Rising to the Challenge(s)

It's a big week here. I am wrapping up the first 7 days of my 100 Thing Challenge, as well as nearing the deadline for the Ravelympics.

Oh wait, I've been a bad blogger and haven't mentioned the Ravelympics here, have I? In a nutshell, it's a knitting challenge wherein one starts a project during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, and finishes it by the end of the closing ceremonies. If I really hunker down tonight and tomorrow, I just may make it. I am making the Multnomah shawl (PDF link) out of some alpaca that I bought from a local farm and recently dyed dark green. I would take a progress picture of it but at the moment it just looks like a wadded mess. Because my original circular needle had a catastrophic failure (read: cable separated from its needle tip) mid-way through a row, I had to switch to a too-short replacement needle to complete the project. As it keeps growing, it is increasingly difficult to manage to knit, let alone spread it out for a photo op. Here's a picture of it last week, on the original, 40" needle. I now am 3 feather-and-fan repeats away from completion.

My hand is killing me from all this knitting, but I really think I'll like this shawl when it is done, so I'm powering through. Less than 36 hours isn't much time. It's going to be close.

As I mentioned above, it's also the close of week one of my attempt at a 100 Thing Challenge. I vowed donate/gift 100 things a week out of my home. Between Mr Deplume's toy-culling work in our kids' rooms and my clearing out of some old kid clothes and cookbooks, we have rehomed 118 items to the local charity shop.  I knew that coming up with this first hundred things was going to be easy. What I didn't realize when conceiving of the idea is how much my eyes would be opened to all the crap in my house (and my life) that I could live without.
In the basement, I see the Christmas decoration boxes half-filled with ornaments and tchotkes that I don't like and will never put out.
In my closet, I see the dress clothes that I only wear when I am desperate. (Which, admittedly, is fairly often, as I'm not a skilled outfit-builder.) But just maybe, wearing the same few outfits that I like repeatedly is better than "trying to mis it up", which translates to "wearing clothes that make me sad." I don't need that sadness, do I?
In the kitchen, I see the utensil drawer that is too full of unitaskers. How many sets of tongs do I really need? I like to make bread, but should I really keep 6 loaf pans? How about 4 sets of wine glasses?
The hall closet is home to too many jackets and coats-- I only have two arms and 4 seasons. How many do I really need?
It is like this in my head all the time now.

Only time will tell if I can stick with this for 100 days, but the first 7 have been good. I'm excited for the next.

Playing catch up

I't been a busy couple of weeks around the Deplume household! Last week, I used my Perfect Brownie pan for the first time.

As you can see, I had some leakage issues. I know that the answer is to line the pan in foil, but I resisted, as that seems like more work than just using a regular pan and cutting the brownies with a knife. People love these things, apparently, but not me. 

Then, I decided to make my daughter a cake for her 8th birthday. In a silicone bundt pan. It was given to me by a family member a while back, and I thoguht "what the heck? She said it worked fine, she just didn't love it." 

I think that maybe what she meant to say was that it was a miserable waste of silicone. I floured the pan. I used a cookie sheet under it. I followed the directions. But it still fell apart when I tried to de-pan it. To add insult to injury, this tragedy struck while I was trying to also get the house ready for about a dozen people to arrive for the party. 30 minutes before guests were to arrive, I was at the grocery store, buying a premade cake. This failure is still tasty, though. It lived in our refrigerator for a few days, being eaten and referred to as "The Fail Cake"

mmm, fail cake...

In other news, I'm knitting again. It's been slow going, as I keep screwing stuff up. I started a top-down hat on Superbowl Sunday, and it might actually fit when it's all said and done. But it's a beret, and I've never found one that I liked, so who knows what will happen. The yarn sure is pretty, though. 

So that's my last couple of weeks in a nutshell. I cannot wait for the Olympics to start. How about you?

Can I fix it?

I am calling on you experts and fearless folks alike to tell me what to do. I've been working on this flingin' flangin' "afghan" for far too long (well over a year). Entrelac is only fun for the first 100 squares or so. After that, it's more tedious than stockinette, and slower, too. I think the project is pretty in any case, and would love to see it finished some day, so I've been working on it again lately. I got through an entire row of squares the other night and decided to switch to a longer needle so I could see how wide it's shaping up to be, and I found this:

You see, there are not supposed to be cube-corner-shaped bits on blankets. I screwed up, by adding a square jutting out from what should have been the right edge of the work. For those of you not well-versed in entrelac, there should be alternating diagonal squares and triangles that create smooth edges up the sides of the piece. I've illustrated it thusly:

And of course I didn't notice this until after I had completed an entire row, consisting of hours of work. I know I could rip back and reknit the whole thing properly, but I know myself. If I start frogging this baby, I'm never going to re-knit. Too mind-numbing.

So my question is this: Would it work for me to snip the yarn, unravel just that square, and bind up the eight live stitches somehow so that the work can go on without undoing all of this? If so, where is the best place in the square to break the yarn? Then again, I might have screwed up something earlier, too, if I managed to attach the errant square on two sides, which should not have really been possible.

In the immortal words of Winnie the Pooh, Oh bother.

A few pictures

I once again have the writer's block. When in bed at night, my mind is FILLED with subjects I want to write about. But as soon as I drift off to slumberland, the blog imp comes and steals them all away from me. So, I manage to write pretty much nothing. Thankfully the camera still works, and each picture is worth a thousand words, so I'm gonna have a slide show.

First, the boy's 5th birthday was at the end of August (so sue me, I'm a slacker). I had a modest goal of serving him a cake not purchased from a grocery store's bakery. He wanted a Transformers-themed party, so I had my work cut out for me. Jumping to my aid was my friend Kaia, who owns a car-shaped pan, so I embarked on my first cake decoration attempt: The Autobot named Bumblebee. I used to think that I'd like to decorate cakes as a hobby. It turns out, I do not. (There's a chance that I would have enjoyed it more if my pastry bag and bag tips hadn't been MIA, forcing me to use only a Ziploc freezer bag and my gumption to frost the cake)

It's completely lopsided, but the boy was happy with it, and it tasted pretty good.

Next, I owe you a picture of my kitchen. There's still a soffit to be built around the sink's vent pipe, but the wallpaper is up and the painting is basically done. Even in its unfinished state, it's a 382% improvement over how it had looked since we moved in. If only I could afford to have the floor and counters replaced....


Lastly for today, I owe you a picture of knitting. However, the knitting I've been doing is too boring to bother turning on the camera. I've recently been knitting neck gaiters (the pattern spells it "gator" but I don't think that's right), one being an exact replica of one I knit in the spring, for Citizen Sam. I don't think I ever posted about this before, so I'll show you a picture of its older twin. (You can see that I made a hat in the spring too. I haven't made another hat yet, but I have more yarn, so it's probably just a matter of time).

If one 9" knitted tube weren't boring enough of a summer knit, I've cast on another one, this one navy blue, for keeping in the family. I think all this k2p2 ribbing is finally giving me the motivation to get back to more challenging projects. So that's good.

I really hope to keep up with the posting, and not put writing off enough for another month. But we'll see. My slacker-fu is very strong.

Lots of stuff (I wish I had a better title, but it just ain't gonna happen)

It's been a busy few weeks in the Deplume household. There has been a garden planted, school year ended, kitchen cabinets painted, miles run, and anniversaries celebrated (our parents, not us-- ours is next month). I have taken pictures of a lot of it, but will only share a little here.

First off, a couple of weeks ago my mom and sister had a garage sale. I put some things out too, but I only made $12, so I don't think it really counts as my sale. My mother had this for sale. She got it at an auction with some other things, and didn't immediately notice anything other than the cute bunnies. I brought it home of course, thinking that I'd tuck it away for a risque gift-giving occasion. There are a few of my fellow yarnies on Ravelry who I think would particularly enjoy it.

There's a problem, however. Our son saw it and promptly claimed it as his cup. He wants to drink out of it all the time. He would be crestfallen if I took it away from him. This is another one of those situations that makes me wonder about this parenting gig. How am I supposed to explain why he cannot keep his beloved bunny mug? If I don't take it away, how long until he or his older sister figures it out? This is one of those things that will have us all in stitches as we reminisce around the Thanksgiving table in 2038, isn't it?

In other news, I finished the shawl that I thought would never end. In all honesty, it probably should be another inch or two bigger, but I just couldn't bear to knit anymore. It had been with me for 13 months now, and it was time to get those needles back. I think I'll make a sweater next-- with hopes that it would be done before fall sweater season, 2009. I don't hold out much hope on that, though. I do love the colors and the yarn is very soft, I hope that despite its petite-ness (petite-i-tude? petition?) I'll manage to use it lots.
Ravelry Link




There is more news (and pictures) to share, but it's now 6:52 PM and I'm the only member of the family not in my jammies yet, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. See you then!

Charity work

Earlier this month I knit these for Citizen Sam (they recently took over Operation Helmetliner), and finally got around to weaving in the ends and taking pictures this week. I have a bad habit of finishing projects quickly, then letting them languish about for weeks (or months, in some cases) with just a stray yarn end or half a bind-off to do. Too bad procrastination isn't a marketable skill-- I could be rich. Rich, I tell you!
The beanie is Ellen's Hat from The Ships Project (Ravelry link), and the neck gator (although I think it ought to be spelled "gaiter") is from the Citizen Sam website. (No Rav pattern link for this one that I could find. I'm also too lazy to bother adding it to their database.)


BTW, on the gaiter/gator I used a sewn cast off that I read about in Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac, and I really like the effect. It's nice and stretchy, and at the same time is a little less bulky than my standard bind off. That EZ sure was one smart cookie.

Happy Thursday to you

I don't have much to post here, but I have a few minutes to waste, so here I am. Not much knitting progress lately. I've been working exclusively on the entrelac afghan project. It's slow going, though. I'm most of the way through the next row of it, but then the kids both got sick (and have been trying to take me down with them), and every time I sit down it's more to snuggle than to knit. I'm not complaining, though. They are only little kids for a very short time and I am increasingly aware of how fast time flies.

I'm hosting a craft night at our church tonight. I hope it goes well. If there are a lot of people there, we'll need to meet in the Parish Hall, where the light isn't bright. If we are a smaller group, we can meet in a different room with better light. I hope it catches on. A few knitters (and a crocheter) have been meeting on Wednesday mornings for over a year now and we have a great time. But those people who work during the day cannot come. Also, scrapbookers and jewelry makers and woodworkers cannot really work at a coffee shop. *fingers crossed*

I'll post a progress pic of the afghan tomorrow, and maybe I'll frog another failed WIP, too, just for good measure. I'm really wanting to get all the unfinished business cleared up so I can start on some new stuff. I've got a hankering to knit another pair of socks.

And it's already Friday again

I'm not sure how that happened. It was just the 23rd, but now it is nearly February, and I'm due to finish something, as it's


But, nothing is finished yet. I have decided, however, to work on the afghan I started a long time ago. I had just learned entrelac and thought the idea of an entrelac afghan was fabulous. I still think it is fabulous. However, in execution, knitting an entrelac blanket large enough to cuddle in is just plain silly.

"I only have to count to 8" I said, "that makes it mindless knitting."
"It's good practice picking up stitches," I thought.
"It's just little blocks of stockinette, easy peasy" I quipped.

Dude. Entrelac, while lovely, is tedious once the magic of it is gone. When the "how in hell did I just manage to make yarn do that?!?" is gone, it's just plain knitting with a bunch of decreases and picked-up stitches thrown in for giggles.

Mind-numbingly tedious or not, I still like the idea of it, so it shall continue to grow. I do reserve the right to change my mind, stop knitting at some yet-to-be-determined point and call it a mere "throw" or a shawl even.



I also finished a pair of fingerless mitts this week. They are loosely based on a WWII Red Cross mitts pattern that was in Piecework Magazine last month, but there's really very little resemblance when it's all said and done. Please don't click to enlarge the picture, as then you could see both my lack of blocking the mitts and moisturizing the hands. I really ought to go get a manicure.

It's done

I feel a little like a hit man. I finally pulled the trigger and frogged a stole that I started last March, It had the potential to be gorgeous, but alas, it was accursed. I'm sad to see it go, but honestly, I'd never love it with the mistakes in it. Life is too short to finish reading bad books, and likewise too short to wear half-assed shawls.

RIP, Eye of Partridge Shawl.


But I now have two balls of Trekking XXL that I can use for other things.

It's Finishing Friday.

I've actually finished something, too! I started these socks for the Ravelympics, but I got sidetracked and they got stuffed in a bag and hung on a doorknob. I got them back out in November, intent on putting them in my daughter's Christmas stocking. Umm, fail.

But thanks to the genius of Majorknitter, who dubbed 2009 the Year of Decisions: a year during which all the WIPs become finished objects, or are undone and returned to the yarn stash. I decided that it would be good to start with something easy, so I pulled out the socks and finished them up. Nora loves them and wore them to school today, in spite of the fact that I screwed up and made one about three-quarters of an inch shorter than the other.



If I can manage to finish some housework in time, I just might frog something today, too. Stay tuned!

I am a bad yarn mom

Yesterday I decided to clean my office. I can manage to keep most of the house moderately respectable, but it is usually the office that gets all the overflow when people are coming over, and it's the place where most of the bills and mail come, so that's a constant struggle. But the worst part of my office shame comes from the yarn that lives here. You, my faithful reader, might recall my yarn stash finding a new home a little over a year ago. I was so proud, it looked so nice.

But over that last year there have been projects started and finished, also a fair number of projects started and abandoned. There were swatches knit, new yarn acquired, and searches conducted. Some random skeins were pulled from their home and plopped unceremoniously on this desk, to end up tangled in computer cords. Other yarns were hastily rewound and shoved back in or atop the armoire, to become tangled with other yarns and needles that had been treated equally as poorly. I knew it was a mess, but until I pulled out every poor, mistreated bit of string in my house and put them all on the table, I didn't know the magnitude of my transgressions.

Meanwhile, I had already decided to join in the fun with a bunch of others dedicated to Finishing or Frogging all those WIPs in the closet. As part of that endeavor, I decided to also get really honest with myself about how many projects sit in the cabinet and in bags on doorknobs, languishing on their needles, that need to be finished or completely undone.

This is the result:
Yarns that need to be re-wound and re-homed. They also need a good solid apology for my mistreatment. It was like woolen Gitmo in there. Poor things.


And projects that need to be resolved one way or the other (By the way, Penny thinks I am a very good kitty mom, for providing her such a soft and lovely sunny spot for her afternoon siesta):


As you can see, I need to get busy.

Pattern: "Nora", a child's winter headband

This is a simple headband with a 3-st seed stitch border on each side, then a cable up the middle. It's super easy once you get the rhythm of it. It's really only wide enough to cover a child's ears as I've written it, but if you used a wider border or bulkier yarn, it would be great for a grown-up, too. :)

Ravelry Link to the pattern. :)

From Drop Box

I've never written a pattern before, so if there are any parts that aren't clear, please let me know and I can fix them.

Worsted weight yarn
US7 (4.5 mm) needles

Here it is:
CO 14 stitches (use provisional if you choose, or you can just pick up stitches on the CO edge later)
knit one row across

Set-up rows:
Rows 1&3 (rs): k1, p1, k1, p2, k4, p2, k1, p1, k1
Rows 2&4 (ws): k1, p1, k1, k2, p4, k2, k1, p1, k1

Begin cable pattern:
Row 1: k1, p1, k1, p2, slip 2 st onto a cable needle to the front, k2, knit the st from the cable needle, p2, k1, p1, k1
Rows 2, 4, 6: k1, p1, k1, k2, p4, k2, k1, p1, k1
Rows 3 & 5: k1, p1, k1, p2, k4, p2, k1, p1, k1
Repeat cable pattern until desired length*, ending on row 5 of cable pattern

Begin decreases for the tie:
Knit one row across (ws)
Row 1: k5, s1,k1,PSSO, k2tog, k5
WS rows: knit across
Row 2: k4, s1,k1,PSSO, k2tog, k4
continue on, decreasing the center stitches until you have 4 stitches left.
Knit i-cord with those 4 stitches until you have about 3"
Tie off i-cord, break yarn.
At CO edge, pick up 14 stitches, and work exactly as you did the decreases for the the other end.
weave in ends.
take a picture and show it to me.

*"desired length for us was enough to cover from one ear lobe across the top of her head, to the other ear lobe. All kids head will be different. :)

A new FO

I have no fancy name for this, but I made a headband for my daughter. It's way too cold for it today, though. It is currently -16 degrees outside-- that's not windchill, that's the actual temp! But on the winter days when it isn't too cold, I still want her to keep her ears warm. She's getting to that age when she doesn't want to go messing up her hairdo willy nilly. (I am very not ready for this grown-up kids thing.)

So anyway, here it is. It's knit out of a pinky-purpley vintage yarn that's a little fuzzy like mohair, but otherwise a decent yarn.

From Drop Box

Yarn: Pingouin Mousse
Needles: 4.5 mm (US7)
Eventually I'll write out the pattern and name it. I think I'll make a few more of these for gifts.

Busy busy busy!

I've been actually getting some stuff done lately. I'm as amazed as anyone, really. Since there's a lot of stuff to share, I'll get right to it.

First, on December 30, I decided to turn an old t-shirt into yarn. It's really easy (Thanks, Alwen!) and I love not having to throw out all that perfectly good cotton. I'm such a packrat. Anyway, the resultant yarn is a little thicker than I'd like, but never having done it before, I didn't know what I was doing exactly, I didn't cut the strips thin enough. I'll do that next time, said Jack. I knit up a swatch, and will definitely try it again. This is about 3/4 of the yardage from the one shirt (men's sz medium) and is a 6" square. I used my trusty 9mm bamboo needles for this.

From ravelry

Next up is a Panta headband. I used about 70 yards of leftover Patons Classic Merino for this. I was so anxious to get started on this, I didn't even bother to wind the yarn into a ball first. I just looped the hank over my neck. That's true slacker knitting for you, right there.

From ravelry

It took no time at all, and I really am happy with it. It keeps my ears warm, and doesn't do funky things to my hair. That's all anyone really can ask of a wool head band, no?

From ravelry

I also have been baking lately, but I'll save that for another post. I have dough in the kitchen that won't turn into a loaf without me. ;)

Woot!

I made bread yesterday that does not suck. That would not normally warrant a "woot!" like this post's title, but you might have read in the last weeks of my slump. I've had breads fail at an astonishing rate (nearing 100%) in the last 3 months, so any success is momentous, indeed.

Last week, King Arthur Flour company had free shipping on orders placed that day. I jumped at the chance to buy some proper sourdough starter and some really cute snowflake-shaped cookies sprinkles. After 3 days of feeding and growing my starter, I set out to make a real loaf of real sourdough (I've been through the sourdough deal before, and it didn't go well). Of course, being me, I decided to do it the hard way; the rustic, super-sour, no-added-yeast recipe.

This loaf took time. You feed the starter, wait 4 hours, then put it in the refrigerator for 12 hours. Take it out, add make the bread dough, then let it do its thing for 5-6 hours, then shape the loaves and let them rise for another 2-3 hours before baking. I got nervous after the overnight rest because of the lack of bubbles, so when I added the rest of the flour, I kneaded in about 3/4 teaspoon of instant yeast. I don't know how much that did, but it made me feel better.

Yadda yadda yadda, At 6pm last night, I had fresh-baked sourdough. It's not nearly as sour as the recipe acted like it would be, but I have to take into account that the last sourdough I tasted was brought back from San Francisco. Nothing tastes quite like San Fran sourdough. Anyway, it's good, and I cannot wait to make toast out of it this morning.


In other slump news, I've made two scarves and half a hat with the 9.0mm needles, and I think I'm now ready to stop working with tree branches and go back to normal knitting. I have the toe of a sock to finish, a shawl to work on, and some alpaca that still is calling to me. Time to get back to work.

Slump

I've attempted to bake bread about 4 times this month, and it has gone poorly each time, for different reasons. I used to be good at it. I've tried two different yeast recipes (one is my old standby) and banana bread (again, an old standby recipe). Mr. Deplume thinks I've hit a slump. He swears that all the greats do, and that I'll get over it soon. I hope so. In the meantime, I made chocolate chip banana muffins. I did not screw those up. They are so good, in fact, that I ate about 8 of them in 2 days. oops.

Speaking of slumps, I am still battling my winter knitting funk. To combat this, I picked up some US13 (that's 9 millimeters thick!) needles and have made a couple of garter stitch neck warmers out of *gasp* novelty yarn. It's almost embarrassing. I like to think of myself as an appreciator of the finer side of the craft, but dang if these aren't fast! I don't even know what I want to do with them yet. I just want to have completed projects under my belt.

If I get a minutes later on, I'll take pictures. But I probably won't post them on Ravelry, you know, due to the shame. ;)

Mah new two-day hat

Winter has arrived here in Illinois. I have very short hair, so my poor ears are just out there in the elements, at the mercy of the cold prairie wind. I try to walk outside some every day, regardless of weather, so this hats are a big must-have for me. Back in July I knit the star crossed slouchy beret, thinking it a nice combination of style and warmth. I still really like the look of the hat, but after its initial winter wearing, I deem it a failure in the "keeping earlobe frostbite at bay" department: just too loose a gauge for my needs.

So I set out on Sunday to find a new pattern for a hat, one that would keep my ears warm and not make me look like a chemo patient. When I did a search on Ravelry, there were 90 pages of free patterns from which to choose. And yet none looked just right.

A while back, I knit the Architect's Hat from the Knitter's Book of Yarn, as a commission. I liked the hat a lot, but it had to go live with its rightful owner after I finished it. I decided to make it again, this time for me. But my copy of the pattern (the book is owned by the hat's commissioner) has turned up missing. So I did what any moderately masochistic person would do-- attempt to knit the hat from memory and pictures.

You know what? It turned out just fine. And in a day and a half, as well. Yay for me! I kinda wish the two yarns I used were closer in tone and I still need to block it, but I wore it out this afternoon when I walked to pick my daughter up from school, and it kept my head warm. Bonus. :)


Maybe this marks the end of my knitting funk. But this could also be a fluke. one just never knows.

Update on Blogstalking #3

It has been brought to my attention that I omitted my first true finished knitted object. I cannot believe that I forgot it, but my mother was there to remember for me: My first true knitting project was a beer cozy. Looking back, I shared it on an online knitting message board on November 13, 2006. I've officially been knitting more than two years now. How time flies when you're accumulating stash.


There's a 4th assignment from blogstalking, and I'll get that put up this weekend. But first I need to finish the front room. The walls are basically done, there are now curtains in the windows and everything! I'm getting so excited!

Blogstalking assignment #3: Why I learned to knit

I have known about this Blogstalking assignment for a whole week now, but hadn't posted my answer yet because I could not come up with one decent answer about what possessed me to knit. I knew that one day I didn't knit, then next I threw some horrible blue Red Heart Super Saver in my bascart at Wal-Mart and started obsessively watching knittinghelp.com videos. I've been wracking my brain about it for days. I was prepared to come here this morning and admit that I don't know what came over me that spurred the yarny obsession.

Finally, last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, kicking at the cat to keep her from sleeping on top of my knees: It was the needles! I had needles first, and one day I saw other people knitting and said, "hey, I can just buy some yarn and I'll be a knitter."

Why did I have needles first, you ask? (I know you probably aren't actually asking, but I'm pretending you did.) Because long ago I took part in a handmade sewing and craft swap at amitymama.com. Each person makes 5 of the same thing, then sends it to the swap organizer. She then sorts out the stuff, and sends 5 assorted items to each participant. Everyone makes 5 things, everyone gets 5 different things back. It's really a cool deal, except for the shipping costs, of course. My friend and I coordinated the Christmas 2004 swap, and when you're the organizer, you sometimes end up with some odd things. And one of the items that I, a non-knitter, got were some handmade wooden needles (about a size 10 or so) in a little fleece pouch.

I brought them home, put them on the shelf with all my sewing thread and needles and bobbins and elastic, and ignored them for a couple of years. Eventually, here in the "new" house, I got quite burned out on home-improvement projects, and decided that a good winter replacement hobby would be knitting. I made a large swatch with the above-mentioned Red Heart yarn (now happily living out its life as a dolly blanket), then moved on to a boucle yarn garter stitch scarf that my mom got started for me the previous winter. It's a very functional scarf, but it is a bit of a trapezoid. By then I was hooked. I started with dish cloths and fell in love with the craft.

So there. All that, and to be honest, I still really don't know what prompted me to pick up needles and learn. I think it might be coded in my DNA somewhere.

I love caulk

More specifically, I like caulk's ability to make my rickety house look less bockety. What pushes me into the realm of gushy squishy disgusting love is this, my newest toy:

From front room

I bought him yesterday morning, and I'm in love. He's maybe the most instantly satisfying home improvement purchase I've ever made. I have weak hands and perpetually sore wrists, and installing the molding around the bottom of the baseboards just about killed me. So to be able to effortlessly lay a bead of painter's caulk around said trim in about twenty minutes is a true blessing.

Unfortunately, my little battery powered caulk gun just isn't strong enough for DAP "Better than the Nail" Moulding Adhesive. So today, when Mr. Deplume and I installed the crown molding, he had to work the old-fashioned caulk gun. Luckily, the man is strong as an ox, and had no trouble rising to the occasion. We ran out of the specialty adhesive 4/5 of the way through the project and found in a spectacular manner that liquid nails is just not a good idea. I'm sure it's fine for people hanging trim in a drywalled room equipped with an pneumatic nailer, but that is not the case here, and we had an 8-ft piece of trim fall on our heads, leaving an unsightly blob of brown liquid nails on the floor. oops.

So back to Menards I went, and came back with the right tools for the job. And some wine and crusty Italian bread (not from Menards, of course). By 4:30 PM, we had 72 linear feet of polystyrene crown molding hanging securely along the perimeter of our front room. If you are planning on diving into the dangerous world of compound miter cuts, I suggest this video. After each watching it, we only made one cut wrong, but it was actually fine for a different corner in the room. We don't have a saw like theirs, but the miter box and hand saw essentially does the same thing.


I promise pictures of the finished molding tomorrow afternoon, once I get done with the paint touch ups. (At least my plan is to finish the paint tomorrow-- you just never know how things will turn out, though, in the Deplume house.)

I also finished a 4th and started work on my 5th sock yesterday. The 4th sock I started was the first ever completed, and Number 5 is its mate. I'll post about that soon, too. This room project is stealing my knit time away.


Addendum: Mr. Deplume and I are not responsible for the ladder being that messy. It is a hand-me-down and looked like a paint store blew up on it before it came into our possession 10 years ago. It has served us well, regardless of outer appearances, bless its vertical heart.