Loop D' Loops

UPDATE 2/24/13: Come find me at my new blog, www.mysweetnomsa.com where I post other patterns and generally awesome things. See ya soon!
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I received a few questions about how to go about making one of these things, so I figured I might as well post a quick pattern. It is super duper easy though, cuz all you need to know is how to make a chain.

Gauge is not important with this. Just grab a lonely ball of yarn, an appropriate sized hook and start chaining.

Chain until your little fingers grow tired/you run out of yarn. After you have chained the entire ball, borrow a cute person's arms or use table legs if no cute person is around. Wrap the chain rope around the arms/legs until you get to the end of the rope. Create some sort of fashionable knot and hide the ends.

Wrap, twist and manipulate around your neck until you look cozy and hip like so.

Grease Lightning

Happy Belated Valentine's Day to Everyone. I hope yours was filled with romance with a loved one or perhaps sadistic revenge. However you celebrate...


Mine was filled with baking and cleaning. The boy had been out of town for a few days for a work retreat, so I had to clean up the mounds of yarn and fabric that had made its way to covering our floor. I baked some delicious vegan treats. First up, heart-shaped vanilla sugar cookies with raspberry jam frosting. I added extra jam to the frosting so that way they would be pink for the holiday. I also made some peanut butter cups, but I don't have pictures of those. They were so incredibly delicious, and we ate those right away. The boy was good to me and had flowers delivered. The entire time that we have been dating, he has given me flowers twice. Both in the last month. He told me that he is going to wait a few years before giving me flowers again, just to keep me on my toes.

Our Valentine's was lovely and low-key which is how I like it. We watched part of the second season of Heros on Netflix, which could possibly be one of the greatest shows ever.


Now our Sunday took an interesting turn around 11am. Let me preface this story by describing where I live. I live in DC, in the city. The building that I live in is HUGE. Beyond massive. It has over 1,000 units in it, and most of them are breaking safety codes by the number of individuals that cram into these units. With living in this apartment building, there is just some things that can't be controlled due to the sheer number of people. 1) Bugs. I have a bug problem that I do my darnest to fight, but I can't kill them all especially when others breed them. 2) Water issues. This second problem is the topic of today's sad story.


At around 11am, I am fixing brunch for the boy and I. He is on the bed doing his Sunday ritual of coffee and Meet the Press. I am in the kitchen doing mine, fixing biscuits and gravy for the both of us. During our routines, the kitchen sink starts gurgling and talking to me. I comment to the boy that the sink is making funny noises. No answer from the boy. After another few minutes I announce that I think the neighbors are plunging their sink because ours is gurgling something fierce. The boy brushes me off, tells me he will look at it later. I continue to putter about the kitchen, when a minor explosion occurs and blackness comes spewing up out of my drain, all on my countertop/food. Many naughty words came out of my mouth after this occured. The boy and I then scrambled with all of our pots and pans scooping out black gunk from our sink and dumping the contents in our toilet. After we got the water level down, we went downstairs and bought Draino from the convinence store in our building. Within the five minutes we were gone, our sink filled back up with black gunk and was starting to overflow. Once again, we ran around scrambling with pots and pans draining our sink. The boy started plunging it to clear the drain and we poured draino in our sink, praying that the blackness would go away.

Fast forward 15 minutes....more gurgling, more explosions, more naughty words. We scrambled to call the front desk and told them send up someone to help. In the meantime, we continued to scoop black gunk from our sink. Finally our rescuers arrived, but we had a language barrier. Both the boy and I studied different romance languages in high school (me = french, him = german), and didn't have the common sense to study the all-practical spanish. After attempting to explain to our rescuers that plunging didn't work, they decided to start plunging. They had this crazy pressure plunger that had guages and knobs out the wazoo, but I don't think they were using it right. Because after five minutes of plunging....our pipes exploded. Black gunk (which we have determined to be built up grease) comes spewing out extremely fast at this point, filling my cabinets, spilling to our floor and spreading out through our apartment. Literally tens and tens of gallons of grease came out of my pipes.

At this point, I began to reconsider my marvelous idea of decorating our apartment in white towels and rugs.

After spending an hour observing the maintainence men snake/fix my pipes, they left. I then was left with a big mess. I grumbled to myself for hours as I cleaned, scrubbing my toilet for the second time in 24 hours, and mopping my floor again and again and again. I then had the pleasure of cleaning ALL my dishes by hand. But at least I looked fabulous while doing so, wearing my fashionable leopard print rubber gloves, courtesy of my mom :)





After all was said and we done, we did get to go out and enjoy some daylight. I made some scarfs this past week and wanted to show them off/get some pictures of them for my etsy shop.

Things I currently dig...

**Beware...shameless product endorsement ahead**

1) Bleach.

After living in a dorm for four years and learning that shoving all your socks, towels, jeans, cashmere and silk into one load would save you enough money a week to buy a pint of ice cream....my clothes took a dingy turn for the worse. Upon graduating and discovering that all my white clothes were various shades of blue...I realized the awesomeness of sorting ones darks from the whites. And that's not all...using bleach on these whites.
Growing up my mother did a bleach load of clothes each week for our socks, etc...but I never had the importance of bleach built into my fiber. That has all changed. On a whim, I bought a gallon of classic Clorox Bleach at Target for $1.54. I had big plans in mind for crafting, but decided to use it one evening to wash our white towels.

Oh my gosh......... I will never look back. It is incredible!!!

I keep finding new things to bleach and marvel at their whiteness in the laundry room. I mumble to myself about how they smell like a pool as I stuff them into my Ikea laundry bag. I keep creating conversations with people just so I can discuss how awesome bleach is.

I give myself one year until I am spinning and dancing with a crisp white tuxedo shirt.

2) Sabra Roasted Garlic Hummus.

Last Sunday I happily clipped a coupon for this hummus from my newspaper. $1.50 off!! The economy must be bad when they are practically giving hummus away. I went grocery shopping and threw the roasted garlic hummus in cart, while congratulating myself on being an excellent bargain shopper.
Then comes Monday. I packed the hummus in my lunch with some baby carrots and was very excited for my afternoon snack. The Sabra company places a enormous pile of garlic in the middle of the hummus, so I stir away.

Okay...seriously....this was the most delicious hummus of my life.

I wrote a letter to the Sabra company thanking them for making me so happy and that I was a customer for life. If you have never experienced their hummus, I suggest you do so now. It might just make your life a little better.

P.S. They have a new cranberry/fig hummus that I am dying to try.

3) Hulu.

My boy and I have this little 13" tv that on a good day gets three channels. When it is overcast, two. Once the world goes digital next week, we are going to be cast into a world of static. I recently discovered Hulu from my cousin's blog and now I have no fear of being completely unhip about the pop culture world. I knit...I watch TV...I discover shows I didn't even know I loved. This brings to my last love....

4) The Biggest Loser.

I laugh. I cry. I become inspiried. All from the comfort of my apartment while eating oreos covered in peanut butter. I don't think that there is any feeling that will compare to feeling like a giant hypocrite due to a reality tv show. Each week I spend two hours watching a shameless plug for 24-hour fitness, Yoplait and Cheerios while eating nachos. It's divine.



Oh yeah....My etsy shop is on the up-and-up. I hope to get a decent amount of products in there over the weekend. But feel free to check it out and provide me with some feedback. The next great Martha Stewart empire must start somewhere.

Botox

So its all the rage....I improved/redid the look of my blog. I think it looks fabulous. I got a tip from the Vegancraftastic blog about a seller on Etsy who designs banners and logos for blogs and Etsy on the cheap. I couldn't pass it up. I picked out my one-of-a-kind design and had it patiently waiting for me in my inbox in less than 24 hours. Beautiful.

I don't know about you but I am one of those people who has to purchase items to feel more productive. Hence why I love grocery shopping so much. Nothing gives me more of a sense of accomplishment than picking out a delicious head of kale. With that being said, perhaps my newly designed blog will actually make me want to be more productive and a better blogger. Perhaps....

On a completely different note, I feel in lust yesterday with a few things for my wedding. I probably won't be able to buy these details because I am working with such a small budget, but sigh ....aren't these things sexy?

This are biodegradable/disposable bamboo plates. These are made by a company called Bambu who practices fair trade policies and have designed/created these awesome plates. They are made from 100% organically-grown bamboo, peeled directly from the stalk and compose within 4-6 months. Also you can get a case of 100 11" plates for $128.00. Love them!



When I emailed my mom an image of these, she thought that they were horrible. But then again she has an irrational fear of birds. These are mini bird nests that are filled with Jordon almonds. I love that these can be used as wedding favors/placecards. You can buy a 12-pack of nests for 9.00 and add the price of Robin Egg Blue Jordan almonds and I think you can do wedding favors/placecards for less than $1.00 a piece. I am really hoping to fit these in my budget.

Little girl fancies

I think at some point as a small girl, many of us dreamed of getting married. For the longest time of my childhood, it revolved around the wedding scene from 'Little Mermaid.' I would have my whole mer-family there, my favorite crab and seagull and of course....a huge rainbow. But as one gets older, realities set in, budgets get finalized....and you begin to realize...rainbows are freakin' expensive. And you never realized how big your entire mer-family was until you tried to feed all of them. And you can't even decide if you are going to have kids attending, let alone crabs or seagulls.

To me...weddings are a party and should be celebrated as such. I am throwing out much of the traditions that come with regular weddings and celebrating in a manner that will be extremely meaningful to my future husband and I for years to come. I also care about my guests, their needs and that they witness a true expression of love and devotion. I am going to try to do all of this without pulling out my hair.

That being said, today started the first true day of wedding planning. I have been engaged since August, and have yet to set a date or location. Hopefully by the end of the week, I will be able to finalize on a location and start planning for the wedding I never dreamed of as a kid.

Baking Frenzy

I have to say...I love weekends. Even more so now that I am not a student. I did my grocery shopping last night (i didn'tget much though because I only had a $40 budget this week) so in theory, I don't have to leave the apartment at all today. I also have complete solitude because my boy is working.

I decided to celebrate the day by baking my little heart out. It's one pm and so far today I have made one dozen vegan bagels, tofu scramble for two, and six dozen non-vegan cookies (for the boys work). I am planning on making approximately 4 dozen burritos today (breakfast & lunch for the boy and I throughout the week), and a few dozen vegan cookies. Delicious. I am super proud about my bagels. They are cinnamon with green/purple raisins and craisins. I also added some cinnamon and sugar to the top for an added crunch. I got the recipe from this fantastic website called Vegweb.com. They have thousands of fabulous vegan recipes. I absolutely adore the happy vegan chocolate cookies and the kale chips. I made this tofu scramble for breakfast this morning with some toast and Earth balance. Mmmmm....

My boy bought me a new sewing machine for my birthday in December, and I have yet to use it today. That all changes today. This afternoon is filled with hours and hours of sewing goodness. I have a pair of flared jeans that are just screaming....'We want to become skinny jeans. Please!' I can't deny them this privilege. I am not too sure how skinny jeans will look on me....but lets give it a shot.

Oh and this is something completely random....I think my right armpit is sweating more so than my left one. It's very unbecoming at the gym to have sweat all on my right side...but not my left. I don't like sweating very much in the first place, but if I do sweat, I expect it to be even at least. I feel like it is the least that my body can do for me since i am trying to be healthy.

A year has come and gone....

Oh my goodness.... I can't believe a full year has passed since I last wrote in my blog. So much for this commitment. I have decided though to post fairly regularly though since I now have internet connection and have decided that I want to be a famous crafter. Like Martha, but only a lot hotter. So, I guess I have a lot of updates to do (not that I have any readers, but more out of formality).

1) I graduated from University. Hurray for two degrees, a failing economy, and student loans out the wazoo.
2) I moved from Boulder, CO to Richmond, VA to Washington, DC.
3) I started dating a cool guy named John, got engaged to him, and we are celebrating our one year anniversary today. We are going to get married sometime in September of 2009. Hip Hip Hurray! Expect lots of wedding details here.

I think those are the biggest updates. I still love to knit. Still hoping to design some fabulous items. Still trying to get down to my fighting weight for my wedding.

PS...Oh and seriously...I love Jared Flood and all of his delicious knitting goodness. I drooled all over my keypad today staring at his beautiful knits. I just don't know how he does it. Sigh...