My Etsy Grand Opening Giveaway!!

Big news dear readers! It's official, the Neko Knits Etsy store is now open. I was up late last night playing with pictures and posting items. As you can see on the sidebar the culmination of several months work is now being displayed!

You know what that means... 
it's time for a 
GIVEAWAY!! 

This is whats up for grabs:

The winners choice of one of the above items:

Rose Comb 

(winner's choice of color)

Sea Glass Choker

Boho Chic Necklace

I know you all want the details on how to enter, so here they are.

1. Follow this blog (I want to see that list of followers grow!)
2. Follow the vivacious Katri at Cardigans and Cookie Dough
3. Follow the lovley Mrs.E at The Electric Elmo Newsfeed
4. Visit NekoKnits on Etsy and "Like" one of my items
5. "Share" this Giveaway on Facebook with all your friends 

That's 5 entries,  for this giveaway! 

When you have done any of the necessary actions for an entry, use the form at the bottom of the post to send it in to me. 
I'll announce the winner on May 14th.
Good Luck!! 

Many thanks to Katri and Lacy for helping spread the word about this giveaway. You guys are amazing bloggers!

Oooh! Pretty!

  Last day of clinical's! I survived the obstetrical portion of my clinical experiences and am exhausted. Last OB test tomorrow, skills practicum is on Wednesday and Final next week, eeks! The stress level has been climbing so something mindless yet pretty was needed to distract me from insanity.

  While rummaging in desperation through my stash I found several vials of colored glass beads a friend gave me and suddenly I remembered a great tutorial I found at Notes From the Something. I grabbed some pearl cotton and a 1.60mm hook and in a short time had this.

  It's simply chain stitches with a bead chain stitched in every 5 stitches. The tutorial does a great job outlining how to customize your necklace. 

I managed to whip up 3 of these over the weekend.

I just love the colors! They are so fresh and just scream "SPRING". 

The Design Consultant proclaimed they are very "Boho Chic". I was stunned that he used the term correctly....and knew what it meant. 

Wow.

Finals!

Sorry for the huge layoff dear readers but finals are just around the corner and things are starting to heat up here.   So is the amount of crafting activity in between study sessions, it's a pretty easy relationship to see, increase the stress and increase the amount of distraction needed to stay sane.  This does mean I finally finished that Sakura Tote I had been working on. It took me forever to figure out how the handles could be directly crocheted into the body of the bag, but I figured it out. I also finally sat down and lined the bag, I know that doesn't sound all that difficult until you factor in the fact that I don't have a sewing machine so it was all done by hand.

Take a look:

I think it looks pretty good.  Keep your eyes peeled dear reader the Etsy store will be opening soon, and with it will come a giveaway! 

Details to follow shortly.

My Happy Endings

  Sorry about the layoff dear readers, as I made reference to early in the week life has been...busy. 

  It hit a record 97 degrees today here in Phoenix today and I was out in the heat for most of the morning.  I know you must be thinking I have gone nuts, but I assure you it was all for the best of reasons.

 I make a point of volunteering at least once a semester for some sort of event, today it was Phoenix Children's Hospitals "Spring int Health" event. Today children who are renal or oncology patients at PCH were treated to a fun day full of games, sports and food.

 I give what little time free time I have to these events because when you are up to your neck in homework and stressing over care plans and memorizing lab values, I find it really revitalizing to see what all this stress and studying leads up to in the end, this is my happy ending.

These were all for the kiddos!

  If there are any nursing students reading this, I strongly recommend trying to take one day out of your schedule to do an event like this, it really helps you buckle down and study again when you see what kind of a difference you can make in a persons life. If you are not a nursing student, try it out, you'd be amazed at how great you feel at the end of the day

And heck, you get to play with balloons all day!

We Are Technically Experiencing Some Current Difficulties.....

Please stand by, 

we are attempting fix the situation.

  

  Sorry for the serious lack in quality material being produced dear readers, but I am currently in the "Dog Days" of nursing school. Finals are fast approaching, clinical rotations have switched to Monday mornings and my weekends are alternatively taken up by studying and volunteer work, therefore I have been feeling kinda like this little fellow.

  More to follow....

Smile

"Better by far you should forget and smile than you should remember and be sad."
- Christina Rossetti

  Just when you think the day is shot, 

and nothing could possibly get any worse, 

something appears,

and makes you smile.

  And when you think how wonderful that was 

and 

it was just the thing you needed, 

something makes you smile, 

again. 

How to turn a grumpy bear into a husband

"If I'd been out till quarter to three

Would you lock the door,

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I'm sixty-four?"

- The Beetles

Step 1.  Throw a bunch of baby potatoes & 3 eggs into a pot.


Step 2. Boil until potatoes are soft and eggs are hard (boiled)


Step 3. Chop pickles & green onions into little pieces, peel eggs and chop those too, heck chop the potatoes if you want.


Step 4. Dump the chopped stuff & the potatoes into a bowl and plop some mayonnaise & mustard on top


Step 5. Add salt and pepper, whatever else you heart desires and mix well

Serve to the grumpy bear and watch it magically morph back into your husband. 

Repeat as necessary.

It's Still Easter...Right?

  With Easter just around the corner and no OB test in sight for at least another week I have been surfing the internet looking for some inspiration.  I wanted something small that could be whipped up fast that would make my friends smile, something cute and fluffy and very Easter-y.  What my researched uncovered is that the holidays can bring out some very interesting projects.

  For instance, I don't know about you folks but I found this down right creepy:

"Let make him an offer he can't refuse"

  I mean really, a disembodied easter bunny head? Where is the rest of him, and why is his head just sitting on your couch?!  Honestly every time I look at this picture I have scenes from The Godfather  running through my head. Did the Easter Bunny refuse to do something for the Don or is this crafter sending a message to all the other holiday figures out there that this is what happens when you don't bring the good candy.

This one is for all those Twilight  fans out there who just can't sit and wait until Halloween to break out the fangs, hope you enjoy:

Vampire Easter Egg: The Snack That Bites Back

I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a highly religious person but something just feels wrong  about a vampire easter egg.  I get that Easter is that is the holiday of re-birth and resurrection, but this is just taking it WAY too far.

After all that looking I think I will just settle for a plain old bunny egg cozy pattern that I book marked ages ago and hope that no one is too disappointed.  In hindsight I think I know a couple of Twilight fans, they may have to wait till Halloween to get something.

What is the World Coming To?

  A friend of mine recently had a reader comment to her that one of the blogs she had linked to her blog contained an "immodest" picture of a man contained somewhere in the depths of the archived literature, and was quite shocked.  This prompted my dear friend in her next post of recommended blogs to include the caveat that not all material in the blogs mentioned had been screened, viewed and the blogs should be treated as "Not Yet Rated" material.

  This got me thinking about all the other immodest material that is lurking out there, I mean the internet is one thing. We expect people to post whatever they want on it, I mean look they gave me a space to prattle on about whatever I please and there is nothing anyone can do about it. But no, this is not what I was referring to, think about all the things we can't screen in the world around us. I mean one of the people in the neighborhood has a water fountain with a naked cherub on it, that little exhibitionist! And the Art Museum is enough to make you faint of shock! Not to mention some parks around here have a number of immodest statues just hanging around, literally!

  Well that was it! I was now on a mission to protect the faint of heart and the pure of eyes!  I jumped on to Ravelry and began searching through the archives of patterns for something. The crafting super powers did not let me down....

Image property of lykkefanten

  This pattern was made by lykkefanten and the pattern is available for free download on Ravelry as"Fig Leaf" you should find it without a problem if you are signed up and be able to snag the PDF so you can get started on protecting your own neighborhood.

Images property of lykkefanten

Well there you have it folks, once again crafting super powers have saved the day!  

The Little Things

  Grandma always used to say it was the small touches, the "little things" that made something special.  As a child I would watch her fuss over the buttons on a blouse or the lace on a dress and wonder to myself why she spent so much time pouring them.  Now I find myself doing exactly the same thing, I refuse to buy a blouse because the buttons "look cheap" or will completely ignore a skirt that has a "nice, but nothing special" lace trim and will happily point out the "gorgeous detail" in a tiny bit of embroidery embellishing my blazer pocket.

  It's fine to call me a detail snob or obsessive if you like, but I guess that what makes me a good nurse, details matter to me. Like this weekend when I sat down to finish the mini tote I have been working on.  It's being worked in a beautiful buttercup yellow cotton that I found at a garage sale, the bands on the skein tell me it is from France (Oh la la!)

  After much debate with the Chief Design Consultant, it was agreed that the cherry blossoms just would not work on something so vibrant, we needed something with more POP. We settled on a large Irish rose in black thread and a black lace trim (yes I'm crazy to make both by hand) and some Austrian crystal beads in the center of the rose for some sparkle. I made it all the way to the final row on the lace trim and decided it wasn't right, we needed something small to make it special.

  And here's what I came up with:

  I broke the thread and threaded some of the Austrian crystal beads on and then wound up as much as I thought I would need onto a bit of cardboard. I followed the rest of the pattern but instead placed a bead at the apex of each point on the lace.

  So now the lace points each have a bead that matches the beads that will be placed in the center of the rose, kind of tying the whole thing together and adding a special little touch to the handmade lace trim.

  I think Grandma will approve if she ever sees these pictures! I like to do this with handmade lace items that are going to be keepsakes. Try making a lace trim with pearl beads for a handkerchief as a bridal gift, or if you dare a lace garter belt with tiny blue seed beads. I promise you the recipient will never forget who gave it.