An Extended Single Crochet?

 I was a very busy little person last weekend.  I was watching an episode of Knitting Daily and they mentioned something called the extended single crochet.  I thought it looked kind of interesting but didn't try it then.  While I was at K&CC (short for Knitters and Crocheters Care) I finished one more section of my secret project I found that I could not work on more.  The pattern I was using as a starting point for another part was not in my bag.

I then grabbed a random skein of yarn and decided to see how I liked that extended single crochet.

I was going to make a hat at first, but I didn't feel like counting to see how many stitches and what that was devisable by, so I just made a headband at first.

The working from the top down I started on one hat.  I like how I can just increase until it is the size I pretty much want and work straight down from there.  This was fun, but I knew it would be boring to make more than one of the same size.

So I made a very small preemie hat.  It is so tiny that it is hard to think that babies could have heads that small, but we all do start out as a tiny clump of cells and go from there.

A medium hat was something I felt was needed to round out my baby hat making for the day.  I knew I didn't have enough yarn to make another hat, but I wanted to use it all.

So I made a little headband with a flat "bow" on it.  The bow was pretty easy and I just kind of made it up as I went along. Here it is.

Simple Flat Bow

Chain 7

1. Sc 6 along chain starting from second loop from hook.
2. Sc 6
3. Sc 6
4. Sc 6
5. Sc2tog, sc 2, sc2tog
6. Sc 4
7. Sc2tog x2
8. Sc 2
9. Sc 2 in one sc from row before x2
10. Sc 4
11. Sc 2 in one sc from row before, sc 2, sc 2 in one sc from row before
12. Sc 6
13. Sc 6
14. Sc 6
15. Sc 6 fasten off at end and weave in tails.

99.5% Done

Here is another  is a Honeycomb Cowl(Ravelry Link).  I was hoping to make this long enough to fold over itself and seam the cast-on and bind-off together. However, it is only about 2.5 inches long.

I have left the tail on it for now.  I am going to get a few more opinions before I totally finish it.

There is another one planned after this, but I'm thinking I might take a hat break.  I might also make something completely different, who knows?  I'm awesome like that.

Both Behind and Stuck

I feel like I am behind on everything.  I wanted to get my Etsy shop up, get a good lead on the dishes, watch old stuff on the DVR, and keep this blog up to date.  Well, I have done none of these.  I have an idea what to charge for shipping for Etsy, but no pictures or bubble mailers.  It looks like for every dish I get clean, 2 or 3 more take its place.  The DVR keeps recording and I keep not watching.  As for this blog, I have a whole project that I started and finished without even mentioning wanting to do it.

(Why yes, I did get funny looks from the neighbors taking pictures in the front yard!  It is also difficult to photograph doubled.)

There is it.  It is a Honeycomb Cowl(Ravelry Link).  It took me a bit to get it.  I missed where it said to "slip all stitches with the yarn in back" and I was wondering why it looked so odd.  I might make another cowl with the yarn in front, it was interesting, but not what the picture on the pattern was showing me.

I was hooked. I have already started another one and have a third in mind.  I already have the yarn and everything for the third one.  I want the colors to be a surprise (it will also make it easier in case my idea turns out to be a horrible thing).

I feel like though I am still behind, that I'm starting to claw my way back up.  I know it will take a bit of time, but I am feeling a bit better about everything.

Here is a picture of my project manager coming in from out photo shoot. 

Perfect Time for a Snow Day!

I am a very happy little camper today.  It said it was going to snow a lot, and it did.  Not only do I get to see a ton of snow on the ground again, but I get a snow day from work.  Perfect timing too!  I was supposed to be in super early (for me, 7am is super early) to help with inventory.  Instead I slept until 9:30 and am enjoying the view.  Not sure what all I hope to get done today, but here are some pictures.

Poor kitty! Have some knitting.

Mr. Jag got to go to the vet on Wed morning and have his teeth clean.  While they were in there they discovered that two had holes and a third was so bad the roots were almost showing.  He got those taken out.  They said he woke-up just fine and all that good stuff.  He now gets anti-inflammatory pills and liquid pain medication.  I can't tell if the pain medication tastes bad, makes his tongue numb, or both.

Here is the brave Old-man Kitty!  You can partially see on his left front leg where they had to shave some fur off to give him fluids.  He is going to be 15 come March and has a heart murmur, so they were a bit worried about putting him under.  But like the champ he is everything was fine (not counting his poor teeth)

I tried to get a picture of him wearing it, but he was being a grumpy model.  I told him models that are this hard to work with never get work.  He didn't seem to care.  Right now I'm trying to decide if I want to make it a long scarf or a shorter one.  It has enough length that you can overlap it in the front, which would be fine if it were to be worn with a coat.  I don't know what the person who will get this is looking for though.  I think I'm going to sit on the choice for a little bit before I commit too much to either way.

What is this? Canada?

It has just been way too cold around here for my tastes!  When I was helping a friend move some stuff she brought up here from her parents' place it was about 7°F. The next day(yesterday) it was around 12°F.  Just way too cold for me.  I was even going to bring her bird to her on Tuesday, but I thought it was way too cold for the little feather-poof as well.  My car almost didn't start either.  I was half hoping it wouldn't so I could go back inside and not have to go to work.

Tonight my mom and I ventured forth and made it to knit-night.  As we were walking by we saw a demo was being given.

Arm knitting!  I knew about finger knitting, but nothing about arm knitting!  It looked pretty cool.

In one direction you have the working yarn facing towards your body and facing away in the other.  It was really cool.  She had a few lengths of cowls and scarves with her to show-off the finished product.  I might have to try it out, it looks so nice and soft. 

I am back to working on my double-knit spiral scarf.  I put it down because it was feeling really slow and boring.  Now that we have had time to think about our differences, it is going fast and is fun again.  Everyone was going on and on about how good it is looking so far.

Some of you have probably noticed that I mentioned my awesome idea last year, but nothing has come of it.  I know I said I was going to do one of the writing prompts every week of the year and we are almost at the end of week two.

I've noticed something about this year so far.  It seems like the year to slowly start things.  Not put them off, but ease into them.  I think I'm okay with that being the theme of this year.  It's not that we won't get things done, but we won't rush into anything.

What doesn't this blog have on it?

I got this idea for sandwiches and wanted to share.  I wasn't sure where to put it, so I decided that here wouldn't hurt.
I used to think eggplant was only okay.  I had it the usual way in eggplant parmesan and was never really impressed by it.  It never had a real presence in the dish in my opinion.
The other day I was cutting one up and tried a bit of it raw.  Oh my goodness.  It was so good.  It is lightly sweet and has a nice soft spongy feeling to it.  I thought it would be a perfect replacement for anyone who didn't want to use bread.
I tried something and it didn't work.  Soft things will just get smooshed out as you eat.  You need firm things if you are going to make a sandwich.  If you want to have little finger-food type things, then just cut each slice into quarters and top away.
Some of my ideas for sandwiches are as follows:

• bell pepper(pick your favorite color) and a bit of lemon juice
• cucumber and fennel, just like little tea sandwiches.  These could even be cut-up so they are smaller.
• zucchini and tomato slices with basil

These are just the ones I came-up with in the car.  You could do ham and cheese if you wanted.

Here is a knitted water-bottle cover I made just to make sure this post doesn't go too crazy and to keep this blog legit. (don't take that sentence too seriously)

I don't know why, but it sounds like an awesome idea if I could make a ton of these and have some water-bottle company donate some bottles.  I don't know if these would be something people would need, but I sure do like the idea of it.