Shrinky Dinkies

About 2 weeks ago I bought a Shrinky Dink oven from the thrift store.

It uses a light bulb as the heat source, so it's really just an Easy Bake Oven with a narrower slot. When I bought it I wasn't sure it would be a worthwhile investment, but it turns out that this thing is awesome!

Luke calls Shrinky Dinks Shrinky Dinkies. That cracks me up. I made these two...

They were supposed to be knitting stitch markers, but the hole is only big enough to fit up to a size 5 needle comfortably. Maybe if I find a larger ring I can use them for larger needles. Until then they're just charms. For these I used real Shrinky Dink plastic, but did you know you can use any number 6 plastic for Shrinky Dinks? Yep. Pretty cool. I'm on the lookout for number 6 plastic now because Shrinky Dinks are fun!

EDIT: Here's a link to a tutorial using #6 plastic...it's here on Thrifty Fun. I tried it and it worked great with my Shrinky Dink oven.

Here are Luke's Shrinky Dinks. I wrote the colorful one, of course. He didn't do as good a job spelling his name as he usually does. It's summer, so he hasn't had much practice lately!!


In other news, we aren't leaving for Greece until the 13th now. We were going to leave on the 4th, but my husband is swamped with work. With the economy the way it is, we think it's best to delay our trip. I'm not upset at all since I've got a ton of stuff to do....like, sew, knit and finish some quilts. I should say "clean, do laundry, and change the oil on my car", but eh... priorities, shmriorities.

Dyeing Yarn (and More Hats, Of Course!)

I think I'm done knitting hats for a little while! Here are the last two of the bunch I am sending to the Pine Ridge Reservation:

That makes 4 baby hats, one baby hat & blanket combo, 2 toddler hats and 4 child sized hats. Not bad! We are leaving for vacation next week, so I'll have time to knit then. Now its time to finish some quilts! But first....

My foray into dyeing yarn with Kool Aid was not very successful! This was harder than it seemed. For me it was, anyway! I was going to wait to try Kool Aid yarn dyeing until I had destashed more, but then I remembered that last year I had bought 2 Irish wool sweaters from the thrift store for $2.50 each. I always intended to frog them and reuse the yarn, but never got around to it. Until last night.

I cut the seams of this sweater (luckily it was seamed with mattress stitch...easy to unseam!)...


Wound it and tied it so it looked like this:

Looks like a bad perm, doesn't it? I wound two skeins like this and...

...then I used Kool Aid to dye it in the crock pot. I used Orange, Strawberry, and Lemonade.


Here's the finished product:

It's not bad, but I think I'll leave dyeing to the experts. I don't think I have a knack for it! If you'd like to try it, here are two excellent tutorials on how to dye yarn using Kool Aid and a crock pot: this tutorial on Knit Purl Gurl, is excellent, as is this one on Nermal, Not Normal. There is also a tutorial on Knitty, but it doesn't use a crock pot. If you try this I'd love to see your results. Leave a comment if you dye your own and I'll check it out!

More Knitting For Charity

This blanket & hat combo will also go to the Children of the Pine Ridge Reservation. If you want to donate hats, blankets, mittens, or whatever you'd like, there's a group on Ravelry that lists addresses and the needs of the Native Americans who live on the Pine Ridge Reservation. They need items for all ages. One particular need is for mittens for kindergartners this fall/winter.


My kids aren't babies anymore, so I don't have a baby model to show these off. The teddy bear will have to do!


The pattern for the blanket (it's actually a hoodie blanket) is here at The Thrifty Knitter and the hat pattern is published in Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. I used Caron Simply Soft yarn...it washes well and is nice and soft.

Now I'm off to watch the second half of Soylent Green with the husband (while I knit, of course!!). It's funny that I was only 3 yrs old when this movie was made! It's a great movie and I recommend it. Especially in this day and age where food is becoming more and more engineered.

GO MAKE SOME MUFFINS!

I'm baking again today. We had no snacks in the house and the kids kept chanting "blueberry muffins! blueberry muffins!" so I baked muffins. Luckily I had all the ingredients handy! The recipe was from Martha's book:


Luke helped me, so it took a little longer than expected, but it was a lot of fun! He is my official Mixing Technician.

Cook! Darn it! Cook!


Ahhh! Muffins!


"You are mine, all mine! And I shall devour you!


Confession time: These plates...

I stole 4 of them from Greek Islands restaurant. I don't know why except that it's my most favorite restaurant ever and I just had to have them!

Bake On!!

The Charming Girls Quilt Club

With so many UFO's in my sewing room, I think joining a quilt club will be the only way I'll get them all finished! So, I joined a fun group of women at Charming Chatter:

I'm leaving for vacation in 2 weeks, but I have 2 quilts I would like to finish before then (actually, I have 3 I'd like to finish, but I'm trying to be realistic!!).

The first quilt I'd like to finish is my pinwheel quilt. I have all the pinwheel blocks finished; all I need to do is sew them together and then make a flying geese sashing and another sashing and, and, and.... you can tell I have this one well thought out, can't you? Here's a photo of some of the blocks:


The second quilt I'd like to finish is my "Beach Quilt". Its a quilt made of super bright orange and yellow obnoxious polka dots and an equally obnoxious vintage sheet backing. I've been wanting to make a quilt to take to the beach to sit on, but could never decide on fabrics since I don't want to use really nice fabrics; this quilt will be soaked and rubbed in the sand! I couldn't bare to use expensive fabrics. I don't have an "in-progress" photo because I just started cutting it yesterday, but I swear I'll be embarrassed to show a photo of it when I'm done. I'm almost certain it will be the most obnoxious quilt I've made thus far. But at least my kids will always know which blanket is ours.