Yarn + Wine = Knitted Wine Cozy
I whipped up these wine bottle cozies the other day. The yarn is Hip-Hop from Berocco, purchased from the lovely sale porch at Cottage Yarn. I originally had something else in mind for the yarn but it didn’t work out.
To make these, I cast on 33 stitches, then divided the between three size 8 dpns. I then knit each row up to the bottleneck. At the bottleneck, I began decreasing by one stitch on each needle. I slipped the work over the bottle every few rows to make sure it was fitting properly.
At the narrowest part of the neck, I had 4 stitches on each needle. I think that all in all, this project turned out quite nicely. Not only are they attractive looking, but they will protect your wine from light, which ultimately will spoil it. Consider these the poor crafter’s portable wine cellar.
Not that wine ever lasts long enough in our house to spoil.
No ma’am, that is never a problem.
that was easy
I belong to a knitting group — actually, it’s a needlecraft group. We are called the Queen City Needlers, and I think we are a lovely group of talented, intelligent, and slightly unhinged (in a good way!) women. Men are welcome too, however none have dared to join us, yet. All of the ladies in the group are very organized in their crafting. They all have the proper bags and cases to keep their needles, hooks, yarn and accessories organized. I’m always running out the door to our meeting and grabbing whichever tote is the least full and shoving my current project in it. This means I often times end up at the meeting without the right size crochet hook, minus the tape measure I just finally found (in the couch cushions) and usually without scissors. Needless to say it becomes annoying to myself and I’m sure to others.
After the meeting today, I was inspired to make a case for my crochet hooks. I stopped at Michael’s and AC Moore and while I liked a few models they stock, they didn’t really look like something I would carry. Some were also kind of pricey. So, I went to Hancock Fabrics, picked up four felt squares (2 black, 1 wine, 1 purple) and fished a dollar out of my purse to pay for them.
At home, I sat at my sewing desk, cut one piece of black felt in half, then cut one of those halves in half again. I attached the smaller piece to the top of the red square (it’s a rectangle, actually) and the larger piece to the bottom. I laid them on top so the corners of the black pieces are flush with the corners of the red piece. Then, I stitched all the way around the whole rectangle.
Next, I stitched canals along the short length of the rectangle. I stitched as many canals as I have crochet hooks. I made some wider than other to accommodate my larger hooks.
Lastly, I stitched a piece of ribbon (from my stash) along the center of the rectangle, going the wide length of the fabric and fixed a little loop to the back to tie my ribbon around.
All told, the project took about 30 minutes (most of that was figuring out little details) and cost me 45.5 cents. I still have two more felt rectangles and will probably knock out another one tonight!
I have to admit, I’m having one of those “I’m pretty pleased with myself because I made this” moments!
Crab Casserole
I forgot to take a picture of it after I baked it, but I assure you, it was very good.
Yo-yo
It started with Mary Jane’s Stitching Room, and hopefully it will end with a tapestry-like bag made of yo-yos. This is what I have so far. I think I am working backwards as I don’t have the pattern of the bag contructed (Aimee pointed this out), or even invented. I will get there…
Regardless, I think my efforts are, so far, pretty good.
Location, location
My husband wants to move to NY. I have always had this dream that we could one day own an apartment in a foreign city. It’s probably not totally inaccurate to say that NY is like a foreign country. But instead of owning an apartment, we would be renting one.
We would be selling our house, giving up the one day dream of equity (whatever that really means) and become one with the renting ranks, again. Not that that is a bad thing. But we have only been homeowners for just under 2 years. He doesn’t want to do this tomorrow, or even in 6 months. 3 years, maybe? Three years to plan (panic!) and save (again, whatever that means).
And then there’s the weather…
And my arthritis. I already feel like a cripple on many days. What if this big, jumbled, busy, racing, buzzing city just knocks me down because I can’t move fast enough across the street or up the stairs?
And there’s the cost… It’s so expensive and I known it is terribly irresponsible but I don’t even know how much money we make each month.
So, there are a lot of things we have to figure out. Is this even possible?
This is a first
Welcome! This is my first entry. More good stuff later…
xo,
Courtney
