Thursday, December 18, 2014

Yarn Along - Scarlet Mitts

Greetings! Obviously one of favorite things is reading, but I also quite love knitting. Ginny over at Small Things hosts a lovely little link-up so once you're done here go visit and see what everyone else is up to.

 

So I got this gorgeous baby alpaca over a year ago with the intention of making the Malabrigo Hand Thingies (I can't make this up). The whole shop was making them and the baby alpaca yarn was the ticket. It's so soft, knits up so nicely, and feels so good. The pattern is simple but not boring so it's a great project to step you into starting more intermediate projects if you're ready to move past scarves.

But because I'm an idiot, I did two stupid things.

1) I only knit up one last year. Then I got distracted so I'm finally finishing the pair.

2) The second one I knit too tight. Like, waaaaaaay too tight. I don't know what was wrong with me but I seriously mucked up this bit. I'm debating whether or not I want to re-make it, just rip it all out and start over (even though I've technically already bound off). It only took me a week of half-hearted knitting to make the one so maybe I can get them done soon. *Update: I knit another hand thingy (I now have 3) in a size 8 and oh the difference! I'm currently working on a 4th on the size 8 needle and need to weave in ends on the others.*


The bright red is such a fun, festive color, too, and I have a ton left, so I could conceivably make a hat to go with my mitts! We'll see how ambitious I'm feeling when we get there. I'm pretty much done with Christmas knitting unless I crochet hats for my niece and nephew. I may make them mini-mitts as well but we'll see how ambitious I'm feeling. I don't think we'll be seeing them until after Christmas so perhaps I'll give them to them after the New Year?

Not sure if he can smell the alpaca or the lotion I was wearing before I put them on

If you want to know what else I've got on my needles, head on over to my Ravelry page for a look-see.  

Apparently they were also tasty... Goofy cat.

Reading: After my uncle moved out 2 weeks ago (did I fail to mention that I live alone!!!! ? It's awesome.) the internet has been no-worky. There's a cord/cable issue that has yet to be fully resolved. 

Love Letters to the Dead | [Ava Dellaira]
Audible
In any case, I finished listening to the Audible audio of Neil Gaiman reading his novel Neverwhere and it was wonderful. I also finished listening to Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale and have moved on to Love Letters to the Dead. It sounds way more morbid than it actually is. It's pretty good so far.

That's it for me today. What have you been knitting and reading lately? Let me know in comments and then head over to Ginny's to see what everyone else is up to!

Since I likely won't post another Yarn Along until after the new year, here's a fun little holiday-ish collage I made on PicMonkey (which is really, really fun to play with!). Happy New Year and may you all have a very blessed Christmas.


  
Love,

Willow
  
 P.S. I'm not sure what's going on with my font in this post - the changes may or may not be reflected in the finished post. Sorry if it looks wonky - working on fixing it!

*Author's Note: The Yarn Along button in this post is property of Ginny Sheller and is used with permission. The image of Love Letters to the Dead audio version is taken from the Audible website and used for illustrative purposes only. All other images used in this post as well as text are (c)Whitney Miller and may be used only with my express permission. See my About Page for details.*

Friday, December 12, 2014

Pinteresting, Vol. 10

Happy Friday and welcome to Pinteresting! The part of the show where I roundup my favorite pins from this week and share them with the world. I pin recipes, decorating ideas, religious stuff, teaching thoughts, funny stuff from Tumblr, kids' activities, crafting ideas, knitting/crochet patterns, and cute cat pictures.

1)

Are these not unspeakably cute??? The link from the pin links to a place where you can buy a kit, but you can also download the free pattern if you want to make your own and bedazzle 'em yourself. I'm gonna keep pinning Christmas stuff until Epiphany, y'all. Christmas is gooooood stuff. :)

2)


Ah, the adhesive hook, a renter's best friend. I've struggled with our trash bags in the kitchen trash can for a while now and tried every type and manner of taping I could think of and eventually just gave up and now just let it slip and endure the frustration. With this handy hack, though, perhaps others don't have to! Upon reflection, this hack won't work because my kitchen bin puts the liner inside an inner tube of trash can, which sounds weird but it's what I've got to work with. If I ever get a more traditional/standard bin like a normal person I'll definitely switch to this hack.
 
3)
 I need this in a big, bad way. It's everything I want in winter apparel: it's comfy, neutral colored, features a cute kitty, and has a sassy saying on it which will ensure my singleness! For more on my forays into the world of romance (HA) visit this post

4)


 I adore Haley Stewart at Carrots for Michaelmas. This post is one of many reasons why. I've got quite a bit of housework to get done before I can really enjoy Christmas (if you had my mother breathing down your neck, you would, too) and it's become rather a begrudging mountain of "I don't wanna." But, with a slight change of attitude and some small happy-making touches, housework isn't such a hassle. I would know, because I employed some of these things last night and got a whole slew of tidying done between 7:30 and 9pm. I even vacuumed! The whole house! 

5)


We don't do a whole lot of makeup talk here at Infinite, but every once-in-a-while I pin stuff and really like it and go to Walgreen's and buy it and end up really really liking it. This is kind of the reverse of that process. (Though I did pin another makeup-y thing that I then went out and purchased here.) I got this matte balm about 2 weeks ago and I can't stop wearing it. It comes out as a darker berry color on me instead of this pretty pink but I love it. The rich berry color isn't too dark but still feels on point for winter (whatever that means).
 

 *hem hem* THESE COOKIES. These cookies are your reward for making it to the end of this post because Sweet Jesus are they good. I made them last year as gifts for my office friends and neighbors and you bet your bum I'm making them again this year. They were a hit, they taste fantastic, and while they were baking my whole house smelled like Christmas. If you don't like mint or chocolate they are not for you (and I'm not for you, I mean really, what's not to love!?) but they're awesome. The recipe was posted at House Unseen by the lovely Dwija last year around this time, but because I needed the recipe for this weekend, I went digging through her archives to find it and pin it. The pin links to her post from last December. She got it from one of her daughters' books.


That's it for this week's edition of Pinteresting! I always enjoy curating my favorite, most recent pins. If you're not currently on Pinterest, make sure you take a moment to say goodbye to your loved ones before you log on, because there's no going back! You can follow me on Pinterest (any or all of my boards, find your cup of tea) HERE. Happy weekend!

love,
Willow
 

**Author's Note: None of the images in this post are my property. I have borrowed them from Pinterest and made my best effort to ensure that the Pinterest pages linked to link to an original source. If you see your work here and want it taken down please see my About page and contact me. Thank you for not suing.**

Friday, December 5, 2014

Pinteresting, Vol. 9

Happy Friday and welcome to Pinteresting! The part of the show where I roundup my favorite pins from this week and share them with the world. I pin recipes, decorating ideas, religious stuff, teaching thoughts, funny stuff from Tumblr, kids' activities, crafting ideas, knitting/crochet patterns, and cute cat pictures.

1) 


All I can say about this recipe is YUM. This has everything I love and want in a comfort food casserole for the cold, winter days we're entering: chicken, spinach, pasta and artichokes! I very rarely cook with artichokes and I definitely want to start doing so. This recipe also seems so versatile that you could add mushrooms and asparagus if you don't happen to have a jar of artichoke hearts handy.
 
2) 

Okay these are too stinkin' cute! They're kitties! But they're post-it flags! And they're indie-made! ALSO they are currently 30% off according to the selling site so off you pop - $2.77 isn't bad for novelty cute stuff like this. (Seriously, I'm gonna go buy some as soon as I hit "Publish.")
 
3) 

So I live alone, now, and don't have someone (albeit half-assedly) sweeping the kitchen and dusting and vacuuming most days (seriously, it was a half-assed job at best but it was still something) so now I get to do it all myself. Which means it will be done right the first time so it won't have to be done every single day. I like this set-up because it has you doing basic maintenance every day instead of the Saturday and Sunday deep-clean-while-you-have-the-chance silliness I usually end up doing. Basically I need to print this out and hang it in my kitchen.
 
4) 

So this actually links to an article about throwing a swanky New Year's Eve party on a budget, which is cool, but party hats!!!! They're so cute and little and I've loved this idea for quite sometime but now it's in easy step-by-step format for us! I'm totally making a Christmasy one for our confirmation class Advent Caroling Party in 2 weeks.
 
5)

On a completely different note, I feel this is a very important pin. If you remember from this post, my childhood home is haunted. Our favorite priest is visiting us from his village parish in Kenya for a short while, so hopefully he will perform a proper blessing of the house before he returns, but just in case. Also, I live alone now, and there's been a lot of negative energy in that house for the last 4 years so I'm keeping a printout of this handy because after the events of last month, I'm a little paranoid.
 

Fair warning, the source site is (I believe) in Czech or something similar. My Eastern European language skills are very poor, but my best inference is that it's Czech. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
But this little tea house is so cute!!! Sure, we can't read the directions correctly, but I imagine you could use pieces from a birdhouse kit (or 3) and use a jigsaw to cute out some of the shapes and add hinges of sorts to the roofs and then glue it all together. Right? Too much work? Maybe this is a good idea for an advanced shop class final project. For my birthday. Just a thought...

7) *Bonus* 


These are so cute! I've been thinking about knitting some things like this for a while out of some of my scrappy leftovers I have from all of my Christmas knitting, and these might be the ticket. Can you imagine an adorable little garland of these things for Valentine's Day??? It's a free pattern download so off you go, get your copy.




That's it for this week's edition of Pinteresting! I always enjoy curating my favorite, most recent pins. If you're not currently on Pinterest, make sure you take a moment to say goodbye to your loved ones before you log on, because there's no going back! You can follow me on Pinterest (any or all of my boards, find your cup of tea) HERE. Happy weekend!

love,
Willow
 

**Author's Note: None of the images in this post are my property. I have borrowed them from Pinterest and made my best effort to ensure that the Pinterest pages linked to link to an original source. If you see your work here and want it taken down please see my About page and contact me. Thank you for not suing.**

Monday, December 1, 2014

Adventures in Online Dating

I can't believe I just typed that title. Here we go...

This is a stupidly long post so I've broken it up with funny pictures from my Pinterest. Some of them are relevant and some of them are totally not. I've sourced below each pic.