Kool Aid Dyed Yarn

A couple weeks ago, my fiance gave me a tiny bit of money to buy some yarn for myself. It took me a while, but I finally decided on the perfect yarn that I wanted! I went over to Knit Picks, and decided on some gorgeous red fingering yarn, in hopes to make a pair of socks one day. And some undyed merino fingering weight. They came last week, and I was SO excited! I couldn't get to the office fast enough to pick up my box, and I practically ran home to open it up.  Oh man, I was in love. The yarns were so squishable, soft, and even better than I imagined. However, my focus was the undyed yarn. I had plans.

I researched a little bit, and decided on the way I was going to dye this yarn. I used this Knitty article, and this page as resources, and kind of went along on my own after that. So, I soaked my yarn in come warm water and vinegar for 30 minutes, while I got my Kool Aid dye all set up. I used 2 packets of pink lemonade, and 2 packets of lemonade, at this point. After the yarn was pretty soaked, I filled my crockpot up with a little bit of warm water (a little under halfway filled) .I gently squeezed out the water of the yarn, and put it in the crockpot water. Then I poured the KoolAid dye over the yarn in the crockpot, half of the pot was pink lemonade and the other half, lemonade. I read that there was big undyed spots, so I tried to use a turkey baster to get some dye on the bottom of the pot.

I turned the crockpot onto the "High" setting, because our crockpot only has a "Low" and a "High", and I'm not sure the low setting would have been hot enough. Well, anyway. I kept a meat thermometer dipped into the water, making sure the temperature doesn't go above 180 degrees. I clapped the lid on the crockpot and went off to watch TV and do a little bit of knitting. I kept coming back every 30 minutes or so to check on the temperature and how the dye looks, but after a couple of hours, the KoolAid had dissolved out of the water and into the yarn. So, at this point, I grabbed a spoon and lifted the yarn up out of the water... and I was horrified. The dye didn't penetrate into the inside yarn! It only got the first couple strands that I poured the dye directly over.

I looked at it for a couple minutes, deciding what to do. I very gently rolled the yarn around in the pot, to see how much I missed. And there was tons. Everywhere. So, I mixed up one more packet of Lemonade, and one more packet of Pink Lemonade, and started very gently, turning the yarn over and around in the pot, exposing all the areas that didn't get dyed. I poured some more dye on these parts, put the lid on, and waited until the water was clear once again. Then repeated, until I could see no more undyed sections, and the water was clear. One I was happy with it, I turned off the pot, let the water come down to room temperature. I was actually pretty tired at this point, so I just went to bed and let it cool. The next morning, I took it out, put it in a colander, and gently rinsed it with warm water. Squeezed out the water, and hung it outside in the sun to dry. The next day, I reskeined it, and was in awe.

Its absolutely gorgeous, I think. It came out exactly how I wanted, I can't believe it. I had the idea to do a scarf with this yarn, but now I'm not too sure. I'd have to find a pattern that is light, airy and spring-like for this yarn. So, I'm not sure. Perhaps a shawlette? I'm not sure my 400-ish yards would be enough for a full shawl, so maybe a mini one would be great.

Holiday Knittings

I hope everyone had a safe Halloween. My Halloween was spent walking around the block with a hot chocolate from Starbucks, looking at everyone's decorations and homemade haunted houses. I'm not particularly fond of Halloween, but any excuse to get out of the house with a hot chocolate, I'm all for it. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving, its one of my favorite holidays of the year. Filled with food, pumpkin pie, the Thanksgiving Day parade, the smells and the weather. I love it all.  Then camping out all night at a chain store for the thrill of some fantastic deal? Awesome.

Anyway. I finished the French Press Felted Slippers a couple days ago, and I so adore them. My plan was to save them and wear them for the new apartment, but once they were done, I put them on my feet and didn't want to take them off. So I need to make another pair... for the new apartment, right? Yes!

Also, a couple weeks ago, I picked up a couple skeins of fingering weight yarn, with the brilliant idea of making a pair of socks. The yarn was pretty at the time, all grey shades, and was cheap. I found that it kept pilling, splitting, and being just crappy yarn. So, I decided it was bringing down my sock making experience, and I thought I'd find another use for them. I read about overdying yarn a while ago, and decided to test the idea out myself, and see if I could do it. I followed a simple tutorial (here), and came out with some pretty pretty colored yarn. I used light blue dye for one - which turned out kind of blue, purple and black shades, and a light pink dye on the other, which turned out to be reds and black. So much fun. And now I have 2 different skeins of overdyed yarns to decide what to do with. I'm thinking a scarf for a particular person's Christmas gift with the purple and black color, and a little lace headband with the red one - for me.

French Press Felted Slippers

Ever since I seen these adorable French Press Felted Slippers, it was love at first sight. I knew they were going to be put on my feet, it was just a matter of when they were going to be finished. I bought the pattern as soon as I could, bought the yarn from the store, and began to start knitting away at the several pieces. It was quite the learning piece, that's for sure. I taught myself how to decrease, increase, seam, and how to read a knit pattern. And, as scary as it is - I even learned how to felt!I had a couple issues with my stockinette stitch, but since its felted, you don't see the issues at all, which is awesome.

They aren't finished though. I need to sew the straps and buttons on still, hopefully this weekend. I've been trying desperately to finish my fiance's birthday gift on time, but it is almost done, so I'll have a couple minutes to finish up my slippers on Sunday. There's definitely a couple things I'll be doing differently next time I make them though. Clipping excess yarn off before felting, use my row counter, make the bigger size (they are kind of snug on my size 7 feet), and be more careful with seaming. But other than those things - for my first try at actually doing some kind of structured pattern, this was an awesome start. I am pleased with my result, and I can't wait to wear them in the new apartment.

My next project? Socks. And its proving to be a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.

Scrunchable Scarf

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I've blogged, but I have a good reason! I've been knitting! I kind of woke up one day and just decided I wanted to knit. So, I hunted the internet for videos, grabbed some aluminum needles and cheap yarn, and sat down to learn. I spend all weekend sitting at the computer watching videos on how to knit, and practicing knitting on this acrylic yarn. I came out with something that looked like a half circle (I was picking up extra stitches in weird places that was making my knitting go in all different directions). But still, I was determined and really wanting to learn, and last week, I finished my first project: a scarf from a pattern that I found on ravelry (searchable by "Scrunchable Scarf").

I am quite proud of it, it was my first project, took me a long time to finish. I heard this was supposed to be an easy, quick project? Not for me. I spent a ridiculous amount of time to complete it. But I did, and now I'm totally addicted to knitting. I love it. There really is not a better feeling than wearing out a scarf that you made yourself. It was a pretty simple pattern - just a set of knits and purls, but still, for a new knitter, this pattern had me wanting to throw it across the room. Once the pattern clicked with me though, I got quicker, and finished it pretty much without thinking about it.

I'll have to be putting away my knitting for a little while next month though, because we have a move coming up. We will be moving from a 3 bedroom apartment into a smaller apartment (yet, I will get a larger room? How does that work out?), so I am not really looking forward to that. What will be awesome though - is getting away from our horrifically loud upstairs neighbors. They have 4 young children who love to run, jump off beds, and drop every loud thing imaginable. Its like they have no clue that they are living upstairs. We also live right behind a large grocery store, and can recycling center. I had no idea just how loud a grocery store can be. Deliveries come in at very early mornings (like 4am to 5am), so we hear all the trucks come in, all the unloading, people throwing objects from one side of the lot to another. Then the recycling center - all day long is the loud sound of cans being emptied from one bin to another. Ahhh, getting rid of all that and the kids.... wonderful.

The new apartment is in a great location as well, its upstairs - so we won't have loud banging over our heads, its got a mature tree that gives windows plenty of shade at all hours of the day, and a large patch of grass right next to the complex. But the whole packing, moving, unpacking experience? Ugh.

My Yoga Mat Bag

So my 25th birthday was on Thursday, and as I mentioned a couple posts ago, my fiancée sent me a yoga mat (for you know, whenever I plan to get off my lazy bum and actually do yoga). I finished the bag the day after I got the mat, and I'm so excited at how perfectly it came out. I'm still really new to sewing, so being able to finish something like this is great. The tutorial I followed at boredandcrafty.com was so straightforward and well written that it made making it so easy. The only problem I had was trying to figure out how big to measure out my fabric, because my mat is a oversized, thicker mat, and I wanted a little more wiggle room for it. I ended up measuring my mat, adding 3 inches to the length and circumference (and thanks for a online diameter calculator), then proceeding with the tutorial. So, in the end, it came out really great, and the fabric, I think really makes the bag stand out.

I also made the strap a few inches longer, because I worried how tight it was going to be on me, I didn't want to feel choked by the strap being too tight. The additional 3 inches ended up to be the perfect size to go around my chest. Yes, I love this bag.

I added another step to finish the bag: I tacked down the lining to the outside part by a little bit of hand sewing, I didn't want my lining to pop out from the bottom whenever I pull out the mat. If I ever take classes, that would be quite embarrassing for me. So, a couple stitches, and done. Easy peasy.

Making Shea Body Butter

I got it in my head that I wanted to try some shea body butter. I heard it was really moisturizing and  beneficial to the skin, so I wanted to try it out, but the cost of body butter is so expensive! For a little tiny tin of it! So, I hunted down on the internet for some tutorial on how to make my own. It's really amazing how many different ways there are to make them, I was really surprised. I looked at what seems like hundreds of different ways, with even more different types of oils. I settled on one that I seen on YouTube. It seemed easy, foolproof, and pretty simple to follow.

Anyway, I didn't include all the ingredients that the above tutorial listed. Instead, I kind of made up my own. My ingredients included: A half pound of raw unrefined shea butter, almond oil, lavender oil (for scent, because I do not like the smell of shea butter), and some olive oil. The dropper is there because my lavender oil just had a pour top, and I wanted to control how much went into my mixture.

I put all of my shea butter in the bowl. I didn't measure any of the oils, but I probably put maybe 1 tablespoon of almond oil, maybe 3 tablespoon of olive oil and about 15 drops of lavender. Hey, it was my first time making it, I had no idea how much to put in. But, I just poured until things looked like it would mix up well.

I grabbed a mixer and just started whipping it all together. It was pretty easy with the shea butter being room temperature, it whipped up pretty well. About halfway through, I decided to add a couple more drops of lavender oil, because I still wasn't happy with the smell. I added it in, whipped it a little more, and I was done. It looked like cake frosting!

The hardest part was probably putting it all into the container. I originally started with container that stored chopped garlic (the bigger container), but it all wouldn't fit, so I fit the rest into a baby food jar.  It was messy going into the jars, and I'm not sure there is an easier way to get them in (without wasting any of it).

I've read that shea butter easily melts, which causes it to get hard and unusable at hotter temperatures. My house gets particularly hot in the summer, because we try to use minimal air conditioning - so I store mine in the refrigerator. Doesn't seem to harm it, I just take it out about 10 or 15 minutes before I plan on using it, and its usually pretty thawed out.

Also, it is pretty greasy on skin (all that oil, no doubt). But, I like to take it out of the fridge, go take a shower and put it on right before I go to bed. That way, I get my skin moisturized and the grease doesn't bother me. I've read somewhere if you add a little bit of cornstarch, it lessens the grease feel, but I wasn't sure if it would soak up the moisturizing properties. So, I didn't use it this time. Maybe in the future I'll try adding a bit of that.

Keeping Busy

The past couple weeks have been more like a roller coaster for me lately. A very close family member has been in and out of ICU, the hospital, and sent to a rehabilitation center. He was very, very sick, with a huge list of problems that they had tried to fix. Wednesday morning, he went back to the hospital, we were told there was nothing else they could do. He was put on what they call "comfort care", and had a drip of morphine. Wednesday night, or very early Thursday morning, we got a call from the hospital saying that he had passed. Since then, it has been a whirlwind of family visits, cremation planning, paperwork and cleaning house.

With that, it was really needed that I got my Amy Butler fabric in the mail shortly after. I had ordered it from a seller on Etsy a couple days before he had passed away, as a early birthday gift to myself. I am really gald that I ordered it now, because with the horrible turn of events, a couple sewing projects is what I really need at this time. I find that its always easier to really keep busy with projects while I'm stressed and dealing with something.

Anyway. The fabric is beautiful, I've been wanting it ever since I seen it, so I'm really excited that I finally got a couple pieces. What is even more awesome - is that a package came from my fiancé on Friday that contained my birthday gift. A shiny, new orange yoga mat. It's so perfect because now, I can use my new Amy Butler fabric to make a yoga bag for it. I had intended to make me a little handbag to carry around my iPod, cell phone and lip balm, but now I have 2 projects that I can do. And hey, I can now make my yoga mat bag, and have a matching purse to go with it.

Cosmetic Bag

A couple weeks before I left to see my fiancée Iowa, I made myself a little cosmetic bag, intending to use it for my toiletries. It turned out really adorable, and it was my first time both sewing on a zipper, and handstitching a lining in place. I've never done either, so it was fun. I followed this helpful tutorial on creating it, only I made mine slightly longer, to hold my many more needed supplies.

In the end, I never even took the bag with me on my trip. Even though I made it bigger than the tutorial, it still wouldn't fit all the stuff I needed it to. Now, it sits and is serving a cosmetic bag's real purpose: keeping all my makeup pieces in once place. I also found that I sewed the fabric too close to the zipper, so it catches sometimes. I'm not sure I used the zipper foot on my sewing machine right either, because it should not have been as difficult to sew up as it was for me. But still, turned out nice, I am impressed with how well I did on it.

My Week in Iowa

After a lot of planning, and excitement, I took my trip to Iowa to see my fiance, finally. It's been a while since I returned from the trip, but ever since saying goodbye to him at Omaha airport, I've been really emotional about leaving. It was so much worse saying goodbye this time than it was when he came to California back in April. I had a really difficult time after I came home, but I'm feeling better about it, so I can now blog about my trip!

I've had a lot of anxiety about flying on a plane. I've never been out of California, let alone on a plane. Understandably, I was terrified. I left Sacramento International on July 13th, at 9:00AM, and boarded a Frontier flight. The poor man sitting next to me had to deal with my freaking out, nearly hyperventilating and panicking as we hit turbulence coming into Denver (turbulence was bad, as I understand, several people were throwing up around me). Once I landed in Denver, Colorado, I only had around 45 minutes to make it to my next flight, and I practically started running to my next gate, until I realized I was running the wrong way, had to backtrack and barely made it to my flight in time. My next flight to Omaha, Nebraska was much better, most likely because I knew what to expect this time. I was next to a window, and really got to experience how beautiful taking off and landing was.

I arrived at Omaha airport, still shaken up and nervous about being so far away from home. And worse, nervous about meeting Tyler's mother, who I knew was waiting to greet me at the airport. Navigating through the terminals, I finally found Tyler and my welcoming party, and experienced my first awkward silence with his mother. After that, I waited for my bag I checked in with the airline, and we started the 2 hour drive to the hotel Tyler reserved for us. Man, the corn. I've never seen so much corn. From my understanding, most of the crops growing was either corn, or soybeans. When we finally made it to our hotel, I was exhausted.

He put on some kind of little treasure hunt in the room, which was really cute, where he had fixed my engagement ring (the band had broken a couple days before leaving), and gifted me with a locket, complete with a photo that was taken when he visited me back in April. We made chocolate dipped strawberries, and he let me relax and calm down after my emotional day. The room had some jacuzzi tub, which was so funny to me - it took about an hour to fill up halfway, seemed like it was the size of a small swimming pool, and Tyler had... a slight problem with the jets. He turned them on when they weren't covered up by water, and yes... it sprayed all over the place. It was crazy, but extremely funny when I needed a good laugh. Not to mention he slipped when getting out of the tub, which had me laughing even harder.

Early the next morning, we went to grab some donuts for breakfast, and he showed me a park, which we visited several times during the week. It was spacious, and had this gorgeous rose garden. He'd mentioned to me before that it was a contender to a place to get married, and I agree. This park was so big though, I think the park alone was three times the size of any park we have in Rocklin, California. It was really enjoyable, but even so early in the morning, the humidity was making me miserable. Humidity is something I'm really not used to, considering I live in California, where its just HOT. All the time. So, it was a huge change for me. I was miserable for the first couple days, but I think I started to get used to it towards the end of my stay.

Day 2, I had told him that I wanted to get photos for my family back home. So, he took me alongside of the Missouri river (I believe thats what it was), where there was several things to look at. We walked through some little park, and a little area where a couple guys were fishing. Also came across this area with boat docks, and a lone picnic bench by the shore. We walked along a little more and found another little garden, a museum, and a statue of 2 men and a dog, which I assume was important in Iowa's founding somehow. I think he tried to explain the significance of these men to me once time, but I've never been great with history.

He also took me to the other side of the park area, where there was some sort of flight memorial, and where I took this shot of this bridge. The river was moving really fast, and every time I tried to get close to the water, he pulled me away. Then once I really started paying attention to the water, I noticed that it had small whirlpools going around in it, so I thought maybe he was right, and I should really stay away. Didn't help that the rocks around were jagged and looked very easy to fall into the water. But, it was pretty, the humidity was crazy, and there was tons of areas to walk through and enjoy together.

Somewhere in the chaos of the second day, we changed hotel rooms. They had put us in some crappy room that looked from the 70s. It was rediculous. When we changed rooms, he went to get the key and turn on the air conditioning in the room... the first thing he said to me when he came back to me was: "Oh, you are really going to love the new room." I walked in it and yep. Horrible. We only really stayed in this room for a couple days, before we got to change away from the 70s room. The orange and green was a little too depressing for me. It even had matching bean bag chairs, and a broken futon. Really.

Day 3, he took me to... I'm not even sure what he called it. But, it was some really pretty park with a (what I called) a giant pond. Apparently it was great for fishing in, but you couldn't swim in it, or really go in the water. But it was still, probably one of the most beautiful places he took me to in Iowa. It had adorable little piers where you can walk on, and I suppose fish at, but I enjoyed just watching the fish in the pond... from afar.

I took a silly amount of photos of this giant pond, I could not get over how peaceful it was, how still the water was, and the most mind boggling thing of all - why wasn't anyone allowed to swim in it? I still had a great time with just watching the ducks, fish and admiring how green and lush the scenery is. Tyler and I found a good place to sit and talk for a while though, which was really great and calming.

That same day, we went to a really great nature park. It was a museum, then you picked up a map and headed outside in the wilderness for a nature trail. It was really beautiful, and something I've never really done before. I'm not really a nature type of person, and we literally walked a whole nature trail. It was really fun at first, seeing all the weird looking insects and bugs they have in Iowa. I wasn't too keen on him spraying me with mosquito repellent though, but I suppose it was necessary.

About halfway through the trail, the heat and humidity definitely started to get to me. Then about three-quarters of the way through I kept asking, "How much further?", as I huffed and puffed. He took my complaining calmly, and while I loved the trail, I think the route we took was just a tiny bit too long. But, I kept wondering how beautiful the trail would be in the winter, covered in snow. Stunning, I'll bet. But, he kept patiently waiting for me as I slowed down on the trail, carefully holding my hand through it all. It was really sweet.

Day 5, Saturday, we went early in the morning to their farmer's market, and he bought some really good bread. We went a little later to Walmart for some sandwich making supplies and we made a couple sandwiches for a picnic with a movie in the park. The idea of a movie in the park was bizarre to me, I've never heard of anything like it where I live in California. It was just as it sounds. We brought our snacks, a blanket, and bug repellent, laid down the blanket on the grass and watched The Goonies together with a parkful of people. It was really great, he laid his head in my lap and we (supposedly) watched the movie together. He'd seen it tons of times, and I was bored with the movie, but just enjoyed my time with him instead.

Sunday, we took a trip to the lake. It was a long drive, and I couldn't help but marvel at the amount of corn along the way. It was about an hour drive to the lake, and the whole drive, all I seen was corn. I grabbed a photo while he was driving, so it's not the greatest quality, but it still turned out pretty well, I think. There was a TON of corn.

Once we got to the lake, I realized I didn't have any cash for their soda machines. So, I had him go all the way back to the nearest town, so I can use my bank card to purchase a couple Dr. Peppers (2 for the price of one deal! Win!). But anyway, once we got back to the lake, it was an interesting time. We laid down our blanket, our stuff, and realized: the beach is filled with mosquitos. So, the duration of our lake trip was really just me clutching onto him in fear of the giant fish swimming around us, and him trying to catch the fish. I've never swam in such close proximity of fish, I seriously thought they were going to bite me, or swim up my bathing suit.

I didn't get photos of everything we did. I'd never seen a firefly before, so he took me to a park to see them, and I tell you, I've never seen anything more beautiful than the fireflies. They were romantic and exciting to see. We also went swimming at his mother's house, then sat on the floor and watched a movie together. We watched Shrek in the hotel on TV (which ironically, we also watched Shrek in April when he came to California). I got to see a couple deer, just hanging out on the side of the road. Tyler pulled over so I could snap a photo, but of course - by the time I got out of the car, they were gone. And, I experienced the most tasty fast food place ever - Taco Johns. And the best take out ever - Townhouse. So yummy. I keep telling him he needs to ship me Taco Johns via US Mail because we don't have them here in California. We had a really sweet date night as well. We dressed up in formal wear, ate from Applebees, and it was a really cute idea.

The day before I left, I was extremely emotional, and I didn't want to leave the hotel. I knew I didn't want to leave, and I was having a really hard time with it. It got worse as him and his mother were taking me to the airport, all I did was cry almost the whole way. I tried really hard not to, but I could not help it. He walked me almost to the security checkpoint, and my crying was worse than ever. And once I thought it couldn't get more worse, he started crying too, which set me off even more. I partially joked that next time he came to California, we were going to drive to Las Vegas and elope, and then forced myself to go through the airport security. I cried the whole time I was waiting for my plane. The whole time. I forced myself to stop crying when I boarded, and was okay on the plane. In fact, I was much calmer on the plane back than I was on the way to Omaha airport. I stopped in Denver once again on the way back, and go figure - the plane was delayed. I cried even more at the Denver airport, until I was finally able to board to come back to Sacramento International.

I really enjoyed my week long stay there. Somewhere during the trip, I really fell in love with Iowa. It has houses with charm, peaceful landscapes, good food, no congested traffic, beautiful fireflies, family oriented activities, and I felt really at peace there. I'm looking forward to the day that I can live them permanently with him, and do the activities we did during the week on a regular basis together.

Beachy Bag

My trip to see my fiance is coming closer now, and I've been trying to finish up some projects that I am determined to complete for my visit to Iowa. First being, my beach bag. Tyler is planning us a trip to the beach, so I have to have a bag to carry our towels and everything in, right? I've sewn a tiny bit waaay back in high school, but wanted to try making myself a bag. I couldn't find any I liked at a store, so I grabbed some summery looking dishtowels from Kohls, and started on this fantastic tutorial.

For my first little sewing project, I think it turned out extremely well. It's perfect and just the right size for an oversized Kohls beach towel, tanning lotion, bottled water, a book, cell phone and an iPod. It's even perfect for after the trip, whenever I have the urge to go down to the pool.

It's even got a super-cute pocket on the side. And, you can even see the towel in the bag in this photo. It's been hanging on my door handle for 2 weeks now with a towel in it and nothing has broken yet, so I must have done something right!

The sewing machine we had here at the house has been sitting for months (possibly even years), and was so terrible, just sewing a single seam took hours because we couldn't do the bobbin right. The needle kept breaking, the machine kept stopping... it was ridiculous. My mother had purchased it at a yard sale for really cheap, so we came to the conclusion that something was wrong with the machine. So, we researched and found a much better one (that was on sale at Joann at the time!), and ran out to purchase it so I can finish the project (and justified it by saying its for future quilting projects for my mother). I'm so glad we got that machine, it sews great, its easy, and so far, I haven't had a problem with the bobbin at all!

Welcome to Frozen-Lotus.net.tc!

Hello, and welcome to my blog, Frozen-Lotus.net.tc! This will be my first post, and I'm quite excited to start this up. First, a little bit about me: my name is Danielle, Californian born and raised, and am 24 years old. I love games, mainly World of Warcraft, and I make crafty hand bound journals for fun. I am totally in love with a man named Tyler, my fiance, who currently lives over 1,000 miles away from me. I guess you'd call us long distance. It's hard sometimes, but when he hugs me in person, it makes the time apart all worth it.

You can expect me to blog a lot about my fiance, random bits about my life, lots of food, books, and video games. Who knows? Maybe I'll even be blogging about moving across the country, wedding planning experiences or little baby feet here one day.

So, as Wordpress likes to say on the first post: Hello, World!