Piscina Mea: My Fishpond

Box of Happiness

2012-01-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I posted a very long-winded post about using a $50 Knitpicks gift card. Well that post took me a while to write. Long enough in fact that I placed the order last Friday, the 20th, and well my package was delivered on Wednesday the 25th! Ok, so I suppose its not just that my blog writing and posting is slow but also that Knitpicks is super fast - hooray for that.

Here is my box off happiness:

Thanks to the holiday generosity of my Aunt and Uncle it cost me $1.13. That rocks. The split ring stitch markers there were a $2 addition that got me the free shipping. And really one can never have enough stitch markers, right?

This book and skeins are destined to be Christmas presents for next year. I am all kinds of ahead of schedule...it's pretty doubtful that the trend will continue. I spent a bit of time paging through the book and read most of the intro. I am way more excited than I even realized I would be. The history that Nancy Bush includes has just completely drawn me in and makes me so much more excited for the patterns and techniques. And now I'm even second guessing my original pattern choice. There is a good possibility that I'll choose two different patterns. But then I would have to decide who gets what and well how on earth could I manage to decide? Maybe I'll gift them but say they should share :-)

And well the yarn of course. Oh my is this wonderful yarn. It was hard to capture the colors, but then even in real life colors will change depending on the light. In person they are much darker but still have a beautiful sheen. The alpaca is super amazing soft and lends a very light halo. And holy moly is the stuff thin. I thought that my cone from colourmart was particularly thin, but this Alpaca Cloud is only maybe a hair thicker. It's hard to believe that I'll be able to knit up a whole scarf from skeins that really are quite petite. But that's the magic of lightweight yarn and lace patterns I suppose. I suspect that the hardest part of working with these yarns is going to be not plastering these projects all over the place and spoiling the surprise for my giftees.

Lastly we have my wonderful happy-inducing splurge on self yarn. Yup, it's colorful. But I knew that, what most took me by surprise was how amazing soft this yarn is. I think during the ordering process I was do distracted obsessing about which color(s) to choose that I lost sight of fiber content. Luckily early on in the process I had narrowed in on the 25% alpaca in the Imagination sock yarn. It is soft and squishy and colorful and as such quite wonderful. I immediately (well after the photo-shoot and eating dinner) had to wind one of the skeins into a ball and start working up a little swatch. As I suspected the project is going to be quite super saturated. And the stretches of color are all shorter than might be my ideal, but I am still going to love this project.

And rather off topic, but many many thanks to all who commented and encouraged me last week. On a wave of enthusiasm from your input one of my goals this week is to finish processing the rest of the fiber to prepare for the marled yarn with Max fiber.

Thanks for visiting! Be sure and check out the rest of the Fiber Arts Friday blogs.

What to get

2012-01-26T18:00:00.000-05:00

For Christmas my Aunt and Uncle gave me a $50 Gift Certificate to Knitpicks. It turns out that my Aunt asked my Mother what I wanted. And Mother, having found and read by blog had seen the wishlist I posted about when I was plugging the Knitpicks contest. But anyways it is totally like an amazing awesome gift and I have been thinking about it since the evening I received the code in my inbox.

My first solid plan was to buy the yarn to knit up these amazing Penguin Socks. These suckers are actually what first drew me to knitpicks. It was a few years ago and for some reason my parents had received a knitpicks catalog in the mail. I think it had these super cute guys on the cover, or maybe they just decided to keep it and give it to me when I came home/visited. They had a whole little kit you could buy of the yarns needed for the project if memory serves. I drooled over everything but at the time sock knitting still seemed way out of my league, plus I'm totally cheap. So I just tucked it away in my memory. And at some point along the line when I was on ravelry I found it and added it to my (large) project queue to make sure I would remember it. This winter I actually came *this* close to offering these socks as a gift to my friends, but the weird IOU-ness of having custom socks when I didn't know the recipient (we were doing a Pollyanna) made me decide against the idea in the end. However before it was rejected I had already purchased the book. So now all I needed was the yarn. I spent a good bit of time debating over which yarn/colors to choose. Palette had more colors available but I liked that the Stroll Sock Yarn was super-wash and so I added the yarns to my online shopping cart.

In browsing I had completely fallen in love with pretty much all of the luxury yarns Knitpicks carries: Alpaca, Angora, Cashmere, no matter the flavor if it sounds soft I will drool over it. I wasn't quite sure what to make however. But then I feel in love with a beautiful delicate lace pattern on ravelry that I thought would be perfect for my Mother and or Aunt. Now over the holiday's I learned that they've both read the blog so I don't want to spoil the surprise but I found a perfect lace alpaca blend that seemed just divine. Plus I was being super good and thinking about and planning to start my Christmas knitting super early.

Knitpicks has free shipping at $50 so, of course, I must hit something just above that value. My cart needed more stuff.

After seeing it on someone else's blog I had absolutely fallen in love with the Peerie Flooers Hat. And having somewhat recently become comfortable (and dare I say good) at stranded knitting I thought it would be a super fun project. Plus I had some left over palette finger colors from the tiny Christmas ornament knitting I had been doing. So I set about choosing the other colors I needed for the project. But in doing so I was perusing all of the other projects on Ravelry and completely fell in love with the idea of using a different color palate. So I went about drooling over all of those possibilities and spent lots of time excruciating (did you know that excrutiated is not a word? well at least not one I can manage to spell. weird) over finding the perfect colors. As much as I love online shopping this is where it really let me down. There was really no way to know how perfectly the colors would work together firstly because my monitor could be showing something different and then secondly because it's yarn and the dye lot could be different.

In the midst of all that color planning I realized that since the pattern I needed for the lace alpaca scarves was from a book, Knitted Lace of Estonia, so well maybe I could use a Barnes & Noble gift certificate (also a gift) to purchase that. They had the book but before I ordered I realized that so did Knitpicks! Plus the Knitpicks version included a DVD and was a few dollars cheaper.

Well adding that to my shopping cart just messed up my whole plan entirely. After much deliberation I realized that I just wasn't nearly so enthralled with knitting the Penguin socks as I had once been. Many other projects seemed more appealing. So out of the cart they came.

And then to really shake things up instead of Peerie Flooers I had the brilliant (crazy) idea to make a different hat from the same designer. Originally made from all different shades of sheep I could blend up my own shades of alpaca! And possibly even come up with my own alpaca charts. Crazy, but awesome. And it requires no more purchasing. Out of the cart came all of the yarns for the hat.

Now I was left with another $20 burning a hole in my pocket. So I ended up thinking about more of my linen stitch scarves. On numerous occasions I had contemplated how some of their sock yarns would look knit up in one of those marvelously colored scarves. But I was already planning two spinning project ideas to be knit up in the same pattern so it seemed like over kill.

But the more I thought about it the more I convinced myself that it was ok. This was my Christmas Present after all. Why not go ahead and splurge (ok ignore the fact that all of this is splurging really) and just do whatever I want. After a good bit more excruciating over color options I settled upon the crazy wild and bright Over the Rainbow which was in a luscious sounding 50% Merino Wool 25% Superfine Alpaca, 25% Nylon blend. The colors are super wild and I'm worried that the whole scarf will just be too super saturated and not look that great. But then when its cold and I'm bundling up in a scarf I really will need something bright and festive to warm me inside and out. So it'll be good.

All very very good.

Weekly Goals, 1/23

2012-01-24T18:00:00.000-05:00

Having taken a bunch of "down-time" around Christmas I've started to actually miss all of my assigned tasks that were ever-present this fall/early spring. I am the type of person who is most fulfilled when I can see results and accomplish things. But at the same time I don't want to completely overwhelm myself. So I think I'm going to try and set myself 5 objectives for each week. The number may ebb or flow depending on the projects, my time, and deadlines but it seems like 5 should be a reasonable accomplishment with out being overbearing. Plus there's always sure to be side projects that maybe I'll count towards bonus points :-)

1. Finish 1.5 Special Olympics scarves - I've established a deadline for my knitting group of February 7th (our first February meeting) and I'll want to get them all out in the mail ASAP after that. When I last checked I think I had 1.5 or so balls of each color remaining and I want to use the stuff up!

2. Prep all fiber for Marled Yarn - All of the encouraging comments on Friday helped solidify my love of the project and even gave me enough faith to go ahead with the colors as is. There is actually not that much prep that needs to be done. I finished flicking out the last of the colored locks yesterday and started washing up already pulled Max roving. So I just need to finish washing the Max (and flick and hackle more if needed) and then use the hackle to pull the colored locks into roving as well.

3. Knit 2nd "Quick and Easy" Sock - These suckers really are super quick and super easy, got the idea/pattern from the Yarn Harlot, but I'm not very happy with the fit of #1 so I've been slow to knit #2. There's really no reason that I actually need to force this project except to say that it's done and make my piece with it all.

It's the knitting that goes on and on and on and on...

4. Sew convertible wallet to tote bag - I made a bunch of these around Christmas. It was pretty crazy challenging (the highlight was literally pinning the thing to my finger) but I loved the product so much that I managed to suffer through 5. They were all given as gifts however which means that when my co-worker thinks she has someone who would like to buy some I need to make myself a sample to show off.

5. Finish flower chart repeats on shawl - Well, actually, only if there are less than 2 repeats to go. This thing is epic at this point and it takes like an hour to complete a front row (maybe 30 for purling down the back). But I would really love to see this sucker finished by March maybe?

Marled Yarn

2012-01-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

All four colors after some prep (flicking).

Way back in September I purchased a pile of raw dyed alpaca from Alpacas of York at Knitters Day Out. I purchased without intention just because I loved the colors, and the price was good. But I really like to have fiber/yarn with intention so I quickly, I think I was still at KDO, came up with the perfect idea for the fiber.

The doomed swatch. I had already started frogging when I
remembered to take a picture.

I wanted to spin it up so that each of the 4 colors was still distinct but knit it up into a linen stitch scarf where all of the colors would blend together (like the Koigu Linen Stitch Scarves on Ravelry). I even went so far as to spin and knit up a swatch. Two swatches actually as sometime late fall or early winter I made some adjustments and spin and half knit myself up a second swatch.

Now coming off of the holiday maddness I am thinking about the project again. So I, finally, finished swatch #2. I was happy with it and weighed it to see approximately what gauge I was getting vs. the amount of fiber. DOOM. My not terribly large swatch was nearly half an ounce and I only have around 5 ounces of fiber. The maths would not work.

So I spent a few days rather sadly contemplating the state of things and unsure of quite what to do. And then at some point it came to me....a while back I remembered reading an article about creating marled yarns as a way to stretch dyed roving on the knitty blog. Perfect!

Now in the blog she talks a good bit about which color to choose. Being as I don't have that much of a fiber stash I just went with my good ol' Max fiber which is virtually never-ending around here. Plus the chocolate brown worked well with the rich muted colors.

Marled Yarn, pre-wash.

Unwilling to sacrifice any more of the fiber to swatching I rather crazily managed to un-spin the last swatch back into a single. I then re-spun the single to make sure the twist was still ok. This resulted in some rather funky yarn but for testing purposes I decided that was acceptable. Once I had enough Max spun up I plied the two together.

Almost all of my crafting these days is done at night while it is dark out by the lamps of my living room. In that relatively poor light I was rather worried about the yarn. Everything just seemed overly dark and muddied together, except of course the yellow which was high contrast. But I finished up the sample washed it and hung it to dry over night. [I've taken to hanging/laying things out over the top of the furnace in the basement, best drying method ever.]

The next morning I found that I was much happier with the yarn in the daylight. I had to be out of the office over lunch to sell tickets and whenever those days come I like to take a good craft project. My swatch was perfect for this. So over the next two days I knit up the new swatch in between selling tickets and answering questions.

Swatch - take 3.

I really am surprised how much I love the next fabric. The way the colors pop on the solid brown background just seems like such fun. Although I'm a bit worried that some of the colors, especially the green, fade into the brown a bit too much.

Now, as I finish prepping the rest of the fiber, I'm a bit on the fence. I could run with the "Max Brown" color for the entire scarf. I'm pretty sure I would love it. But I could also try spinning up some of the Fawn fleece that I have (Lance), rip out, un-spin (again), and re-spin with the alternate color. It's a tricky choice...

I'll probably go ahead and continue the ridiculousness and try me some Lance sampling just to be sure. Boy am I crazy sometimes....

Thanks for visiting! Be sure and check out the rest of the Fiber Arts Friday blogs.

Veiled

2012-01-19T18:00:00.000-05:00

What feels now like ages ago, October maybe, I had my friend, C, over to visit on a weekend. She was getting married on New Years and when we stopped by Jo-Ann's she mentioned the possibility of sewing a wedding veil. Apparently the suckers sell for a couple hundred bucks.

Being the knowledgeable crafter that I can pretend to be I stated that sometimes fabric costs are just ridiculous, but suggested we look into it. So we found a pattern that was, thank-goodness, on sale. (Seriously why do they price patterns so high and then have the rotating sales available constantly, anyone who knows what they are about just waits for the brand they're looking for to be on sale.) And then we investigated the fabrics.

Embellishing the test veil.

C found this beautiful tulle with detailed lace and beading on it. It too could be yours for only $25 (ish) a yard. And at 4 yards needed for the veil holy-moly that's a bit of a gamble for a project where success was not guaranteed. Then it occurred to me that we could just buy the cheap tulle at $3 (ish) a yard and practice! We proceeded to do just that.

At home I couldn't believe how easy it was. The most involved step was cutting out the giant swath of tulle with rounded edges (admittedly a good bit of time was saved in our test as we just left the edges raw). From there you baste a line across the top and then gather it all up into just a few inches. Secure the gather, attach some kind of fastener, and Huston we had a veil.

A bit later we went back to Jo-Ann's and C purchased the fancy fabric and left it in my care to be transformed.

Now of course things couldn't continue to be so easy. The 'good-fabric' had a nice lace/bead trim edging on each side of the fabric. Obviously this worked wonderfully for the hem on the bottom of the veil. The tricky bit is the fact that at its edges the fabric curves gently upward and only ends at the top of the veil.

Pinning the trimmed edging along the curve.

So to make things nice first, using the pattern, cut of the top un-used portion of fabric. Then I set about very carefully cutting along the scalloped lace edge, following a particular strand of thread/beads. There was only a bit of length left as it stretched past the curves on the left and right hand corners so I also cut off the same strip from the unused 'top' portion of the original fabric panel.

A close up of how the cut piece was moved.

I then carefully pinned the cut bit of lace along the curve of the pattern all the way up to the top, Being careful to overlap the top and bottom pieces to follow the scallop curve. And after pinning it was on to sewing. Using a matching thread I basically couched the edge of the lace piece to the full panel. If you're not familiar with embroidery that is simply bringing the thread up on one side of the piece you are attaching and immediately down on the other side. It forms a little loop over top of it. I wanted it to be secure so I tried to do this at least every quarter inch. The beads, small and long, made for good targets and were secured on both sides.

It certainly wasn't difficult or incredibly painstaking, but it wasn't very fast either. So after a couple of evenings of work the sucker wasn't going anywhere.

Super-super carefully I cut the fabric panel following just to the outside of my hand stitched line. I needed to hide the edge but certainly didn't want anything coming loose.

It is not easy to get like 4 feet of this stuff gathered into like 7 inches.

Then it was, finally, time for some machine sewing. Once again it was a simple baste across the top. Except complicated a bit by beads and embroidery getting in the way. I quickly learned that removing any beads in the path of the machine feet was a very smart plan. The heavier tulle plus embroidery and beads was rather heavier that the original tulle experiment. So it was rather more difficult to get everything gathered up in just a few inches. That was some fun pinning.

But I persisted. And while it may not have been the best sewing as the machine struggled with the density of it all, in the end I had a beautiful veil.

And C, of course, was a beautiful bride!

Crafted in 2011

2012-01-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

So I'm a good bit behind, but the holidays managed to knock me out rather well and I'm still only just recovering but I still wanted to take at least a bit of a look back on 2011.

Now I don't want to sound too conceited but I made a lot of awesome things last year. Hooray for Ravelry keeping tabs on all of the craftiness (although there are probably non yarn crafts that are missed). Not sure if this is a good or bad thing but I'm pretty proud of myself looking back on it all:

I started the year knitting a hat for myself from some special hand-spun fiber. It was my self indulgent project after holiday that was filled with crafting for others. The knitting came out well but it didn't quite fit, and I never managed to take a picture. I really ought to rectify that.

Probably at the same time I was working on three scarves for the Special Olympics Project (awesome) that I never photographed before mailing. Oops.

Soon it was February and I was feeling the weight of the dreary cold yuckiness that is winter. So I decided to run with the project I had seen from Alice at Futurecraftgirl. My colorful and much loved hex tote was born.

Next I wanted to once again attempt socks. I decided that two at a time would be a much smarter idea to avoid the dreaded second sock syndrome. Unfortunately I ended up really not caring much for the color and the fit wasn't particular good. Plus these suckers took forever. Oops.

Participating once again in iHanna's postcard swap I needed a way to top the previous years amazing knitting post cards. So I opted for crochet post cards :-) Well plus a bit of painting cutting gluing sewing and taping.

I was still on a bit of a color phase so when I bought a spiffy phone it certainly needed a colorful spiffy phone case.

Being fascinated by the idea of using reclaimed yarn I ended up purchasing 5 or so sweaters from the thrift store. This pink yarn was sheep with some angora and I wanted to try my hand at knitting a full adult sweater from it. It took a while but things went really well. I love the pattern but the arm holes really are way too huge on me, live and learn once again. Also I probably should have taken a photo after attaching both sleeves.

By late spring early summer I had been bitten quite hard by the spinning bug (in preparation for the TDF) but I still wanted to have some kind of awesome knitting in process. So I made another attempt at socks. These suckers were once again ungodly slow. I think I only just finished in November. Plus the toes are really funky, the heels a bit odd (I think I lost count) and the amazing owls on the top of the socks make them way too tight. Actually I have in mind to rip back the owls and add in some increases before the owls this time. Ideally after this I'll actually wear them.

The years Pierre De Resistance however is easily this sweater. First I prepped Max's raw fiber. Then during the TDF I spun over a mile of laceweight yarn on my spindles. And after all that work the actual knitting wasn't even terribly daunting. I loves it.

It was off to the races when I decided to start crafting items to sell at the museum's Christmas Market. These little ornaments actually sold a few even. And really they were so cute and the tiny socks quickly became a favorite item of mine to knit.

These little critters were just so stinking cute I couldn't help but love them. Except that while the pattern was absolutely well written I still didn't enjoy the knitting. In the end while expected to do the best these little guys did not sell well at all. But they still made great gifts for a number of my friends and family.

The idea to recreate my hex totebag, except simpler, was actually the first idea of selling things. Working with lots of colors is always fun.

I fell headfirst into the awesome that is knitting with super-bulky yarn. I could churn out a whole scarf in what felt like no time flat.

I am constantly sharing my projects with my coworkers. And when one of them brought in a knitted headband from super-bulky yarn (commercially knit) I couldn't help but do some legwork and come up with a pattern that helped me create what was virtually an exact copy. Plus it was still a fast knit - one night wonders.

A friend requested hats to be donated to go to kids with cancer. First I churned out this pretty although maybe not my most favorite hat.

Then it was back to the super bulky for some quick and easy hats that are awesomely warm and squishy.

Bran needed a hat for a Christmas present as well and the love affair with super bulky continued. He is becoming quite good at appreciating the things I make him, even if he'll never pick it up again - haha.

While home for the holiday's I knew I'd be seeing the friend who got me started with spinning and alpacas. She has 5 pet alpacas and loaded me up with like 15 pounds of raw alpaca 3 years ago which was when I learned to spin. I still have yet to work through all of that fiber, although I am finally starting to make a dent. But anyways I do try to make at least one gift for her each year to repay her generosity. This little guy was surprisingly quick and easy. And un-surprisingly amazingly cute and awesome. He totally needs his own blog post.

Ok so I do believe it is safe to say that my crafting output absolutely explodes in the fall/early winter. Kinda should have known that already...

Also in 2011 we have a few projects that didn't quite make it onto the Finished Object list, but have enough progress that I think they deserve shout-outs as well.

The newly learned skill of 2011 was definately stranded colorwork. These mittens currently stand at one finished and the second still only needs the decreasing top and thumb (so about where this picture is at). The yarn is super super soft alpaca purchased at Knitters Day Out 2010 from Dunn Spun Alpacas. I am super anxious for these guys to be finished.

I discovered the wonder that is coulormart.com amazing yarns and very good prices. I couldn't resist ordering a sample card and managed to justify buying a cone of yarn at the same time. It's this crazy thin laceweight cashmere blend and I have like a zillion yards. So I decided to attempt my first shawl. Despite being a simple pattern (so far) this is not simple knitting. It requires gobs of attention and as it grows each row is taking longer and longer. But I'm pretty determined so I'll finish it in 2012 and it'll be amazing!

Here's to continued crafting awesomeness in 2012!!!

Thanks for visiting! Be sure and check out the rest of the Fiber Arts Friday blogs.

And to all a good night.

2011-12-25T23:36:00.003-05:00

Someone please remind me that I absolutely stink at posting daily and should not do such things. Seriously it just leads to situations kinda like this or this awesome comic.

But anyways this December I have in fact made a number of pretty awesome things and also listened to much good music.

And so in the spirit of making up for the lack of 19 promised posts I give you a bunch of Christmas music I highly reccomend:

Straight No Chaser - They have 2 Christmas albums out I believe. Tons and tons of fun as they interject their beautiful A'capella sound with lots of humor. I recommend the 12 days of Christmas, which does in fact get radio air play and is how I first discovered the group as well as The Christmas Can-Can.

Glee Cast - The TV show is so popular they can even have holiday albums. And I still love them. Start with let It Snow.

Take 6 - Another A'capella group, there is a pretty serious theme going on for me so far. But always fun. I especially recommend The Sugarplum Dance.

David Crowder Band - Another Christian Rock group, I think the spiritual side always helps give these groups a leg up on other Rock bands trying to rock the genre. Start with Joy to the World or O Holy Night.

She & Him's Christmas album A very She & Him Christmas was a new discovery curtsey of Amazon.com she has a very unique sound and its quirky but works well for a different twist on the holiday classics. The whole album is great but try The Christmas Waltz as a good introduction.

Hayley Westerna's Winter Magic is a more traditionalish type album. She is a classical cross over artist that I discovered back in college. Sometimes she can sound rather young but its the glass-like quality of her voice that gets me every time. My favorites of hers are Silent Night and Coventry Carol, they just work so well with her voice but I also quite like her Carol Of The Bells and Sleigh Ride was a strange mix that I enjoyed.

Sarah McLauchlan's Wintersong is likely an album that you already know about but I strongly reccomend checking out some of the tracks that may not get so much air time. What Child Is This? and O Little Town Of Bethlehem are wonderful arrangements that do stand out as being rather unique but my favorite is easy The First Noel/Mary Mary.

Bethan Marshall's O Come O Come Emmanual is a welcome change to so many overproduced overdone songs out there. Her simple and heart felt rendition stands out for its soul and quality.

Diana Krall's Christmas Songs are perfect for jazz lovers or well anyone at all. My favorites are Jingle Bells and The Christmas Song

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy got in on the Christmas market with their album Everything You Want For Christmas. Their swinging big band sound is perfect happy mood music and Merry Christmas Baby with its blusey feel is not to be missed.

Ultra-lounge Christmas Cocktails manage to put together weird yet awesome renditions of Christmas songs. I highly recommend Cha-Cha All The Way which manages to add a mambo beat to Jingle Bells and another favorite of mine is their The Nutcracker Suite which is swung.

The collection album titled Alternative Rock X-mas hit a few wins including Santa Baby by Everclear, Little Drummer Boy by The Dandy Warhols, and Silent Night by Sinead O'Conner.

Christmas Remixed 2 has some great stuff if you're down with adding some beats to your holiday tunes. They pretty much had me with their Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairies. Along the same lines Merry Mixmas: Christmas Classics Remixed puts fun twists on some old favorites.

David Lantz, The Christmas Album is beautiful piano arrangements of Christmas favorites. His stuff would be perfect when you're looking for unobtrusive background music.

BarlowGirl, Home For Christmas is another Christian 'rock' group. I like their Carol Of The Bells/ Sing We Now of Christmas.

This Warm December - A Brushfire Holiday Vol. 2 is a compilation holiday album (with a really long name) which seems to have a bunch of indie artists. Alot of it is original, which after some listening can be fun but I really fell in love with Zee Avi's Frosty The Snowman. Seriously Frosty done in a weird slavic sounding mode and a good touch of melancholy - I am in love. If nothing else you must take the time to listen, the song starts around 1 minute into the video.

Hey, if nothing else now you've got some good music to bookmark and check out again next December!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

25 Days of Christmas: Days 4, 5 & 6...oops

2011-12-06T18:00:00.000-05:00

Ugh, I should have known me slacking was destined to happen if I tried to post daily...ah well. Life got in the way of Sunday and Monday so I present to you 3 awesome songs today:

To celebrate Christmas I decided to highlight 25 days of awesome Christmas music!

Day 4: Stufjan Steven's: O Come O Come Emanuel

For Sunday's song we have an advent appropriate hymn! Stufjan Stevens is a pretty cool folky singer. I think I first discovered his music through a free iTunes download, but I've greatly enjoyed his music since then. He has a huge album of Christmas songs which is quirky and fun. It is also huge, 4 or 5 disks huge. If memory serves he set out to make a disk of Christmas music for friends and family and the project just grew. How fun!

Day 5: Jethro Tull: Holly Herald

At college my primary instrument was flute and as a Music Business major I had this crazy half rocker-ish adviser (he could talk knowledgeably about Classical music but you always knew his loyalties were to the Beatles) who I distinctly remember talking a good bit about flute and Jethro Tull. I had never listened to any of his stuff and I'm pretty sure I didn't until I found this Christmas album. It's rather odd, but the flute playing is different and laudable. And in the end the music is quite fun with a different flair.

Day 6: Angels We Have Heard On High: Relient K

Rock versions of classic Christmas music can be quite fun, but all too often they end up being terribly. But I should have known that Relient K, a Christian rock band, would have no problem nailing it.

Carlin's 25 Days of Christmas Music

Day 1: A Christmas Festival Leroy Anderson	Day 10: ???????	Day 19: ???????
Day 2: How the Grinch Stole Christmas Soundtrack	Day 11: ???????	Day 20: ???????
Day 3: Christmas Time is Here, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones	Day 12: ???????	Day 21: ???????
Day 4: O Come O Come Emmanuel Stufjan Stevens	Day 13: ???????	Day 22: ???????
Day 5: Holly Herald Jethro Tull	Day 14: ???????	Day 23: ???????
Day 6: Angels We Have Heard On High Relient K	Day 15: ???????	Day 24: ???????
Day 7: ???????	Day 16: ???????	Day 25: ???????
Day 8: ???????	Day 17: ???????
Day 9: ???????	Day 18: ???????

Keep coming back each day as I celebrate the season with new songs each day!

25 Day's of Christmas: Day 3, Christmas Time is Here

2011-12-03T21:03:00.001-05:00

To celebrate Christmas I decided to highlight 25 days of awesome Christmas music!

Day 3: Christmas Time is Here, Bela Fleck & the Flecktones (plus A Charlie Brown Christmas!)

I was first introduced to Bela Fleck & The Flecktones by my high school band director. It was one of the 3 videos that he would show us on those school days where for whatever reason we were watching videos instead of having regular class (or rehearsal as would be the case with the band teacher). He really was an amazing teacher and can be credited for quite a bit of my musicality And the Flecktones are just one of the many many awesome things he exposed us to.

All of the musicians in that group are phenomenal and listening to them take a simple tune like Christmas Time is Here and play with it is just a treat. As a bonus I also have a video of A Charlie Brown Christmas (which I don't actually think is a Christmas song, more of their theme song but always gets playtime around the holidays so I'll take it). It's thematically appropriate and just as fun!

As always these recordings are sketchy, although acoustic does add some merit. If you like what you hear there is always Spotify, iTunes, or any other of the zillions of online music options available.

Carlin's 25 Days of Christmas Music

Day 1: A Christmas Festival Leroy Anderson	Day 10: ???????	Day 19: ???????
Day 2: How the Grinch Stole Christmas Soundtrack	Day 11: ???????	Day 20: ???????
Day 3: Christmas Time is Here, Bela Fleck & the Flecktones	Day 12: ???????	Day 21: ???????
Day 4: ???????	Day 13: ???????	Day 22: ???????
Day 5: ???????	Day 14: ???????	Day 23: ???????
Day 6: ???????	Day 15: ???????	Day 24: ???????
Day 7: ???????	Day 16: ???????	Day 25: ???????
Day 8: ???????	Day 17: ???????
Day 9: ???????	Day 18: ???????

Keep coming back each day as I celebrate the season with new songs each day!

25 Days of Christmas: Day 2, How the Grinch Stole Christmas

2011-12-02T12:00:00.000-05:00

To celebrate Christmas I decided to highlight 25 days of awesome Christmas music!

Day 2:How the Grinch Stole Christmas: Original Motion Picture Sound Track

I have always loved Dr. Seuss's the Grinch. We had a whole pile of Christmas books and it was always one of my favorites. Plus there was always the old animated movie to watch on TV as well. So I was quite excited for the Jim Carey live action version when it was released. I quite enjoyed it and now have it on my must watch during the holiday season list. But something not everyone knows about is the absolutely stunning soundtrack!

Almost all of the tracks are favorites of mine so I'll try to limit myself today.

First Jim Horner's amazing symphonic compositions are absolutely stunning. Maybe it is because I love the story so much but I could listen to them all day. This album will certainly be making some encore performances, although I do also suggest acquiring the music for yourself as well (Spotify is a great way to listen to free and legal music).

First I have here "The Shape of Things to Come" featuring beautiful backgrounds, hinting and some later melodies, and introducing us to the fun world of the Who's this track is a great winner and really does give quite the overview of the whole movie in my opinion!

Along with the awesome symphonic tracks the album also features fun holiday themed pop songs. A lot of them are actually rather melancholy, to go along with the Grinch's feelings of the holiday, but I am really a fan of this alternate vibe for the holidays so I love it.

Green Christmas by Barenaked Ladies is completely catchy and fun to sing along with but when you actually listen to what you're saying it can be a bit sad.

"Green, cause of everything I miss
All this mistletoe, no kiss
And with every Christmas wish
There would be no greater gift
Than to have this envy lift."

Still a super great song and something different to add to your holiday mix.

This is a bad recording, although acoustic does add some merits, but its the best I could slurp here on the website. An upload with the original from the soundtrack with rather unrelated anime images can be found here, or there's always Spotify, iTunes, or any other of the zillions of online music options available.

Carlin's 25 Days of Christmas Music

Day 1: A Christmas Festival Leroy Anderson	Day 10: ???????	Day 19: ???????
Day 2: How the Grinch Stole Christmas Soundtrack	Day 11: ???????	Day 20: ???????
Day 3: ???????	Day 12: ???????	Day 21: ???????
Day 4: ???????	Day 13: ???????	Day 22: ???????
Day 5: ???????	Day 14: ???????	Day 23: ???????
Day 6: ???????	Day 15: ???????	Day 24: ???????
Day 7: ???????	Day 16: ???????	Day 25: ???????
Day 8: ???????	Day 17: ???????
Day 9: ???????	Day 18: ???????

Keep coming back each day as I celebrate the season with new songs each day!

Fiber Arts Friday: Created by Carlin

2011-12-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

I've been hinting at it here but this coming weekend marks the 'real' start of my own little crafting business.

The idea started in late October. I was asked to come teach Moravian Star folding at the library (more of an archive really) and museum where my dad is the executive director. They expand out their little gift shop to have a little Christmas Market of their very own. So it seemed like a good way to see if I could sell some things.

I then experianced quite the frenzy of ideas and options. And then a crazy frenzy to get a bunch of things created and ready to sell by Thanksgiving when I would be able to deliver my goods.

It was pretty crazy and nearly burnt me out (link) but here's what I put together for the opening of Created by Carlin...

First we have Carlin's Critters. These incredibly cute little guys were also surprisingly simple, although like many things the devil is very much in the details. The pattern is from fuzzymitten.com and I can't reccomend it enough. Although while I love the final products, as does everyone I show them to, they did get rather tedious to make.

Next are a bunch of little ornaments. They are all constructed just like their regular knitted object would be but with sock yarn on tiny needles and only a few stitches. Although my mittens were a bit wonky. The stockings ended up being my favorite by far. I started with a pattern to knit them flat but modified it so that I could do everything in the round. Hooray for no seams.

After that we have the tote bags. Colorful circles were crochet into white hexagons and pieced together for these fun guys. I also added matching sewn linings (with a pocket!) for each. It's lots of fun to get to play with so many colors although as all things the repetition can get tedious. The green family bag was a ton of trouble because I just ran short of 3 of the colors when I was I believe 3 circles shy of my regular construction. So I improvised and adjusted a bit and the bag came out a bit thinner and maybe a bit taller, but hopefully it's still fun.

Somewhat randomly I decided I ought to get some 'fun' yarn and whip up a few scarves. It was then that I met my newest favorite yarn. Lion brand Wool Ease Thick N' Quick. I am so used to using lace-weight or maybe sport and the somewhat rare worsted that this stuff felt practically like it was crafting itself. Plus the resulting scarves are soft, plus, and machine washable! I also went against everything that I've heard from fellow crafters in recent memory and couldn't resist the lure of the pretty colors (and price) of the Lion brand homespun. And yes the stuff was quite splitty and not at all my favorite but it gave my 'collection' some nice variety I think.

And lastly while in the midst of all of this I had been taking items in to show or bouncing ideas off of my coworkers. One day as I was talking about the scarves one coworker had a thought, went out to her car, and came back with a knit headband/ear warmer that had a crochet flower on it. It was super cute and I found what was virtually a replica of the same thing on Ravelry. So with the rav instructions and borrowing her object I used the left over yarn from the Thick N' Quick scarves and made my own, pretty dead on, copy. It's just as cute as the original and now I need to make one for myself.

The Christmas Market opens this weekend, and I'll be home on Sunday to teach star folding (and see the family again, see/house a friend, and play my flute in church....going home is dangerous). Here's hoping that I sell some thing and that I can teach the complex folding without loosing or frustrating too many folks!

Thanks for visiting! Be sure and check out the rest of the Fiber Arts Friday blogs. And I have started a series of posts to celebrate the 25 days of Christmas in Music. Click the link to listen to day 1 or keep an eye here on the blog daily for the rest of the series!

25 Days of Christmas: Day 1, A Christmas Festival

2011-12-01T19:00:00.000-05:00

To celebrate Christmas I decided to highlight 25 days of awesome Christmas music. I seem to hear from alot of folks that Christmas music is overplayed and they are tired of it. But personally I can never get enough. This year I started listening a bit towards late October (while working on Christmas crafts of course), which is actually fairly late for me.

Now if I listened just to radio stations for the entirety of the 2 or 3 months I might agree that the stuff gets old, but I happen to have a ginormous collection of Christmas music. I think my itunes tells me that I am somewhere between 2 and 3 days worth of Christmas music if I were to listen to it all in one shot. I've also found Spotify to be a great way to discover even more new music. Check the bottom of this post for more information.

In these next 25 days I'm hoping that I'll be able to introduce you to some new seasonal listening options. Enjoy!

Day 1: A Christmas Festival by Leroy Anderson.

Click play to listen. I choose this video for the audio quality not the images, so don't feel obliged to sit and watch this all, it's a long piece. See the bottom of this post for another listening option.

This piece is a medley of 9 Christmas carols arranged by Leroy Anderson during his time with the Boston Pops and their conductor Arthur Fiedler. The recording I've posted I think may be Fiedler conducting the Boston Pops, but it's youtube so I make no guarantees.

I picked it because I thought it was a great rousing start to Christmas music (and I love Leroy Anderson). The joyful fanfare opens with gusto and leads us across so many different soundscapes and carols it's hard not to smile the whole time.

Personally I know the piece from playing it (last night) as a band arrangement with my community band. So if you've ever played with a middle of the road to decent group you may very well already know the piece. Or it's also performed often by professional orchestras on holiday concerts. The arrangements are tons of fun. My personal favorite moment, likely tied to being a flute player, is probably minute 7. It makes me think of all the little moving parts that you would find in a holiday toy display :-)

Carlin's 25 Day's of Christmas Music

Day 1: A Christmas Festival Leroy Anderson	Day 10: ???????	Day 19: ???????
Day 2: ???????	Day 11: ???????	Day 20: ???????
Day 3: ???????	Day 12: ???????	Day 21: ???????
Day 4: ???????	Day 13: ???????	Day 22: ???????
Day 5: ???????	Day 14: ???????	Day 23: ???????
Day 6: ???????	Day 15: ???????	Day 24: ???????
Day 7: ???????	Day 16: ???????	Day 25: ???????
Day 8: ???????	Day 17: ???????
Day 9: ???????	Day 18: ???????

Keep coming back each day as I celebrate the season with new songs each day!

Spotify is an awesome new free way to experience music. Visit their website to sign up and download the needed software. Once you are set up you can search for songs or artists and stream them on your computer. There are a number of more advanced features available and also some "premium" options that require payment. But I enjoy sticking with the zero dollar option that still allows me to listen to tons of my favorite music plus find and discover tons more music!

This is not an ad, just my opinion about a great little music freebie that would make listening to any of my Christmas music, or any of your own a breeze.

Burned Out

2011-12-01T18:00:00.000-05:00

It happens every year. I have all of these grandeous crafting plans but then reality hits and I realize that there is just not enough free time in the day. It's sad.

This year I thought I was being smart. Initially I wasn't going to do much of any holiday specific crafting. I was actually going to buy (or maybe cook) gifts instead. Instead I would get to work on whatever I wanted, mostly projects for myself even.

Before too long this plan morphed so that I would make small things for most people. Then I committed to the charity crafting. I got involved with a spin a bag get a bag commitment. And suddenly the awesome idea of crafting and selling things and even establishing my own little business was firmly in place. Plus a bunch of those items would be perfect for my regular giftees.

And next thing I knew I just spent all of November frantically crafting in every spare moment. The sell/business idea was definitely the bulk of the crazy. I'll be posting tomorrow with all that I did for that. It's pretty awesome and I do hope I succeed. But holy moly I don't know that I want to feel so rushed again in the near future.

Since delivering all of the items to sell on Friday I've been in a bit of a craft coma. I dabbled a bit in a few projects that had been on the back-burner when the business stuff took priority.

Yesterday I finally managed to start looking ahead at the next few weeks and take stock of all of the things that now must be accomplished. I'm trying to keep it lighter now, but alas I think I'm going to need to get my butt back in gear pretty quickly if I'm too accomplish all that needs to be crafted.

First up is sewing my friends wedding veil. I rather stupidly underestimated the time required to hand sew the lace edge. But I think I can still be on track to have it ready to go when we get together this weekend. Now you must excuse me while I go get to work!

Weekly Goal WrapUp, 11/20

2011-11-21T18:00:00.000-05:00

It took some pretty serious nose to the grind stone, but I rocked the list this week.

Piece multi-color hex bag
Sew bag lining for blue hex bag
3 color work ornament- Everytime I successfully complete one of these stockings I fall in love again.
2 solid ornament
Finish bag top and bottom
Bag handle
Sew bag lining for multi-color hex bag - I got way faster the 2nd time.
24 hex circles -I was so close to having enough but I ran out of 3 of the 4 colors (shades of green and yellow) at 22 circles. So I figured out a new configuration that should work.
Ply 4 oz of Rosie- Although turns out it was only 3.5. But it was super amazing because my two 'bobbins' were virtually the exact same length. Like wow.
Prep 3 oz of Rosie - actually I only fully prepped 2 but I sorted through through the whole rest of the fleece and bagged up what I will be keeping and the 1.7 that remains to be spun.
Spin at least 2 oz of Rosie
Knit Squirrel - He has a body but nothing more.
Knit Fox - More epic cuteness.
Knit Mouse with beret - Well he's still in pieces, but all of the pieces are there.
Knit many animal scarfs
Add eyes and noses to animals -Added the finishing touches to all of them, but I'm a bit afraid my details are a bit of a weak point. May want to re-evaluate for the future.
Add Fringe to Super Bulky Scarf - Super easy to do and while some mixed opinions on the addition made me a bit hesitant I think it looks great.
Bulky Crochet Scarf
Create a business identity - Yay clean and simple.
Design business cards - Clean and simple but a touch of yarn for pop. I'm way too excited about my own design skills in this....not usually a good sign.
Design item tags

Bonus Items:

Establish online business presence - It's a modified blogger page (free!), but I'm really digging what I'm able to do with it.
Super Bulky Scarf - I am totally making myself one of these once I have time again. And the shade of green I had for this is just perfect.

So 19 out of 21 things accomplished. Plus 2 bonus items which I say easily offsets the 2 missing tasks. Woohoo.

Fiber Arts Friday: Charity Crafting

2011-11-18T10:00:00.000-05:00

I am currently working on projects for two different Charity's.

2010 Colors

First is the Scarves for Special Olympics project. I may have this story wrong as I can't find it documented online and am going from memory but...The project started small with one state program asking crafters to use certain colors of yarn to make scarves for their athletes. The scarves serve "As a symbol of unity, community and support within the Special Olympics Movement". They were quite successful and scarves poured in and so each year the project grew a little bit bigger. This year the Special Olympics organizations from 40 different states are involved and thousands of scarves will be crafted and donated.

2011 Colors

This year is I believe the 3rd year that I have participated. I really love the idea and the goal of the program. Plus the guidelines leave room for quite a bit of ones own pattern interpretation. I have made scarves of varying difficulty but now have settled in with my adorable heart pattern which is also simple enough to be perfect anywhere anytime crafting.

My other charity project is a hat. A friend of mine created something on facebook that asked everyone she knew to make and donate hats to go to a children's hospital in memory of a young girl who passed away much to young. Crazily enough the friend who started the initiative has never learned enough knitting or crochet to make one of her own to donate....but kudos for starting the ball. This is certainly a worthwhile and moving endeavor.

A small, but very stretchy, infant hat.

I have a small pile of infant hats that were never donated to my local hospital that I plan on sending. Plus I cast on and managed maybe an inch or two of a Swirl Hat. The pattern is quite interesting. It really seems intellectually like it shouldn't work...but it does. Ah the magic of yarn loops.

The problem is I love these initiatives but at the end of the day sometimes it feels like they've become more burden than enjoyment. When I have a ton of Christmas gifts to make and an endless supply of ideas for projects that I just love for myself it can be hard to have the time. As you see I've already taken some steps but finding cute but simple patterns, but at the end of the day I'm either not that speedy of a crafter, or it's entirely possible that I'm just trying to do too much.

So for now the plan is to just keep plugging away prioritizing whatever project has the next deadline and trying to fit in at least the occasional bit for myself.....Am I the only one who sometimes struggles with the time for charity projects, or maybe your struggle is gift making? How do you prioritize your crafting?

Thanks for visiting! Be sure and check out the rest of the Fiber Arts Friday blogs!

Sew what.

2011-11-16T12:00:00.000-05:00

I woke up to find a message in my inbox from Bran. "How sweet" I thought "he hasn't done that in a long time." I can quite easily be described as a suckers for small gestures. So this was quite well received.

When I opened up the message I found "Good morning. Be sure to check Woot." Ok, so not quite the romantic gesture I was anticipating. In fact this is downright dangerous stuff as he is sure to have found something I'll want to buy but alas buying things costs money and I have yet to find any money trees.

Dutifully I loaded the woot.com website. And there was a shiny sewing machine. *want* Well, he may not be so great on the romantic gestures front but Bran does know me.

Of course I already have a sewing machine, but it has a few less than satisfactory qualities. The thing is a beast. I can still lift it so it's not the most epic but it takes some considerable effort on my part so I would guess somewhere in the 35-45 lb range (I'm probably underestimating my weakness and its like 30lb, but for now the numbers stand). This makes it pretty darn inconvenient to get set up and sewing. It is old. Certainly older than me, it's a bit possible at doubles me in age. Which leads me to the most important quality issue. The thing sucks at sewing.

I'm now at a point where if I'm going to sew something I know it has to be of a heavier fabric. I can almost get away with 2 or more layers of quilters cotton but silk or taffeta or anything beautifully light and airy is out of the question. Sadly I have lost some good fabric to this problem on more than one occasion. The tension on it doesn't quite work properly anymore. It takes quite a bit of fiddling to get a relatively decent stitch. And even then quite often things are pulled to one side or another or the fabric buckles. Lastly it skips random stitches. This particular quirk is absolutely infuriating and makes the machine useless for any sewn objects that I want to actually look well made.

But on the other hand...hey it works and I can (mostly) sew things. Plus how often am I sewing stuff these days.

The idea was now in my head however, and it wasn't going to let go anytime soon. I spent a good bit of the morning researching. Woot had a Singer electronic machine with 70ish different stitches and a few extras for $150. It seemed like I ought to be able to to better than that.

So after a good bit of looking I found this machine at Costco. It always seems like these machines have way more than I need. But hey decorative stitches can be fun. And in reading the owners manuals online I fell in love with lots of the spiffy things it could do like an invisible hem. How awesome is that. Never mind that it would likely take me as long to get it set up as it would to sew by hand. It had lots of good reviews on the Costco site and elsewhere. Plus it was more on sale than the link shows now and shipping is free.

After sitting on the idea for a few days I went ahead and ordered and a few days after that my new toy arrived.

I've only used it a bit so far but am absolutely loving it. And rather amusingly one of the little bits of use that I got from it was quite spontaneously sewing a test veil for a friend who is getting married. Crazily it was like the easiest sewing project ever.

Rock on.

Knit Picks Wishlist

2011-11-15T18:00:00.000-05:00

A few weeks back I ordered from Knitpicks for the first time. I figured since it was a place of fibery goodness I would enjoy window shopping and allowed them to add me to their email list. Scanning it quickly while in the midst of something I noticed it said I could win something! But having no time I just left it in my inbox.

Yesterday I finally managed to revisit the email and discovered the following contest:

As posted on their website you add stuff to your wishlist, which requires signing up for a username, then email the list to someone. Once you do this they must somehow know about it and will select 3 winners on Friday who will each receive $50 to spend on things from their list.

Now being all about window shopping this was no problem at all.

My first introducing to knitpicks was a catalog that my parents had somehow received. But they passed it along to me and I absolutely fell in love with the most amazing penguin socks. Seriously how cute are these guys? I knew the pattern was in a book so I tried looking for it, which of course involved pulling up Ravelry to find exact sock pattern and book. And then utter disappointment when it seems that knitpicks no longer carries this book. Luckily there were more categories to explore.

I started with the needles and accessories as yarn is harder to select online I think, its much nicer to feel it. I already have the knitpicks interchangeables which I use all the time. They're great. But it would be nice to have a longer cord for magic looping larger items. Plus I actually may have broken one of my cables. I was pulling it out of a swatch and the metal bit that has the screw part pulled most of the way off of the plastic cable. It was very sad. Then of course they didn't have much of those things but lots of other good stuff. How awesome would it be to have a real swift in place of my foam core arms with paperclip hooks kinda taped to a lazy-susan. Or lace blocking wires to actually block things with decent straight edges. Or whoa, a pretty needle case.

The $$$ amount of the wishlist went up pretty darn quick.

Then I figured I'd at least take a look at the yarns even though I couldn't vouch for their softness. The first thing to catch my eye was the absolutely beautiful line of Chroma yarn. I have a somewhat random love for all things gradient so these were right up my alley. The choices range from beautiful fall colors to a bold sunset to a bright rainbow. Love it. A bunch of those went on the list even though I have no idea what I would ever make with the yarn. And well I may or may not have accidentally purchased an awesome bright rainbow graduated yarn from A C Moore on Saturday....buuut moving on.

The next, and final, thing(s) I fell for were the bulky yarns and the soft sounding yarns. Having just had such fast sucess with the super bulk yarn used for the crochet scarf it seemed like it would be lots of fun to make many more such quick gratification projects. And then I am always a sucker for soft, particularly Alpaca and Angora so Alpaca Cloud Lace, Capra Cashmere, and Sugarbunny Yarns all found themselves on the list.

Here's my list. I just need to win the lottery so I can buy it all with or without any contest winning. Now go and make your own list so maybe we'll both be lucky winners!

Weekly Goals, 11/14

2011-11-14T18:00:00.000-05:00

Last week I had a very good moment of inspiration when I decided to take my weekly list, break the items down into smaller chunks, and make myself daily lists of what I wanted to accomplish. And while I may not have accomplished everything from last weeks list I still kicked some pretty good butt so my plan of attack is to do the same this week. Blue items are carry overs from last week. And I'm also going to take a slightly different approach. There shall be a primary objective list and then a list for the bonus stuff that I'd like to do but know time is short so they may not happen. My hope is that I can actually get through all of the old stuff plus all of the this weeks stuff and and even knock out a few bonus items and then be able to start Thanksgiving week from a very good position.

Piece multi-color hex bag
Sew bag lining for blue hex bag
3 color work ornament
2 solid ornament
Finish bag top and bottom
Bag handle
Sew bag lining for multi-color hex bag
24 hex circles - Although I don't know what color palate to use :-/
Ply 4 oz of Rosie
Prep 3 oz of Rosie
Spin at least 2 oz of Rosie - But all 3 would certainly rock.
Knit Squirrel
Knit Fox
Knit Mouse with beret
Knit many animal scarfs - they are cold
Add eyes and noses to animals - Confession: many of my animals are still lacking eyes and some are even missing noses. There may also be one bunny without a tail, but I think he also has weirdly placed ears so he just really did not luck out.
Add Fringe to Super Bulky Scarf
Bulky Crochet Scarf
Create a business identity
Design business cards
Design item tags

Bonus Items:

Knit Hedgehog
Knit Otter
Super Bulky Scarf
More Ornaments - I didn't put these on the regular list because I still have all of last weeks to complete but I would like more if possible.
Establish an online presence for my 'business'.
Prep & Spin Dyed Alpaca for my scarf

Ok....I definitely am feeling way over ambitious again. There is pretty much no way all of this can happen.....but I'm not very inclined to pare down the list either :-)

Weekly Goal Wrap Up, 11/13

2011-11-14T12:00:00.000-05:00

I feel very much like I kicked some butt this past week. But it was a big list, I started late, and I know i didn't get everything so lets see what the list says:

16 multi colored crochet circles - So many colors, so much fun.
Spin double ply alpacas of york - It was fun and the yarn was surprisingly squishy.
Test yardage for alpacas of york scarf - Although I was mostly experimenting so the knitting was pretty rough and maybe not the most exact test.
1 color work ornament - I think I made at least one of these in stripes which is almost cheating but works. Although this list vs. the one prior is kind of all blurring together so who knows.
Finish mitten -After failing at the next item I went and rocked my mitten thumb to make myself happy again.
Sew bag lining -Utter fail. I was spending lots of time and being extra awesome to sew the most beautiful bag lining. But I cut the bag to my intended width instead of the width with seam allowances. For a while I thought it would still be ok, but it was not. Gah. And of course I was good and bought a small amount so I didn't have enough fabric for a second try. Very annoyed with self.
Piece multi color bag - I've made it almost half way but there's still the rest to go and I decided to sleep instead of keep hooking.
3 color work ornaments - Thought about these guys and am totally loving them but ran out of time.
2 solid ornaments - Thought about these guys and am totally loving them but ran out of time.
1 knit squirrel - He is so stinking cute.
2 knit bunnies - Seriously these little knits need a post of their own to describe/depict the awesome.
Prep 2 oz of Rosie - My carding technique is improving methinks.
Spin 2 oz of Rosie - And, despite some initial questionable spinning, I am getting to be super fast and much more even at spinning Rosie.
Prep 2 oz of Alpacas of York - This project has more or less officially been moved to the back-burner as it doesn't have such a hard, or soon, deadline.
Spin 2 oz of Alpacas of York - This project has more or less officially been moved to the back-burner as it doesn't have such a hard, or soon, deadline.
Crochet fast scarf from bulky yarn - Bulky yarn may be my new favorite thing ever. So fast and pretty darn awesome.

Hmm...not quite so much bolding as there could be but I'm quite happy with my accomplishments. Plus it's actually less than a weeks worth of stuffs so extra awesome. And I'm feeling good so I fully plan to keep this ball rolling into next week.

Fiber Arts Friday: Nice and Squishy

2011-11-11T11:30:00.000-05:00

So I've had a pretty serious lack of online presence lately that is mainly owing to all of the ridiculous amounts of work but also contributing to that is the fact that pretty much all of the time not spent at work or work events has been going into crafting.

I have managed to complete quite a few little goodies at this point that I'll take home to (hopefully) be sold at the Christmas Market. But with the deadline of Thanksgiving its rather inevitably that I feel quite rushed to get things done. Good things do always seem to take time.

The other day however I was putting on an old scarf that was a gift from my Aunt a number of years back. It was a simple crochet pattern but the bright fluffy yarn has made it a favorite for a number of years now. "I must make some of these" I thought.

A few days later I found myself at Jo-Ann's and wandered the yarn aisle considering the myriad of options. Choices are one of the many banes of my existence. How am I supposed to choose! But I had a friend along which always helps and a sale price plus a coupon made the $ less of an issue. I grabbed two skeins of Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick in a gorgeous deep orange rust color. The yarn has the advantage of being super soft and squishy plus being machine washable.

Back home it sat for a few days as I worked on other things. Then Wednesday night I decided I wanted to start on it. I checked the band and it called for a "N" hook. I checked my hooks and my biggest regular hook was "H". D'oh. I knew I had some bigger hooks somewhere from way back when I crocheted the rug for my kitchen. But I had no idea where I'd stored them. After much thinking and some searching, I was scouring the craft room when it dawned on me and I found the hooks stashed in a box of miscellaneous craftiness.

The smallest hook of the bunch was "P". Well at least I was getting closer. I tried out the P hook but the loops looked insanely large. So I reverted to the H and started a few rows of double crochet. It was ok but the fabric was just too dense. I ripped it out, was at a bit of a loss, and considered buying another hook. However before doing that I decided to give P another try.

Of course the loops were still huge but I was more comfortable and just went with it. After a bit of testing I settled on 10 stitches which gives me 5 or 6 inches. It is insanely easy going and after 2 nights of sporatic work I've used up all of one skein and have somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 feet. I still want to add more length but it'll be an easy project to finish.

I think I need to work with bulky yarn more often (and buy more yarn to whip up one or two more to sell).

PS: Help me out! To fringe or not to fringe? that is my question. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Thanks for visiting! Be sure and check out the rest of the Fiber Arts Friday blogs!

Late Weekly Goals, 11/9

2011-11-09T22:00:00.000-05:00

I feel like I've made some really good progress so far this week. But it's pretty much all progress that I wanted to have done last week (in blue) so that's a bit of an issue...

16 multi colored crochet circles - to finish last weeks batch of 24. I determined last night that I can crochet 6 in an hour.
Spin double ply alpacas of york - I have about half of the spinning done of solid color stuff. I do still want to try playing with some blends. I love this yarn so it should be easy if I can find the time.
Test yardage for alpacas of york scarf - I still have no idea how much yarn I'll need for my amazing linen stitch scarf.
1 color work ornament
Finish mitten - only the thumb to go!
Sew bag lining - Randomly tacked this one on for myself, but I have the fabric and everything else is done so I'm anxious to have a 100% finished product.
Piece multi color bag
3 color work ornaments
2 solid ornaments
1 knit squirrel
2 knit bunnies
Prep 2 oz of Rosie
Spin 2 oz of Rosie
Prep 2 oz of Alpacas of York
Spin 2 oz of Alpacas of York
Crochet fast scarf from bulky yarn

Given the rockstar crafting I accomplished on Monday and Tuesday I actually have some hope for this weeks success rate.

Oh and last week Marni commented on the fact that all my list is fun craft stuff. This is way true. It would just be lame (and depressing) to add the real work that I inevitably must take care of as well. As much as I love my cat and having my own house being but one person who has to work a lot and likes to make many crafts does not make for the tidiest of house and yard. My mother happened to be up and we visited briefly and I inquired about their leaf raking habits. Apparently father doesn't like to leave them lay for fear of the grass. I freely confess that I took this into consideration and decided that I need even more leaves so that the fact that I kinda slacked on mowing the lawn as we got towards fall would be hidden.

3 out of 38

2011-11-09T18:00:00.000-05:00

I've been rather absent from my newly renewed online presence here but my schedule has been somewhat ridiculous lately. And it’s not that I’m doing anything that I want to do. It’s all work.

I took some time to count today and determined that in a stretch of 38 days I have only 3 days that do not have work or work related events on them. The goal line is Thanksgiving. 24 days in I'm starting now to see the light at the end of the tunnel...maybe

The stretch started on Monday October 17th with a regular work week. I had that Saturday off, woohoo. And I was able to drive out for a friends party. Also woohoo, except it added to the lack of time at home. That Sunday it was only a few hours of work. But when the few hours are right in the middle of the day it's pretty darn lame.

After that it was another regular work week. Except this one was fairly busy owing to the concerts that weekend. Then the weekend hit. A normal work weekend is about 10:30-11ish on Saturday with a brief respite of an hour or two at home. And then 12-6ish on Sunday. However to add to the mess we were blasted with the crazy snow storm. Snow + Central PA residents = chaos to begin with. Add in the fact that it's only October and we have a couple thousand unhappy people. Of course it's my responsibility to deal with those people.

That weekend hurt. Literally I was all kinds of sore and worn down but so started the next week. Having survived (more or less) the weekend we realized we needed to look at the next event. And of course it was a doozy. My coworker and I had agreed to take on one project. However we didn't realize all of the extra bits that had been added to its responsibility (rightly or wrongly) plus some of the support that was supposed to be included fell through. That was fun. Tuesday through Friday were probably the most filled days that I've had in some time. Ouch.

Somewhere in that mess I agreed to a quasi-work related side gig that was pretty cool but also quite stressful and left me once again sore for a few days. But hey at least I got paid for that extra effort.

This past weekend was the big event. But first I had a day off on Saturday. That was pretty exciting, although worrying about Sunday's event unfortunately did leave some less than ideal thoughts lingering in my head. Sunday went quite well for the guests but was quite the mess administratively.

I cheated the system and took Monday off, allowing for a grand total of 4 days off in the stretch. It was a much needed day. I mostly crafted :-)

Yet to survive is the current work week. Saturday off. What should be an easy concert on Sunday but still a lost day for me. Then a full week stretch plus concert weekend. Tack on the few days before Turkey Day as the home stretch.

At least "my domain" is pretty.

It is fully my plan to take off the day before Thanksgiving, but I may have to battle with my coworkers for the day. You see we're, mostly, all salaried so we work all of these extra days and don't get paid anything. Technically we get to take time off but no one does your work when you're not there so it's a pretty ineffective system, although I've gotten better at taking off anyway. I've actually tried to start an uprising in the office to push for the whole office to close on that Wednesday. But more importantly for the whole office to close between Christmas and New Years.

Ah the glamorous live of a non-profit arts administrative worker.

Weekly Goal Wrap Up, 11/6

2011-11-06T14:43:00.003-05:00

I ended up being absolutely demolished by work this week. The insanity is quite deserving of a post itself but I've not even managed any posts at all this week so we'll see if anything really happens... *sigh*

Organize Craft Box- Nope never got around to it. Still a giant mess.
24 Multi-color Crochet Circles - Thought about this but never even retrieved all the yarns from the yarn closet.
Test Alpacas of York Double Ply, Blending, and Yardage - This was to be the fun project. I'm not even sure where the fiber is stored quite precisely and never bothered to go searching.
2 Mice - I knit up one mouce body a few hours ago and could realistically maybe knock off some more but probably fail.
2 New Animals - Purchased and printed off the patterns at least.
3 Plain Ornaments - 1 sock and 1 sweater completed. So 2/3 isn't awful except its about the success rate of this list.
2 Ornaments with colorwork - Nothing.
Plan New Mitten Top - The modification doesn't look quite as good I think but it's still good.
Finish Mitten #1 - Yea this didn't happen either.
Ply Ellie - Easy, probably only 30 yards or so.
Wash and Finish Ellie - This requires being in the house while actually being up and moving for a bit of time. Tricky.
Card 2 oz of Rosie Rollags - I may have been slightly underweight and cheated by counting/using stuff I had been testing with but still calling it good.
Spin 2 oz or Rosie - Hooray for spinning a thicker single. So much faster.
Crochet Blue Tote Bag Handles - Well I think I'll start these right now at least.
Start hat for Ren donation - I'm awesome at starting new things... finishing on the other hand...

At least the second half of the list has some bold stuff......

Here's to a day off tomorrow!

Weekly Goals, 10/31

2011-10-31T19:00:00.000-04:00

Simple list this week. But still long. Yay stuffs!

Organize Craft Box
24 Multi-color Crochet Circles
Test Alpacas of York Double Ply, Blending, and Yardage
2 Mice
2 New Animals
3 Plain Ornaments
2 Ornaments with colorwork
Plan New Mitten Top
Finish Mitten #1
Ply Ellie
Wash and Finish Ellie
Card 2 oz of Rosie Rollags
Spin 2 oz or Rosie
Crochet Blue Tote Bag Handles
Start hat for Ren donation

Weekly Goal Wrap Up, 10/30

2011-10-31T18:00:00.000-04:00

When I look at this list it seems like I didn't accomplish any of my objectives. But at the same time I'm rather certain that I did get some stuff done this week. And I'm really posting a day late as well. Ah well....

Ply Ellie - Did this early in the week and it was amazing.
Spin and Ply last batch of Ellie -After having lots and lots of problems with the 2nd fleece I was frustrated and contemplated keeping this last bit for myself. I've mostly changed heart on the matter but still only got it spun into a single so far.
Finish and Wash Ellie - Same issue as the above comment.
9 more circles for tote bag 1 -Finished these guys without a problem.
Piece together tote bag 1 - Did some piecing at the concert/work. My coworkers absolutely loved it so I was extra inspired and finished quickly.
Start Tote bag 2 -Nope, didn't get there yet.
Proto-type any other animals -Thought about it but never while at home.
Make 2 holiday mice -Only got one new guy made, he has a beret it is the best. But I did pay attention to the time that went into him and I'm thinking 2.5hrs. So a decent starting place I think.
Sort Rosie into locks - I started doing this and got absolutely entirely frustrated because the fleece was really in awful shape. It's full of second cuts and pieces that are just crazy small. There is barely any of the lock structure that I love to start from. For a while I seriously contemplated giving up and mailing it all back. But I think I'll try again this week.
Wash at least 2 batch of Rosie locks - Continuing from above, the only success I did have was pretty much just to try and pick out the really bad stuff then just slap the stuff on the carders and then make one of my little rolags. I'll either need to just spin it dirty or try my hand at washing the rolag.
Test knit hat, and try sock and sweater mods -So I made the hat and think it looks pretty darn bad. Good to know. Then I actually worked out a mitten modification which worked rather well. And I'm mostly but not quite finished the new sock. but I think it'll work. The sweater has actually grown on me a good bit so maybe it doesn't need any changes.
Level WoW mage to 80 -Utter failure as I'm still at like 73. Bran just wasn't interested in playing. I did however have my own interest rekindled. And now that the 90 day bonus has passed I'm free to just play as I will so this is actually good.
Two repeats on mittens -My mitten was my beginning of the week fun. However I've realized that I need to rethink my top decreases before continuing as the next repeat will actually take me into the top. Woohoo.

Fiber Arts Friday: Happy Pictures

2011-10-28T08:00:00.000-04:00

So this week I feel like I've really not gotten much crafting done. There's not really any good reason for it aside from mental blocks. But then I looked at the things I have accomplished in the last week or two and felt better about things.

And so I present to you a bunch of pictures (of rather poor quality as I was taken them at like midnight, oops):

My Awesome Amazing Alpaca Mitten. It's actually coming out a bit bigger than I had hoped but we'll see what it's like off the needles. I need to sit down and figure out how I want to handle the decreases in hopes of lining up with the pattern more or less. I really ought to get moving as we've had a ridiculous cold snap. They are actually predicting snow for tomorrow which is insane. Plus its a frakking concert weekend so I have to work and now deal with all of the patrons who will be panicking about the snow.

Christmas Ornaments! The mitten is quite possibly my favorite thing ever. Although I do think the final ones ought to be a bit bigger and I think I'll aim for a slightly smaller sweater.

These little guys are absolutely the best thing ever. So freaking cute. And it's a free pattern available from Fuzzy Mitten. Highly recommend. The blue guy took me about 2.5 hours start to finish so I figure I'll only get faster.

First scarf for Special Olympics of the season complete. Still love this pattern. Best moment ever occurred at knitting group. I'd finished the blue repeats and was going to start the red as I want all the hearts pointing down. Someone asked if I joined them at the top then, yes. Another chimed in that why didn't I just reverse the pattern and keep going. It blew my mind.

And 24 circles ready to be pieced together as hexagons (top left) and made into an awesome tote bag. The colors on this photo are absolutely and totally wrong but it still looks cool I think.

Thanks for visiting! For all of you fiber people visiting I encourage you to check out the Spinning Trindles Group on Ravelry where they are currently hosting a giveaway. I purchased my first Trindle in the spring and it was immediate love. Just about everything that I spin these days is done using my Trindle. They are the most awesomest and I wrote this whole post all about them.

And after signing up for that be sure and check out the rest of the Fiber Arts Friday blogs!

Trindles

2011-10-26T18:00:00.000-04:00

My first trindle. Still my favorite bead/arm set.

I love trindles. They are the most awesome.

Back in May I went to the MD Sheep and Wool Festival with the #1 goal of find myself a good spindle. Ideally it would not be terribly expensive so that I could also purchase some fiber goodness. The place is huge and there are zillions of vendors so I was a bit dismayed that we seemed to not find many spindle options at all.

I did notice the rather quirky trindles at Gales Art however. They struck me mostly for being sparkly and shiney. But they seemed almost more like little toys then a good useful spindle. Back in the biggest barn I ended up finding all of the spindle makers. By then however the options, the lack of time, and the price tags were getting to me. I decided to go with the "cheap" trindle and some fiber.

So back out we went and I made my selection. Turns out that the 'beads'/arms and the shaft are priced separately so it wasn't actually so cheap. Oops. But I went with the purchase anyway and made sure to leave with some awesome fiber as well.

While waiting for my friend to make some purchases I found a bench and played briefly with my new toy. It was remarkably delightful to spin with. At home I kept going. I was making a super amazingly thin yarn and absolutely loving the way the trindle worked.

I wanted to learn more about my new awesome tool so I hopped onto Ravelry and found the Spinning Trindles Group! It was the perfect way to show off my new purchase and find out more information about these clever tools. Through the group I also became friends with Mrs. Trindleman, the moderater of the group and wife of the original creator. It was generally awesome.

Spinning hookless using a half-hitch.

Not everything was quite perfect however. Sometime towards the end of my first week I was getting a good bit of wobble in my spin. Looking closely it looked like the hook was at a bit of an angle. So I attempted to bend the hook back up right thinking it may have been from dropping as I was spinning (the tool is called 'drop spindle' for a reason). *Snap *. The shaft top splintered leaving the hook able to pull free. I was heartbroken.

For a time I was sad and left the poor spindle up on a high shelf afraid to do anything. I knew that Trindleman has an incredibly generous and easy return/fix policy, but it seemed so silly having broken it myself. But then I threw caution to the wind and started spinning with the broken spindle. I took the hook out entirely and just used a half hitch. Things were a bit slower but still worked just fine.

By this time however I was quite certain I needed more trindles in the house. I choose an Ipe shaft, hoping that the hard wood would be less susceptible to any damage I tried to impose upon it. And black goes with absolutely anything (including the hub and arms). Then having my awesome lightweight beads/arms I choose the heavy weight malachite arms with gorgeous green swirls in them. So pretty.

This 'heavy' set up spins just as well and does make it easier to add a bit of bulk to my spinning. But I really do trend quite thin in all I do so the tool only gets me so far towards worsted weight.

The trickiest thing about the trindles I've found is how to build the cop. As you can see in the picture on the left once things star getting pretty big the yarn bunches up around the arms at the top. I don't like this at all because it makes it easy for the yarn to get tangled when I remove it. And I can no longer remove the arms without a (small) fiber explosion.

I have however found some good solutions to this problem. Firstly I tend to spin in smaller batches. Around an ounce or so keeps things nice and easy. Although as I've become more comfortable I've found that I can get pretty close to two ounces now without a problem. But the most important strategy is to build up a good cop which is quite elliptical in shape. The bulbous center keeps most of the yarn while things are secured at either end tight against the trindle including the base of the hub, never reaching the arms. I accomplish this using the regular parallel wraps but also a good bit of up and down criss-crossing wraps that help secure everything in place.

During this time I also started thinking about this years Tour de Fleece/France. I asked Mrs. Trindleman if there was a Trindle team and when there was none she invited me to start one and declared me it's captain. Happy to oblige I set everything up and before long we had our own little team of Trindlers. At the Trindles shop they even added in this awesome TDF themed bracelet (along with some super discounts).

At the end of the TDF Mrs. Trindleman had everyone report in and awarded a number of prizes, including some amazing treats sent to me for putting everything together. She was absolutely insanely generous especially since I really didn't have to do anything more than start a thread, set up a google doc, and comment on lots of things :-)

My package included an amazing dyed purple silk hankie from Gale's Art. I absolutely love it and am so excited to spin it but want to actually find time when I can sit and enjoy it and not feel pressured to work on other projects. This totally cool flower bead/arm set. They're mid/heavy weight I think but they are flowers, how cool is that. AND they have a subtle sparkle. Rock on. But most awesomely she included a microtrindle. Coming in at 6 inches this little beauty is the epitome of easy travel spinning. Plus being so super lightweight the yarn is so super thin. (picture forthcoming if I can find it...)

Yea, I was totally spoiled.

These days I'm keeping my eye on the Etsy store in hopes of scoring a set of lightweight hematite arms. However it also seems like the store is so popular that it's hard to catch things in stock. An awesome problem to have I'm sure.

There is currently a contest going on at the Spinning Trindles Group on Ravelry. Just leave a comment on the thread for a chance to win one of the newest trindles that is soon to be released. These little tools are much too awesome to be missed!

Weekly Goals, 10/24

2011-10-24T18:00:00.000-04:00

Last week was a success. Here's hoping I can follow with the same.

Ply Ellie - This shall be the huge awesome skein. Yay fluffy yarn.
Spin & Ply last batch of Ellie - There's only a tiny bit left. It's almost a shame that it's all on its own.
Finish and Wash Ellie - One alpaca down, one to go [for the spin a bag keep a bag project at least]
9 more circles for tote bag 1 - Turns out each bag will take 24, ouch.
Piece together tote bag 1 - The cirlces are all shades of blue and being pieced using white half-double crochet hexigons.
Start Tote bag 2 - either shades of pink or multi color. Probably multi.
Proto-type any other animals - I'm thinking more of Fuzzymitten's designs because I love the first. And maybe a crochet amigurimi because we'll see how that goes.
Make 2 holiday mice - I love these guys and hopefully I can get pretty quick at things. I also want to try them in the round this time as I hate seaming.
Sort Rosie into locks - prepare for Alpaca 2! She's a rose-grey and so beautiful.
Wash at least 2 batch of Rosie locks.
Test knit hat, and try sock & sweater mods - Gotta catch up to the hat from last week and work on the pattern modifications while the ideas are still fresh in my mind.
Level WoW mage to 80 - Yup I've been sucked into a MMO. Bran and I need to use this last week of the refer a friend bonus to ding 80 or we'll have to do it the old fashioned (slow) way.
Two repeats on mittens - I think I stand a better chance of sucess on this this week.

I much be rather insane. Last weeks awesome has gone to my head and makes me not see how absolutely much this weeks list really is.

Weekly goal wrap up, 10/23

2011-10-23T23:30:00.000-04:00

List updated as items are accomplished. Bold = finished.

Check that Eowyn Costume still fits and is in decent shape, fix as needed - Still got it on with no problem. The fitted top is rather tight and restricts breathing a bit and arm movement is somewhat limited, but I think that's the way it was when I made it. This thing is like the most poorly sewn garment ever. Trimmed the rough bottom hem to make it slightly more presentable and sewed up a number of holes where the stitching had split. Methinks that I'll want to bring a sewing kit along when I wear it and maybe a set of regular clothes.
Plan Christmas Gifts -rocked this one fairly early and was pretty happy with everything. Although there are a few question marks.
Prototype Sweater, Sock, and Hat -Got through the Sweater and the Sock but not the Hat. Soo close. The first two went quite easily although I do want to make some modifications to the final patterns.
Prototype Holiday Mouse -Sewed up the body and head easily and quickly on Monday. I'm quite happy how easy it was. And really as I am becoming familar with the pattern things will only get easier. Also, this little guy is so stinking cute.
Order yarn -Managed to convince myself not to go overboard and stuck with just the basics. Now I'm anxiously waiting for the package to arrive!
15 Hex circles for tote bag -This objective was greatly assisted when it worked out that I spent 1.5 hours out of the office over lunch at a different office to sell things. The selling of things never occupies the whole time however so hooray for excellent on the go crafts. Now I just need to figure out how many circles I actually need for each bag.
Knit 2 repeats of pattern on argyle mittens -I picked up this project again and totally fell back in love. Although it is difficult to get myself doing it as all of the other projects which are less for myself tend to feel more pressing. Alas I always put the other projects first. But at least i got through one repeat and the thumb gusset is now complete.
Order Mother's Gift(s) -Check. Hooray for ebay. Now I'm just hoping everything shipped to the correct address and I didn't get scammed.
Make more applesauce (if needed) -After planning out my Christmas gifts it was quite clear that I have plenty of applesauce for me and for giving. Therefore, not needed. That was easy.
Ply Ellie singles - As always there are some thick and thin spots but I ended up with a nice soft and squishy yarn that was still a fairly lightweight. Awesome!
Prep 4.5 oz of Ellie - I'm getting quite good at prepping.
Spin another two batches of Ellie -Done and they were even giant batches. This skein will be nearly 4 oz.
Create a crafting plan for the next 3 months -This took way longer than expected. Like holy moly will I be churning out a lot of stuff. I really need to make sure to do all of my fall/winter craft planning in June or July next year. It is a much much smarter plan.

12ish/13 - not bad.

Fiber Arts Friday: A Sweater and some Trindles

2011-10-21T06:00:00.000-04:00

So I've pretty much been kicking butt at accomplishing things this week. Check out my crazy goal list for the week. It's going well so far and I plan on posting the outcomes late Sunday. At least for the next few weeks when there needs to be crazy crafting production I want to make those goals a weekly blog feature. Accountability and all.

But anyways while I have you my captive audience here I am quite pleased to present the most awesome accomplishment ever (in my biased opinion at least):

The project began way back in May when I spent my time watching the Giro d'Italia and prepping fiber. I have had big bags of this alpaca for a few years now and never managed to go through terribly much of it. It was what got me started spinning way back when the Mother of one of my High School Friends asked if I could knit her something and if I'd be interested in the fleece. In the quest for a better method of processing I had been investigating creating my own hackle. I wasn't terribly thrilled with the comb approach so modified things in my own way. I use the hair combs to flick batches of the raw locks.

I then take the locks and can load them up onto my homemade hail and random wood plus duct tape hackle and pull myself out a long strip of roving. Roving is definitely my favorite preparation for spinning. I am much better at being consistent when I use it. And the whole hackling, pulling process, results in these amazingly fluffy, need no further drafting strips.

I spent some time testing different spinning styles. One yarn looked absolutely amazing but it has lots of twist so the knitting, which is done on relatively large needles, looked quite wirey. I found that while it was a bit difficult not to drop the spindle all the time or break the yarn I very much enjoyed the fabric created with a rather loosly spun yarn.

Aside from the initial testing all of the spinning was done during the 2011 Tour de France/Fleece. Highlights included spinning in the car, spinning in the car in the dark, spinning more than I've ever spun before, Contador sucking, and Evans rocking.

By the end of the 3 weeks I had a grand total of 1496 (ish) yards. Holy epic. Actually when I add in the bit of other TDF spinning that was accomplished I spun over a mile of yarn. I am still proud of that.

From the get-go I knew the yarns intended object was a Featherweight Cardigan, but immediately after the TDF I was distracted by many other shiny projects and the yarn languished for a while. On August 22 I knew I would have some time while up with family over Labor Day and I cast on. Crazily I had to rob another project of the proper size needles. That project is still quite stagnant, oops.

The knitting itself was incredibly easy and amazing. I would highly recommend this pattern. Some folk might find the giant swaths of stockinette boring but I revel in the simplicity and love having a project that I can take and knit anywhere without having to worry about messing up a pattern.

It was odd how when I was knitting the hand spun yarn with its 'irregularities' almost made the stockinette look like there was a pattern going on. After being a bit dismayed in the end I decided it added to the character of the piece. But actually know that it's all knit up you don't notice it at all. A friend commented last night that it actually looked machine knit even. Although she was at least a few feet away.

The other real quirk of the sweater is that there is a significant color change. Apparently Max, donor alpaca, has some different shades to him. I didn't notice until I had knit probably 2 inches of the new skein, but then suddenly it because quite clear that there is a difference. I'm too lazy to re-knit anything so I just kept going. Chalk another one up to some extra character.

No matter what in the end I love it and shall definitely be wearing this sweater quite a bit.

And after signing up for that be sure and check out the rest of the Fiber Arts Friday blogs!

Apple Sauce

2011-10-18T18:00:00.000-04:00

My goal for Saturday was to make apple sauce. Things got off to a rather late start as I was with Bran and did engage in a bit more new apartment with him. I also finished the Max Sweater that morning.

So I didn't get out to my local awesome farm stand/market until sometime 2-3ish. I was hoping they might have gala or fuji apples but no suck luck. So I went with a half a bushel of Golden Delicious and half a bushel of Jonagold.

The back seat being occupied with a bunch of stuff for Bran the apples went into the trunk for the ride home. Alas this resulted in mass apple spillage through the trunk. D'oh.

The evening before I had purchased a new gadget that I thought might aid my process, an apple peeler. So I couldn't resist pulling it right out and giving it a whirl. It was amazing.

I then spent a bit of time trying out my new aproach and getting a feel for things, while also doing a bit of housework and blocking the sweater. This was a very very poor plan as inevitably the pot of apples that I left on the stove to soften boiled over while I was up pinning the sweater. I knew it was bad when I could smell burnt apples on my way back downstairs.

When the house was purchased back in January the first thing that happened was my Aunt and Uncle replaced the crazy old stove with a new amazing fancy one. It's a giant flat top and I love it. Burnt stuff on it is very very bad and muchly distressing to me. Eeek!

I already had about a quart and a half of sauce but I basically stopped my whole process and decided to clean the whole kitchen first. This gave the stove top some time to cool down so I could work more at cleaning off the burnt stuff and avoid any damage to the glass top. Plus it refocused me and gave me time to establish how I would run my operation.

At approximately 6PM I recommenced operations.

Here's my snazzy new peeler. the contraption could also core and slice, but I opted just to peel.

The dangling strands of peel were at times too much for Helo to resist.

I worked in batches of 6 apples, 3 of each kind. First I peeled them. Then I would slice off the skin remaining on the top and bottom. This also helped make a nice flat surface for using the slicer corer thing with the red handle there. I was working in batches (multiple ones at a time) so all of the slices then were left until the cooking pot was free.

The slices were put in a pot with some water to soften. As soon as they were soft they were scooped into the Foley mill and the next batch of slices went on the stove. Although make sure to change the water every 2 batches or so. The water gets very syrupy and bubbles over way too fast if you don't change it - not that I have experience with this or anything...

As the new slices were softening I was milling. Because there were already peeled and cored just about everything went through the mill. It saved me quite a bit of scooping out peel bits and fretting that maybe if i just mashed harder i could get more from this or that batch of left overs. It was great. The sauce then went into a big pot which I attempted to leave at a low boil. This was fairly unsuccessful as it tended to just find one place to bubble and project apple juice splatters all over the stove.

As soon as the milling was done, or if my arms were tired I would start alternating, I was back to the peeling/chopping/slicing. When there was a good bit of sauce in the pot and when I had a full 2 batches ready for cooking I would switch to filling the jars and putting a batch in the water bath.

The end result was 6 quarts, 11 pints, 4ish of the blue tupperware (a pint maybe) and one of the big tupperware which was already at Bran's new apartment when this photo was taken.

Weekly Goals, 10/17

2011-10-17T12:00:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was pretty odd. I spent a good bit of it with Bran in his new apartment. So it kind of blows my mind that I still managed to accomplish what feels like quite a bit of stuff on my own as well. Excellent.

Looking out over the next few weeks/months there is a TON of stuff that I would like to accomplish. I must keep going with the success and really ramp it up as well. And so I think it's a good time to establish some plans and goals for myself.

This week I would like to accomplish the following things:

Check that Eowyn Costume still fits and is in decent shape, fix as needed - We are inviting patrons to dress up for the next concert for work, so staff ought to as well. I'm quite certain that it shall be entirely awkward but at least I get to rock my awesome costume. And the costume itself is pretty 'neutral'.
Plan Christmas Gifts - I really am rather late, for me, at this plan but I was leaning away from the crazy involved handmade gifts this year. But I still need to figure out what I'm doing instead.
Prototype Sweater, Sock, and Hat - I worked up a quick tiny mitten (pictured) last night and it's so cute. I want to keep churning these guys out with the end goal of making lots to sell at the Christmas Market.
Prototype Holiday Mouse - Same deal as the ornaments but this is a little adorable mouse. I'm a bit afraid that this pattern may be more involved, but that's what I need to figure out.
Order yarn - I know I want to use sock yarn for the ornaments and solid colors can be tricky to find so I need to order online. Hopefully I can rock out a quick mouse as well to determine if online ordering would be best for that. Yay knitpicks.
15 Hex circles for tote bag - I'm going to start with a Christmas Colored tote (red, green, yellow, and white). These suckers are the perfect easy anytime project to have on hand at any (and every) free moment. I still need to mock up how many circles I'll need for each bag.
Knit 2 repeats of pattern on argyle mittens - Even though I'm trying to accomplish a zillion other things I don't want to abandon my fun projects for myself. Must keep working on mittens.
Order Mother's Gift(s) - Don't want to forget about this and don't want to wait until everyone else is ordering their gifts as well.
Make more applesauce (if needed) - I already made a bunch but I need to take the Christmas Gift plan into consideration and see if I want to make more so that I have enough for myself.
Ply Ellie singles - I have 2 rolls of singles ready for plying. I think it will give me 2.4 oz of yarn.
Prep 4.5 oz of Ellie - I have a good pile of flicked locks already waiting for the hackle. I'll likely need another batch but then I will have all of her prep work done and ready to spin.
Spin another two batches of Ellie - At the end of the week I'd like to have around 5 oz spun up so that I can finish the last of her yarn (to be sent back) the following week.
Create a crafting plan for the next 3 months - I suspect this is the only way I will get through everything that I have in my mind. And even then it will be tight.

Yikes.....I have a bad feeling that I am being super-way-over ambitious (especially when I look at my list of future goals as well). Fingers crossed that I don't hate myself for trying to do so much.

Fiber Arts Friday: Not so much progress

2011-10-14T09:00:00.000-04:00

So after pretty much kicking butt last week at the whole getting stuffs done this week was not so good.

I had every intention and didn't think it would be at all difficult to finish up the Max sweater. I mean all that was left was the band! Alas life had other ideas in mind. Friday night was cleaning and seeing Bran, Saturday was a rushed last big of cleaning then the Renaissance Fair. Sunday and Monday were spending all day with my Aunt & Uncle working on the house (or all too often watching him work and wishing I could help). There was indeed some knitting in there, but it was sadly minimal. Tuesday was the only decent free day and it did indeed have much knitting. In fact on Tuesday I crafted all of the strength right out of my hands. That was new. Wednesday was a bit of time but then Band and seeing Bran's new apartment. And Thursday was dinner with Bran's family and more new apartmentness.

Holy smokes how is a girl supposed to get anything done around here?

The Max sweater is however amazingly enticingly close to finished. Its a bit tricky because I have to take all of the stitches (300ish) off of the needle and onto waste yarn to try the sucker on to check on the band size. I have in my head that I must must must finish and block this weekend. I can not wait to wear this sucker.

I did also get in some reasonably decent spinning time. I have probably 2-3 ounces completely prepped all the way into roving form (yay hackle) which I've found easiest to work from. 1.4 of it is all spun up and waiting on a TP roll for plying. Most of that is just one nights work (Tuesday) so I fully expect that I ought to have a plying mate all spun up for it this weekend. I could theoretically ply but I think I'll let it rest a bit first. Plus I'm going to aim to get another few ounces of washed locks flicked and drawn into roving.

Lastly on the fiber front this week I started a new project. Not exactly the most brilliant way to get all of the other stuff done but so it goes. But it's for the Scarves for Special Olympics project. And it so happened that the yarn was on sale in Michaels when Bran drug me there. I'm just doing a simple double crochet pattern with holes in the shape of a heart. It's great because it takes approximately no focus and can be picked up/put down at any time. I actually started it at the Ren Faire and it worked quite well anytime we were sitting and waiting for a show to start. It is super happy news that this year they gave us colors that can be had in "Red Heart Soft". Previously it was all regular Red Heart Super Saver yarn which is rather dreadful (but cheap). The soft is quite akin to my super favorite cheap yet soft yarn: Simply soft. Hooray for that.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you'll come back and read about more of my goings-on.

Be sure and check out WISDOM BEGINS IN WONDER! to see more Fiber Arts Friday Blog Amazingness.

Farm Show Options

2011-10-13T12:00:00.000-04:00

Once I found all of the information on entering things to be judged at the Farm Show I immediately started thinking about how many of the different categories I could conceivably enter. It was overwhelming. To try and organize myself I printed off the 20 pages of "Home Living" info and went through with a highlighter. Each of the following orange items was marked, my notes are in black.

Crocheting: Accessory – pair of mittens, hat, shawl, etc. I can totally crochet some little something or other. Even just a scarf if nothing else. I could even theoretically use one of the scarves that I've been crocheting for the Special Olympics project.

Crocheting: children’s Garment – sweater, shirt, dress, etc. The other category of adult garment is rather out of my range (plus I'm not a huge fan of my crochet garments) but kids stuff is so much faster/easier/funner.

* Knitting: Hand Knitted Accessory – pair of mittens, hat, shawl, etc. I am already planning on making mittens and scarves for myself so this is easy. I'm thinking I'd enter one of my hand spun linen stitch scarves. Although that would mean that I wouldn't be able to wear it for that time-span. Tricky.

Knitting: Hand Knitted Adult’s Garment – sweater, shirt, dress, etc.Quite ambitious for me but I have already been knitting up my Max sweater so that would count and proves my capable of such feats.

Knitting: Hand Knitted Children’s Garment – sweater, shirt, dress, etc.Same deal as the kids crochet garment. Except I know of at least 2 babies who I've kind of wanted to knit for anyways.

Handmade Garment (Any garment knitted, crochet or woven from a natural blend of yarns [commercial or hand spun] containing a minimum of 30% mohair): Garment Again a whole garment is rather intimidating and at first I didn't know about the mohair aspect. But then I realized that I had purchased 4 oz of the most phenomenally amazing Mohair/Alpaca (or maybe sheep I can't remember off the top of my head)/Angora blend roving at Knitters Day Out. It would be absolutely amazing and perfectly suited to spin it up just like the Max and knit another Featherweight.

* Folk Art: Hand spun/dyed yarns Given how obsessed I am with spinning these days I certainly must enter some hand spun yarn. Although it's also rather intimidating as I really don't ever consider my own stuff to be so great. It's pretty darn bumpy (adds character to my knitting which is fun but not sure how well that goes over in judging).

Skill in Needlecraft: Cross-stitch (counted) Cross-stitch is amusing, and quite easy.

Skill in Needlecraft: Embroidery (creative) I have been wanting to learn more embroidery stitches and skills for quite some time now. Perfect motivation!

Home-related accessories: No Clothing Items: Other – Base size no larger than 15” x 20” Kinda seems like I must have something around. Would a knit/felted alpaca toy fit here?

* Cloth Toys: Stuffed figures of animals Or would the amazing felted alpacas (if I can manage to get my yarn to felt) fit better here. Not sure if knitted cloth is the cloth they are looking for or not. I could always sew one of my awesome penguins. Those guys are great. Whoa brainstorm! I ought to make more of the amazing tiny penguins I was making for a while. I love those things.

Quilted Wall Hangings: (Pieced patchwork- hand quilted, appliqué – hand quilted, mixed techniques – hand quilted, or Machine Quilted) All of the things listed in parenthesis were options. I've not done much quilting but its another craft that I really do want to pick up someday. I would probably go fairly simple and stick with Machine quilting although my sewing machine skipping stitches could be a problem.

* Quilt Block Context – Pieced Adult (The theme for the 2012 Quilt Block Contest will be “Country Pride, City Wide.” We ask that you create a block using new fabrics in the color palette of red, white and blue and design of your choice. Each block will become the property of the Family Living Section of the Farm Show. Items will be constructed with proceeds benefiting the Farm Show Scholarship Foundation.) Even better a quilt block that I can try to run with the theme. Except I'm really not quite sure about the theme or the colors really. I'll probably do this anyway instead of the previous category.

Adult Photography (lots of different categories) Normally I wouldn't think of myself as much of a photographer but I randomly entered a picture in a contest last spring and won! This is likely because there were only two other entries. But still. Photos are fun.

* Greeting Card Contest I love making cards. There are so many different possibilities of what I could do its hard to choose. I would probably go with Scherenschnitte. I miss paper cutting, it was probably the most meditative craft I've done for me.

* Tote Bag Contest: Large or Small Tote Bag Adult This category seems a bit odd. I think it may be more geared towards buying those plain canvas bags and decorating them. But I want to enter a bag like my awesome colorful crochet hexagon bag. I'm already planning to make some to sell at the Christmas Market so might as well mass produce!

Gift Box Contest: Hand-made Box (Any material using theme “Country Pride, City Wide”) Again a bit of an odd category but definitely within my grasp. I'd probably go with something paper. Paper is such a broad medium you can do so much with it.

* Potholder Contest: Hand Constructed Potholders Really I ought to be able to knock out a potholder with no sweat. Quite a while back I was thinking of making a pretty double knit potholder. That would be nice.

Place-mat Contest: Adult Way back when I moved into my house in February I was thinking of making some place-mats for the dining room table. They would still be quite a nice addition.

Since I first did all of my highlighting I've had a good bit of time to think about the crazy and the time has also seen me find even more crafty stuffs that I want to get done in the next few months. The ideal solution would be to quit my job and just make crafts all day. But then I would have no monies, and soon no food, house, or craft supplies. Alas that plan is a no-go.

So instead I'm going to pick and choose my categories. And really this is certainly a smarter way to go as there is no need to enter more than a few things on my first attempt. First times for me are very much about feeling things out and learning whats what.

I've marked the projects that I want to try and accomplish with the asterisks. Most of them are things that I will already have been creating or often are more simple type objects. I think this should work out well.

Star making

2011-10-11T18:00:00.000-04:00

My father is the executive director of a research library/museum. During the holiday season they expand their gift shop to a little “Christmas Marketplace”. Last week I received an email asking if I would be willing to teach people to make Moravian Stars on one of the days the Marketplace was open.

The funny thing about the whole proposition is that my Father is actually the first one in the family to start folding the little stars and even since I learned them myself he is easily the record holder for the number of stars produced. But apparently he’ll still be making them plenty through the season so he cleverly plotted to rope me in.

I was hesitant at first because it’s 3 hours of driving to get home and back, and I hate driving and gas isn’t cheap. Plus it’s the weekend after thanksgiving, so right after I will be home. And the following weekend I’ll have to work all weekend. Which would leave me with only one free weekend in December.

What to do?

By the time I had the opportunity to talk about it with Bran, my sometimes resident sounding board, I had pretty made up my decision. And he didn’t think it was a bad idea or argue against it so I committed to it. It helps that Thanksgiving is on Thursday so I can still come home Friday and have the weekend. And then when I go back the following weekend it will be late Saturday as I have a band gig. Plus on Sunday I suspect I’ll be able to work with the organist to play my flute in church that day. I love killing birds with one stone.

Now the final bit of this here Christmas Market is that I can make stuff that they take and sell on consignment. Whoa. My head is now swimming with all of these possibilities and ideas. As always my favorite place to go for ideas is Ravelry. The pattern finder there is however crazy dangerous. Total overload. Wish me luck.

Fiber Arts Friday: The Things I'm Doing

2011-10-07T06:00:00.000-04:00

I wanted to try for the first time to participate in Fiber Art's Friday's. And I thought it would be a great opportunity to introduce all of my current Fiber Works in Progress. Well to be more specific it's all of my current WIP's that I am actively, or well generally mostly-sorta-kinda, working on:

Max Sweater:

It was my epic (for me) goal during this years Tour de France/Fleece to spin up enough yarn for a Featherweight Sweater and I was totally successful. I cast on back mid/late August. And the project has ebbed and flowed but last week I finished the body and got this huge surge of must-finish-this-project-ness going on. Last night I cast off the 2nd sleeve and picked up 2/3 of the stitches for the band! I ought to be able to finish before next week. Woohoo!

And I really am loving it all. Being knit top down I've been trying it on since it was time to split off the sleeves. The thing really fits me like a glove. I had it out last night at band and one of my fellow flute members (a casual knitter I think) commented it looked child size. I commented back that it was fitted and had she noticed that I pretty much am child sized. It amused me. I could say more about this project but I think I'll leave it for a full report once it's finished.

Argyle Alpaca Mittens:

Sudden thought: I really ought to call these the Argyle Alpaca Appendage warmers. I really have a thing for alteration. Anyone know of an A word for warmers?

This is the other bit of yarn that was spun up during the TDF. Purchased from Dunn Spun Alpaca's at 2010's Knitters Day Out the stuff is absolutely so amazingly soft and pretty much the best thing ever. It practically spun itself. The knitting of these gloves however is a bit more of a challenge.

Color work is probably one of my lowest knitting skillz levels. Really I've just not done that much of it at all. So I'm doing my darndest to keep the stranding tension even and not too tight. It's also difficult because I really don't do all that much knitting on double pointed needles. I prefer to magic loop. So holding everything even and keeping the stitches has become part of the challenge (or fun when I'm being postive).

We have however had a crazy cold snap here in South Central PA (actually it's become phenomenally nice again, but last weekend was miserable). And the weather makes me quite anxious to get working on these mittens to keep my hands nice and toasty warm.

Ellie & Rosie Spinning:

On Ravelry some people have been offering "Spin a bag get bag". The idea being they are likely the owners of some fiber bearing animals who have more fleece than they can keep up with. So they send a willing spinner, like me, fiber. We spin it up and return half of it back.

I was lucky enough to make such an arrangement with Tracey of Koehlers 4 Star Alpacas. She sent me 2 bags, 1 lb each, of fiber. Ellie is white and Rosie is rose grey. I absolutely love love love each of the colors.

Alas I must have been crazy when I contacted her about this because seriously I have so many other things that I am working on and so much fiber to spin already. But whenever I'm doing something for anyone else I really do try to bump it up near to the top of the WiP priority list.

I've been carefully sorting and washing the fleece so far. Previously I've just spun all of my raw alpaca dirty. However I recently got up the courage to try washing raw fiber and I absolutely love it. It is certainly not the most speedy process as I am being extra crazy and keep everything in lock formation but I like it this way. The only problem so far is that some of the fiber isn't exactly ideal. I've found a some second cuts, but also patches of corse locks and some just generally quite short bits. I'm not quite sure what to do about it all as I really wanted to return a full pound to Tracy, but I also don't want to stick myself with all of the yucky bits.

So far I've washed prepped and spun up little test samples of each. I had a very easy time spinning Ellie right from the flicked locks but I also tried and was fairly successful and creating a long roving strip using my hackle. After finishing washing about 8 ounces of Ellie I started to spin last night. I seemed to be much more consistent using the roving strip so I think I'll probably prep the rest in that fashion.

Rosie, having all different colors and shades in her fleece offered much more in the way of possibilities. Unfortunately her fleece is also the prime culprit of short pieces. After deciding I wanted to blend her colors I tried the hackle but it wasn't very successful, I suspect the blame could be the short bits. Luckily using hand carders the blending worked rather well.

The plan for this next week is to get the 8 oz of Ellie prepped into roving and keep spinning then get 8oz of Rosie washed.

Thanks for visiting and I hope you'll come back and read about more of my goings-on. Be sure and check out WISDOM BEGINS IN WONDER! to see more Fiber Arts Friday Blog Amazingness!

Farm Show Research

2011-10-06T18:00:00.000-04:00

Last year when I drug Bran to the PA State Farm Show I was fascinated to find at the very back of the building a whole section that was just filled with all sorts of, pretty random looking, hand crafts. Some of them even had ribbons indicating some kind of contest or prize. I'm not sure if I commented then that I ought to make something and enter it then, but it seems like I should have at least been thinking it.

Although really I had no idea how to go about anything or if it was even open to the public and as I was caught up in all of the other things that are going on I mostly forgot about it. Then recently YarniMarni, an awesome local blogger who puts together amazing liveblogs of the Farm Show's Sheep to Shawl contest, posted about Farm Show preparations. And my dreams and aspirations (ok maybe thats a bit overkill, but nevertheless) were rekindled.

The problem was then finding any kind of information on entering hand crafts. The epic website search began. Now I fully respect that the PA Farm Show really is an epic undertaking and so the website is probably not one of their biggest concerns. But really there must be a better way to have some of this information available. Eventually in the midst of a giant 200ish page PDF document I found the information I was looking for under the link "2012 Premium List". I suspect that if I'd been more involved or grown up around such things maybe some of this terminology would make more sense.

From what I've been able to find it seems like anyone is welcome to submit an "exhibit". Fun fact, all of the various livestock are exhibits, just like a knitted scarf. This amuses me. I thought I remembered reading something about Pennsylvania residencey being a requirement but I can't even find that now. So really all you need do is find these crazy forms and deliver your stuff. Sweet deal. The premiums, or prizes are as much as $500 but that's for some of the popular baking contests and such. For most of the arts and crafts they award $3-$12. This is also a fact which I find to be highly amusing. There are entry fees for some exhibits but not for anything I'm interested in.

My area of interest is Department 24, Family Living. This department covers a TON of stuff. Firstly there are all kinds of food stuffs. Including what I understand are some pretty serious baking contests. There are all kind of canned and preserved food entries as well. I actually considered maybe entering my Pickled Watermelon Rind or Watermelon Jelly. But in the end I don't think that my canning skillz are really up to par. The goods shall continue to just go to friends and family.

Where things really start to get interesting to me is the later bits of Home Living. There are all kinds of different crafts, not just knitting either. There's tons of things I could totally do. It's almost overwhelming and I've already written a bunch so I think I'll have to come back with more of my thoughts on what I want to create and submit later!

Inspiration

2011-10-05T18:00:00.000-04:00

I have been inspired to blog again. Wish me luck.

Other than that I really do have what feels like a half a million inspirations swirling around in my head. Here are some of the more concrete ideas:

Dragon Mittens:

I purchased these delightfully fun bits of roving from the MD Sheep and Wool Fest way back in May. I knew I wanted to spin up as a variegated color changing yarn, but I wasn't sure what project. Then I found these absolutely amazing Dragon Mittens. Love it.

Although I am a bit on the fence if I should knit the mittens with the whole rainbow or just use half more similar to the original design.

All in all this will be an epic project/challenge when (not if) I actually do it.

Kiwi:

After reading an article in the local paper about a nearby sheep farm I started following the farm on facebook. Sure enough when they posted that they had just sheared the sheep and were selling the fleeces I had to take a visit. I came home with the fleece of this delightful little sheep named Kiwi. The fleece is multiple colors of brown and grey. But I couldn't resist working up a little sample. I wanted to take advantage of the multiple colors to knit up a scarf like this one using the linen stitch. And interesting in the end the project came out very grey and not much brown at all. But still beautiful. I can't wait to make the whole thing.

Alpaca's of York:

At Knitters Day Out this year I was delighted to find the Alpaca's of York booth. She had these delightful piles of raw, but dyed, alpaca. With the help of my knitting friend I picked out these four colors with the idea of making some fall-ish type of something.

Also while out browsing all of the amazing booths I had noticed, and fallen in love with, these amazing multi-colored scarves that looked woven. Later I realized that they were actually knit using the linen stitch. I've decided to put two and two together and make myself, another, awesome scarf. Again, I couldn't resist working up a sample, pictured above. For the final project I think I'll just work each row with only one color so that they are constantly mixing, like these examples, or as they do where the colors meet in my sample. I'm also thinking about blending some of the fiber colors together.

Yikes I've already nearly written another novel chapter, so I'll stop there. Inevitably there are definately more project ideas swirling around in my head. But at least one of these three is likely to be the next thing started on the needles (or spindle as it were).

What am I up to?

2011-07-08T06:00:00.000-04:00

Well many things really, and at the same time not that many. But for simplicities sake I think I'll talk today about my most favorite current activity: TDF!

TDF is both the Tour de France and the Tour de Fleece.

The Tour de France is pretty self explanatory. I like biking and having taken to watching races. It's a great companion to crafting although gets tricky to watch and work during especially exciting places and or sometimes I miss stuff happening. But I like to cheer on pretty much anyone who isn't Alberto Contador (go Schleck and Kloden!). And secondarily to that I have a preference for anyone who speaks English (Allez Team Radio Shack, Horner, Leivheimer, Wiggins, Evans, and more that don't come immediately to mind!)

As for the Tour de Fleece I'm spinning lots o' yarn this year! On ravelry I ended up on a good number of teams: Trindle, Team of Wonder, Sweater Spin, Spindlers, and Sprinters. I think all of that explanation will have to be a post in and of itself. I set a goal of 1500 yards of lace weight alpaca (Max) hand processed by me from Carolyn's pets and 300 yards of fingering weight alpaca purchased from Dunn Spun Yarn at the Knitters Day Out last year. All of my tour preparation really should get a post of its own as well.

The tour started last Saturday and here's been my daily accomplishments:

Stage 1: 0.6oz laceweight Max
I started the day in beautiful Ocean City MD watching the cyclists on my laptop while starting my spinning. I had already planed and prepped my fiber so that I had my day one ‘goal’ baggie ready to go. All too soon however I had to pack up to drive back home :-/ However I had great fun doing some spinning in the car. And then it was a simple matter of finishing off the rest of the fiber that was my goal.

Then I even ended up taking a spindle and some fiber out to the ballpark as the Symphony was performing one of our outdoor concerts and I figured I should attend at least one. The setting really was quite awesome and I had a good time although I didn't get through that much spinning there. The whole working/looking half professional gets in the way.

Stage 2: 1 oz Dunn Alpaca + bonus Max
Spun up the 1 oz in that bag using my fun Spinatude TDF spindle (yarn destined to become mittens) and added more to the trindle (my sweater yarn) as well above and beyond my initial goal.
Before:

After:

Stage 3: 0.75 laceweight Max + some extra
My cumulative tour spinning by Day 3:

Doesn’t look like all that much but I’m quite happy with it. I decided that I’ll wind off onto my “bobbins” after each ounce-ish. That way when I ply the cops/weight will never get too ridiculous. All the stuff on the trindle and some of the stuff on the brown bobbin were today’s progress.
Also rock on Farrar for today’s sprint finish victory in France!

Stage 4:
I think I’m getting faster. I already had a light day of only .6 oz planned and it went by in no time.

It was also super helpful that I got my targeted ounce on one trindle then I could easily just take off the beads and pack up them with my second shaft and remaining fleece to take out to knitting group to spin while there. At least two little girls were watching me for quite a bit. Hooray for easy transport.

Stage 5: .5
I had a (planned) easy day today of only .5 oz of lace singles.

Not the most exciting but it made me definitely realize that I am much faster as I completed everything in less than 1.5 hours. W00t

I was feeling entirely tired of my very bland colors so after I had completed my daily goal I grabbed a bit of Sheep Shed Studio roving, white with some brown streaks, and decided to play around. I dunked it in some water and sprinkled on some pink lemonade kool aid. Microwaved for a bit. And hung it out to dry while I went to rehearsal. When I got home it was try and I spun it all up. I wasn’t sure how I would like it based on the roving form, but I like it quite a bit as it is spun up.

I may very well end up adding in another TDF goal :-)

Stage 6: 0.6 oz of Max and 0.6oz of Dunn

Today it was back to my regularly scheduled programming. In honor of the longest stage on the road (140 miles) I had my largest volume of spinning .6 oz of Max and .6oz of Dunn Alpaca (It’s not the most difficult however as I’m saving that for a mountain stage).

Everything went quite smoothly. Although there was a bit of a pause when someone decided that he needed to nap in my lap in the midst of the spinning.

Swap Part II

2011-04-12T06:00:00.000-04:00

As seems to always happen I was getting down to the deadline and needed to crank out my post cards. I discovered that one of my side tables works rather well in front of the couch, score, and I set up my work station.

After sending Mother’s card I knew I wanted to add in a sky of some sort. The white was just too white. I tried some bright blue tissue paper that I had first, but it was much too dark of a color. So instead I broke out the water colors and painted on a very watered down blue. Inevitably I’m working with not such heavy card stock so the cards were rather warped but I loved the paint color. Seriously watercolors are just such fun.

Next up was the grass. I spent a good bit of the evening cutting layering and gluing my stalks. Now I knew from the pro-type that they really wouldn’t survive the mail so well. At first I thought about extra glue or even covering the whole thing in maybe a watered down modge-podge. But that was a very messy idea. And I’m sure the tissue paper and water colors would not have played well with watered down glue. So I went rather utilitarian and used packing tape  It worked remarkably well and almost make my cards look downright fancy….or something.

After putting everything where I wanted it and sewing everything on I cut out each card. In order to keep the crochet from unraveling rather than cut the bottom edge I just folded the bottom under. When I mailed my prototype I knew that I would need a back of some form because of the knots on the other side of the card. Glue is always an option but I (unfortunately) know that glue does not always survive the mail. So instead I opted to just quickly sew a second card onto the back. It was simple, easy, and I love how it came out. And as an added bonus if the recipient wants they can totally just snip the white threads from either side and use the flower for something else.

Now my sewing machine is pretty crazy retro. It can be quite finicky so I wasn’t sure how it would handle it. But it seems to have much more problems sewing anything lightweight (it’ll barely sew quilting cottons) and rocked the card stock stitching with no problems when I sewed mother’s card. Unfortunately with the addition of the packing tape things got a bit more squirrely. It still worked but the feeder feet were struggling at times and so the stitching is rather un-even.

It should also be mentioned that I have a mild fascination with stamps. The post office just has so many fun ones that you can buy. So I love to calculate the postage online then use a good variety of stamps to mail fun things – yup I’m slightly crazy.

All in all a fun project and I hope the recipients enjoy them. Similarly to last year it was a bit intimidating because really I’m not much of an artist. I’m much more crafty. I’m looking forward to seeing what creations I’ll be receiving!

Post Card Swap

2011-04-11T12:00:00.001-04:00

I decided that I wanted to again participate in iHanna’s postcard swap. But how to top last years awesome knitted postcards? Knitting another set of cards seemed too obvious, I wanted to be different.

What about crochet? Well crochet is a good bit thicker than knitting so that might be a bit extreme. Hmm…what about thread crochet? That could work. I was envisioning something along the lines of a crochet doily but rectangular post card size. That would be awesome.

So I looked up a bunch of doily patterns on ravelry and at home one night and started testing things out. It was going to take approximately forever and as most all doilies are crochet in the round I was rather doubtful about my ability to get a rectangular shape.

During the search I had found a doily-esque project that was five little flowers connected together almost in a hexagon shape. Hmm….what about just covering the postcard with multi-colored flowers like that? So I started on that flower pattern but it was coming up rather larger than I wanted. At that point I decided to wing it and make a solitary flower from the inner rounds of the pattern. Then I gave it a stem and some leaves.

I liked it.

From there I experimented with a few different flower shapes and colors. At some point I found a favorite and finished out my 10 flowers using that design.

While this mass flower hooking was happening I decided that I had better test a proto-type by sending something across the state to my Mother.

Now I didn’t just want to attach the little flower to a blank card. That would be boring. So I planned on adding some green grass. At first I thought it would work well to use a stamp. But store-bought stamps are crazy expensive! I couldn’t believe it. Instead I purchased two erasers with the intent of carving my own grass stamps. But then when the evening came that I was putting everything together I decided to go a different direction and use layered tissue paper.

I put this card in the mail on Friday:

And on Saturday (the mail is super-speedy here, I love it) Mother sent me the following picture:

Woohoo the flower made it. But the card obviously still needs a bit of help.

I’ll finish up the rest of my story tomorrow!

Hexes

2011-04-10T18:00:00.000-04:00

A while back I absolutely fell in love with this bag made by Alice at Futuregirl Craft Blog. The project idea has stayed in my mind for quite some time now and I'm proud to announce that I've finally completed! Actually I finished the project in February sometime but I'm rather behind on my project reports so I'm only getting to it just now.

Instead of the simple two sided bag that Alice made I wanted to go with a decently big 5 sided bag. Somewhat similar to the reusable grocery bags, but for my craft projects.

The most awesome thing about this project is all of the colors. I spend so much of my life being a very neutral person, but I really do also have a bit of a wild/offbeat side. So this bag is a little bit of an outlet for that side :-)

Poor Bran had to suffer quite a good bit of time spent wandering around Joann's trying to pick the perfectly multi-colored fabric to complete my bag awesomeness. I finally settled upon the white background with colored dragonflies and I love how it turned out. Yes, it is very busy. But the colors work wonderfully together.

And if I was going to be sewing a lining I always figure I might as well add pockets to hold stuff! For this bag I put in a smallish drop pocket on the bottom of the above picture (self invented terminology so take my word for it), a small pocket at the top right side, a long pocket running down the whole left side (for long needles), a divider across the back/top for patterns/papers, and both long and tall slots for hooks and or needles also along the back/top.

I probably overdid things on the pockets. But that's kind of how most things end up once I get going...

Kinda odd to have needles sticking out of a crouched bag...but that's just how I roll.

Craving

2011-04-06T18:00:00.001-04:00

As of late I've really been craving some spinning time. I really don't know why except that the last time I spun anything was likely October when I was finishing the yarn I needed for Christmas projects.

But I just don't seem to have that much free time lately. And then when I do I either fall into the pit of doing pointless unnecessary things (hello phone games) or I actually manage to do things that I ought to be doing: house cleaning, laundry, postcard swap, organizing, spending time with boyfriend etc.

It will also take a good bit of prep time as I'd likely want to try an alpaca project but need to card the dirty roving first. And last but not least a dangling spinning spindle would likely be a dream kitten toy....not so ideal for good yarn production. :-/

Idea! Goal: Spin at least 500 yards of something in April.

old vs. new

2011-04-05T18:00:00.000-04:00

I'll confess that the new phone really is indeed pretty awesome.

Old phone (Samsung Sway):
- Made Calls
- Sent text messages using T-9 word
- Took crappy pictures
- Sucky battery

New phone (HTC Thunderbolt):
- Makes calls
- Sends messages and emails using digital keyboard
- Apps....millions and millions of (free) stuffs. Tons of games, useful things, and generally most anything under the sun.
- Interwebs
- Angry birds
- My new favorite game, flight control. (pictured up left)
- GPS
- GPS tracker and route mapper, also records stats: time moving and elevation.
- Digital lists (grocery shopping!)
- Calendar
- Music player
- Geocaching! (whoa it's been too long)
- Sky Map (neat!)
- Sucky Battery - d'oh

Toys

2011-04-05T06:00:00.002-04:00

I'm just going to pretend that it hasn't been approximately forever since I posted anything and proceed on with some random chatter....

Bran's influence on me is spreading. And not necessarily in a good way. I am actually.....spending monies. *gasp*

Old Phone...

meet New Phone....

This sucker cost me $200. And that was after quite a bit of hoop jumping. Which included boatloads and boatloads of research. An email to Verizon Wireless. Two online live chats with Verizon. Three phone calls over two days involving five different Verizon people. And one 45 minute visit to the Verizon Wireless Store.

It also involved many calls home to chat with the parental units (I'm on the family plan w00t w00t) as we also changed the plan, added a line, ported over the phone phone number, and set them up with a new box that will use the cell line but ring their home handsets.

Now, tragically, that $200 isn't the end of it. I also sent Father a check for $300 to cover the cost of the Data Package for the new phone until approximately December. My wallet is in pain.

There are so many other things I should be buying first (or ya know saving money)....but I bought the toy. What's becoming of me?

Christmas in February

2011-02-09T18:00:00.000-05:00

Promised things which were never (I think) posted:


The wreath on my door was about a million times better than last years.

I put many blocks together for Grandma's blanket.

She liked it.

I used some old papercuts I had laying around to make awesome cards for a Ravelry exchange.

I got to see all of my penguin friends and pass out the awesome new penguin gear that I designed and painted.

After 7 months of working I finished Bran's Granny Square (252 of them) Super Mario Blanket.

Lastly is my most awesome gift of the season. At least in my opinion. It is a hand knit lace scarf made from 100% alpaca fleece that I carded and spun myself.

I love making stuffs.

Clean Slate

2011-01-04T06:00:00.000-05:00

Holy moly it's 2011. That pretty much snuck up on me from nowhere. But in some ways I am rather thankful for it. Somehow Christmas 2010 ended up being very very gifty for me. And as much as I really did love making and giving away so many things. It did also result in me being even more stressed out than I am normally (which is a lot).

Now the holidays and all of their madness (and awesomeness) have come and gone. Ideally I'd be moving on and thinking on all of the awesomeness that I can accomplish in 2011. But instead I've decided that I want to take some time to re-cap some of the awesomeness that went unmentioned here in 2010.

First up is my tree:

Notable things in this picture: The amazingly cute penguin (a spontaneous Target purchase by Bran). Lots o' presents (and that wasn't even all of them). And new light up Moravian star tree topper (purchased to replace the mostly but not quite all completed overly large paper Moravian star I glued together last year).

Next presents ready for transport:

As I was packing all of this I thought that for what I think would be the first time ever I might actually go home (to my parents) with more than I returned to the apartment with. Pretty sure that didn't actually come true in the end.

Stay tuned next time for the story of the epic blanket:

A long time.

2010-12-03T18:00:00.000-05:00

So most every week day I think about how I need to blog again. And then it doesn't happen. Oops.

I am now in the work furiously at Christmas crafts, and prey I get everything done, time of year. And this is dispite actually making, and for at least a time staying mostly on schedule, my Christmas Craft plan back in July/August. Ah well....there's always next year.

Plus I think everything that I make is going to be pretty awesome this year:
Mother's scarf/shaw - done and awesome
Grandma's blanket - done and awesome
Bran's blanket - getting close to being done....finally
Courtney's scarf - only have about a foot on the needles, this project needs the most work
Penguin aparal - I have all the supplies gathered and preliminary work done just need to get'er done
Christmas calanders - need to check for changes with the family and then print
Christmas pillow - the cross stitch is done I think I'll pick up some holiday fabric from joann's on Saturday and sew a log cabin square around it. Should be awesome.

Ok that list is kinda scary there. But I'm aiming to get a good bit of stuff done this weekend.

Wish me luck.

CSA

2010-11-09T06:00:00.000-05:00

Today in my email I noticed that the big local farm where I love to get produce (and where I buy produce for any canning that I've done recently) will be offering a CSA next year.

I would absolutely love to get my weekly big batch of fresh fruits and veggies but alas I am only one person and I really don't need $15 of produce every week. But I can't think of how awesome it would be and how, hopefully, it would help mold me into better eating habits and trying more foods.

Maybe I'll be able to find someone to split it with....

26 Days.

2010-11-05T18:00:00.002-04:00

It started on October 25th. There were concerts on the 30th and the 31st (which nearly sold out). November 7th is a big special Gala event. And on the 13th and 14th there's another concert. Saturday November 20th will be the start of my next non-work weekend.

That means a stretch of 26 days with one day (tomorrow the 6th) free of work. Ouch.

Actually I took off last Tuesday to go house viewing. But the "day off" ended up being very tiring and somewhat stressful as house hunting tends to be for me. Plus I seriously do not recommend taking a random Tuesday off as it really throws off ones internal chronology.

Go figure one of my co-workers decided to have a house (well apartment) - warming party on the 6th. If anyone brings up work I may scream. Yea, that'll never happen, it'll certainly be talked about. I probably ought to just start crying now.

The week before the first concert was absolutely crazy. Stupid POPS concerts and people wanting to come and absolutely everyone has accessibility issues.

By the Thursday or Friday after a concert my brain always is pretty mush like. Today is no exception. Even my most basic of tasks was proving to be nearly impossible.

*sigh*

It is cold.

2010-11-04T18:00:00.001-04:00

The weather this year has been a bit crazy. It was a brutally hot summer. And it seemed to stay warm rather well. Then suddenly it was cold. Then it was mild. And now it's frigid.

I am sad.

You see I am pretty much always cold. Even in the summer I spend most of the time cold because everyone feels the need to blast the AC.

Now the normal answer to this problem would be: so turn on the heat. But alas, I am also cheap. It's quite the dilemma, but the cheapness is totally winning.

Things that I have done to avoid turning on my heat (which btw is still off despite the fact that the apartment is consistently in the 50's now):

1. Add extra blankets - During the summer I have a sheet and a comforter on my bed. When it started getting cool at night I added a second comforter. When things were getting rather chilly I added in my retro electric blanket which I (aim to) turn on 20 minutes before bed and then turn off the idea being that body heat can then maintain stasis. At that point I was still waking up with cold feet which was very sad. So I recently added another thermal typeish blanket plus a fleece blanket (with penguins on it!) which covers the bottom 2/3 of the bed. I've also started sleeping in my pajama bottoms, thick socks, a long sleeved shirt, and a sweatshirt.

2. Space heater - As awesome as it is, at times I am loath to use my space heater. This is because I know that the thing will totally jack up my electric bill. But it's less expensive than oil so it has been on recently. Plus Bran is not cheap like me and so turns things on without a second thought. Last winter I discovered the best use of heater was to open the foot rest part of my couch. Place the space heater under the foot rest. And cover me and it with a blanket. It pretty much always gets downright hot before too long.

Crochet Hook Case

2010-10-29T06:00:00.000-04:00

A year ago I really didn't know (or remember is more accurate) how to crochet. But for some reason I decided to pick it back up. And since then I've been hooking up a storm of granny squares and the occasional amigurimi. And so I've found myself going more and more often to my jar of hooks to try and find the right size for this or that project.

Realistically making a hook case would be more of an organizational project than a craft one. Nearly all of my hooks being hand-me-downs from my Grandmother's piles of stuff I have no idea what sizes I even have. It actually seems like I'm rather lacking in more "normal" sized hooks and I'm definitely overwhelmed by little teeny tiny lace (or something...I've never used them) hooks.

So pretty much this project would help to add in some organization to my crafty life.

Knitting lace.

2010-10-28T18:00:00.001-04:00

Way back in July when I started planning Christmas gifts I decided that I wanted to spin enough lace weight alpaca to make my Mother a big scarf/shawl. It seemed like a pretty crazy goal, but at the time I was quite gung-ho on the spinning thing and for some reason seemed to think that the knitting part was practically a throw away.

The month past, and while I did accomplish a good bit of spinning, I didn't meet my goal. So when October came near everything was a bit iffy, but I decided to proceed with Mother's scarf/shawl reducing the repeats in efforts to still have enough remaining yarn to make a scarf for Bran's sister.

Then I proceeded to struggle with the 3rd row of the pattern. It took much longer than it should but after a while i figured it out, and i was off.

I've not done much lace knitting at all so it was something different. The project certainly didn't look like much while on the needles. But I found that when I stretched it out things were shaping up rather awesomely.

Unfortunately awesome or not things seemed to be crawling along at a snails pace. But then after about two weeks of plodding along suddenly I found my groove with the pattern and I started going more quickly. I also started to realize just how much size was added when the knitting was stretched. It was awesome.

And so late last Friday I found myself at a point where I could cast off! The next day (after a traumatic laundromat visit) I made my own blocking board. and on Sunday I stretched the whole thing out 20" by 60" and let the sucker dry.

Inevitably there are a good many inconsistencies in the project. There are a few spots where you can see that I used a batch of coarser, not quite the same color, fleece. Really I need to get over it and just throw that stuff out next time (I hate waste!). At the end of my first skein I seemed to have gotten particularly fine with my spinning, then the next skein started off a bit more bulky. And lastly I'm not sure if I was just knitting more loosly or if the yarn changed, both are quite possible, but the start of the scarf is much tighter than it was when I casted off. Blocking helped this last issue some, but really the end didn't take nearly as much stretching, so who knows....

Plus I am quite worried that as Mother uses it the crazy hand-made item could easily loose shape. I was reading knitting horror stories about such things with alpaca yarn....that would be sad.

But for now at least I can enjoy marveling at this simple beauty.

3-D Paper Snowflake

2010-10-27T06:00:00.000-04:00

The first project on my list (alphabetically) is a 3-D Paper Snowflake. I think I found and bookmarked this tutorial 2 Christmas seasons ago.

It seems quite simple, yet very pretty. I'm not quite sure why I've never gotten around to it beyond that the holiday's tend to attract super-duper craft overload.

So this year maybe I'll try to use it as a break from all of my other projects. After all snowflakes are easily one of my favorite seasonal decorations. Ever since bizzardizing my college dorm rooms (all 3 years I'm proud to say) I have continued the tradition of cutting and hanging snowflakes en-masse.

252 Squares

2010-10-26T18:00:00.000-04:00

On Thursday October 14th at approximately 9:15 (while watching Grey's Anatomy - yay) I finished crocheting the last of the 252 little Granny Squares for Bran's Christmas Present (Mario Blanket). I began constructing squares while on the beach in Ocean City MD back in June 117 days ago. And so I am proud to say that dispite having sometimes stuck with it and sometimes ignored it, I did in fact keep up to my average goal of 2 squares per day. In fact I exceeded it nominally yea!

Unfortunately beyond the ability to take awesomely ridiculous pictures of piles and piles of squares I'm not feeling much accomplishment. Instead I'm just dreading the joining process. Ugh.

According to my Christmas Present creation schedule I don't need to join any of these squares until November. But now that they're finished I am itching to start it (or at least figure out what on earth I'm up against). My current thinking is to join all of the horizontal rows together and then join the long vertical rows. But we shall see.

A more pressing question is what to do with all of the ends? I probably should have been hiding them as I went but I am lazy....

This thing had better be the most awesome thing ever.

It is also possible that I'll not be posting anymore on this project. See Bran is pretty much the only person that I know reads this blog. And I'm planning on hiding the project out of his sight now to make the finished product more spectacular. So we'll see.....Maybe I'll just do verbal descriptions with no pictures.

And one last quick thing! I'm also totally at a loss as for what to use as a good take along project. These squares were so easy to grab and work on absolutely anywhere. Now I'm going to be back with projects that actually require my attention while I work on them. Tricky.

Crafts To-Do

2010-10-15T18:00:00.000-04:00

As seems to always happen in the fall I'm so Christmas present-centric that I get really tired of those projects. And well the last few years all of those projects have been yarn crafting.

But when I'm not at home furiously knitting, hooking, or crocheting I spend good bits of time drooling over other awesome projects I could do.

And so I have decided to add a list of "Crafts To-Do" to this here blog. Basically it will serve as a nice concise list. And also a reminder of things that I really ought to get my butt in gear and accomplish.

I plan to describe and explain my list over the next few weeks. (hooray blog motivation!)

PS: Inevitably this list does not incorporate any of the numerous UFO's (Un-Finished Objects) that I have laying around. Nor does it include my extensive Ravelrly (Knitting and Crocheting) queue.

Waiting Game.

2010-10-14T06:00:00.000-04:00

I officially feel like the most spoiled 24 year old worldever.

It all started a month or two ago…..

My Aunt sent me an email with an idea. See my Uncle seems toenjoy buying houses, and he has the money for it. So with the market being solow they were thinking about investment properties. And they figured thatinstead of dealing with a renter that they didn’t know why not buy out near methen rent to me. They would even do rent to own with me if I decided I wantedto own the property after a few years.

This was pretty much ridiculously generous of them and sincethat initial email I have spent quite a good bit of time drooling overproperties online.

Last week I finally started to visit some of the houses. Iabsolutely fell in love with one neighborhood which included two houses. So onSaturday my Aunt and Uncle traveled out here to view them. They’re bothforeclosures that need some help. The first needed way way too much so wasruled out.

But supposedly my Uncle will be placing an offer on thesecond.

I am like so ridiculously excited about the prospect thatthe uncertainty is killing me now as I wait to hear what, if anything, is up.

Gah!!!!!

And to top it all off, while they were here my Uncle saidthat he’s planning on only charging me what I’m currently paying in rent.Needless to say this had better cover all of his costs (mortgage, taxes,insurance). But I’m not completely certain that it will.

Seriously this is beyond generous of them!

You better watch out....

2010-10-13T18:00:00.000-04:00

I am already thinking very much about Christmas.

It started way back in July I believe when I typed up a plan for what I needed to accomplish each month in order to have a bunch of crafty presents.

But inevitably, as most things go, I think that once again I’m being overambitious and I’m feeling behind.

Sometimes I feel like I still have tons of time before the holiday’s and I shouldn’t be freaking out yet. But then I count the months and realize I’m at 2.5. Yikes!

In other news I can’t help but plan how I would want to decorate “my” new house for Christmas. But that is boatloads of speculation so….maybe.

Smile!

2010-09-26T14:52:00.000-04:00

Strolling through the World Show Case at Epcot I wasenjoying looking at all of the neat architecture and making Bran pose forpictures.

Entering the Italypavilion I noticed a man with a camera with a giant lens on one of thoseone-legged-not-actually-tri-pod things. And I noted to myself that it reallywould be a nice place (the whole park really) for photographers to come andtake pictures.

Bran and I moved over to the water front and were takingpictures on the neat little Italian bridges. As I was posing and Bran takingpictures of me I noticed that the photographer seemed to be snapping picturesthat seemed like they could be including me – or maybe he was just aiming to myleft, it was hard to say. Then Bran and I exchanged places and then, as hegrumbled about the heat and walking too much, I sent him over to a fartherbridge to pose.

As we was making his way over a young woman approached me.She explained that they were taking some kind of publicity shots of peopletaking pictures of each other and that the photographer had gotten some goodones of my “husband” taking pictures of me. If we would just sign these waiverswe could get free pins. Obviously I was game, and called after Bran to make himcome all the way back. I also corrected the woman that he was my boyfriend,although her repeated use of the title “husband” had totally amused me (whilealso being ridiculously weird).

We gave them our names and where we are from. They had uspose again with Bran now faking to be taking pictures of me. We got free pinsand then were along on our way. Whence I proceeded to make Bran go back to thefar bridge for my planned picture.

It was weird and awesome at the same time. I totally hopethat they use a picture of us somewhere because I think that’s pretty fun. But thenI also realize the chances of me ever realizing it are approximately non-existent– which is very sad.

Altogether highly amusing.

Togetherness

2010-09-23T18:00:00.001-04:00

Disney world was, as it should be, magical. And even as I would get tired and cranky and sometimes unfairly short with him, I know I enjoyed every moment of being with Bran.

While we were down there we hit the one year anniversary of our First Date. We didn't do anything special really. But the whole trip was special so that was easily more than enough. Going into the trip I had already had the idea that I wanted to find him a gift while down there to be an anniversary gift. Because I figured it would also be a good reminder of our time together. And when we talked about it he first said that he'd gotten me something back home but didn't bring it because he knew I'd likely go through his suitcase. [Yup, he knows me. Although I only went through it a very little bit when I was holding the last threads of hope that he'd be able to condense into one suitcase.] So that was cute of him, but he ended up in my "lets get something here" camp before long.

However, then the awkwardness (for me at least) began. The problem arises because he is so apt to buy anything he wants for himself and I am so anti-spending any money at all. We're very tricky people. Luckily at some point we had the idea of both getting watches for multiple reasons generally centering around the fact that we are both dorks. (And perfectly proud of it.)

But anyways I completely wandered from the topic I wanted to discuss.

Now that we're back home I miss him quite intensely. We have a few things going against us. I work a pretty normal M-F 8:30-4:30 schedule but with the season starting soon I'll be loosing some weekends. Plus I like to keep busy so I do have certain activities, like band, which take up one evening each week. He has a ridiculous changes every week (It's like a 12 or 15 week rotation) schedule which can be pretty much one of 3 things. Regular work day, 6-6, all waking day, 6-10ish, all evening 6am-6pm. This sucks because things generally don't line up well which is aided by the fact that he doesn't do stuff on the day before an early wake up (a lot of them). And to top everything off he went and got sick immediately upon our return (likely from one of our fellow plane-riders). Which I am now tetering on the edge of (I just had to see him on Tuesday).

I used to think that I was quite the loner and wanted to have my own space all the time. But as time goes by I'm either changing, or finding that I was wrong. A girl can get very lonely being all on her own after having spent a rather blissful 24/7 (actually it was like 8 or 9 by the time we parted) with someone special.

Maybe I should convince him to move-in together.

Or maybe he had a dreadful time and is now trying to get away from me.

Hmm.....

2010-08-06T18:00:00.000-04:00

Here’s what I want to accomplish in August:

1. Ride bike at least once a week. I ought to be doing more but hopefully this will be a good place to start.

2. At least 2 Mario Squares every day. I must get back on this bandwagon in order to keep up with my Christmas present plan (totally must explain this in another post).

3. 2 knit, 3 crochet afghan squares. So far I’ve been keeping up with this crazy output so here we’ll go again.

4. Finish current spinning project and continue with same fleece (Zeke) to total 800 yards of laceweight yarn. This may kill me but I’d really really really like to see it happen. And after last month I know if I really put my nose to the grind I can do as much as 300 yards start to finish in a week.

5. Read WoT book 8. Actually I started this last night and I’m quite willing to throw myself completely into another book, but must exercise restraint and accomplish other goals as well. The good news is this book is a measly 700ish pages and the font isn’t particularly tiny. Woot!

So my goals really are rather stagnant every month but ah well it’s helping me meet my larger goals.

July Results

2010-08-06T06:00:00.002-04:00

Here’s what I accomplished in July:

TdF – I pretty much rocked the first ¾ of Le Tour. But alas when it got down to the wire (last 3 days) I was too distracted with camping prep and actually camping to finish my goal. Alas I really barely even started the last part. But the endeavor really was quite a success as I did in fact finish 2 UFO’s, over ½ complete a Christmas yarn, and learn to spin awesome laceweight.

5 afghan squares – Actually the last one was finished on August 1st, but eh close enough for me. I really need to spread out these suckers and take a photo. There’s a lot of them really.

WoT book 7 – Hooray for past half way! This month was particularly good because I had like no reading time during the TdF so I ended up saving most all of the book (600+ pages) for camping. Then I spent glorious hours just sitting and reading and being fully immersed the fantasy world. I’ve not had the opportunity to do that with a book in quite a while. Really I ought to get back to it methinks.

Doldrums of Summer

2010-08-05T18:00:00.003-04:00

Maybe it’s having come off of such a beautiful relaxing week last week…

Maybe it’s the hot sticky humid weather…

Maybe it’s my job…

Maybe it’s not seeing Bran for a full week…

Maybe it’s having crammed too much into July…

But I am just entirely devoid of motivation. It’s mainly killing me at work. Everyday it is such a battle to wake up. Then I stress about work. At the office I struggle through the hours. And even at home when I normally perk up I’m really just moving through the motions of my various craft projects and activities.

I don’t think I’ve even washed a single dish since returning home…..that’s kinda disgusting of me….

Last week.

2010-08-04T06:00:00.007-04:00

There were a couple of things wrong with my camping trip last weekend...

I had bad thoughts in my head that wouldn’t go away.

I was feeling physically off for a large number of the days.

On the last night a bunch of interloper’s invaded my normally secluded campground.

Luckily they were easily outweighed by the good things…

I was able to clear my head of most of its normal worries.

The weather spent most of the time in the 70’s with only 2ish days of rain.

Most day’s we had the entire camp ground to ourselves.

Bran likes camping.

I got to have good quality alone time, free of distractions, with him and we still like each other.

Bran learned to grill food.

I was seriously sucked into the 700ish pages of WoT that I needed to finish which made finishing exceptionally easy and fun, plus I really want to read more now.

Camping is, has been, and quite possibly always will be one of my favorite activities. The opportunity to get away from it all and sit quietly in nature is one that I look forward to every year.

Canned

2010-07-20T18:00:00.000-04:00

This past weekend I completed my first few Christmas presents. Yup, I'm being that well prepared this year (more details another post). I had noticed that my local farm stand place had tomatoes (they have a really awesome facebook page) and figured that the men in my family (notoriously difficult to find gifts for) would certainly enjoy some homemade salsa.

In the week leading up to my free days I did a good bit of research to prepare myself. I determined a number of things:

My pressure canner which I'm really not sure how I ended up with it beyond that someone in my family gave it to me could, logically, be a safety hazard. So I opted to go with the water bath method.
If I could find the supplies this would also be a good opportunity for pickle making.
Being a low-acid food the canning of tomato products can be a bit sketchy. Maybe I ought to warn the fam. before they dig in.

On Saturday I came home with a whole bunch of tomatoes (1/4 bushel maybe), lots of yellow onions, a bunch of jalapeno peppers, peaches to be eaten, and larger peppers whose name I couldn't remember. This forgetfulness caused me a bit of despair as I worried about making things too spicy. So steeling myself for possible doom I sliced a bit off, threw it in a hot pan (that I had just used to make myself an awesome BLT aka my new favorite food) and then ate it. Thankfully it was a very mild nicely sweet tasting pepper. Whew.

Sunday afternoon as the Sun roasted life in my apartments to new heights it was time to begin. First up was cleaning and filling the ginormous pot and hoping my little stove would be able to bring it to a boil. Thankfully it worked.

First up was the pickles. I sliced up my cucumbers, determined I really didn't have that many, and stuffed them in 4 jars. Then I used a bagged mix to prepare the pickle juice. Holy moly is that stuff strong. But everything went smoothly and soon I had 4 jars in the water bath.

At some point I looked in and noticed one of the jars floating. "Well that's not right" I thought to myself and proceeded to try and sink it back down for proper processing. This mixing up of things however revealed that the entire bottom half of the jar had cracked of and therefore pickles-to-be and pickle juice had spread into the water bath. Very sad.

But as I shared the story with Bran I heard the tell-tale popping sound which both startles and delights me as it means the vacuum seal has taken over the jar. 3 out of 4 isn't horrible. Now I was stuck with the task of dumping the recently boiling giant hot pot of lightly pickled water. In attempts to cool things down more quickly I resorted to this set up in the middle of the room. It can also be noted that by this point walking into the living room felt cool, which is not quite right as the thermostat there read 90 which is in fact as high as it is capable of going.

Eventually the pickle chaos was cleaned up and after a break it was Salsa time. If I ever decide to do such a thing again I really ought to buy a food processor. My knife skills are horrible and the exact timing is iffy but I think it probably took me around 2 hours to get all this chopping done. And really I slacked off on a few things and didn't necessarily chop as much as was listed (minced jalapenos I'm looking at you). But here, at long last, was my finished prep. And everything went on the stove.

Thankfully the Salsa processing went much more smoothly and I ended up with 3 pints, 3 half pints, and 3 little 1/4 pints :-)

Beaches at Night

2010-07-15T18:00:00.000-04:00

As previously mentioned after receiving notification of my raise I 'gave' myself $20 to spend however I liked. Given my current obsession with spinning (thank you TdF) I opted for roving.

I did a good bit of Etsy window shopping, marveling over all of the beautiful rovings. At first I was really leaning towards something cheaper to leave me some extra $. But in the end I went for this:

Found at BitsyKnits' Etsy Shop it's called Beaches at night. I first took notice of this particular roving a while back when BitsyKnits was the Phat Fiber give away shop. For some reason I absolutely love the subtle natural tones of it. The blues and browns are simply marvelous.

It was $16 +4.95 shipping.......whoa. That's actually $0.95 over my alotted spending. But in the end I decided to take a jump and go with the piece that spoke out the most to me. After all this is my splurge :-)

Alas I am rather a bit behind on my posting as I've already received the package (although she did ship awesomely fast). I still love it and I'm also ridiculously excited about the magnet and postcard she included....sometimes it's the small things!

TdF stage (yarn) 2

2010-07-14T18:00:00.000-04:00

Well I may have fallen off of the July blogging bandwagon but I've been kicking butt with my Tour de Fleece progress!!!!

Here's the second UFO (un finished objected) which was checked off the list on Saturday:


Pre-tour roving and previously completed skein in the background.

First completed skein. 80 some yards maybe?

Varying stages represented. Original roving in the back. Torn bits of fiber drafted into long strips is the fluffy stuff. There's single ply yarn on the spindle. And a full skein beneath and in the back.

A batch of single ply wound off of the spindle waiting it's mate to become double ply.

When wound on the spindle the color changes could be very pretty. This is during plying even.

The final skein of 94 yards. Hooray!!!

I had an absolutely dreadful time capturing the true colors.....ah well....

Don't spend it all in one place.

2010-07-10T06:00:00.000-04:00

When I heard that I was going to get a raise (before I even knew the amount) I decided that I would take a bit to give myself a "treat". Pretty quickly I stettled upon two things. 1. I would buy some fiber, given the fun and success I am having with my TdF spinning. And also given just how very very much I'm enjoying it/ wanting to do more/ drooling over all of the other participants yarns. 2. I wold give myself $20.

I'm pretty sure that makes me rather cheap (which is true). $20 is not much at all, particularly if you consider that I'll be making over $1,000 more. But on the other hand given my frugal living it still feels like a big splurge for me. In my budget I have a monthly $50 which I designate my "freedom fund". Theoretically this is for any discretionary spending (like roving and yarn) but sadly it often ends up being hit with less cool things like replacing broken sunglasses and fans to futility try to combat weeks of weather in the high 90's.

So really I was quite excited for my $20.

I knew that I wanted to buy some kind of processed fiber but as I started thinking about it I realized that some other things would be pretty cool as well. Still on my radar is wanting to learn needle felting which requires about $10 of supplies to get started. Or it can even be broken up into components for less than $5. "That could be doable" said my overactive and easily excitable brain. Or what about a *gasp* second spindle. Looking at other peoples stuff in the TdF I've been coveting all of the beautiful spindles....my poor cheap beginner really doesn't compare. Plus different spindles obviously spin differently so it would open up new yarn possibilities!

Off to Etsy I went.....

to be continued

PS: I find it quite amusing how my two little worlds (crafting and finance) have here collided. Go me!

Dreaming

2010-07-09T18:00:00.001-04:00

I know that I have been watching too much TdF when I start dreaming of dating Lance Armstrong......goodness

TdF sprinting

2010-07-09T06:00:00.000-04:00

My first Tour de Fleece skein is complete!

First up was 1oz of fluffly white alpaca that has been waiting for me for over a year now. The stuff practically fell into laceweight so I decided to go with it and even joined the TdF as a sprinter (fast spinning or lace).

I really wish I had more. My yarn, which is indeed a rather nice laceweight once double plied, came out to 101 yards. I would really like to make myself a lacy scarf (perfect for those cold winter days in the office perhaps?) but this may be cutting it a bit short. Maybe I'll just have to make something rather skinny to compensate...hmm....

Lastly it must be noted that spinning prepared fiber is my new favorite thing ever. I am so used to the tedium (and pain) of hand carding raw dirty alpaca that this cloud of fiber was absolutely a dream.

I am raised

2010-07-08T18:00:00.000-04:00

So it turns out that my most favoritiest finance manager and most favoritest co-worker in the whole world got permission from Boss to tell me about my raise :-)

We now turn to the numbers which probably make most people want to gouge their eyes out. But I find playing with excel sheets to be absolutely awesome fun and this is my blog so here we go.....

I have been raised 3.812%. This is 1.544 percentage points higher than the average rate of inflation so far in 2010 (http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/CurrentInflation.asp). But better yet word on the street is that there wasn't an across the board raise but rather I did better than some other people. They must like me :-)

My gross salary was $30825.00 and now I shall be earning $32000.05 which is an increase of $1175.05. Honestly that doesn't seem like a huge increase. But check this out....My previous take home pay each period was $922.68 with my own approximation of taxes the increase will have me at 1037.67. And so my best estimation of the increase in monthly net take-home pay is $229.99. Now given that $1175.05 divided by 12 does not come close to $229.99 you are probably confused. I was too for a bit.

Back at the end of December our Finance Manager (who I shall now call CFO to make my life easier) came in the office and started talking to me. She was a bit frazzled because she had been to our payroll company to pick up checks where she was informed that when a company is paying its employees bi-weekly (as we were paid) that every 11 years there would be a 27th pay period in the year and so 2009 or 2010 would be that year for us. However since this was coming out of the blue for this fiscal year (we run July1-June30) the amount we recieve each pay period had been caluclated by dividing our salary by 26. And so continuing to pay us regularly would cost an extra lot of money for that extra pay period. Many phone calls then happened to various board members. The final decision was made that we would move to a twice monthly pay system. Somehow it worked out that we would get the same amount each pay period but now we had less pay periods - which made up for the 'extra' pay we had received. It was ridiculously confusing but I puzzled it all together at the time and it did work out.

But anyways as a result of that transition even without a raise my pay would have gone up $76.89 each pay period ($153.78 monthly). So it would have already felt like I was getting more money. See I always budget monthly using 2 pay periods. In the old system this meant there would be 2 awesome months where I had extra awesome $. So when we changed it sucked to loose that but didn't impact my budgeting. The increase would have felt like a raise anyways so the real raise is kinda just more awesomeness.

Next up shall be budgeting!

PS: I could probably go on talking numbers for many more posts but I'll try to contain it and intermittently schedule it with more crafts :-)

Raise?

2010-07-08T06:00:00.000-04:00

Sitting up front at my desk our Finance director (with whom I have a very good rapport) asked if I had talked to our boss yet. The question was rather out of the blue but quite intriguing.

See our fiscal year begins July 1 and so if we are to receive pay raises that is when they go into effect. Typically we have a performance review with the boss and he'll let us know whats what with regards to $ there. Traditionally he is behind the times and the pay raise ends up hitting my bank account before I am aware of what I'm newly earning. And so I have been somewhat nervously anticipating my review. Not that I think anyone has a problem with my performance, but still one never knows. Plus what if this year they're not doing raises?

So when she asked this I perked up. I told her that I had not but I'd been anticipating it to come up sometime. However as he was scheduled to not be in the office that day already owing to vacation it seemed like it would be a bit before it happened. Well from the hints she dropped things could be very happy. She said that I'd be able to buy spinning wheels and bake many many peach pies. (Can you tell that I like to share my life happenings with her?)

Now I am ridiculously anxious to see what I'll be getting. She's quite the character so I have no idea if I'm actually getting like a substantial raise or if she's just making a big deal out of something mediocre. But then I don't even know how I'd qualify substantial vs. mediocre really. I always just budget for where I'm at now.

Alas, unless I convince her to spill the beans (dunno if that's proper or not) I won't find out until the next pay period. The $ will hit my bank account on the 15th (direct deposit) but I should find out on the 14th which is when pay stubs are normally passed out.

I don't know if I can wait that long. I'm already envisioning how I might want to budget the extra $. And despite my best efforts I do believe that I may just have to open up my budget worksheet now and play with the numbers.

Retro

2010-07-07T06:00:00.000-04:00

It is quite possible that one of the first crafts that I was ever much into was sewing. My mother taught me to sew at a fairly young age and at some point I had one or two of the little tiny machines for kids. But using her big machine was always way better. And so at some point Grandma came up with this behemoth....my very own sewing machine.

Unfortunately she never really worked particularly well. Some of the settings were off and while it came with a manual, the paper had sustained some pretty serious water damage so it wasn't the most helpful. So I would occasionally drag thing thing out (it weights about 50 lbs), get frustrated, and then use her machine. By the end I was pretty exclusively using her machine for sewing....much less frustrating.

When I moved out of the house I don't think I took it at first a: because of the weight, b: because it only half worked. But one Christmas my parents found a repair person and had it looked fixed up. At first I thought this to be the most awesome thing ever. But now I'm really not quite sure that it ever quite made it up to ideal standards.

The primary problem is that it practically eats lightweight fabric. I can kinda almost get away with quilting cottons but forget about thin fashion fabrics. And I have found as I use it periodically it likes to skip the occasional stitch. But I still use it because I like making things.

Although every time I make things its a real pain on my back. My typical set up has the machine on the floor. I use the foot pedal either with my knee or somewhat awkwardly with my foot. This past time of sewing however I had the very smart idea of putting it up on my table by the window. I then sat on the lid and enjoyed the awesome view out my window (plus excellent light) while sewing.

Progress!

Another one bites the dust

2010-07-06T18:00:00.000-04:00

So I found out that one of my co-workers has given his notice. While there are many great things that I enjoy the ridiculous staff-turnover is not one of the better aspects of working for a small non-profit arts organization.

We currently have 7 full timers and 3 part timers who work here in the office (there are some other staff people that aren't in the office regularly so I'm not counting them). And once he leaves of that staff I, with my 3 years of employment, will be the 2nd longest term employee. Which is particularly humorous considering I am the youngest, by about 10 years, person here most of the other staff having a good 20 or 30 years on me.

Kinda makes ya wonder about workin here.....

Making it up as I go

2010-07-05T18:00:00.001-04:00

For some reason before we went to the beach Bran had this ridiculous (but fun) notion that we were going to play video games on the beach. This was brought on in large part by the fact that he first bought me a Nintendo DS for my birthday way back in February. Then sometime later in the spring he got me addicted to Pokemon.

But before our trip I determined that for this to happen I needed a DS case......enter the sewing machine.

I sorted through (and ended up organizing) my big box of fabric picked out some of my favorites. At first I

was very tempted to go with both my fun ladybug print and a second blue print with bubbles because they are both awesomely fun. But in the end I decided that it would be best to tone myself down and just play off of the ladybug print. I think it was an excellent and wise choice. Here was the pile of supplies I put together.

I had the idea in my head to make an envelope type enclosure with a band across the top flap to hold extra games. I also wanted it to be completely lined and I didn't want to make it terribly bulky.

Because it was such a freeform project I started my cutting with everything a bit bigger than needed which was ok as I had more than enough supplies. It took a long time with lots of trial and error, but surprisingly only one (somewhat) serious re-do. I've made bag type projects with linings before and each time I get it figured out enough to be quite good.....by the end of the project. But I never manage to carry the knowledge into my next task. This is probably because they are so few and far between. But ah well at least I generally churn out something pretty cool by the end.

Here is my final product:

It has a few flaws to it. But I still quite love it and it works splendidly. Although we later determined that playing video games on the beach is just too bright, and too distracting. Ah well.

As American as Peach Pie

2010-07-04T06:00:00.004-04:00

The planets have finally aligned so that I will be attending one of Bran's family picnics today. And as I prepared to meet his people I decided that bringing a pie ought to be a good way to impress people and encourage them to like me.

And me being me of course I decided that I wanted to go all out. Never mind that I've only made one homemade pie crust before in my life (and that it didn't actually quite work out so well). I will be making a 100% from scratch awesome Peach Pie down to a what I'm sure will be beautiful lattice crust.

Somewhat unfortunately my designated pie baking time coincides with watching the TdF. This could be interesting.

Pie baking:

Tour de Fleece

2010-07-03T06:00:00.000-04:00

Given as I am already planning on devoting obscene amouts of my non-working life to following the Tour de France I decided to join in the Tour de Fleece hosted on Ravelry. According to the group site: "The concept is simple, They spin, we spin. A real spinning themed spin-along." Combining two of my loves: Priceless.

Alas I am cheap and so not only do I not have a spinning wheel, but in fact I have only one spindle. It's pretty lame. But I shall aim to spin every day of the tour never-the-less. And obviously I shall be shooting to watch as many stages of the tour as I can manage. However it may come about that I miss some stages. And in those instances I'll try to do a bit of spinning outside of my biker watching, just to keep up with the Tour de Fleece goal.

I'll be starting with some awesome white alpaca. Purchased as a part of the "learn to spin" kit which I purchased when I first began my spinning at first I didn't want to touch the fleece because I thought it was too beautiful to waste on learning. And then it just kinda got set off to the side while I did other things. Somewhat randomly I picked it up not too long ago and started spinning it into some very nice lace weight which is what I'll be aiming for. There will be a bit of getting used to as the carded batt of fleece is quite different from my regular self taught hand carded "rolags", and so far I also noticed a number of second cuts that are yucky. But it should be a good learning experiance and yield some pretty yarn.

After that I want to keep going on the dyed wool I picked up over a year ago when I visited Pittsburgh. Sometime in the spring I spun up a batch of it but there is still more to go - must get on that.

If I still have tour days after those projects I'll be back to my raw alpaca. So that will obviously require hand carding, which for my own purposes I consider to meet my TdF obligations, although I may try to spin at least a bit each day as well. I would really like to spin up a good bit of lace weight to use for a pretty scarf that I can give to Bran's sister for Christmas. Somewhat random, but I think it could be a pretty cool gift and I enjoy being random like that.

Wish me luck.

Many blue squares

2010-07-02T18:00:00.001-04:00

Progress on Bran's Mario blanket has been in full swing since I started it mid June. I've made a few good observations on the project.

One skein of Caron Simply Soft (6 oz, 315 yds) = 20 blocks. Approximately 16 skeins will be needed to complete the blanket.
One block takes me approximately 17 minutes to crochet without interruption while watching TV. Therefore the project will likely involve 3 days worth of time for the crocheting alone (who knows about the piecing together) unless I get faster.

Originally I was making good use of coupons and the fact that the craft store is right next to the grocery store to load up on skeins one at a time at a 40% or 50% discount. But then this past week they went on sale, which isn't as good as the coupon price, so I couldn't use my coupon and somehow I managed to remove myself from the store without then using the coupon for any superfilous spending. But when they sent me a coupon for 15% off of your total purchase including sale on Wednesday, I couldn't resist going on Wednesday and buying $20 of yarn (9 skeins). It was like a dollar more expensive than it would have been using the one skein system so I'm willing to eat that cost.

I committed myself to making 2 squares a day from the get go, and then if I could work beyond that I did. So I'm already sitting on 45 squares (I think) and given the concerts tonight and tomorrow that I'll be attending for work I anticipate being over 50 by Saturday. Holy awesome progress.

So I considered switching it from Christmas to Birthday (8/31) present, but I think instead I'm going to put it on the back burner and devote July to participating in the Tour de Fleece. I'm sure I'll still churn out a few more squares, they are an awesomely easy project that I can take pretty much anywhere, but no where near the volume.

I've considered trying out how I'll be attaching them together, but I kinda want to keep them in original square form until I have all 252 squares and take a picture :-)