Sparkly Cupcakes

I saw this big fat ribbon at Michaels the other day in the $1 discount bin outside of the store and I had to have it. I knew I wanted to make a card with it. I bought it and some other colors of big fat ribbon and came home and immediately made this card.

I love how the ribbon is polka dotted. I love the colors and the brown of the ribbon. I was not always a brown kind of person but over the years this color has grown on me. I used to hate how they made brown part of an infant color palette too but now I am loving how it goes so nicely with the pastel and bright colors. I played up the colors on the ribbon in the dots with matching cardstock. I had this cute cupcake bling in my stash. I got it in the $1 spot at Michaels a month or two back. I love that place (the $1 spot at Michaels). I love now that they are selling more scrappy stuff in that spot too now.

Back to the card. I put more dots around the borders to highlight the "dot" theme. It is blank inside but this card will be used as a birthday card.

Ugly Paper Challenge

participated in the Ugly Paper Challenge at Scrap Sisters Studio, a message board I love. Anyway, the challenge was to find, cut into 4x6 inch rectangles and send four of your ugliest papers to another participant.

Here is the "ugly" paper I received with a very cute card.

That card is so cute.

When I saw that grass paper I immediately thought that I could do an Easter card with the other papers as Easter Eggs "hiding" in the grass. This is what I came up with.

The idea was a good one but the execution wasn't so great. The papers that I was working with weren't really "Easter" colors which hurt the total effect of the card.

So I moved on and made a few other cards with the scraps of paper I had left. Separately the paper wasn't so bad, together they don't match.

This was a fun challenge.

Finished Sock with two toes!

I finished the sock last night that I had decided to put in an "afterthought heel". I am so glad I didn't chicken out and that I tried this method. So let's recap a bit. I was knitting a sock and I screwed up the heel because I had originally chickened out and opted to put in a regular heel but I messed it up so I ripped it all out. Then I knitted in a piece of waste yarn where the heel should go. I then just continued to knit the tube of the sock all the way to the toe.

Here is where we are now. Knitted tube and toe (real toe). In this picture you also see that I have two needles in the sock. I picked up the stitches just above and just below the waste yarn. It was easy because you can use the waste yarn as your guide so you don't pick up stitches in another row.



Then I used a small crochet hook and took out the waste yarn. I divided on side (can be top or bottom) onto two needles. Now I have three needles in and a "hole" but no loose strings. (how cool is that?? You aren't cutting any yarns)


You say, but you have a loose string right there on the bottom, I see it. Yes I do but that is the yarn I am beginning to knit with. One loose string.

Then you just knit another toe, exactly like you knit the first toe. Decrease 4 on every other round until you get to the last couple rounds of decreases and then you decrease every round (usually for me that is the last three rounds). Darn off like the toe of a sock, and voila, a heel.



How cool is that!!

Here are the things I like about this:
1. When using a stripe you have a full stripe. See how the stripe continues all around the sock even into the heel? A regular heel will give you unmatching rounds of stripes where you have to turn the heel. I never liked this look. This new heel (adding a toe) allows you to knit in the round and it makes the stripe flow better. Understand what I am saying???

2. It is pretty quick and not much counting or thought involved. Seriously, you knit a tube to the end then come back and add the extra toe for the heel. A toe is so much easier than a heel anyday. You can use this on patterned socks too because the pattern is never on the heel anyway so you don't have to worry about messing up the pattern.

3. You can do the heel and toe and cuff a different color and it will look so cool. Or even if you just to the heel in a different color. That would look fun too.

4. Did I say it was easy? No math involved???

Oh, and the sock fits great!

Okay, one little thing I didn't like about it. There is a part in the corners (side of your foot where the heel is connected) that the stitches get a bit stretched and it looks like a hole is there. I think you can fix this by making your stitches a bit tighter or picking up a row down, I think. I picked up a row down when I realized that I was going to have a "hole" and this seemed to help. I will perfect this problem on the next sock.

New Socks

I am knitting a new pair of socks.



I was going to knit them up with the same pattern I have been using. A basic sock, but on Friday I was reading the Yarn Harlot and she was talking about an "afterthought heel". She said that you can knit up the tube of the sock and knit the toe and then come back and add in the heel at the end. She said that you can pick up half the stitches and then cut a stitch under the row you picked up (gasp) and then pick up the row beneath too. Then you have a nice opening and you, ready for this?, knit another toe. YES, I said knit another TOE, where the heel should go. I did some more research and I was not liking the idea of cutting (gasp) a stitch. I was confused as to what to do with the cut strings on each side. Wouldn't they eventually make a hole? Nothing seemed to make sense to me.

So Saturday night I got the tube knitted up to where the heel should go and I got scared. So I just knit the heel, turning it and everything. About halfway through the heel though, I realized that I had messed up and I thought if I just finish maybe it will look okay, but in the end it didn't look okay. In fact, it was way too wide of a heel and it didn't cinch up like it should. So Sunday morning I ripped out the whole heel.

I did some more research on the internet and others were saying that you can just knit a piece of waste yarn where the heel will go later and continue to knit your regular pattern to the end of the toe. Then come back and pick up the stitches above and below your waste yarn and voila you have a hole for the heel. This made more sense to me because you weren't cutting anything.

So this is where I am. I am half way up the foot part of the sock about two inches away from starting the toe. If I am lucky (I am a slow knitter) I will finish the toe tonight and if I am industrious (or impatient) I will pick up the stitches where the waste yarn is and begin the heel (or second toe).

So far this seems to be a very quick way to knit a sock. (except for the ripping out of a very wide heel and starting over again). Heels are so hard anyway particularly if you aren't really using a pattern. I can't remember how far over to knit (or purl is it) to begin the turning part of the heel. I never seem to pick up enough stitches on each side either once the heel is turned which then makes for a bit of knitting fudge later.

Do you think I am crazy about knitting another toe into a heel spot? Let me show you something. Are you wearing store bought socks? Take one off or if you don't want to take it off grab a sock laying around close by. Look at the toe and how it decreases down to a sort of point at the end. A blunt point. Okay now turn it over and flatten out the heel, wide-ways. See how it goes down to a point too like the toe? It is a toe in the heel spot. See? Clear as mud right? Well trust me it will work (even though I haven't actually done it yet), but it will work. Those experts tell me it will and today I am trusting them.

I will post more photos of the whole process when I am done.

Smiles for now!! :) And head over to Skip to my Lou and check out what others have been working on this weekend.

Or here for a great giveaway!

SMASH Book from K&Company

Oh my goodness. Is this the most awesomist, coolist, funnest book ever??? I love that the pages are different in some and have patterned paper. I love the kookiness of it too. I can see myself sticking things in it as well as giving them to my girls to have also. They would love it!!!