Saturday, September 29, 2007

The bath mat of doom!



This is the bathmat that will not end. I swear I work on it every day and it doesn't seem to move or grow or anything! The only reason that I started this project is because I thought I could whip this out in no time. Well it's been week and weeks. I think they call all those weeks months. Well it's been months.

The idea was a good one. Our bathroom is navy blue with hints of browns. We wanted a navy blue bathmat. Do you know how hard it is to find a navy blue bathmat? You can find baby blue, indigo blue, marine blue, Tiffany blue, sky blue, robin's egg blue and even navy blue and green, but no solid navy or heather/verigated navy blue bathmat. Nothing under $20. I found a nice one for about $35 online (not including shipping) but we're broke and it seems silly to pay so much for something that's the human equivalent of a spoon rest. Let's face it, all a bathmat does is catch drips.

So off to Hobby Lobby I went with gift card in hand visions of the coolest bathmat in the universe and got about $15 of cotton/something yarn (it's washer&dryerable) and got cracking. Initially it was flying by; I was making progress by leaps and bounds. Then when I used up the second ball of yarn it started to slow, now I'm on ball number three and I need to put a stitch marker in to tell if I'm making any progress at all. I keep knitting but it doesn't seem to be getting any bigger. I feel like Sisyphus pushin' his damned rock up a mountain.

When it's done it'll be pretty cool. Most of it is in garter stitch with moss stitch borders and lines breaking it up in geometric ways. I think it'll shrink a bit when I wash it for the first time and that'll probably bring out the contrasting pattern a little more. You can't tell much from this picture but I'll keep you posted.

Houseplants



I have had mixed results with houseplants. In my last apartment there was just one tragedy after another including a miniature rose plant that just lost the will to live and shriveled up within days. There have been experiments with ivies and jade plants even an herb garden that met a tragic end (we won't ever speak of that herb garden again).

Ever since moving in with S. there have been successes. I have a small succulent/cactus garden that is going really, really well. The baby toes (a plant, I swear) are about to bloom! I have an ivy that I brought back from the dead and a croton that has come back from the other side of the veil of death.

The best part of all of this is that these plants do more than just look pretty. They actually help clean the air. A lot of common houseplants are really good at removing airborne toxins such as dioxin (big-time carcinogen), and formaldehyde (often found in carpeting and new construction material). The heaviest hitter in the houseplant world is the golden pothos. Easy to grow and easy on the eyes NASA has done studies on the most thorough air cleaners and this plant takes the cake. Ivies are also pretty darned hard working and easy to find in nursuries or even the grocery store. Other common plants that will work hard to clean your air are spider plants, snake plants, peace lilies (makes me think of the movie Hot Fuzz!), palms, Chinese evergreen, bamboo, and more.

For an interesting article read this:
http://www.extension.umn.edu/yardandgarden/ygbriefs/h110indoorair.html