Category Archives: Gifts


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R2D2 Pincushion DIY

Star Wars Day was a few days ago so it’s completely fitting to share this R2D2 pincushion DIY I made a few years ago.

I was brainstorming ideas for a crafty gift exchange in an online group. My giftee was a big Star Wars fan and her favorite craft was quilting. Around the same time I’d been browsing CraftyPod and had come across Diane’s plastic canvas needle book with built-in pincushion.

The puffy pincushion immediately made me think of R2D2’s top dome and I wondered if I’d be able to do something similar atop a plastic canvas base. It worked but I did one thing wrong so I’ll tell you what to do so you don’t make the same mistake I did!

You will need:

I started out by making the base, so I could later cut the circle to the proper size. This is easier than making the dome and needing to fit your design for the base into those constraints.

I found some good sample images for R2D2 online and drafted out a cross stitch pattern for his body. If you copy my chart you will need a plastic canvas rectangle that is 26 holes high by 67 holes wide. You can also stitch the body first and cut it out afterwards if you prefer.

Following the chart above, cross stitch the body design onto your plastic canvas. The majority of Artoo is white with some smaller gray areas and some blue.

Once the base stitching is complete separate your yarns into plies and use them single-strand to work backstitch on the outline areas. Black is used for all the main panel shapes and round areas, gray is used on both blue grills and blue is used for the vertical dashes on the front section. Note that the red border is the boundaries of the design and is not stitched.

Using white yarn, whipstitch around the lower edge of the body. Leave the sides and top unstitched as they will be used in seaming later.

I only gave Artoo only two legs in this design as he was standing upright and the third leg would not be seen underneath. I think it would look even better and more authentic if you made him tilted back with all 3 legs visible!

To make his legs stitch the above chart twice onto plastic canvas. When working be sure to mirror the gray segments at the top so the two legs are opposite (see image below).

As before the red designates the boundaries of the design and should not be worked.

Using single strands of black and gray yarn, embroider the outline details on both legs.

Using white yarn, sew the two legs into place on the body, following the placement as shown above. Sew down directly through the two layers of plastic canvas making tacking stitches 1 square high, and following along the sides and top of the legs. Be sure to put the correct leg on the correct side.

Using white yarn, whipstitch the two side edges together. This will join his body into it’s cannister shape. This base structure should be able to stand on its own on the two legs.

Now that you have your base diameter set you can cut out an appropriately-sized ring from your plastic canvas circle.

Lay your plastic canvas circle on top of the body and mark which ring of holes is closest to the top’s diameter. If you don’t have an exact match pick the one that is slightly smaller. I removed the inside of my ring leaving only one hole to stitch, but this proved unnecessary in the end as I did not wind up putting my pincushion through the ring as was done in the inspiration project.

With gray yarn, fill the outside row of holes by stitching up and down through them, then again to fill the alternate holes. You want at least one or two rows of holes filled with gray yarn in case they show later. Also trace your new circle onto a piece of heavy cardstock or foam core and cut it out.

In the image above you can see the size of my original ring and then the one I cut out. You can also see my foam core disk.

Test your alcohol markers on a corner of your white fabric. You want to find the right colors that match your blue yarn while also making sure that your markers won’t feather at the edges. You want a marker that will allow you to draw shapes that will retain crisp edges and not bleed into other sections. With the markers I had on hand and my particular fabric, Spectrum Noir worked best. I liked the color of the Bics better but it bled a little more and I didn’t want to take a chance on ruining my design.

Knowing that the dome would be puffy, I added about 2″ extra to my disk’s diameter and traced out a larger circle. Using a clear image of R2D2’s dome as a reference I sketched out roughly where the various components went, and then colored it all in with my alcohol markers.

Then I cut out the dome. This is where I messed up. I forgot to take into account that gathering the fabric would mean losing at least the outer 0.5″ underneath my foam core disk. I SHOULD have cut out Artoo’s dome leaving a good 1″ minimum of white around the edges. You can leave this outer ring white or alternately you could extend the colors that touch the edges outwards for at least 0.5″.

To create your pincushion you’ll want to thread your sewing needle with thread and pass a running stitch all the way around the circumference of the dome. As you can see in the top right image, when you start to pull on the thread it will gather your dome into a cup shape. Unfortunately mine gathers part of Artoo’s details and they get hidden underneath. You’ll want to arrange your gathers so that it is the excess white fabric that gets gathered underneath and the full dome pattern is visible above.

Once you’ve stitched your running stitch turn the dome over and add your stuffing. Place your cardstock or foam core on top to give your dome a solid, flat base. Then gather your threads tightly and secure in place. You can run extra threads across from side to side if desired.

The last step for assembly is to attach the dome to the base. Use your same sewing thread and needle to secure the plastic canvas ring to the underside of the dome. Then use gray yarn and your yarn needle to whipstitch the two plastic canvas pieces together. You might need to ease in some stitches if you don’t have a direct 1-to-1 line up. It can help to pin the dome in place with locking stitch markers, marking each quarter so that you know the dome is in the correct position. (Be sure that he’s facing the right way!)

With that, your R2D2 pincushion is done! Yours will look better than mine because his whole head will be showing. Still- I’m happy with him and best of all the recipient loved him and sent me a pic later of him put to good use holding her pins.

Happy (belated) Star Wars Day!

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DIY Custom Wooden Puzzle

Like many others, my mother got really into puzzles during the pandemic. So when Hanukkah rolled around the boys wanted to give her a custom puzzle as a gift. Being a maker I knew we could make one ourselves, and here’s how we did it. With 3 weeks left until Hanukkah and even longer until Christmas you’ve got plenty of time to make a custom gift for the puzzle lover in your life.

To get started you’ll need a puzzle to customize. We wanted a wooden one to be sure it would hold up to being painted then colored. We found this one at our local Dollarama but there are a number of good options on Amazon. You can get a 4-pack of flat puzzles or go for a cube style and make a custom puzzle with multiple images!

Assemble the puzzle over a drop cloth or protective surface. If your puzzle has a gift box or lid you’d like to decorate as well, open it flat. Our box simply unfolded; if yours is glued together you can ease it apart and re-glue it later, or prime it in sections.

You have two options for primer – you can go with a spray primer option like we did, or you can use white gesso and foam brushes and paint it on instead.

Use light, thin coats of primer to get a solid, even coverage. If spraying indoors like I did make sure your drop cloth covers ALL nearby surfaces. (My black dining room chairs now have faint white stripes…oops!).

Once the primer is fully dry you’ll want to disassemble the puzzle and lightly sand the edges of each piece. This will ensure no primer dripped down which could prevent proper assembly later.

Put the puzzle back together and you’re done! You now have a blank, white puzzle and box ready to customize however you’d like.

From this point it’s no longer a tutorial as there are unlimited ways you could decorate your puzzle, but I’ll show what the boys did for their grandmother.

They used the Crayola Air Marker Sprayer Airbrush Kit. I’ve got a full review of the airbrush coming soon but spoiler alert – it’s great! It comes with a few markers in the box but we’ve found that it’s compatible with all Crayola markers that have the same barrel size, so I picked up this pack of 16 Crayola Pip-Squeaks washable markers so the kids would have extra colors to choose from. They worked perfectly with the airbrush and washed off all hands, clothes and my plastic protective cloth.

The boys took turns adding colors to the puzzle and then used the airbrush kit’s included stencils to add little details like the stars and sun.

The primer does keep the water-based marker ink from absorbing as quickly as it would into paper, so it’s a good idea to let it dry fully before handling. While ours was drying the boys took turns decorating the gift box.

They had fun testing out the different stencils and playing with color, and then we let everything dry further.

The final step for the kids was to use glitter glue to add sparkle to the puzzle, and then let that dry as well.

Here’s their completed puzzle:

It reminds me of the tie-dyed scarves we used to hang on our bedroom walls in the 90s!

A combination of the puzzle fitting really well together and the primer filling any residual cracks meant that there was no bleed-through of the primer or marker spray onto the back of the puzzle.

They added more glitter glue to the gift box and a few extra details like a birthday message and some outline work.

I’d accidentally left the plastic window on the box when spraying it so I cut a new square of plastic from some leftover packaging and glued it into place. Then I put the plastic handle back onto the box.

With that the boys had a completely unique gift for their puzzle-loving Bubbie.

There are SO MANY ways you can customize your own puzzle! These can be painted, colored with markers, watercolor, colored pencil, or even decoupage with tissue or thin paper (and then re-cut the puzzle shapes with a sharp blade). You can even play with the texture of the primer you use, like giving a waterfront scene sand medium for the beach and texture medium for the lapping waves. The possibilities are truly endless.

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How to Make Plastic Canvas Gift Tags

Looking for a different way to label your gifts this holiday season?

These personalized plastic canvas gift tags are quick and easy to make and are reusable as charms after the wrapping paper’s been recycled.

You only need a few supplies to get started:

  • plastic canvas – I used 7-ct but if you have a more complicated design that you want to fit into a small area, you can use 10-ct or 14-ct. (The “count” is how many holes per inch).
  • plastic lobster hooks – metal will work just as well. You can even cannibalize hardware from broken keychains or charms you already own
  • yarn – scraps from other projects will work great for this
  • yarn needle
  • scissors

The first step is to choose your designs so you can create a chart. My example tags were made for a young boy whose name starts with a “B” and was really into Minecraft, and a young girl whose name starts with “K” and was really into Monster High. So I decided to put their initials on one side and something iconic from each theme (Creeper & Skullette) on the other.

I used Excel to create my charts but you can just as easily use graph paper. If using Excel resize your cells into squares and then use the color fill to draw your designs, 8-bit pixel-style.

For the Creeper tag I went with a square shape since most Minecraft mobs have square heads. I then “drew” a capital b in a grid of the same size as the Creeper face. I decided not to do the typical blend of colors for the Creeper since this was just a quick add-on to the birthday party gift we were giving, but you can get as creative as you’d like!

For the Monster High tag I found a free-use Skullette chart and used the size of that chart as a basis for my “K” chart, which I drafted in a font similar to that of the Monster High lettering.

You have freedom to design anything you’d like for your tags! Your only limit is the total size you’d like your tags to be, as the bigger your design, the bigger the results.

The next step is to cut out plastic canvas pieces the sizes required for your tags. Remember that it takes 2 holes on the diagonal to make 1 continental or cross stitch with plastic canvas, so if your grid is 10×10 pixels then you need to cut out a piece of plastic canvas 11 holes x 11 holes, etc.

Stitch your pieces as desired. I used continental stitch (half of a cross-stitch) and did the green background for each piece first, leaving one piece with a tail about 3-4 times as long as the full perimeter. This is optional but by leaving the seaming yarn as your tail it’s one less end to hide later.

After the green I filled in the spaces with black for the “B” and the Creeper’s face.

I followed the same process for the other tag, working from background first to the details last, so the details would remain sharp and not risk getting fuzzy at the edges. First I did the white background (flipping Skullette so the bow would be on the right since the original chart was for Perler beads which get flipped after ironing), then the purple (as I didn’t have pink scraps handy), and finally the black, which I also used to backstitch some shading under the “K”. I didn’t do the tail trick for this one as I wanted to seam it with a different color.

To seam, hold the pieces with wrong-sides together and go from back to front through the first corner 3 times. Next whipstitch around the first side and when you get to the next corner, go through it 3 times again, and continue this process around. When you get to the corner where you’d like to put the hook, do the first corner wrap, then wrap twice while also going through the hook’s jump ring, then go through the corner alone once more.

After all 4 sides are fully seamed you can skim your needle through one side’s wraps and pull the yarn through, for about an inch, then trim the excess as close as you can.

These little tags are under 3″ making them perfect to clip onto a schoolbag or tote.

They really add a personal, handmade touch to a gift without taking too much time or costing the bank.

Have fun creating your own!

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Crafting With Kids – Easy Photo Ornament

It’s December 1st, and although stores have been in Christmas mode since even before (American) Thanksgiving, we’re now “officially” close to the holidays. Here’s a quick holiday project that’s easy enough for kids to make (with minor supervision). These easy photo ornaments are a great way to share cute images and make great gifts for grandparents. They can even be used as gift tags!

I used extras of my kids’ Santa’s lap pictures, but you can use school photos, family portraits, even pet pics!

Materials needed:

All materials as shown were found at my local Dollarama, though I’ve linked Amazon’s versions for delivery convenience.

For an ornament style, have draw or trace a circle around the desired part of your image. You aren’t limited to circles, of course, and can draw any shape you like. Cut out your shape and outline it with your choice of glitter glue. You can add other embellishments if desired, can trace only the outline as above or a later pic below, or fill in a part of the image as seen in the following images. Set aside to dry fully – at least a few hours, or overnight.

Prepare your tulle or ribbon as follows: make one large bow, one small one, and then tie two bells onto a 10″ length of tulle/ribbon, leaving about 3.5″ between them. You can trim the tail ends later. If unable to thread the tulle/ribbon through the bell’s loop, a yarn needle can help. You can also use the yarn needle (or the scissors or a hole punch) to make a small hole in the top center of the image.

Stack the small bow on top of the large bow and use the tulle/ribbon with the bells to tie them together, allowing the bells to dangle below. Cut all tails to desired length.

To assemble: Cut a 10″-12″ length of yarn. Loop through the hole in the ornament. You can use the yarn needle to thread the yarn ends through the knot of the large bow, or tie the yarn directly around the center of the bow bundle, between the two bells. Knot the two ends of the yarn together to create a hanging loop.

These hold up pretty well! While the step-by-step images were taken in 2017, the photos from here onward were taken in November 2021. This is an early, more simple version I’d made in about 2015.

The example ornament has the center spot in our wreath and it’s lasted quite well. I’ve written the date and kids’ ages on the back, and they create a nice memory during the holiday season.

Happy holidays!

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Last-Minute Eevee Amigurumi

One of Henri’s closest friends is a little boy named Matthew.  They used to see each other at the bus stop every morning, and then during recess/lunch at school, but at the beginning of this school year Matthew had to switch to a different elementary which falls within the French school board.  This means that the boys only get to see each other at playdates, which is sad for both of them.

Because of this, Henri’s been SUPER excited for Matthew’s birthday party, which was this afternoon.  The two of them love playing Pokemon together and trading cards, so for Matthew’s gift I picked up a new set of cards.  I showed it to Henri last night while he was coloring a card to go with it, and he said “too bad there’s no Eevee in the box.  Matthew’s FAVORITE Pokemon is Eevee.”

I nodded noncommittaly and handed him the markers.  Then he added, casually, “I sure wish you could have made him an Eevee for his party.”

Oh.

Don’t get me wrong- I love making handmade gifts, and  I’ve often added little handmade touches to store-bought presents.  But… Matthew’s party was the next day.  And Henri mentioned this at 8:29pm.

Well.  I’m nothing if not optimistic!  (And a night owl).  I hopped into Ravelry, poked around at some options, and settled on this free pattern by Clare Heesh.  I assembled my materials,

Photo 2018-10-20, 2 44 22 PMmade a quick post to my Instagram story about how crazy I was… and then got started.

I worked the pattern as written, with the following changes:

  • used random worsted yarn from my stash and a 3.5mm hook (because I couldn’t find my 3mm)
  • crocheted inner ears instead of sewing on brown felt (because I didn’t have any handy)
  • fluffed up tail too

I was finished crocheting the body pieces by 12:43am:Photo 2018-10-20, 12 43 38 AM

Next was assembly!

Photo 2018-10-20, 2 51 39 PM

First I stuffed the body, then sewed on the legs.  After that I sewed on the tail, followed by the arms.  The next step was supposed to be to sew the head onto the body, but I found the stuffing kept wanting to pop out of the body, so I basted over it quickly with the tail of the white yarn.

Photo 2018-10-20, 2 52 17 PM

I inserted safety eyes then sewed the head down, whipstitching at a 1-to-1 ration between the head and body pieces.  I stitched the ear centers down to the ears, then sewed those onto the head as well.  Finally was the fun part: the fluff!  I looped lengths of the white yarn around the neck then brushed it out with a cat brush until it was super soft and fluffy.Photo 2018-10-20, 2 53 36 PM

And here’s the finished Eevee!  I didn’t trim the fluff, instead I sort of folded it into place and used the end of my crochet hook to stab it into the body, similar to how you’d do needle felting.  The last thing I did was to use the cat brush and brush out the white end of the tail to give it a bit of fluff too.Photo 2018-10-20, 2 07 20 AM

I think she’s so adorable that I don’t mind that I only finished her at 2:15am LOL

UPDATE: I showed her to the boys this morning and they were beyond excited.  Henri squealed, and Jakob was so happy with her that he jumped off his bed to come hug me and say “great job Mom!” which MADE my morning and is EXACTLY the reason why I stay up til crazy hours doing things like this.


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Crafty Compilation – w/e 01/07/17

2017.  Wow.  I can’t believe I started this blog roughly 13 years ago, nor that some of you have been around since the very beginning.  Whether you’re one of my original few hundred subscribers or one of the couple thousand who discovered my site when looking for my most popular Halloween DIY, hi there, happy holidays, and happy New Year!  I’ve got a lot planned for this little blog over the upcoming year, so if you’re an old friend- thanks for sticking around… and if you’re new- I hope you’ll pull up a chair and stay a while.

Some of you may note that I’ve slowly made changes to the type of content that I post.  I’ve never been a mono-crafty person, and the blog will always adapt to whatever creative pursuits I’m into at the time, whether they’re knitting or crochet, cosplay or cakes.  Coloring books are going to have more of a showing on the blog, as will as a variety of crafts beyond the yarn-based ones.  For the last two years I’ve taken step-by-step photos of all the projects that I’ve made with the intent to focus more on sharing helpful DIYs, tutorials and tips going forwards, instead of merely showing off whatever I’ve made.  I’m going to have more reviews coming up, both sponsored and non, and while there might be affiliate links popping up at the end of some posts, I can promise you that my reviews will always be strictly my honest, unbiased thoughts.

Another feature I’m going to add is a weekly roundup, to both keep track of and hold accountable to the projects I’ve got ongoing.  Not everything needs to wait for a finished reveal, and sometimes quick projects or small pastimes get lost in the shuffle of the day-to-day.  To that end – this is my first Crafty Compilation.  I plan to post these on Sundays and to cover the previous week’s goings-on, but this first one is being posted on Thursday because life LOL.  Amazing how, even when one is off work in post-op recovery, when it comes to crafting, there still isn’t enough time!  This first CC will cover some stuff worked on over the holidays, as well as last week.

Knitting

  • Gift knitting

Over the holidays I knit a special baby hat.  One of Yannick’s closest friends had a baby girl just before the holidays, and when he showed me the gifts he planned to bring for the friend and his other young daughter, I told him I knew just the thing to make for the new arrival.  The little girl’s dad has similar geeky tastes as we do, and I thought this pattern would be perfect.

I’ve knit it once before, back in 2013, as part of a Hallowe’en costume for a baby girl aptly named Leia. This was a pic of Jakob trying it on for me at the time:

jakob-in-leia-hat

and this is a pic of the little sweetheart in her full costume.  Cutest Leia I’ve ever seen!leia-in-princess-leia-hat

The pattern is very well written and it’s a pretty quick knit, even with all the icord.  The hat and the ear puffs each took a night’s worth of knitting to work up, then the assembly took barely an episode of Elementary.

leia hat collage.jpg

Forgive the bad pics, it’s hard to take hat pics without an appropriately-sized head! 🙂 I’m really pleased with how the hat came out, even though I’d knit it before and expected it to look the same.  One thing I love about this pattern vs others out there is how it incorporates ‘bangs’ and the center part (not clearly visible in these photos but seen better in the one of Leia wearing it above).

  • Drops v-neck sweater

I also completely frogged a sweater I’d been working on.  Back in September I’d started a garter-stitch oversized sweater with a lovely gray yarn from my stash.  I’d thought it would be perfect ‘no-look’ movie or tv knitting but after measuring a sweater I own that had the fit I wanted, I realized that what I was making wouldn’t have the proper shape.  Plus I’d been having a nagging feeling that the garter stitch was eating up too much of my limited yarn.  So I frogged it one evening last week and began this pattern instead.  I’m pretty sure I’ll have enough yarn, and if not I’ll work the neckband and/or cuffs in something contrasting.

photo-2017-01-09-11-02-39-pm

So far I’m at about 32cm of the 34cm I need to be at before splitting for the low v-neck.

Coloring

  • Doodle Fusion ‘Christmas Tree’

A few weeks ago I’d taken a page from Dede Willingham and done color washes across a bunch of my coloring book pages.  From what I’ve seen she primarily uses acrylic paints, but I mixed it up a bit, using not only paint, but also my Neocolors (seen previously here, in imagimorphia) and my Inktense (last seen here, also in imagimorphia).  This particular page, from Zifflin’s Doodle Fusion, seems to deliberately invoke a Christmas tree, so that’s how I decided to approach it.  I colored over the whole image with the Inktense in shades of green.  The first pic is immediately after wetting the pencils, and the second is the next day, after the page had dried.

doodle fusion christmas tree 00.jpg

My plan is to color the characters in colored pencil over the Inktense, keeping them muted and dark, but to color all the eyes and anything round-ish in bright gel pens, so they’d (hopefully) look like bright ornaments on the tree.  If you squinted at it.  Maybe.

doodle-fusion-christmas-tree-01

This was after my first pass with the gel pens.  I think I got all the areas I’d wanted, but I’m sure as I work on the figures I’ll find more.  I’m looking forwards to coloring the characters now in dark tones to really make the gel pen pop.

PS- this book is crazy, and I love it.  I’ll be showing a lot more of it in future posts.

I finally finished a page I started coloring back in November in the Disney Villains coloring book Yannick had bought for me, but as this post is getting long I’ll save them for another.  That’s another excellent coloring book that I’ve been working in quite a bit.

UPDATE: those pages are posted here.  🙂

Other Crafts

  • While the boys were off school for Christmas break I tried to keep them occupied with more than just Minecraft, Little Big Planet, or their new Skylanders Imaginators. Every few days we had ‘technology-free’ time during which we’d color, or do pencil puzzle books, and during one of those afternoons I taught them how to make their own stuffies.  However I took a TON of photos and so I’ll share the step-by-steps of their work in another post

Alright, that’s it for this round-up!

 
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timing is everything

I started a vest for myself.  I shouldn’t have, but I did.

At guild on Tuesday I won a mini raffle we did, and got a 2012/2013 Bergere de France magazine.  There are some GORGEOUS patterns in there, but I was taken by 2 in particular.  One of them I’m not sure what yarn to use, but the other…well…it’s a fun fur vest.  I know.

I know.

I KNOW.

But it’s really cute, and worse comes to worst I’m always cold at home so….  Yeah.  Moving on…

The body is worked on 8mm needles so it’s a fast knit.  It’s kinda a shrug/vest hybrid, and on Wednesday night I cast on.  I finished the back ribbing and the first few rows of the body.  And then I brought it to work with me on Thursday so I could photocopy the pattern out of the magazine to make it easier to work on.

Now, I shouldn’t have started this project on Wed.  I had realized just that morning that Christmas might be in 2 weeks, but the last day of daycare/kindergarten is next week, which means I’m running out of time to do the holiday teachers’ gifts which I haven’t started yet.  I *should* have started those.  But I didn’t.

Which makes it only fitting that I forgot the project at work last night, and then today both boys woke up with fevers, meaning I had to keep them home, and be home all day, and NOT be able to work on the vest.

Which means that in about 5 minutes I’ll be starting the holiday teachers’ gifts, all due next week.  🙂


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still good

Even though I had to go back into work today, I still managed to get my rows done, which means that although I’m not further ahead, I’m still 12 rows ahead of the game.

Our daycare wants the kids’ valentines in this week, to prepare the kids to hand them out next week.  I had lucked out last year and found 2 packs of Valentine’s Day pencils on sale the day after Valentine’s Day, and kept them for this year.  Instead of buying cards I made little papers on the computer, and punched holes at two of the corners.  Yes, I didn’t have the kids sign them.  But I did this after they were in bed, and I honestly don’t think they or their friends will care if they are personally signed.


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vegas kal #2 also done!

Remember I said I’d figured out how to fix/finish the too-small, too-“not me” Vegas scarf?  It was simple- I’ve got an engagement party this weekend for an old friend- my grad date, actually- who’s getting remarried.  He’s got a daughter from his first marriage who’s 2 months older than Jakob, and we’ve been having playdates with them for years.   Back “in the day” both he and I used to play Vampire: the Masquerade (though not together, except for one truly epic HUGE game at UofM) and he went through a bit of a goth phase, and his daughter definitely has some of that in her too.  Her winter coat is black, and I decided to put the hastily-ripped-from-the-needles scarf back on, and finish it to give to her as a gift.  Her dad (and his fiance) will be getting a gift from their registry, but the daughter is a part of this new family being created and I wanted her to have a gift to open too.

Last night after finishing MY scarf I slowly ripped back the last row of live sts- a fun fur row…making this not much fun at all.  Still, eventually I had all 264 sts back on my needle.

OH!  Guess what?!?  Part of the reason the scarf wasn’t doing it for me, is that I could sense it was kinda small.  Well, no wonder- turns out I wasn’t using a 5mm after all- I’d been using a 3.5mm!!  BIG difference!  I’d had both loose with their Addi bags in a project bag, saw the 5mm bag and nearby a needle and grabbed it, never stopping to see that it wasn’t the needle from that bag.

Anyways, I got it back on the 3.5mm, and did about 4 more rows just so it would feel “finished” to me.  I confess I didn’t roll or flip, I just used the yarns I wanted to use, and made the scarf look slightly asymmetrical, yet balanced.  I got through about 1.5 of those rows yesterday, but it got late and I put it off ’til today.

This is both halves of the same scarf, showing the two different sides.  You can see the split down the middle, though it’s hard to see through the fuzz.

This morning I went solo to the non-zoned French school’s open house.  It turns out it’s not an option for us.  The problem is that you have to apply every year for permission to transfer to your non-zoned school…even once your child is registered there.  So even if Jakob gets in for kindergarten, we’d have to reapply for grade 1, 2, etc before each new school year.  To begin with, they refuse over 85% of transfer requests because they need to keep a minimum of kids in their zoned schools, and what really is the clincher for me, is that even if he gets in for kindergarten, if any random year later our zoned school doesn’t have enough kids, they can refuse us and we’d have to transfer to the zoned school.  There’s no way I can have Jakob in a school and making friends and have to worry every single year if he’ll have to transfer away.  And then in a few years go through the same thing with Henri.  Uh uh.

Once I got home I had some lunch, then sat down to start catching up on the last 2 weeks of Once Upon a Time and Desperate Housewives.  While watching I did the last few rows (everything from the white section to the end from the pic above), and then I bound off with the same yarn combo I’d cast-on with, and twisted the fringe with Maaike’s handy-dandy fringe twister.  Man that thing is awesome!  Gonna have to get Yannick to build me one of those.

Now both scarves are done and I get to head over to my original surgeon’s office to see if he can find my hernia(s) yet, and to let him know that I’ve seen another surgeon, and have got the diagnostic laprascopy scheduled.  Not sure which is going to be more uncomfortable…the examination or the confession.