

Authors Who Contribute Very Little to A Book

When is an author, not really an author?

I’ve come to ponder this question more and more as I’ve come across many knitting books filled with patterns by “contributors” rather than the said “author” (and in the case of a few books, there were ZERO patterns by the “author” who has only her name stamped across the cover of the book. WTF?)

I realize it’s difficult to come up with a dozen or more patterns all by yourself and sometimes pattern designers only want to deal with the pattern design portion and not want to hassle with the logistics of photography shoots, layouts, cover design, notes, etc etc but in a day and age when every minute ridiculous idea is proffered a book deal, I wish a little more thought and effort went into publishing books, especially of the knitting variety.

Some books that have multiple contributors fare quite well, sticking to a common theme and production worthy knitting patterns to match. Others don’t meld so well and have several patterns sticking out like sore thumbs (‘Really? A knitted flower was the best that you could have come up with amongst all these gorgeous sweaters?’) I would imagine it is rather difficult to try to convey a solitary look and theme by multiple personalities. And unlike a magazine or a publishing powerhouse that can always say no to a submitted design, it would be a lot harder to outright reject patterns by designers one was soliciting to begin with. So in the end, the authors suggest a theme and a basic look which is open to interpretation. (whether that interpretation is spot-on or waaaay off base probably can be seen in the final product. Case in point: Knitting It Old School. Some kept the design retro but wearable while others are borderline kitsch.)

While I tend to prefer the sole designer-author type books (Connie Chang Chincchio’s Textured Stitches, for example), there are the duo designer author books that I like as well (Alana Dakos/Hannah Fettig’s Coastal Knits or Melissa LaBarre/Cecily Glowik Macdonal’d New England Knits come to mind).

Another duo author book, Vintage Modern Knits by Kate Gagnon Osborn and Courtney Kelley was right up my alley when it first came out. I loved many of the patterns and ended up buying a copy after deciding that I probably couldn’t knit all these sweaters if the library only gave me three weeks to borrow the book.

So, imagine my surprise when I picked up their new release, November Knits, from the library (after a long wait, since the queue of people wanting to borrow this book was long) to find hardly any patterns from either of the said authors but a giant jumble of patterns from “contributors”? The look of the designs were all over the place and the whole book lacked the aesthetics that I loved so much in the Vintage Modern Knits book. I looked through all the pattern to see that the said “authors” each contributed one or two designs total. (a pair of legwarmers and a short sleeved shrug? And just one cowl? Might I add that these three were the least attractive items in the entire book?) Very disappointing to say the least.

Halloween Knitting

It’s that time of the year again – the spine tingling avalanche of high fructose corn syrup fueled madness known as Halloween.

Cavity fears aside, it’s always a dilemma when it comes to the costumes. On one hand, I want to be creative and ”supermom” about the whole thing and actually make the costumes but my sewing skills aren’t exactly Martha Stewart worthy, not to mention my being a total lazy ass usually results in crappy store bought stuff.

Have you seen the flimsy crap they sell in stores? OMG. Talk about a waste of money. But then, I wouldn’t want to spend $$$ on some spiffy outfit that will be worn all of once. Seems rather wasteful.

So screw the sewing, why not knit something? Sure, it will take longer but I know I’ll enjoy the process and the finished product will look pretty swank. Here are a few projects I’m contemplating (notice I didn’t say I was going to knit all of these. Time constraints and all) :

Never liked candy corn but the hat is cute!

Candy Corn Hat

Matching mittens with the hat!

Candy Corn Mittens

I’ll probably shoot for orange yarn

Hallowig

Might give kids nightmares…

Jackyll and Hyde

I’ll just attach icord nails to existing gloves. (I hate knitting fingers!)

Witchy Hands

Boo!

The SkullKerchief

If I only had more time to knit this awesomeness!

Giant Squid Hat

Now, off to go look for yellow and orange yarn in my stash. Hopefully, I didn’t overdye all of them. (And no, I refuse to go out and buy yellow and orange yarn on purpose. EWWW!)