Magic stain remover!

     This is what you're thinking: no way. No way will this really get stains out. But I am here to say YES WAY!

     I came across this as mostly an accident. I had read many different theories and recipes on removing stains, but none worked as well as my own. I had read that you always needed to put items through the washer on the hottest setting, and put in this and that and whatnot. The idea of using that much hot water was not my cup of tea!

     So I thought of my own, and good golly it works amazing! It has only two ingredients: boiling water and Oxyclean.

     Quick stain story: This past summer I washed my favorite pink shirt with blue jean shorts. Shirt turned completely blue. Fast forward to me throwing this shirt into a Rit dye remove wash. Somehow, the pink instead came out, and left the blue!

sad shirt

     It is sad how much I loved that shirt, but it went with a lot of things, comfortable, and just so dang cute! I was pretty upset that I ruined it. So finally I tried my magical stain remover, mostly because at this point, I had nothing else to lose. 

     I filled this small pot with about a half a cup of Oxyclean (I used that little scoop it comes with). 

     I then boiled water in my tea kettle. Once the water was ready, I poured it into the pot and gave it a quick stir before putting my shirt in. 

  

     Lo and behold! The shirt wasn't blue! I wouldn't believe it until I dried it. 

No blue?!

     Just check out this before and after!

     Since then, I have used this same cleaning recipe to other things, such as taking out pit stains from multiple shirts, food stains from paints, and everything else I seen to get all over myself! 

     Stayed tuned for the next chapter for this shirt! 

Cheers!

Adventures with Dye!

There are some things I did accomplish this summer, including updating some of my clothing!

My first project was one of my favorite sweatshirts. It was given to me by my brother's girlfriend, and it is just so dang comfortable! One morning I was leaving to go out for the day with my parents, wearing this sweatshirt, and my mother informed me that I had a bleach stain on the back! So for months it hung in my closet, unworn because of that stain! Finally I took matter into my own hands, and decided it was time for a dye bath! 

I started with a dark blue. I thought this color would work nice with the original color, as opposed to trying to make it blend in. 

ooh la la!

The stain was in the lower back region, so I tied it off above the stain so I could keep track of how far up the dye would go. 

Ready to go!

Then I let it soak!

Check that color!

Then a nice rinse, along with a quick spin in the dryer! 

rinse rinse

This was my finished product!

Why, hello there

                                     

But the stain was STILL THERE! 

The Worst

So, after some creative thought, I took to my craft shelf in the basement and dug out some fabric paints, and did some free styling over the stain. Not much else I could do, so anything would be better than nothing! I added some more detail, let it dry, and voila, my sweatshirt was reinvented! 

Some fun design

What stain??

My next dye project was simple, and unexciting. I had older yoga pants that were not-so-black anymore. I would never notice this until after I put them on and wore them out somewhere. They just needed a little dye bath to darken the color! So I purchased some black dye, and got to soaking!

Warning: black dye takes a looong time to rinse out. My washer was on the fritz, so throwing it into the machine wasn't going to be an option. Rinse and rinse and rinse, finally I just decided to throw them into the dryer until they were dry enough to hang on the line. Once the washer was fixed, I threw them into an all black wash, and now they look great! 

It was nice to revamp some of my old clothing, and turn them into things that would again be wearable! 

Until next time! 

If Summer could talk...

Well, Summer has just about come and gone.

     Quick update post on my summer: Classes start next week and so ends my "free" time. So what have I been up to? Between turning 21, working two jobs and maintaining my status as a student athlete, free time was actually pretty rare. But not to fear, I did a lot of fun things! Or, necessary fun things! I became good friends with Rit Dyes and refashioned and restored some old favorites, which will be in the next post! 

Did I accomplish everything I wanted to do this summer?

     No, I will be honestly when I say there was a lot of things I did not get to do. I tried to pull out my mother's old sewing machine and just teach myself one day. Well, it fumed (literally) and zero progress was made. So maybe save that for a day when a brand new Singer magically appears on my doorstep? Maybe.

     Did I blog more like I said I wanted to? No, because if I'm not making new things, then I do not have much to blog about! But that is something I would like to change!

     Am I excited for Fall? Meh. I love boots, I love that cold crisp air. But I hate winter and I hate snow and I really hate being cold. But a new season brings new opportunities, which is exciting!

So long for now!

Summer Fun and Updates

Hello once again!
I am finally on my summer break! I've been home for a few weeks now, and it's nice to finally be getting into the groove of working again. My next favorite part about moving back home is being able to organize things again. That is right, now that I am a college commuter, I no longer need to have 2 sets of everything. Nice to finally clean and organize and get rid of the things I just do not have room for!

Things so far have been going swimmingly, minus getting pneumonia and a slight cold. I have a lot of goals for this summer, and I am so excited to get to start some of them! A couple wonderful life updates:

1. Armoire is officially gone! Sold to family friends. I had HAD it with that thing. I cleaned and organized and donated so the darned thing would not be necessary. My room looks so much bigger and better now! Another reason for this was because my parents wanted me to have my grandmother's bedroom set, since mine was purchased at an auction and held no real meaning.

2. Pinterest. That is just my new jam. I can't get enough! I like it much better than Stumble-upon, because it is just so well organized. Here is a board for my crafts, here's my board for organization, x, y, and z. Follow my Pinterest! I have some sweet stuff up there!

3. From Pinterest, I have found someone who is one of my biggest inspirations! Her name is Jillian Owens, and she is a Refashionista, and her blog is right here!! I just love all the things she does with her thrift shop finds! She has inspired me to start refashioning my own clothing! I am very excited to start hacking away at my own pile of clothing to be refashed! (Sorry for all the '!!,' I just really am excited :-D)

4. Another thing to note: I love working hard and making money, and I love saving money. I truly hate spending it. This is where my "I can make that!" attitude comes from. If I think I can make it, I'm not going to buy it. Once again, Pinterest has been huge in this way. I see all the fashions I love, and I use what I already have to make my own!

5. From point 4, I've also been on a health food binge. The idea that there are chemicals in everything stress.me.out. So many chemicals in everything that we use everyday. Shampoo, lotion, food, bleh! It's too much for me. So I've been trying my very best to make things that I use everyday so one day I maybe won't get cancer. So for instance, today I made my very own moisturizer. Three simple ingredients, and it's actually edible! Best part, it probably cost me $1 in total!

So that is my big update! Hopefully my summer will be filled with many wonderful things!

Okay, I've rambled enough for now! Until next time!

So, that happened....

As you (which right now is no one, since I'm pretty sure I talk to myself in these things) know, I haven't written anything in basically a year. Work, practice and the eventual school got me down.

 But! I am feeling very inspired and am hoping to create a following.....once I get the guts to actually make this blog public.

So for now! I am leaving you (no one) with the promises that things will be coming! Such as an update blog about where I've been and what I've been doing in the past several months......so for now, Cheers!

Forgive me....

It has been a long time since I have last posted. Spring is always ridiculously busy for me. Lots of track, and not a lot of creativity. But now! It is summer! and I am doing wonderful things.....when I am not working....which isn't very often, to be honest. But! Things will happen! I will do wonderful things! For instance, I am getting new furniture for my room! AKA my parents want me to have my grandmother;s set and not the random set we bought at an auction. But Since cleaning out much of my things, I believe I will finally be able to sell my armoire!! So exciting! That means more room for fun activities! My room right now is very cramped, and isn't good for company and guests. So hopefully I can turn it into a relaxing environment this summer! More to come later!
Cheers!

So... I Baked! And Made Squares!

Yes! I accomplished yet another task on my huge list. Sadly, this is my very last free week before classes start up again next Tuesday :-(. I may have mentioned this before, but I feel like my creative juices just really flow better when I'm at home; I have everything at my disposal, such as my yarns or a nice clean oven...but hey, that's what the summer months are for!

So what did I make, you might ask? I have no idea what one would call it. I took some ingredients from around the house, put them in a cupcake pan, and set the oven for 375.

I knew we had some cookie mix, and my sister had some leftover eggnogg. So those were my two ingredients, though I did put some oil in there for good measure.

Added the nog until it was about pancake batter consistency. I call this "My Experiment" because I didn't measure anything, though I believe I put in about 2 and 3/4 cups of the mix....or maybe it was 1 and 3/4? Eh, I'm not super concerned.

 Into the pan the mix went!

Just a quick bake, since it was an experiment.

little bit of nogg for myself...mmm

Add a pinch of one of my faves

are they done?

nope....not done

back into the pan the pieces (that I didn't eat) go

At this point, I was semi disappointed. I didn't use any eggs, because I figured there was enough in the eggnogg, which may be why they were very custard like in the middle. Or I just used too much nogg. Either or. I put some of the pieces back in the pan, and then put them back in for another 15 min or so.

more done than previous...

....kinda

And that was my One (Left side of photo) , the one that actually came out of the five. It tasted real good though.

and my favorite part (but not really). Dishes. Blegh. But overall, it was fun. I wanted cupcakes, but my dad said they were more like muffins. I am satisfied with that.

Right! I also made lots of squares. Best thing to do when you love a shirt but can't give it up because you're a crazy pack rat like me you for some reason can't is to make it into a quilt square! Takes up SO MUCH LESS SPACE and makes you feel good! I got lots of squares, and even a few balls of yarn for my t-shirt rugs I only ever do when I'm bored.

I also got a wonderful inspirational idea to make some baby bibs out of the leftover t-shirt parts. Maybe another project for later? Debating. They would be so adorable, but I don't know how many people would want to use a cotton bib for a child. I feel like it would stain easily and just get real gross real fast. But it could be a cute apron for an older child? Oh, the possibilities :-)

Cheers!

Now....what I actually have been doing!

There are a few things that I actually did do so far this break, though they were not on my original list that I made. These things are: (1) attempt to recycle yarn from a thrifted sweater, (2) switch up part of my room, (3) make some sense of that darned closet!

First was the recycling of the yarn. Let me say that I was super excited to do this.....until I did it. Well, I didn't do it. I attempted. And stopped. And essentially failed. I think I was too ambitious. I told myself if I was going to do this, I wanted a nice sweater, not some dumb cotton blended crap. So I found a beautiful purple alpaca sweater. Eff my life. I could have sworn I did everything right; I made sure to look for that specific seam, and I thought things were going to be great! And they started great. Until I got supremely confused. At some point everything seemed to blend together, stitches and pieces and my fingers. Bad news bears. This is how it started :

Then I ended up with A LOT of this:

Then eventually, I ended up with this:

I got frustrated. It blew up in my face, and I am very sad, because I was looking so very forward to having my own yarn that I had recycled from an old sweater and I was very excited for a wonderful alpaca scarf. Now, I have chunks of sweater, and pieces of yarn. I'm sure I'll think of something, I always do....

Now, the second project. Fix up part of my room. For a while, I've had this plastic drawer thing. It sucked. Because it was plastic, it was crapping out, and because there was so much stuff in those three little drawers, they were heavy and barely moved and made me angry. It was also kinda ugly. I decided I wanted crates. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this before in another one of my blogs. Didn't think I'd get to it so soon, but I did!
it started like this: See purple plastic-y thing. See crates. See lots of mess.

Remember Hit Clips?!? Found This Gem

Now, See Organization and Cleanliness!

Ok, so the orange bin still has a ton of crap on top of it, I'm not perfect here! But each crate is organized. Bottom two hold cd's and electronic things, such as game boy games, receipt to my laptop, you know. Middle two hold my thank you cards and other paper items, the other holds lotions, lipglosses, that business. Top hold my creativity, all my needles, yarns, artwork things... essentially happiness. Feels good, looks better, I am content! My next goal is to get a few more crates, but turn them so they are like bookshelves (sooo many books, too many on my floor *sadface*)

Then there was my most recent project, my closet. The only pictures I took were of things that I found and felt were sentimental, like alll my Pound Puppies, my Tuggle, other things of that cutesy nature, and then the dresses, but there is a picture in the last blog.


And that ladies and gentlemen, is what I've been up to. I now plan on actually doing something on my original list before I start anything more....like making my own self striping yarn with Kool Aid....

Cheers!

I've Been Bad

Very, very bad. I have done nothing. Ok, not terribly bad, because I have been doing some things, (more blogs to come) but out of my huge list of seven, I have done one. 
This one: 2. Go through my T-shirts and decide which will become squares for my future quilt(s). 
But there is more to it, I promise. I redecorated part of my room, I cleaned the top section of my armoire (which had many of the aforementioned t-shirts) anddd dum-da-da-dum! My closet! 


Now, an interesting thing about my house. In the room in which I currently reside, I have NO CLOSET. Nope, no closet. Why is this you ask? Because where a closet would go is actually a staircase. Up this staircase is yet another room in our house. Fancy, fancy. So instead I have my armoire. It's huge, and takes up so much space. I wish I could get rid of it. But again, no closet. What it holds always changes.  


So now you're probably confused, "How could she clean a closet if she has no closet? Or is she simply switching back and forth on her vocabulary with the words 'closet' and 'amoire'?"  Well friends, when I was younger I decided I wanted to live in my dad's office, instead of in my room which shares a wall with the only bathroom on the floor (terrible, terrible phobia of vomit, no idea where it came from, but I'm thinking from sharing a wall with a bathroom...) Anywhoo. The closet in my old room was filled with STUFF. and I really didn't use it  or anything in it once I moved out, except to shove in a few prom dresses. 


SO I TACKLED THAT CLOSET!


Easiest thing to hoe out. All it had was toys, and bins of clothes from when i was ten. Now, it's hard for me to get rid of clothes now. I give lots of excuses, "I may wear it...someday!!" being the most common. But this, this was easy. I can't wear clothes from when I was ten. But then i saw those cute little tshirts, The San Diego zoo, One Fish Two Fish, VDub Beetles. what is a girl to do! Cut and Quilt, cut and quilt. 


But then there was another issue to tackle. What was hanging in that closet was dresses. Little girl dresses, the kind that my mother has a memory for each and every one. I must admit, in the ~20 hours (Harry Potter Books on CD, favorite cleaning tool), my mother wasn't there for any.  It was just easier. So I put the dresses into two piles : disgusting, and oooh that would make a nice square for a quilt. I also told my mom we could give them to other little girls we know, so that way we knew they would go to good use. 


But at the end of the day, many many bags went to Goodwill. And now we have come full circle, back to my armoire. Now that my closet is clean, I can rearrange what goes where. Before the cleaning, in my armoire was random tshirts and pyjamas on the top shelf, my nice but not prom dresses hanging, along with skirts, then some polos and a few button ups, and winter sweaters I brought from school for over break.  I moved all the dresses into my closet, moved my jeans into my armoire, got rid of the polos (jr /high school dress code, hate to even look at them now), left the skirts because I need a bigger bin to put all my summer clothes in, and the sweaters are still hanging. Phew! 

27 Dresses Anyone? Mmm, probs more like 35+

Slowly but surely, I will not be drowning in my room. 

Christmas!

It feels so good to be done with school! I am now on break until late January. Whatever will I do with my time? Oh right, my huge list of wonderful things to accomplish, such as knit something other than baby Peapods. Speaking of, I just finished number four. FOUR. Only two of those babies have been born, and I've only seen one in her little pod. Needless to say I am slightly exhausted with pea pods. I am ready for new challenges! Well, not necessarily challenges, but new projects. Found some great new tutorials online, so I'm eager to begin those.
   Also, i cleaned my room! Hurricane Bacall has finally passed, and I can see my floor! I also have a new project for my room. Right now, I have this plastic bin-thing that has a few drawers on it, and it has so much stuff that it is collapsing-sorta. Top drawer has makeup, middle has some art stuff in it, bottom has my cd collection. It is the middle drawer that is causing issues, because I am a very Scottish Pack rat who saves things in hopes that one day I will have a beautiful collage of all these little things that I love....except I've had this collection for a while....and nothing's happened. I really should go through it, because what was "Bacall" then, really isn't "Bacall" now. My idea is to get rid of that, but instead have 2x3 crates, each crate holds something different. Bottom two might have my cd's, then one for knitting and crochet supplies, another for all my yarn, et cetera and so forth. I think it will look neater, take up more room vertically and less room width wise, and simply be less of a hassle. So that is one more thing I would like to do this winter! Or spring...or sometime soon!

Finals and pictures

So I am originally writing this in a word document, because I have no internet L. I just finished putting the cute little buttons on the 3^rd baby peapod, and yesterday at my track meet I started number four. I should be studying for my finals, but for some reason I’m just not. I have two, both on Tuesday, aka in two days (writing this originally Sunday night). Which means by the time this is posted I’ll have even less….goodness. In all honesty, I guess it’s just because I feel like I know how I’m going to do, so studying is almost…futile. I think I’m going to do well on my Linguistics final, because it’s not cumulative, and morphology and syntax are super easy compared to phonetics and phonology. My Tuesday night test for Marketing will be rough. I did not do too well on the midterm, so I need to do well on this test, but it’s going to be hard. Mehh. Plus she didn’t even give us a study guide. There’s a phrase for this. Stabbing in the dark or something? Yeah, that’s me right now with Marketing. 

so precious, amirite?

also, now I have pictures to upload. well, a picture. Baby Pea Pod picture!!

Update and some December Plans

SO, the third baby pea pod is complete!! I finished Wednesday night I believe, but I had no buttons, so it's finished but the final touches are not. That will happen Sunday, along with an update with pictures. Ah it is so cute.
     Now, I have many great adventures planned for this long and extensive Christmas Break!! I will be home after my two finals on this coming Tuesday are done, woo! Then I can start all things amazing! I have already begun some of my Giant 3D Snow Flakes, which are fabulous decorations for around the holiday/Winter season (another post for a later day). As well as making those to hopefully sell, there are a bunch of other things I want to do, mostly because I will have both time and materials. I can do things here on campus and at school, but I feel very limited because I can't bring everything here with me. So, here is a mini (aka incomplete) list of things I am going to be doing once I am home bound and freeee:

In no specific order,
1. Go through my collection of Barbies (yes, I know). Even as a child I knew some would be worth something, so many of them are left in their boxes. Talk about self control!
2. Go through my T-shirts and decide which will become squares for my future quilt(s).
3. Knit something from a new book I picked up recently (thrifted ) : Knitting for Peace by Betty Christiansen. Such an amazing book, gives so many great ideas for charities and other organizations to knit for and donate to, including "Project Linus" and "afghans for Afghans." I've been knitting so many baby pea pods that I really haven't had time to be doing a second project.
4. Spend some time with Big Baby and learn a new song. Big Baby is my guitar, (Taylor Big Baby!). I am so uncreative in the worst way when it comes to naming things, such as blogs and guitars.
5. Bake! I love finding recipes online, and when I was "stumbling," I found a great recipe for pancakes made with cake batter! So that will be a definite must.
6. Try other homemade remedies, such as this coffee grinds facial scrub (didn't realize it was from PETA until I posted the link haha). I use all natural face rinse right now as it is from my local Natural Food Store, but new things are always worth a try!
7. Learn how to actually use the Hello Kitty sewing machine I bought at Savers. I want to make beautiful dresses!!!!!!
That's all I have at the moment, but as always, I will be updating :-)
Cheers, Bacall

Baby Peapod 3

I am almost done with baby pea pod numero tres! Exciting! I got a lot of work done last night, mostly because I was staying up and watching The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with others in the lounge. It was a great background for knitting. I feel proud of what I have accomplished in such little time. I did a good six inches of knitting, talk about hauling ass! My sister will be pleased. Right now I am trying to finish the decreases while I'm waiting to register for classes for next semester.....whoever gave me a 12:01 time didn't care that I have an 8 am....ah well. So now I'm up a smidgen later than I really wanted to be.
    As midnight comes along, I realize that the reason I can't sign in.....is because my time is actually 7 am....this is a face palm moment. Quite embarrassed. So I'm off to bed now....I will update later on.

My Saturday -My Current Project

Hello There!

Today was a busy day. First indoor meet of the season at Boston, exciting! Yes I brought my knitting with me. I didn't work on it a whole lot; The way down I just wanted to get into my competition state of mind, plus my wrist has been aching a bit, so i just listened to the iPod. I did work on it a little bit on the way back, but I ran out of yarn, and I needed to measure the length anyways. Right now I'm working on yet another "baby pea pod." I found this pattern in a quaint little North Carolina yarn shop when I was visiting my grandfather with the family (I'll post the website at the bottom, since i didn't create the pattern). It is a little pea pod, the baby being the peas, with a little stem hat. I have since made three, one as a tester, and two as baby shower gifts . It seems that so many people are pregnant right now! So I'm currently on my third. Won't lie, it's becoming slightly tedious since it's all in stockinette stitch, but it looks so good, and I absolutely love the reactions it gets. Debating about selling them since they're easy and absolutely adorable. 

    Right now, I would say I'm about...a quarter of the way done with the body of the pea pod, then I still have the little hat to do. I've been procrastinating on it a bit, mostly because I wanted to finish the blanket for my bestie, but also because it's getting slightly tedious. But now that the blanket is done ( pictures below), i can continue on with the pea pods. These next two are for my sister's friends (well, they've all been my sister's friends who are pregnant....) She wants two more for her future sister-in-law and then for another friend. All for Christmas. So I have definitely have some work cut out for me. Finals are coming up within the next week, so I will need some down time. It's great past time for de-stressing. 

    Well, now I am off to figure out what classes I'm going to be taking next semester, and possibly continue on with the current pea pod. 

- Bacall


 Website for the Pea Pod

Up close shot of the blanket

full size 55"L x 32" W. bottom is a little wider because it's looser (starting point). Character, eh?

Halfway through Pea Pod numero tres. This yarn, bought from Walmart, is so soft and perfect for baby things. 

Right Meow...

So right meow, I have decided to make this blog. Well, not right now....I've been thinking about making one about all of the projects I have either knit or crocheted (there is no bias between knitting and crocheting here in Bacall-Land, but I do consider myself a knitter most of the time). So here it is! Yay!
      First off, I want to talk about the fact that I love to knit. I am a Grandma, I swear. I love my cat, and I love to knit. And crochet. I say knit but I honestly mean both. I just spent at least an entire 48 hours working on  a crochet project for a friend. I started in, what, March maybe? and have just now finished. Labor intensive for sure, but completely worth it. Granted, I  put it down for most of the summer because of the numerous hours of real work as an ice cream slave, but hey, it's finally finished! (Can't you tell how proud of myself I am?)
    Second, I will address the name of this blog. I always said, "If I ever go big with this, it's going to be called "Knit Shit by Bacall." Because I like to knit shit. Hats, blankets, creatures, baby things, whatever. I will attempt it at least once. Yes it's crude....but I am not creative when it comes to super awesome names. Edit: This blog was originally entitled "Knit Shit by Bacall." I got antsy and changed it. 
    Thirdly, there is not much of a thirdly, but here goes: This is where I'm going to blog about what I am currently working on. I'll post pictures (if I can figure out how to do that...), and just keep things generally updated about my projects, along with probably the music I am listening to whilst making these projects come alive. Ive also come to the conclusion that i will talk about the awesome thrift findings, since i love thirfting. With that said, here I go!

-Bacall