Goodnight Summer

I am boycotting summer.
I'm just over it.  I am so done.

Merriam-Webster defines boycott as - to engage in a concerted refusal to have dealings with (as a person, store, or organization) usually to express disapproval or to force acceptance of certain conditions


Every year around this time I start yearning for Fall and the end of summer.  But this year I'm in a downright protest against summer.  Here in Texas we're on the 900th day of 100+ degree weather, not to mention one of the worst droughts these parts have ever dealt with. (Okay it's not really the 900th day, but that's what it feels like.) I mean we didn't even get a real Spring for crying out loud! No rain = no flowers.  I mean the trees are just gasping out here, folks.  


So I was walking through my local craft store sometime last week when I came across this:

Now, usually I scorn the putting out of the holiday things months before the actual holiday, but this year I almost did a little dance! And I thought, "Darn right! If the craft stores can start preparing for Halloween in August well then so I can I!"  And right then and there I decided that I'm just not dealing with summer anymore.  As far as I'm concerned it's time to start preparing for falling leaves and cornucopias.
So there!


And here at Casa Moi, that means it's blanket making time!

This one is going to be for Mr. Boy.  He's pretty much grown out of all his baby blankets, and when I made this one for my friend last year, he loved it!  So I vowed to make him a Granny of his own.

I chose to use the colors from Goodnight Moon because he can just stare and stare at that book for... well... minutes.  He's a 3 year old boy after all.  So no one activity can generally keep him occupied for more than a few minutes.

And I'm also making a baby blanket for a friend who's expecting and whose baby shower is coming up on September 17th.  But I can't show you pics of that one yet because you never know whose watching.

So I'll be a busy, busy, crocheting bee for the next few weeks!

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.)

Salon Effects by Sally Hansen... so far, pretty cool.

Okay, so remember waaaaaay back when, I mentioned something in this post about trying the Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail polish strips? Well, I finally did it!

These are the #340 Girl Flower Strips and I thought they would be perfect for a summer pedicure.  Yeah, I decided to try them on my toes instead of my hands because, well, a wildflower manicure just seemed like a bit much for me right now.

I did do one accent nail on my hands with the flowers:

Not sure how I feel about that look.  I think I might have liked it better if I'd chosen a better color for the rest of the nails.  Maybe a sky blue, or a fun summery pink?  This shimmery iridescent silver is just not doin' it for me really.  (In case anyone is wondering that color is called Silver Lining and the polish is also Sally Hansen- Complete Salon Manicure.)

Also, not sure how I feel about the whole accent-nail-of-a-different-color thing.
I might be too old for these sorts of shenanigans.

Here's a close-up of the Salon Effects:

I'm still not sure if these things are going to hold up or not.  I haven't yet showered so, I'm a little skeptical of how they're going to look once that happens.  I've read some reviews and most people say they wear like iron, but a few people said they chipped off after a day or two.  We'll see!

They were, by the way, pretty easy to apply, so if they do wear well, that would make them pretty f'n awesome.