Do you tawashi?

A tawashi is actually a japanese word for a specific type of scrub brush, but the term has expanded in the crochet realm to these cute little thingees that people started making and using as scrubbies for their dishes.  

I came across these first on etsy.  What caught my eye in particular was the fact that they were made out of acrylic.  Cheapo acrylic yarn, the scratchier the better.  I had always followed the yarn commandment that says, "Thou shalt only use cotton for handmade yarny kitchen thingees."  But much to my surprise acrylic does an extraordinary job of scrubbing dishes. I even scrubbed my lasagna pan without soaking it first with above tawashi and it took no time at all and nowhere near as much elbow grease as it usually would.  Hmmmm... looks like I'll have to take back my vow to never ever buy Red Heart Supersaver again.

I used this pattern to make the tawashi above.  The crochet part was super simple, but I had to watch a video  I found on ravelry to understand how to put it together.  So I made a little picture tool to show how it's done in case anyone wants to make one.
  

When I looked up "tawashi" on Flickr and ravelry I found that people are cuckoo for these things.  Sort of like useful amurigami.  For me the awesomeness of tawashi all lies in the idea of maybe never having to buy a sponge again.  And the fact that you can throw them in with your regular laundry. Because I've always been a little creeped out by the whole sponge crawling with bacteria situation.  Speaking of which, supposedly tawashi made from acrylic is so good at removing food particles from dishes that you don't even need to use soap. (Of course, I still will use soap, but how cool is that?)  There is also some Japanese yarn that has been treated with silver ions to make it anti-bacterial.  Yarn made especially for tawashi making! But I'll stick with my Red Heart stash for now.

So far I've just tried this one pattern, but I found all kinds of super cute tawashi pictures on Flickr.

Here are some of my favorites: 

1. ks-00b, 2. redblueset2, 3. Leaf tawashi, revisited, 4. Heart Tawashi, 5. it's the circle of fish...., 6. Veggie Tawashi, 7. Happy little orange, 8. granny_square tawashi, 9. Strawberry Tawashi, 10. japanese tawashi, 11. 978452904249 natural tawashi, 12. paw_print

Happy tawashi making!

Updated to add video link on 10-5-2012.

Sometimes I knit.

Not often, but sometimes, I knit.  I really love to knit, actually, but it takes sooooo loooonng to finish anything, which means that I hardly ever do finish anything knitted these days, which is why I just crochet most of the time.  I can crochet like the wind.

However, every now and then someone asks me to make them something, and inevitably that something is usually knitted.

This hat for example was made for my dad.  I made him a hat long ago for Christmas, I think it was?  And when I asked him what he wanted for Father's Day it turned out to be another hat just like the other one.  Really, a hat?  In the summer?  You want a hat?  Are you sure?  Yes.  He's sure he wants a hat, only he wants it to be burnt orange (UT colors) so he can wear it to the UT games.  And let me tell you, that was no easy task finding the exact right shade of burnt orange.  You can't just pick any old orange.  I had to take him to the yarn store and we spent quite a bit of time going over which orange is burnt orange and which is Tennessee orange and which is almost burnt orange but not quite.  (Apparently to show up to a UT game wearing Tennessee orange or not quite UT orange is a major faux pas. Who knew?)  But alas, Dad will have his hat.  (Quite a few weeks past Father's Day, but knitting takes me soooo loooonng!)

Here's the pattern I used for the hat, though instead of a rolled brim, I used a 1X1 ribbing for the brim. And the stripe sequence I chose was based on the Fibonacci sequence because it's one of those math geeky things that men think are cool.

And then once I start knitting, well, I have to make a few of these too:

Now these are dishcloths made of cheapety cheap cheap cotton yarn, and they are magic.  Magic I tell you!  Everyone loves these things, and thankfully they are extremely quick and easy to make.  I can turn these suckers out in a day or two.  Less if I didn't have a toddler to tend to.  They may not look like much, and usually when I give them to people as gifts they look at me kind of like,  "Oh... knitted dishcloths... well... thanks... I guess..."  But then they always come back to me and say, "HEY! Those things are AWESOME! I need, like 100 more of them!"  But really you only need, like, 3 of them because they are damn near impossible to destroy.  Unless you're my mother.  She always finds a way to tear them up, so I made the above for her.  But when Dad saw them, his eyes lit up!  "OH! You made us some more dishcloths! Oh I LOVE these things!"  Really?  Well, that's what I like to hear!

Anyone want the pattern?  Here it is!

(In case anyone is interested, when I make them I change row 3 so that the first knit 2 together is an SKP, only because I think it makes a more fetching dishcloth, but it's really not necessary for functionality.)

Oh Mr. Darcy, can you fetch me my shawl?

I must admit that when I first noticed that shawls were becoming the thing in the knitting realm, I was a bit baffled.  I know something had to replace ponchos once those went out of favor, (which I was really dismayed about because I still love ponchos, but that's a whole other story) but shawls seemed a bit too... I don't know... Jane Austenish to carry over into our current modern times.  I mean shawls and texting?  It just didn't seem right.

Don't get me wrong.  I love all things Jane Austen, myself.  I've read every one of her books.  I've probably watched Sense and Sensibility at least 400 times (much to my husbands dismay.) That scene where Elinor's shawl falls off while she's taking one of those oh so English strolls and talking to Edward and he tenderly places it back over her shoulder... *sigh.*

But the point is, I just couldn't really see the need to spend hours knitting a shawl and then where would I wear it and with what?  I mean I'm pretty much a lounge pants/sweats and tee shirt kind of gal.  In the summer I might wear a dress or two, but there's rarely a need for a shawl in a Houston summer.

Then I saw a girl in Starbucks and she had a shawl wrapped around her neck in this certain way so that it was more like a scarf and she looked très soigné, and I thought, well OK, I could maybe pull that off.  And then I saw this pattern on Ravelry and I knew I had to make myself one. It kind of goes along with my whole granny craze that I've been on lately.

So I went for a little stash dive and found some sock yarn that I seriously don't even remember buying and before I knew it I had my first shawl.  Here's three things I finally understand about shawls and why people love them.
1.  They keep you so warm!
2.  You can wear them inside without feeling like you're dressed for outside.
3.  Shawls are like little blankets that are acceptable to carry around with you all day.





I actually did a little research on the shawl (because that's the kind of thing I do when I get semi-obsessed with something new) and I found out that shawls first came into fashion around the Jane Austenish times (1780-1870) along with all things in any way Oriental.  Most everything else soon went out of style (turbans) but the shawl stuck around because it served an actual purpose which was mainly keeping women warm in drafty houses. And to think I used to feel sorry for poor Elizabeth Bennet and Elinor Dashwood freezing their arses off in the English winters with nothing but a shawl to keep them warm.  Ha!

(This is as close as I get to soigné.)


Here's Mr. Boy in my shawl.  He always gets cold in the grocery store.

By the way, crocheting a shawl is so much less time consuming than knitting one.  I used sock yarn and an F hook and it still went fairly quickly.  I would have made it bigger, but I kept running out of yarn.
There are definitely more of these in my future.  I've just about worn this one out already during this crazy cold winter storm nonsense.  (I seriously have already had to mend it!)  

Kombucha update

I am proud to say that I have, several times now, successfully brewed my own Kombucha tea. At first I really was worried that I would end up growing some sort of lethal flesh eating fungus or mold, but so far everything has gone smoothly and I've ended up with some beautiful bottles of my very own Kombucha.

Aren't they gorgeous! I'm so in love.

So for anyone out there who is scared of the home-brewed 'booch, I say go for it. My body is oh so much happier when I have my everyday fix.

Eventually I plan to do some experimentation with different kinds of tea and juices and stuff. For now I usually just add about 1/4 cup of grape juice in each bottle and let it sit and ferment on the counter for 2 days before putting it all in the fridge. I think it's common to do 4 days for that 2nd fermentation, but I'm too scared that the bottle might explode in my kitchen so I just do 2 days which creates plenty of fizz for me.

And I can't help but mention that I actually like my home-brewed KT better than any of the store bought kind I've ever had.

For those of you who "hate" Kombucha, I have to say that I would feel the same way if I had only ever tasted some of the stuff they sell in the stores. (Some of it really does taste like feet.) Now that some brands are showing back up in stores again, I've experimented a little just out of curiosity and so far, I haven't come across anything that makes me want to stop brewing my own.

Meh...rry Christmas...

I've been trying to get into the Christmas spirit, but try as I might all I can think of are the many things I need to get done by then. Mostly I have a baby shower to plan for December 20th. (What was I thinking?)

Maybe if I decorate my own house for Christmas it will get me in the mood. Here's the question, though. How do you decorate a house and a tree when you have a crawling 11 month old who likes to get into everything and very little money to spend on decor! No glass allowed. Glitter probably not a good idea either.

Hmmmm... Ojo de Dios anyone?

Also known as "God's eyes." Remember those? Surely everyone of us has made one at one point or another. At summer camp, or Girl Scouts or just in school as an easy, not too messy craft project?

Much to my surprise, I found that God's eyes were not invented by some crafty, clever Girl Scout den mother in the 70's, there is actually a history behind them. You can read all about it here if you want. But it's much more fun to just make one.

They're super easy to make. Here are instructions if you need them, but basically you're just wrapping yarn around some sticks.


This one here is made with twigs and embellished with bells and beads, if you want to get fancy. Some people get really fancy and really big, too!

I love finding things like this and trying to make it modern again. I think a tree trimmed with lots of God's eyes is going to be very retro cool (and hopefully toddler friendly, too.)

Speaking of retro cool...
LOVE IT!

I'll be sure and post my own pictures when I've made some of my own.

Foamy Fun

So, one of my favorite things to do is to look up how to do things on the internet.
Today I looked up How to make Foam Soap.
It's incredibly easy.
Click the link for directions.

Plus, it stretches out your soap so you can use one bottle for a LONG time. AND you can buy some of the really good, like, Williams Sonoma type stuff and make it really worth it. They have some luscious scents for the Holidays.

That's it for today.
Have fun!

Glass Nail File

Last Christmas my mother-in-law gave me a glass nail file as a stocking stuffer. I had used one before at a friend's house and had just thought of it as something to use if you didn't have "real" nail file handy. I mean it seemed like something that was more decoration than functional. (I mean how precious can you get? A glass nail file. La di da.) But then I was reading an article about nail maintenance (and I'm sorry but I can't for the life of me remember what sight I was looking at) and the article basically said that to get the best and healthiest results while filing your nails, you should really invest in a glass nail file. Well, shut my mouth. So I did some research and whaddyaknow, glass nail files are amazing little things. They are significantly superior to regular nail files in several ways.

First of all, they are healthier for your nails in two ways. One, they are so gentle that they don't create the tiny little fractures at the tip of the nail that most files create causing your nails to chip or split. This means that over time you can have stronger, longer, healthier nails. Two, they are completely sanitizeable. You can boil them, run them through a dishwasher, disinfect them with alcohol or simply use hot water and soap and you will not destroy them. And if they get wet, they dry quickly and completely. So that means no more fungus or bacteria or any other thing that can easily grow in all the crevices of a regular nail file. So if someone asks to borrow your nail file, you don't have to give them a full medical exam or a lecture on hygiene. You can just wash it with soap and hot water after their finished or if you're really worried, boil it.

The second great thing about them is that they are pretty much indestructable. I mean, yeah, they can break, they are glass after all, but it's harder to break one than you might imagine, and they never wear down. Not ever. So if you buy one and you're careful, it could conceivably be the last nail file you ever buy. (Or you could get lucky and someone will give you one.) And if you buy one of the bigger pedicure files, you can also use it to slough the dead skin off of your feet and heels. And you can use them on both real and fake nails. Such a deal!

And there's one more thing that I didn't read anywhere, but I swear that it's true. It makes your manicure last longer. The tip of your nail is so smooth after using a glass file that the polish goes on to the tips more smoothly and evenly and therefore is less likely to chip!

I will admit, a glass file can be a bit expensive. I saw them at anywhere from $6 to $15, but I think it's totally worth it. AND I found a place on line that is discontinuing all their glass files, so they are super reduced. I'm not sure how long the sale will last, but I picked up a bunch to give as stocking stuffers for Christmas for about $15 for all six of them. What a great stocking stuffer, huh?

Merry Filing!


(and they're pretty, too. these are handpainted, but you can find them plain, colored, and etched as well.)