Pinterest Adventures: Turban Headband

For today's Pinterest Adventure, we are going to recycle an old tee shirt into a headband/wrap. I have a ton of old t-shirts that I've been meaning to use for things like bags, rugs, and so forth. I've also recently, been growing out my hair and it is longer than it has been since I've been in kindergarten. I have plans to cut and sell it after graduation, but until then, it is driving me CRAZY.

Enter the headwrap style headband. I envision a super thick headband that will contain most of my hair in it. But not be thick in the front. (I once saw a picture that looked like someone hat cut the sleeve off a t-shirt and pulled it over their head.)  I went to good ol' Pinterest to see if I could find any DIY headwraps on there. The one that I found that actually was DIY and had instructions was on Cultured Blog.

http://culturedblog.com/dana/diy-baby-turban-headband

Bonus point: It says it's no-sew.

Of course after I read the instructions I didn't understand how it could be no-sew and still work. But, I'm determined to do these as they are written/described so you all will know if they actually work or not. Also, there is a mantra among knitters that I sometimes follow (but not always) of "Trust the pattern". So I did, I trusted the pattern.

 I grabbed a neutral light gray one because it's a color I know I would actually wear around my head and wouldn't clash too badly with the majority of my wardrobe.

My first tip is to use a quilting ruler, cutting board and rotary cutter if you have them. This makes the width more accurate and consistent as well as helping make the overall time invested shorter. 

As instructed, I cut 2 strips from the bottom of my shirt, I did mine 3" wide even though I thought I might want them wider. I then followed the step by step instructions:

I folded in half both strips, looping them together at the centers, then looped the bottoms into the tops and folded them in half again, pulling the bottom into the top: 

                   

This is where I got confused in the instructions while I was reading them, not actually doing the project. When I did it, the instructions made sense. It worked!

            

I am not a trendy person, so I wasn't sure how you're supposed to wear these.... 

Now, it's been about a week or so since I made it, and I've used it a couple times. The only change I would make is to make the bands wider, so they contain more hair at the back when my hair is up. I would also MAYBE sew a seam to keep all the layers together, they fall out of each other. No-sew would become sew one seam...  

If you are interested in being added to my Mythbusting for the Blog board, send me a message on Facebook! 

Pinterest Adventures: Fleece Blanket

Here's another Pinterest Adventure for you all! I found this pin that led to a blog post by Pieces by Polly.

I was super excited to see a finished edge on a fleece blanket that wasn't just knots, and didn't require double layers. I checked it out and there were some great tips on there! However, I added some of my own (not many) when I decided to embark on this adventure. 

First off, I found some great fleece in the remnant bin at JoAnns. I needed it. I was feeling a bit guilty about not showing my 'pride'. 

First off, Polly tells you to fold your fleece in half before you start. My thoughts: BRILLIANT. It means half as much cutting. After I did one side, I unfolded it, and refolded the other sides together. That way you work with one long end the entire time, and it helps later in the process so you don't end up with weird sizes in the middle of the blanket. 

Next Polly said to cut out 2x2 inch squares from each corner. I ignored this. As you go through the process these squares magically appear. 

Her next stroke of GENIUS was to measure two inches from the edge, and put a tape line there. 

This is so you know how far in to cut your strips. She says to cut strips one inch wide, but seems to just kind of estimate? She does use a rotary cutter on a mat so maybe she used the mat. . .  I however, used scissors because I like my scissors. To help me go faster, I measured on the tape and made marks every inch. 

Then you cut a fringe. Yep, cut the fringe like you would if you were going to knot the blanket. I then carefully removed the tape, refolded the fleece so the uncut edges were flat (they were folded before) and the fringe edges are folded. (Hamburger to hotdog if you are that type of folding person). Then I remeasured and REUSED the tape. This saved me the trouble of remarking tape. 

So far so good. Then I realized that to make it work, I would have to cut a tiny hole in each piece of fringe. I checked Polly's blog again to see if she had any tricks to make this go faster, and alas, she didn't. This was, for me, the most time consuming part of the process. Snip a little hole at the top of each piece of fringe. 

 I paid special attention to the size of the fringe. If there was a piece that was fatter... I mean, wider, than the rest, I took note of it. When you start 'braiding' it you need to cut one piece of fringe in half to be the last one... Keep reading this should make sense. 

At this point Polly loses all of her fancy rotary cutters and mats. She pulls out a paper clip. Yep a paper clip. As I read, I realized Polly must not do any knitting or crocheting, because a crochet hook would work better and faster than the paper clip. 

What I did was I used the crochet hook to basically chain stitch the pieces of fringe together. Put the hook through the slit on the piece of fringe next to your fat, last fringe piece. Working away from the designated end piece, hook the next piece of fringe through it's little hole, and pull it through the first pieces hole. You've looped the first piece onto the second. 

Now just keep going all the way around the blanket. You will loop all the pieces together and it will be awesome. But then how do you get the last (the fat one) piece to connect to the first one? Well, cut the fat one in half so you have two skinnier pieces, then wrap one through the first piece of fringe that you need to connect to  and tie the two skinny pieces together. Then tuck the knot under where it won't be seen. (You'll have to finagle with this to find a way that looks good to you.)

And Voila! You have your very own fleece blanket! 

I have done this several times now, and can say that from start to finish it takes me approximately 2 hours total. I've also made two at a time by layer the blankets beneath each other when cutting (you cut through 4 layers instead of two), which speeds up the process too. Of course, I don't have small children or pets who demand my attention. And my husband is gone when I do this.... 

Happy Fleecing! 

Pinterest Adventures: Jello Fruit Snacks

This is a first of hopefully many Pinterest Adventure posts. I know a lot of people do them and the humor in it is that real life doesn't always translate to pinterest level products. However, I really think it's nice to see that someone else, a "normal" person, was able to somewhat successfully do something found on Pinterest.

(If you have any pins that you would like me to try out first to work out the kinks, just let me know!)

Picture and Recipe credit goes to Six Sisters Stuff blog: http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2012/06/homemade-jello-fruit-snacks-recipe.html

This pin caught my eye because it said Homemade fruit snacks. I love fruit snacks, but being a graduate student, and a newlywed, fruit snacks are not in the budget. So of course I thought I'd be able to have fruit snacks if I made them at home. Sadly, the ingredient list at the time would have cost about the same amount as a box of fruit snacks, so I just let it sit.

Then, I decided I really really wanted to try it. I went to Kroger and found out that Kroger brand gelatin was on sale for only 39 cents a box. So I grabbed a couple on the last shopping trip, and waited for a weekend.

First off, it says to "sprinkle the gelatin" into the water. This didn't work. The gelatin clumped up all gross and kind of stayed that way on the first go around. The second time though, I whisked it in like I would with gravy mix. Whisk constantly while slowly pouring the powder in. It worked better, but not perfectly. Maybe it would work better with brand name gelatin?

Next, I poured it into a mini ice cube mold, the ones with the silicone bottom so you can pop the ice out easier? I had difficulties trying to decide how full to fill them though. This is the first go around when I filled them up pretty much all the way. I ended up not filling every one up. And ended up with some monstrously big fruit snacks. 

My second go around, I filled them to where the silicone part ended. I had enough to fill up this mold, and if I had a second mold probably about half of that one. Since I didn't have a second mold I used my husband's gun shaped ice cube mold. Got two guns out of it too. 

The tutorial instructed me to let the fruit snacks "sit" for "at least 20 minutes". Ok. Good, I could do that. I wandered off to Netflix a show. When I came back, they were still really soft and I couldn't get them to come out of the mold. 

Yeah, so turns out you should let them sit in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. This was missing from the instructions. Second go around, golden on this.  However, this did not ease the getting them out of the mold process. Alas, I have no pointers on this part other than be patient, and maybe a little aggressive. They will eventually come out. 

Finally, they do not need to be kept in the fridge after the initial setting. But they do need to be eaten rather quickly ( a couple of days) if you elect to not keep them in the fridge. They will mold otherwise. At least they will if you live in the South like I do.

My last thought: These really aren't like store bought fruit snacks. They are weirdly squeaky (best word I could come up with) and don't taste nearly as good as store bought ones do. BUT if your children are young and you are on a budget, go for it. They probably won't be able to tell the difference.