The Neverending Quilt

I can't even tell you exactly when Cale and I started working on this quilt. But I know we were still living in Boston at the time, and I think it was at least a few months before we moved to NYC. So... since we just renewed our lease, that means it's been over a year. And it's not a complex quilt. In fact, it's a really simple pattern. But we have a tendency to get sidetracked.

Basically, we've gotten as far as we have by working in spurts of diligence. We'll go through a week or two when we work on it a little bit every night, and then we just don't. For a few months. And then one of us will be inspired to go back to it, and we go through the same cycle again.

Our last "on" period was sometime in the dead of winter, and we were making such good progress that we thought we might finish before the weather got too warm to use it, and we even bought a gigantic roll of batting in anticipation. Well, now that batting has been taking up a good portion of our limited storage space for a good 3-4 months.

Well I got inspired again, after unearthing the quilt pieces when I was cleaning a few days ago, so we're working on it once again. I'm hoping that putting this out there in the blogosphere will help me keep up the momentum to actually finish this thing. We're about 3/4 done with the top, and then we need to assemble the layers, so if we keep at it we should be able to finish before the weather gets cold again.

I'm pretty sure I said that to myself around this time last year, but now I'm going to make it an official goal. This quilt will be complete before the end of October. Oh boy, now I've said it. Can we do it??? Feel free to leave me words of encouragement!

And now for some pictures of the infamous quilt...

It's got a two-way gradient thing going on, so the green gets darker as the brown gets lighter. That bit wasn't in the pattern - the pattern just had blues and creams randomly distributed. And man, it took us for.ev.er. to pick out fabrics, and decide on the layout of the blocks. I'm liking the look so far, though. Can't wait till I can sleep under it!

Going Reusable

Last night, my boyfriend and I demolished almost an entire roll of paper towels. I'll admit we don't clean as often as we should, but part of the problem is our water. I think it must have rust or something in it because we get orange buildup in our shower, sink, and toilet. And anywhere that the water pools (like the base of the shower doors and behind the sink faucet) the orange buildup turns into orange slime. It is not pretty. In fact it's pretty damn gross. I hate looking at it, but I hate the thought of cleaning it even more. So I procrastinate.

Well yesterday I finally bought some Comet disinfecting spray cleaner, versus our "Kitchen and Bath" spray from the dollar store (I'm not entirely convinced it's any more effective than water), and I went to town on the shower. I think I used nearly half the bottle on this one cleaning.

Between cleaning the shower and wiping up the excess water on our freshly mopped wood floors, using up an exorbitant number of paper towels, we realized we have a problem... We have no rags.

But this is a solvable problem. All that is required is a bit of cheap cotton yarn and a few hours time. Then I figured, hey, if we're gonna be eco-friendly and make reusable cleaning cloths, why not go all the way and make them from organically grown cotton? So that is exactly what we're doing. I ordered two 100g balls of this undyed organic cotton yarn from knitpicks for just $10.

I'm already planning what sizes to make and how to differentiate between things that can be used on dishes, and things that can be used on floors and toilets. I think I'll make a few fairly small round crocheted cloths to be used as dishcloths. Then I'll make a few small square knitted cloths in a nice textured stitch like moss for general cleaning and scrubbing, and then one or two larger rectangular (also knitted) cloths for such things as wiping up mop water, cleaning spills, etc. It would be nice if I could differentiate with different colors too, but they only had the darkest shade available, and I was too impatient to wait for the other ones to become available :)

And so I am trying to make my life a little greener, a little bit at a time.

Loofahs Galore

After several attempts, I have finally created the perfect loofah - at least, I think so. It's been a bit of a crafting adventure with trials and errors, but I am quite pleased with the end result. The first attempt (first pic below) was inspired by my math geek bf who introduced me to the concept of the hyperbolic plane. I still don't really get the exciting math behind it (something about lines? I dunno), but I thought gee, that sure looks like a loofah. So here's the first one, which was done in worsted weight 100% cotton yarn, single crocheted in spirals with lots of increases. It came out looking fun (albeit a tad small), but when  I tried to use it in the shower, it acted much more like a washcloth than a loofah - by which I mean it ate my soap. 

Enter Loofah number two. This time, I scouted out the interwebs for a thinner yarn, looking for sport or fingering weight, and preferably a cotton blend rather than 100% - perhaps some nylon or acrylic content to make it less absorbent and quicker drying. AnnieKints, a fellow etsy seller, had exactly what I was looking for. In her destash, she had one 50g ball of Bernat Cool Crochet, a sport weight, 70% cotton 30% nylon blend. Bingo. 

So I crocheted up my second loofah with the new yarn, this time using a larger hook, double crochet, and more increases. And the conclusion is... it works. The yarn is perfect. It takes only a little more soap than one of the cheap-o nylon mesh loofahs you can buy at the drugstore. It doesn't get as sudsy as those, but it's plenty sudsy enough and sooo soft. I've been using it for the past few weeks and I love it - functionally. Aesthetically, it still left a little to be desired. I did it in spirals and just kind of ended when it seemed big enough, which gives it this weird lopsided look. It's good enough for me, but not good enough to sell. 

So I started loofah the third, using the same cotton/nylon yarn, also using double crochet and the same size hook. It was coming out great, much rounder and loofah-y-looking than number two... and then... I ran out of yarn. Sigh. Fifty grams does not go nearly as far as I would like it to, and these loofahs use up a surprisingly large amount of yarn.

Sadly, there was no more of this yarn to be found on etsy, but I did find an ebay seller who had a bunch of skeins in stock. But it was a new auction with 5 days left. Boo. I prefer "buy it now" listings - yay for instant gratification - especially when I need it to finish a project I've already begun. 

I won two of the four auctions, for a total of 10 skeins of this stuff - 4 in the cream color I was using and 6 more in 4 different colors, which just arrived today. Here's the whole lot, pictured with my mostly complete loofah number three. 

With 10 skeins of this, and each skein making approximately two loofahs, I am soon to have loofahs out the wazoo (or is it up the wazoo? I dunno). The purple's pretty dark so I definitely want to test it myself to see if it runs before putting one in my shop. Also, I am intending to make the pattern available on here for free once I get it finalized. But first, I have to finish loofah the third, which is part of a shamefully late birthday present for my cousin (along with some whipped clean body wash from another etsy seller - GudonyaToo. I haven't tried any of their products yet, but it smells yummy)

Problem Solving Crochet Projects

My plastic bag situation is not pretty. I try to remember to bring my canvas bags when I go shopping, but I still manage to accumulate plastic bags faster than I use them. They're currently stuffed inside a large plastic bag that's living in my kitchen closet. And because of the placement of the rod in the closet, the hangers all stick out, which means that the door doesn't like to close. So I get to look at this giant plastic bag overflowing with more plastic bags all the time.

I had been thinking about getting one of these do-hickies for a while, but they are just so ugly. And then I came up with the idea to make something similar, but crocheted in nice yarn. Here's a picture of the one I'm making for my apartment, still in the early stages. The yarn I used is Bernat Berella 4, which I had leftover from the afghan I made about two years ago. So not only is it not ugly white plastic, but it actually matches! :) Here's a picture in the early stages. It's about 12" now and I'm probably about 3/4 of the way through the skein. I think I'll just finish off the skein so I can fit lots and lots of bags in it.

Oh, and I plan to make one of these for my etsy shop, but made out of wool and felted. So stay tuned :)