May 23, 2010

Potholders for Momma!

I was planning on knitting my mom some sort of shawl or scarf for her birthday, but she insisted she needed a potholder so I started knitting one intermittently quite some time ago. Needless to say I was quite bored by the project and decided to unravel it recently and start over, but this time doubling up the tweed orange wool yarn I had in my stash with a red Knit Picks wool for felting purposes and extra insulation. I rather like how they turned out, though I like the last one I knit the best because I decided to ditch the complicated stockinette deal I had going and just knit a garter potholder. Next time I'll just stick to the garter, I held the yarn triple so it knit up very quickly, in less than a day in fact! It shrunk a lot when I felted it but its very thick and useful! I don't like the color combo so much but it was what I had and my mom loves them! I ended up making 3 and *almost* using up all my orange yarn! The ball left is soo small but I can't bear to throw things away!

May 17, 2010

Finished!

Done with my capelet! I used a button-cover that my mom found in her jewelry. Oooh vintage! lawl I also unraveled that potholder and decided to double up that yarn with a worsted red wool yarn and hopefully felt it for a more heat-resistant cloth.

May 12, 2010

Cavy Cages for Carmen!

Now, I'm going to talk about the biggest, and most worthwhile, craft project of the year: my guinea pig cage!
You see, it all started with one little guinea named Lulu. Lulu came to me alone in a 1x2ft store-bought cage along with a plastic "pigloo". I immediately began to research the proper care and housing of guinea pigs and stumbled upon a lot of surprising information. Mostly it sums down to the idea that the pet stores are misinformed about the proper care of guinea pigs, and they pass this misinformation to pet owners worldwide. Guineapigcages.com served as the main source for my plan to build a roomy guinea pig cage that could also serve as a storage unit. I went through many different formats of cubes and [insert material] as possible until I found some fairly priced coroplast that could be shipped to my home. Though it is cut into 14x14 inch squares I managed to get together a useful cage that my guinea pigs love! The structure is made of wire grids (or "cubes") that I found in a variety of places, the bottom consists of squares of coroplast taped together to prevent any seepage, it is then lined with newspaper and lastly topped with a fleece blanket (I have 4 I bought at CVS for $2.50 a pop). The hay rack is made of a bent cube, I use a doggy bed for them to sleep on ($5 CVS, and they love it!) and a piggloo and water bottle is shown below. I have a bunch of houses and bottles so when one is being washed I can use the others. It is a work that is constantly under construction as I find more innovative ways of cleaning and feeding them. Of course, now I have 4 lovely piggies to fill it: Lulu, Reed, Lily, and Rose.

May 11, 2010

Capelet City!

So, I've made definite progress on my first legit piece of clothing! It actually looks like something sweater-like. I hope that I'm done sooner rather than later, but exams don't end until next week so we'll see! Its a winter capelet anyway so I have tons of time.