Month: March 2012

Crochet: Crocheted Yo-Yo afghan

Aynaria 6 Comments

Initially, I started making small crocheted rounds, to serve as facial scrubs. Although I don’t use them on my face — I just use a washcloth. I know a few people who do purchase those tiny discs to cleanse their face.

Yo yo afghan 1

Which got me thinking… Wouldn’t it be great if I made them some reusable discs? It’d be environmentally friendly, and save them some money too, since they’d just have to toss the crocheted discs into the laundry. Of course someone that of this too. They’re called ‘crochet scrubbies’ .

While making my ‘scrubbies’ I thought how neat it would make an afghan out of all those tiny circles. A few days ago, I discovered what I was calling ‘crochet rounds’ were also known as ‘Crocheted Yo-Yo’s’. I discovered this term, when I was searching for ‘circle afghans’. I didn’t find too much on that, but after some digging via the Google search engine I stumbled upon, ‘Crochet Yo-Yo’s’.

…and that’s how I learned about a Crocheted Yo-Yo afghan!

 

Of course after I made numerous discs, I stumbled upon a Crocheted Afghan tutorial. I’ve listed them below, enjoy!

Crocheted Yo-Yo Puff

Tutorial: Crocheted Yo-Yo afghan

  1. Flat braid Yo-Yo joining
  2. Net stitch Yo-Yo joining
  3. Hexagon Yo-Yo joining

Crocheted afghan, modified backpack, and a hand-sewn quilt… oh my!

Aynaria 1 Comment

Tomorrow, I have a few items to share for Work in Progress Wednesday; One is my first big crochet project that I’m slowly creating… So what’s the project? It’s a Yo-Yo afghan! Tomorrow, I’ll post pictures of my work in progress, along with tutorials I stumbled upon yesterday.

Three happy kids

The other work in progress item is actually finished, now.  I modified my daughters Monster High backpack. My daughter loves the Monster High dolls. Shocking, since she really hasn’t paid too much attention too dolls until last spring. I purchased the Monster High backpack before the school year started. I won’t be purchasing anything like that again.

This backpack would be fine for kids having a sleepover,  carrying extra items, but it’s not ideal for a kid who has a lot of books/homework. My daughter is in third grade, and the students carry several books home daily. Because of the amount of books she was carrying, the stress from having those books crammed into her backpack broke the cheaply made zipper.  I remember when zippers teeth were made out of metal. Grrr…

Part of the backpack transformation involved, removing the old zipper with my seam ripper.  The old zipper was upgraded to a heavy duty metal zipper that I ripped out of and old computer bag that was given to me but I never used. My Macbook Pro is 17″, that computer bag only fits computers up to 15″.

I keep my MackBook Pro in the  Brenthaven 17-Inch ProLite III shoulder case. Even though I didn’t need it, I held onto the smaller computer bag, ‘just in case’ and this time, being a packrat paid off, since I was able to utilize the old zipper in my daughters backpack.

After machine sewing the zipper to my daughters backpack. I added one embellishment. I made a crochet yo-yo, and attached it to her backpack. She loves her ‘new’ backpack

In other news…

Because of the amount of time and detail it’ll take to make the numerous crocheted Yo-Yo’s, I most likely will be holding off, making a quilt, until my Yo-Yo afghan is complete.

I’m hoping I can start working on a simple hand-sewn quilt by July. I had every intention to start working on a hand-sewn quilt sometime this month. I’ll have to put that on hold until July before I start. With my local quilting group, we have two quilters who hand sew their quilts. They’ve brought in some of them, and they’re absolutely breathtaking. Knowing that I have some experts right at my fingertips will come in handy if I run into any problems.

Online gaming: Getting cheeky with Bingo

Aynaria 1 Comment

I was first introduced to Bingo when I was about eight years old. At the time, I thought Bingo was a game that only young kids and old people played. During grade school, I can remember some of my teachers distributing bingo cards and game pieces to our class. It was part of our ‘fun time,’ and the winnings were usually some type of cheap toy, crayons, watercolors, or coloring book.

Bingo animated

By the time I entered high school, teachers had stopped including Bingo into their format. However, I can remember one of my friends actually played real bingo. Of course, I teased her, since in my fourteen-year old brain it was something only little kids and old people played. She laughed along with me, and said, “I thought the same thing!” “However, I really had fun!” So what got her into playing bingo? Food! The local Bingo group (where her mother was active) was having a crab feast, with a percentage of the proceeds being donated to a local charity. Since she loved seafood, she went along with her mom and begrudgingly played Bingo. Surprisingly, she enjoyed it, much to her mom’s happiness, since they now had a weekly mom/daughter outing. Occasionally she won cash too.

Over the years, I’ve met several young people that play Bingo, so earlier assumption was inaccurate. For my friends the big draw is hanging out with friends, and the winnings that some of them receive is a nice bonus. While many play  at a local location. There are few that play bingo online also.

Cheeky Bingo is an online bingo site that offers a variety of games.. 75 Ball Bingo and High Five Bingo are few of their popular games. For those who like to socialize in a virtual setting, they also have chat rooms. These rooms are organized by Cheeky Chat Hosts who offer a variety of games such as Slides and Swings, Be My Friend, and Cheeky Grin, for users to play. These games give bingo players a perfect chance to socialize and possibly when some cash also.

Do I play Bingo? Yes, I play the children’s version with my with my eight-year old daughter we play the board and online bingo games.

Question: Have you ever played Bingo? Let us know in the comment section.

 

Morning adventures; photography and breakfast

Aynaria 10 Comments

Sunrise 03 09 12

I’m an early riser (usually awake by 3:30) because of this, I’m able to see some beautiful sunrises, this is what I saw this morning, and so I wasn’t disappointed. While my daughter slept, we took some time and watched as the world became lighter. I took plenty of photos, but am only sharing two.

Mr. Bentley (our Shih Tzu) is usually my companion on my brief adventures. I have to take him out to do his early morning constitutional. Afterwards, he usually pads along beside me, tongue lolling out of his mouth…

Stella dora lily

This is one of our stella dora lillies. As much as I want to hold on to winter a bit longer (and get that snow that never made an appearance) it looks like Spring is just around the corner. Our garden has been prepped; soil raked, stakes pulled, and ground tilled in preparation for the planting season.

Breakfast stir fry

Breakfast was made, and was eaten by my daughter a few moments ago. She said it was great. The meal was simples… pink beans and stir fry vegetables; cauliflower, potato, carrots, garlic, herbs, and other seasonings. Simple, nutritious, and delicious.

Crochet; Herding cats

Aynaria 12 Comments

Cats, cats, everywhere…. if my daughter had her way she’d have our house filled with felines.

My daughter absolutely adores cats. She’s been begging me for the longest to get a real cat, but thus far mommy isn’t budging! We have a few pets already; Shih Tzu, two guinea pigs, and one goldfish. So no… I not opening our home to any more animals.

Before the guinea pigs we had four ferrets, that we’d gotten from a local ferret rescue shelter. I absolutely adored them, but I have to admit that once they passed on — I wanted pets that didn’t do too much. Guinea pigs fit the bill nicely.

Amineko yellow 1

Since my daughter knows I’m not budging on a live cat… she’s settled for the stuffed cat toys — for now! I can live with that. High on her priority list are the incredibly cute crocheted cats. Above you can see the amigurumi cat, that I’m crocheting. The majority of it is finished, but I still need to complete a leg, tail, ears, stitch on the eyes, nose, and mouth.

Hello My Name is Amineko

A few weeks ago, I picked up the crochet book, Hello my name is Aminkeo: The Story of a Crafty Crochet Cat. This book differs from many crochet books I have, in that it tells a story (through pictures of crocheted kitties) about a crocheted cat named, Amineko and his friends, and their escapades.

Here’s what’s said about the author…

Born in Tokyo 1967, Nekoyama has been a life-long lover of cats. Cats and their endearing mischief have never failed to cheer her up. She created her first Amineko by accident and has never looked back. Today, she and her husband are the proud parents of many Aminekos. Nekoyama’s first book, A Day In the Life of Amineko, was published in Japan in 2005.

If you own a cat, I’m sure many of you will get a kick out of some of the cat like issues these crocheted cats encounter. I was impressed at how well the author did in mimicking a live cat behavior. I’ve had several cats throughout my life. My daughter loves this book, and has even taken it to her Lutheran school. I imagine to show it off to her classmates.

The direction on how to make these adorable kitties are included near the back of the book. It also has instructions for making additional accessories; fish, squid, and I think a sleep sack. Although I’m still new to crochet, I found the directions quite easy to follow.

Daughter: “Mommy, can you please make me cats in light grey, black, brown, white, red, and green?”

Me: (Mock horror) “All of those! Are you planning on becoming a cat herder?”

Daughter: (big grin) Yep!

Me: (fake grumbling) I’ll be busy for a while! We’ll see…

Daughter: Yeah!

From Wiki…

Herding cats may refer to:

  • An idiomatic saying that refers to an attempt to control or organize a class of entities which are uncontrollable or chaotic. Implies a task that is extremely difficult or impossible to do, primarily due to chaotic factors.

I’ll definitely post pictures once I finish my first crocheted amineko. Eventually I’ll get around to making her some additional amigurumi kitties. As mentioned in my housecleaning post, I picked up the audiobook 11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King. It came in handy, while I was reorganizing my bedroom. I’m halfway through it now. I’m loving the story, reminds me of Kings earlier work. ll be listening to that, while crocheting the adorable cats.

Edited to add:

Work in Progress Wednesday

I completely forgot it was Work in Progress Wednesday, I’m linking to the following works in progress…

  1. SimplyCrochet
  2. Tami Amis WIP
  3. Ambassador Crochet
  4. Yarn Along
  5. Frontier Dreams

Declutter update; bedroom

Aynaria 6 Comments

PackratA few days ago, I wrote how I was finally reorganizing my bedroom.

My bedroom was crying out for a Declutter makeover, since I’ve had crafts set up in my bedroom for a while, but aside from neat stacks of my crafting bin. There really wasn’t a set pattern to what I was doing. I’m the type that loves to be organized, and so having craft projects mixed with my regular bedroom items…bothered me.

I admit to being a packrat… But, I’m a neat packrat!  I inherited that trait from my father. The good thing is; I’ve always been a neat packrat. My father isn’t. I can still hear my mother fussing about his sloppy packrat tendencies.

Fast forward to now… I’m pleased to say that the room looks so much better. In the process of revamping my bedroom, I also filled four trash bags (neatly stacked of course) with clothing. Additionally, I threw away six trash bags of items too. When I was moving all those items out of my bedroom, I couldn’t help but wonder how I managed to keep everything neat!

My daughter loves the change, and so naturally when she’s creating a story, or working on a drawing. I’m finding her sprawled on my hardwood floor surrounded by her art supplies. Her clutter is temporary, and leaves when she’s finished.

Now that I think about it, her room could use some decluttering too. It looks as though I’ve found my next ‘declutter project’. Now, if I can only find the time to accomplish that! 😉

Photo Source: Ursula Vernon; Packrat

How do I disable right-click on images?

Aynaria 6 Comments

Earlier today, I posted ways you could get around people stealing your images. That post was focused on code that could be added to prevent users pinning your images to Pinterest.

Users that don’t want to mess around with their themes, can always install the NoPin WordPress Plugin created by Shawn Hooper. It can also be found on the WordPress Addon site; NoPin WordPress Plugin.

Interestingly enough, the script that Pinterest provided doesn’t seem to work with all WordPress themes. With some of the themes, I was still able to copy to Pinterest without an issues. A bit of research, and it seems that it might not work in some themes.

So… how are you going to keep people from copying your images? One workaround is disabling right click on your images. For a free dhtml script, I used the disable right click on images code, that’s located at Dynamic Drive.

How do I disable right click on my WordPress site?

  1. Click on Appearance tab
  2. Click on Editor
  3. Click on Footer (footer.php)
  4. Insert the code, listed below, on the line right above the </body> tag
<script language="JavaScript1.2">

/*
Disable right click script II (on images)- By
Dynamicdrive.com
For full source, Terms of service, and
100s DTHML scripts
Visit http://www.dynamicdrive.com
*/

var clickmessage="Right click disabled on images!"

function disableclick(e) {
if (document.all) {
if (event.button==2||event.button==3) {
if (event.srcElement.tagName=="IMG"){
alert(clickmessage);
return false;
}
}
}
else if (document.layers) {
if (e.which == 3) {
alert(clickmessage);
return false;
}
}
else if (document.getElementById){
if (e.which==3&&e.target.tagName=="IMG"){
alert(clickmessage)
return false
}
}
}

function associateimages(){
for(i=0;i<document.images.length;i++)
document.images[i].onmousedown=disableclick;
}

if (document.all)
document.onmousedown=disableclick
else if (document.getElementById)
document.onmouseup=disableclick
else if (document.layers)
associateimages()
</script>

For those that don’t want to install the above code, you can always pick up a wordpress addon that disables right clicking images; no right click plugin.

I’ve checked out both the code, and the plin in. Thus far, both have worked with various themes (10 thus far) that I’ve tried.

Because right click has been disabled, most users who use sites such as Pinterest, won’t be able to right click your image and pin on their board. It won’t stop all the copying, but it will decrease the amount that’s copied without permission. As mentioned in the post, how to disable our images from being pinned to Pinterest, a technically advanced user will still be able to copy your images.