Knitting Mania

It's been entirely too long since I've posted anything about knitting projects, so you'll get to see a bunch of items I'm working on right now. Since the weather has finally turned colder, I'm thinking more about knitting than I had been the last few months.

We got the knitting club at school up and running, so at least once a week, I'm guaranteed a solid hour of knitting time, along with the students and teacher who joined the club.

We didn't meet this week because of parent teacher conferences, and next week is newspaper deadline, so unfortunately, we're on a two-week hiatus.

I've been working on these fingerless mitts for the last few meetings.

It's a pattern from the book "One Skein" by Leigh Radford. I'm using some of the vintage yarn my Uncle picked up for me last year.


The pattern is easy-peasy, and it uses drop stitches to widen the mitt around your knuckles (the widest part of your hand). It's all knit in garter stitch (knit every row), and then you sew it together longways. Emma from knitting club did the sewing for me at our last meeting. I was so happy with the way the knitting turned out, I didn't want to ruin it by doing sloppy seaming.

She did an awesome job.


There's the mate for it, up on top of that skein of yarn. These would make good gifts, I think, because they're fairly easy to knit. The only bad thing is that you use sport weight yarn and tiny needles, so it takes time. I'll be using this pair myself, though, since it's usually about 55 degrees in our computer lab at school. Seriously - the kids call it the "Cooler" or "The Meat Locker."

The great thing about fingerless mitts is that you can wear them and still type easily or write, or do what you need to do.


This red yarn is also from the bunch that Mark picked up last year. I started this as a project to donate to the Red Scarf Project. It's an initiative that donates red scarves to warm the necks of college bound foster kids. They accept donations until Dec. 15, so if you can knit, get to it!

Scarves can be any shade of red, and unisex is best.


I haven't worked on this project since this summer, but I really like the way it looks, so I wanted to photograph it anyway. The square is a piece for a knitted purse. It's from the book "Hip Knits" from Better Homes and Gardens. You knit eight of these pieces, then put it together, almost like a little knitted quilt.

Look for the finished version of that sometime next year...


And, last but not least, I whipped up this furry pink confection for Adam. Yes, that's right, I said for Adam!

Next Thursday at his school, the teachers get to dress up for breast cancer awareness, and he asked for a pink boa. I knit it with two yarns on size 17 needles, so it only took two nights of knitting during TV watching to finish. Those are the best projects - quick ones!


So, that's the crafty update. Lots of knitting going on, but not a whole lot of finishing at this point. Hopefully, that will change soon.

Happy Anniversary to us!

Five years, baby!

Guys need Etsy love, too

In honor of Betsy's and my surprise Etsy sales last week, I tasked Adam with poking around on Etsy to find things guys would like. Like Betsy said, we've both been a little short on the Etsy side lately, what with school and day-to-day life getting in the way.

I haven't done a post about Etsy since I don't know when, so I thought I'd post a few items for your consideration.

Though Etsy started out as a place to buy and sell handmade goods, there are now lots of vintage sellers on the site as well. Adam seemed to pick out a few vintage items, in addition to handmade.

If you've seen him lately, you'll know that he's been carrying a "wallet" that consists of either a rubber band or a bulldog clip. So, imagine my surprise when he chose this as a favorite.

It's from seller vintageJones, and one of the keywords is "Hippie" so you had to know Adam would want it.

To go along with the vintage hippie wallet, he also found this little number. It's from seller EasyStreetVintage

It's a size 40, and still has the Vanderbilt label inside.

He also chose this next item from seller BrykinWear. I'm pretty sure he favorited it since the listing feature a cute baby.

So, if you know any hardcore toddlers, maybe you ought to order this little leather wrist cuff for them!

Last but not least, in honor of my awesome half-marathon finish last week, here's his last favorite. It's from seller nateduval. Let's hope Adam doesn't think I look like a gorilla while I'm running.


If you're looking in my shop for the man in your life, you might check out the pocket golf towels.

These golf towels have Velcro closure pockets, for storing tees, golf gloves, ball markers, you name it. It's the perfect holiday gift for the golfer in your life.

If you're looking for gifts for anyone in your life, not just Crafty Craftersons, Etsy is a good place to start. Especially in today's horrid economy, you should feel great supporting artists trying to make a buck.

Hate to tell you this, but you can't have it both ways.

An open letter to Sarah Palin and the Repubs:

Had some downtime during Parent/Teacher Conferences last night, so I was reading the New York Times and came across a couple of articles about Sarah Palin and her fancy-schmancy new wardrobe.

I just want to know, Sarah:

Are you "just a Hockey mom"?
Is your husband "Joe Six Pack"?
Are you really "just like typical Americans"?

I'm pretty sure I'm in your target audience, since I am Midwestern, middle class, etc. I mean, you can't get much more "American" than Middle America, so you don't have to worry about us being Anti-American, right?

But, I'm scratching my head, trying to figure out the last time I spent $150,000 on new work clothes. Oh, wait, that's right - NEVER. My work clothes come from Wal-Mart, Target and Kohl's, and Old Navy. I think that's what truly represents your everyday American who is on a budget.

So, which one is it? Would you rather be like all of us, as the Republican Party has been trumpeting for the last two months, or are you now a true member of the Washington elite? Option 2 doesn't sound too "Mavericky" to me. How 'bout just buying yourself a silkscreened T-shirt with "The New McCarthyism" emblazoned across it? Maybe that'll help you root out those nasty people who have done nothing wrong but disagree with you. Last time I checked, we are allowed to do that in this country, based on the First Amendment (and any of my high school freshmen could educate you on that). So, really, if you think they should be silenced and removed from government, maybe you're being Anti-American...

P.S. What will you do with all those clothes when you're done? Good luck paying income tax on all of it - they are gifts, after all.

Long Day's Journey

I should be getting ready for school right now, but I'm doing my morning routine of shower, breakfast, TV, check the blogs and e-mail, then finish getting ready.

Last night was the first night of conference, and we have another round tonight. They're only from 4-7 p.m., which doesn't seem like much, but by the end of the day, I'm ready to get the heck out of Dodge. I wasn't busy for the first hour or so, then I had a steady stream, but never a line. Some poor teachers had lines that looked like the good ol' pre-internet days when we used to have stand in line for concert tickets.

I still haven't figured out how conferences that are supposed to be limited to seven minutes a piece can generate lines that are 30 families long. It's crazy.

Conferences are usually pretty fun for me. I don't get a lot of takers, since I'm "just" an elective teacher, but the parents who do come are fun to catch up with and talk to. It's the editors' parents, the three-year staffers' parents, the ones who mostly just want to say Hi and see how I'm doing, as well as how their student is doing.

It certainly helps that I am blessed with great kids, because that cuts down on the amount of conference night drama. AND, of course, the parents who I really NEED to conference with are not the ones who show up. I think that's a pretty typical situation.

The payoff for two night of conferences is a day off tomorrow. I'm looking forward to that. I've got work to do for my masters class, and we're hoping to get the touch up painting done since we have a day off. We'll see how that goes.

•••

I've been reading "The Secret" for a while now, and I will eventually post about it, but I have made a "vision board" for what I want to accomplish. The first thing on the vision board is financial gains from the blog. I have a set number, but I'm keeping it to myself to see how close I can come...

Help prove "The Secret" works, by clicking on and checking out some of my Google ads. You can also use the Google search bar at the bottom of my page...We'll see how well it works.

And I ran, I ran so far away - Kansas City Half-Marathon

Dark and early Saturday morning, Mitzi, Stacey and I headed down to Crown Center for the Waddell and Reed KC Half-Marathon. It was about 42 degrees when we left the house, so we were all layered up.

The race started at 7, and it was still dark and pretty darn cold. As soon as the sun came up, it warmed up a tiny bit, but was still chilly.

Stacey was the first of us to cross the finish line, at around 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Adam and the kids waited near the finish line to see us as we came around the last corner. There was quite a crowd.


The photo below shows some Randy Randoms coming around the corner. Adam tried to get a photo of me, but he had forgotten our camera, so he was using Eugene's, and it shut itself off right as I came around the corner.

That's fine by me, because they'll be professional photos online in a few days, but Adam was pretty upset that the camera pooped out.

There's Stacey coming around the corner. I was 10 minutes behind her. I was shooting for a finish at 2 hours and 30 minutes, but I finished at 2 hours and 20 minutes. I ran with Mitzi until about mile six, and then I went on ahead, to see how I could do. The route was great - scenic, weather was perfect, and I felt good as I kept up a pretty good pace for me.

When I got home, I uploaded my data to Nikeplus.com, and it said that one of my last miles was 8:09. That's really fast for me. Usually, on a long race, I'm somewhere between 10 and 11 minute miles.

Mitzi was 10 minutes behind me, looking strong as she finished. My legs are a little sore today, but not as bad as the day after I ran the full marathon. The worst part of the race was AFTER the finish line. I crossed the line, had to find an open spot to get the chip cut off my shoe, and then came to a dead stop in a giant crowd of runners who were waiting for food. The crowd wasn't moving at all. I had to get out of the mess, so I found an opening in the railing and just walked back up to where Adam and Eugene and the kids were. My belly was saying "I'm hungry" but my legs were saying "If you stand still, we start cramping, so keep moving."

Logistically, the end of the race wasn't set up very well. Too much of a bottleneck. I won't let that spoil the day, though, because the race itself was one of my best running experiences.

So glad I did it.

Early Halloween Fun

Since we had the Jenkins-Lardi clan in town, we decided to go ahead and carve pumpkins for Halloween. It was a nice relaxing activity after a day that started pretty early.


Here are a few photos of our finished products:

That's Eugene's on the left, and Adam's on the right.

We had a couple of stencil and pumpkin-carving tool kits, so it was a little more highbrow than the pumpkin carving days of yore, when we just stuck sharp knives in the pumpkins and hoped for the best.

Mine is on the left (Adam said it looks like it's high), Genevieve's in the middle, and Stacey's is on the right.

He's a little intense, eh?

Josh and Stacey do their thing.

Eug gets ready to work on his. He used a really cool stencil of a skeleton face.

Once we got them all fixed up, we took them outside for a test light - they all looked great. Thankfully, no neighborhood houligans came along long last night and smashed them. They might be moldy before Oct. 31 rolls around, but we'll see.