Tag Archives: Kitchen

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Injury, Illness and Productivity…

Well, it’s been over a month and I figured I’d better post something…

My dad got the island shell finished and we got it into the kitchen. Here’s a picture. Please excuse the mess, we don’t have anyplace to put anything at the moment.

Island Shell

You may be able to tell, we added another cabinet on the end (the left side of picture). It just wasn’t quite long enough. It is now 10-feet long.

One evening, right after my last blog post as a matter of fact, we decided to put it in its permanent spot on the floor. I was on the left end, walking backwards. Sweetie said that was a good spot and so I let the cabinet drop. It landed on the big toe of my right foot!

I’m still not convinced that the toe hadn’t been fractured. I couldn’t walk for several days and only this past week and a half have I been able to wear something on my feet other than my snow boots.

I thought I was going to lose the nail on that toe, but I haven’t yet. Thank goodness! The thought of that just really gives me shivers!

The week I was home with my toe, sweetie came down with the flu. He promptly gave it to me and then he developed pneumonia. I developed a serious sinus infection and ear infection and have been off work ever since. My boss won’t let me come back until my symptoms are gone. So, basically, I’ve been off work for a month. This is seriously painful for the bank account! I went to the doctor about two weeks ago and he gave me antibiotics. They didn’t work. I go back again on Tuesday. That too hurts the bank account, because I don’t have insurance.

Well, one positive thing about being off work and not feeling like doing much is that I have plenty of time to play with yarn!

I finished up the afghan that I started months ago…

The afghan block is called Arches and it is available here.

Dark Square

Light Square

Complete Afghan

It’s the perfect size for me to use on the couch. Sorry I didn’t get any pictures that show the size, but after putting it through the washer and dryer to block, the squares are 10 inches. I used Red Heart Super Saver yarn in the colorways Buff and Cafe Latte. It is soft, squishy and oh-so comfy! Acrylic yarn really has come a long way since I first learned to crochet in the 80’s!

Next up, I made this shrug… I needed a cover-up to wear over tank tops at work (tanks aren’t allowed to be uncovered) and I was tired of wearing the same old, plain cardigans. I designed this simple shrug myself. The only pattern I used was this stitch pattern: My Picot #2049.

FoF Back

Starting chain 99 + 1 (tripled pattern horizontally). Repeated 13-row stitch pattern 3 times to create large rectangle. Single-crochet border around raw edges. Sewed 20 stitches up sleeve. After sewing it up, I did 3 more single crochet rounds around the cuffs and edge. Hand washed, dried in dryer. It took me about 10 hours to finish this project. I used Red Heart Super Saver acrylic yarn in White. Again, it washed up nice and soft.

And my most recent project comes from a booklet that I inherited from my mother in law. It’s the Coats & Clark Pineapple Doily A-1067. This can be found in the Learn to Crochet booklet.

Doily A-1067

This is my first pineapple project. It took me about three days to finish.

Well, that’s about it for now!

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Long Time No See!!!

Sweetie has been doing a small kitchen remodel. He’s taking out the L-shaped wall that separates the kitchen from the living area and replacing it with an island. I joke that the only way he can get rid of the yellow walls (which he truly hates, BTW) is to tear them down. But, half of the kitchen walls are still intact. Haha!

Kitchen Demo

The studs on the left are now gone. My father has the plywood and is building the island’s shell, as I type this. Once we get the shell in – probably next week sometime – we will face it with some blue and buggy that was salvaged from James’ grandparent’s house when it burned down. We are going to use the classic white-and-gray marble floor tiles for the top. And the countertop’s trim will be cobalt-blue ceramic.

After the island is in, we’ll update the floor with vinyl tile. We already bought some for the project, but now I’m rethinking the pattern. We may end up going with something else and using the tiles that we’ve purchased elsewhere.

I still haven’t done the second coat of white paint on everything (or the first coat on the drawers). I should probably get on that…

On the crafting side of things…

I’ve been kind of obsessed with cowls, lately. They are great projects for me… They work up quickly (great for one such as myself who has startitis). They are quite useful in our area. And they don’t use a whole lot of yarn.

Cowl

This was fun to make. I like the front-post stitches. I used Cotton-Ease yarn, which is a mixture of cotton and acrylic. It’s my new favorite yarn. I made simple one out of this yarn for sweetie, but I didn’t take pictures. The pattern for this cowl can be found here. This cowl turned out a bit too long for my taste. It wasn’t long enough to wrap twice and it was too long to do much good. I ended up giving it to my niece.

Granny Stripe Cowl

This was just a simple granny stripes cowl using Red Heart Earth and Sky yarn. No pattern involved. I really like it, but unfortunately I have to pull it on over my head. Since I usually wear my hair up, this can be a bit of an issue. I made one of these in the Red Heart Pink Camo colorway, but it wasn’t tall enough. I gave it to my niece, too.

Cowl Cap

I found the pattern for this button-up cowl to wear when my hair is up and I don’t want to pull something over my head. It’s really cute, but I need to move the buttons; they are too close to the edge and as such gaps are created.

I’ve also made a couple of doilies in the last couple of days:

tOctoberfest Doily

As you can see, I made this one from yarn rather than thread. It is called Octoberfest and the pattern can be found here. I’ve never done a spiral like this before and it was fun to watch it materialize.

Five Point Century Snowflake

I stayed up late last night and made this one for sweetie. I chose it for the cute little hearts. He much prefers doilies made from thread. He’s pretty much the only person for whom I will crochet with thread. I very much prefer tatting with thread rather than crocheting with it. This pattern can be found here.

Still in the works are the kitchen curtains. A few weeks ago I had a very frustrating experience with them and have walked away. Now that there’s no wall to hide the kitchen, I get a daily reminder of how unattractive bath towels hanging over the windows are.

And here are some gratuitous critter pictures:

Excuse Me

Ray and Metal Manger

Dolly and Tank

Gratuitous Hound Photo

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Three Day Weekend!

So, my new boss told me that Monday (here in the US it’s President’s Day) is not a holiday where we are forced to take off. He allows everyone to make their own decision about whether or not they want to take that day off (without pay, of course). I guess it’s the same with the 4th of July, too.

I was debating whether or not I should take the day… Well, my niece suggested that we get the kitchen painted this weekend and that clinched it! I’m taking the day off and we’re painting! Yay!

I am so grateful that I have a job that pays well. I could afford to go buy two gallons of paint – one white and one yellow. Paint is purchased and we are going to re-prime tomorrow and then paint on Monday! Very exciting!!!

Watch this space for a yellow-and-white kitchen reveal within the next few days!

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Kitchen Before and After!

Hi All!

Well, we started working on the kitchen and I finally got my pictures uploaded from my camera!

Sweetie is planning to spray orange peel texture on the walls, so my little “love note” will be covered. But, we will always know that it’s there.

I apologize in advance for the funky angles of these pictures… It’s a small kitchen and in order to photograph large areas, I often have to stand off to the side.

Ugly brick before:

Not terrible brick after two coats of masonry sealant:

Note the pink edges on the white brick in the top photo… That is some of the brick color bleeding through. Bleeding through TWO coats of masonry sealer! Well, we touched those areas up with TWO coats of primer and it finally stopped coming through.

Ugly cabinetry before (The person working above the window is my niece. She has been a huge help with this project):

Decent cabinetry after two coats of primer:

First layer of ugly wallpaper:

Bottom layer of ugly wallpaper (Not as bad as the paper we removed, especially with the white cabinets):

Now, as I’ve said before… Sweetie is going to spray orange peel texture on all of the walls (except the brick). The walls and brick are going to be painted yellow and the cabinets are going to be painted white.

Unfortunately, we ran out of money, so paint is not in the budget right now. Thankfully, the bottom layer of wallpaper (which will not be removed) doesn’t seem quite as hideous as it did with the brown wood cabinets.

The cats and dog LOVE having a much bigger (more than twice the size of our former abode) place to run and play!

The big furniture pieces have been placed, so we are able to live in the new house. It has been such a huge improvement over being in the motorhome!

I haven’t been doing any crafty stuff, as the house has been taking all my time and energy. But, I have some projects in mind that will include some things crocheted.