• Knitting and Crochet

    Birthday Cowl for My Mom

    My mom’s birthday was last month, and I finally got around to photographing the finished product of her present. The pattern is Jami Brynildson’s Fern Lace Cowl (Ravelry link), and I just love this pattern to bits. It’s interesting, but still easy enough to knit while watching TV that requires attention, and the finished product is just fantastic. The finished product photos aren’t the best, since they were quickly snapped while visiting my parents (I was a bad blogger and forgot to model/photograph it before I gave it to her). The flat shot doesn’t really give you the best idea what it looks like on. As for the colors, the…

  • History Love,  Life,  Nail Polish Love

    The First Accurate Mani Monday

    Happy Monday everyone! It’s been a difficult few days here at Magpie Making Do – my grandmother had some surgery (it was minor and went well, but there’s always anxiety when she has to be put under and stay in the hospital now that she’s past 80 years of age) and one of my parents’ cats, Genghis Khan (who really been “my” cat since we got him as a kitten 13 years ago. I was in 8th grade and he immediately attached himself to me and hasn’t let go since – and neither have I for that matter) is not doing well at all. My mom and I had a…

  • Nail Polish Love,  Uncategorized

    Happy Winter Olympics!

    It’s no secret that I love the Olympics. So in honor of the Winter Olympics starting in Sochi last Friday, I gave myself an Olympic themed mani, in the colors of the teams I’m rooting for. The accent nails are a little obvious: the USA and the UK. Then the solid red nails are for Japan. So I’ve got my country of birth and residence, the two countries where my main research interests belong, and the accent nails also work for Russia – host country and where some of my ethnic heritage is. The only country that got left out is Ukraine (the biggest chunk of my ethnic heritage) –…

  • Book Love

    The Book Jar

    I have a book problem. A very big book problem. An “I have filled my parents’ basement with storage containers full of books that I don’t have enough bookcases to house” kind of problem. And the reality is that recently my reading habits have not been able to justify the book accumulating habits I have. So, as already covered in my New Years Post, this year I resolved to read more. On that front, so far, so good. I’ve finished 6 books already over the month of January (although in the interest of full disclosure, one was a silly Doctor Who novel that took a total of maybe 4 hours,…

  • Sewing,  Tutorials and Tips

    DIY Plastic Bag Keeper

    We had a major plastic bag problem in our kitchen. Since we moved in this summer, we’ve been saving plastic shopping bags to use as garbage bags in our small cans – throwing so much plastic away without even attempting to recycle made us feel uncomfortable. BUT, after several months of this, we had accumulated more plastic bags than we could ever hope to keep up with in terms of our trash creation, and because we don’t have a ton of hidden storage, they were cluttering up our kitchen big time. So, I whipped up a quick solution with my DIY Plastic Bag Keeper. What you’ll need: Sewing Machine Scrap…