Hot Wheels Hanging Storage

Luke has a ton of Hot Wheels. It's hard to resist when they cost just $1 each. But those little cars just end up all over the place and finding a way to store them has become a challenge. So I decided to create a wall hanging with pockets to hold cars.

First, I searched online, especially through Pinterest, for some type of tutorial for making this. I found one but it wasn't really detailed (ex: it used a hanger at the top but did not state how it created the top to include the hanger--I probably could have figured that out but I didn't like how vague the instructions were). Other people wrote a little about what they did and usually pointed to the first tutorial that I found.

Finally, I decided just to wing it. I've done a wall hanging with pockets before (although it's been a while), so surely I could do this. I went through my fabric and found the Hot Wheels fabric that I knew that I had. So pocket fabric done. Now for the backing. I realized that I don't have a lot of neutrals. I also didn't think putting the Hot Wheels fabric on a Star Wars background would look all that great (although I do have some great Star Wars fabric). Then I unearthed some Mustang fabric that I now remember my MIL giving to me. I checked out the size and realized that it would be perfect.

I probably should have added some type of interfacing to the fabric, but I decided not to (mostly because I wanted to do it then and not have to go buy interfacing). So I just made a giant rectangle, creating a casing at the top for a dowel rod to go through. Then I measured some of the Hot Wheels to determine how tall the pockets should be. I made the first one and sewed it to the bottom of the backing. I then again used a car to measure and created the individual pockets. That turned out okay, so I measured and figured out I could fit four more rows of pockets and started making those.

Of course Luke woke up from his nap when I needed just 15 minutes or so more to finish it all up. I stupidly then tried to finish it anyway, so nearly an hour later I finally got it done. The next morning, I went to Home Depot for a dowel rod. After walking up and down the aisle that they were supposed to be in and not seeing any, I started looking for someone to help me. Okay, so every time I'm in Home Depot, I always have so many people trying to help me but I never need help. Here's the one time I needed help and the place was deserted! I finally noticed that the dowel rods were placed very unobtrusively (i.e., hidden) and got the size I had determined I needed. But then I needed it shorter. What to do? Still no one around to help. Apparently there is a little cutting center there for customers to cut things themselves. Okay. I measured the dowel rod, drew a line with a pen from my purse, and grabbed the saw. The first saw was dull and didn't want to cut. So I tried the other one. That one worked but it took me a little while to cut through my 1/2" dowel rod.

Took it home and sanded the ends. Then I took out my drill and made a hole on each end so I could pass a cord through to hang it. That actually worked! I had a horrible vision of the drill shattering the end because I picked too big of a drill bit or didn't drill straight. But I got it right. Put the dowel rod in the wall hanging, added the cord, nailed a hook in the wall, hung the car storage, and added cars--which Luke soon thought was tons of fun to take out of the hanging! (Putting them back in wasn't quite as fun.)

Sewing Mojo Is Back!

Look out world, I am sewing again! I got my sewing machine two years ago for Christmas. After buying tons of stuff for sewing, I realized that it was hard to sew when you had to go grab stuff out of a closet and inevitably have to make multiple trips to the closet because you forgot something. I didn't have a dedicated space for sewing, so it was hard to fit it in during the gaps of time I had (when Luke is sleeping). With knitting, I just grab my yarn and needles and I'm off.

So when we bought this house, I wanted a dedicated space for sewing. Next month, we'll have been in the house for a year (really? It doesn't seem possible). Until just before Christmas, my sewing machine remained in its box because I just hadn't figured out where to put it. Our extra bedroom is our guest room as well as my office and crafting space. With the futon, desk, two printers, and a small bookshelf, I had no real surface space, especially space to leave out my machine.

I got the machine out to finish up a little stocking for the cats. At that time, I set up a folding table in a small space in our master bedroom and thought maybe I would keep the sewing machine there. But again I had the problem or having all my sewing supplies back in the closet in the other room. What to do?

I had been planning to get one of the Expedit units from Ikea for storage for this guest/craft/office space. I was trying to decide between a 4x4 and a 5x5 and it would go against the wall opposite the futon. But that would give me storage space without very much usable surface space. Back to the drawing board.

In the playroom, I have two 2x4 Expedit units sitting lengthwise along one wall. I love that setup. I realized that the wall in the guest/craft/office room under the window might be big enough to fit two of those units like that. I measured the shelves in the playroom. I measured the wall under the window. Could it be true? Would they be a perfect fit? If I had measured right, it was indeed the case.

Ikea is about 45 minutes away. My husband sold his truck and got a small car last summer. I have a small SUV. The boxes wouldn't fit in it. What to do? Paying for shipping is a bit ridiculous unless you order quite a lot. Well, my brother-in-law is visiting this weekend and he has a bigger SUV. My husband measured it and we determined that the boxes would fit. So off to Ikea we went this morning.

Back home, the guys went to see a movie and I tried putting Luke down for a nap. Today he decided a nap was a terrible idea. I still went ahead and put the shelves together. And you know what? My measurements were right! A perfect fit along the back wall with plenty of space for the futon still on the side wall. On the other wall, I moved an old computer desk which had housed my printer and put the filing cabinet underneath it (the other printer had been on top of the filing cabinet). I put the printers on the top of the new Ikea shelves. I also put my spinning wheels on the top as well as a couple of other things. Then I started filling up shelves. I still actually need to figure out exactly how I want to arrange things, but I now have my sewing and knitting materials at the ready. (Please excuse the bad photos. It's dark out and also the futon is currently down as we have a guest. But I wanted to include some pictures.)

My sewing machine is now on top of the old computer desk. My laptop is on my grandfather's old desk. When I am sewing, I will move the laptop and that desk will become my cutting table. I have an ironing board that hangs on the back of a door--I put it on the closet door so it opens out into the room.

To celebrate my new space, I finally made the drawstring project bag that I've been wanting to make for ages (tutorial here). There were a few places during the tutorial that I wasn't entirely sure, when I read them, that I understood, but once I actually tried it, it made sense. It was so nice, while I was working, to just reach over to the shelves and grab the supply that I needed. I definitely see more sewing projects in my future. (I also have my knitting needles and other supplies nicely organized. I think I'll get some of the large boxes that fit the full square on the shelf and put my spinning and weaving supplies in them.) I finally have a usable crafting space!!

Notice the cat hair on the bag. How appropriate!

It's a reversible bag, but I used the same fabric on both sides. I wasn't sure it would turn out so this one was a bit of an experiment. I love it, so experiment results are excellent!

Doctor Who Christmas 2013

I started watching Doctor Who a few years back, picking up with the new version starting with Nine (Christopher Eccleston). I had not seen any of the older episodes (though I am starting to do that now). I enjoyed it from the beginning and quickly caught up to the current episodes.

I remember when Nine changed to Ten. I wasn't used to the whole regeneration thing since I was new to Doctor Who. It took me a few episodes to get into David Tennant. I was rather stuck on Eccleston. But once I adjusted, I rather enjoyed Ten. (My husband and I have started rewatching from the beginning of the new series and I have to admit that I wasn't quite as fond of Eccleston this time around--I guess I really did adjust quite well to the new doctors.)

Remembering how I felt during the Nine/Ten change, I was a little hesitant to watch the episodes of the Ten/Eleven change. I really liked Tennant and he had more seasons so I was quite invested in him as the doctor. I finally broke down and watched my first Matt Smith episode. Wow. He had me from the very beginning and the whole fish fingers and custard part just really cemented it. With Amy and Rory, it just seemed like a perfect match. When Amy and Rory left, I still enjoyed Matt Smith but it wasn't quite the same. It seems like the dynamic of the three of them was really what worked so well. But even without them, he was still fantastic and his final episode really showed that. His eyes when he was an old man were just so expressive. What an amazing doctor Matt Smith made. (I'm not sure yet how I feel about Twelve. Obviously he's only had a tiny bit of screen time but we'll see how he goes and I will withhold any judgments until I give him a proper chance.)

Anyway, all of this is really to say that the speech that Matt Smith gives right before he regenerates is something that completely resonated with me and that helped resolve some of the things that have been going on in my head about my own life. Let me see if I can find a transcript so I can quote it here. Okay, thank you Reddit! Here it is:

It all just disappears doesn't it? Everything you are, gone in a moment like breath on a mirror. Any moment now, he’s coming, The Doctor -- and I always will be. But times change and so must I. We all change, when you think about it. We are all different people all through our lives and that's okay, that's good. You've got to keep moving so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this, not one day, I swear. I will always remember when The Doctor was me.

It's the part about us changing and being different people through our lives. I have to admit that I've been struggling about my decision to leave academia behind me and embrace my new role as mother and freelance copy editor. There are days when I am just exhausted at the end and as much as I love my son I think about how nice it would be to be back in a library or classroom, focusing on research or discussing a story we've all read. I was exhausted then, too, but it was a different type of exhaustion. I also think about how I never felt I had a break then (always had work to do or that should be done or grading and could never rest without feeling guilty), and I have that with Luke as well, obviously, just in a different way.

But that part of my life--grad school and academia--seem so far removed from me sometimes. It truly does feel like it was a separate life and I was a completely different person then. I think that's the part that I've been having a hard time reconciling. It's not that I want to return to that life. As frustrating and exhausting as raising a child can be, my current life is great overall and I wouldn't give up Luke to go back to academia (and I still agree that, for me, I couldn't do both with any measure of success in either). But I do sometimes miss that person that I was. And it feels strange to think about how different my life was back then. Was that really me? Am I really the same person?

And this speech from Doctor Who clarified things so much. Yes, that was really me. No, I am not the same person, but that is okay. We all change and become different people. That is life and there is nothing bad about that. But it's good to remember who I used to be because that has helped shape who I am now. So I will not forget who I used to be. And how appropriate that who I used to be is also a doctor--a doctor of philosophy (PhD).

Thank you, Matt Smith, for being such a remarkable Doctor. Thank you for giving life to this character and to those lines in your final speech. Thank you for helping me reconcile my old self and my new self. Goodbye, Raggedy Man.

Resolutions?

So when I started this new blog, my idea was that I would actually start posting more regularly again. And by having one blog to contain all topics rather than four separate blogs splitting my life into separate parts (which really aren't separate), I thought this platform would be much better. But I've already let quite a bit of time pass between this post and the last.

I don't really want to start a specific New Year's resolution (which I've already botched) about posting every day or five times a week or something like that. But I do think that my "post more frequently" idea needs a little bit more specifics for me to actually post more frequently. I do know that I am deadline driven, so just having a vague goal of more frequent posting doesn't really do much. So I'm going to start light. One post per week. I'd love to do more of course, but I think that one post a week is not too much pressure but it also gives me a specific goal. And if I have more than one post a week, I'll feel quite pleased.

There are lots of things I should have posted about in the past month or so. I had planned to write a long post about the Essure procedure and my decision to have it done. I planned to post about our first Christmas in our new home, the first Christmas in a long time that we haven't traveled 19 hours to visit family. I planned to write about what's been going on with my knitting and spinning. I planned to write posts about parenting. I had a lovely post idea about the latest Doctor Who episode (the one in which Eleven--Matt Smith--regenerates into Twelve). Some of these posts may still show up (I do seriously want to write about Doctor Who) and some will just be skipped over (like the Christmas stuff). In fact, I am going to go write a new post right now to get myself started (this one doesn't truly count, I feel).

(4) Year-Long Afghan

As I mentioned before, I was working on finishing this afghan that I started at the beginning of 2010. Last night I finished piecing together the last of the blocks and also crocheted a border around the edges. The end result is a very wonky blanket. Not all blocks were the same size (stupid gauge!), so that affected the shape of the afghan. But I remember working on each square and the skills/techniques that I learned. And that is the important thing.

I didn't place the squares in the order that they were knit, but I'll describe them in the order of the finished blanket from the top left corner going across.

The top left square is a fair isle pattern for October. By this point, I was running out of the grey color and I didn't want to buy more, so that is why the center part of the pattern used black instead of grey.

Next is the January square, which created a pattern using knits and purls. I remember that this one came out smaller than it was supposed to and I tried to aggressively block it, which stretched it out too much. So the blocking/size issues occurred from the very beginning.

Finishing out the top row is the February square, which taught us about mosaic knitting, a technique that I think it really neat but which I haven't yet used again. I really should try it again.

Starting row two is the December square, which was just garter stitch stripes to use up whatever yarn we had leftover. I actually had only half finished this one so I did finish it up this past week. It's a pretty massive square.

Next to it is the May square with a cable pattern. I like cables. They're not really that difficult but they look really neat.

And at the end of row two is the March square which was another cable square. That's something I like about cables. There are so many different ways of doing them that patterns can look completely different even when using a similar technique.

Row three starts with the November square, which was all about texture with brambles, basketweave, and bobbles. I thought the bobbles were fun to knit. But this square is absolutely massive, the biggest one of the bunch. No wonder I ran out of the grey yarn! I really should have ripped this out and gone down a needle size (or two) when I saw how big it was turning out, but I was convinced that blocking would solve everything. Ha ha!

Then comes the September square. This one was really neat because you start out in the center and knit out. It creates a really interesting pattern. I think I'd like to make more things like this. I need to keep that in mind!

Row three ends with the June square, which used the linen stitch. I'll have to admit that I'm not crazy about how this square turned out. I'm not sure if I should have left the grey out (definitely not as the main color at least) or if I'm just not a fan of linen stitch. Guess I should try it again some time to figure that out.

The last row starts with the August mitered squares block. This was a really awesome technique and I told myself that I wanted to do a whole blanket with blocks like this. Well, that was a few years ago--have I done that? Nope. Guess it's another thing to put on my knitting to do list.

Then comes the other fair isle square, for April. This one was knit in the round and then in October, we had a special class for steeking! For those of you not up to knitting lingo, steeking means that you cut your knitting (in this case to make a tube into a flat square). We reinforced the sides with a sewing machine, and then cut away. Picking up stitches around the edge to create a border helped to also reinforce those stitches. It was my first (and still only) time with steeking, and it was quite exhilarating! I definitely have to do that again. This square also has the year--2010--so I'll always remember when I started it (and completed most of it--and how long I waited before putting the blocks together).

The last block is the lace block, which was July. This one was the smallest block. Once again, I should have ripped this out and started again on larger needles as well as adding more to it. But I told myself that lace can block out much larger. Sure...that obviously didn't happen!

Anyway, I'm happy to have it done and it will always be a reminder of learning lots of lessons, including lessons about finishing and gauge. I love it for that!

Catching up on a hibernating project

For Thanksgiving, my in-laws came to visit and they were here from Wednesday through Monday (just this morning). I was happy to have them here, but it meant that I couldn't work on my MIL's Christmas present during that time (a shawl), so I had to find other projects to work on. After doing a doll cardigan and skirt for my nieces, I decided to pull out a project that has been sitting in my closet for a long time.

It's an afghan with 12 different blocks. During 2010, I took a class at my LYS during which we did one block per month throughout the entire year, learning new techniques with each block. I actually completed all of the blocks not too long as 2010, but I had not put them together. It seems like finishing is always the bane of my knitting existence. It's not like it was all that tedious--just picking up stitches and doing a three-needle bind off, but I kept putting it off. I decided to pull that out of the closet and finish it up now, before the end of the year, so that it would only be a project that took four years rather than drifting off into a fifth year!

I realized that the final block wasn't completely finished (it was a simple garter stitch stripe block meant to use up leftovers), so I completed that and started piecing the blocks together. As of right now, I have finished joining all four sets of three blocks and am just about halfway through joining two of those sets of three together. It is slow and tedious, but it is getting done, which is the important thing. Now I just have to keep at it. I'll post pictures when it is done.

And I got a bit of a reprieve in knitting time for my MIL's present as we won't see them until the Saturday after Christmas, so that gives me a couple of extra days beyond Christmas (also means I don't have to finish early to leave time to mail it!). So perhaps I can finish the Christmas knitting as well as the afghan by the end of the year.

Of course I got slammed with editing projects today which means taking more time away from my crafting. I also want to set up our Christmas tree and do some other Christmas decorations. I guess that means I should stop writing and get back to editing! I'll make sure the next few posts have a lot of pictures to make up for the lack in this one.

Fighting with Fiber

I enjoy spinning, but I seldom set aside time these days to do it. For some reason, I feel that I need a large uninterrupted period of time to do it. And lately, those times have been taken up with other things (such as my freelance editing projects). But for the first time in about a year, I have 0 editing projects on my plate, so I decided to use my son's nap time as spinning time.

I pulled out some fiber that I got at the DFW Fiber Fest earlier this year: 2 oz of "super fine" wool.

This is a third of the fiber.

I got the wheel ready, got the fiber ready, attached the fiber to the leader, and off I went. Snap! The draft was too thin and the fiber broke apart. Tried again. Got fiber attached to leader and off on round 2. Oops! I forgot to put the fiber through the orifice. Take three.

I finally get going, but the wheel is pulling in the yarn rather quickly. Adjustment. Now not quickly enough and I'm getting very very overspun yarn. Adjustment. Back and forth until I get something that mostly works. But I'm not feeling comfortable with what I'm doing. I'm getting very uneven yarn and much thicker than I usually get. What is going on?

It took me a while to realize it, but it wasn't fully the wheel being out of adjustment. It was me. I'm rusty at spinning. After a while, I started to get back into the rhythm (I also split the fiber into three sections) and it started to feel more normal again, but the yarn I made just doesn't feel even or balanced at all. And I stopped after about 45 minutes because my hands were just tired.

What I did today. Wow! Look at that overspun bit right there about to go onto the bobbin. Yikes!

I've signed up to take two spinning classes at next year's DFW Fiber Fest. I can't take those classes with rusty spinning technique! Fortunately, the FF is not until the end of March, so I have time. I may not get to spin every day, but I need to spin at least once a week (I want it to be more but once a week feels like a promise I can keep). And instead of a huge chunk of time, I need to just spin a little here and there so I can get back my endurance and my skill and my comfort level. Now I just have to make sure that I keep this experience in mind and get the wheel out more often.