Introducing the Mary Ellen Scarves!

I don’t watch a whole lot of TV anymore (we choose not to have Netflix or cable), but I have to tell you, I’ve fallen in love with “The Waltons.”  I didn’t even know this show existed until my wonderful mother-in-law loaned us the first season. 

After watching my favorite episodes multiple times, I have come to the following conclusions:

Conclusion #1:  I absolutely adore the grandparents.  I want to be Grandma Walton when I grow up.

Conclusion #2:  I love John-Boy’s Southern accent.

Conclusion #3:  For better or for worse, Mary Ellen is a perfect embodiment of me when I was a teenager.  

 If I’d grown up in a home where we churned our own butter, I’m sure I would’ve churned the way she did in one scene: reading a book with my feet propped up on the table, half-heartedly thumping the churn dasher with my other hand. 

The character of Mary Ellen Walton is what inspired my new line of scarves.  I had all these odds and ends of yarn left over from various projects.  

I decided that if Mary Ellen liked to knit as much as I do, she would’ve hastily gathered all the odds and ends left over from Grandma’s projects and made her own creations.  

So I gave it a try.  It was much more addictive than I thought.  And since accumulating odds and ends of yarn is as inevitable as me drinking coffee tomorrow morning, I promise there will be lots more one-of-a-kind scarves where these came from!

Extreme Makeover Part 2: Gadget Corner

 I'm having one of Those Days.  You know the kind of day I'm talking about.  The kind that makes most females want to hole themselves up at home eating too much chocolate and watching chick flicks that have way too much pink in them.

I can get behind the whole eating too much chocolate thing, but the color pink makes me nauseous, so I think I'll just hunker down and re-read Little Women for the ten millionth time.

Okay, now that I've gotten all those random thoughts out of the way, I have to tell you something that’s going to scream “This blog is written by a ‘90’s child!”

I love “Home Improvement” repeats.  I don’t watch anywhere near as much TV as I used to, but Tim and Al still crack me up.  I think it’s awesome that Al always wears flannel.

“Why did the flannel cross the road?  ‘Cause Al was over there!”

Mock if you will, but you think that one’s funny too, and you know it :p.

It’s fitting that I’m babbling about Al and flannel and “Home Improvement” because Part 2 of the Extreme Makeover is Gadget Corner.  My fellow “Home Improvement” fans will remember the Gadget Corner segment that appeared on some of the Tool Time clips.

This version of Gadget Corner involves the first items I made after the demolition of that old afghan.  I decided that my e-reader needed clothing.

Here is a picture of my Nook wearing its sweater.

You know you think it's adorable! :p

Here are is the link for the Nook cozy in my Etsy shop.  If this striped pattern isn’t really your thing, stay tuned.  I’ll be adding more colors and styles!  I’ll also be adding cozies for Ipod Touch and Iphone

Extreme Makeover, Part One: Demolition

Hi, everyone!  Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  I sure did!  Let me just come out and say it:  as far as Thanksgiving food goes, stuffing and pumpkin pie are the best parts.

Just don't even try to fight me on this!  :p 

 

Alright, let's get down to business!  Over the past couple weeks, I got an opportunity to do something really, reeeeeally cool.

I got to take an old afghan and rip it apart!

A co-worker gave me this old afghan she’d started crocheting and had never finished. 

 

She was just going to throw it away until I told her that she Should Not Do That.  I couldn't bear to think of this beautiful yarn sitting in the garbage.

Integration is not a good thing when you are talking about garbage and yarn.

 

Part one of Extreme Makeover yarn edition is the demolition.


Yep, we had to rip that thing apart until there was nothing left of it but a box of yarn balls. 


Here are some pictures of the process.

 

The hubby saw what I was doing and wanted to get in on the action :)

Unraveled tan yarn looks a lot like ramen.

 

 

Not sure what unraveled red yarn looks like.  Not sure I want to spend a whole lot of time trying to figure out what it looks like.  This will probably start to get really gross really fast.

 

Thanks for reading!  Stay tuned for Part 2: Gadget Corner! :)

 

Snow Rant and a Stashbuster Hat

Sorry I’ve been so MIA again.  Lots of real life stuff happening lately.  Sometimes it’s extremely difficult to be a grownup.  Sometimes I want someone to be EXTREMELY proud of me for just not throwing a world-class tantrum when I reeeeeally want to.

Anyway…

I’ve been trying to formulate a Plan of Attack for my blog and my shop, and I think I’m finally starting to get it.  So hopefully you’ll all see more of me on here starting right after Thanksgiving!

Speaking of which, Thanksgiving will be here in three days, and I just went for a walk with only a sweater over my t-shirt.

These two facts should not be in the same sentence!  They should be nowhere near each other.  My loved ones know I am firm in my convictions.   One of those convictions is that November is supposed to be cold.

It’s not that I’m super crazy about the cold, it’s just that, since the beginning of time, cold and November have always gone together here in MinneSNOWta.  According to the weather app on my Ipod, those two don’t plan on getting back together until Black Friday.

But since it is, in fact, November, I will turn my attention to a topic that usually comes up this time of year.

Hats!

Has anyone else noticed that “hat” is kind of a funny word?  It doesn’t seem like it should be funny. 

But it kind of is.

Want to make the word “hat” even funnier?  Stick the word “stashbuster” in front of it!

Shut up, spellcheck!  “Stashbuster” is so a word, because I’m a former English major and I say it is! :p

Anyway, I came up with this hat earlier this year, shown here on my friend Karis. 

 

 

It was called the "stashbuster" because I had this bright pink yarn in my stash that I needed to use up.  I made it while I was watching a “Gilmore Girls” episode.  Lorelai was walking around in the snow in an adorable hat.  (I would love to walk around in the snow, but in order for that to happen, there needs to actually be snow!)  Luna, the cat we had at the time, was probably trying to break into my hearing aid case.  That girl was a hearing aid bandit.  I don’t get what is so fascinating about a hunk of plastic.

Anyhoo…

Here’s the link to the Stashbuster Hat in the Etsy shop, and I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving!

Recap of the last 8ish months!

Hi everyone!  So so sorry to have been out of touch.  I hope to start making more knitnax and adding to this blog soon.  In the meantime, here's a recap of everything we've been doing since January.

 Getting all ready to move to our new place!

 Celebrating the arrival of my friend's baby with a crocheted blanket

 

 Practicing how to get a deaf/hard of hearing person's attention :-p

More knitted baby cuteness!  Click here for the Etsy link for this hat

 

Saying goodbye to dear friends :(. 

(Our precious baby Luna died of multiple organ failure earlier this month.)

 

 

Making new friends!  This is Esther Purrbody, the newest addition to the Hammar household.  We realized we are Very Bad at being cat-less.  Us being cat-less is like Al on "Home Improvement" not wearing flannel.

 

 

So yeah, I guess that about sums up what we've been doing these past 8 months!  I hope to be back on here soon!  Have a great weekend, everybody!

Three Knitted Scarves, Two Rebellious Tonsills, and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Hey everyone!  Sorry I’ve been MIA again.  Everything was fine. I was starting to get the Etsy shop off the ground. I made some new scarves.  

                                                              Winter Afternoon Scarf

                                                     End of Autumn Scarf

                                                                  Odds N' Ends Scarf
                   
And then… (insert ominous music here)

My tonsils decided to rebel.

Or maybe it was the virus/bacteria/whatever’s crawling around in there that took possession of my tonsils so they had no choice but to rebel.  (Cut me some slack, I’m not really up on tonsil-germ relations.)  I assure you all, yes, I am going to get it checked out, and then I’ll be back to normal.

 ( I mean, as normal as I get :p).

In the meantime, let’s play a little game!  I’m going to show you a picture and you have to guess what it is!  Ready?  Wait for it…

Wait for it…

Here it is!

Oh come now, this is SO much more than a 5-quart bucket of rainbow sherbet!  When you open it, it becomes... 

...the Lord’s precious gift for all who have rebellious tonsils!  This is a beautiful bucket of bliss!  (I dare you to read that last sentence three times fast.  Do it, do it, do it!)

So I’ve been floppting around watching movies, partaking of this beautiful frozen bliss, and working on a new line of cowls to add to the shop once I look decent enough to appear in a photograph again.  I decided to call them “comfort cowls” because there is something so comforting about knitting in a circle.

Especially when you have rebellious tonsils.

(Oh, and for the record, “floppting” is pretty much an official word.  My hubby and I use it in sentences all the time.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go partake of more frozen bliss.  Take care!

A Veggie Tale

Graham crackers and frosting is one of the most delicious things you can put into your face.  It can cure a variety of ills.

That doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of this post.  I just had to say it, because I’m having a love affair with graham crackers and frosting.  That probably won’t bode well for my marriage :p.  That has nothing to do with this post either.

Okay, let’s get back on track.  Vegetables.  The idea of knitting stuffed vegetables came to me, and I knew I had to run with it.  I just had to knit a tomato.  And no, that is not some kind of euphemism or figure of speech.  I mean it quite literally.  I knitted a tomato.  (Oh, and allow me to put an end to the debate: tomatoes are vegetables because they don’t taste fruity.  They taste vegetable-y.)

   

 And while we’re on the subject of vegetables, I just have to say that you’re never too old to appreciate the awesomeness that is “Veggie Tales.”  Dancing vegetables are just amusing no matter how you slice it.  Plus, it’s hilarious how the vegetables carry things even though they don’t have hands.

  There's something else I have to say while we are on the subject of tomatoes.

  No, you are not seeing things.  This is, in fact, a picture of the ketchup from my fridge.  I had to put this up because I absolutely HAD to show you what I found upon further inspection.



Under the picture of the tomatoes, it says "serving suggestion."  This is what I absolutely HAVE to show you because it's hilariously confusing.  How are tomatores a serving suggestion for ketchup?  Are you supposed to squirt the ketchup on the tomatoes?  That's repetitive and redundant, in my professional opinion.

And I guess that concludes the latest update from Kati's Knitnax.  I'll be trying to write at least once a week from now on :).  Toodles!