LibrariAnne

Come Out of Your Shell

More stash-busting, this time in the form of a striped hat.

I only had a really small amount of this yarn left, and I wasn’t sure how far it might stretch. I started off thinking this would be an adult hat, but about half way through I realized that there wasn’t going to be enough yarn. So I adjusted the pattern as I went and made it into a hat for a bigger baby/smaller child. The ribbed edge is very stretchy, so it can probably fit a variety of sizes. It’s shown here on the model I use for newborn hats but would definitely stretch to fit a larger head if desired.

I was able to retain some of the slouchiness of the original pattern and used up almost the entire skein – I only have a couple yards left, which is really cutting it close. The brief for this HPKCHC challenge (Herbology) was to make something that will help you overcome your shyness or timidity. I thought that this self-striping yarn fit since it is a pretty bold pattern.

As this hat is for a baby or child, I’m looking for a home for it! If you know a kid you think might like it, let me know and I’ll send it your way.

dining room day five and six

Last you might remember, we had installed the new tile in the dining room. Next we did some finishing touches (copious amounts of pics on my flickr) and got some base cabinets to install in the corner. We chose to buy unfinished cabinets since we were planning to paint them white anyway (to go with the kitchen cabinets) and getting the unfinished ones saved us some bucks. We managed, somehow, to make the final decision about which cabinets to get the same day that the Despot was finishing their 20% off in-stock cabinets sale. And we decided this at about 5pm. So we grabbed a quick dinner, looked online to see that our closest Despot had two cabinets in stock as well as a truck available for rental so we could haul them home, bought the cabinets, loaded the truck, brought them home, and returned the truck within an hour. It was like we had some Felix Felicis for supper! Then we spent the better part of a couple weeks sanding, priming, and painting the cabinets, doors, and drawer fronts. We have a really small set-up for painting the doors and such (just a couple sawhorses in the basement) so it took awhile to get everything done.

This weekend K had the whole weekend off, so Saturday morning we woke up early and got right to work. Here you can see the before shot of this area.

We did some careful measuring to figure out what we needed to cut out to accommodate the awkward little vent box in the corner. Luckily K measures things precisely for a living, so he’s really good at this. It was in the upper 40s, so we set up in the driveway so all the sawdust could stay outside. As you can see, these cabinets are definitely the basic, no-frills edition. They’re solid wood on the front, sides, and where needed for structural integrity, but the back of the cabinet is just laminated particle board. So chopping off part of it made me wary – I thought for sure we’d end up with a wibbly-wobbly off-kilter thing that we could never get to be quite square again.

But, lo and behold, it worked! We had to do a little trimming here and there to get it to fit exactly, since the vent cover box isn’t exactly square and the corner walls aren’t either. We were very pleased that we had all the tools on hand (jigsaw and keyhole saw being most important to this task).

Here you can see that the vent cover box comes out just a teensy bit farther on the side than this 24″ cabinet. This worked to our advantage, since the cabinet could rest on the box, but the sticky-outy bit of the box fit in between the two cabinets – no need to cut anything out of the right-hand cabinet.

Next we made the two cabinets into one unit. We used a piece of square trim to fill the space between the two, and then used bolts, washers, and nuts near top and bottom, back and front, to keep things secure.

There were actually some pre-drilled holes in the cabinets that we didn’t need to use for anything else, so we used them for the bolts. Hooray!

We put the unit into the corner and then worked to shim it up to level. No one wants a countertop that things roll off of! The floor here is definitely not level, so thank goodness we bought a whole packet of shims. We needed them! Once it was level, we used screws to fasten it to the wall. Not that it would probably be going anywhere, but we thought it wouldn’t hurt.

And there is it level! Just waiting for us to sleep on the decision of what to do for a countertop. (Also still waiting for the toe kick, which was drying from being painted, and for trim as is the rest of the room.)

So the next morning, despite it being the spring forward DST shift, we woke up nice and early and decided that the IKEA PRAGEL countertop was the right choice. Its finish is very close to what we will be doing in the kitchen, and the price was right. I posted in our neighborhood facebook group that we were looking for someone with a pick-up truck who might be willing to help us haul it home, and within 20 minutes had a volunteer. So we were able to pick it up that afternoon! Three cheers for nice neighbors! Here you can see K fitting it in to see how it looks. He had a few ideas for keeping the long end as a breakfast bar.

I was a little concerned about trimming the piece and having the laminate split or crack. Luckily the intarwebs was there to help! I found that a few people recommended using a 60-Tooth Carbide blade for the circular saw and claimed that it would cut through the countertop “like butter” and leave no burns or other marks. They weren’t lying! We took our daily second trip to the Despot and picked up a Diablo (!) blade for the saw. It worked really well and I definitely recommend it.

Then came the oh-so fun task of attaching the countertop to the cabinets. The cabinets came fitted with little plastic thingies in the corners so it was easy to mark and pre-drill the holes, but squeezing into the corners and retaining enough torque to get the screws to move was a real trick. K came up with the ingenious solution of using a ratchet, which worked well in a couple of the corners. All of the corners were too tight to use a drill. Also, we were able to use the same screws that we used to attach the cabinets to the wall, which was nice since we had to buy a box of a few hundred.

Hooray! K is so excited to not be cramped up inside the cabinet anymore! Also to have me pestering him to pose for photos! No really!

I think it looks really nice! I’m seriously pretty impressed with us for doing this project. We had gotten a couple of quotes to have a contractor do this, and it would have been at least $2000 for this project. I’m sure the quality of the materials would have been slightly or significantly superior, but it still would have been wooden cabinets, painted, with a laminate countertop. We did this ourselves for (including renting the truck and shelling out $20 for the special saw blade) less than $250. Aw yeah.

I’m excited to get the toe kick and trim installed. We’re still debating on whether or not to do any kind of backsplash over here. There’s only a tiny section of backsplash in the kitchen and it’s a metal tile thing that I’m not a huge fan of, so I don’t think I’d want to replicate it here.

We couldn’t wait to load it up! Now our countertop convection oven and microwave can live happily together here, and the cabinets will hold a variety of other small appliances that don’t need to be out all the time (slow cooker, mixer, etc). Please don’t be alarmed at the weird blueness of the world outside the window – I took this photo at night and had to amp up the exposure to get it to be less shadowy. So! This project gets a big thumbs up for success!

Alohamora

This project is one of those that ends up being so right in every way: it knits up quickly and easily, it used up some yarn in my stash, and the finished product is lovely and something I think I will wear.

I made this for HPKCHC Charms, hence its namesake, Alohamora. This is some leftover yarn that has been sitting around for years waiting for me to find a use for it. Elizabeth Benson’s Intriguingly Posh Neckwarmer pattern to the rescue! The yarn is 100% merino and is super-duper soft. I also love the variegation in this colorway – you wouldn’t necessarily think, “this purple yarn needs some maroon in it,” but it works perfectly. I chose to highlight that little bit of color with the buttons (which were a splurge at Joann for $.47 total – thank you, Coupon Commotion!). Best of all, this is just garter stitch with a couple of button holes at the start and took just a tiny amount of time to complete. This one’s a winner!

sundog: melting

Coraline adores sleeping underneath a lap blanket, and especially on or adjacent to an actual lap. Occasionally she will come up for air, though, and then she often continues napping.

This picture was taken with my phone and then enhanced to bring up the exposure, so it’s a bit grainy. But you can see how boneless she’s gone here. Just look at the wattle all bunched up under her neck!

Pansy for camera

Today brings more hot stash-busting action!

This is some lovely sock yarn that was waiting to be finished up. I saw this pattern on Rav for a camera strap cover and thought it was a terrific idea. My camera strap was okay, but plain and utilitarian. Now it’s snazzy!

I wasn’t sure what the self-patterning would look like on such a small item, but it worked out very neat. The light purple lines work their way around the strap with sections of dark purple.

Now I’ll feel super stylish carrying my camera!

Mimbulus Mimbletonia

For HPKCHC Herbology, the assignment in February was to make something with protrusions. My mind immediately went to Neville Longbottom’s notorious Mimbulus Mimbletonia plant.

I think this project worked out to fit the prompt quite well! Though these protrusions aren’t exactly boil-like and thank goodness no stinksap is involved, I am pleased with it.

I was able to use up nearly every last bit of this yarn, with only about 10 yards left, if that. Pretty good!

juiced

Every morning I like to have a glass of orange juice with or after breks. It makes me feel like I’m all vitamin-ed up for the day and ready to have energy for accomplishing a ton before lunch.

These juice glasses were a wedding shower present from my sister‘s mother-in-law, and I just adore them. They weren’t on our registry or anything, but they go perfectly with our dishes and are just the right size for the amount of juice I want to drink in one sitting. It was so thoughtful of her to find them for us and see how perfect they are!

Lapis Lazuli

The HPKCHC Divination prompt for February was to make something inspired by one of the colors associated with the four houses at Hogwarts. I chose Lapis Lazuli, so I could use up some more of this lovely blue bamboo/wool yarn.

I think they turned out quite well! I’m pleased with these very spread out cables, since they work well with a longer glove like this.

This yarn is also super-duper soft, so these will be very comfy to wear.

Amortentia

February’s Potions challenge was to craft something that represents what your personal Amortentia would smell like. For me, this would include the smell of cookies baking (vanilla), but also something fresh and clean and like sunlight shining on you.

This cowl is part of my continuing stash-bust. It’s very soft and completely washable. It is a very loose weave so it’s airy and light. If you’re interested in it, let me know and I’ll send it your way!

hallway and entryway OR goodbye, carpet!

Late last week, I got a wild hair while K was at work one day and pulled up the carpet in the hallway. We were planning to do this anyway, but I just couldn’t wait until he was home and figured, why not?

It came up pretty easily, as it had in other areas of the house. I was happy to see that the hardwoods are in pretty good shape here, too (again, as they are in other areas of the house). There are some paint splatters that we can scrape up with a putty knife, though we’ll put a runner rug in the hallway so they wouldn’t be visible anyway. We weren’t sure where the hardwood border with the vinyl? flooring would be, and it’s at an interesting place. Luckily the border is in good shape, and we’ll likely want to put a threshold between the hardwood and the new tile anyway.

You can kind of see in this photo that the kitchen floor is slightly higher than the vinyl. There appears to be a layer of self-adhesive tile, a layer of sheet vinyl flooring, and a layer of subfloor on top of the original subfloor. Interesting!

This shows where I left off on the day that K was at work – I was not about to try moving the TV and all of the components by myself.

He arrived home when I was just about finished, and helped me with the last bits. Here is a tip for you: when you think you’ve pulled up all the carpet tacks and staples, run over the floor with a dry Swiffer. You’ll be able to feel any lingering bits that are sticking up so you can then get rid of them. Also, it picks up a lot of the dust/dirt/eww that is left even after shop-vac-ing.

Then on Sunday, we tackled the last bit of carpet. It’s almost gone!

And it’s gone! Hooray! The space feels a lot more open and cohesive now, even without the new tile being down yet. There were, of course, a few spots that needed patching to make an even surface for us to lay down the new tile, so that has to dry before we move on. All in all, I’m really pleased with how this has gone.

So now we need to decide about a runner and doormats. I’d like to put matching doormats throughout the house so that things will tie together, and might as well match the runner as well.

First we have the HESSUM from IKEA. The two images are not to scale – the runner is on the left and the doormat on the right.

Then we have the Mayan Sunset from JCP. It looks pretty much the same in both shapes. My thoughts so far: the HESSUM is neutral and according to reviews is really durable. The Mayan Sunset magically ties in colors from the two bedrooms and the library. The IKEA rugs are slightly less expensive than the JCP ones, but only by a few dollars. Thoughts?