We hope you are all having an amazing Thanksgiving Day if you're in the U.S. or an awesome Thursday everywhere else!
We have not been very active on the crafting front, and have done almost nothing as West Mitten Crafts this summer and fall. The cool weather of winter has begun to descend on us here in Michigan though, and it has brought along some crafty mojo. Hopefully, that'll mean we have lots of things to share with you in the future. In the meantime, here's an update of what we have been doing.
Health:
We have been working on improving our health this year, which has been going well. We've been eating less, moving more, staying hydrated, resting, and listening to our bodies. We're using
MyFitnessPal to track what we eat. We each have a
Garmin Fenix (5 for Lee and 5S for me), which we are thoroughly enjoying. I love all the data at my disposal, and seeing how we progress in so many different ways keeps me motivated. We started out walking, then used the
NHS C25K podcast (yes, I know I'm not in the UK) to learn to run, and by week 7 we were drinking the running koolaid. We also do the
Recommended Routine from the
bodyweight fitness sub-reddit, but haven't been doing it so much since we finished C25k and started running about 5 days a week.
Cross-stitch:
The adorable 2015 Story Time Sampler from Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery is still a work in progress, but will not be completed this year. As for the read-along, I've listened to or read The Great Gatsby, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and The Lady of Shalott.
Knitting:
I finished my modified
Hermione's Everyday Socks pattern by Erica Lueder out of Cakewalk Yarns Footsie in the Betty colorway. These fit really well, so I'll continue using
Cat Bordhi's Sweet Tomato Heel and the
Asymmetric Wedge Toe by Reena Meijer Drees.
I loved my last pair of socks so much that I immediately cast on my next pair out of
Knit One, Crochet Too Ty-Dy Socks in colorway Cherry Cola 1233. I made it 3/4 of the way through the second sock, then tried to compare the socks to figure out where to start the toe, but they didn't match up. It took me about half an hour to figure out that there's an extra wedge in the heel of the first (completed) sock. So these are in time-out until I find the urge to cut the yarn somewhere in the middle of a wedge and hope I can put it back together properly.
I woke up one morning itching to knit a chunky hat, so I did. I followed the
Big Chunky Comfy Hat pattern by Erica Kempf Broughton and knit it out of Lion Brand Hometown USA Tweeds in the Kansas City Wheat colorway, which doesn't seem to be an available color anymore. Does this project sound or look familiar to you? It didn't to me, but when I added it to my projects page in Ravelry, I ended up logging this hat as Big Chunky Comfy Hat 3, as this makes
three identical hats that I've made. I guess I really like this pattern and colorway combination.
Crocheting:
Lee asked for some new slippers, as the ones I made back in 2011 aren't quite the same size. This pair was sized up a little bit from the
Simple Chunky Cable Crochet Slippers by Tamara Kelly, and was made out of
Lion Brand Scarfie in the Black Royal colorway. I really enjoyed being able to make a cable pattern in a crocheted project, as I hadn't seen that done anywhere else before. Unfortunately, the long gradients in the yarn made the slippers opposites colorwise, but I think I'll end up using some of the leftovers to make some fingerless mitts for Lee, which should accentuate the mis-matchy effect to the point that it must have been intentional. That'll be my story anyway...
Gardening:
Lee made this handy compost sifter, which allowed us to sift out two of our compost bins, which gave us plenty of finished compost to add to our garden beds.
The peppers did awesome this year, I guess they didn't have enough sun where they were planted in 2016. I grew some carrots, which were amazing. The flavor of fresh carrots is so much better than store-bought carrots. The beans didn't do as well this year as last year, I'm not sure if its because the seeds are old (and I did not store them properly). I only planted larger variety tomatoes, which did better than the large variety last year, but they definitely aren't as productive as those crazy cherry tomatoes. The cucumbers were good too, but I enjoyed the lemon cucumbers more last year, probably because they were little and cute and yellow. My blueberry bushes did well, but I only got one harvest in, the birds were getting to them as they were ripening. I'll have to put up some netting next year. The replanted asparagus that we took from Lee's parents did awesome this spring, and this fall we started seeing itty bitty asparagus stalks coming from the new plants. I bought some hardy kiwi plants and strawberry plants, but they didn't grow.
Sewing:
I sewed some girl scout green exercise pants, which fit surprisingly well, but I wasn't a fan of the rise or the waistband.
From the same girl scout green fabric, I made an armband using the
Running Armband Pocket from Fehr Trade to hold my phone, license, keys, etc. This worked well for a while, but some combination of the fabric stretching out and my arm shrinking made me retire it. It fits Lee now, but his gigantic phone is too big, so I'll have to make him another one.
I sewed up an adorable set of camping themed pillow cases using the
Speedy Pillowcase pattern from the School of Sewing by Shea Henderson. The main fabric is Tula Pink Moon Shine Forest Frivolity in PWTP054 Silver. The contrast fabric is some unmarked brown batik fabric that I bought at the local quilt store and I can't find a match to it online.
While I'm still working my way towards a healthy weight and size, I'm not making myself any clothes, but I am working through the
Patternmaking Basics: The Bodice Sloper class with Suzy Furrer on Craftsy, so I can (hopefully) make well fitting tops once I reach my goals.
Lee helped me make a pattern from a waterfall cardigan that I wear often. The arms and back fit well, but the waterfall part doesn't drape properly so I was constantly fiddling with it and the fabric hasn't held up well to picking out stitches.
While not quite sewing, we reupholstered my office chair with
Waverly Inspirations 100% Cotton Duck fabric in the Petal Black - Sunshine colorway that we picked up from our local Walmart's sewing section. The pleather lining was chipping off bit by bit, sticking to everything. I'm still finding little bits of the old lining in random places in the house. We also replaced the foam on the seat, which made the chair oh so much more comfortable.
Woodworking:
I finally got started on a project that has been put off for too long. I've had the lumber for a couple months and finally got it planed down to thickness and cut to length. The picture below is just some of the wood shaving from the planer.
I also extended our living room bookshelf by three sections. The first two sections on the left was the original shelf. We made the original section to see if we liked the look and style of the shelf. After we had that section up, we decided to extend it out to act as a room divider. Having the whole shelf finished and in place has been really nice. There is tons of storage space and it provides good separation from the office space to the living room.
Since we have have started to exercise we wanted some equipment to make it a little easier and a bit more effective. We started out by making a parallel bar station. Originally there was a vertical 4x4 in the front center that we were using for inclined chest rows. It didn't turn out to be as effective as we had hoped. The construction of the station was fairly simple. I used 4x4's with half laps, a 2x4 in the rear to keep it from bowing out and some 1" pipe.
As a level of progression in our exercise, we moved up from the standing chest rows to using the rings suspended from the ceiling to do the inclined chest rows. I used a single 2x6 @ 8ft to make a board that could be mounted to the ceiling. In order to make it safe and sturdy the board was cut into two pieces, one is on the ceiling and one is in the attic above the rafters, sandwiching them in. I made sure to use hardware that had a high weight rating. The weight rating seems to jump from 160 lbs to 350 lbs, there didn't seem to be an in between. Since I'm over 160 lbs, I went with the 350 lb rated hardware. It is a bit overkill but I'd rather be safe than injured. The eyelet hooks were fastened with a nut and washer that was countersunk from the top side. I also used some thread lock to keep the nut from coming off.
Soaping:
We haven't done anything other than move the containers all of the supplies are in.
Shop Updates:
Hang on, we have a shop that we're supposed to be updating? Oops!
Check out the sale we're running this weekend from Small Business Saturday through Cyber Monday.
Future Crafts:
We have been seriously considering trying to screen print our own shirts. I have created two designs that we would use if we finally decide to get the necessary supplies to make this happen. Let us know if you want to see us attempt to screen print.
With the cooler weather, we have been enjoying tea and cocoa almost every night. We have been looking for some (reasonably priced) stacking mugs that we saw in stores this spring, but no one seems to have them anymore. Our solution to this issue, of course, is to take up pottery and make our own. I think this one's a stretch as far as learning curve and tools go, we'll see.
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