Beer Cap Trivet

Some time in college, I got it in my head that I needed to save my beer bottle caps to use for a project. I think it started when I saw a coffee table in a friend's dorm room that was covered in beer caps that the boys hammered into it every time they finished a beer. I didn't have anything I was keen on ruining by hammering spikey metal into it, but, somehow, the obsession just continued and I now have hundreds of them, with no real craft to use them for. So, when I found a pattern for a crochet-covered bottle cap trivet, I was intrigued. Mixing my favorite craft with beer and a material I have readily on hand? Yes, please! Here is the project: Crochet Beer Cap Hot Pad.

Materials: Bottle Caps (19 caps that haven't been bent from an opener)

Crochet Thread (I used some vintage size 5, Coton Perle DMC)

Tatting Crochet Hook (The pattern calls for a size 9, but I only had a size 8)

Tapestry Needle

The beer is optional, but serves as "inspiration" for this project! :)

This was a great project because I could sit and fiddle, covering one cap at a time, and could stop after one or a couple. I can do a cap in about 10 minutes, so if I wasn't really in the mood to crochet a lot, I could just cover one cap or sew one or two together and then put it down. I didn't have to think about where I was in the pattern or marking my stopping point, and it's all just single and double crochets, so it's easy to do while zoning out to the TV. And, when you're done, you have a really funky, vintage-y looking trivet! I think mine looks great with this Hardanger tea-table cloth that I took from my grandma's immense collection of linens. My next trivet will be a bunch of grapes, inspired by a trivet my dad found among more of my grandma's things. Turns out, this craziness runs in the blood!

Playing Catch-Up

So, it's that time... time for me to post one (actually, it's looking like it's going to be two, since one is project specific) big post so that I can get caught up on all the stuff I've been working on. I, of course, forgot and continue to forget, to take pictures of the gift receivers in their gifts. Someday I'll learn. If you are a gift recipient and want to send me a picture of you using your fabulous goods, I'd be much obliged. Anyway, here we go:

Again, I am my own best model. It is kind of hard to see the hat, but this is my new favorite pattern. Here is a picture of the pattern and the multiple hats that are arising out of it:

The pattern is Vegancraftastic's "Slacker Hat". I did alter the pattern just a bit to make it deeper, as I apparently have a very big head. That being said, I do 29 or 31 rows of the alternate colors when I am making mine, depending on how much yarn I have of each color. This is a great stash buster and I'm making another one right now, trying to use up that light blue in the red striped hats above:

This one's in blue and orange. The orange is left over from a silly project made for tattoo maven friend Erin when she opened her own shop. I crocheted her an electric orange colored crayon, since the shop is called Electric Crayon Tattoo. Paul doubted my color choice, which made me doubt myself for about 30 seconds... then I saw the outcome, and fears were allayed. It looks fantastic. :)

Other hat knitting:

This hat is I Dream of Knitting's "Robin's Egg Blue Hat". Really simple knit for those just starting out... big chunky yarn, big chunky needles. A little bit wacky with the fact that it starts out knit on straight needles and switches to knitting in the round. That's the only part that takes a little getting used to, but I've done a couple of patterns with this effect, and really like the way they turn out. It looks like they have a button "flap" holding them on, but really, you just sew up the flap, and voila, hat. Anyway, this one is too big for even my big head. I went with the larger size directions in the pattern, and think when I make it again, I will go with the smaller size. (knit for 5 inches from cast on instead of 5 1/2 inches).

Finally, for something completely different:

I have named these little friends the alien glovies. The weird-o neon green fingerless gloves showed up in the lost and found at work and after 3 weeks of them not being claimed, I decided to give them a good home. My initial idea was to cut out a felt octopus to put on each glove, but that didn't end up working so well with the size of the gloves. After about 4 tries, I decided to change direction, so I just turned an octopus head into a circle and started playing around. I had a scrap of sparkly white felt in my stash, so I cut circles out of that, too, and thus arose the alien glovies.

Here I am sporting the glovie. It's kind of creepy, but I sort of love them. Paul was laughing pretty hard when I put the gloves on and held my hand sideways like a duck and started making alien voices. Okay, so I need a better hobby. Anyway, I love these, and hope I find some more abandoned fingerless mitts so I can upcycle some more!

Check in for part two of the catch up blogs tomorrow where we'll be examining stamping on baby clothes, stencilling, and a complete post dedicated to making children's capes for a costume stash, featuring my new favorite model: Senor Frog.

A Lack of Fun Stuff

I feel bad that I started this to keep track of what I was doing, and now none of it is going up on here. But I swear I have a reason... it's the stupid holidays. Everything I'm making right now is "FOR" somebody. :( So, if I don't want them do see it, which I don't, then I can't post the pictures of it. I'm going to have to remember my camera for when I give people things so that I can take their pictures with them. That way, maybe I have new models :)

Long time Coming

So, I've been so overwhelmed with work and life lately, that keeping track of my craziness has taken a bit of a back burner. But yesterday, upon my return from an oh-so-relaxing trip to Boston, I held a little dinner for my work friends in honor of Assistant Manager Jenni's 29th Birthday. So, that means I cooked... and cooked... and cooked way way way too much food. It has become more and more obvious to me that my Scandinavian heritage is much more pronounced than I was aware. But, anyway, the menu and the use of the delish organic and local food lately:

Appetizers were bruschetta (I cheated and got it from Trader Joes, but as Matt said, I could just eat it out of the jar with a spoon.) on fresh baked bread. Mmm. Then we had some salad. Oddly, this week we did not get any lettuce greens, so I bought some organic lettuce at the store. I had a possibly picky, non-veggie eater coming, so I chopped up the red pepper, cucumber, and organic mushrooms and put them each in separate containers so that there was a sort of "salad bar" option :) Gotta love that I just tried to figure out how to spell smorgasbord before choosing salad bar and then just now gave myself away at my Swedish-ness :)

Then the main course and dessert: I made a pretty plain, but still really tasty baked mostaccoli. I usually put some mushrooms and peppers or onions in, but left it plain for the aforementioned non-veggie eater. Then the birthday dessert, which used up the local IPM apples I'd been saving up from the last couple of shipments and the cranberries from last week's shipment to make an apple cranberry crisp. So yummy!

Anyway, it was delicious and everyone had a good time... including Kaiser, despite his fear of my apparently terrifying kitchen. :)