Scribbles & Bits

Pros and Cons of A Life Without Internet

There are definite pros and cons to not always having the internet available.  A big con is when I do have access, there's so much to do, that I don't get around to getting it all done.  A big pro is how much knitting time no internet affords me.  So, when I do finally get on the internet and I do finally upload my work, there's a lot to show for my efforts!

At the end of July, Lisa presented me with a jar of tea she'd brought back from Missouri.  She assured me that this tea was delicious and would help me sleep.  I didn't point out that I was finishing a run of Wicked (a very long show that was in house for a month) and that the last thing I needed help with was going to sleep.  I will never come even close to turning down something edible!  In turn, since we both love tea and share notes about tea, I thought there could be no better thank you than a tea cozy!  I pulled the pattern from the Bernatwebsite.  the only change I would make is knitting it longer and, quite probably, with a ribbed bottom to help hold it to the curve of the teapot.  I will be making another for myself, so we'll see how this goes!  And let's face it, it only took me two undevoted days to knit and only a very little bit of yarn (Caron Simply Soft in navy, in case you were wondering).  Also, I'm amused by how hat-like it looks when not in use.

The next knitting project was a scarf (again).  I can never seem to stop knitting scarves even though I honestly don't wear them all that much.  I'd had my eye on the Corkscrew Scarf from the Loop-d-loop book for quite a while (and I needed to knit something from the book for the sake of my "make something from every book" self-imposed challenge).  I also had some Lion Brand Moonlight Mohair in my stash that I'd been meaning to use up for forever.  Two skeins and 4 days later, I had this:

A furry torpedo (or Christmas tree).  It actually looks pretty great on Venus:

On me, not so much.  It's a tad too short.  If I had realized that whenI was knitting it, I would have alternated with the dark purple skein of Moonlight Mohair.  It's still cute, though.  It feels like something I'd wear at the Christmas party at work.  And, in honor of the yarn name, a picture of Venus in something close to moonlight:

Of course it wasn't long before I decided to return to my number one obsession of late: socks.  I wanted something fun and summery and not toochallenging to knit.  I found the answer in The Diagonal Cross-rib sock pattern from the Interweave Favorite Socks book (also fulfilling my "book" challenge).  I used the Sweet Lime colorway from Yarn Pirate and am quite happy with the results. 

And one picture with terrible lighting but great stitch clarity:

The day after I finished these socks and started casting about for an idea of what I should knit next, I stopped by Petsmart.  The cat rescue organization that teamed up with this particular Petsmart needed donations of anything.  I remembered the box of brightly colored yarns that I had no idea what to do with.  I also remembered my urge to try both the Log Cabin blanket and the mitered squares blanket from Mason-Dixon Knitting (and loving the idea that I could score another book for my challenge!).  So I have embarked on knitting blankets for them!  I am in love love love with the log cabin process and can't wait to start on one for me!

I'm pretty in love with the miters, too, although I don't find it to be quite as intuitive a process for some reason.  I'm planning to get all the color combinations knit up and then start deciding how I want to seam them together.  Four squares and a knitted-on border will make a decent size blanket (about the same size as the log cabin, which fits well over my pudgy kitty!).  Now that I have a volunteer cause again, I feel so fulfilled!

Hints for Surviving 114 Degree Days

So it's 114 degrees in the valley of the sun.  You're working the Broadway show that won't ever end ever.  You're tired and cranky and you have two 14 hour days ahead of you still.  What do you do?

1) Realize that you need to catch up your pictures of your knitwear.  Your winter-approrpiate knitwear.

2) Take grainy, unsuitable pictures of it in the air-conditioned bathroom.

3) Realize that they are indeed grainy and unsuitable and the only way you will ever have good pictures is if you go outside.  In the sun.  With scarves and a stole.

4) Drag someone with you b/c you realize that all your picturees will be complete rubbish if you try to take them yourself.  And really, why should you suffer alone?

5) Wear a dark top that seems to suddenly cling to you and your burning fair skin.  Hey, who needs sunscreen?  You're only going to be out there for 5 minutes, tops.

6) Realize that your partner in crime hasn't used your camera and is paranoid.

7) Realize that your face and body are going to be on the internet so now you're paranoid, too.

8) Retake pictures ad nauseum because the color was off in this one, your butt looked too big in that one, the shadows were destroying the stitch pattern's clarity, cinderblock is the only suitable background in your backyard....

9) Finally compile a collection of suitable pictures.  Get them back to the computer and realize they weren't all that great after all, but the idea of going back out and trying again isn't nearly as appealing as sitting inside eating a Klondike bar.  (I suppose it's not so much "what would I do for a Klondike bar", as much as what will I NOT do so I can sit and eat the Klondike bar.  That list also includes doing the dishes, cleaning the litter box, and working out).

10) Post the pictures anyway.

The Chevron scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts in Yarn Pirate (Posie) and Lorna's Laces (Sage).  Rolls a bit on the sides and curves quite a bit on one side because the alternating color is just brought up the side and I pulled it tight enough to choke the life from it.  The scarf is long enough to wrap around my neck and still land in the front.

Next, a short-row scarf from here.  Knit in Paton's Decor (Secret Garden colorway).  Long enough to wrap around to the back.  Very fun to knit.

Finally, the stole I knit for my grandmother (modified from the Branching out scarf pattern from knitty.)  Knit in Valley Yarns Deerfiled (Lizard Green).  I never took pictures before I gave it to her and I don't know if she ever got the chance to wear it, but I will and think of her. 

And, actually, there is one more project.  Jen wanted the cabled newsboy cap from Stitch and Bitch Nation, so I made it!  She wanted basic black.  It's made out of Red Heart (the only basic black yarn I had enough of to make it with).  I made her promise that if she ever decided she didn't like the yarn, she'd tell me and I'd make her a new one.  I also made her model it.

A Love Affair With Chevron Socks

Once I started these socks, they consumed every free moment.  When I was at work, I thought of these socks.  As soon as I got home, I picked up these socks.  When I finished the first one, I thrilled with the idea that there was still one whole sock to knit, but when I finished the second one, I was a little sad.  They are so wonderful and perfect and are my new favorite pair of socks and truly such a joy to knit!  So a few brief details then on to the pictures of a very happy couple!

Pattern: Chevron Socks from Sensational Knitted Socks

Started June 29th, finished July 13

Knit on #2 DPNs (set of 4)

Yarn Pirate Earth and Ocean

Sometimes I Blog....

I've had great plans to blog about all the things I've been working on, but with the run of Wicked for 4 weeks, it's not an easy possibility.

It's a shame, because I think this card deserves some face time.  A tracing of a french curve and a lot of free time with hole punches turned this out.  I made my usual 7 again (2 for me, 2 for my Grandfather, 2 for my Aunt, and 1 for the card box at work).

I thought this one came out pretty great, too.  A Father's Day card for my grandfather.  It's was my first time to work with ribbon on a card.  I thought it looked pretty great in the vellum envelope.  I included it with some homemade gingersnap cookies and the latest Evanovich book.

But this sock has been my knitting obsession.  I have posted a lot about knitting lately because I've been working on a piece I'd like to submit to Knitty, but I've kind of gotten tired of it for now.  I've been ready to work with someone else's pattern and this one from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch seemed like the perfect one. I tired it once before but for some reason wasn't haviong a lot of luck.  Luck is on my side now, though!  The pattern recommends a self-striping yarn, but this one from Yarn Pirate (earth and ocean) basically only has two colors so it works brilliantly for that! 

And, a little by-the-by: Wicked seems to be a wonderful show (the little bit I've ever seen of it), but working it has made it live up to its name....  Can't wait till I can pull my head from the sand!

Quakes On a Plane

A quick post since I'm backin town.  The graduation was awesome and it was great to see my family under positive circumstances again!  

Really, the only downer was the leg back home: the flight was quite turbulent.  After we landed and we were sitting on the tarmac, the woman in front of me gets up, turns and gets back in her seat on her knees so she's facing me.  She tells her husband, "I'm so sick to the stomach!  I wish I'd taken some Dramamine!"  I would say that that is pretty close to the top of the list of things one doesn't want to hear from the person facing them....

A Little More

I'll hop a plane tomorrow to go see family for a few days.  Yay for graduations! I'll be away from the internet so I figured I'd post a few more pictures to continue this project.

A Hobby I Haven't Mentioned

That title probably sounds a lot more nefarious than it should.  Is now the time I admit to devient behavior?  Nah, not this time.  This is the time I admit that I have a paper journal that I keep (with not a lot of regularity either.  See?  It doesn't just apply to the digital format!).  I've read a lot about visual journals and the tips and talents out there are staggering.  Looking around, I started to feel that mine paled in comparison.  Now I acknowledge it for what it is: a learning experience in progress.  So I've decided to excerpt some of my favorite pages (w/ all the truly personal whining blocked out) and mention some of the techniques I use (just in case there's something helpful here)!  The first two excerpts just show use of colored clip art.  I know my drawing skills can be lacking sometimes and really, it's pretty satisfying to photocopy some clip art and just sit down and color!  The second excerpt shows the direction I thought I would head: entire pages devoted to favorite quotes.  For some reason I got out of that mode and now just write them on pages (usually interlaced w/ other things) in a different color so I can pick them out easily.

A lot of the pages are just pictures of things I like w/ some form of decoration around them.  The thing I really had to get over was not always being able to think of something decorative right then.  There are several pages even now that have a picture or two glued to them and are blank all around, just waiting for some pretty filler. 

In some cases, I've pre-painted the pages just because, but I tend to veer away from that b/c who wants to be writing about something sad on a bright yellow background?  I'm just odd about stuff like that, I guess.  I also used to veer away from putting jokes and stuff like that in my journals, but thenI read that da Vinci did that, so now I'm over that.

I've found it's a good place to experiment w/ new rubber stamps, too.  So random doodles, random things I like out of magazines (like the lady in the astronaut helemt from an AARP mag), random rubber stamps, and random doodlings.  Fits me, right?

Of course I do actually keep track of my personal ideas here, too.

This is a pretty picture-heavy post, so I'm going to just stop for now, but I'll probably post some more pages in a few days just for fun.

Short and Sweet

I've completed the card!  I'm happy to say that it turned out just as I imagined, which is happening a lot more now that I've been crafting with more regularity.  This is the first time I've mounted a cross stitch like this so that was an experience.  I used double-sided tape because that's what I've read your supposed to do.  It worked really well and I ended up using double-sided tape for the other elements.  Why mess with a good thing?  And, in case I didn't already mention it, this card also worked for my New Year's Resolution since it came out of a book I had yet t craft from, so double yay!!!!

A Small, Random Post

When I haven't been working or reorganizing my craft room (a.k.a. The Repository For All Homeless, "What-Are-You", and "Someday-I'm-Sure-You'll-be-Useful" Objects), I've been working on this 3"x3" cross stitch.  It will become a card for my cousin/godson who is graduating in about a week.  I will be flying back to see him and, in the process, run into half my old teachers and some classmates since he's graduating from my old stomping grounds (and, actually, the same high school both his mother and my mother graduated from). 

The pattern is from Cross Stitch Card Collection: 101 Original Designs by Claire Compton and the original version is actually shown on the cover.  However, I changed it to the school colors.  Ahhh, the perks of handmade!

Now for the truly random part of this post: I am bothered by the newest Danactive commercial (I would post a youtube link, but oddly it's one of the few things ever televised that hasn't made its way to youtube yet).  So Jamie Lee Curtis is in a grocery store passing out yogurt samples because honestly, what's left after fighting off Mike Myers (the villain from Halloween, not the comedien, although she may have fought him off, too.  Who knows?  Anyway....) and some woman walks up and call her the Danactive lady.  Jamie looks a little sad as she looks to the camera and says, "That's my new name."  Then there's some patter about how supercoolawesome Danactive is and, aside from that moment of wistfulness, it seems like a normal commercial until the end when a random woman stops by the free sample table to announce that she's been using it and now she's "loving life."  I can do a pretty decent job of suspending disbelief (that's how I can love opera), but not when someone announces that she is "loving life" because she's started eating a yogurt that makes her regular.  Beyond the fact that strangers don't normally announce that sort of thing to each other (at least not around here; please let me know if this is normal grocery store conversation in your neck of the woods), I have trouble believing eating yogurt would be the thing that turned her life around.  Either she was so blocked up that that was truly the biggest problem in her life (lucky her) or this is some miracle yogurt.  Maybe there's more to the commercial that got edited out.  "Danactive paid off my student loan, my car, my house, resolved my broken relationship with my sister, offered free marriage counseling to my friends, makes my bed, and unblocks more than my creativity!  Now I'm loving life!"

Yeah, that must be it.

Doing Things is what I Like to Do

It's always nice when I manage to do the things I've talked about and yesterday I started accomplishing two goals I've talked about before.  The card is inspired by the book Paper Quilts.  I saw the picture and, to be honest, didn't read the instructions so I have no idea if my way of creating it was according to the instructions or not, but I really like how it came out!  This one is destined for the card box at work.  They have a box of cards handy for birthdays, sympathy, etc. Sound familiar? Yeah, I've talked about that idea, too.  Anyway, the last time we went hunting through, one of my coworkers made the comment that everybody's gotten a version of the cards in the box.  I couldn't help it: it sounded like a plea for a refresher.  And I liked how the card came out so much, I decided to make 6 more: 3 as Thank You cards and 3 more of the "Just for You" cards.  I'm keeping one of each and sending the duplicates to my grandfather and aunt.  I think they'd like a backstock, too.  I'll definitely hold off and make a bundle so it doubles as a gift, though (another idea I mentioned a while back) So yay for fulfilling a New Year's resolution by doing something crafty out of a craft book, and yay for starting my backstock and double yay for actually starting to plan ahead for the next gift-giving occassion!

I know I mentioned a cross stitch piece I'm working on (Frank Lloyd Wright again).  I figured I'd post a progress pic as well as an image of what it's supposed to look like when it's finished!  I'ts going to be great and I'm not going to stress that I probably won't be posting again until Monday.  Hopefully I'll have tons more pictures (and maybe even a before/after of the train wreck of my craft room: the one room that hasn't received ANY attention since the move.  Well, except for the amazing adding of more boxes while I pretend the walls of that room are made of elastic.  You say they're not?  La la la!  I can't hear you!)