Craftyminx

Snow Day

Its snowing!!!! I love watching the snow fall. It doesn't happen in Oklahoma very often, so its always a treat. The first winter storm almost always signals a snow day. I was already scheduled off today, but my work closed today as well as my mom's work. We have been crafting away all day. So far my mom has finished a crocheted bib and an embroidered Christmas hand towel.

I've been working on socks and a hat and I made three sets of knitting needles and a crochet hook.

I was wanting to make crochet hooks for all the ladies in my stitching group, but I may have to wait until I get my dremel tool. Whittling them with an Exacto blade isn't the most fun thing in the world. I was off yesterday as well. I knitted and worked on my web art for craftyminx.com. I also did a few things for some friends. I made a new hemp necklace for a friend. His was very worn and broken.

I also did some calligraphy on a picture mat for my mom's friend. I realized that I am very much out of practice on my calligraphy skills, but I guess it looks pretty good for as long as it has been. My nibs were all dried up and I had to clean them up quite a bit, so its been a while. Did anyone else have a snow day? What did you do?

Labels: calligraphy, crochet, embroidery, jewelry, knitting, snow

Ebay

Oh no... I've signed up for the evil ebay. And I already won an auction. I got some wool granny squares and finishing yarn. I've also placed a bid on a gocco. I'm a determined bidder, but I have limited funds. So I figured it was worth placing the bid, but we'll see if anything comes out of it.

Pout...

The gocco was a bust. She gave it away a year ago. GAVE IT AWAY!!!! I needed an alcoholic beverage after hearing that. I'm still in search of one. I'll get one. I will!

I'm still working on Christmas presents and will be until Christmas Eve I'm sure. I have the next two days off. I will be knitting, writing my statement of purpose, working on my web site, and thinking about the etsy store I will be opening once Christmas is over and I have time to craft for other reasons.

I was looking at my stats today. There is a big market for wrist warmer patterns. There are tons of google searches that have pointed people to my site, just because they were searching for wrist warmers. Good to know. Maybe I should design a new one.

Its been too many posts since a picture. I feel the need to post one.

This is my friend Bri and our friend the purple dinosaur that is found in so many parks in Shawnee. This was taken at the Sigma Shindig our Senior year. Oh the good old days of college.

Labels: gocco

I did it, I did it, I did it , Yay!

Now that I've finished my Dora dance... I did my very first provisional cast-on and toe on my first toe-up sock! I'm so proud. I would post a pic, but I don't want gypsy to see the color of yarn I chose for him. I think from now on, I'm a toe-up girl. I like it... a lot! Now I just have to do the foot and then I will be able to try my first short-row heel! Exciting stuff, I know.

Labels: knitting, socks

Lust...

I'm currently lusting after a Gocco. I am astounded by the art that can come out of one of these little printing machines. Really, pure awe comes over my being as I stalk trough flickr and web pages that relate to gocco. I'm pretty sure I'm not creative enough to be a gocco master, but I want one to play with. If I played with one, I know I would want one of my very own. The problem with this is that they are discontinued and somewhat hard to find. Sure they have a few on ebay, but they are around $80 or more not including the $30 shipping that is tacked on. The $80 I could do, but I don't understand the exorbitant price of shipping.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel my friends. A coworker told me her mother bought one a few years ago and hates it (probably in hopes to deter me from wasting money on such a worthless piece of crap) and never uses it. She was completely disappointed by its results. My eyes glazed over and little tubes of ink and screens danced through my head. It can't be! A Gocco in my path this whole time! I asked her this morning if she would see what her mom would think of selling it to me. I would of course be willing to pay handsomely for it. She said she would try to remember to ask her tonight. I can hardly wait for the response. I'm hoping it will be the one I want to hear! Otherwise, I'll be getting my bidding fingers ready. Watch out ebay.

In other news, the bag is felted and shaved. I'm pretty happy with the results. The lion wool isn't as great as the cascade and its a little shorter than I wanted (I should have remembered that knitted items shrink more one way than the other), but it looks good and fits on my arm. So it will work for its intended owner. I'm just hoping she didn't want it to be small like mine.

I gave the fat bottomed bag to its new owner, my friend Jamie. She loved it. I was very happy. I love making stuff for other people. Every time I give it away though, I'm sad to see it leave and also apprehensive on whether they will actually like it and use it. I think this is a common problem for crafters. There is so much time and energy that goes into handmade gifts. We don't want our efforts overlooked or passed to the wayside, like some underwear at Christmas. I know I want people to think of my gifts as a PlayStation 3.

I also got a message from my cold friend in Illinois, who received her scarfs and hat. She loved them as well! Yay! I'm telling you, if you want some free stuff, tell a knitter you are cold. We can't help but to fight off wintry weather with hand knitted gifts of warmth.

I'm going to try to make paper sometime soon. I dried a bunch of flower petals from the last bouquet I got. I dried them for posterity. I dry all the flowers I get. I am getting tired of having dried flowers get dusty, so I decided that I'd pluck all of the flowers and press them between a bunch of pieces of cardboard that I brought home from work. It worked wonderfully! Now I have all these petals. I could add them to the other stuff he gave me from the short time we were together, but why not craft with them? Make something out of them that I can keep but still use if I want to. I can make a book, or a scrapbook page using the paper as accents. So yeah, paper making 101 will soon commence.

Labels: felted, gocco, knitting, lust, paper

Update

The felted bag is knitted and now in the wash getting beat into submission. I used up 4 balls of lion wool and a little bit of the 5th. That's good enought for me. I used all of the blue then topped it off with the green until it was the right shape. I cast on 24 and knitted 69 rows, then followed the pattern, pretty much. I hope it felts well.

Labels: felted, knitting

Frogging, FOs, and a yarn saga.

After frogging the fat bottomed bag two or so times here is the finished bag. I got the handles at Hobby Lobby and the yarn is sugar and cream in Warm Brown.

This has been the week of frogging. After dealing with the fat bottomed bag, I started the felted tote. And restarted the tote and again... restarted the tote. I'm tired of ripping out all of my hard work. The problem with this bag is that there has got to be something wrong with the pattern. It most definitely cannot be me, right? I bought the right amount of yarn and checked the gauge and it is most definitely too small. So I just added a lot of stitches and it looks like I'm going to use up all of the yarn this time. Here is a progress shot.

I say "this time" because I've made this bag before and ended up with tons of yarn left over after making it. This was the first non-scarf project I made back in January. The book (Stitch n bitch, meema's felted tote) called for 5 skeins of lamb's pride worsted, but my lys didn't carry lamb's pride, so they told me cascade 220 would work fine. I bought 5 skeins of cascade 220 (3 pink 2 green). I made the bag, noticed that the size before felting was about the size I wanted it, but as a novice felted it anyway because I had followed the book and figured it would work out. I was saddend that the book lied. I did not have a tote bag. I had a small handbag! I held the two strands of yarn together, I used size 15 needles and I had the correct gauge. I still to this day have no idea what went wrong. But I have the proof of the amount of left over yarn from the debacle. This is everything I made with the 5 skeins of pink and green cascade 220 intended for the use of ONE bag ! (minus a pair of slippers that are MIA at the moment) I still have one small ball of green yarn left. Frankly, I'm tired of the colors and the yarn! They were cute when it was just a tote. My goal is to use up the entire 5 skeins of Lion wool that I bought for the new bag, hence the frogging. I will achieve my goal!

The other FO is in the pink and green yarn. I made the three blind mice from The Stitch N Bitch Nation book. Aren't they super cute! I hope Madison likes them. I will post pictures when her mommies get the mice at Christmas.

Well that's all I've been working on this week. I hope to finish the tote this weekend. That will be 3 presents down! I sadly can't post pictures of any more of them, because my friends read this. Most of them know what they're getting. They just don't know what the finished products look like. It wouldn't be a good thing to post them on here before they get them. I'll have a Christmas post as soon as everything gets opened though.

Labels: cat toys, felted, frogging, knitting, yarn

The fat bottomed bag of death

So I'm working on this bag for a friend of mine that I've been promising a bag to for quite a while. Its the Fat bottomed bag from "the happy hooker." Its killing me. First I thought it would be fun to add a gold crochet thread to the chocolate brown cotton, bad idea. After thinking on it and asking my friend (who I found out wasn't fond of gold), I decided to rip all of it out and begin again this time with brown only. I got finished with the main piece and realized which way the finished bag is put together and decided it was too small for the handles I bought. Once again, I frogged up to the end of the increasing rows. I added 4 more increasing rows and decreasing rows, taking the 8 rows I added away from the middle section of straight hhdcs. That way it was deeper, but not wider. Its still not finished. I've only got one handle flap left though. But here she is. I'll post a pic when its finished. I'm just so glad that my arm hasn't fallen off from all of the frogging and re-doing I've had to do and that my increasing worked! One gift down, 7 to go. Why do I do this to myself. I have a feeling the tendinitis is going to be visiting me.

Labels: crochet, frogging

OH holy wool from heaven...

Look what popped up on my street this morning?!? A Sheep! A real live wool-bearing sheep!

This may not seem weird to some of you more rural folks, but I live in an urban area. I'm pretty sure one of our neighbors has had sheep before, so it probably just got loose. But man, talk about random.

I tried to chase it down and make it come live with me, I even offered it an apple slice, but he would only stay around long enough to let me take this snapshot. I hope he doesn't get run over by one of the crazy drivers on my street. Farewell little sheep, you made my day! Now I'm kinda glad I skipped church.

Since this is a random day, I will share with you one of my new favorite purchases. Tights! I love tights so much, especially fishnets. These are extra special though, because they are different, and extra warm. They also look so fun with my embroidered skirt. I love fun days where I can wear tights! Woot! Yay tights and sheep!

Labels: sheep

Its cold outside.

The cold has finally hit here in Oklahoma. I'm happy that I get to wear gloves and scarves, but I just can't make myself love the cold. Brenda Dayne's line, "if you're cold, put on a sweater. That's what they're for" is perfect for today. My only problem is that all of my sweaters are still boxed up in the garage. Since we're supposed to be moving soon, I'm trying to keep myself from going out there to get them. I guess I'll just be cold.

This may be my last post for a while. Probably until the end of the week. I've got to work on Grad School applications, etc. My bff may hurt me, or worse, give up on me if I don't get busy soon.

With that said I have a knitting WIP to share, before I take a small break. Remember Friday's post about the baby blanket? Well here's what I have so far.
Its basically stockinette and reverse-stockinette blocks with a seed stitch border. Its 3.5 feet wide and will be 3.5 feet tall. So I have a lot to go. It will not be done by her shower on the 2nd of December. But whatever they will have it in time for the baby. (The quilt in the back is what my mom is making them.)

Here's one more for detail and color accuracy. I used simply soft yarn in country blue.

Labels: baby stuff, knitting, podcasts