Wooden Wine Box

      At my price point, I don't often get my wine in wooden boxes.  I found a tasty, inexpensive Bordeaux a couple of weeks ago, so I went back and asked for a case of the stuff.  Turns out that the twelve bottles came in two wooden boxes - six bottles per box.  

     I loved the boxes all the way home.  The feelings changed once I tried to pry the tops off.  I wanted to upcycle the boxes, but the lids were stapled so tightly that I couldn't help but damage the wood as I tried to work a thin screw driver under a staple or between the lid and the bottom of the box.  I finally extracted the inch long staples and stashed my wine in cabinets and on the kitchen wine rack.

     The lids were good for nothing but kindling, and the boxes were missing a couple of chunks of wood, but I thought I could use them to jazz up a buffet table.  I decided to offer one box to my crafty neighbor who said she could add handles to make a tray. 

     I had to be a copycat.  I sanded the remaining box and patched the gouges with wood filler.  I added some cheap handles and finished by wiping the wood with some mineral oil. 

     

     

     

 

Crocheted High Top Sneakers

      These slippers are just too much fun.  They are not difficult to make, but there are a lot of steps, and you have to pay attention.  Keep track of your rows and pay attention to your stitch counts.

  

     Stephanie Zed demonstrates how to make these slippers in a series of YouTube videos.  There are individual videos for sole sizes S, M, L, and XL.  There's one long video for making the rest of the slipper which contains charts with stitch counts for the four sizes.  Here are the links:

Small Sole:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUsGXkaKQb0&t=0s

Medium Sole:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1bvA1fQr5E&t=0s

Large Sole:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WJqAY-Tns8&t=0s

Extra Large Sole:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrXMc4n7qeM&t=0s

Slipper (4 Sizes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ityoEPu09I&t=0s

Rainbow Blankets for Babies

      A rainbow baby is the name given to a healthy baby born after losing a previous child to miscarriage, still birth, or death after the birth.  The term "rainbow baby" comes from the rainbow's symbolic meaning of hope.

     Ann Carty Coyle runs Rainbow Blankets for Babies at Virtua Voorhees.  I learned about her efforts through a Facebook post.  Since the South Jersey Crochet Guild has been on a long Covid hiatus, I decided to whip up this bright, bright, bright blanket.

No Baby Pastels Here

 

Check out Ms. Coyle's Facebook group page:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1250057261748770

     

  

Pretty Poncho

      My sister requested a poncho.  So many of the poncho patterns out there look like big granny squares folded into triangles.  I wanted to do something different.  This pattern is sized as Women's XL, but the size is adjustable by adding or removing stitches from the beginning chain or by reducing hook size.  Here she is modeling the creation.

I made the poncho very long.  Some people prefer a shorter poncho.

The stitch is sort of a shell.  The poncho can be worn as a rectangle, the front edge going straight across, or as a triangle with the point centered in the front. 

     Here's the tutorial:

Pandemic Toilet Paper Shortages

      I didn't suffer during the early pandemic toilet paper shortages because I'm a paper products hoarder.  Whenever the giant, economy size package of TP or paper towels goes on sale, I buy it, whether I need it or not, and stack it up in the attic.  We're eight months into this Covid mess, and I still have two big packages of Scott Comfort Plus.  One of these days, I'm going to pull out the last roll.  I'm fairly certain that the toilet paper I will purchase at that point will not be on sale.

     While I find paying full price for something you use once and flush down the loo a little uncomfortable, I'm smart enough to realize that the occasional paper shortage does not justify the cost of installing  a bidet - not to mention that a bidet would not enhance the resale value of a home in Hainesport, NJ.  

     The other day, I was on my way to the garage with a pile of leftover fabric that I planned to use for rags, and I had an idea.  Why not cut up those rags and use them to wipe?  I figured I would toss them out after one use.  Then I saw this:  

         

  

     I decided that one can carry frugal a bit too far.  I'm certainly not going to sew toilet paper substitutes, and I'm not washing and drying them for reuse.  Why should I cut up that fabric?  Things haven't gotten that bad yet.  I will cheerfully pay the market price for my next case of bog roll.  

More Crochet - Shawls

       I've gotten carried away with shawls.  There are lots of patterns out there for pocket shawls.  This one though, is a Beverly Original.  The crossed double crochet stitch adds nice texture.  My sister thinks this shawl is just what she needs for running outside during cool mornings or evenings.  Sorry the picture is blurry.      

     This shawl is done in the virus stitch, so called because the shells multiply like a virus.  It is also known as the German shells stitch.  The simple picot edge finishes it off nicely.  You can find numerous virus stitch tutorials on YouTube.  

     This mesh shawl isn't for warmth.  It's for looks.  The YouTube tutorial is below the picture.  It's in Spanish, but that's not a big deal.  This shawl is really easy, so just adjust the video speed to .5 and follow along.  If you are distracted by the audio, hit the mute button.  The tutorial suggests adding tassels, but I left those off.       

Chal a crochet en punto red

(Crochet Shawl in Net Stitch)

Ant or Wasp?

     The latest new visitors in my back yard were (and I say "were" because all three of them are quite dead now) red, fuzzy insects, about 1/2 long, that were crawling through the grass at a pretty good clip.  I had never seen anything like them.  They sort of looked like huge ants, but I had never seen a bright red, fuzzy ant.  They could have been wasps, but they didn't have wings.  The first order of business was to annihilate them.  The next was to identify them.

     

     Say hello to Dasymutills occidentalis.  These bugs are commonly called red velvet ants or cow killer ants.  But they aren't ants.  They are a species of wasp.  The females are wingless and they pack an extremely painful sting.  The males have wings, but they don't have stingers.  Both females and males make a squeaking noise which they use to warn predators.  The three wasps that I repeated stomped didn't make a sound.

     Here's a bit more information from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasymutilla_occidentalis