Author: Marie Haigh

I started knitting 15 years ago right around the time of my marriage and the birth of my niece.

Redecorating for Free

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Mantle before

Long have I wanted to take down that oversized mirror. The main thing that gets reflected in the mirror is the ceiling. It looks ridiculous. Yet, I’m pretty sure I will have to paint the wall once it comes down and I’m just not ready to tackle another paint job.
Instead, I took one of my favorite paintings down in the dining room since it won’t go well with my new striped color scheme and leaned it up against the mirror.

Mantle after

I love the painting over the mantle! It blocks the majority of the ceiling view. It’s big enough to demand attention and not get swallowed up by the fireplace. The light brown border even complements the brick work. Why I might never take it down.

Dining room before

After moving the large painting to the mantle, the dining room walls looked stark. So, I went shopping in the guest bedroom and living room for more artwork.

Dining room after

The Peale Family used to hang in the guest bedroom. I’m not sure why I never tried hanging it in the dining room before. It fits better here. The Peale Family is gathered around their dining table. It only seems right to hang it next to our dining table. Did you notice that the Peales have a red-headed daughter too?

To fill the remaining walls in the dining room, I gathered up my entire angel collection and hung them in small groups.

The wall over the hutch could stand to have a few more angels, which is just a lovely excuse to go visit my favorite thrift store in town.

5 Years to Paint 1 Dresser

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Maybe it was 6 years. I don’t recall when I started this project. All I know is that I became dreadfully bored with painting the dresser white and found a million projects to keep me busy instead. So, the dresser looked like this for at least 5 years.

It might have stayed like this forever if Dan hadn’t teased me about it.

Even after pulling all the drawers out and moving the dresser downstairs, I had to give myself more than one pep talk to knock the priming and painting out.

I just don’t like painting things white. Give me turquoise or red and I’ll jump for joy, but white bores me. After a while, it even depresses me. It’s no fun at all.

And to think I have several doors and radiator covers that need to be painted white. I hope it will take me considerably less time to finish them all.

Do you have any home DIY projects that you are dragging your feet over? Do share!

A Week with Elly

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Since Elly has been left out of my recent posts about knitting and painting, I decided she deserved a post all to herself.

Sculpting a bird’s nest with 2 eggs (because she had just watched a Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That Nest Best Thing episode where Sally and Nick learn how to make a robin’s nest)

Leading her scooter down the sidewalk (still learning how to ride it)

the swings are back at the Spruce Park! (as you can see in the background, they were hanging them while we were there)

On High Street in Pottstown, a row of sidewalk is missing. Elly has to stop to play with the rocks every single time.

I hope to make this a weekly event. It seems silly that I take a billion pictures of Elly and only a handful of people ever get to see them. Call it my brag book if you will.

Too Many Projects

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When I told Dan about my desire to paint the kitchen walls orange, he laughed at me and told me I had too many projects. Maybe he is right. Here is my current to-do list.

1. Sew a party dress for Elly and me – deadline Sept 22nd

2. Plant tomatoes, zucchini and more carrots in my vegetable garden – deadline Mother’s Day

3. Paint stripes in the dining room – deadline asap because the carpet is falling apart which is no surprise since it is probably 50 years old

4. Paint the door white in the dining room – asap – see above

5. Paint the rad cover white in the dining room – not essential as the radiator can just sit bare

6. Finish knitting the hexagon blanket before the weather gets warm – approx May 15th deadline

7. Sew sheer curtains for the dining room and living room – deadline Thanksgiving Day

8. Sew slip covers for the wing back chairs – deadline Thanksgiving Day

What’s on your to-do list?

A 30-Year-Old UFO

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Don’t you just love the 1970’s colors?

Clearly, it’s not my UFO, unfinished object.
1. I don’t crochet.
2. This would be an advanced project to make when one is 6.
No, it belonged to my neighbor, who is about the age of my Grandmother.

During a recent visit, my neighbor saw me knitting on the hexagon blanket. (I just have to shout out that I finished the 4th hexagon! If I can keep this rate up, I’ll have the entire blanket completed by mid May). She mentioned that a friend had taught her how to crochet many years ago, but that she had forgotten and frankly no longer cared for it. Still she had kept a half-finished afghan all these years, unable to throw it out. Would I want it?

I fell in love with the design. It’s not the typical crocheted afghan. It almost looks like it had been knitted.

But now that I have it, I’m uncertain what to do with it.

A. I could complete crocheting the afghan after taking a refresher course on how to crochet. Enough yarn is included to make it several inches longer. However, I’m not a huge fan of the colors and I detest the tassels. Plus, it’s acrylic yarn and not the nice stuff that they have out today.

B. Crochet a few more inches onto the afghan, but don’t include the tassels. Though the thought of weaving in all the current tassels makes me seasick.

C. Regift the afghan to someone who crotchets but not before translating the design into a knitting pattern. Then, knit myself a similar blanket in lovely superwash wool.

D. Hide the project for another 30 years.

What would you do?

Beautiful Noro Featured in the 4th Hexagon

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The beautiful Noro matched with the natural Manos del Uruguay

I just love how the Noro changes color throughout the hexagon.

Serious progress is being made. There aren’t too many cool Spring days left in which I want to be working with warm wool.

I work on it every night. My knitting bag comes along on every trip to the local playgrounds.

Elly has even learned proper etiquette around a knitting project, such as pulling yarn out of a skein currently being knitted from is a no-no. Lol.

A Bigger Dining Room

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In the before shot, you can see the bakers rack.

It was a gift from my father-in-law. It worked great in our old apartment, providing much needed storage in the kitchen.

It has never worked quite so well in our home. For starters, it doesn’t fit in the kitchen. So, I stuck it in the dining room. The dining room is a small room and it is made smaller by the bakers rack.

Though the shelves are full, they are full of stuff that we rarely use. Not being avid wine drinkers and being the proud parents of a very curious daughter, the wine rack is empty and will remain that way.

Yet the driving force behind my desire to relocate the bakers rack to the basement was my upcoming striped paint job. If I’m going to go through all the trouble of measuring out and painting stripes, I want people to see them.

Once I moved the bakers rack, I noticed that the wall adjacent to the kitchen doorway was long enough to house the hutch. So, I moved it. Well, now look at the room.

There is so much space!

The dining table can actually sit underneath the ugly retro chandelier. I can walk around the entire table!

And look, I have the entire long wall to paint stripes on. Oh, I’m a lucky girl!

Baseball Blanket, a new pattern

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With Phillies baseball season officially starting tomorrow, it gives me great pleasure to release a baseball knitting project.

A blanket for the baseball enthusiast!

It is an easy and fun project to work on while watching your favorite baseball team. The blanket is knit entirely in garter stitch so you can keep your eye on the ball. Three sections are knit separately and then seamed together to form the shape of a baseball. Shaping is created through simple yarnover increases, k2tog and ssk decreases, cast on rows and bind off rows. The yarnovers also serve as a visual guide of where to put the baseball stitching.

Knit one to take to the game today!

Price: $5.00 USD

This blanket would fit perfectly in a baseball themed nursery too!

I originally designed and knit this blanket because I needed my firstborn child to have a baseball blanket. Dan and I are huge Phillies fans. Of course, our daughter would be a Phillies fan too. Already, she shows great enthusiasm for the game.

Go Phillies!

More information about the pattern can be found here or on Ravelry.

Thank you to Nihart Photography for the beautiful pictures. More of her work can be seen at nihartphotography.smugmug.com.

3 Down and 13 Inches Left

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The 3rd hexagon was completed on Sunday.

About halfway through the hexagon, I realized I was going to run out of the Taos yarn. Not wanting to switch yarns in the middle of a hexagon, I ripped all the yarn out of the sample hexagon I had knit when making a gauge.

It was barely enough. I was left with only 13 inches.

More luck came my way during the finishing phase. This time the hexagon lay flat. There was no bubble in the middle as there had been with the previous two hexagons.

See the difference?

Perhaps I had seamed them together wrong. Sure enough, too much of the cast on edge was bunched up in the middle causing the bubble. I only had to rip the seam back 3/4 of the way, match the end of the cast on row with the top stitch of final section knit, ease the fullness of the cast on row and reseam. They look so much better.

I’ve already cast on for the 4th hexagon. When I get further along, I’ll post pictures. The Noro yarn is just beautiful.