Baby Blanket Preview and DIY Fitness Tracker Accessories

Are turtlenecks even remotely in style right now? I wore a big, chunky, knitted, turtleneck sweater to work today, because Missouri weather has finally broken me. We keep getting these almost-warm, sunny weekends, followed by dismal, damp, cold weekdays. I’ve lived here my whole life, and I will never get used to the torture that is late winter and early spring in Missouri. So because my springy outfit left me goosebumped and grumpy yesterday, I broke down and wore a turtleneck, corduroy pants, and wool socks today. The weather won’t stay warm, but I will feel warm, even if it means getting teased by teenagers. I'm used to that anyway.

So, in between compulsively checking the weather forecast and hissing at the sky out my window from under the cover of a down blanket, I’ve been working on my latest baby blanket project. I’ll make another post about this one once it’s finished, but here’s a preview.

Moss Stitch Baby Blanket

I used the directions for this adorable animal alphabet afghan. It's a departure from the plain, single stitch blankets I've been making without a lot of added effort. For each row, just alternate a half double crochet and a slip stitch. Easy peasy. It's turning out really nice. I haven't decided on a border yet, or whether I'll add any embellishments.

But crocheting isn't all I've been working on lately.

DIY Misfit Accessories

I think I've mentioned before that I'm hoping to get into better shape this year. I will write next week's post about my reasons for wanting to exercise more and how I plan to go about that in a healthy, sustainable, and self-loving way. But today I want to share with you one of the steps I've taken toward that goal, and also to share how I'm making it more fun for myself. 

It has taken me a long time to get onto the fitness tracker bandwagon. I see the value in it, and I really enjoyed the episode of the podcast "To The Best of Our Knowledge" called "The Quantified Self", which talks about personal tracking and how it can improve our lives. But I'm a cheapskate, so it took me a while.

I did have a Fitbit Zip that Joe got through work, but it was prone to (and eventually succumbed to) cat shenanigans. Hobbit once stole it off of the nightstand, and we found it in the living room the next morning with 400 steps on it. Alas, the Zip's next feline encounter proved to be fatal. One night, Adele knocked everything off of the nightstand and into the trash can. By the time I realized the Zip was missing, it had long since been taken to the dumpster.

Anyway, that's a very long and cat-heavy way to say that I was without a fitness tracker until recently. My school district started a wellness program with a daily step goal. The district offered to reimburse us up to $25 to purchase a tracker. If you've bought a Fitbit, you know that's not really much help. So I bought a cheaper tracker, the Misfit Flash. It was actually on special from Amazon Prime for $20, so with the reimbursement, it was free! 

Since I've only had it for a day, I'll wait until later to give it a complete review. But what I can share is what I'm doing to make it more fun to wear. Right now, it looks like this:

Not hideous, but also pretty conspicuous and athletic-looking. I saw some of the accessories for the Misfit Shine, a more expensive model, and I got a hankering to make a few DIY accessories of my own. 

I looked all over the place for tutorials to DIY some Misfit accessories, and I couldn't find any. Really! I even looked on the second and third page of Google results! Etsy has some cute handmade options, but as I said before, I'm a penny pincher. I was left with no choice but to come up with my own projects.

For my first attempt, I was inspired by this pretty locket-style necklace for the Misfit Shine. My Flash isn't compatible with it, which is fine, because I'm not about to spend $80 on one. 

Instead, I found this empty locket in the jewelry section at Joann Fabric & Crafts for $3.99 (not including my teacher discount - woot woot!).

No idea what kind of metal this is.

Maybe I'll end up with a giant green circle on my chest from wearing it!

It doesn't fit perfectly, so I had to wrap the necklace chain through the loops twice to get it to stay closed. This way I can wear it when I need to look fancy. Which isn't very frequently, if I'm being honest. But at least I have options. I'll bet the Misfit Shine will fit even better in one of these, so let's call this the absolute easiest way to save $86 on wearable tech accessories. You're welcome.

Note the less-than-perfect fit. Then remember how much money you're saving.

I warned you about the turtleneck. Sexy, no?

Here's my next project: I saw this ribbon bracelet, meant to make the Misfit more comfortable to wear while sleeping, and I decided that I could for-sure create something similar with my sewing machine. I'm planning to cut up an old workout shirt for this job. I'll post the project with pictures and a tutorial next week, along with my review of the Misfit Flash. Let's hope my cats haven't eaten it before then!

Yarn Crafts for Health and Easy Baby Blanket Crochet Projects

Happy Saturday!

Anyone else in Missouri today may wonder why I'm sitting inside blogging when the high today is 71ºF, in February. My answer to you, dear, hypothetical Missourian readers, is that it is still morning, and the thermometer has not yet broken 60ºF, also known as the temperature at which I will willingly spend my leisure time out of doors. For lo, I am a wimp. But I am enjoying the morning sunshine in my living room, watching Hobbit flopping around like a goofball in a nice warm patch on the carpet.

I wasn't fast enough to get a pic of him rolling around. He's embarrassed that he got caught being adorable.

Putting aside for the moment the existential dread stemming from the knowledge that such a gloriously warm day in February is likely the result of global warming, I'm really excited that I get to spend some time outside today. But first, I want to talk about crocheting.

Did you know that yarn crafts are good for your health? This blog post from the New York Times, The Health Benefits of Knitting, quotes doctors and researchers studying the mental and physical perks of crocheting and knitting. It's an interesting read.

I learned to crochet when I was little, but I took it back up more seriously in the last year or so as a way to keep myself from biting my nails. Here are the benefits, health-related and otherwise, that I've noticed:

1. It keeps my hands busy, so I'm not picking or biting my nails, and I'm also not mindlessly snacking. Snacking's great, but if I'm not paying attention while I eat, I'm not enjoying it anyway!
2. The repetitive motion helps reduce my anxiety and calms me down after a stressful day. Yarn is cheaper than a therapist!*
3. I'm big into giving gifts, and giving someone a gift I made by hand makes it more meaningful, and this strengthens my friendships.
4. I save money on winter accessories. Like, for real. This hat takes me less than two hours to make (I'm pretty slow), and it's less than $5 worth of yarn. Also, it's super cute.
5. If I'm going to watch six episodes of The West Wing in a row, at least I'll have something to show for it afterwards.

*Please don't actually use yarn as a substitute for professional counseling. I was kidding.

The list goes on, but you get the picture. It's a simple, inexpensive hobby that boasts big returns, and it keeps my millennial layabout tendencies in check.

So, I'd like to share with you some of the projects I worked on last year. The thing about being twenty-five is, my friends are starting to reproduce. So are my siblings. Fine by me, as 1) It keeps the baby-making pressure off me and my hubby, and 2) I'm at that stage of life where I really love babies, as long as I can hand them back to their parents after we've hung out for a bit. Joe and I are still a few years out in terms of offspring. Anyway, I've been making a lot of baby blankets lately.

As I said before, I've only gotten back into crocheting regularly in past year or two, so these blankets were all beginner level projects. I basically just single crocheted forever and ever amen for the body of each blanket, then I did a simple border and an embellishment on each. Pictures and details below!

Blanket One: Airplane Appliqué Blanket with Blanket Stitch Border

This one was for my nephew, who was born last spring. My brother's father-in-law is a private pilot, and he gave my brother lessons while my brother was getting his own pilot's license. The family is pretty into planes, is what I'm saying. So I made a blanket using worsted weight yarn in single stitch, and then I used This pattern, a $2 download on Ravelry.com, to make an airplane. Definitely worth the $2. I then finished it up with a blanket stitch border in blue, which is super easy and very cute. Here's the finished product.

Sorry for the poor picture quality, by the way. I took all these photos before I knew I'd be sharing them!

Blanket Two: Flower Appliqué Blanket with Scallop Stitch Border

This one was for the daughter of some friends of mine from church. They decorated their nursery in navy and cream with coral accents, so I used the same colors in the blanket. The weekend I made the flowers, I was feeling equal parts lazy and over-confident, so I decided to try making them without a pattern. They came out a bit less defined than I liked, but I kept them. This was my first foray into the scallop stitch for a border, and I used the fantastic book Crocheting School: A Complete Course to learn it. 

Also featured: my hideous living room couch! Feast your eyes!

The border looks nearly black here, but it's really a nice, deep navy.

Blanket Three: Hot Air Balloon Embroidered Blanket with Basic Border

This one was my favorite to make, partly because it was the easiest, and partly because I really loved combining crocheting and cross stitch embroidery in one project! This blanket was for the son of another couple of friends from our church. They didn't have any color or design preferences, so I did my own thing. I free-handed this one, and the squareness of the single crochet stitch made it easy to cross stitch using a yarn needle. I started with cross stitching the white stripe of the balloon, made symmetrical red stripes on either side, and then I used a smaller yarn to cross stitch the basket, finishing off the ropes with a chain stitch. If you don't know how to embroider, I kid you not, you can learn in one afternoon with a trip to the craft store and a couple of YouTube videos.

I have got to find a better place to photograph my projects. A futon? Really Anna?

So, there are the baby blankets that I made in 2015! Three more of my friends are pregnant already. I'll share what I'm working on for one of them in my next post. I've finally strayed from the single stitch blanket body to a pretty moss stitch. If you'd like an actual pattern for any of these blankets, leave a comment and I'll learn how to write patterns.

And would you look at that. In the time it's taken me to type up and edit this post, the temperature has risen from 54ºF to 67ºF. I'm going for a bike ride! Catch ya later!

The Irish Cuppa

Just found this article from the Irish Times. The Irish are now officially the number one tea drinkers worldwide - according to the article, Irish people drink 6-7 cups a day, which amounts to 7lbs of dry tea leaves annually. No wonder I felt so at home there! The article also discusses the recent increase in drinking tea for health benefits. Check it out here: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2012/0626/1224318714080.html

Sniffles and Sneezes?

It's that time of year! The cars parked around campus have a light yellow dusting all over them; they're covered in pollen, and it's getting in our noses too. My seasonal allergies tend to hit me more in the fall, but hay-fever is making people miserable right now. 

My friend David is a particularly severe case. He's completely lost his voice this week because of his allergies! Since I have a history of prescribing tea for just about every ailment under the sun, David came to me and asked for some tea to make his throat feel better. 

Now, just about any hot tea is going to have a soothing effect on a scratchy throat. But we want to get to the root of the problem, don't we? So I made him rooibos.

Rooibos tea (I pronounce it "roy-bows") is an herbal tea - i.e. made from a plant other than Camelia sinensis - that is made from a bush that grows in South Africa. It's got a distinctly red color, earning it the commonly used (and more easily pronounced) title, "red tea."

Source

Rooibos tea lays claim to a long list of health benefits, from fighting acne to curing colic in children. But it also contains two important bioflavonoids, called Rutin and Quercetin. These bioflavonoids block histamine, which is the cause of inflamatory allergy symptoms like itchy eyes, stuffy nose, coughing, etc. Just drink rooibos tea regularly and you may even be able to ditch the allergy drugs - this wonder-tea is a safe and natural way to keep those sniffles at bay. 

More good news: rooibos tea is caffeine-free, and does not have the iron-blocking effects of other teas. So you can drink as much as you want! Hydrating, allergy-fighting, and refreshing. Not to mention the antioxidants and other health benefits. So don't just sit there! Follow your itchy red nose to the grocery store or a nearby tea shop and pick up some red tea!

I have one more suggestion to combat your seasonal allergies: try adding some locally-sourced honey to your rooibos tea! Local honey is said to help assimilate the body to local allergens, since it contains trace amounts of pollen from the plants in your area. Definitely worth a try, in my opinion! Head to your local farmers' market or get online and do some hunting to find yourself a local apiary (that's fancy-talk for bee farm). And then enjoy! Honey goes great with red tea.

For this post, I got some of my information from Teavana's page on rooibos. They have some scrumptious rooibos blends for sale, so be sure to follow the link and check them out!