Coaster Carnival

Been sick, been laid up, been tiiiiiiired...  And now I've got a fever and a sore throaaaaat to boot...  Then they done tooked my doooog and my truuuuck...

Okay, enough of that crap, even though it's true, but I'm laughing even as I'm typing here that I have actually managed to get sick on top of being sick.  This is so not cool.  What do we do?  Fight fire with water.  That's right.  We're staying positive, even if we insist on referring to ourself in plural (never a good sign).

Laid up on the couch, watching a "Murder, She Wrote" marathon, thinking a plushie lying on the floor of my son's room last week was the head of a dead body (Like what you watch doesn't change the way you think!  Pshaw!)...  Sick and not moving, duh, I won't keep beating that dead horse with a stick.  What is one of the things that has kept me going even when bigger crochet/knitting projects were too much for me to manage?

COASTERS!

Below are my favorite coasters so far, the Calla Coasters by Purl Soho.  These you can make in knit or crochet.  I've made three in the last few days, using up remnants of various worsted weight yarns.  I just looked again at the crochet ones when I went over to grab that link for you and now I feel like I MUST make a crochet one.  Right.  Now.  (Oh, and I haven't lined mine with fabric yet.  I like them just fine all curly and cute, like they're hugging your cup.)

Clockwise from left: A lovely discontinued cotton yarn (not Sugar and Creme... no one freak out!), Malabrigo (outside) and Cascade 220 Superwash (middle), and some lovely worsted handspun I had named "Avast, Ye Hearties!".

Circles are all well and good, and very entertaining, but I was itching to try something else, so I made a square coaster using tweed stitch like someone about to go completely crazy.  It's totally hip to be a square, let me tell you, and now I have the Sesame Street song stuck in my head. (Check out the 40 second mark.)

If you'd like to try your own hand at making a cool little tweed stitch coaster, follow these directions with the yarn and needles you want to use and have at it!  For my coaster, I used a worsted weight cotton that was actually a bit lighter than Sugar and Creme, with size 7 needles, and cast on 23 stitches.  Play with what works for you.

Cast on an odd number of stitches.
Row one: *(Knit one, yarn front, slip one purlwise, yarn back); repeat starred portion across row to last stitch: knit one.
Row two: Knit one, *(purl one, yarn back, slip one purlwise, yarn front); repeat starred portion across row to last two stitches: purl one, knit one.

Continue these two rows to work the tweed stitch pattern.  The back looks like seed stitch--it's so cute!  I love the look of this stitch and I'm totally making more.

I will end with a shot of one of my greatest little inspirations, my sweet Elliott.  He was on the way to the doctor in this photo.  Turns out he's got bronchitis.  I'm treating him at home with essential oils and having a huge success doing so.  Within only a few days, his cough has virtually disappeared and he has all of his energy back.  So much so that I have to actually tell him to calm down because he still needs to be resting.

He had asked if he could take his favorite book to his appointment and I said sure, so he grabbed his atlas.  He's a geography obsessed little boy, and can probably name more states and countries than I can at this point.  The other night, after he got his oils, I said he was a greasy boy, and he said, "Actually, there's a country in Europe called 'Greece'."  What a sweetie!

Anyway, he's another reason I smile.  It's a bit of the blind leading the blind over here right now, with me being sick squared and him being sick and me having to take care of him during the day, but it's all good.  Life is still just so good, and there are ALWAYS reasons to smile!

(...Hip, hip, so hip to be... It's hip to be a square!  Hip, hip, so hip to be... It's hip to be a square!)