What "Thrifty" Can Look Like

I just wanted to post some photos of some thrifty finds and uses of stuff I was given from family.

A few years ago, my husband's aunt and uncle remodeled their kitchen. Their old cabinets were taken down, and given to us to use! It transformed our home. Finally, the living room, the room we spend all our time in, is usable!

Doesn't this look better than the first photo? I love that all that "stuff" is hidden behind these great cabinets. The small above-refrigerator-cabinet completes the computer desk alcove AND makes a neat place to display some decorative sail boats the kids have made. These boats even fit within the nautical theme of the room.

By thinking outside the box, we were able to add lots of storage from recycled items. To have built this new would have cost us $Thousand$ of dollars! Our cash outlay was $50 for a new piece of maple plywood that serves as the top of the lower cabinets. I already had the polyurethane to finish it and Voila! We cut it to size, laid it over the cabinets, and started moving the stuff in!

The first photo shows just what we are able to store in these solid maple beauties! We've got all the cookbooks, children's books, Cd's, and kitchen overflow items in the upper cabinets with the computer desktop, printer, and further computer paraphernalia in the lower cabinet, that at one time served as a sink cabinet. My husband's aunt and uncle didn't even recognize them!

Even the desk and chairs are thrift finds. The desk was given to us by my husband's workplace when they moved offices. The office chair was a $10 find at an auction. The lamp? One of a pair at a thrift store.

So, what do you think? I think thrifty is good.

Final Aeolian Shawl

Blocking is completed and I’m thrilled with the outcome. All along the knitting, I have been concerned about the color being too bright. The blocking has “paled the color” since it stretched all the stitches. I Love This. I haven’t been able to get a decent photo of the beading and the subtle “frosting” effect it has on the knitted garmet, but is really pretty.

Thrilled the yarn had enough yardage in one hank to finish. I had leftovers, even though I added a second point to the center of the shawl by mistake.

The construction of the shawl was a mystery to me at first, even after studying and sweating over the 8 pages of instructions, but it was very clever. The stitches begin at the top of the long (hypoteneuse) side of the triangle, and the increases in the center make the point happen at the other two sides.

Now, on to more mindless knitting for a day or two. Then, who knows? I might need to start a sweater or something!

It ain't knitting, but it's workin'!

Although I've been able to get some knitting done this summer, my pride and joy has been in organizing my yarn stash! I've even posted photos on Ravelry of all the different yarns I've got hanging out in the basement just waiting for me to use in the next creative endeavor. Check them out!

Re-organizing the stash was worthwhile. I sorted the yarn into two piles - snob yarn and lesser yarns - and then further sorted each group into piles according to their guage (i.e. worsted, fingering, dk, or bulky and chunky). Any yarn that was purchased with a project in mind was grouped together so as not to use up a portion of it accidentally in something else.

As a reminder of my scarf making days, I have a lovely pile of novelty yarn that includes the fuzzy and other not-so-easy-to categorize yarn.

So far, I’ve stashed 110 different yarns, and I haven’t even begun to tackle the icky Acrylics. There is enough of that to fill a large rubbermaid tub, a 1 cu.ft. rolling bin, and another smaller office file storage box. I even found a couple of "wips" (works-in-progress, that is )that need some attention!

The icky yarns are mostly acrylic worsted, but some are blends. These were a bulk purchase in ‘06 from a thrift store for $20 and they filled the back of my husband’s trunk. However, in the group, there were 6 or 7 skeins of Brown Sheep Kaleidoscope and several other skeins and partials I’m considering to make a Crayon Box Jacket.

My frustration has been this - the good snob yarn is not enough to really make the patterns I want and the large pile of acrylic worsted is not something I would ever use to make a the patterns I want. I am learning to be more selective in my pattern search, keeping in mind that having leftovers is undesireable.

The best part? Well I can see the top of my craft area again. It just sits there mocking me as I ponder my next messy project! It knows, it knows!

Stash Buster - Bargain Yarn Blankie

A new baby at church needs a blanket to drag around during toddlerhood. Well, I'm just the knitter to provide one.

A lovely round blanket in the Spiderman Blanket Pattern which can be found here: http://muro73.googlepages.com/patternsinenglish

Only this one is for a girl baby! I'm thrilled with the results.

I found all the yarn at Big Lots last summer, and all of it was priced at $1.00 per skein. The green is a yarn called Phentex Fashion Thirteen. The Pink is Premier Yarns Eda, and the multi pom-pom yarn is Paton's Cici. I was inspired in the aisle of the big discounter and filled my cart.

Here's hoping the baby loves it!

Aeolian Update

Ravelry: IKnitB4ItWasHip's Aeolian Shawl: "I’m stalled on this, but wanted to post photos. All the beading has made it a handicap to it being a carry-along project." I got stuck when my family and I were at the end of the Race Across America Finish Line in Annapolis, MD. I pulled it out of the bag and need to re-do the last row. I hadn't worked on it in awhile because of a baby blanket I'm doing and I need to remember how to do the charts.

What's on your needles?

Is anybody knitting anything?

I finally worked up the nerve to begin the Aeolian Shawl. I must say, after studing the 8 PAGES of directions and charts, I still didn’t know where I was beginning in the construction. (Am I starting at the “point” of the triangle or where?) Hey, I may have KnitB4ItWasHip, but that doesn’t mean I know everything about it - even if my pride fools me into thinking so.

Now that I am in it, the pattern is very clever. The construction begins at the center of the LONGGGGG side(hypotenuse) of the triangle and the increases create the center point! Ha! I’ve got it.

I only wanted to put beads on the edge. However, I was snookered into the whole shawl being beaded ( because of the construction mysteries), but they make great stitch markers! Thanks to those little buggers, I have only been hoodwinked a couple of times on the repeats.
My first few hours of knitting have (K)netted this:

A Purple Swing

This is the latest. I dawdled finishing because I couldn't decide if I liked the buttons. Then, I stumbled upon a bracelet while shopping. I dismembered it and used the pieces for buttons and Voila! It works. Although, I'm not thrilled with the photos, in person, the buttons look great.

More Pics of Baby Ryan's Sweater

Ryan's Sweater

Frugal times call for frugal gifts - even if they are hand knit. The family down the street has a new baby and before he got too big I wanted him to have a hand knit sweater, The Baby Albert sweater by Sally Melville is just the right choice. Easy knitting for me and style to boot, this seamless sweater will keep little Ryan toasty around the house as he learns to crawl and sport with his brothers. I used 2 skeins of Lion Brand Wool Ease Worsted in Wheat - it didn't even cost $10.00. It is rugged enough for those boys who's dads want them to look "like a boy" and precious enough for all the rest!

Crazy People!

My mom said that I could post this picture I made called Crazy People. He looks like a cat, but with a triangle shape; he has buck teeth and his feet are connected. He has red nose hairs too. I want to say I got this idea from a picture that I did on Microsoft paint. So I want to thank Microsoft paint. Crazy People looks crazy and is crazy.