Knucks: Finally finished (and given away)

Dear Shayne,

A long, long time ago, I was working on a pair of "Knucks." Do you remember those? While I finished the knitting back in Nov 2006 (told you it was a long time ago), I dragged my feet for awhile on embroidering "Go Browns" on them. I finally did that about 6 months ago, but I wasn't thrilled with the embroidery, so I put them away and did not report on them here.

I got them out a few weeks ago and I was forced to be honest with myself about something else... they're too snug for me. I've been in denial about it, but they're just a little too tight. Enough to not be comfortable. Sigh. Fortunately, my mother is also a Browns fan and her hands are smaller than mine!

Since she was in town last week, I decided to show them to her and see what she thought of the embroidery that I was also not happy with. If she liked it, I would give 'em to her. If she didn't... well, I would try again, although my hopes were not high (I think I used too bulky of a yarn for the fingers to make good letters... also, the brown letters sort of fade into brown and orange knitting. Maybe white would be better?)

As soon as I showed them to her, she went nuts over them, so I gave 'em to her. They look really cute on her and now I don't have to see my embroidery flaws all the time. I have plenty of brown and orange yarn, so I'll just make myself another pair!

Just for posterity (and so you can see my not-so-great work), here is how the embroidery turned out:


Now I've got until September to make myself a pair. Go, Browns!

love,
kelly

Yeehaw!

Dear Shayne,

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I've been crocheting a cowgirl hat (Yeehaw Lady from Debbie Stoller's The Happy Hooker). It's finished! It's a little bit wonky and does not look great on the glass head, but my head is bigger than the glass head, so it looks all right on me (I think).


Thank goodness I had my friend Jocelyn's help with this (Hi, Jocelyn!) because the pattern ended up being waaaaay too big (and I have a big head!) She forged ahead and ripped back when she saw what was coming, thereby saving me the agony of ripping back (too much) myself.


I can't say that I would trade in my knitting needles for a crochet hook, but it is certainly faster than knitting and you can make nice, structured things very quickly with crochet.

I also realized that I've been making dishcloths wrong all of these years. When I said that earlier to Jocelyn, she said, "Why? How have you been making them?" I said, "Knitting."

Yeah. It usually takes me 4 hours to knit a dishcloth. I could probably whip one out in about an hour with crochet. It's crocheted dishcloths from now on, baby. Yeehaw!

love,
kelly

Other items from the swap

Dear Shayne,

As I mentioned before, we had a "craft supply swap" at work last week and I took a couple of things home. I've already shown you the tatting, but here are the other two items.

Enough fabric to make a long skirt:


Sigh. I have a terrible time getting motivated to make clothes, but I couldn't resist this one. I don't know what it is exactly, but it feels like rayon or a rayon blend. Plus, it's preeeettty.

Also, I got some scraps of topographic paper:


Good for collages and whatnot, right? I like that this one on top says "Hay."

Even though I really shouldn't have brought anything home, it's still less stuff than I took to the swap, so yay!

love,
kelly

Sam's tote bag

Dear Kelly,

Sam loves the tote bag you made him. He's been using it to carry his Nintendo DS around...it's the perfect size!

Thanks again for making it for him.

Love,
Shayne

Cake-y goodness

Dear Kelly,

My husband has one major flaw: he doesn't like chocolate. I recently heard him complaining to my mom over blueberry muffins she had just made that I only ever bake chocolate things. So I told him I'd make a strawberry cake. (Strawberry cake batter to me is as gross as chocolate is to him, so this was *very* nice of me.)
















I made a single layer round as well as twelve cupcakes. I couldn't find strawberry icing at my grocery store, so I frosted it all with vanilla icing and topped it all off with fresh strawberries.
















I was very excited to finally see my Cup-a-cake containers in action.
















Love,
Shayne