Post Card Swap

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

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

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

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

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

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

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: