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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Did I mention I'm growing potatoes this year?

Okay, so my "potato condo" is actually a collapsible yard waste bin from Target, and about four bags of potting soil ...

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Who cares?  I still grew potatoes!
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Today is my daughter's first day of school, so I'm going to wait until she's home to harvest the rest.  I can't wait to see how many we got in that little container!

And speaking of little containers, did you know you can grow awesome carrots in a deep flower pot in your front yard, and nobody will ever know (until you harvest them)?

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Trufax.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

New class in development: Super-size Scrappy Square Blanket

My most recent attempt to use up scrap sock yarn generated a lot of interest, both in the Muggle public and at sit-and-knit at my local yarn store.  

I'm guessing that there are a lot of people like me who save oddball amounts of leftover yarn with the intention of doing "something" with it someday, but they have a hard time finding a pattern that doesn't end up looking like something the cat barfed up.  With truly random color choices, there's always an unfortunate possibility that your project will turn out to look significantly less than awesome.

I'm thinking of writing up the patterns for both the solid square blanket (above) and a super-sized granny square afghan (which would be along the lines of this one on Ravelry).  Or maybe a rectangular one in stripes?  These projects have all the hallmarks of being a Lazy Mama favorite:
  • You design the color progression to avoid unfortunate color neighbors
  • Uses yarn you've already got on hand
  • Works with any gauge and thickness of yarn
  • Pattern lets you keep working until you get bored - makes an infinite number of sizes.
  • No seams, and it's easy to work in the ends as you go, so practically no finishing.
I'll need to work up some samples this weekend to get my instructions ironed out, but I think these patterns show a lot of promise.