Fun with.... Bleach?

I am a pig.  I stain things.  Pretty much everything I own has some kind of greasy food stain on it.  I wish things were different.   Sometimes I actually get to wear a shirt 2 or 3 times before the stain takes place.  These are happy times.  I have found a solution.  Now, I am not going to claim that I came up with this one on my own... my brain isn't that crafty.  But this has kept me from tossing out perfectly fixable clothes.

Step one:  Buy a bleach pen.  Yes, a plain ol' laundry stain getter outter bleach pen.  Gel bleach, of course.

Step two: Put a few layers of magazines, newspapers, plastic placemats.... anything really inbetween the shirt layers so the bleach doesn't soak through to the other side.

Step three:  Get creative.  Being sure to cover your stains with the bleach, draw a pattern, design, picture of something cuter than a stain. 

Step four:  Let the bleach sit for 10 to 20 minutes..... Ok it probably doesn't take that long, but the longer you let it sit, the more saturated your color will be.... plus, it will give you time to do step 5.

Step five:  Have  a glass of wine while you wait for step four to be over.

Step six:  Take your beautiful creation over to the sink and wash away the remaining bleach gel.  I did this with the spray nozzle on my kitchen sink. 

Step seven: Toss that bad boy in the wash to get out the bleach smell and to be sure you got all the gel out.


Step eight:  Once the item has been laundered, put it on. Marvel at how fantastic you look and how truly clever you are.

Happy New Year! Happy Warm Neck!

I have been stumbling a lot lately.  That's not to say I've been drinking heavily.... no, I'm addicted to stumble.com.  If you haven't checked it out yet, you need to, but prepare to form your own addiction.   Anyway, my husband bought me a Kindle Fire for Christmas and I have been stumbling everywhere... all the time lately.  I have found so many wonderful sites and fun things that I would have never found were it not for Stumble.  I ran across this amazing knitted scarf tutorial a few weeks back... you can find it here www.ezisus.blogspot.com/2008/12/lamar.html .  I am not an amazing knitter.  I have found that knitting requires me to pay attention to what I am doing and I find this really hard to do.  So I have never managed to knit anything beyond a straight scarf or something off my round knitting loom.... and that something always ends up being a cylindrical neck warmer, not all that exciting.  So anyway, when I found this tutorial I just knew I had to figure out a way to conquer my knitting demons and make it.   As it turns out, after I paid a little attention and used my noggin and started over about 9 times, it wasn't actually that challenging.

Managed to mess up yet again and had to start over.

Why did I have to start over so many times?  I will blame a couple of those times on an adorable 3 year old, a few on my husband... because hey, why not, and well the rest were either me not paying attention to the pattern or losing count in my rows.... this is a BIG one.   So I developed my own system for remembering what row I was on since I am no good at just figuring that out by looking at my work.  I have two small bowls of different colors and in one bowl I have 6 pieces of anything (I used Mike and Ikes and had to will myself not to eat them).  You can use rocks, dried beans, legos or whatever else is lying around the house.  Once I finish a row I take a candy from one bowl and put it in the other. Then when all my candies are in the other bowl I know its time to start my pattern over. 

High Tech... I know.

I did not end up making a scarf as the pattern calls for. Instead I turned mine into a cowl, by adding some buttons that I made out of polymer clay.

 It snowed all week here in the Seattle area so I was able to get this bad boy finished in 3 days for just a couple hours here and there.

The view from my knitting chair.

 I adore it!   It is so warm and soft.  My toddler now wants mommy to make her one ad I think I just might.