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!!!

Leftovers aren't always bad.

These leftovers are from a kit that I have. Let me explain. I go to this awesome Close To My Heart workshop every month. The consultant is so talented. She creates a kit from the CTMH line of paper that we pick and pairs it with embellies, stickers, ribbons, etc. We go and we make the same layouts as she does. The only problem with it is that some layouts are generic enough for me so I don't put all the embellies on it at the time we are making the layouts. I always put the papers on the layout and the basic design but sometimes my pictures don't always match what she has on hers. So I leave some stuff off usually. This creates a bit of "extra" and once I use the layouts I fumble with what to do with the extra papers, scraps, and embellies that I didn't end up using. Often times I will make additional layouts with the papers but sometimes the embellies baffle me.

Today I had that same problem. I had used all the layouts we created from the kit and I didn't know what to do with some of the bits and bobs of papers, stickers, and embellies. So I decided to make some cards. I got out a bit more cardstock from my stash and ended up creating 5 cards with all the leftovers. One card we immediately signed and stuck in an envelope for my son's basketball coach. We will see him today and we wanted to get that to him. It is a thank you card. The rest are regular note cards or thank you cards. I will save these and use them in the fall most likely.

After I completed all these cards I was left with really little bits of patterned paper which I didn't feel so guilty throwing away. I kept the extra stickers and alphas for later and the extra embellies I kept as well. I inked all the edges with brown and some of the insides also had a few extra bits of paper or a coordinating sticker.

Mixed up media!

Hee hee. I played with paper and paint and mod podge last weekend and made this:

And this:

They were fun to make, but I need a lot of practice. One thing that I have figured out over the years is when it comes to "real" art, I am not so good. I can copy ideas well but those ideas are really the ideas of someone else. I don't come up with my own ideas very well.

Still it was fun. Oh, I did not copy these from anyone in particular. I took the ideas of others and sort of combined them and made my own. Does that make sense?

Valentine's Goodies

Okay, well just cards but they were still fun to make.

My youngest daughter and I have a running "joke" about loving Dora. She used to love Dora but she no longer thinks Dora is cool. She IS 8 you know. Anyway, I had some fun 3D Dora stickers and I had used the big Dora on a layout of her 3rd birthday when she chose Dora as her theme. I had some left over ones and thought I would make her a Valentine's Day card with the rest of the stickers. I took one look at Boots and I knew exactly what the sentiment would be. I went with the rhythm of the kids valentines that you get in the box and they give to their friends. So here is the front:

And here is the back:

Don't you just love the little insect band?? They were always my favorites in the show.

Once I did her card I knew I had to make one for the other two also. My son's was easy also. I had some 3D Hot Wheels stickers that were laying around. I hadn't used them and I doubt I would have on a layout. So here is the front:

And here is the inside:

I love the way it turned out.

So then came time for my middle daughter's card. I didn't have any themed stickers for her unless she wanted Tonka trucks but I knew that she wouldn't appreciate that. So I went with something a bit prettier: butterflies from Wild Saffron. Here is the front:

And here is the inside:

I had decided from the beginning that I wouldn't be using the typical holiday colors of pink and red. I wanted something a bit different. I love how all these cards turned out and I loved their faces when they opened them.

However, there isn't a happy ending to this story as I am pretty sure that at least two of the cards are already in the trash. They weren't treasured for very long. But that is okay as they were really only meant to be savored for just a few minutes and they did their job.

Unfortunately they didn't hold any treasures which was a disappointment to the kids. Now that they are getting older they are beginning to expect a gift card or a gift of some sort for each holiday. They were disappointed this Valentine's Day when all they got was my heart, well, and a homemade card.