Where there's no smoke...

I've been ridiculously absent of late from the blog.  That doesn't mean, of course, that there isn't a lot of crazy crafting going on in my house.  In fact, it means quite the opposite.

Also, it's summer break, and being that I live in a place that gets so hot that I find myself saying, "It's 110 today, but wait until it actually gets hot..."  You can imagine that I'm not sending my boys out to play very much.  We tend to do here in summer what most people do in winter if they live somewhere that actually gets cold and very snowy only, you know, the opposite.  We hole up inside the air-conditioned house, wearing as little clothing as is appropriate, trying to fend off the boredom for as long as we can.

It gets so hot here that it even gets too hot to swim, for any of you non-locals who just thought that we should live at the pool.  No.  In the mid day of our crazy heat, the pool water feels more like bath water and it evaporates so quickly when you get out that you get barely any time to feel cool in the air.  It's not refreshing at ALL.  The breezes that blow are hot breezes.  The other day, I was walking out of Tempe Yarn and Fiber and a hot, hot wind kicked up and it felt like my little toes were about to pop off of my feet like little pieces of popcorn.  Pop!  Pop!  Pop!

Anyway, so, as I said... We're holed up inside.  A lot.  And that makes for busy days and not much blogging.  But the Tour has started (Tour de Fleece, I mean... no one cares about the Tour de France anymore in this house.  My husband, who loves bicycling with all of his heart, has completely lost interest in that other Tour because of all the doping.  Sad business.) and I'm spinning up a storm.  I'm also getting stuff made for church and keeping up on my clay, so over the next few days, I'm hoping to catch up on all that I've been doing when I've not been here recording it.

One of the really exciting things going on right now is that I'm heading up the project portion of Scrapmania at my church this year.  I'm putting together the project and kits and trying to keep everything inexpensive so that our ticket sales mostly go to our single moms' Christmas party.

Pastor Holly found an amazing project idea online, and I adapted it to make it less expensive to produce.  This exploding box is BEYOND cute.

Above, the box is decorated with a bunch of stuff that won't come in the kit.  But below is the box showing what kind of finished thing will be possible with only the kit contents, although these colors are completely different.  That night, all of the ladies will be learning how to make these roses and the layered flowers and the rosettes.  It's going to be really fun!

Part of lowering the cost is in making all of the items for the kit myself.  So far, I've done 200 polymer clay embellishments (100 kits total... I want each lady to get at least three pieces of clay embellishment, so I have one more set to do) that look like this:

I'm pondering making the third one more like a flower.  Maybe a little rose or something.  I have to see if there's enough clay for that.  Maybe I'll do little cameos instead.  I can't decide!  All in all, I believe it's going to be a great night!

And... yes, the Tour is on, so it's back to the wheel for me!

C is for cookie, H is for hat...

My husband has a thing for Cookie Monster.  Ever since he was a little kid, he always thought Cookie Monster was the funniest thing on Sesame Street.  It's become kind of a joke to our family, and we get Adam little Cookie Monster things every now and then and he thinks it's cool.

On Monday, we were in Safeway and I saw a man walking around in a Cookie Monster beanie.  I told my husband about it, but he never managed to see the guy.  He said, out loud, "I want one!"  And I said, "Reeeeaaaallllllyyyy?"  And he said, "Yes.  I love the idea of a Cookie Monster hat!"

(This, by the way, proves Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's hat chapter from "Knitting Rules!" entirely correct.  She said, under the "Who Wears a Hat: Hat Rules" section, "Most men will wear a fairly wide assortment of hats.  I find this somewhat surprising, as these same men are inflexible in all other aspects of their wardrobe.  It's a happy little quirk that men who look at you like you're trying to get them killed if you suggest a nice green shirt will become attached to odd, distinctive, or unusual hats.  This tendency has not been sufficiently studied by anthropologists."  Get the book.  It rules!  ^_~)

Yesterday was his first day at a brand new job and we're really excited about it.  I wanted to give him something special as a congratulatory present, so I spent all day long yesterday knitting on a hat for him.  I just so happened to have the perfect shade of blue leftover from making Elliott's neckwarmer.  I used my gauge free top-down hat method and made the plain hat, then embellished it with crocheted googly eyes.

I crocheted little white circles and little black ones, Googled their correct position (yes, his eyes are crossed ever so precisely and correctly), and sewed them onto the hat before washing it and drying it and presenting it to him last night as his present.

I had informed him when he showed up at home unexpectedly early that I made him a present and it was done, but not ready (it was in the dryer at the time).  Later, I asked him if he wanted me to put it in a gift bag and make a big presentation and he said no, so he closed his eyes when I brought it out, and when I put it in his hands, he unfolded it, saw the eyes and started laughing.  He said, and I quote, "It's my Cookie Monster hat!  I was hoping that's what it was!"

Magnificent man I have.

Later, on a completely different and somewhat gross note, I rather violently tossed a bunch of fresh guacamole and delicious little chips that I had eaten earlier that afternoon.  He came into the bathroom, holding my hair out of my face like a sweetheart.  Again, he's magnificent.

Later, we were sitting on the couch and he was looking at his hat and suddenly looked over at me and said, "You knit an entire hat in a day?  No wonder you threw up."

Here I was thinking to be more careful in the near future with fresh lime juice, cilantro, avocado, and tomatoes.  But maybe it was the knitting.

Kitchen love...

Well, I've finally done it.  After months of laying around doing practically nothing around this house, I finally have finished my kitchen.

I cleaned it in stages.  The best news is that I don't feel completely wiped out from this exercise.  I feel pretty tired, but nothing like I used to be.  So I'm definitely getting better, and that's enough to make me dance around (inside my head, of course)!  I need to really reign it in, though, and not suddenly go on a mad cleaning spree.  Stages is the name of the game right now.  Baby steps.  I figure that if I do a little bit here, a little bit there, I'll slowly regain my house AND my strength.

I never, in a million years, thought that I would ever actually feel blessed to clean my house.  I've been faking it a long time, motivating myself, thanking God that I have a house to clean, etc., but it had never gotten into my heart like it has now.  I am SO thankful to be physically able to do this cleaning.  I'm praying now that I never, ever lose that feeling (or the ability!) again.

April Socks

I have actually managed to keep up on my socks even though it's been rough.  I managed to finish a full on pair of Malabrigo socks for Adam that turned out totally cute.  I did the ultimate cheat in February by knitting worsted weight socks for Elliott.  It still took me the whole month.

March, I did fingering weight socks for Elliott that turned out amazing.  Here they are in progress...  I don't have finished photos yet, but they are done.

Again, because I'm not doing fancy photo shoots right now, you have to settle for junky cell phone/Instagram photos.

Here are the socks I'm currently making for Thad.  I love this Patons yarn right now.  The self striping is addicting, let me tell you, and highly motivating.  The amount of progress made is completely clear with a self striping yarn.  There's none of that, "I've been knitting FOREVER and I'm not any further," thinking going on because you can see, "Whoa!  I did three colors!"

I'll be done with these by the end of the month.  Thad's feet are now the same size as mine and that's crazy to me.  Pretty soon I think he's going to get bigger feet than Adam's and that will definitely shoot these way up into the major labor-of-love category.

Okay, off to the couch for, you guessed it: "Murder, She Wrote" and April sock knitting.  Yesterday was a pretty good day, actually, and was my last day of antibiotics, but today I seem to be slumping again.  I can't even say just how eager I am for this thing to be kicked off of my body.  I love how knitting for others helps me to stay outside of myself, though.  I may be feeling bad, but I don't have to focus on that as much when I'm making something for someone I love.  It's really very helpful... anything that keeps my mind off of myself.

I think that's the key to staying connected to joy through all of this.  I can't focus inward, I have to trust that God is taking care of it, and I focus outward.  I'm looking forward to a full and amazing recovery.  ^_^

Coaster Carnival

Been sick, been laid up, been tiiiiiiired...  And now I've got a fever and a sore throaaaaat to boot...  Then they done tooked my doooog and my truuuuck...

Okay, enough of that crap, even though it's true, but I'm laughing even as I'm typing here that I have actually managed to get sick on top of being sick.  This is so not cool.  What do we do?  Fight fire with water.  That's right.  We're staying positive, even if we insist on referring to ourself in plural (never a good sign).

Laid up on the couch, watching a "Murder, She Wrote" marathon, thinking a plushie lying on the floor of my son's room last week was the head of a dead body (Like what you watch doesn't change the way you think!  Pshaw!)...  Sick and not moving, duh, I won't keep beating that dead horse with a stick.  What is one of the things that has kept me going even when bigger crochet/knitting projects were too much for me to manage?

COASTERS!

Below are my favorite coasters so far, the Calla Coasters by Purl Soho.  These you can make in knit or crochet.  I've made three in the last few days, using up remnants of various worsted weight yarns.  I just looked again at the crochet ones when I went over to grab that link for you and now I feel like I MUST make a crochet one.  Right.  Now.  (Oh, and I haven't lined mine with fabric yet.  I like them just fine all curly and cute, like they're hugging your cup.)

Clockwise from left: A lovely discontinued cotton yarn (not Sugar and Creme... no one freak out!), Malabrigo (outside) and Cascade 220 Superwash (middle), and some lovely worsted handspun I had named "Avast, Ye Hearties!".

Circles are all well and good, and very entertaining, but I was itching to try something else, so I made a square coaster using tweed stitch like someone about to go completely crazy.  It's totally hip to be a square, let me tell you, and now I have the Sesame Street song stuck in my head. (Check out the 40 second mark.)

If you'd like to try your own hand at making a cool little tweed stitch coaster, follow these directions with the yarn and needles you want to use and have at it!  For my coaster, I used a worsted weight cotton that was actually a bit lighter than Sugar and Creme, with size 7 needles, and cast on 23 stitches.  Play with what works for you.

Cast on an odd number of stitches.
Row one: *(Knit one, yarn front, slip one purlwise, yarn back); repeat starred portion across row to last stitch: knit one.
Row two: Knit one, *(purl one, yarn back, slip one purlwise, yarn front); repeat starred portion across row to last two stitches: purl one, knit one.

Continue these two rows to work the tweed stitch pattern.  The back looks like seed stitch--it's so cute!  I love the look of this stitch and I'm totally making more.

I will end with a shot of one of my greatest little inspirations, my sweet Elliott.  He was on the way to the doctor in this photo.  Turns out he's got bronchitis.  I'm treating him at home with essential oils and having a huge success doing so.  Within only a few days, his cough has virtually disappeared and he has all of his energy back.  So much so that I have to actually tell him to calm down because he still needs to be resting.

He had asked if he could take his favorite book to his appointment and I said sure, so he grabbed his atlas.  He's a geography obsessed little boy, and can probably name more states and countries than I can at this point.  The other night, after he got his oils, I said he was a greasy boy, and he said, "Actually, there's a country in Europe called 'Greece'."  What a sweetie!

Anyway, he's another reason I smile.  It's a bit of the blind leading the blind over here right now, with me being sick squared and him being sick and me having to take care of him during the day, but it's all good.  Life is still just so good, and there are ALWAYS reasons to smile!

(...Hip, hip, so hip to be... It's hip to be a square!  Hip, hip, so hip to be... It's hip to be a square!)

Random + sickies

I haven't posted in so long in general, even though I wanted to post more often this year.  It was one of my goals.  Something about marketing and growing my business and all of that.

Basically, I've been battling sickness now for I don't even know how long.  It started late last year, with general feelings of weakness and nausea.  I thought I had everything from diabetes to high blood pressure to stomach cancer and beyond, but finally I got tested for H. pylori bacteria, and it turns out that was what was wrong with me.

I'm in the middle of a course of antibiotics right now.  Feeling weak and tired all of the time doesn't make for a very active craft life.  I've had days at a time in which I felt too weak to even hold my own head up, much less sit at a desk and make things.  Those days I've had that weren't too overshadowed by pain or issues were such a blessing to me, and I've been making things a bit at a time, as I felt better.

I felt really great over this weekend, but completely crashed last night and "woke up" this morning feeling just as bad as I ever did at my worst.  ...If you understand that by "woke up", I mean I managed to make myself mobile enough to take care of bathroom things and take my medicine, then almost immediately crash onto the couch again.  I worked REALLY hard this weekend, between Easter dinner and my mother-in-law visiting (which is a good thing) and I ate too much at the Easter dinner I made.  I think that's what my problem was this morning.  I had a cat nap on the couch and put some drops of peppermint oil in my water and I'm feeling on my way to better again.  Obviously, I have enough energy to sit and type this post, and while that may sound incredible, it's a huge improvement.  I feel so grateful these days to even have the strength to unload my dishwasher or put laundry away and, let me tell you, I never thought I'd ever be grateful to do either of those things.

I've made things slowly, but haven't taken many pictures.  Here is a random assortment of those pictures I happened to have in my phone, and which have happened to be uploaded to my Picasa, so I can put them on the blog without too much trouble.  It's just a random compilation of shots of my life over the last couple of months, with captions.  These are all either things I've made, or things I can be grateful for, or things that made me happy.  It's good to dwell on these things.  ^_^

I was at my Wednesday morning church group for I believe the last time I felt well enough to go, and I got a text message from Adam.  He said, "I miss your beautiful face."  I had my table hostess snap a picture of me and I said, "Here it is!"  ^_^  I love my husband.

I got all of this sock yarn with coupons at JoAnn.  I love the Patons Kroy sock colors, but it always strikes me as expensive to spend $6 for a 50g ball of sock yarn even though I feel no pangs dropping $20 for 100g of Malabrigo at Tempe Yarn and Fiber.  But Patons isn't Malabrigo, as any knitter knows, so I wait for coupons to get it.  It made me happy.  ^_^

I felted my River Stones purse, pattern by Yumiko Alexander.  I haven't finished embellishing it at this point.  I can't wait to finish it!

Over Spring Break, we got supplies to make paracord bracelets and my sweet Thad did SUCH a good job on his very first try.

He was so proud!  It was fun to have a day of crafting with him.

At my latest doctor's appointment, I was filling out the medical history paperwork and this question was on it...  How would you not know if you were married?  I laughed at the fact that the alcohol question was right after, and right after that was the smoking question.  There was an "unknown if ever smoked" box to check on that, too, and I was laughing so hard.  I told my husband, "If you can't remember if you've ever smoked, then you probably smoked WAY TOO MUCH."  Anyway, again, these were some funny moments I got even as I felt bad.

I started a new doily, inspired by my friend's circular shawl knitting.  I don't want a circular shawl, but I was so charmed by the patterns that I decided to start a doily to use up some leftovers of 100% alpaca lace yarn that has been staring at me from my newly organized scrap yarn display.  I love it!

For Easter, my sweet Thad dressed up and when he walked out, I couldn't believe how grown up and handsome he looked.  This, right here, along with his brother, are the two best things I've ever made, and they are a constant source for me of joy and fierce, fierce pride.  These boys are amazing.

I have a lot of other great things to share (like, for instance, how cute Elliott looked in his Easter clothes!), but, again, this was all that was in my phone.  Every day there are reasons to laugh and smile, if we only keep ourselves ready to seize them when they come along.

I'm off to crash on the couch again, watch some Murder, She Wrote, and possibly knit some more on a shawl I'm making for one of my friends.  She's going through a lot more than I am (even though I'm not really going through very much... I think it's more the long term feeling of it than anything for me, not so much a severity) and I want her to have something to make her smile, too.  Keep us both in your prayers.

Oh, and I thank God for knitting and crocheting right now.  I can still do either of those things while crashed on the couch and watching Murder, She Wrote.  ^_~  Knitting and Netflix Instant!  I love it!

Valentine Card Bomb

I'm prepping right now to start my annual Valentine Card Bomb.  Basically I make one card for Adam for each day leading up to Valentine's day in February, so he gets 14 cards.

A few years ago, I thought Thad would be really blessed by the same thing, so I started doing it for him, too.  That's 14 more cards.  That's 28 cards.

Then last year, Elliott was learning how to read, and I thought that he would probably like to be included, too, so I figured, what the heck?  I added him.  He gets 14 cards.  That's 42 cards.

I've been asked to make 10 greeter name tags for the women's ministry at my church.  Oh, and could I please have them finished by the first week in February?  That brings the paper crafting item count up to 52.

So, if I develop a tick in my neck, and if you try to hand me a piece of paper over the next few days, and if, in response, I start twitching uncontrollably and stab the paper with a stake and start backing away from you while holding out a huge cross and some garlic, don't take it personally.  It's simply that I've forgotten what the world beyond my desk looks like, and I can no longer tell the difference between paper friend and paper foe.

Some people might simply suggest that I stop making everything so hard on myself.  Don't make that many cards.  Don't volunteer to make more things right before you have to make that many cards.

As to the cards, I don't know that I really have to explain that much.  My family is amazing.  The other day, it got a bit colder out, and Elliott said, "Mom, I want to wear ALL of my warm things."

You can just guess, I bet, who knit all of this stuff.  Not only does his little body stay warm, but stuff like this makes my heart warm and also makes me do crazy things like make these people 42 cards for Valentines Day.

As to the limit on extra volunteering at times like this?  I'll take it under advisement.  If you understand that by "I'll take it under advisement" I really mean, "I'll realize that this is wisdom I should pay attention to, but I'm actually going to go ahead and shove that common sense voice way into the back of my mind, where it belongs, and let the blue-painted-screaming-warrior-crazy-me take over as I moon my responsibilities, then charge forward without armor swinging a great, huge slide cutter while crying out, 'THEY MAY TAKE MY LIFE, BUT THEY'LL NEVER TAKE MY FREEDOM!'"

I fully expect no sympathy.  But in the tradition of all crazy, butt-baring, blue-painted warriors, I also fully expect victory.  Fortune favors the bold and all of that.  This is just the way I do things.

I feel the crazy grin forming now.