Necessary Crafty Pants

So I got a new desk, its new at all in fact its reaaaaallllly old.  Its great, tons of drawers, smaller than my old computer desk and wildly more useful but it wasn't made of computers.  It was killing my elbows since I like a put my arms on the desk and push my screen back away from me.  When you've a prescription has high as mine you like to keep that focusing distance out a little.  So one afternoon I busted out this.  

Its super comfy, with flannel on one side and pretty quilting cotton on the other.  It doubles as a wrist rest too, but mostly for my bony ass elbows.  (I have rather pointy bony elbows, ask anyone I've accidentally jabbed with one)

Make two big long rectangles, and sew them together, clip those corners so they make nice corners when its stuffed.

I needed the cotton to be a little longer so I just sewed two pieces together, I own a lot of fat quarters. 

See, nice corners. 

Seriously I've had that bag of Clusterstuff hanging around since like 2007, its now been used up. 

GUTS

Sew it together all nice with a needle and thread or just sew that bitch up on the machine.  I recommend the machine.  

BOOM! Happy elbows.

Yoke Skirt

I made this! Its the A-line skirt from Stitch by Stitch.  Which, while trying to understand at some points is a great book to learn things with.

The yolk has secret pretty fabric.  But now you know, so its not a secret any more.  

I bought this fabric back in May, and got started on it, but didn't finish it until just the other day. 

Its a pain in the ass to cut fabric on the floor, don't do it.   

My first try at an invisible zipper, and I nailed it!

Okay so the seems don't match up, but the zipper goes up and down without catching. 

Over all I learned a ton from making this pattern and with make it again.  Its a tad short for my tastes and a little large.  I will go down to a medium and increase the length.  The pattern calls for this little useless patch pockets on the front which I ignored.  Next time maybe so super fun spoonflower fabric.  

Catching Up

Lots of my projects are finished with little fan fair. Seldom do they get photographed or posted to Ravelry. So I got a movin' and got my projects page up to date!. Monday is my Sunday which means I get a whole un-bothered day to play with my yarn!

These are the socks that are keeping my busy at work. The Yarn contains "seafood". It seem quite a few folks buy it and then discover that the intended recipient of said socks are highly allergic to said seafood. I have inherited 3 balls of the stuff.

A few weeks back I attended a cousins baby shower with very short notice but was able to whip this little number up. It was all stash yarn too! Once I get my etsy shop up and running I plan on selling some of these cuties.

In my former state a lovely little (no so little anymore) LYS opened too bad I moved about 5 months latter. They carry a great, I mean great selection of yarn. Since I'm not a huge sock wearer I turned a lovely ball of Mountain Colors into this great beret. It wears well and knits fantastically.

What can I say about the Chevron Scarf. I bought the yarn years ago, started it years ago and pushed to finish it. The only saving grace about this thing was the constant color changes. The two socks yarns, all the colors, it was really fun.

While the knit was great and the scarf so wearable, the yarn over takes the pattern a little too much. However I do wear it often, and love it. I might make another.

Plans for my future crafting include some sewing from my Christmas gift (I kinda ordered it for myself and wrapped it) Stitch by Stitch. Almost all of my sewing knowledge is self instructed and I love these types of books, I can build on the things I learn from each project. Stay tuned.

Up To No Good

Okay so a little good. However just three days after I took these pictures we had a 39 degree night and they died! Every last tomato turned brown and crispy and died by the end of the week. Not to be stopped I bought new tomatoes, and stuck garbage bags over them up the weather improved. It hasn't. It might have been about 56 here today. If anyone likes fried green tomatoes let me know and I'll send you some, since I seriously doubt they'll ever turn green.
Work has been a blast! Actually its been nice since we're all there and I've been able to actually catch up on things from my closet/office.
Projects, projects, project. I have a super secret one I've been working on, then the same old same old, the chevron scarf, the red scarf, and a pair of socks. So to combat these knitting ughs I've worked some actually time in to my schedule for projects. For an hour each day after I jog, after I come home I have to work on something. Since mondays are my sundays I would normally stay in and project it up. Now ever I been messing around with things like car repair and visiting the big city of seattle for fresh crab. Thats a long store and a whole other post. After spending all morning trying to decide if I should trade the beloved DB cooper in for a non-broken mini cooper I learned that the thought of leaving my DB behind on the lot was tooooooo heart breaking and am taking him for a second opinion next week. They say my transmission is shot! I don't believe them. Any whoooo, the napkins that have been in progress for what seems an month are all but washed. A touch dull but very nice and useful. Next project to get started on is a Folklore Bag from 101 one yard wonders. Plus I can't wait to start ordering fabric from Spoonflower!
Other than that we're still alive and kicking here in North End.

Stock up on French Toast

There are few things that make me stay home. I grew up in the rainy state, learned to drive at night in the rain, went to college in place which had one snow every may and don't fear strange parts of town. Ice, that's a whole other thing. Car aren't made for ice, cars don't like it and I don't like it. Since about 8 am the rain has been freezing to anything which will hold still long enough.
The cars are covered too. The roads are still in good shape, but wait until the sun goes down. Every now and then the lights go off and the cable gets cranky. All cell phones are charged and flashlights are at the ready. I have milk, bread and eggs. I also have enough knitting to keep me busy for HOURS.

For sometime I've been using a small bubble gum pink Coach wallet, don't get me wrong I love Coach, but don't like all that pink. It wasn't so much a wallet as a little wristlet thingie. It has no pockets and is PINK! Two strikes. So I made a replacement that works a little better.
See just the right amount of pink, and little pockets to keep all the little bits apart. Its large enough for my cell phone too.

It's good to be back

Since I'm an "only" my folks come to me for christmas. This tradition started way back when we first moved to Lawton and really didn't have the time or money to travel to Seattle for the holidays. We had such a good time that year all stuffed into out one bedroom apartment and making do with two burners and a toaster oven that my folks come to visit ever year now. Well except for that year I went home during the Iraq deployment that resulted in my cousin asking were Hub was, "with his parents", ummmmm NO! It's just easier this way. Soooo this year was no different. Folks arrived, we had great foods, a great time and lots of good laughs (which including yelling at the buffalo) and some seriously good football watching.
The morning of christmas eve broke COLD and gray. By 8am the power went out and we still needed foods. After packing up the jeep we went to post got groceries and "power is out" supplies. This was just about 10 am and it was full blow blizzard. Sideways snow and wind. Frankie spent the whole day all covered up under his budgie blanket to keep warm, since the gas stove didn't work. But at 3 in the afternoon as I napped under the supper fuzzy blanket the power came back on. Christmas was a total snow day which was great.
Looking for cool things to do in Lawton, a few days after the "great christmas snow of '09" we headed out to the wildlife refuge. Lots of great pictures and lots of laughs. For New Year's eve we made rockin' chili and had the neighbors. The next day my parents left, and the same day that we left for Jonesboro, AR. for a good friends wedding. It was a long long drive but worth it.
SOooooo now I'm back in the real world. The x-mas decorations are slowing coming down, the laundry returning to a normal amount, and my sleep and eating habits returning to more healthy level. This includes some Crossfit workouts that are causing my muscles to hurt in ways that I didn't know was possible.
Got some project to show you, including the results of the "secret project", got pictures of the brand spanking new (not a refurb) sewing machine!!!!!!!!!! I'm beyond excited about this because it starts slowly and doesn't make any funny clunky-clunky noises.

Keeping Track

Still no word on the MT volunteer gig so I figured I'd make the best of the 70 degree day and sit on the back porch with a blanket and the giant house spider. So far so good. In order to feel like I'm actually doing something with myself and to keep me from getting distracted by the internet or the like three hours of the New Detectives on the ID channel, I keep a calendar. You know for all my super important meetings, and power lunches that I have with those other ladies who lunch. Please try not to laugh so hard that anything comes out your nose, it really hurts. No really I do have all sorts of silly things written on the calendar, like, "dishes" and "post to etsy" and "spin" so that when I do these things I can cross them off and feel good. I've worked this way since childhood. I made my own homework sheet in middle school, with boxes for each class (algebra, lit, religion, what do you want I went to a catholic school and yes we had religion homework) it was very popular, I made copies for people. Sometimes a try using oh say one of the two electronics that I have on me at all times, my crackberry or my iTouch. Alas nothing is a satisfying as paper. I can flip back to last week or two weeks ahead. You don't get that from your crackberry. This also means I've taken to carrying a very large purse too. Its damn handy

Speaking of purses, I love purses, bags, pouches, whatever you want to call it. On this fine day I got around to taking some pictures of the super carry all I made some time back from the fantastic learn to sew book, SEW.

I ordered the fabric some time back, like when I lived in TN, from Sew, Mama, Sew. They have some of the cutest fabric plus they have a great blog. I've got some good size scraps leftover too which I think will find themselves as more drawstring bags.

Any way, the wind is starting to pick up out here and I've gotten all the vitamin D that I need.

Having a Punny Good Time

We like jokes in this family, we also like really silly puns. An attack with rolled up socks is normal and then the claim of being "socked". So while making dinner the other night it happened, there was at good ol'fashion

BEET DOWN!

I'm not sorry for that.

But other than silly food jokes, I'm still crafting away. Granted I did go to post to get my volunteering straightened out. Turns out no one called the lab director yesterday (when I talked to the volunteer coordinator about starting today) so I had to wait on her to call us back, and it was a busy (okay they thought busy) morning in volunteer land. Well long stupid, you people have got to get this ironed out or your going to keep loosing every volunteer you get through here, story short..... I'm going to be working in the lab as a volunteer MT. I know that sounds really strange, and the more I say it the stranger it sounds, since ummmm I made lots of money per hour as an MT and now I'm giving myself away. Since we've reached our employment event horizon so to speak (just about 4 and half months left here and thanksgiving and x-mas in there) I'm really not going to get to do anything unless I just give it away. So hopefully I can start soooooooooooooooooooooooon, I'm so board I'm making root vegetable jokes.
After fighting and fighting with the printer to get it to print in reverse so I could make some neato little tags for my stuff....
I also got some yarn cakes ready for use. I'm almost done with the first arm of the Lady February Sweater (soft green), I plan on making a shawl with the dark green, and a second ball of silk bamboo for some fingerless gloves to take the chill off the mini coopers chrome gear shift. Let me tell you that bugger gets red hot in the summer!

Just What I Don't Need

I don't need another bag, I have tons and tons of them. It doesn't stop me from making more of them though...
Once again another project from the Sew Everything Workshop, which is a great step by step book to learn from.





Don't forget to check out the new earrings at The Good Bird