Shknitzel

Fixing a Hole

2009-07-07T12:31:00.001-07:00

IMG_2737
Originally uploaded by lothruin

As per the title of a Beatles tune off Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, I was fixing a hole. I bought a lovely little micro-jersey dress for my daughter off the Target clearance rack. I didn't look it over carefully enough, and the first time she wore it, I realized it had a cut on the skirt. Rather than try to mend the tear to be as invisible as possible (nearly impossible in the middle front of a piece of flowing black micro-jersey) I mended the hole by making it bigger. I found some green micro-jersey in a similar fiber content and matching thread, and used a little bit of reverse applique to hide the tear in plain sight. It turned out well. I didn't have the kind of problems I anticipated with the jersey. I only got one little pucker where I tried to use a reverse lock to end my line of stitching, which in retrospect was a total rookie mistake. (Although, in fairness, I'm basically a rookie.) Kit loves it, and my MIL was impressed with my domestic skills and thrifty sensibilities.

Jaywalker 2.0.5

2009-07-07T12:22:00.001-07:00

sock
Originally uploaded by lothruin

On the 4th of July I was in Indianapolis visiting with my husband's (large) family. It rained all day. The 65 people for whom multiple canopies were set up outside spent most of the afternoon and evening in the house, which is large, but not that large. I calmed my overtaxed (over-smiled, over-meaningless-chattered) nerves by working on my sock. As you can see, right before dinner it was looking pretty good, although I was getting strange looks from Cory's mostly straight-laced family. After knitting a fair bit during the car ride home, I am proud to say I'm only a few rows away from having one completed sock. My daughter stayed behind in Indianapolis with her grandma and grandpa, so I anticipate many pleasurable evenings of uninterupted knitting during the couple of weeks while she's gone. I might even have a finished pair of Jaywalkers by the end of July!

Working-Class Italian

2009-04-21T09:34:00.001-07:00

The Fruit Seller by Campi
Originally uploaded by lothruin

So, the Scottish Party is this weekend. Faire season is coming up (in fact, it starts next weekend!). And both my bodices are too big. I can wear them, but they'll require supportive undergarments, and bra straps sort of detract from the look. So what is a girl to do? Well, I have a good friend who is an amazing seamstress (and thus far has made both my bodices, and has a couple more in the works) but anyone reading this is likely to know that I am a DIY kinda girl. Even if I only do it once, I wanna do it.

So, observe the painting detail. That is The Fruit Seller, by Vincenzo Campi. She is a working-class Italian from around 1580. Her dress has a front lacing closure and two back ones, and it is a dress, not a bodice and skirt. However. I have four yards of burgundy twill out of which I intended to make a skirt to match one of the bodices Fay will someday make me, that is orange faux suede and red/orange plaid. If I make a skirt and a bodice out of red twill, I can use the skirt with my other garb, but also wear it as though it is part of a dress with my Italian bodice.

Here's the thing, though. I'm not a seamstress, really. At least, I think I'm not. I don't do it often. But I'm jumping in head first on this one. I already drafted a pattern for the bodice. I have a couple of adjustments to make, and I need some plain muslin, for the mockup (which will turn into the interfacing of the bodice) and for the ruffed blouse. It actually looks decent, which surprised me.

Now is left only to decide what color to make the detailing on the bodice front and back, what color to make the apron, and whether I want to try doing fancy insertion stitches and picot edging on any of it. Probably not by faire season. But I'm crossing my fingers that at least by the James Arthur Vineyard ren fest on May 16th, I'll have the ensemble finished. We'll see. I'm excited. I am probably completely out of my skull to even try this so haphazardly, but a girl has to get started sometime, right?

GOMM2, Revenge of the Needle Nook

2009-04-10T06:59:00.001-07:00

IMG_0761
Originally uploaded by lothruin

Yes, in my last post not only did I promise to post the sock yarn I bought, but I also referred to a lovely yarn store as "the name of which I don't recall" and upon remembering the name, failed completely to edit the post to include it. This is so naughty of me.

In the first place, I never did post a picture of the yarn. That is a cardinal sin. I'm repenting though. (Must be said, the colors of the yarn in this pic are a little off, and it might possibly be because the color of the hat in which they were photographed competed with the color of green in the yarn. It was better than the alternatives, though.)

In the second place, the Neede Nook, which is the no-longer-nameless other yarn store, does not deserve such shabby treatment. It really was a lovely store, and the selection was excellent. Now, as I said in my last post, it wasn't exactly my kind of atmosphere. I'm kind of a punk-rock knitter and for personality, I'd go with Sheepish. But they're just starting to build up their inventory, and so their selection is not nearly as good as Needle Nook's. Overall, though, I enjoyed them both thoroughly. (How can one not enjoy being surrounded by shelves and shelves of gorgeous yarn, after all?)

Georgia On My Mind

2009-04-01T14:55:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, I visited my sister in Atlanta. This was my first visit to Georgia, and it rained the entire time. But it was still very pretty, and we had a lot of fun. In relation to crafting, we visited a little yarn store up the street from where Jen lives, called Sheepish. The shop was really darling in a kind of funky way, and the sales person was very nice. I'd love to go back some time. I managed to walk away with only $1 worth of vintage pattern books.

We visited another shop as well, the name of which I don't recall. It was much more a standard yarn store, inhabited by a small group of chatty older women. Not as much my kind of atmosphere, but their yarn selection was wonderful!

I did buy two balls of a sock yarn that I'll have to edit in when I get home. It's beautiful. Drool worthy colors, really!

That was really the only crafty stuff we did, unless you count drinking wine (arguably an important part of crafting) or facilitating a fashion makeover.

Jaywalkers 2.0

2009-04-01T14:53:00.001-07:00

IMG_0761
Originally uploaded by lothruin

So, the Jaywalker socks I was knitting in the lucious Cherry Tree Hill Supersock merino are too small for me. I tried them on after getting the heel gusset finished on sock one, and it was a no go. So, rather than frog all that, I'll finish them and either my mother or my sister will be a sock-pair richer.

However, I'd like to own a pair of my own hand-knit socks before anyone else does, so before leaving for Atlanta to visit my sister, I had my other hank of Cherry Tree Hill (Sockittome, not Supersock) wound into a ball, and started it two size bigger. This is what it looks like so far. It's knitting up beautifully, although I'm going to say right here and now that I far prefer the 100% merino Supersock to the Sockittome blend. I don't think its fiber content so much as twist. The Supersock is a lovely high twist.

Bedlam

2009-03-20T14:56:00.001-07:00

Bedlam Closeup
Originally uploaded by lothruin

A couple of weeks ago I was planning to take the dog for a walk, but although it was sunny, it was very cold. I figured I should wear a hat while I walked. Then I realized that I actually did not own a hat for myself that I had made. I owned NO hand-made hats at ALL. I decided it surely couldn't take long to make myself a hat if I did it up big and bulky and funky, so I should be able to make the hat and walk the dog all that afternoon. You know, I think I would have, too, except that once the hat was done, the sun had hidden, the wind had come up and it was altogether not as congenial for dog-walking as it had been earlier in the day. So the dog did not get a walk, but I did get a new hat. And YOU get a hat pattern.

I call it Bedlam, and you'll soon find out why!

(For a printable PDF of this pattern Click Here)

Needles: A US 13, 16" circular and a pair of similar DPNs, although in truth I had to improvise for lack of DPNs that large.

Yarn: Brown Sheep Co. Lamb's Pride Worsted worked in double-stranded throughout.

Guage: 3 stitches to the inch over stockinette. Rows aren't really important, but I got 9 rows over 2".

Cast on 60 stitches loosely. Join round, being careful not to twist. (That's standard wording for a pattern on circs, right?)

Work k 2 p 2 rib for 4 rows, or roughly 1".

Round 1: Sl 1, k 1, psso, k 2, k2tog, p1fb, p 4, p1fb, repeat around

Round 2: K 4, p 8, repeat around

Round 3: Put first two stitches on a cable needle, bring to front of work. Knit next two stitches, then knit stitches off cable needle. P 8. Repeat around.

Here's where the Bedlam comes in. You're going to knit the knits and purl the purls. There are five cable ribs running up the hat. Every so often, throw a cable in there across the knit stitches of only one or two of the ribs per row. My cables are almost completely random, with a minimum of 3 rows and a maximum of 6 or 7 (I don't remember) rows between each worked cable and the previous one. So each of my five cable ribs is completely different, and none of them are uniform within themselves either. The only thing I kept the same was always working the cables to the front of the work so the twist was consistent.

So, knit the knits and purl the purls except for the random cable now and again, until the hat is 6.5" from the bottom edge.

Now our decreases start. You'll continue to knit the knits, and cable away to your little heart's content. The decreases are all in the purls until you get to the very end. In other words, on the decrease rounds, I'll refer to the cable ribs as "k 4" but you can cable in there any time you like. Switch to DPNs when it behoves you to do so. All that being understood, they go as follows:

Round 1: K 4, p 1, p2tog, p2tog, p2tog, p 1, repeat around. (45 stitches)

Round 2: K 4, p 6, repeat around

Round 3: K 4, p2tog, p 1, p2tog, repeat around (35 stitches)

Round 4: K 4, p 3, repeat around

Round 5: K 4, p2tog, p 1, repeat around (30 stitches)

Round 6: K 4, p2tog, repeat around (25 stitches)

Round 7: K 3, sl 1, p 1, psso, repeat around (20 stitches)

Round 8: K 1, k2tog, k 1, repeat around (15 stitches)

Round 9: K 1, k2tog, repeat around (10 stitches)

Break yarn, leaving a long tail. Pull tail through remaining 10 live stitches and remove from needles. Pull tight and weave in ends.

Fin.

Hope you like it! Here's another view:

Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis

2009-03-20T14:37:00.001-07:00

Old Rose Jaywalkers
Originally uploaded by lothruin

I was preparing for a last-minute business trip to St. Louis where I would spend the majority if my time either in an airport, an airplane or a hotel conference room. I wanted to take knitting, but didn't have any projects started, so I took a deep breath, grabbed one of my forlorn and abandoned skeins of sock yarn, stuffed it in a bag with a package of sock needles and absolutely no plan at all, and in the final minutes before leaving for the airport from work, found and printed the pattern for the Jaywalker socks, with which I was familiar, but on only an aquaintance basis.

You see, I first tried knitting socks as my third knitting project. The DPNs were such a struggle, and I was using some cheap acrylic sock yarn, and I decided then and there that I hated knitting socks, and somehow, that attitude has stuck with me in the five years since. But I had this sock yarn (beautiful sock yarn!) and the good intentions to use it, and just never had the, er, balls, so to speak. The opportunity presented itself for me to literally lock myself in a room with nothing but sock knitting to keep me company, so I'd have nothing but pure boredom to fall back on if I lost my nerve. And lo, turns out that after 5 years of experience and with some gorgeous merino sock yarn, knitting socks is fun. Whee!

So in the picture above, you can see my Jaywalker sock, half-finished, posing with Charlie, my Swedish Ivy. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill's Supersock, 100% merino, in Old Rose, and it is gorgeous. It comes out in a sort of subtle spiral stripe, and it has these flashes of HOT pink throughout. I love it. I did adjust the pattern somewhat, to make the socks a little shorter. Being my first sock experience, and since my feet are somewhat long, I wanted to be sure I didn't run out of yarn. But also, that sort of mid-calf sock length is not my bag. I like either a knee-high or a slightly tall ankle sock.

Anyway, I'm loving the tiny knitting, really a lot, which shouldn't surprise anyone, and as I was knitting along and looking at how the chevron pattern was shaping up, I literally thought to myself, in so many words, and then said outloud to anyone who wanted to listen, that it was flawless and gorgeous, and practically perfect in every way. Behold the picture below.

Lame Blogger

2008-11-22T18:36:00.000-08:00

I am a lame blogger. I've been busy doing lots of things, but lots of things I can't post here because they're gifts for people who, at the very least, have read this blog in the past and so know of it's existence, and could choose at a moment's notice to pop on over here and read something they shouldn't. Now is that time of year. Holiday gifts are going to be the most of my production, and that makes for a sparse crafting blog. I will post pics, though, once people receive their gifts and their secret no longer needs to be kept safe.

The Ravelympics

2008-08-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

I have been working on items for the Ravelympics. I have several things done, none of which I can post yet, because it's for gifts. But at least I can pop on here and say I AM NOT SLACKING. :D I've been a busy little bee, and I couldn't be happier with my knitting and spinning right now. AND I'm sewing Kit a skirt, at her behest, for her first day of school. Which is TOMORROW. (Phew!)

New Yarns

2008-08-04T09:18:00.001-07:00

Margot
Originally uploaded by lothruin

I've spun up a couple of yarns here. The first is made of one ply of heathered tan from a cake of pencil roving my Aunt Marge sent me, and a second ply of koolaid dyed wool top in blues and periwinkles. It's a solid worsted weight and 176 yards total.

Margot
Originally uploaded by lothruin

The second is a bulky 2-ply made of one undyed single and one of the bits of roving my mom sent home with me. She dyed a bunch of roving with koolaid and some natural dyes, for needle felting, then didn't needle felt it. So she handed it over to me for spinning, and this is the first result.

Kit's Skirt

2008-08-04T09:12:00.001-07:00

Kit's Skirt
Originally uploaded by lothruin

I bought some fabric for a Craftster swap project, and since it was on sale, and since there was only a little left, I bought it all. This is what I did with what was left. It's a circle wrap skirt for Kit. It fits her really well, and she loves it! Yay!

My Wheel is Finished

2008-05-23T08:46:00.001-07:00

My Wheel is Finished
Originally uploaded by lothruin

So, I finished my wheel. She's stained and painted. She has a tattoo of a rose on her treadle. Someday soon, she'll have tattoos on her wheel as well, but I have to brush up (get it?) on my painting skills first. She turned out just as I pictured her, and I'm duly impressed with my work, as this is the first time I've ever finished a piece of woodwork.

She's stained with Varathane gel stain in the color Ipswich Pine. Her maidens and the rails are painted in bright pink and green acrylic, and the rose on her treadle is painted to match. Since she has painted surfaces, I opted for a polyurethane finish rather than an oil or wax finish, so she's top-coated with Minwax polyurethane spray in a satin finish.

I've spun little bits each night this week, and when I get home I'll be photographing (I think) a yarn for the Fiber Friday thread at Craftster. It's just a small offering, but I'm really excited by it. I love spinning on my wheel.

Now I just need a drum carder and some dyeing equipment.

Pretty Betty

2008-05-12T06:28:00.001-07:00

My New Wheel
Originally uploaded by lothruin

Melissa was taking a spinning class. She loved making yarn, and she was excited thinking about all the things she could do with her new skill. But her class was ending and while she enjoyed spinning on her lovely drop spindle, and also enjoyed the fact that she could take it with her anywhere, it had it's limitations. Melissa wanted a spinning wheel of her very own.

It was a chilly, rainy day when Melissa went to her very last spinning class. She was sad because she'd made friends there, and there was talk about meeting every month for a spinning and klatsch session. Most of her friends had wheels of their own, and they were excited to be able to bring their wheels together on a night set aside just for friends and food and spinning. But Melissa had no wheel. She could come and spin on her drop spindle. That would be OK. But she could only spin small amounts of yarn, and plying was so hard... Melissa sighed. Someday, she would have her wheel, and she would meet with her friends and spin and talk and laugh.

As class was winding down, Catherine, the spinning instructor, asked Melissa if she would like to come to spinning night. Melissa looked wistfully at all the lovely wheels and said she might bring her drop spindle. Then Catherine mentioned that a woman had been there just a few days earlier to post a note on the bulletin board about a wheel she was selling. Catherine knew Melissa wanted a wheel, but couldn't spend much money, so she showed Melissa the little poster ad on the board. Melissa was very excited! The wheel, and the price, looked perfect. So she called the number on the ad before she even left spinning class. She had to use one of her new friends' cell phones, but they were so excited for her, they didn't mind at all.

That night, Melissa giggled happily. Who would have thought! That poor woman, her well-meaning husband had spent a great deal on spinning accessories, thinking she would enjoy making her own yarn just as much as she enjoyed knitting it! And to think, she'd never even used the wheel once! She said it had made a pretty decoration in the corner, but it took up too much room, and finally she thought that maybe someone else could use it as it was intended, so she'd posted her little ad on the bulletin board. Melissa and the woman laughed a little about how silly husbands could be, and the woman told Melissa she was happy to help out a young woman who was developing such a useful hobby. She knew all about how hard it could be to make ends meet when you were young and raising your family. She would sell Melissa the wheel and all the accessories; three extra bobbins and a lazy kate, a pair of hand carders, a book on the care of spinning wheels, and even the two bags of mohair she'd gotten intending to give it a try, for only $125. It was more than Melissa could have hoped for! Over $500 worth of spinning equipment, for only $125! A perfect deal for both of them!

The next day, Melissa drove out to the country to pick up her new wheel. She was in love the moment she saw it! And the "little bit" of mohair turned out to be over 2 pounds! She named her wheel Pretty Betty, ordered a maintenance kit as soon as she got home, and started planning on how she was going to finish it.

Betty

2008-05-03T21:51:00.001-07:00

Betty
Originally uploaded by lothruin

Holy Bejeebers. It's May! I've neglected this blog. :( In part I blame my newest hobby, which I'm learning at the moment, and so it's taking a hefty toll on my attention. Also, it must be mentioned, my Grandma Betty died at the beginning of April, and so I've been sort of preoccupied with that as well. More on that in moment.

So. I'm spinning. I love it. I'm still new at it, but who cares. It's going great, I want a spinning wheel. I'm thinking of trying to make one for now. Maybe I can make myself one cheap that will tide me over until I can buy one. I made the yarn you see here. It doesn't rock as hard as some other hand-spun yarns you might see, but damn it, it's MINE, and I think it rocks pretty damn hard.

Also, at the beginning of April I found a complete Bond knitting machine at a garage sale for $5. So I've been playing with that a little too. Whee!

Now, while I was at my first spinning class on April 5th, my Grandma Betty died of a heart attack. You might recall that my other grandmother died shortly after Christmas. It's been a long year already. However, I get to feel a certain closeness to both my grandmothers through the bond of crafting. My Oma knit and crocheted, my Grandma Betty sewed and embroidered. And spun? We don't know for sure. What I do know is that my choice from amongst her jewelry box items was her sterling silver thimble. And my mother, knowing my sis and I were really the only grandchildren who craft, requested that any of her remaining craft items be set aside for us before the sale of her things this weekend. What did they find but a drop spindle!! No one knew what it was except that I had taken my drop spindle with me and was spinning at my uncle's house during the wake slash see family again after all these years party the night before the funeral. So did my Grandma Betty spin? She didn't after she had kids, as far as anyone knows. But maybe before then. Or could it be HER mothers? Either way, I'm positively delighted that such a tangible, usable, wonderful thing will be mine.

Oma's Mittens

2008-03-23T17:40:00.001-07:00

muttimittens
Originally uploaded by lothruin

This is my Oma. She is beautiful. And so are her mittens. I will make them.

Swatches

2008-03-23T17:32:00.001-07:00

swatches
Originally uploaded by lothruin

This is the color palette for Kit's 1st day of school outfit. She has requested a "pretty dress" with a long skirt, in green, pink and blue. So I dug through my scraps and found these, and plan on making a patchwork skirt with a solid bodice. Also, I think I'll knit her a little shrug to match, in case it's cooler than I expect on that day. I'm pretty excited.

Classic Elite Denim

2008-01-31T12:22:00.001-08:00

Classic Elite Denim
Originally uploaded by lothruin

My friend Holly found me 17 hanks of indigo dyed cotton yarn by Classic Elite, at the Goodwill for $1 a piece. I had promised no more craft stuff unless I used a gift card, but damn, this is just too good to pass up, and anyway, I've already got project ideas for it. Yay! Isn't it pretty?

Merry Christmas to Me

2008-01-06T14:10:00.001-08:00

Patons SWS Blue
Originally uploaded by lothruin

It seems like ages since the last time I posted. Christmas (and Christmas crafting) has come and gone. The normal craziness surrounding Christmas was doubled this year in my household. I crafted madly for a week, having procrastinated as usual. My sister was hit by TWO semi trucks on her way home from Atlanta for Christmas. She and the dogs were fine, but her car was totaled and there was massive hassle surrounding the rental, the buying of a new car, three insurance companies, etc. My in-laws were here the weekend after Christmas so there was much visiting and attempting to stay mostly happy.

Most difficult was the lost of my Oma, my mother's mother, two days after Christmas. Like any good knitter, I'm drowning my sorrows in yarn. My coworkers and mother-in-law unwittingly helped me by showering me with gift cards to craft stores for birthday and Christmas. My Oma was in largest part the reason I decided to learn to knit, so I went out yesterday and spent a cathartic hour at Michael's spending every penny of my $45 in gift cards while the yarn was all on sale, and today I began Knitty's Danica (an entrelac scarf) in Patons SWS in Natural Blue for my Aunt Marge, my Oma's oldest daughter. Since Oma is gone, someone has to keep her childrens' necks warm.

Two years ago, on Christmas morning, we called my Oma with the news that her youngest daughter, my mother, had finally learned to knit, 40 years late as far as Oma was concerned, thanks to my help and a learn-to-knit kit for Christmas. When we visited in August of '07, we shared with her the beautiful yarns we'd just purchased at a lovely little LYS in Billings called Wild Purls, and though she couldn't do such delicate work as knit or crochet with her old hands any more, you could see her delight in the soft, beautiful fibers. Since I first taught myself to knit, it has always made me think of Oma. Doubly so now, and it's a profound comfort.

I know there is much more I should be updating on, and pictures of finished gifts, etc., but I have been so distracted by everything for 2 weeks that it may take some time to get all that straightened out. Meanwhile, drool over my new yarn and the absolute magic that is entrelac!

Mod Squad Secret Santa

2007-12-19T08:34:00.001-08:00

Mod Swap Secret Santa

I got a swap package from my Craftster Mod Squad secret santa! It's a great package, and my house smells so good now. Let's see... We've got ornaments with decoupaged origami papers, crocheted snowflake ornaments, little knitting ornaments, cinnamon dough ornaments, two bars of amazing soap, chocolate milk bath, a hazelnut candle, some beautiful cards and gift tags, sugared pecans, date balls and Kisses in two varieties: Caramel and Cherry Cordial. Also, recipes for the date balls, sugared pecans and cinnamon dough.

I made a garland out of the dough ornaments by tying them to a string of pearl sewing trip, and they're hanging above the window where my sewing machine sits. The hazelnut candle is sitting on my entertainment center perfuming my living room. The soaps and making my bathroom smell good. The rest of the ornaments are going to be added to a wreath I'm making. And the candy? pshaw. I'm eating the candy. Mmmm.

The Sampler

2007-12-19T07:05:00.001-08:00

The Holiday Sampler

My sister rocks. I've told her this, now I'm telling all of you. For my birthday this year she got me a Holiday Sampler . For those of you not familiar with The Sampler, it is a semi-random assortment of sample goods from merchants in the arts/crafts industry. In other words, if you make or sell hand-crafted items, artwork or supplies, you can contribute an amount of sample merchandise to The Sampler, along with promo materials, and they throw it all in a pile and pull out an assortment from the pile for each box. It's a great way to get exposed to and support fellow artists and crafters who are making a go at a business. And now would be the perfect time to experience The Sampler for the first time, since they're having a moving sale!

OK, so meanwhile, back to MY sampler, which is totally awesome and I loved. I got samples from Repro Depot (duh-rool), a bunch of cool buttons, several barrettes, a soap sample, some lovely art prints, a great calendar, a soy potpourri tart that smells like my childhood christmas and a checkbook cover that I'm already using, and so isn't in the pictures.

I love this stuff. The pink barrette with the bat on it will probably go to Kit. It goes with one of her punk rock outfits. I think maybe I can think of some people who would appreciate the art prints, and they may get framed for Christmas. The Repro Depot samples, those that have smaller prints on them, will probably be used for Moira Bea, and the larger prints will be focal points in patchwork bags, I'm guessing. The soap is patchouli, but not, like, head-shop patchouli oil. More subtle and nice. I've gotta wash my denim jacket and put the buttons on. I want it to be ready for the spring weather. Ok, that's a ways off, but yeah. Cool buttons need a cool denim jacket, and my denim jacket was already vintage when denim jackets were retro-cool.

So, I love The Sampler, and it was so cool that Jen got one for me for my birthday, because I'd seriously been looking at it wondering if I could justify buying myself one. So, good timing, sis of mine!

Kit's Stocking

2007-12-16T08:36:00.001-08:00

Kit's Stocking
Originally uploaded by lothruin

Kit's stocking is finished, and might I say, she's really rather a pretty little thing. My husband asked me how many stockings one child needs. I told him he doesn't get it. *grin* I'm really happy that Kit now has a stocking made by my own hands, at her own request, designed exactly like she wanted it. And it really makes me feel all fuzzy inside to know that Kit's tastes are sophisticated enough that this stocking can grow with her; that it's grown-up enough she might even want to take it with her when SHE'S all grown up. For more about Kit's stocking see this post.

Sewing Desk + Fabric Dresser

2007-12-16T08:12:00.001-08:00

Sewing Station

equals a happy, happy me! I finally got this sewing desk moved into the house, and in a very nice spot, too. It'll be sunny, warm and there's an outlet RIGHT there. Unfortunately, my big Kenmore doesn't fit in the spot the pretty little Eldridge Rotary did, so the machine doesn't fold up into the desk the way it should, but listen, when you've been sewing on a wobbly card table, a sewing desk, even if it is slightly ill-fitted, is like a little slice of heaven.

I also got a little dresser moved inside and filled with fabric and notions, so everything is now at my fingertips, and also my projects can stay out of the way. I'm really excited about this turn of events, because my sewing desk can also be used for all kinds of other crafting, so I really have a nice little crafting area now.

Kit's Stocking Done Knitting

2007-12-14T11:09:00.001-08:00

Kit's Stocking Done Knitting
Originally uploaded by lothruin

No, this is not, in fact, a knitted fake animal skin. This is Kit's stocking, almost finished. According to she, I need to add more dots. I'll do that and seam it up tonight and full the thing, and then slap it on the form to dry. It turned out so much better than I expected. Its the same heavily modified stocking pattern I used for the skully stocking in the Craftster Stocking Swap 2007. I changed the proportions somewhat for this stocking because it's for a kid, and because i used slightly different yarn. And of course, the stripes and dots make things a little different. The colors melded much better than I ever hoped, and I am now marveling at my daughter's rather sophisticated taste, but I can't wait to get the thing all fulled and see how it really turns out. I think it's going to look fabulous.

Craftster Stocking Swap Pics!

2007-12-14T08:57:00.001-08:00

stocking2

This is just a little late in coming, but my partner and I have both received our packages for the Craftster Stocking Swap 2007! My package to her included this skully faux-fair-isle stocking, which might be my favorite finished knit item to date. It's made with some vintage Columbia Minerva Icelandia (a beautiful, and appropriately named icelandic wool) in colorway "smoke", and Brown Sheep Company Lamb's Pride Worsted in Blue Blood Red. The pattern is a heavily modified version of this free felted stocking pattern, but by the time i've made my changes about the only thing I've kept from the original pattern is the number of stitches to cast on and the toe decreases.

My partner, Kittykill, also received this sterling silver wire-wrapped cherry blossom branch necklace, a crocheted shell-stitch cloche, a red and black cherry blossom knitted pin cushion made of the same yarn as her stocking, a vnitage handbag with a custom illustration and some additional store-bought items. You can see everything she received in her swap gallery post.
Also, if you'd like to check out what I received from her, you can do so at my swap gallery post. She totally spoiled me!

Shiny Brite

2007-12-14T07:55:00.001-08:00

Shiny Brite

I love Christmas. And I love vintage ornaments. My tree has nothing on it that is newer than I am. All my ornaments, my tree topper, even my tree skirt fake snow blanket thing and my tinsel and lights... all vintage. I can't resist the Shiny Brites. I especially love the bells, but I haven't yet found any nice reflectors, and think I really need some.

Needless to say, I'm always keeping my eye out for vintage Christmas stuff at thrift stores and estate sales. The other day I found three nice grab bags of ornaments for $1 each, and half off that. Some of the ornaments are... not appropriate. Either too new or too tacky, or whatever. But these ornaments, the ones in the picture, my lovelies, are beautiful. One of the bags was entirely miniature ornaments from occupied Japan, and they are completely awesome. I got two Shiny Brite bells, one in silvered with pink and aqua stripes, and one in silvered with red and orange stripes. Also, one each hot pink, light pink and raspberry Shiny Brite balls (I love the non-traditional colors!) and a beautiful blue ball from Poland, which I've never seen before.

Among the non-pretty ornaments was one ornament that was so very very tacky that I loved him instantly. This is tacky pig. He's a papier mache ornament, signed "de sola" and with a "Made in Mexico" sticker on his underbelly. I can't hang him on my tree. My tree is too pretty for him I'm afraid, but unlike the rest of the tacky ornaments, this little guy is definitely staying with me.

So, I just love vintage ornaments, but how is this crafty? Well, first of all, I always think decorating is crafty, and Christmas is definitely crafty, so decorating for Christmas is not only crafty in and of itself, but also puts me in a total crafty mood. However, because that may not be enough for some folks to justify a post on a craft blog, and because my tacky pig is so kitschy cool for words, but also way too... kitschy... for my pretty, pretty tree, I'm finally going to get around to making myself a wreath, with tacky pig as the focal point and also primary color inspiration. Maybe this weekend. I have a gift certificate for Hobby Lobby burning a hole in my purse.

A Kink in the Works

2007-12-04T21:11:00.000-08:00

How am I ever going to finish Christmas crafting with three stitches in my right ring finger? The answer: very carefully. The stitches don't come out until December 14th, so I'm having to seriously revise some of my holiday crafting plans. I think I can still knit and crochet and sew (at least, by this weekend, after the thing isn't bandaged like a monster finger and really sore), but I'll have to take things slow and easy, which means my carefully planned crafting schedule is all up in the air now. :(

The saga of the stitches in my finger is a long and painful one, but only because it sort of hurts to type, and I make a LOT of mistakes with a finger out of commission. Suffice it to say, unseen large piece of glass + my finger = a quick look at my own bone and some other less pleasant things.

Teaser

2007-11-29T19:39:00.001-08:00

Teaser

I've completed and sent my Craftster Stocking Swap '07 package for Kittykill. It includes a number of made items, a number of bought items, and possibly my favorite knitted item of all time. This is your teaser. Kittykill, NO PEEKING at my Flickr!! Only at the teaser. Mwuahahaha...

In other news, Kit took her first trip to the yarn store with me this week to pick out the colors for her very own special request knitted stocking. Green with white polka dots and green stripes, she said. So we picked up a skein each of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted in Christmas Green and Limeade, and I'll do a sort of random-width stripe pattern for the body of the stocking. Some of my amazing thrift store Yarn Emergency stash comes out of the closet for this project, too. Some Reynolds Lopi in Ash Heather, which is a very, very light grey, enough to be mostly white, and it felts deliciously. That will make up the cuff, heel and toe, as well as the duplicate stitch dots. I'm very excited!

Craftster Blythe/Pullip Swap Round 6

2007-11-20T07:40:00.001-08:00

nemo1
Originally uploaded by lothruin

Here is Nemo, a little Pullip girl who lives with Shelichan, my partner for the Blythe/Pullip swap. Nemo is modeling my swap package, and Shelichan graciously allowed me to snag the pics she took, since they're much better than the pics I took. So, on with the stuff.

Nemo is wearing a lovely A-line dress, made with vintage fabric scraps in a fun bubble and flower pattern in shades of lavender, bright orange, pale green and brown on cream.

Her arms and legs are decked out in a pair of matching leg and arm warmers made in a lavender fur yarn I got from Target's dollar spot. The yarn label calls for a size US 10.5 needle, but I used a tiny little size 0 to produce a really lovely, dense and SUPER soft fabric. They were impossible to knit in the round, and almost as hard to seam.

Topping off her ensemble is a black beanie hat, decorated with a woven ribbon and (outside the shot) a pompom almost as big across as the hat. It looks really, really cute with the over-sized pompom. I used the pattern by MK Carroll for this, and measured twice to see if I was getting gauge, and it wound up being much larger than it should have been, although I even left off the last 7 rows. I could have dropped down a needle size to make it smaller, but worsted yarn on a size 4 needle probably would have hurt my hands, and not really been worth it. Still, although the final product was a bit of a compromise with my original idea, it turned out cute and Nemo likes it.

Nemo lounges on her new patchwork quilt. I'm kinda proud of this one. It's small, but it IS my first patchwork piece, the patches are an inch and a half on a side. There were some issues with the piecing, but for a first try, and so small, I feel as though it was very successful. And best of all, my partner loved everything.

Not include in the above pic, but included below, larger than life so you can see the stitches, is the little dolly cardigan I made her. It's the same basic pattern as the Blythe sweaters I've made in the past, but I had to adjust it slightly to fit the slightly bustier and less-slightly longer body of the Pullip. It's a lustrous blue-green yarn called Barefoot, one of the mill ends I picked up from Wild Purls in Montana, and I think it turned out great.

Kit is Five Cupcakes

2007-11-14T07:27:00.001-08:00

Kit is Five Cupcakes

Kit is five years old today!! I made cupcakes. :D

Weaving in the Ends

2007-11-13T07:04:00.000-08:00

I realized I worked on several projects this summer that I never posted pictures of here because they were for other peoples' weddings, and I think I didn't want to blog about them until they had them, and didn't get pics.

But... in this post I mentioned the lace panel I made for EmilyFlew's special mod wedding project. I used the lace pattern from Knitty's Wisp for my panel. You can see the finished project here. My panel is second in from the right-most edge of that first picture. It was really fun to knit, and I love that lace pattern, and do believe I'm going to use it in combo with some worsted-weight mohair blend yarn and giant needles to make a scarf for a friend of mine.

In August, I briefly mentioned that I made the jewelry for Sweets4ever's wedding, and posted a link to a Craftster thread about it. Sweets was kind enough to post further (and MUCH better) pics of the jewelry here and here. I was really inordinately pleased with how they came out, and was so happy to be able to give Sweets her dream necklace, as she put it.

I think those are the only two projects I didn't really elaborate on. So there we go, loose ends all woven in. Good thing I wasn't working in stripes.

Blythe Knitting

2007-11-13T06:48:00.001-08:00

Black Blythe Hat
Originally uploaded by lothruin

OK, yeah, so um... This pic is bad, but hey, at least you can sort of see it. I was trying to make a beanie. I used this pattern by MK Carroll and thought I got gauge, but my beanie seemed much larger than it ought. So I added a pompom and wove a ribbon threw it just above the ribbing, and it looks kinda cute and you can gather the brim up snug. It turned out nice. Meanwhile, I also finished my package (finally, late,) for the Craftster Blythe/Pullip Swap Round 6 and am sending today. I didn't qiute get a few of my projects to work the way I wanted them to, but I think I managed to recover reasonably well from that. I hope my partner loves her stuff! (I'll post pics when she receives.)

Ravelry: The Next Great Timewaster

2007-11-04T10:17:00.000-08:00

That's right, I finally got my Ravelry invite. I'm Lothruin there, as everywhere, really. Now I want to go take pictures of all my yarn so that my stash is impressive. That's an effort in futility, isn't it? It would multiply faster than I could photograph it. I swear there's some yarn hanky panky going on down there, because I'm quite sure I didn't bring all of that yarn into the house, and some of it looks like hybrids. Now I have to get down to work. (If that's what you want to call it. Or anyway, if that's what I want to call it, and I do.)

Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl

2007-10-27T19:17:00.001-07:00

Kit and Jessie
Originally uploaded by lothruin

Here's one of the projects I've been working on. A real pair of Kit's jeans, a real white polo shirt, a re-decorated sweatshirt and a pair of velcro-strap chaps, plus her red cowgirl hat, a braid and a yellow bow and Kit becomes Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl from Toy Story 2. It's the first time she's really been old enough to specifically request a particular costume, and it's good timing, because it's also the first time that I have had a working sewing machine with which to make said costume.

I'm really happy with how it came out. The yoke was hand-stitched on to a plain white sweatshirt, then embroidered with yellow yarn. Then I sewed on the fake button placket made from an old T-shirt. The cuffs were machine sewn separately, then stitched at the top edge only so they would cover the regular sweatshirt cuff. The collar is a polo shirt worn under the sweatshirt. Overall, it's pretty much perfect, and Kit told me I'm the greatest mom in the whole world. (See, this is reason #1 why home-made costumes are the best costumes.)

Secret Hidey Hidey

2007-10-19T07:24:00.000-07:00

I have not been idle in crafting. I have only been idle in blogging. And why? Because my current projects center almost entirely around gifts and swap packages, and I can't post any of that stuff on my blog for fear of someone's surprise being spoiled. Rest assured, however, that in the very near future I'll have a whole bunch of crafty goodness to post, people having received their items. Oh, and also, soon Kit's Halloween costume will be done and I won't have to wait to post that. :D Yay for crafty goodness!

Moira's New Clothes

2007-10-02T22:32:00.001-07:00

Moira's New Clothes
Originally uploaded by lothruin

OK, here's a taste, since I seem to be deeply into a few other projects just at the moment. The dress is the a-line dress pattern from the Puchi Collective, made from vintage scrap cotton from an estate sale. The headband is made from vintage cotton crochet thread that just happened to be the perfect green to match the dress. More to come, I promise.

I know, I know

2007-09-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

Trust me, I know. I haven't finished sewing in snaps for some of the stuff I made for Moira Bea, and for other of it, namely the pants, I haven't yet made tops to go with the bottoms, and I'm sorry, but little Moira Bea is no harlot. She's not posing naked from the chest up no matter how the boys all plead. I do have one that's ready to photograph, but that destroys all my hopes of a glamorous photo shoot, so all of you (one, right?) who wait with bated breath will just have to hold it a little longer.

But yeah. I'm sewing tonight. OK, well, right now I'm typing this here blog. But I'm sewing and knitting and crocheting almost all at the same time (just call me Vishnu) and I'm drinking tea and watching football too! It's like some kind of mad, mad dream come true. At the moment, my couch is covered with projects, though, so I'd best return to it. I'm making a lot of this stuff FOR people, so you can't see either, until they do. But yippee!!

Moira Bea: Fashion Star

2007-09-18T07:44:00.000-07:00

OK, there aren't any pictures yet. That's rather anti-climactic, isn't it? This weekend I house/dog/cat sat for my parents while they visited family in Wyoming. While there I used my mom's sewing machine to whip up a small wardrobe for my Moira Bea. The breakdown of all this turned out to be:

A) I love to sew even though I'm not much good at it.

B) I took one of my sewing machines in to be serviced and have a couple of parts replaced so that I can sew at my own home.

C) The flared pants pattern at Puchi Collective rocks my socks.

D) Moira Bea now owns a pair of brown jeans, navy trousers, two a-line dresses and a baby doll shirt, plus a very special pair of gold silk trousers that are part of her Halloween costume.

E) Sewing tiny things made out of microjersey makes my head pull a stunt similar to a star's evolution, first expanding like a balloon, then collapsing from it' own mass until it finally explodes. Therefore, Moira has no T-shirts, and is not likely to have any until I can conive an unsuspecting seamstress into making them for me.

F) The colors of Nebraska fields in September are lovely.

So tonight I will b sewing on snaps and then Moira and I will go out for a little photo shoot. Perhaps she'll get to show off her new Jeep. She bought it used, and it has a vanity plate for someone named Barbie, but it's a perfect fit for Moira, and she'll get her own vanity plate soon enough.

Meet Betty Lou

2007-09-06T10:37:00.001-07:00

Bowling Bag Outside
Originally uploaded by lothruin

Betty Lou started her life as a bowling bag, but she had it up to HERE with men groping her all the time, expecting her to carry their balls around all delicate-like and stuffing her in trunks. She is going to get herself some new pretties and give a whack at being a needlework bag instead. I am picturing needle and hook rolls made of retro bowling fabric, perhaps a blank book with a couple of score-keeping pencils and who knows what else my fertile mind will come up with. I am in love with Betty Lou. At $3, I admit she was a cheap trollop, but we'll make an honest woman of her soon enough. She rocks because she has a solid plastic ass. What better could a girl want than a needlework bag that can be plopped down in a puddle or wet grass and none the worse for the delicate contents?

Iris Folded Koi

2007-09-02T14:13:00.001-07:00

Iris Folding Koi, originally uploaded by lothruin.

Yesterday I happened across some cards made using the iris-folding technique, and I thought they were lovely. The technique (I learned yesterday) uses long strips of paper folded in half and layered over the back of a frame to create the intricate designs you see from the front.

So I paged through some free templates and got an idea of how it all worked, then I sat down with a ruler and some photos of koi and got to work. I made up a template for the koi last night. (You can find it here. Use Flickr's image-sizing function to print different sizes.)

The koi itself is made of pages from a sample book of hand-made Japanese papers I've been hording for a couple of years now. The frame is a piece of heavy black card stock overlaid with a hand-painted coffee filter. For the coffee filter I really just winged it. I knew I wanted it sort of watery, so I glooped some acrylic paints in phthalo blue, teal and silver onto a plate, the put about a quarter inch of water in there and swirled it around and then gently touched the filter to the surface of the water and set it aside on another plate to dry. (It dried VERY fast, by the way.)

Overall I'm really pleased with the way it turned out and have already got template and color scheme ideas for two more Japanese-inspired designs.

New jewelry

2007-08-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend with my mom's camera and all the jewelry I had finished. The pics came out much better than I expected, and I have half a mind to call mom up and tell her to expect to photograph some of her pieces this weekend. So, new pics equals new and improved listings on Etsy.

My favorite of the pieces is the Hare Bell earrings. I love how these things turned out!!

In addition to the new jewelry, I listed a Blythe sweater that sold within 5 hours of listing! Now I KNOW I gotta get more sweaters done. Speaking of Blythe... Here's my Moira Bea playing at model. Isn't she a doll?

Long Wait

2007-08-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

Obviously my summer has been busy. Or, something. I don't know. In any case, the blog has taken back seat (way back, like all the way at home and grumbling about it) to other things. After my last post I set to work creating Sweets4Ever's bridal jewelry. It was a big hit. But that was all the crafting I got done in the second half of July.

On August 2nd, my sister flew up from Atlanta, and we, our parents, and my daughter Kit hopped in a Cessna 220 (last time I flew in a plane that small I jumped out of it!) and flew to Billings, MT by way of Rapid City, SD and Mt. Rushmore. Kit loved "the statues" and it was a lovely walk. Kit added two more charms to her charm bracelet. A motorcycle for South Dakota and a Mt. Rushmore charm. We were in Billings until Saturday morning, during which time we visited my Oma, met up with my Uncle Ted and his two kids (Becca and Theo, and they rock. I want to hang out with them more!!) and got to do a little shopping. Mom and Jen and I went to a Goodwill where we made some great vintage hauls, and we found a little shop called Wild Purls with GREAT yarn.

(Pics to come of the great yarn! I took advantage of their mill ends of Mountain Colors yarn and a fun little super-cheap grab bag.)

In order to while away the hours in the airplane and keep hands busy while visiting, I worked on a new sweater for Blythe, which will be posted very soon in my Etsy. It's tan with purple seed bead buttons and I think it turned out great. I actually knitted less than I expected I would, but I have the scenery over the Big Horn Mountains to thank for that.

On Saturday we left Billings for Sheridan, WY, where we visited my dad's mom and siblings. My Uncles Steve and Geoff are soooo much cooler than I ever thought when I was a kid. I always knew my Aunt Liz was cool. :)

So it was a whirlwind trip, and it doesn't account for the almost complete lack of cratiness that has happened between Sunday the 5th and now. I spent last week mostly relaxing. My husband completely cleaned up my house while Kit and I were gone, and painted Kit's room and laid the flooring we bought for her and he's also the best cook I know, so I think he rocks. And that is all I have to report, except, perhaps, that I'll be taking pics tonight, probably, and will also be picking up the needles to make Moira Bea something totally sweet with some of the mill ends I picked up in Montana.

That is all.

Goodbye June

2007-07-11T06:42:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't really been doing nothing all month. I haven't been doing much crafting, I admit. I had a vacation from July 2 through July 7, and I spent a good part of the last half of June getting ready for it. Meanwhile, I worked on Emily's wedding lace (now finished and sent, no pics, sorry) as much as I could. I don't even really know what else I got done.

I do have plans to make a scarf for myself, and I have little knitted sheepies dancing in my brain. Oh, and I made a super secret special surprise for Emily that I included in the package with her wedding lace. But otherwise, I've been doing things like yard work and house work and various other non-crafty things.

However, while in Indianapolis visiting my in-laws, I got to do something craft-related, if not exactly crafty. (Although I WAS knitting a lot of the time...) A bunch of my mod ladies from Craftster live near enough or happen to have family in Indy that we had ourselves a get together. It was great fun, and I wish I could hang out with them every day in real life. I may try to post a pic here soon.

New yarn!

2007-05-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

Another trip to the thrift store that has revealed lovely new yarns to play with.

Behold, the grab bag. Note the crap to the right. Yeah, it's just Red Heart. Actually, I think the grey is wool-ease or a similar wool blend. The pastel crap is just Red Heart, and so is the shiny bright pink ball that you can barely see. There's also a ball of red, one of brown and one of pink acrylic. You can see a home-wound skein of a mustard yellow fingering weight yarn. A burn test shows it as a synthetic, but it's really nice and soft and lustrous, I think it's a pretty high quality yarn even though it isn't a natural fiber. Not sure, though.

But see here, the really interesting stuff. The pink/red/tan loopy yarn is mohair and wool, and os is the light aqua Loop-aire. The brown is unmarked, but is most definitely at least mostly wool or mohair. The red is tiny loopies and mohair on a nylon base. The peachy colored yarn is a wool crepe. And that flat skein is Bernat Mohair Plus, a 66/17/17 Mohair, wool and nylon blend. It's super duper soft and wonderful, and it's this beautiful off-white color that is somewhere between a pearly grey and pink, but oh so subtle. I think something lace will be made of it.

And what will I do with the loopy yarn? Sheep. Sheep I say! Loopy sheep. It'll be my next project after I make a lace panel for Emily's wedding.

Blythe Sweaters

2007-05-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

I love my Moira Bea. And I've discovered I also love teeny tiny knitting. Really love it. Those antique knitting pins I bought last year are wonderful fun to use. These tiny sweaters (which I'll be selling on Etsy if anyone's interested) are made with .90mm knitting pins and fingering weight yarn. The white one is made with a vintage acrylic yarn called "Amore" (by pingouin if I recall) and the pink one is an 80/20 wool and nylon blend that is so beautiful. That hat is also my work, crocheted from size 10 (I think) crochet cotton in a modified shell stitch I was playing around with.

This baby is a working cardigan with glass seed beed buttons. It has poofed sleeves, too. :D It can be worn as a cardi, or turned around and buttoned up the back for a boatneck pullover.

The cropped one, because it is more snug than the cardi, has to be snapped up the back. The buttons popped out of the button placket when I tried it that way. So, it can only be worn as a pullover, but it still looks fab. The hat when to my friend KittyKill for her Ruby Grace.

And this is just a gratuitous shot of Moira Bea. I was lucky enough to find some vintage Skipper clothes in the middle of a Barbie grab bag, and after fixing up the straps, this dress is a beautiful fit.

Candied Peel Finished

2007-05-31T06:42:00.000-07:00

Phew, it's been a long time since I blogged. Seems like I got a lot done, but didn't get pics of anything fast enough. So, here is some wonderful candied peel:

Clockwise from the top it's lime, orange and lemon. I have it on good authority that it is quite tastey. (I think so myself, but since I made it, I'm biased.) Sometime today I'm going to post a recipe/tutorial on Craftster, so if you're interested in trying it yourself, pop on over there and take a look in the cooking section, under desserts.

Candied Peel

2007-04-24T17:33:00.000-07:00

Right before I climbed into bed last night I started getting a migraine aura. I took the last two Tylenol in the house and figured if I was asleep before the migraine struck, I'd be OK. When I woke up I felt like I'd been hit by a freight train. So I stayed home and mostly just laid in my darkened living room for the first 3 hours, not wanting to move much because my head was throbbing. It gave way a little around noon and I was able to get up and move around, but still felt pretty generally crummy. However, it did afford me time to get started on my candied peel for the Scottish Party.

Last night, I took 3 Lbs each of lemons and limes to my moms and we juiced them, so I have those two peels to candy, and I'll be getting oranges closer to the weekend so I can take the fruit with me to the party. Making candied peel is a LOT of cooking time and a lot of waiting for things to boil. It's a long process, but if you are, for instance, feeling like not doing much, it's really easy. The total cooking and prepping time (not including prepping the fruit to get the peel) is several hours, but there is really very little actual work involved. Perfect for how I felt today. I was rewarded with 2 lbs of candied lemon peel and 6 cups of syrup. I really like the recipe I use, and the fruit, while a little more bitter than the orange I made last year (remind me to blanch the lime peel rather more), is refreshing and very tasty. Maybe I'll do the lime yet tonight. Although I might not have enough time.

Introducing Moira Bea

2007-04-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

At long last, after much wishing and hoping and giggling in anticipation, I have my Blythe. Her name is Moira Bea, and here she is in a silk dress I made her while awaiting her arrival:

Yay Moira Bea!

Tonight I'm heading over to my mom's to sew some clothes for Kit, and maybe some for little Moira, and also to juice some lemons and limes in preparation of the candied peel making for the Scottish Party this weekend. Hmm. Maybe I'll stop at Walmart and get some heavy muslin or something so I can whip up a chemise that'll go under the black side of my bodice. (Sad, sad boning all bent the wrong way.) I'll bet it wouldn't take long to make a chemise happen while we're whipping up the dresses for Kit. Yay! I'm so excited! I love crafting with my mom.

Pics

2007-04-16T23:03:00.000-07:00

OK, so I finally managed to get some pics for here. For now, we're going to go with a pic of the Norwegian sweater I have thoroughly dismantled.

Now, in all honesty, when I saw this sweater, my brain saw ugly. But the reason it was ugly was that all it's parts, for the most part, were pretty, but put together badly. Who wants a heavy wool sweater that closes with little hook all down the front? Why put such pretty buttons on the sleeve and let them be useless. Why THAT trim with the colorwork pattern of the sweater? It all made no sense together. So, I took it all apart. And I'm rewarded with some very pretty wool trim that (as I think I mentioned) I would love to put on a renny dress of some sort, 6 cast pewter clasps, 3 pairs of pretty pewter buttons and a very pretty bunch of felted wool that I'll turn into stockings. The sweater was done in some sort of weird ribbing, but it felted beautifully. So the ugly has become pretty. We'll just call this one the ugly sweaterling, shall we?

Also, I found this piece of fabric.

I'm not really sure what drew me to it. I mean, it has a train and a riverboat (in the background, you can't really see it well in this pic) and it's in kinda strange colors. The print repeat is weird. The design extends from one selvage all the way to the other, but it's only about a half-yard wide. It can't really be for pillows because it's too long. I don't know quite what to make of it. But for some reason, the overall colors, which are strangely muted and bold all at once, and the eccentric art, well, they just grabbed me. And the fabric was cheap, so yeah. Sis suggested a flared skirt. That could be really funky. Don't know yet, though.

Dolly Mommy & Etsy

2007-04-16T06:28:00.000-07:00

I did it!! My Prima Dolly Ginger Takara Blythe is on her way. She cleared customs in Chicago yesterday morning. I'm already making her clothes. I went digging in all my scrap bags, and I found a surprising amount of perfect Blythe scrap. I can't resist vintage fabric, and I've been buying scrap bags at estate sales (and once or twice at my favorite quilt shop, too) and hording them. I had NO idea what I might eventually do with some of this stuff. Who needs 6 3" x 7" pieces of miniature cheetah-print polyester? Well, as it turns out, the answer is me. Or more to the point, my dolly. And other dollies everywhere.

I printed a couple of pattern from PuchiCollective just to get an idea on size. I've never even SEEN a Blythe in person, so I had no idea where to start. But since the first thing I wanted to make was a party dress with a simple, gathered skirt, I started with PuchiCollective's party dress to get an idea what she uses for the size of the starting rectangle, and I'll design my dress around that. I'm really excited. I'm making the dress out of some scraps of black silk with magenta mini-paisleys I found in one of the estate scrap bags. It's so beautiful. But I'm going to do a hand-rolled hem on basically everything since it's so SO fine. I'm finished with the bottom and one side of the skirt piece, which is 14" x 3". It isn't the most well-done work, but I'll get better at it. I have enough of this particular scrap that if I come up with a design that works for the fabric, I'll make two more dresses.

Which brings me to my second bit of news: I opened an Etsy. Yes, I did. No, I'm not giving up on actually getting Moirai running eventually. I love the design I did for Moirai, and it WILL get used. But first, some things have to be worked out, like making sure I can get good images of product on a regular basis. The pics on Etsy pretty much suck, but they aren't the worst pics I've seen on Etsy, however, they are no where close to good enough for a web shop. So, Etsy for a while. And on that front, the extra Blythe goodness I manage to cook up out of my plentitude of scraps will be sold in my Etsy shop. And I can hardly wait.

So, yeah, buy stuff and congratulate me on my dolly.

Spring... ?

2007-04-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

OK, it WAS spring here not long ago, and the forsythia looked lovely, and the tulips and daffodils were blooming, and it was all very nice and green and refreshing, and then... I don't know, spring just sort of ran and hid, the flowers all froze and look ugly now, and who even knows what we'll get from the budding trees, my lilac bush froze in it's little green prime, so I have NO idea if it will even survive, and damn it, I'm cold. It sucks.

However, that is not crafty. But it might help explain my mood a little. On the crafting front, I've been decidedly lacking. I've slowly been working here and there on a few small projects I have yet to finish. I've found some lovely supplies, including some interesting fabric and a Norwegian wool sweater with great stuffies on it. I DID take pics of that, pre-disassembly. I took all the trim off, all the pewter buttons and clasps, and then I threw the sucker in the washing machine. That thing felted down from a womens XL to something that would just look a little large on Kit. Wow. But it's super thick and wonderful and it will make darling stockings. Meanwhile, I am hoping for a nice anglo-saxon style dress to use the trim on. That would rock.

Speaking of which, the Scottish Party and renny season are coming up. I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to have to get to work crocheting snoods. Use up all that crochet thread I have.

And in other other news, I found myself a picnic basket that will soon be wonderful. I bought paint and have some lining fabric, and the thing is gonna rock when I'm done. Plus, I already have the cool retro-style melmac dishes from Joanns that I bought forever ago. And they'll fit so neatly! yay!

Fin

Gems and Minerals Rock

2007-03-26T07:09:00.000-07:00

Um, yeah, pun intended. I'm a geek. I believe I've said that before. This weekend was the annual Gem and Mineral show here. I love this show. I've always been a bit of a rock hound, courtesy of my dad, who infused my childhood with a general sort of fascination for all things even slightly mysterious. However, in addition to the oohing and aahing over the various fossil specimens and such, the show also has vendors, not only of rocks, but also beading and metalsmithing. Mmm...

So, my mom and I took our small budgets and hunted around in bargain bins and bead booths and came out with a few handfuls of fun cabachons and agate slices and other pretties, plus some beautiful glass beads by Jodie Marshall, a local glass artist (her stuff is SO yummy!! Check out her Etsy! To be perfectly honest, the items currently in her etsy don't do justice to the variety of lovelies I saw at her booth. (With the exception of this orange, blue and black set, which... drool...) Although, don't get me wrong, the stuff in her Etsy is great, but holy moly, some of the stuff at her booth... This woman is amazing, guys and gals. Just look at her blog. I only had to scroll through March's posts before I had to replace my keyboard. Oh, and Jodie, thanks for the spiral. It's beautiful.

So, yeah, very happy with my haul, and will try to post pics tonight if I can get decent lighting. That darn old camera is so finicky about lighting.

In other news, Check out the combination Mod Instant Swap and Challenge at Craftster. That's right, the mods are finally going head to head with a combination swap and challenge. We've been paired up (it's knitting vs crochet in my world... Vanillaxlight and I are swapping goodies,) and when everyone has received, we'll be posting our gifts and you, the Craftster public, will be voting for your favorites. Even Site Administrator and Crafty Goddess Leah is participating, so we're all on our best mettle, and we hope to see you over at Craftster for the vote.

That is all.

A Catchup

2007-03-14T07:55:00.000-07:00

OK, so it's been a few weeks. In all honesty, I've hardly crafted at all, but I have crafted SOME, and I need to post pics. But since I'm at work, that can wait. Meanwhile, though, what I've been spending all my time doing is updating the look of Two Sisters Vintage and trying to get new items added. Plus, I've got a bunch of auctions up, and hope to add a bunch more today since there's a listing sale. I really like the way the new Two Sisters site looks, even if it was a lot of work to put together. I've also been working on transfering a whole bunch of vintage patterns to PDF format, which is taking some time (mostly editing the OCR text, because they look way better that way than just scanning jpgs of the patterns), but once I'm finished I'll be adding pattern purchases to the Two Sisters site, and it will be cool. :D And now that I know what I'm on about, I may also be changing over my patterns to PDF and having them available on Moirai via that method rather than as a webpage, because the PDFs look so much nicer.

That's really all there is here. I've been feeling like doing some knitting, but I have been forcing myself to do as much with the website and PDFs each evening as possible, and frankly with as nice as the weather has been for the last few days, I haven't gotten much done since last week. I've got spring housework to do, after all. *sigh* It always seems like there aren't enough hourse in a day to do all the things I want to do. Maybe that's why I'm always tired.

Fabric Auction

2007-02-25T00:23:00.000-08:00

OK, all you seamstresses out there, you retro junkies... I decided to sell the Finlayson Braids Fabric I came across a while back. Or most of it, anyway. I'm keeping some for myself. I'm selling 7 yards of it in a dutch auction, so you can get one yard or all of it, depending on your level of desire. The auction is here I know, I know, it's still a lot of money for fabric. But folks, I'm telling you, this is some fabric, and it really is at a fraction of what every other Finlayson fabric on Ebay is going for.

Past the hump

2007-02-20T12:18:00.000-08:00

For some reason, even though February's the shortest month of the year, it always seems to take so long...

I've been crafting pretty consistently, but feel like I have little to show for it. I have finished a couple of projects for my friendly Craftster Mod's, but have more yet to do. I have been to some great estate sales and have lots of things to list on Ebay (including the great Rainbow fabric I talked about earlier), and haven't done it, and I have taken very few pictures of ANYthing lately, with the exception of my new hairdo.

Oh, well, except I have made my first ATCs (artist trading cards) and posted them to Craftster:
My First ATC Gallery Post - Passion
Color, um... fairies? Pixies? I dunno...

I found a great doll to remake... A vintage Malibu Barbie from 1978, just like the one I used to have. Her paint and hair are in sad shape, so she's ripe for a makeover. I'm not sure the purpley gray hair I got is right for her skin tone, but I think the blue I have left over would look great.

Checking In

2007-02-01T12:39:00.000-08:00

Let's see... I've made a couple of necklaces using the Sterling Silver clasps I got on clearance at Hobby Lobby with my birthday money. They're cool, I think. But I can never get good pics of my jewelry, so I can't share them right now.

I've also been busy working on a knitted hat, some slippers, another little baby sweater, and some crocheted items of little note. I've just been keeping myself busy with small projects, and I'm rather enjoying myself. My sister was in town a whlie back, and my Aunt Marge is here until tomorrow, and so there has been a little crafting going on. It's just nice. That's all there is to say on that. :D

Ooh, one more thing... As many of you may know, I was offered a position as a volunteer moderator for Craftster.org's Knitting Boards and in January we implimented a monthly knitting challenge. Every month a new theme is voted for via a list of suggested themes from Craftster members. January's theme was "One Stitch to Rule them All" and the stitch was moderator's choice. All projects had to include the stitch pattern. The voting is on now for the January Challenge, and let me tell you, every single entry is amazing! You can check out all the entries and if you're a Craftster member, be sure to vote! I can't wait for the next challenge. Right now it's looking like we might get Vintage Knits, with a runner up of Knitted Monsters, and both of those sound like SO much fun!

Thrifty Goodness

2007-01-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

This week I scored at the thrift stores again. Not yarn this time, though. I found 2 books of vintage iron-on transfers:

You may or may not know how much I love vintage things, and to find this many iron-on transfers makes me so freakin' happy. In facy, I believe I actually said, out loud, "Oh my giddy heart" when I pulled them out of the magazine rack. One book has 30 pages of transfers and the other has 22 pages. Each page has between 2 and 6 transfers. It's like Christmas. Actually, since they are both "Christmas-themed" books, it is VERY like Christmas, but not all the images are strictly holiday-themed. I've scanned and uploaded a number of them, and you can see them at this Craftster thread.

Meanwhile, not that long ago, I was admiring some amazing bags on Etsy that utilize vintage scandinavian fabrics. After looking at the bags, I did a few searches on Ebay and Google, and the bold designs of scandinavian fabrics from the 60's & 70's really caught my breath. And I remembered seeing large fabric-panel wall hangings at thrift stores and I thought that if I ever saw another one, I'd snatch it up. The prices some of these pieces of fabric were fetching on Ebay was quite astonishing. Imagine my surprise, then, when I came across some really familiar-looking 60" fabric at the Goodwill. There was a LOT of it. (It was quite heavy carrying it around the thrift store for a half hour, I can tell you.) It was in a beautiful, bold rainbow colorscheme, screen-printed on heavy cotton. And then I read the printing on the edge. "Finlayson, Printed in Finland, 1977." Oh, you beautiful thing, you're coming home with me, you are! After getting it home and measuring it, I have just under 9 yards of the stuff. There are some flaws, I'll admit, but after doing a bit more research on Ebay, and finding a little more than a yard and a third selling (actually selling) on Ebay for over $100 US, in the same pattern but a different color scheme, I think I've hit pay-dirt on this one. Here she is, in all her rainbow glory, Finlayson's "braids" pattern:

Isn't she pretty?

In other news, I'm on a hunt for a doll for remake with which I can use the awesome hair I got in a Christmas Card from Dollyhair.com, where I purchased the hair to remake my highland pony. It's called "hematite" and is a beautiful, ever-so-slightly purple grey color. I can't wait!

Baby Jacket All-nighter

2007-01-07T07:34:00.000-08:00

Phew! I was making a baby sweater for my best friend's baby shower, which was yesterday. I had limited time because of the holidays having just gotten over. And then I changed my mind about what I wanted to do several times, until I finally landed on using Omega Sinfonia and my own pattern. The Sinfonia is a lovely mercerized cotton yarn by Omega that is available at the Hobby Lobby in my area. It is a really lovely cotton yarn for a craft-store alternative to kitchen cotton or crochet cotton, which is about all the 100% cotton yarns available at my other local craft stores. I had used it to crochet with, but hadn't ever knitted it, and if I had, I'd have probably opted for the Cottontots for my rapidly approaching event, and made my planned Sinfonia sweater afterward. I got started with 2 days to go, and I naively thought after the first evening that since a couple hours had mostly completed the back, I could just finish it all up the next day. Wrong.

By two o'clock in the morning, I had finally finished both front sides, after mulling over the neck shaping for a little while. By around five-thirty, I'd finished both sleeves, had quick-blocked the body pieces and set the sleeves up to block. Seven o'clock saw me having just finished sewing up the shoulders, picked up and knit the collar and taken a break to drink some tea and shake my hands out. I only had two hours left if I wanted to get there in time, and had all the seaming to do, and I also had to get ready for the shower. I didn't finish in time. I packed the little darling up in a box along with a crochet hook, a yarn needle, some scissors and the buttons I'd chosen, and took it, ends hanging out and buttonless, to the shower, and I finished it up while we sat and chatted. *sigh*

The Sinfonia turs out a beautiful knitted project. And I've never really thought that knitting cotton was that tough. I'd never tried to speed-knit cotton before, and now I know better, and I humbly apologize for any less than charitable thought I've ever had when reading of someone else's struggles with cotton yarn. I'm pleased with my finished little baby jacket, with the seed stitch mandarin collar and cuff details. If I ever make another one, it will either be a year in advance, or in wool.

Holidays Bowl Me Over

2006-12-30T18:42:00.000-08:00

I admit it. The holidays bowled me right over. I've been busy. And sick. I haven't lifted my needles in a week because I didn't want to contaminate my knitting with whatever germs afflict me. But I HAVE made some jewelry. I will say that for Christmas I got 6 balls of Licorice yarn in pink/grey, which is enough to make a Ruth for myself. It's enough to do some other things too, and I'll have to decide at a later time what it is I'm going to do with it. I also got a gift certificate to Hobby Lobby and a warning that I'd better spend it on myself. I try to explain to my boss that it is the DOING more than the DONE that I want, and therefore craft supplies which get made into things for other people really is a gift for myself, but she doesn't seem to understand.

Well, she didn't. Then I told her the story of Ruth. I bought the first 4 balls of that sweater with a gift certificate from another coworker, a birthday gift. I bought them for myself, because I got a similar warning from her. I started my project, I bought more yarn, I finished it and I wore it twice. I loved it. I really felt I had indulged and created something beautiful for myself. The second time I wore it was to a dinner with my Aunt Marge. She admired my sweater, and my mother said she'd suggested I make one for my Oma, who has MS and needs comfortable things to wear in the wheelchair, to keep her warm. My aunt told me that my sweater was beautiful and my Oma would love one in just those colors. Suddenly I felt like I had never made that sweater for me. I took it off in the restaurant, folded it up and handed it to my Aunt, and told her that when she saw my Oma three days later, she should give that sweater to her.

I own ONE thing that I knit. And it's made of sterling silver wire, and I swear the only reason I still have it is because I haven't found just the right person to give it to. It really is in the doing for me. Am I alone on this? It isn't that I don't want to make something for myself. It's just that the gift, for me, is the making, it is not what is made, and everything I knit is for me, even if the finished object gets handed off to someone else. My boss says I am generous. I say that isn't so. I'm just greedy about yarn and knitting, not about knitted things.

I'm a bad blogger... again...

2006-12-13T08:32:00.000-08:00

OK, if I swear that the reason I haven't posted is because I've been busy crafting for the holidays, will you all forgive me? (I know "you all" is probably about three people, but I can pretend, right?) Well, it's true, sort of. I also had a birthday, and a weekend evening that my daughter spent with the grandparents.

So, I'm 30, and I don't really care. I spent all day last Sunday knitting, and that was lovely. I am making a little cropped cardigan hoodie for my niece for Christmas. I've also got mittens to make, and hats, and who knows what else, and that's just the knitting and crochet. I have promised myself that I will not spend any more money until just before Christmas, and only if I simply run out of time, because I do have enough various craft materials in my home to make gifts for everyone I know for the next several years, but I haven't ever done so. Well, this year I'm going to give it my best damn shot.

Oh, and I got batteries for the digi cam, so I might actually have pics to post of some of the things I'm working on. :D Stay tuned!

I am Merino

2006-11-29T12:25:00.000-08:00

What kind of yarn are you?

You are Merino Wool.You are very easygoing and sweet. People like to keep you close because you are so softhearted. You love to be comfortable and warm from your head to your toes.

Take this quiz!

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Christmas is coming

2006-11-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

The goose is getting fat, because she sat around all weekend on her butt and did absolutely nothing of consequence except eat and read...

Oh wait. No, I really didn't do jack this weekend. I came up with ideas, and that's about it. On Thursday I mailed my package (late) for the Craftster Advent Calendar Swap and am anxiously awaiting it's arrival at my partner's door, so I can see if she likes it or not. Meanwhile, I DID receive my package from her last week as well, and WOW is it beautiful! Here are pictures of the wonderful gingerbread house and the cookbook calendar she sent me! The gingerbread house is all of felt with little pockets and doors, and it's beautiful and wonderful and amazing and I can't wait until December. With regard to the cookbook I must apologize to my partner. When I PMed her to let her know I'd gotten her package I think I said something dense like "I haven't gotten a chance to look at it yet, but it looks like it's full of delicious treats." I really meant both parts, but together they make me seem like an ass, and here's why: Each page of the cookbook is a day of the calendar. If I HAD looked at it, I'd have ruined the calendar. It wasn't until I really got a chance to look at the book, and realized that what looked like an advent calendar on the front was all glued down, that perhaps the inside of the book was the meat of the calendar, not the outside... Silly me! So I hastily put the cookbook in the box with the gingerbread house (where I have to hide it from my daughter until it's time to start opening!!) and prepared to make out a list of probably ingredients for holiday items... If you get an advent cookbook, shouldn't you at least make a go at actually making each recipe daily? :D

Now then, I have three Craftster Mods to make stuff for, and I need to do it fast! I wasted an entire weekend. Bad me. And those girls, they're tough to craft for! One doesn't like the style of wire jewelry, one can't wear metal... What are they trying to do to me?!?

Here comes Santa Freakin' Claus

2006-11-02T07:56:00.000-08:00

Ah, Halloween is over. It's officially November, which means that between today and February 2nd, I have the birthdays of my boss, my daughter, my mother and three of my best friends, plus Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years and the anniversaries of my parents and my best friends. And actually, five of those birthdays, one of the anniversaries and Thanksgiving are between today and my own birthday in exactly one month. Yikes!!! Time to get crafting. The passing of Halloween has been a huge relief to me for many reasons, and I can set my sights back on holiday crafting again. I'm so glad! I was really looking forward to it, but was schooling myself to stay on Halloween target until the day itself. So now I'm free to finish up a few projects I have pending and really buckle down on gifts and holiday stuff.

And to that end, I must mention that my advent calendars for the Craftster Advent Calendar swap turned out really cool. I can't reveal them yet, because they haven't reached their recipient (er... haven't been sent... um...) but I'll post pics as soon as she gets them. :D

And I promise, I'll post pics of Kit's and my costumes as soon as my friend sends me the digital pics he took. I want to enter the Craftster costume contest, so I hope he does it soon. :D

Thats all here for now. I'm off to do some gift planning...

Another week

2006-10-24T06:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, little blog, and I'm sorry. Well, not really. I've been busy. Saturday I was at my parents' house sewing ALL afternoon and evening. But I got most of it done. I sewed a little dress for Katherine, and then a skirt to go over it, and she'll be a pink tulip fairy. I also sewed a little sleeveless chemise thing for me, that's long and has an attached pettycoat, and I have a circle skirt. I found some dark green tights yesterday that I think will work for me, and Kit already had white tights. Sunday I started knitting Kit's legwarmers, and those are yellow and fuzzy, so her legs will look like little stamen. :D I'll be wearing green tights and green ribbons, and I have yet to make the sepal. But really, I' almost done, and I gotta tell ya, we look hot!

Meanwhile, I have just one finishing touch to add to the first advent calendar, and then I have to make the second. I don't think it'll be that tough, though. I just gotta go get the artwork printed. :D Maybe I'll try to do that tonight, while I visit Hot Topic to verify that I want to wear the particular green tights that I found, and I need to drop in at Joanns again to get some green fabric scraps and ribbon. Yay! So close!

I haven't gotten much further with the little tractor I was making, but I DID get distracted by (wee!) Halloween and a Craftster Swap.

A hat, costumes and swap

2006-10-16T08:34:00.000-07:00

So, I have to figure out how to juggle a bunch of stuff right now. Once again, I think I'm overextended. Before October 31, I have to make two costumes, one for Kit and one for me, and make two advent calendars for my Craftster Advent Calendar Swap. I have 2 weeks, and well-formulated plans, I just have to be sure I'm not procrastinating too much. Some friends need help scraping their trim to be repainted, and I would really like to help them every available minute, and I offered to help during the week up until dark, but I really only have one more weekend to get the costumes done before I have to wear at least mine the following Saturday, and probably they'll both need to be done so we can go to Boo at the Zoo. And I need someone else's sewing machine to make the costumes, probably my mother's, so it kinda has to get done this weekend, really. Meanwhile, the two advent calendars aren't going to be too bad, and I've already started making one, (I hope it works, I hope it works, otherwise I'll have to scramble for a second one) and I only really need to get an image enlarged onto heavy cardstock in order to start on the other... But, I do really need to solidly decide that I am, by damn, going to work on them. Really. Seriously. No more wishy washy, I've got to just shove all this stuff together and get it done.

Ok, so meanwhile, I made the cool hat from my brain, and it turned out a little different than I planned, but I know what I have to do to make it exactly what I want, and anyway, the unexpected differences in my prototype are actually kinda cute and cool. I'm making a second that I really should set aside until my other projects are finished, but I'm anxious to see how my alterations effect the second try. Well, at least knitting is something that can be done a little bit here and there on the spur of the moment, so I can work on it at times I wouldn't be able to work on my other projects. Ah well...

Me brain, me brain...

2006-10-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

I loved the idea that Kit and I could be the Spider and the Fly for halloween. I hate the idea of making the costumes. It's just not in me, I think. I don't currently have the money or the patience to get it done in time. So I think we're going to have to be fairies or princesses or something more generic, ie easier to finish fast and on the fly. That's OK, it'll turn out lovely.

SnB this weekend was fun. It was too hot for me to get much done because yarn sticks to my fingers when I'm hot, but that was OK. I don't know if I was successful in teaching my friends to knit (and/or crochet) but it was a different experience. I don't remember having any trouble with crochet when I learned as a kid. I didn't have ANY trouble learning to knit as an adult. It's the type of activity that just made complete sense to me, almost from the very beginning. By my third project, my gauge was nearly perfect. I can't help it. It just clicked. And the only other person I ever taught was my mother, and it clicked for her too. The simple change between trying to learn with the throw method and trying to learn with the continental method was all it took for her to get it. Then it all made sense. So I have been operating under the probably false assumption that with the right sort of approach, these activities will click with anyone. I think that isn't true. I do not think that either of my friends will be unable to learn how to knit or crochet. I question whether I'm really experienced enough in the various methods of holding yarn, casting on, etc., to present the option that WILL click with either of them, if there is one. We'll have to see. I think mostly what they need is patience with themselves to do it even though it is neither easy nor pretty.

I've been falling asleep at night contemplating projects for christmas and other gifts. Formulating plans and such. Last night I was dozing on the couch thinking about knitted hats and a certain bag of recycled yarn that is bulky home-spun wool in lost of colors, but short lengths. And I came up with an idea. I don't think it will actually work with the yarn I originally intended, which is sad, because I was trying to think of cool ways to use this cool yarn, and I think in the end I'll just have to do random stripes with coordinating colors. But I think it WILL work. And work COOL. And that is why, my friends, I would SO rather be knitting right now. This idea is practically bursting out of my head to get implimented, and I don't want it bursting anywhere near my work computer. Too messy to clean up.

Yay!

2006-10-05T06:58:00.000-07:00

Just yay. I'm in a good mood. The Project Runway reunion episode last night was wonderfully snipish and good fun to watch. Over the weekend, as I posted on Friday, I had a birthday gift to give. Got it done on Saturday afternoon and presented it at dinner, for my dad's 54th birthday. My dad is so cute and sweet. He read it at the table, and I think he almost started crying. (Aww...) And then he read it again, out loud, to Kit, but had to hold the book up like a screen so no one could see his face. Heehee. He really liked it, I think, and with my dad, that's a real score! He is SO hard to please. I think I'll ask my mom to scan a couple of the prettier pages so I can share. And we still have to move the trees. It was a little too early yet last weekend. And then we'll get to add the first picture. (Well, beyond the ones that are already included.)

So, after the birthday gift was completed, and we got done with birthday celebrations, I went home and got right to work on my Fiskars journal. WooHoo! Some of the pages were bleh, some were beautiful and some were clever as far as I was concerned, but not particularly artistic, I guess. So, we'll see. I worked on it at SnB at Georgia's house on Sunday, and got it mailed off by Tuesday. Hope it doesn't arrive too "late" according to their records. I'm excited, though.

And now, well, I'm working on a tractor to match the little car from a few posts back. I could have had it finished last night, but I got too engrossed in the sniping, and couldn't crochet and pay attention at the same time. But I think I'm going to change this one too, a little. I was thinking of stuffing the wheels, and maybe making a little wheel bumper thing to add. I think that would be super cute. We'll see.

AND, and, this weekend at SnB Amy and Holly wanna learn to use hooks and needles. Yay! Now THAT will be fun. I LOVE teaching people how to knit and crochet. WEE!

Daddy's Birthday

2006-09-29T07:26:00.000-07:00

My dad's birthday is on Saturday, and it really snuck up on me. I have been sheltering a few baby oak trees to transplant to my parents' place, and I was going to take the trees over there for his birthday, but mom said it's a little early yet. However, my sister gave me a lovely idea for a related gift. I've put together a pre-decorated scrapbook, with places to add photographs and a little story about a baby oak tree. I finished the layout last night, and I have to print off the story today at work, where the printer is better, then finish cropping and adding the text tonight. I think it's really cute, personally. *grin*

Baby's New Ride

2006-09-27T20:22:00.000-07:00

A while ago I posted that I was pattern testing a pattern for Chez Plum (or maybe only posted it in my WIP status bar) and I'm officially finished with it. OK, so the original pattern has cute little windows, but I was finishing it up at Stitch n Bitch, and it was agreed that no little windows were needed, since I didn't really (honestly, no offense meant to the pattern writer, as I find the set of patterns really positively adorable) didn't relish sewing them on. So here is Baby's New Ride:

It's done in Caron Simply Soft, with a main body in a turquoise color that I no longer see on Caron's color cards... I think it was a Brite, but it isn't the Berry Blue, and also Lemonade and Lime Light, both also Brites. For those who take advantage of Sylvie's adorable pattern, I got gauge with the Caron Simply Soft, though the pattern calls for a cotton-blend yarn. I used what I had, and it worked out PERfectly.

Meanwhile, I knitted another couple of inches on my bag while watching Project Runway this week. No spoilers here, but I was very pleased with the outcome of this week's episode. I know many others won't be, but that's OK. I'm all about the love, baby! The grey bag is still daunting me, or taunting me, or something. So... much... grey... bah! But, I'm almost halfway done with the grey side, and the other side will be the same size, but striped, and I think I will be able to handle the stripes MUCH better. The interminable grey is just really getting to me. I can only work on it in spurts. And spurts don't finish a bag. On the other hand, I'm looking forward to doing the skull and crossbones design, too, so that will be a nice diversion.

And in yet other news, I've got christmas gifts bouncing around in my head, including a couple of ideas for art notecards, and I really need to sharpen the ol' Prismacolors and get to work. Plus, honestly, I have a bunch of (mostly) crochet ideas as well, and for some reason I'm too antsy to actually work on them. What is up... why is it that just at the time I need to be sitting down with focus to really work on these things so that I'm not frantically re-thinking my gifts on Christmas Eve, I suddenly completely lack any kind of motivation to be crafty? Is it the weather? Why would the dipping temperatures make me want to put DOWN the fibers?? Why is my most pressing desire to read old fantasy books? I just don't get it. Help me find my motivation, people! I need crafty impetus!

Nothing new

2006-09-22T08:27:00.000-07:00

I have nothing new to report on the crafting front. I have been busy reading the Dark Elf Trilogy from early 90's TSR, and I had forgotten how much I love A) Drow, B) TSR Novels, C) RA Salvatore and D) the Forgotten Realms. I am a geek. I love being a geek, but I hate being an old geek who doesn't know any Realms gamers anymore. It sucks. I wanna be a drow. Hmph. So, this has caused a lapse in my crafting. Perhaps I'll have to knit a Do'Urden house insignia into something, or, I dunno... make one of the crocheted illithids on Craftster. :D

Needle Jackpot!!

2006-09-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

Today, at the Salvation Army store, I hit the knitting needle jackpot! I found a turquoise vinyl needle case, all rolled up and full of needles for $5. I opened it, looked at some of the needles, and then saw, on the floor under the rack, two lonely, odd needles, and lo, they matched two lonely, odd needles in the case, so I stuck them back in, rolled that sucker up and gave it a new home. And what did my $5 yield me, besides a cracking (and probably mostly useless soon) turquoise vinyl needle case? Well....

14" straight needles, sizes 13, 10.5, 10, 4 & 3 in aluminum and sizes 5, 4 & 3 in BAKELITE!! And the size 3's still have their original paper label!!

11" straight needles in size 6 aluminum

10" straight needles in sizes 7, 6, 5, 2 & 1 in aluminum and sizes 7, 5 & 4 in plastic

Full sets of four 7" dpns in sizes 8, 6, 4 & 2 in aluminum and size 1 in Susan Bates plastic, plus 2 size 5 dpns by their lonesome.

2 pair of plastic needles in sizes 8 & 7 where one needle is 10" and one is 4". They're weird and I don't understand them, but they are definitely matched pairs... I don't know why they'd be made that way, but it's possible that they were originally both 10" and one from each pair broke, so they cut them down and put the metal tips on, but that begs the questions of how they got the metal tips off the broken off bits, and why both of the short ones are exactly 4".

Folks, that's 17 pairs of straight needles, not counting the two pairs of unmatched lengths, and 5 full sets of dpns!! Plus a needle case. For $5. I feel like a new mother... (and I've been a new mother, so I know...) Thanks to my finding those two lonely needles on the floor, I came away with only one loner needle, a 14" size 6 steel needle. Of course, I have two size 5 dpns, too, but guess what... I happened to have another lonely pair of size 5 dpns that came in a bundle of needles I picked up elsewhere, so now I officially have a full set of 4 size 5's. :D Kismet? Fate? Divine Intervention? I know not, but by whatever chance I came upon these needles before anyone else did, I thank my lucky stars!

Published

2006-09-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

My shell-stitch cloche pattern was published in this season's CrochetMe! Heehee! Yay me! (Sorry, I'm just excited. I'll calm down before my next post, I promise.)

Halloween

2006-09-15T07:45:00.000-07:00

Halloween is coming, and all year I've been planning on going as Mulan, and Kit as Mushu. (Mostly because I found some pretty fake silk brocade stuff at Walmart's $1/yd shelf that I thought would make a nice Mulan.) But last night plans changed. While reading her favorite bedtime story, Kit said, "Mom, I know what WE can be for Halloween!"

Dutifully, I responded, "What can we be for Halloween, Kit?"

"The Spider and the Fly!"

"What a good idea, Kit. Do you want to be the Spider or the Fly?"

"I want to be the Spider! And you can be the Fly, and say 'Oh, no no!'" (with Spider said in a sort of ominous stage whisper and "oh, no no!" said in a falsetto with a strange accent, just like I read the book.)

So, we are going to go as the Spider and the Fly from Tony DiTerlizzi's beautiful picture book, and now I have to figure out how to go about making Kit a Spider costume (yes, I know the Spider is a guy, but I am not uptight that way) and me a Fly costume, both of which keep the feel of a black and white film, and with heavy 20's ispiration. Got any ideas where I can find a nice straight-line, multi-layered 20's dress pattern?

MY little to do list

2006-09-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

After reading through that little to do list, I got to thinking, which can be dangerous. This particular spate of thinking ended up in me starting a LiveJournal in case I feel the need to blog non-crafty things in the future (though I think that some things can stand being cross-posted), and the idea to do a crafty to do list, to outline my own personal goals. Now, this crafty to do list isn't a before-I-die kind of list. In fact, I'd like to get most of these things done before, say, the end of 2007. I think this is ambitious of me, since I'm a terrible procrastinator, and still fairly inexperienced in many things. But lists are good. They keep me focused.

So here we go, my crafty little to do list:

1. Create at least one each of knitted and crocheted full sweater patterns. (In other words, not a bolero, not a shrug, not a shell... a sweater.)

2. Learn to do intarsia and complete one satisfactory item in this technique.

3. Learn to do fair isle and complete one satisfactory item in this technique.

4. Knit at least ONE of my many fashion deconstructions.

5. Crochet a doiley with thread.

6. Knit something in lace. Real lace, with laceweight yarn.

7. Make a simple loom and weave a scarf.

That's it for now. I'll keep you posted. :)

Life's Little To Do List

2006-09-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

I snatched this from the CrochetMe Blog this morning and I'm going to waste some time with it now.

Things I've done are bolded:

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain (It was just a small one, though)
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said 'I love you' and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game (Royals vs White Sox)
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby's diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne (First time I ever got drunk!)
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen an eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer (Oh, you mean like now?)
40. Visited all 10 provinces or all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk (And been taken care of...)
42. Had amazing friends (See above)
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales (Does it count if I don't remember it?)
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe (I feel inclined to bold this, even though I actually backpacked for only a day into the Netherlands from Germany and back...)
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger's table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your cds
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Posed nude in front of strangers
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater (Saw Wrath of Khan!)
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken (So far so good)
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for 6 hours straight (At least a dozen times)
72. Gotten married (Twice)
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced (Only once)
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake Dead River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Had a one-night stand
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in aisles at Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Created and named your own constellation of stars
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking And once, the person who was looking at me was singing the same song. :D
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an illness that you shouldn't have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Petted a stingray
110. Broken someone's heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Petted a cockroach (Hsss)
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes My mother's recipe is Da Bomb
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you're living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn't know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146: Dyed your hair
147: Been a DJ
148: Shaved your head
149: Caused a car accident
150: Saved someone's life

Stash Mathematics

2006-09-07T21:11:00.000-07:00

There's a rule that says for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction, and one of the best places to see this rule in action is in my stash. (Or so it seems.) Just as soon as some stash goes out the door, more comes in. Today, I spent $10 at the Goodwill, and here's what I got:

Some lovely Pingouin (I'm never sure how that's spelled) Cotton de Fleur, which is a baby pink cotton pompadour.

A bunch of Reynolds Voulet, which is what looks to be a sock weight rayon chenille, and is in a color I can't abide, but it's a nice yarn, so maybe someone else will want it. (Also with this yarn was a LARGE home-wound center-pull skein of a matching heathered mustard yellow synthetic. I don't like it either, but it does match the chenille.)

And... one pair of 14" size 0 bamboo needles, a 29" size 10.5 aluminum circular and 24" and 29" size 2 vintage steel circs with steel cables, and their little envelope. (I really love the steel circs, but then I also love steel straight needles. Weird, huh? I've heard they're tough on the hands, but oh well.)

I LOVE vintage yarn!! The cotton/rayon Pingouin is really lovely and soft. And I think there's enough there for a little sweater. The chenille is so... odd, because chenille socks seem like a bad idea, but who knows, it says it's "ideal for crochet" so maybe there's something cool to be done with it. And the needles, well... can't have too many needles!!

In other news, I've progressed another 2" on my bag, and have made the absolute determination that my plan will be altered to include much less endless grey knitting.

The Psychology of Yarn

2006-09-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

I have progressed from 1" to 6" of completed stockinette for my bag. The Lopi is fairly easy to work with, but my fingers don't like the scratch, my wrists don't like the circulars, and I'll be damned if my brain just doesn't like the grey. Grey... endless loops and loops of dark grey, such a mundane color that I could be knitting miles of dog hair, my hair, blood, sweat and tears into this thing, and you'd never know it to look at it. I can envision what this bag will look like when it is finished, hanging from my shoulder as I smugly take note of the covetous glances of all the young emo things at the coffee house. This is what keeps me knitting without losing the last grip of sanity that remains to my embittered husk of almost-30 resentment.

No, that is the grey talking. I'm not embittered. I'm not a husk. I AM almost 30, but I certainly don't resent it, considering the alternative, which would be to not have made it this far. I'd considered stopping where I was and frogging, making it narrower, but A) once felted, I might wind up with a too-small bag, and I'd rather have a bag that was larger than I intended, and B) I'd have to knit this 100 square inches of grey all over again. I'd also considered stopping where I was and frogging, and then making it in black and white instead of grey and white but A) I think it will look stellar in grey and white, and B) I don't have the money to buy black yarn, especially since I might have to then also buy white yarn of the same gauge and overall makeup, so's it wouldn't felt funny.

So I'm sorta stuck with the grey, aren't I? It's a sort of experiment in knitting sensory deprivation. I have faith that I will be rewarded with a bag I will enjoy, and I may be able to revise my original design plans to save me from total colorless meltdown, but it will be a long 10 more inches. In fact, I would go so far as to say that psychologically, this particular color of grey at least triples the actual length of anything knit with it.

Out with the good...

2006-08-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

The yarn auctions went very well, even considering that one lot didn't sell. To relist or not to relist, that is the question. Doesn't anyone have a military person in their lives they want to knit for? Ah well.

So, out with the... good yarn... uh... in with the also good yarn. I picked up a little "grab bag" for $0.99 at Goodwill today that had a full ball of Sugar and Cream (can always use another washcloth and the price is good just for that) in Delft Blue, which is a personal favorite, but also had a hank of lovely, bright jade green wool sock yarn by Candide Yarns, which I learned was bought by Reynolds some time ago.

Unfortunately, the hank is only 2 oz, which makes 57 grams, which makes 275 yds, and I haven't the foggiest what to do with it. I think I would call it laceweight, although I really am not one to know. I don't want to swatch it until I have a good idea of patterns to use, because I don't want to wind it up yet. I don't normally wear ankle socks, but I might MAKE some. I'd considered going for a toddler sock pattern, but my girl, like her father, gets sweaty feet, so I'm not sure the wool is really appropriate for her. So, can anyone recommend a good sock pattern that uses so little?

Meanwhile, this weekend I scrapped the baby sweater I was making. You know, I really don't like the Dreambaby yarn. Well, I DO like it... it knits up in a lovely, soft, small gauge. But I'm not feeling up to inventing a pattern for it, and I can't find any good ones for free. For as many people as claim to love that yarn, there sure aren't many free patterns available. Anyone recommend a good one?

This weekend I also started a project for myself, for once. I'm making myself a messenger-style tote out of some Reynolds Lopi I've had sitting about for a while now. (Please note that while I started this weekend, I first fiddled with the yarn for a good long while, and then haven't had time to work on it since...)

Very exciting, eh?

I always planned on knitting myself a felted bag out of it, but just hadn't gotten around to it, and now I'm really starting to need a new bag. So, I've got dark grey and white with grey bits. According to the color chart on Yarndex I think it's colors 58 and 54. The hanks were probably from the 70's, though, and I don't think the colors were listed the same. Anyway, I'm going to do a solid back in dark grey, a solid wide strap, a striped front in the dark and light and a dark grey flap with a dupliate stitch skull design on it in the white. (I could do it intarsia, but I don't wanna. I actually do want the raised effect of duplicate stitch. Plus, I don't wanna.) Since I have 2 big hanks of the dark and one of the white, I figured this would be best, but I actually have NO idea how far it will go, so I figure I've got enough of the white to do more than just the skull, and maybe not enough of the grey to do the whole bag and strap, so hence the stripes, which are piratey anyway.

And, just because I envy MYSELF this yarn buy, here's a pick of the lovely Cotton Top DK I picked up. All 12 skeins for $10, which is not as good a buy as I usually make at the goodwill, but is still great for this dreamy yarn.

Besides, after selling it's sister on Ebay, this yarn officially cost me nothing. *grin*

Inspire-along

2006-08-24T06:30:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this is my idea, and I'm going to post it here and link from Craftster hoping people will hop on board.

This is an inspire-along. Since I was going round about inspiration I was thinking of a way that we could, as a community of sorts, inspire each other in ways that might be unconventional for any one of us individually. So I propose an inspire-along, wherein any given person can post something that inspires them, and why, and "pass it on" to a friend or put it up for grabs. Whoever grabs it uses it as THEIR inspiration, and then posts something to inspire the next person. I want this to be a challenge, which is why I include the passing it on option. (You know, you PICK someone to be inspired by your inspiration.) I want people to look for inspiration in places they wouldn't do so ordinarily, and to see what comes out of that inspiration so we can really look at how the same thing will make two people go completely different directions.

The logistics of this idea probably mostly include blogs, but maybe also a thread at Craftster for those who are blogless. In any event, someone posts and either calls someone via their post (and maybe informs them in a comment at their own blog or privately some how) or says it's an open idea. Whoever is called replies in comments that they have their mission and takes it to their own blog, where they will then post their own idea for someone else to grab. If the person makes it an open idea, then the first person to "grab" it in comments is the next link in the chain and so on. Of course, anyone who gets inspired by any of the items should feel free to play along, but I would love to keep a sort of clear chain of evolution so we can all follow how it's really going. Recip. links to the projects you've inspired and that inspired you are a good idea too.

So what do you think? Anyone in? Anyone want to start it, or have better ideas for organizing?

Inspiration

2006-08-23T13:19:00.000-07:00

I was thinking today about inspiration... about posting at least one picture or link a week for something that inspires me in my fiberwork. Well, ok, I was thinking rather abstractly about inspiration and then decided I'd try to make a blog post once a week that was a piece of or collection of inspirational materials. Why? I'll tell you.

I was browsing the Dolce and Gabbana Fall 06 Ready-to-Wear line and saw LOTS of knits. LOTS. What struck me, though, was that a lot of those knits were so similar to stuff I'd seen on Craftster LAST fall and winter. So, the flow of creativity always interests me, and I think that a lot of people might have it backwards. They think that craftspeople take their inspiration from the big designers. Certainly this is true of folks who mostly knit patterns out of magazines and books, I suppose. But where do designers get their ispiration? I realize that designers are creative folks. It would be silly to try to deny it. But they aren't the origin of all that is stylish in fashion. They can't be because there's no such thing.

Ok, see... abstract. I warned you. But it left me wondering where I mostly get my inspirations. It can't be forgotten that I'm a fairly new knitter still, realistically. Ok, it's been almost two and a half years since I worked my first knit stitch, but my time is diversified enough that I don't feel like I've packed a lot of experience into that amount of time. I've still only finished a handful of items, really. So, I admit that I mostly get my inspiration from finished knitted items, things I can look at and get a feel for the construction, the process of the stitch pattern, etc. I still feel I'm in sort of an absorption state. The process to me is still the best part, so deconstruction really fascinates me. What makes me sad about that is that I really like being original. I don't really like using other peoples' patterns that much. I want to have inventive ideas. So taking my inspiration mostly from already finished items feels really limiting. But MAN do I learn a lot!! The most informative of my inspirational jaunts has me figuring row by row complicated stitch patterns, and that has really helped me SEE how lace and other things work. It's really very satisfying.

This is where you guys come in. (In just know there are some of you out there... *chirp chirp*... crickets can knit, can't they?) What inspires you? Is it color that really gets you? Texture? Shape? Fiber? Is it the process, like me? I've also been rolling around in my brain some sort of inspiration-along... Maybe something in the round. lol I think I'll post my idea on Craftster. But what I really want is some really good, interactive discussion about what is inspiring. And here's my shot for the day:

Anthropologie's Candy Floss Sweater
What do I like about it? Well, I do like the color, but... there's just something about the shape and the... I don't know exactly. I think it's pretty and sweet. I like the shape, with the wide, probably flattering ribbed waist and the gathering at both waist and neck. I like the scooped neckline and the length of the sleeves. I like the lacy stitch pattern, although, god help me, I'd never survive trying to figure it out. I like that it's a raglan. I REALLY like that.

Who's next?

Stash Cleaning means Auctions!

2006-08-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

That's right, my stash-cleaning means Ebay Auctions. I'm a vintage yarn hog. I buy it, and then I don't use it. That means that some lucky guy or gal out there is going to get to use it instead. Up for auction at the moment, we have the following:

9 full skeins of Reynolds Slique in purple. This is a cool yarn, you guys! It's a cotton/viscose blend thick 'n' thin that has one really soft, airy ply of cotton and one shiny ply of viscose.

8 full skeins of Brown Sheep Co. Cotton Top. I had to keep the 12 skeins of Cotton Top DK, but the worsted is going, though half-heartedly. It's a great 50/50 cotton wool blend, and it's by Brown Sheep Co., so, ya know, it's good stuff!!

6 full skeins of Jerol Super Saver DK in Air Force and Navy. A nice, high-quality acrylic in big, 100 gram balls. I kept thinking I would use it for one of my friends who are either in the military or married to someone who is, but I never got around to it.

6 full skeins of Peter Pan DK plus some. A nice, basic acrylic/nylon blend baby yarn in blue. It's Peter Pan, which is certainly one of the better-known baby yarn brands, and there's enough of it to do a sweater. Plus, there are two skeins of label-less yellow pompadour that looks like it's pretty nice yarn.

OK, so I'm using my blog for shameless plus, but I just know you guys want some more yarn!! I priced the stuff mostly according to what I paid for it, and I admit I'm in a tight spot money-wise since Cory only just finally found a job after over 2 months. (YIKES! Let me tell you!) Still, though, it's all good yarn, the lots are all large enough to do something with, in matched dye lots, and, well, I know you guys like stash as much as I do. *grin*

Over the weekend

2006-08-15T08:24:00.000-07:00

I did it. This weekend I went over to my mom's and we took photos. Photos of jewelry and photos of my hats. My submission for the mag will be going off tonight, with fingers crossed and as soon as mom can get me the rest of the pics (she ran out of blank CDs) I'll begin formatting a product system for Moirai, which is really exciting.

Meanwhile, last night I began a baby sweater for a friend in Australia, and it's turning out lovely so far, all 1.5" of the back... It's made of Dreambaby DK by plymouth, in sunflower yellow, and I am having to wing it, mostly. I don't have the money to buy one of Plymouth's patterns, even if I really liked any of them, which I don't, and I get a really odd gauge (26st per 4") that, it seems, is uncommon for most of the baby sweater patterns out there. (Part of that is because most of them are made with sport or baby yarn...) But the Dreambaby is butter soft and knits up so nicely, so I'm not complaining. I'm doing a 22" chest, so it'll be big enough to fit over other layers, and hopefully fit during the fall/winter season down under. I decided on seed stitch waist, cuffs and button band, just because I like it. It's a little boy's sweater, and I was tired of ribbing, but couldn't do lace, so seed stitch it is. Hope it works out.

Yay me!

2006-08-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

Ok, so, I found something to do! I'm creating a pattern for Crochetme. I'm working very hard, and it's looking very lovely, and I just can't wait! Plus, I've been making more jewelry, and by damn, I'm going to take pictures this weekend for the website. I WILL start selling stuff soon! And I've really got to get some auctions up for Two Sisters, too. Maybe this weekend I'll head out to the folks' place and dig Madame Thenardier out of the pole barn. She can model some clothes, and I'll see if mom has any stuff she want's photographed, and we can just really dig in and get some pics taken. I'm po', I need to get some of this stuff sold!!

Real Bitch?

2006-08-02T07:32:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I expressed the fact that I was feeling like a real bitch. I have since discovered that even on my worst day I am nothing compared to some other people. Yesterday I was insulted and verbally abused by a complete stranger, whom I had talked to for a total of 5 minutes and only in an attempt to be as helpful as possible. She stopped me in mid sentence with "God, just stop talking, just shut your mouth," and then went on an angry, spiteful tirade wherein SHE accused ME of just talking and talking without ever listening or allowing her to speak. When she paused for a breath, I explained that I was not in dispatch and therefore was not the appropriate person to answer her questions, to which she responded that I was the stupidest person she had talked to all week, that she didn't know how I even managed to get through my days, and that she didn't care WHO I was, or what position I had with this company, she wanted me to just shut up and listen, and then answer her questions. There simply is no talking to this kind of person, I've discovered. I have never actually come in contact with someone who was so immediately hostile.

By the end of the day, both my coworkers and I had each had to talk to her several times apiece. She had me so full of adrenaline that I thought I would actually be sick when I came down. The guy who booked the move got so upset that he was one step below yelling at her, and my boss almost cancelled the move because this woman was so abusive... to EVERYONE. The guys who were actually out loading her fiance's belongings (that's right, it isn't even her move...) came back to tell us that she had insisted on getting the phone number of our boss in Omaha, because the only explanation why I am so stupid is that I must be on drugs, and she intends to demand that I be tested.

So, folks, on any given day that I don't make a blog post, you can be assured it is because I am either standing in a corner wondering dully how to get out since I don't see any doors directly in my line of sight, and after all, I'm really too stupid to be able to survive a day all the way through on my own, or I'm in a drugged stupor somewhere, drooling on my ill-kempt clothes (too dumb to work the washing machine, you know) and giggling every once in a while in a slow, incoherent wheeze.

A Real Bitch

2006-07-31T07:03:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling like a real bitch today. *evil grin* Don't know why. Maybe it's that test from a week or two ago. In any case, I sniped another quiz from the person with the evil-ometer and once again I think the results would piss her off. :D

What do I do now?

2006-07-24T12:35:00.000-07:00

All right, the Relay for Life is done. What do I do now? I don't have any specific reason to craft until the holidays. You know what that means? It means I should get in gear taking pics of the rather surprising number of jewelry items I have completed, and the hats I have crocheted, and... Now that I have stock, I should be listing it. This is an important part of having a business.

In other news, last night I dropped my daughter off with my parents and she left on a trip with them this morning. While at my folks' last night, I crocheted her a little hat in burgundy cotton, that should match the jacket I bought for her, and it's sort of shaped like a bucket hat, except it's made with shell stitch... it's really, really cute. I'm going to have mom take pics of little bit out in Utah in the hat, so you all can see how aderble she is. :D

I'd rather be crafting

2006-07-19T07:48:00.000-07:00

And I would, too. This weekend is the Relay for Life, and I've been thinking I had plenty of time to get these hats made, only now I don't, so I may fall well short of my goal. This is not a huge deal, I suspect. However, I am at work today, and have a ton of stuff to do here, but still feel that my time would be MUCH better spent crocheting than this mundane stuff. I'd really rather be crafting.

In related news, I crocheted none at all last night because we took my daughter to the swimming pool at her aunt's apartment complex, and she swam in a BIG pool for the first time. She really loved it, except she doesn't want to put her face in the water and hasn't figured out how to hold her breath really. (Although, she HAS figured out not to breath underwater...) For a girl who'd never been in water more than a foot deep, she did phenominally well, though, already kicking and paddling and floating and all. This is related to crafting only in so far as that it totally distracted me from it.

Maybe I'll try to do these invoices really fast this morning, and then sneak my crocheting in for the lunch hour.. and then just never stop...

A quiz!

2006-07-13T07:18:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is a lame quiz. It says I'm pure evil. This surprises me. (It must be because I'm currently using Internet Explorer...) What surprises me more is that the person from who's blog I clicked to this quiz came out "twisted" which I'm sure pleased her, but me coming out more evil probably would not. This gives me some amount of satisfaction even if I don't think I'm pure evil. :D

How evil are you?

This is July

2006-07-10T06:59:00.000-07:00

Just in case you were not already aware of it. In fact, it's damn near the middle of July already. What this means for all of us is that the year is more than half over but the heat of summer has not yet begun defile...whatever. (<--gratuitous Doc Holliday reference.) What it means for me is that I have two more weeks of crafting before Lidz for Liz goes live at the Relay for Life.

I'll take (and post) pics of the hats I've got done so far, which is is a little bit depressing, actually, but my goal is around 20 and I've still got two WHOLE WEEKS, after all... I made up a crochet pattern for a really cute shell-stitch cloche out of regular ol' worsted weight cotton. (I made mine out of Lily Sugar 'n' Cream, and it took less than one ball.) I'll be posting that pattern on Moirai. Now I'm working on a pattern for ANOTHER shell-stitch cloche, only in different shell stitch, and I'll probably be done by this evening.

Meanwhile, I'm crossing my fingers the knit hat I've got going will be the right size, but I fear, all swatching aside, that it will be too small. I do not know how this is possible, as the stitches are coming out the same gauge as my swatch, and I know there are plenty of them, but for some reason, it just looks like it will be way too small. I suspect that it might have something to do with being on the dpns, and plan on putting it on some waste yarn and trying it on just to see. But I may just scrap it. Because, you know what? I don't like knitting small things in the round. I'm not good at it yet. And I don't want to knit any hats flat and put a seam in, because these things are meant for cancer patients, and I just don't think a seam will be the pinacle of comfort. Of course, if I made up a few quickies with seams, they might sell to non-patients just as fund-raiser. We'll see how pressed for time I get and what kind of yarns I find to work with.

I have a few other ideas floating around that I'm working with my mom on, that could be really cool. Heehee... but it's a surprise.

On Hardwood Floors

2006-06-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while since my last post. I have been participating in a Craftster Vampire swap, and will post pics of the stuff I got tonight when I get home. Very cool... it's a vampire-hunting kit from Gothmom. Kit was very interested in it, until she smelled the garlic. Now whenever I ask her about it she just says, "I don't want to play dressup with that, mom." Who knew the girl would dislike garlic so much. Meanwhile, I can't post pics of what I sent until I know my partner received them.

On other crafty fronts, I am working away at hats for Lidz for Liz at the Relay for Life next month. I've really got to get to cranking them out. I'm thinking about putting buttons on some and then selling little ornaments that can button on, so the button itself is a decoration, but you can also add flowers and other things. We'll have to see. Great stashbusting project. And boy have I got stash...

I bought a bag of yarn at the Goodwill.. a trashbag of yarn. A huge, huge bag of yarn, nestled into the middle of which was four beautiful balls of mohair in bright teal. It also had a bunch of Red Heart and Homespun, some baby pompadour, five balls of Jarol DK, five of Peter Pan Baby DK, 9 of a beautiful vintage cotton blend yarn called Slique by Reynolds, some cotton yarn and its all just lovely. Even the cheap yarn will make good blankets and stuff to donate or give as gifts. I'm just really looking forward to working through it all.

In other news, my husband has lost his job due to managerial stupidity, and has caused me to coin a new phrase: Idle husbands are the devil's plaything. He called me at work yesterday... "I got bored." Ok, I'm thinking... what, did you get bored and cut off your eyebrows, or dig up the back yard, or break the computer, or what? No, ladies and gentlemen, he got bored and started moving things. And then he decided that if he was going to move everything, he should also tear up the carpet to reveal the lovely hardwood floor beneath. And that is exactly what happened at 2:00 yesterday afternoon. And continued to happen until about midnight last night. And probably some today too. And tonight. Our house is a complete disaster area because my husband, being a GUY, did not put clutter away before he moved furniture, he just set the clutter aside a bit. So, last night I spent most of the evening going through clutter and putting things away on new shelves in the basement, just hoping to be able to reach my bedroom by sleepy-time. My entire craft stash is being moved downstairs except for the small amount I've secured in the bedroom, and the new arrangement of living room furniture doesn't allow for any overflow. I'll barely have a place to put a WIP, let alone more than one, so the stash must stay sequestered or I'll have problems moving about. Still, the wood floors are a beautiful, refreshing change from the filthy carpet, and the new arrangement allows for my dinette set to be used as a table instead of a computer desk, which will be better for my dinners AND my wrists, and since that vintage 1960's dinette set is my one true source of pride amongst my personal belongings, it will be nice to show it off again. (And be able to play cards inside...) But I will miss communing with my stash regularly.

Oh My Goodness

2006-06-09T07:35:00.000-07:00

I'm having trouble breathing. I feel so freakin' strangled with all the stuff that I've been doing that I wouldn't be surprised to see my own head sitting across the way a bit, watching me run around with it cut off.

Garage sale last weekend, made a little money. Not too bad. But lots of work. Katie is in town, played with her, visited with friends, etc. Jen left end of last week, and visited with her as much as I could... It's been a little crazy, and stressful, and kinda fun, but I'll be glad when my life settles back into a more subdued rhythm. And a friend in Australia just had a baby boy, so I've got to get my knitting needles out again. They've spent far too much time in a case. Oh, and I need to get black crochet thread to do some cool church linens for the Vampire swap I'm in. :D Hello SnB, here I come! Phew. I'm just... tired with my own social life! That's sad, huh?

More wenching, more crafting

2006-05-30T06:38:00.000-07:00

Lessee, what did I do this weekend? Well, on Friday I Stitch n Bitched at Holly's house, where I finished a black velvet and studded display piece. I also made a second, not identical version of the "favorite earrings". And before I went to her house, I stopped at the Goodwill and found a ring belt and a tankard of my very own, so that was a lucky trip. Saturdday, I didn't do anything. OK, that's not true. I did some stuff. But mostly I was lazy and played with my daughter. Sunday, it was over to Mom and Dad's to Stitch n Bitch with mom and Jen, and I might have a new skirt soon. Then yesterday, I was a boothie again. Sold $14 worth of ear cuffs this weekend, and one pair of earrings to Titania, the queen of the fairies, that may lead to a commission for sterling silver fairy crowns. We'll see. Today, I'm tired and sore, though fortunately not sunburnt, and still have glitter on me that I couldn't wash off this morning. But I'm feeling happy. Good grief, I need a rest, but I won't get one. Katie got into town yesterday, Jen leaves Thursday, and I have a garage sale this weekend. Oh, for the lazy days of winter...

Official Wench

2006-05-25T06:31:00.000-07:00

I am no longer a Ren Faire Virgin. Well, I mean, from the vendor side of things. I lost my ren faire virginity when I was 15... That's a tale for another time. (There were pirates...) Anyway, I helped Holly at her booth at the James Arthur Vineyards Renaissance Festival last weekend, and this weekend coming up will see me for at least a day in Omaha at the Nebraska Renaissance Faire. Holly's business, Tinne Lune, sells all kinds of cool stuff, including some of MY stuff, now. I'm also working on their site, but the Scrapdragons site is going somewhat more slowly than I expected. (It takes me at least a half-hour per individual piece to color-adjust, crop and resize the needed pictures, add the time to upload and configure each piece's page...) But I got to talk to Kendra and Troy from Scrapdragons while at the ren faire, and they are really happy with the way things are shaping up. So, excellent.

I took some much needed time off last night to craft for my own sake. I worked on my miniature ferragamo bag. Then I'll have to find a Blythe who wants one. I had to do a little frogging last night, which is irritating, especially when I made up the first side without taking notes, then immediately started on the second side, but set it aside after the first set of repeats, and then promptly forgot exactly how I was doing it, so I had to closely inspect the piece already finished to figure out where I made my increases, which row had the yo's and which had the drop stitches, etc. But I got it figured out and have less than one full set of repeats to finish, then it's sew that puppy up and figure out a handle. Meanwhile, tonight I'll be working on a small blue hackey sack for Holly to give to her friend tomorrow morning.

Jen gets home from Canada on Saturday, and I can't wait to do kitschy crafting with her for the Craftster Challenge #12. But I have a problem: Two great kitschy ideas, one using loom loopers, pipe cleaners and pompoms, the other using easter grass, pipe cleaners and pompoms plus some other stuff. I think the loom loopers project would be less messy to make and potentially more sophisticated upon completion, but the easter grass one might be more fun. Down and dirty fun. Maybe I'll make them both and then have my own personal regional competition to determine which will be sent to the challenge. Or maybe my sister will somehow magically lack ideas (yeah right) and will use one of mine. Or... MAYBE, I can talk Mom into entering kitschy craft fun! I can't wait to craft with my sister. Speaking of whom, I need to make a few phone calls. :D Later.

The White Rabbit

2006-05-15T05:50:00.000-07:00

That is a little what I feel like. This weekend is the JAV ren faire, and I'm excited to get some stuff in a booth and see how it does. But meanwhile, I've been sort of frantic working on the Scrapdragons website, getting jewelry made, making sure my garb is complete (speaking of which, I still want to find a belt, make a bag and get a tankard...) and I've been guiltily thinking how we may not have hairsticks and buncovers this year. Well, we'll have what we have.

Also, to eat away idle hours at work between storms of papers, I've... well... I'm a geek. It's OK, though, because I know this about myself. (In fact, I'm sitting just short of "Geek God" on the Geek Test, and frankly, I intend to hit that mark by 2007.) It's totally different being a hot girl geek. :D But what prompted this admission? I joined Neopets. Yeah, I know. I have some lovely pets, though.


Brellowe the Xweetok	Lothruin the Uni	Vilcha the Lupe	Woollama the Gnorbu

Woollama is my knitting Neopet! :D She's blue. Wouldn't that be fun?

Overdue Update

2006-05-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been crafting along. Spent a day two Sunday's ago crafting at my mom's house with my Aunt Marge. She's going to send some of my jewelry to a boutique in Nashville. Keep your eye on the new country music videos to see if you spot them. :D Let's see... spent Thursday crafting at Holly's, spent Friday crafting with Fay and Holly, mostly at Fay's house. Got a new bodice, new skirt, new chemise, and looked positively fabulous (and skinny... Whee!!) at the Scottish Party on Saturday. Sort of wish I'd stayed longer, but mostly wish I'd been there in the morning, however there is no way I would have gotten up at a reasonable hour regardless, so I suppose it's all good. Still waiting to see either Nick or Holly online to see whether everyone survived in moderately good condition. I've gotten a few more pieces of modern maile done. Excited to see how it goes at the JAV ren fair. Meanwhile:

Modern, Cool Nerd
82 % Nerd, 69% Geek, 21% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

Congratulations!

Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you're interested in any of the following:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Professional Wrestling

Love & Sexuality

America/Politics

Thanks Again! -- THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on nerdiness

You scored higher than 99% on geekosity

You scored higher than 99% on dork points

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

A Dreary Friday

2006-04-28T07:06:00.000-07:00

I'm at work. And guess what... I'M. BORED. !!

What poisonous plant are you?

You are WISTERIA! Such lovely blooms, such a beautiful fragrance. Such severe vomiting...
Take this quiz!

Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

A Duh Moment

2006-04-27T07:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, when I posted my non-knitting craftiness, I totally forgot about my totally cool knitting news! I got to go to a book signing here in town for Debbie Stoller's new Happy Hooker book! Sis wasn't back in town yet, so I had to go alone, but I got us each a paperback copy of the book, signed. As it happens, I also stopped at the Goodwill two doors down from the bookstore just before the book signing and found a bagful of great vintage yarns. So, happy yarn, happy hooker, happy me! Ms. Stoller was a lot of fun to listen to, and I'm excited about several of the patterns (particularly the bag patterns) in the book. I've been salivating over some of the FO's I've seen at Craftster, but waited on the book for some reason, and when I found out she was doing a book signing here in town, I knew that it was kismet at work. It was all very exciting. I'm lame, I know.

A Ring and other things

2006-04-26T07:17:00.000-07:00

OK, well, this is supposed to be a "knitting" blog, right? Well, I haven't really been knitting, and I don't have pics of the stuff I've been busily crocheting. But really, I haven't been doing a great deal of either, since I've been making jewelry and garb for helping Holly booth at Ren Faires this season. Especially for the James Arthur Vinyard festival, I think I'll be cheating on jewelry. By cheating I mean making things using techniques typically associated with renny type stuff, but with a modern flair. Here's an example:

The ring is made from 28 gauge pure silver wire. The beads are actually a really pretty lavender color, but the subtle iridescense made them look somewhat brownish in the pics. The wire is woven and then bent into a ring. The cluster is used to close the ring together and keep it stable. I really like how it turned out. Other examples of things I'm doing include the items I'm calling (to myself, anyway) "Bit o' Byzantine" which is really too cheesy to say out loud to the world, but there ya go. They are single repeats of Byzantine (also called Estruscan) chain work, suspended from necklaces, bracelets or earrings with modern elements. Or, the chandelier-style earrings made from a modified japanese 6-in-1 chain mail weave. Each piece gives you some old and some new, and they're turning out very pleasing, from my point of view. I'll post more pics when I get some.

Another Timewaster

2006-04-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

This is a quiz that is probably way more information than any crafty buddy might want to know. But I don't care. :D It is simply here to take up space until I can post pictures of the recent experimentation with wire weaving, which is really fun, and I like it a lot!

The Rules:
1. You can only say YES or NO!
2. You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone comments to the entry and asks

Taken a picture naked? yes
Made out with a member of the same sex? yes
Danced in front of your mirror? yes
Told a lie? yes
Gotten in a car with people you just met? yes
Been in a fist fight? yes
Had feelings for someone who didn't have them back? yes
Been arrested? yes
Left your house without telling your parents? yes
Ditched school to do something more fun? yes
Slept in a bed with a member of the same sex? yes
Seen someone die? no
Kissed a picture? yes
Slept in until 3? yes
Laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by? yes
Played dress up? yes
Fallen asleep at work/school? yes
Felt an earthquake? no
Touched a snake? yes
Ran a red light? yes
Had detention? no
Been in a car accident? yes
Pole danced? no
Been lost? yes
Sang karaoke? yes
Done something you told yourself you wouldn't? yes
Laughed until something you were drinking came out your nose? yes
Caught a snowflake on your tongue? yes
Kissed in the rain? yes
Sang in the shower? yes
Got your tongue stuck to a pole? no
Ever gone to school partially naked? no
Sat on a roof top? yes
Played chicken? yes
Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? yes
Been told you're hot by a complete stranger? yes
Broken a bone? yes
Mooned/flashed someone? yes
Forgotten someone's name? yes
Slept naked? yes
Blacked out from drinking? yes
Played a prank on someone? yes
Felt like killing someone? no
Made a parent cry? yes
Cried over someone? yes
Had sex more than 5 times in one day? yes
Had/Have a dog? yes
Been in a band? yes
Drank 25 sodas in a day? yes
Shot a gun? yes

Timewaster

2006-04-20T19:14:00.000-07:00

I found this at Sally Sue's Blog. (Isn't her Rose of Sharon pretty?) So, here's how it works. Copy and paste the list, then bold the titles you've read. Add four recent reads to the bottom of the list (be sure to bold those too!) and then tag someone. Or someone's, if you have more blogging friends than I do.

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter 6) - J.K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller TBR (I read part of it)
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) - J.K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) - J.K. Rowling
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter 5) - J.K. Rowling
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Book 1) - J.K. Rowling
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) - J.K. Rowling
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Ender's Game (The Ender Saga) - Orson Scott Card *
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde
Holy Fools - Joanne Harris
The Browning Version - Terence Rattigan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
Black Water - Joyce Carol Oates
The Giver - Lois Lowry
Naked - David Sedaris
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Wicked - Gregory Maguire
Crown of Swords (Wheel of TIme book 7) - Robert Jordan
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
Secretary of Frivolous Affairs - May Futrelle **

And I tag Holly and Alison.

Truth be told, if I'd listed the last four books I'd read, then it would say books 7, 6, 5 and 4 of the Wheel of Time series, but that hardly seemed very cool. Anyway, all of those are this year's fair, so they count, right? And yes I added footnotes. That's what those asterisks are all about...

*Since it specifically mentions the saga as well as just Ender's Game I figured I'd mention I've actually read the first four of the saga, plus Ender's Shadow, which is a book in a related series, called the Shadow Saga, about the same characters, but with different focus.

**I doubt anyone but I will have read Secretary of Frivolous Affairs. It was published in 1911, the copy I have is first edition and I found it at a thrift store recently in a cache of antique books. (I LOVE antique books!) After buying as many of them as I could carry, the oldest inscribed in 1899, the newest inscribed in 1935, I brought them home to research the authors. In addition to it's saucy title (and title page illustration!) the May Futrelle book caught my attention because May Futrelle, a noted author of the day, was a survivor of the Titanic. Her husband, too whom the book is dedicated, just a year before the disaster, went down with the ship. It's a lovely book, by the way.