Oh Nuts

This knitting project came about when Aaliyah said that she had a hard time getting warm. Since we always pick a sibling to get a present(s) for Christmas, instead of getting presents for 8 people, I got Aaliyah as my person and I decided to make her a pair of hand warmers. I created my own pattern using ideas from other patterns, that I found on Ravelry. Cast on 36 stitches using the long tail method*. Row 1: knit all the way across  Row 2: K3, P3 all the way across Repeat these two rows until you reach your desired length then bind off. I made them 7 1/2 inches long. Repeat pattern to make a second one. I made these using straight needles and used the tails that I left at both ends to sew up the edges. But it is super easy to make these on double pointed needles if that is what you prefer. And I used a size 8 needle, unfortunately, I don't remember the brand name of the yarn that I was using. *If you don't know how to do the long tail cast on method, whic...

Just from going to the library on a regular basis I have saved $4,279.26. Living right across the street from the local library helps with that because in the two years since we have lived by the library I have gone there more than when we lived several minutes away and didn't go as often. Anyhow, I didn't come to bore you all with talking about books and what I've read recently. This is more of a random talk about what's been going on in my life sort of post. Originally I was going to write this post last week but the words weren't wanting to come out the way that I wanted them too, so I am trying again. And since I haven't written a general, sometimes rambling, post on what has been happening lately I thought that I would include it all in one post. Last week was finals week and it was also the last week of my second to last semester of college, which feels like I have been doing forever. This semester I ended up taking four classes instead of three lik...

Today starts the season of Advent, and the lighting of the Advent wreath. During the Advent season, advent calendars are a popular site in stores and in homes. When my siblings and I were younger we used to get one of the chocolate filled calendars from the store.  As we got older we did a homemade calendar, usually in the shape of a tree and each day we would add a purple circle or a pink one for Gaudete Sunday . We would start at the bottom and go up the tree when we reached the top of the tree we added a star. Two years ago I did a photography Advent calendar (though I don't remember where I found it) .  This year I am doing another photography Advent calendar, which I created using ideas from Advent calendars that I found. As a family, we also light a candle on the wreath each night. We also sing a verse of the song "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" each night as well.  On my blog, I have shared the O Antiphons and their corresponding verse from" O...

I know that the Advent season doesn't start until Sunday, but I wanted to share a photography Advent calendar that I put together a while back. I made it because I had done a photography Advent calendar two years ago and I enjoyed doing it and I wanted to do it again this year. When I created the calendar there weren't any Advent photo a day calendars for 2017 yet, so I pulled ideas from several different photo a day calendars that I found from previous years and created my own. So here is the list for the calendar and I will be posting the pictures I take like I have been with the 40 Week challenge photos. Day 1: Preparation Day 2: Journey Day 3: Tradition Day 4: Faith Day 5: Home Day 6: Love Day 7: New Day 8: Memory Day 9: Season Day 10: Ponder Day 11: Foretold Day 12: Family Day 13: Warm Day 14: Mystery Day 15: Red Day 16: Illuminate Day 17: Music Day 18: Angels Day 19: Lights Day 20: Tree Day 21: Star Day 22: Community ...

It's seven days into NaNoWriMo and I currently have 10,042 words (and counting). Last year was the first time that I had ever heard of or attempted word crawls to help me get further along in my writing. I did a Hamilton themed and Lord of the Rings themed word crawl, though I didn't finish either of them. This year I decided to try writing one. The book that I did a word crawl for is "Anne of Green Gables." Crawls:  These are usually long, game-like challenges that follow a specific theme, and vary wildly based on the person creating the challenge. These are less competitive, more about challenging yourself.  So without further ado here is the crawl that I put together.  Chapter I .  Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised . As Matthew Cuthbert drives to the train station and goes past the Lynde residents, surprising Mrs. Rachel Lynde, write 300 words. As Rachel Lynde and Marilla converse about the Cuthbert’s getting help from an orphanage sprint for 3 mins. Ch...

Back at the beginning of summer, I learned that another cousin was expecting her first. So I started coming up with color ideas to use, other than green and yellow since I had just used those colors for baby blankets. Since I didn't know the gender at the time I decided to go with gray and purple. The colors that I picked out were Lion's Brand Vanna's Choice: Silver Heather, Eggplant, and Dusty Purple. I picked these three colors because I was originally going to make a mitered square blanket (there is a pattern online for this blanket). But as I started working on it one of the squares was larger than the rest and I knew it would look bad if I kept it that way. So I looked for a different blanket pattern that I could make quickly and easily. And in my searching, I came across the Corner to Corner Blanket (C2C) and I went with it because I knew that I could make it quickly. When I made the blanket I used the Silver Heather and Dusty purple for the blanket. Original...

I couldn't decide which picture I liked better so I decided to use both.

In the past I have used the Curly Edge hat pattern , which I have shared before, to make baby hats. And I was going to use it again to make two more baby hats, but I wanted to use specific measurements this time because I am giving both hats away as presents. The pattern that I used for these hats is  Basic Baby Hat  that I found on Ravelry, which is my go-to for knitting patterns now instead of Pinterest. The first hat I made using this pattern, I followed the sizing for the toddler hat, but I ended up using the wrong size needle and yarn because it was bigger than it was supposed to be and my 17-year old brother and I were both able to fit it on our heads. I finished it and it is currently sitting upstairs in my room. After looking through my yarn stash I found a yarn that ended up working better. Since I got it for free and there was no label, I don't know what type of yarn or what brand it is.  Since I used my size 6 needles it turned out better than ...

“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”  ―  Anne of Green Gables

Well it's that time of year again where I bring up National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and how I am doing it again. Normally when I write during this time I don't have an outline of any sort, though last year I sort of outlined but it didn't go very well. This year I am giving outlining another try using the mind mapping/clustering method instead of doing it scene by scene. Normally I don't have much of a plot, other than it's slightly based off of the story of George and the Dragon, with a little bit of King Arthur thrown in there. This year I have more of a plot/idea of what my story is going to be. The idea for my novel came from a random plot generator that I found online either last year or the year before, though I don't remember what the site I used is called. After I saved the plot summary to my computer I forgot about it until the other night when I was getting ready for bed. So I pulled it up again and tweaked the plot idea (synopsis of so...

Last week when I was writing my post about the five projects that I am currently working on, I realized that I hadn't done a post for a baby blanket that I finished several months ago. So the pattern I used is called Cotton Twill Squares, unfortunately, I don't remember where I found the pattern for this blanket otherwise, I would share the link for it. The yarn that I used for this blanket was 6 skeins of Patons North America Beehive Baby Chunky in Quicker Clover, and there was a little left over when I finished it, and I found the yarn at Jo-Ann's. Back in January, I found out that one of my cousins was expecting their first baby, as well as a family friend, so I got the idea to make them both baby blankets. For the friend, I finished the Malt Baby Blanket that I posted about back in March. For my cousin, I made this blanket. Even though I was constantly changing between the regular knit stitch and the stockinette stitch I was able to make this blanket fairly...

Call me crazy but I currently have five knitting projects in the works, though only two of them are currently active. As I mentioned in a separate post last week, and one other time before, I said that I was working on a Ten Stitch Blanket. That is project #1. Project #2 is a Log Cabin blanket and the colors for this blanker are white yarn and a variegated blue, green, and purple yarn. Project #3 is another Ten Stitch blanket that I started over the summer, but haven't really done much with. The colors for this blanket are goldenrod and two shades of rust orange. Project #4 is a Corner to Corner blanket, and the colors for that are a light gray and a dusty purple, with possible dark purple accents (I don't know for sure yet). And finally, project #5 is a hat, in a variegated gray, white, yellow yarn. Now you are probably wondering why I am working on five different knitting projects. Well, it didn't originally start out that way. It just started out with the first...

Back at the beginning of April, I wrote a post on how I was knitting a  blanket , using the Ten-Stitch Blanket pattern on Ravelry. I also mentioned that I was making it with a bunch of different colored yarn scraps that I had. Well, the other day I pulled it out again and took it apart. What it used to look like Since you might ask why I took it apart, especially since I had already knit so far along. To start off, back in March of last year I wrote a post on how I am the queen of taking knitting projects apart. As I was working on the blanket, I did take a break to start working on two other blankets, I didn't like where some of the colors were falling. Like white against white, camo on camo, and a lot of the variegated yarns were on the same side of the blanket. Once I took the blanket apart I organized it by color. Since there were bits and pieces of the camo yarn scattered through out the blanket I put them into multiple balls so I could have the color scatt...

Bonus picture

This is what happens when you are bored and decide to write a goofy poem on the color purple . Photo by  Sarah Kothe  on  Unsplash From lovely lilac to somber eggplant. There is nothing quite as sweet as the color purple. Bruises. Nails. Hair.  Purple. Long and flat. Paper. Short and fat. Flower. Purple. Rainbows. Frosting. Paints. Cupcakes. Purple

"Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the  Blessed Sacrament ... There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

This week's picture was supposed to be a faceless self-portrait, but I honestly couldn't figure out a good way for me to take the picture so I changed it.

The trouble with writing books, papers, blog posts, etc. is coming up with a topic to write about. Sometimes the ideas come easy and sometimes they don't. For me, I have a hard time writing and coming up with blog posts to write. taken by me Right now I currently have 6 blog posts waiting in my draft box. I did start writing a couple sentences for two of the posts, but then I stopped because I couldn't think of what to say next. I know that I am not the only person who has this problem, but it is still frustrating. Tonight while I was sitting in Adoration, I started writing up a draft for one of my blog post ideas and on my way home I realized that two of the ideas that I had, and had started posts for, were very similar in ideas. So instead of having two different posts on the same topic, or closely related topics, I decided to combine the two and see where it goes. Of course, knowing how my mind works, I will keep finding new ideas for blog posts. So I don't kn...

My favorite color is blue. This week was supposed to be Faceless Self-Portrait, but I couldn't think of a way that I wanted to do it, so I switched it to next week instead.

The library, or your own house, is always a good place to find books for this week's challenge. Even though my family owns a lot of books I went across the street to the local library instead.

Today starts the 40 week photography challenge! Have fun!  At 10:36 a.m. I am editing closed captions on a clip of "Henry IV" for work. *I forgot to put this in the main post, but you can take and post your picture when ever you want.

Remember on Sunday how I said that I was going to do a 20-week photography challenge, but was turning it into 40 weeks instead? Well here is the list for the challenge* so that you can join in with me each week. I will be posting every week on Fridays and I will be sharing my pictures here on the blog as well as a photo album on my personal Facebook page. Week 1 – 10:36 a.m. Week 2 – Books Week 3 – Black and White Week 4 – Faceless Self-Portrait Week 5 – Favorite Color Week 6 – Feet Week 7 – Fork Week 8 – Green Week 9 – Key Week 10 – One Thing that You Can’t Live Without Week 11 – Pattern Week 12 – Shoes Week 13 – Smile Week 14 – Something Up Close Week 15 – Something in Your Fridge Week 16 – Something Old Week 17 – Something new Week 18 – Something tiny Week 19 – Something tall Week 20 – Something You Love Week 21 – Self-Portrait Week 22 – Bold Colors Week 23 – Dinner Week 24 – From a high angle Week 25 – From a low angle W...

Back in August, I had written a post about a bunch of photography challenges that I had found on Pinterest. Since I had already done several photo a day challenges I was looking for something else. taken by me After saving several photography challenges to the board I had created for them on Pinterest, I printed out three of them. Two of them were for 20-weeks. The first 20-week challenge is pretty basic and is something that I would do. The second 20-week photography challenge that I printed out is called "City Photography Challenge." Last week on Thursday, while cleaning, I pulled out a folder, that is starting to fall apart and is being held together by masking tape, I came across the three photography challenges that I had printed out and then never did anything with. While I was looking at it and sorting through papers that I was saving and throwing out, I decided that I was going to do the 20-week challenge (not the city one, though I might do it in the fut...

Since you are probably wondering where I came up with the word "pocrastikniting" I will tell you. I found the word on a reusable tote bag from Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Store , which I now own and use to hold one of my current three and a half knitting projects. Back in February, I had mentioned that I had gotten a free skein of a really pretty variegated green yarn that I wanted to use for a project. The project that I was going to use the yarn for was another baby blanket since I was almost done with the yellow blanket that I had started working on again. Of course when I went to go find more of the variegated yarn I couldn't find it. So I had to go with a different yarn. The yarn that I am using for the baby blanket is a pretty green called "Quicken Clove." And the brand is Patons Beehive Baby: Chunky. I found the yarn at Jo-Ann Fabric. When I went to go check out I saw that Jo-Ann Fabric was selling reusable tote bags as a way to go green. There were s...

Christ became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every other name. - PHIL 2:8-9 taken by me "Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. . . . There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death." - J. R. R. Tolkien