Insect Repellent Pillars

Lemongrass House makes some pretty pillars that double as insect repellent. They’re different from traditional container citronella candles, although the candles do contain citronella.

They also make an all natural mosquito repellent spray that contains lavender, citronella, orange peel, lemongrass, and geranium. See Lemongrass House insect repellent candles for more information.

If you’d like some ideas to make your own natural insect repellent candles, see Make Your Own Mosquito Repellent Candles. You’ll find safe recipes there using essential oils for candles and lotion.

With the arrival of the Japanese Encephalitis Mosquito, it has become important to make sure those pesky mosquitos are not snacking on you. Japanese encephalitis symptoms include Headache, neck pain, and Nausea. . Japanese encephalitis does have a vaccine and you should contact your local medical professional for information on obtaining this vaccination.

But how else can you protect yourself against mosquitos? Keep mosquitoes away from exposed skin by wearing long-sleeved shirts, long pants, and socks, you can even wear a mosquito net hat. Tuck shirts into pants and pants into socks to cover gaps in your clothing where mosquitoes can get to your skin. For a natural repellent use essential oils for making your own Mosquito bug spray repellent. Add oils to water and spray into the air or add small drops to your clothing. Use a Necklace or Bracelet oil diffuser to help repel mosquitoes naturally. Insect bracelets and necklaces are great for children too.

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier.

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project.

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible.

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge.

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects.

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy.

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project.

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Xandy Peters]

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