After finishing the baby hat and sweater for my friend Kristi’s baby-to-be, I couldn’t stop knitting. I broke into my stash of yarn and found some self-striping yarn I had bought last winter. I don’t remember why I bought it, aside from the fact that it is self-striping. I mean, isn’t that cool? You just knit and it makes stripes for you. It boggles my mind to think about how this works.

Since I didn’t have specific projects in mind already, I decided to make a couple of hats for Dan’s boys. Sshh… they are supposed to be Christmas presents. I enjoy knitting, it is relaxing and keeps my hands busy, but I seem to go on autopilot once I start… only to realize that all of sudden, it is 3am, and I am this close to finishing my project. Of course this means I can’t go to bed yet, I have to finish the last few rows even though my eyes are barely open. I can’t explain it. It just happens.

As you can see, I finished one. I think the colors are great… very boy-like. But when I started the second hat, I began to feel that maybe the blues are too girly. I can’t give a girly hat to an eight or ten year old boy. What do you think? Is it girly?

P.S. I realized today that yesterday was my 200th post! Time flies…

My mom taught me to roller skate when I was about six years old. One afternoon, we went to the local roller rink. She laced up my skates then laced up her own. Off to the side of the main skating area, there was a small rink like a kiddie pool. This is where I learned to skate.

Mom told me how to push off with one skate while rolling forward on the other. Her words were confident, even as she walked around the circle in her skates clinging to the side of the rink. My mom cannot skate.

Her instructions were precise. I did as she said, and although I was shaky and afraid to roam too far from the side, by the end of the day I was skating: push, glide, wobble… all the way around. I was ready for the big rink. Mom walked a lap with me, clutching the side with one hand all the way around the big-girl rink.

Several years later, I wanted to learn to knit. Mom crocheted. But like skating, she knew the mechanics of knitting. And when I did as she said, I learned to knit.

Thanks to my mom I made it through the many Skate Parties that were de rigeur in the Eighties (Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration” still rings in my ears). Also thanks to my mom’s lessons, I am now able to knit things like this:

(a baby shower gift for Kristi… the sweater is unbelievably tiny)

These days I spend my nights watching reruns of Gilmore Girls, my hands busy with yarn and needles. I mostly knit scarves, but have taken up hats recently. While I don’t want to bombard you with crafts, you can expect to see a few more knitted pieces here as we settle into winter…

I bought this fabric a couple of months ago with the intent to make an apron. But I’ve been busy with family visits and holidays and… well, procrastinating. But today, instead of baking cookies, I set about making that apron.

Not on my own though.  Raven felt she needed to help me. She was so much help: she supervised, walked in front of me as I ironed, laid on the fabric I was cutting… she’s such a great little helper. Well, at least she is cute…

A few weeks ago, I found momomadeit on Etsy and was inspired by her aprons especially ones like this flirty pink number.  But instead of looking for a pattern, I just kind of draped the fabric on myself and measured things as I went (not really a great technique but sometimes I sew like I cook… randomly intuitively). Next time, I’ll make a pattern… 

Tada! Not too bad for an afternoon project… especially given I haven’t sewn anything in months… and I didn’t follow a pattern. It’s not perfect, but I really like the fabrics, both have cherries all over them and look so cheery. 

All these cherries make me think it’s time to make another pie…

I subscribe to a lot of blogs, and thanks to laziness and procrastination, I get really behind on reading them. There are times that I wonder why I don’t just unsubscribe to most of them if I can’t keep up. But then there are days like today when I have the time to catch up on my reading and I find so many interesting things out there. You may find this surprising, but many of these blogs have nothing to do with food. So today I thought I’d give you a short tour of some of the other things that fill my mind when I’m not dreaming of all of the delicious ways to enjoy food.

I don’t obsess and I don’t preach to others about being green, eco-, and natural, but I do try to take small steps toward a greener and healthier lifestyle. Examples from the last year include taking reusable shopping bags with me always (or as close to always as possible), switching to an all-natural lip balm (my current favorite is Weleda Everon Lip Balm), and giving up paper towels at my apartment (probably the most extreme-sounding step I’ve taken but surprisingly easy. If you’re interested in how I did it, let me know in the comments). So in an effort to find other little steps I can take as well as just stay current, I subscribe to blogs like ecosalon and Lighter Footstep. Here are a few of the highlights from my backlog of eco-reading:

Organic, Eco & Vegan Lipsticks - I don’t wear much lipstick as it stands but I like the idea of having one that I can feel good about wearing

Eco-friendly giveaways & deals - One of the issues with shopping for the “eco-friendly” products is that at most stores these products are priced higher than the mainstream items. This link at ecosalon lists out several saving tips for online eco-shopping.  My favorite example: Seventh Generation products – buy one, get 50% off the second.

Handbags born of old leather jackets - I love this. More for the inspiration than anything (I love to see people and companies reuse things creatively). Seeing as how I’m nearly “funemployed” (check out this article about others choosing funemployment from the LA Times), the bags are kind of pricey to me, but not more than most handbags these days. If I were going to splurge though, I’d take a good look at their bags first. 

Then there are those times when my creativity needs an outlet but my thighs and bum need a break from the cupcakes so I turn my energies to crafts: sewing, paper, knitting, … Michael’s and Joann’s are like drugs to me. Hello, my name is Patricia and I’m a craftoholic. So to get a quick fix without leaving home and endangering my wallet, I turn to several crafty blogs. A few of my favorites are Angry Chicken (and her apron blog Tie One On), Sew Mama Sew, and Crazy Aunt Purl (she just seems real… four cats and all). Here are a few of the projects that caught my eye today:

Cute invitations to print out - Sending paper invitations kind of go against my preference to be greener, but these are really cute. My favorite part is the petal closure. These are simple and adorable, so if I were going to send paper invitations I’d give these serious consideration.

Ruffled summer shirt - Easy, breezy,… cover girl. Oh wait, that may be trademarked. It’s definitely cute though. And I’ll bet you could adjust the pattern to make a little girl version too.

Just in case you are still with me, one last link…

Four myths about staying hydrated debunked - Apparently you don’t have to drink eight glasses of water a day. I feel liberated. And oddly refreshed.

I don’t usually do anything in particular to celebrate Earth Day, but I have been making small changes to my habits over the last few years to green my life.  Things like using reusable shopping bags, reducing my consumer tendencies, and finding creative ways to reuse things.  Like this bag.  It’s made from fused plastic shopping bags.  Originally it was meant to be my lunch bag, but it has become an all-purpose almost purse for me because it holds everything from my water bottle to a book to keys to pens and small notebooks and of course, my iphone.  I keep thinking I’ll make more of these and put them on Etsy but I have been baking more than sewing lately.  (Although with this heat wave that may be changing soon).

Anyhow, I had a small pile of Amazon boxes and Dan had several more unwanted boxes. And rather than throw them out or send them to be recycled, I decided to reuse them.  I saw this project from Design Sponge a few months ago and decided to give it a shot.  My cats love the corrugated cardboard scratchers from Trader Joe’s so why not?  Honestly, I think my cats would have been happy if I had left the boxes intact.  I mean, my cats love boxes.

But I broke the boxes down and cut them into 5″ strips.

Making sure to cut through the “honey comb” in the cardboard (not with it)…

 Then I rolled it up, taped it. Rolled, taped.  Rolled taped. And on and on.  You really need to have a little OCD to work on a project like this. [ If I were to do it again, I would spread it across a few evenings rather than trying to get it all done in 1 sitting. ] 

Once it was about the size of the cat bed that Cookie loves, I called it done and put some colorful paper along the outside to spruce it up.

Granted I know that making a cat scratcher from Amazon boxes is not the biggest thing one can do for Earth Day. But I like to think every little bit helps.

What are you doing for Earth Day?