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!

Candace's Test Necklace Pics

For lovely Candace to look at and approve/critique, because picture texts aren't working.  ^_~  (Please excuse the crappy cell phone photo.)

She's getting married next month!  How exciting!  I love making jewelry for brides.  ^_^  All it needs is some pearls/chain at the back, and it will be finished!  (Please excuse the cheesy Instagram photo made from the crappy cell phone photo.)  

Yarn Leftovers

I just reorganized my yarn leftovers!  They're so pretty!

The short of it is that I reorganized all of my yarn leftovers by weight and separated them and put them on display in various dishes I had in my house.

The long of it is:  I originally stored my yarn leftovers in a huge hurricane candle jar.  They were so pretty and since they were on display, I started actually using my leftovers.  I thought I'd never be able to fill the jar.  I laugh at myself now for thinking that, of course.  Never fill up a yarn jar, indeed!

Over time, the jar got filled to the absolute top.  I had even reorganized within the jar and put all of the smallish balls in between bigger ones to make it all fit better.  Eventually, because I couldn't easily get to the things in the bottom, most of my leftovers ended up being forgotten.

For a while now, I've been toying around with the idea to organize my yarns by yarn weight and store them in pretty jars that way.  Alas, time passed, and the budget never really left room for frivolities like buying a bunch of jars to store different yarns, and the idea seemed to languish along with my poor, forgotten leftover yarns.

Today, though, something inside of me snapped.  I wanted to organize my yarns.  As I sat knitting, I thought of how I could possibly go to a thrift store and get jars, and that would be better than buying new ones anyway, right?  I'd be reusing something that someone else had gotten rid of, keeping things out of landfills and all of that.  Not only that (here's where I got excited), I could purposefully get mismatching pieces and make a cool, eclectic glass display of a mismatching, eclectic collection of yarns!

Then, since my new plan was to do mismatched glass dishes anyway, I suddenly remembered this cabinet I have in my kitchen that, quite frankly, scares the living daylights out of me every time I try to open it.  Each time I open that door, I wonder if this is going to be the time that all of the glass dishes I have in there will go crashing down around me.  There's a mixed feeling involved there, too, actually.  I'm both horrified at the idea of losing the dishes and also thinking that if they all broke, I wouldn't have to store them anymore, and that would be pretty awesome.  These are the kinds of dishes that are nice to have at holidays or parties, right?  They're for decoratively displaying food at multiple levels, making even cheap things look somehow so much more fancy.  I remember one time I piled Oreos, just plain Oreos, decoratively and in cute stepping stacks on my two tiered glass dish and out of all the fancy foods I'd prepared for that party, people got the biggest kick out of the Oreo display.  These dishes always make my parties look cooler, but they take up a lot of room.  I don't want to get rid of them, but I don't want to store them.  It has always been a huge dilemma to me, every time I declutter.

Until now!

I adore this little display.  It puts my yarns out and lets me see them.  They're not going to languish anymore, forgotten and alone, the unwanted, unused little leftovers from bigger skeins that have already gone on to fulfill their destiny.  No, these precious leftovers have a purpose and a destiny all their own, and now they get to fulfill it, too.

The yarns are organized by weight, clockwise from left to right: Lace weight (0), Worsted weight (4), Sport weight (2), Sock weight (1), and DK weight (3).  The Bulky (5) and Super Bulky (6) container wouldn't fit on this shelf, so that yarn is tucked away a closet, but it's still organized and I can get to it quickly.

I'm already planning striped scarves, flowers, hats, striped socks, etc...  I'm going to be unstoppable.  The only problem I can think of with this is... If I knit all my leftovers, then my kitchen cabinet gets scary again.  See?  Buying new yarn and making new projects and new leftovers has now become practically essential to the entire organization of my house.  (Bonus!)  I wonder when TYF is getting its next Malabrigo shipment?

Button bomb!

These are the buttons I'm taking to TYF today.  I have four of the black clocks, two of the purplish clocks, one each of the huge buttons pictured, one pair of wings, and the other wing that matches the one wing in one of the photos.  Happy hunting!

Yarny things...

Nancy P. of Tempe Yarn and Fiber color fame has done a bad, bad thing.

(If, by "bad, bad thing", you understand that I actually mean that she has done something so amazing and incredible and awesome and delicious to my eyeballs that I could never hope to have enough money to satisfy the urges that are produced inside of me by the thing she has done... Thus, the "bad".)

The geniuses over at TYF have hired her to dye 4oz. superwash braids.  I bought three of them even though I wasn't buying anything that day and even though I'm not buying any more fiber right now.  I turned my nose up at DK weight 100% silk single spun yarn in gold and silver that actually LOOKED like gold and silver for their shine because I wasn't buying anything that day.  This is how committed I was.

But I saw the lovely genius that is Nancy, and I was lost.

This is about 2 oz. and 270 yards of a thick and thin yarn spun from the first half of one of these braids.  I'm calling it "Shaded Flowers".

This is the beginnings of the next braid.  Nancy called it "Gumbo".  I think it looks like a Nebula.  I'm calling it "Nebula Gumbo".  I think this is my favorite spinning.  EVER.  I can't wait to have the finished yarn!

She has such a way with color.  No one can deny it.  I hope that she makes boatloads of money so that she can keep making fiber for me.

In other yarny/clayish news, the Huge Button looks amazing on Yumiko Alexander's super fun crochet shawl:

Apparently people are already in the shop asking for these things, so I have to get to work.  If I can stop spinning.

(She did a bad, bad thing.)

Giant Button!

Yumiko Alexander was in TYF the other day when I was there and we got to talking.  She said that she had been looking for a giant button to put on one of her designs, but she couldn't find any.  Any that she found were too heavy and, overall, still not big enough for what she wanted!  She asked if I could make her a button that was at least 3" across.  I said, "Sure, let me see what I can do."

This is what I did:

I really hope she likes it.  It is, in fact, 3" across, and it seems awfully light for its size.  That's one of the advantages of polymer clay.  I basically made an original, sculpted and appliqued with clay on a circular base, then took a mold and made this one for her.  If it works and she likes it, I'll be making more to supply to the shop so that people who buy her pattern can also buy a button to go on the finished product.  I'm excited!

I think it's really cool!!!

Also, I'm taking 11 new button sets to Tempe Yarn and Fiber today, including some shown below.  The pinkish/fuschia and the peach ladybug ones are absolutely one of a kind.  They were leftover colors from another project and I can't mix them again, so get them while you can if you like them.

 

Overall, a pretty good showing for today!  I hope Yumiko likes her button!