Winter.

It's been a while. I know. And I've been such a slacker these days ... I didn't even make Christmas cards this year. The biggest hurdle, and you'll laugh when you hear this, I'm sure, is that I don't want to make a mess. I'm having a phase, you might call it, where I can't stand the clutter in the house. I've been going around, filling boxes with stuff that is unnecessary. Unsentimental knick-knacks are outta here. The crafting supplies for crafts I no longer make the time for are outta here. Part of it, of course, is that the tree takes up a lot of space, so the room feels smaller than normal. Another part is just that I'm forced to be indoors more ... we've had a lot more rain than normal, and so our cozy little house is feeling extra-little (and yes, extra-cozy as well). But honestly, we just have a lot of stuff. And I'm finding it so tedious to always be hauling mountains of stuff from the table every time we want to eat, and from chairs when we want to sit. You get the picture. But these things don't have homes, so they just float from one flat surface to another, depending on which one we need to use.

I have, however, been working on this lovely, snuggly, fun scarf. I found the pattern here and you can probably tell what it looks like better from her picture. Since mine's made of fuzzy yarn it's a bit more difficult to see the way it's done. It started out quickly, because we were doing a lot of driving to visit family and back, and what else does a person do in the car? But then it's tapered off now, because my hands start to hurt if I spend too much time knitting, and then I can't work. So I've taken a little break, or I'll just do one section at a time. Regardless, it's going slowly. That's okay. I'll still wear it throughout the spring. And I'm really excited about variations. I've got a plan to do some fun things with the next one, playing with color, and playing with ribbing. I'm excited to experiment. Especially since I have some really YUMMY yarn that I bought about a year ago when I was still all gung-ho on making and selling hats, but that I couldn't bear to part with. And eventually, I'd like to splurge, and buy some yarn from LunaSea someday. She's the one who introduced me to spinning a while back, and if I could bear to start another hobby, or to have more stuff in my house I'd be doing that, too. But I can't bear it. The idea of more stuff in my world just makes me go crazy.
So yeah. It's winter.
And I'm not getting all crafty and inspired as normally I would be. Instead I'm just going insane, as the people around me will attest. Oh well. Hopefully my much-needed birthday trip to Yosemite next weekend will cure me. I'll come home happy, refreshed, and ready to start making stuff!

Holiday Cards

I have the time, and the inclination. It's too cold, really, to do other stuff. I really should start making my holiday cards. The only problem is they have to represent me, the person, and me, the business. They have to be fun, funky, pretty, and universally adored. And that's too tall an order.
Not to mention that I keep looking around online, you know... for inspiration? And I come up with 30,000 ideas, and 1,000,000 cards that I absolutely love love love. And I think "Well, I should just buy those cards!" but that sorta goes against the whole graphic designer sending out holiday cards as a self-promotional item sort of grain. But if I end up sorta copying someone else's cards, then that's not right either. But I see these and simply can't imagine doing a better job than that.
Or this stuff and I know that I just about suck as much as anyone could suck when compared to that.
So I guess what I'm saying is I'm stuck. I'm in the creative tar pits. And I can't get out.

On to more impressive stuff ...

I mentioned before, I'm sure, that Nitro tends to build way more well thought out and complicated and useful things than I. What? You don't think my crocheted hats are as useful, or impressive as the back deck? Whatever. I'm over it.
This next project of his is FANtastic. I'm really excited. He's making a hot tub. Out of a water trough and a beer keg. I kid you not. The water trough (pictured) is big enough for us both to sit in, legs straight out ahead, water up to our necks. And there will be some sort of a tube at the top and at the bottom, and cold water will go out one tube, get warmed by a fire (that will be in the modified beer keg) and then the now hot water will go back into the hot tub. Apparently, through the magic that is physics, this whole circulation of the water will happen automatically.
Don't ask me how.
It's magic.
The basic concept is presented in Mother Earth News, a favorite publication around here. But I'm rather fond of the beer keg boiler creation that Nitro came up with. That's a class act right there. Oh, and the stovepipe? Why, it's made of the old exhaust pipes from his Chevelle of course. Pictures to come, I'm sure.

Lesson Learned

So, as a sufferer of projectitis, I generally plow into a project, full steam ahead, without the proper planning. Or even without the proper knowledge necessary to successfully accomplish the project. This generally results untold hours of frustration, of re-working and oftentimes abandonment of projects altogether.
I mention this because today I decided to look through a book I have here on my bookshelf. The book is titled Embellished Bras: Basic Techniques. I've had it for quite some time ... a friend gave it to me when I mentioned I wanted to make my own covered bra for bellydancing. Well, the covered bra is now done, and done poorly. It's definitely wearable, and a casual viewer wouldn't notice that it is poorly constructed, and will probably last through only a couple performances. But anyone who looks at it from less than 5 feet away will know that it's just mangled. And I think back to how many times I had to re-do every part of the process. How many pieces of fabric I wasted because it wasn't working. Ugh. I feel like such an idiot, because now I flip through this book and it explains how to do EVERYTHING. It's perfectly illustrated, and explains every step of the process in a way that any novice sewer would find totally clear. But did I read this book before jumping in to my bra project? Oh heck no! That would require forethought!
Sigh.
I guess it just means I need to make another one!

while the cat's away ...

Nitro's out of town, so I have the house to myself this week. It's also raining (!) so I am somewhat stuck indoors. I had visions of all sorts of spare time in the evenings where I'd be a whirlwind of creativity and then be a cleaning dervish as well! No such luck on either count.
The "real" workload has been really intense, leaving me pretty well burnt out by the end of the day, and no time for the rejuvenating workouts that usually kick my creative drive into gear.
The original plan was to spend some time on my painting. I got a book from the library called Microcosmos that I'd hoped to paint an interpretation of one of the pages onto my big 5' canvas (used to be the 'mares' painting but the mares are long gone and now have been through several phases of birds and then a swamp, and now just swirly doodles). But I haven't gotten into it. I just can't.
But then yesterday I had to start pawing through my fabric in order to finish up a project that I've been working on for belly dancing -- I had only a small scrap of my harem pant fabric left to make a vest out of, but not quite enough, so I was looking for another coordinating fabric that would complete the vest. Sure enough I found, a dusty rose colored silk that I'd been hanging onto for a long, long time, that came from great grandma's, I believe. But I also found lots of goofy little scraps. Some no bigger than my hand, some only a few inches wide but several yards long. Totally worthless for making anything out of, so why am I saving? That's when I decided I'll try my hand at a quilt.


This is something I've always wanted to do, but I lack the dedication. The stick-to-it-ness. Also, I know for a fact that as soon as this project gets put away (which it will need to do, since it's set up on the dining table and eventually I'll have to eat), I'll forget about it and it will never be finished. But, I really do want to try to make something beautiful with all these pretty little scraps. And so, inspired by the book Quilter's Playtime I've decided to just start sewing. Nothing quite as "planned" or organized and definitely not well-done, because I have no idea how to do this, but at least I'm getting started, and trying to figure out how to make these things come together.

At first I thought I'd create one big radiating "sun" of fabric strips, but then after playing around I decided that I'd need several big suns, and then come up with pieces that fit into the gaps. So, I've got one sun started, and another coming along.
Looking through that book, though, has me really wishing I understood how to make some of the gorgeous patterns, how to sew the pieces together so they lay flat and smooth. I really want to get together with my amazing friend Luna Sea who is not only an incredible artist, but has made some of the most beautiful, creative quilts I've ever seen. I'd really like to spend a day working with her to learn from her. Plus, she's just nice to be around. :)

As promised ... pictures

The covered bra is coming along ... after some talking with a friend, I realized that as usual, I'm agonizing over details that won't really matter. This is my normal M.O. to agonize over tiny details at the beginning of a project so that everything is "perfect" only to get sick of the project and then just whip it together sloppily at the end. So many things are ruined that way, as I lose patience. So this time, I'm trying really hard to have an eye for the details that matter, and work carefully without giving up at the end.

And, here's another project that Nitro's been working on the past couple weekends: he made a headache rack for my truck! Now, he NEVER has a problem with losing patience. He's probably the opposite of me in this respect. He can maintain a level of perfection throughout an entire project, and always works slowly and carefully until a thing is done, and it's always done well. I wish I could take some of that for myself. Ah well, I'll just take advantage of it by using the finished projects.

Dress forms and bras.

The other day I saw an ad on Craigslist for a dress form for $70 which sounded like a steal. The last one I saw was $80, and someone had told me that I should have bought it, no questions asked. But I hesitated and it was gone. So this time I didn't hesitate ... only it was gone by the time I called as well. Which is probably for the best since I really don't have $70 right now.
In the meantime I've been trying to make my own beaded bra for bellydancing, and it's been a huge challenge without having any sort of form to use while covering a store-bought bra. At first, I tried just stretching it over a chair back, but the cups wouldn't hold their shape. So I put some melons in the cups and my husband proceeded to tell me that I should "dream on." I gave up, basically.
But then I got motivated again and really made some progress and figured I could borrow a dress form from a friend. That's when I found out that she sold hers for $35 at a garage sale the previous weekend! That is JUST my luck. So typical. She said, "Well, I know you're broke and not looking to buy anything right now so I didn't even think of asking you if you wanted it." Whatever. She did have another one I could borrow, and it's now in my living room, wearing a bra.
And I'm still frustrated.
Getting the fabric to lay flat, to line up the stripes, to just pin the stuff on there is driving me nuts. I am starting to think that maybe I have ZERO hand-eye coordination, since I am finding this process excruciating.
On the other hand, I'm finding that the results are very nice, I'm happy with what has been accomplished thus far. There have been some mistakes that I think are covered up nicely, at least nicely enough that a casual viewer probably won't notice. And there have been some successes that mean NEXT TIME will go better.
Pics to come soon, I am sure.

More racks

Because the rack for all my headpieces went so well, and was so easy to make, I decided to make another ... for necklaces. I'm so sick of having a tangled mess of jewelry in a box, and had been thinking of ways to make it easier, but without taking up space on my dresser (which tends to get covered in stuff way too quickly anyway). So, hooray! Yesterday I whipped up this little rack, and I'm quite sillily pleased with it.

I'm in trouble now.

It's not like I've been project free for the past forever long that I haven't updated. It's more like I haven't been motivated much to update. Partly because of "real" work... you know the kind that pays? But partly also because it's just sorta always been a hassle to update, since we were on DIALUP-speed internet and adding photos took like basically all day. No joke.
But then, to be honest, yesterday I had projectitis in the worst way, the sort I haven't had in a long time. The sort where I worked concurrently on three different projects because every time I looked at something new my attention would shift, or while I was working on one thing I'd get an idea for something else. It was terrible. I mean, terrible only if you're the person who has to clean up after me. It was fun for me. At the time. As for the person who cleans up after me? Oh yeah, that's me too. But me at a later time, so I wasn't thinking of her.

See it all started with a trip to the 99cent fabric store. Oh yes, such a place exists. It's in Solvang, and sure, the fabric may not be quality, and you may never know what's going to be there. But for a person like me, who just wanted to make a cute little trapeze dress out of some cotton/lycra knit? Perfect! There were so many colors and patterns to choose from, but the decision was actually pretty easy for me when I saw these. The one on the left is actually not a cotton knit, but it's a shiny stuff that I'm going to make a the same dress out of, only it will be "round 2" which will hopefully be just like the first one, only better because I'll have figured out what went wrong! And the stuff on the right is going to be a pair of dance pants!

Anyway, I got cracking on it immediately, sketching out a pattern on butcher paper. But then had to wait until yesterday to start cutting and sewing. Partly because I have a huge block about *cutting* fabric. Especially fabric that I'll never get any more of, like silk from Thailand that great grandma bought when she took a cruise at the turn of the century. Gah! How does anyone do it! I know I'll screw it up and be sorry. But this ... this stuff I feel okay about slicing up, because it was an investment of $3, and it won't kill me if it's screwed up. I think.

Anyway, I started by tracing a tank top that I already have and wear a lot. Then, I decided to do something interesting with the straps starting out as 3 separate straps then coming together as a braid along the neckline. I'm getting a bit confused as to how to re-attach them on the back side, and really wish I had a dressform right now so I could also get the length right. I tried to reach over my back and attach the strap with a pin, but it was uncertain at best. I hate trying to do this sort of thing. Having the right tools for the job sure would make these projects easier.

I DID invest in an awesome tool that I don't know how people live without, though. It's a long piece of metal with a hook at the end... when you're making these little straps out of fabric, and you have the sewn tube, inside out?? You know how it's such a pain to make it right-side-out? Well, this doohickey saves the day.

Okay, so I spent too long talking about the one project. I also made a rack for all my headpieces for bellydancing. It's awesome, and solves a problem I'd been struggling with for a while now (because some of the headpieces have flowers & feathers on them, you can't just stuff 'em in a box or stack them on top of each other).

And, I made this heart-shaped piece of wood. Mostly, I wanted to try out the band saw on something besides just cutting little dowels of wood for the hat rack. I wanted to see how close I could come to the shape I drew. I did okay, but I think I could do better with some practice. There were a couple "lumpy spots." But I do plan to finally use that chalkboard paint I got, and turn this sucker into a little chalkboard, maybe to hang outside the greenhouse.

But yeah, I never did sit still long enough to actually finish any of these things. When Jerad got home, he mounted the hat rack, so the only finished thing is the one he finished for me. Because I just couldn't focus long enough ... I kept flitting back and forth. And to be honest, I was supposed to be cleaning and packing for our camping trip. Sigh. And this is as far as I got. Beer, water, dutch oven, and (inside the dutch oven) potatoes. Well, I guess I better get cracking on the packing today.

Kaya's Bed

Recently, I made a pair of baby blankets. What a nightmare that was. I've made several of them before, based on an idea found at my very favorite local fabric store "The Cotton Ball." But my sewing machine just isn't up for the task, so every few inches, the thread breaks or tangles, and I have to manually pull the fabric through, which basically means I've broken the feeder mechanism and now I have to pull all fabric through.
But the blankets are soft and cute, and thankfully both were finished before the twins arrived. I was going to make just one, because my patience ran out about halfway through the first one. This is usual for me, to run out of patience before the project gets even close to done.
Kaya, being none too helpful, thought the whole adventure was for her. She would not get off the blankets as I was working on them. And the scraps of fabric were cuddled obsessively. I decided that I'd make her a dog bed out of the leftover material, which I had a substantial amount of. That didn't happen until 2 months later, but I finally made it and did just about the shoddiest job of it you could imagine. But I was tired of having this giant bag of fabric in my living room (and there's no closets here, so I had to leave it in the living room) and I had been gifted a bunch of stuffing, so it was time to either do it, or toss everything.
So yeah, now Kaya has her very own cuddly dog bed that looks totally ridiculous but she seems to love it.

Oh no! I have a new hobby!

As if knitting and sewing and dancing and riding and hiking and running and making stamps and making purses and and and weren't enough, a friend has introduced me to spinning. Oh no! I didn't quite realize it at the time, but this is a strangely addictive process. It's easy to do while watching TV (way easier than knitting -- no counting or remembering where you left off), and you end up making something beautiful. I've long suspected that my attraction to knitting and sewing in general has more to do with just being in love with colors ... I actually have a color swatch book that I can spend hours looking at, just marveling over the different ways colors come together. And that's why fabric stores are so dangerous for me, since I love to just have the pieces of fabric to marvel at, and rarely do anything with them!
So this friend brought over her spinning wheel and let me give it a whirl. After a few moments of total spazzhood, I did manage to get a bit of a rhythm going, but didn't really get the process until she handed me my very own drop spindle to keep! I think that it's a pretty good idea to learn how to do this on a drop spindle, just because though it's more complicated to control all the aspects of the process by hand, it's important to learn all the aspects of the process and learn how they need to be controlled for your rhythm.
Anyway, I did some looking around, and this site shows you how to make your own drop spindle out of a dowel and some cds. It's just like the one my friend gave me, and I think it works pretty good. The only thing I've done differently is I added a couple hair clips to opposing edges of the cds because the extra weight makes it spin for a significantly longer time, which I appreciate. I never thought I'd enjoy this quite as much as I am enjoying it, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes to have something to do with her hands while still "zoning out" at the end of a long day.

new stamp carving material

For many months (has it been a year, even?) my favorite stamp carving material, PZ Kut (AKA "The Orange Stuff") has been unavailable. I have long ago used up the last little bits of the sheet a friend so generously gave me (before she knew that she'd never be able to get it again, I'm sure!). But my husband has come to the rescue, finding a new stuff that comes fairly cheap and appears to be a good alternative. I shall call it "The Black Stuff." However, I'm not sure if it's a great alternative at this time. For starters, it's difficult to transfer an image, it being black and all. Pencil marks do show up, but it's not that crisp, decisive line that you're used to seeing. Additionally, it appears to be too squishy inside. Now, this beats CRUMBLY any day of the week (and I have mountains of crumbly carving material that I ought to just throw away). I'm not sure if this may just be because my knife is dull. I hope to change out my knife as soon as I get to town for more blades so I can keep you posted on that. But yeah, at this point, it seems to be too squishy inside to work for knife carving.
On the other hand, using the special "V" shaped carving tools, and not carving too deep, I found it to hold a great deal more detail than some other materials I have used and think that it is a sufficient replacement for the orange stuff ... for now. The price is right and it works okay. I do not think that it's a perfect replacement, and still yearn for the awesome texture of PZ Kut.

In the works

A couple projects have been nagging at me for a couple years now, and I haven't done anything about them for different reasons that mostly still boil down to a fear of commitment.
For instance, I've been seeing things -- all sorts of things! -- with chalkboard paint applied to them. Like the votives I found at Barnes & Noble. What a simple, fun idea! But, while I did buy some of the chalkboard paint, I haven't actually committed to what I'm going to put the paint ON. Originally, I thought I might put it on the bottles of hot sauce we made for Christmas, but that never happened. And then I started creating all sorts of fun shapes that I'd cut out of wood, to make into cute chalkboards. But that's not a one-day project which is what I'd been looking for on the day I started it. I still want to do it, though. Just like I want to do the votives and the drinking glasses and the jars and the boxes ... and and and and. Sigh. So now, I could use some input? Anyone have a vote on what they'd most like to be able to write on? I have the project bug bad, and the purses are still going strong, but I think after this week I'll have lost my steam and have no interest in sewing. More like, I will have a greater interest in being able to use my dining table again. Sewing projects have completely covered every inch of space in my house at the moment and I'm starting to yearn for a clear table.

back in the swing of it!

The couture clutches have re-clutched my attention (ha ha ha), mostly because I spent a lot of yesterday FIXING things ... like missing buttons and hems on my clothing that had needed attention for at least a year. While I did this, I spent some time fixing little boo-boos on some clutches I made in the last batch, and then got all fired-up to make some new ones.

I also got my act together and finished the raspberry flounce choli. I had decided NOT to permanantly affix a flounce to it because I'm not very into the flounce and would love to have a choli in this fantastic fabric that I can wear with other costumes anyway. So with a little advice from our troupe's costume mistress, I came up with these snaps as a solution. But I needed to keep the choli fabric from stretching where the snaps would go, to prevent puckering, so that meant I needed to add this hem tape. I did it on the flounce as well, since that fabric originally cut in a circle, then pushed outward to be a straight line (to make the flounce-y-ness) could use the extra strength, I thought. In any case, I am really pleased with the result and can't wait to wear it.

The other excitement around here? Well, the greenhouse is really coming together. In fact, while I've been doing all this sewing my husband has been hammering away affixing the siding to the structure. Next step I believe is to level the floor then pour in some gravel (which I believe will be my chore this week), and then we'll start worrying about finding a door (because I don't want JUST any door) and the heating/cooling/watering elements that will make it a true greenhouse.

backlog

I've been busy costuming, and I believe I've mentioned various projects over the fall that never got photographed. My fantastic husband bought me a digital camera for my birthday, and so I'm able to take pictures of everything I've been working on!
The first is a sari silk costume that consists of fantastic harem pants (shown here), a vest out of the same fabric, and 10 long thin panels (to be created out of these fabrics shown here) that will hang from my beaded belt. These many elements are really time-consuming, especially the panels, which will also be beaded to add plenty of sparkle. I'm hoping to get a jump on all this creative stuff before I am overwhelmed with a deadline by which time it needs to be wearable.


The other completed project is what the dance troupe has been calling the indian bedspread skirt, because I bought 2 very CHEAP bedspreads from the IndiaArts catalogue and put them together to make one fantastic skirt (and one pair of fantastic harem pants that go underneath). They're just gorgeous to dance in and so much fun to make, too! All the different colors and patterns of all the girls' skirts are so fantastic!


I'm currently obsessed with red and pink as a color combination, and my current projects reflect that ... I am actively working on two things right now (and trying very hard not to start a third!)... one is a raspberry colored choli with a removeable flounce. That way, it will match my flounce skirt that I made months and months ago, but I can also wear it with other costumes. The flounce skirt is a deeper raspberry color, with the same sheer fabric as the flounce on this choli. The combination of colors should make for a great costume.

Also, I'm making this darling little swirl hat. After making 10 or so crocheted hats for selling at the shop (and a bunch have sold! Yay!), I decided it was time to knit again, and to make something to keep. I'm just in love with this color combination of pink orange and red, and the cotton yarn feels really soft and cozy. I'm excited about the swirl pattern, as well and am contemplating making this hat very long and pointy, just for fun and to accentuate that swirlyness. We'll see about that... It may be a really lame idea.