Friday, December 25, 2009

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Another great giveaway...

FaveCrafts.com is having a contest for a Clover Getaway Knitting Needle Gift Set (29" Circular). The set contains one each Takumi Circular 29 INCH sizes 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 & 15.

They are also giving away a Clover Getaway Knitting Needle Gift Set (13" Single Pointed). In this gifts set you can find Takumi Single Pointed 13 INCH sizes 8, 9, 10, 10.5, 11, 13 & 15.

Head on over and check it out:

Clover Getaway Knitting Needle and Takumi Velvet Gift Set Giveaway


Friday, November 27, 2009

Thanksgiving

A nice day today, lots of things to give thanks for...especially my family and friends. I hope everyone had a great day.

I'm working on a pair of socks right now from the Monkey pattern on knitty.com. Cute pattern, I just hope I do it right all the way through. I frogged it 3 times before I got it going (darned 5 DP's at once!) I'm using Lion Brand's Sock-Ease. I really need to get some bamboo DP's.

One thing that will help is this great table I found that lists shoe size measurements for your sock knitting. And since I'm probably making these as a gift for my sister, it will be easier to use this than asking her to measure her feet again (can't find the original measurements). Here's a link to the site - MyJewelThief Knits, she's got some really cute patterns on there too.

Okay, now that it's indecently late and I have to get up to go to work tomorrow morning early, I should attempt to get some sleep. Now making any bets on that, but I'll try.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

An actual finished project

While wandering through the craft aisle at the local Wally World I came across some Red Heart yarn that was marked down to $1.50 a skein. There was a pattern on one for a Mile-A-Minute scarf and wanting to see if I could decipher the crochet pattern and seeing two colors I really liked I decided to take advantage of the deal. This is the end result:


After one episode of starting and then frogging I whipped right through it and am pleased with the results. Not necessarily a scarf for the middle of winter, but nice nonetheless.

I haven't blocked it yet, but I think it came out pretty good for my first big crochet project. Now I'm going to knit some socks.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Great new quilt shop and giveaway

I found this really cute quilt shop through an item in Craft Gossip.com. It's called The Dizzy Daizy Quilt Shop and if you click on the link it will take you to their blog and the giveaway they are doing to celebrate their grand opening.

I love quilt shops and I love giveaways...lol

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

I have been....

Slowly getting settled into our new place. Lately I've been going through my craft boxes sorting out, discarding, repacking...just trying to make some sense of things with a smaller area to store them in.

In between that I've started fighting another flare up of my Crohn's brought on to missing one of my injections due to disgustingly high costs (to the tune of $2,652.40 for my 3 month co-pay) so I'm starting to get that back under control.

While doing all of this I've been piecing some autumn color quilt blocks, working on finishing the last of the granny squares for a baby blanket (which then have to be blocked) and trying to figure out my next moves craft-wise.

Right now my set up has my sewing machine on a roll away table next to my desk, a table with fold down flaps behind my desk so I can iron, sort, whatever and a closet that will hold my crafting supplies. Well some of them, no way I'm getting them all in there.

I'm in a serious paring down mode. I've been throwing things away I've had for years. Use it or lose it unless I really want to keep it.

Tonight I start classes on income tax preparation for a (hopefully) part-time job come tax time next year. In order to stay on my meds I need all the extra cash I can get. I'm really looking forward to it, I like to stretch my brain and it has definitely been stagnated lately.

Well that's it. More later.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Working on....

Quilt blocks in autumn colors for a fall swap and a crocheted baby blanket. It's been so long since I last did anything quilted related I was like a kid in a candy store at the fabric shop. Off to press fabric for the blocks now.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Farrah's Story

Watched "Farrah's Story" tonight and was very touched by it. It was both uplifting and very sad. Also very frustrating as it's just not right that people in the U.S. don't have the access to alternative treatments that are available elsewhere. Fortunately, Farrah has the means to seek the alternative treatments but there are hundreds of thousands of others who don't and are pretty much at the mercy of the medical system here. I have nothing but respect for the lady, she's handled her situation extremely well and to have a camera around during those key times had to be hard, but I thank her for it and will keep her in my thoughts.

It's really too bad. Having Crohn's I look for anything that can alleviate my condition but I'm pretty much stuck with conventional medicine for the time. Can't really afford the conventional either, but what else can you do?

Monday, April 20, 2009

Moving...still...

We've gotten the furniture in and a lot of stuff, but we're still packing up things for storage. We got help from 2 great guys via emove.com and they were amazing. We'll be using them again when we move the things into storage. They wouldn't let us do more than pointing out what had to go and they did all the hauling. Fast, friendly and reliable.

Still doing the unpacking after work and on days off. Heading back to the old place today to work on packing up more stuff. I've got my little crafting corner behind my desk and I'm itching to use it. The quilting frame is going in the living room. Fortunately, it's one that folds down and doesn't take a lot of space and I can pull it up to quilt. That's why I bought it when I was in my apartment in the first place. And I can go from small to king size. I've got to get all the pieces of it over here and put it up.

Anyway, that's the status on the move as it stands.

Friday, April 3, 2009

All systems are go!

We found out today that we got the place we wanted so we are now very happily finishing the packing and planning the final move. Jay is investigating cable/DSL packages and I'm more concerned with the logistics and getting out of here as soon as possible.

We'll probably be moving the basic stuff and boxes ourselves starting as soon as possible and the appliances and furniture with help on April 14th. I'm so excited, it's like a giant cloud has lifted and the sun is beaming down.

Also, I got my two new cookbooks from Amazon today and they look wonderful. I'll definitely post more about them later.

Monday, March 30, 2009

I'm in the mood for crafting

But it's going to have to wait until we've moved. We're in the process of sorting and packing a 3 bedroom 2 bath house with full basement and attic. Stuffed with things from my husbands and ex-wife's 20 years of living here. Things that were brought from other homes they lived in and never opened after they were packed there. It is amazing and discouraging and cool all at the same time because we're finding pictures of him when he was little and his family and things he's had since he was little.

One thing I'm definitely going to do is put together scrap books of all of these finds for him. That will open the door to scrapbooking (which I have actually been avoiding as there are soooo many gadgets and things out there for scrapbooks). I will however keep it simple. I want them to be nice scrapbooks, but I'm not going goofy over the geegaws either.

I've also been itching to get my hands back on my quilts again. I've got bunches of patterns I want to make and I'm actually looking at machine piecing some of them just to get them done. When it comes to quilting I LOVE hand piecing and hand quilting, but as anyone who does it knows, it takes a long time. The up side is you can carry your piecing with you pretty much any where you go (unlike machine piecing) but it takes quite a while (depending on the pattern). Anyway, I'm rambling. Colors, patterns, batting lofts, backings and quilt designs are all whirling through my head and kicking and screaming to become reality.

In the meantime I'm working on a quick cross stitch and packing everything else to go.

We're moving to a smaller 3 bedroom 2 bath but no basement or attic, so lots of things are being whittled down. I personally think it's a very good thing. I am so over the clutter.

I will be posting more after the move, we just have to get things done around here. Also, I finally got rid of a lingering cold (FINALLY!!!) and am feeling much better. The Crohn's still rears it's ugly head and I'm working on getting it more under control. It's actually more like an ongoing struggle. I've ordered two cookbooks that I'm hoping will help.

Well back off to more packing. The sooner I'm packed and out of here the sooner I can get to the quilt making.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Here's to a creative and happy 2009

This past year has been a doozy. I haven't gotten as much crafting done as I would have liked, but I got some in.

Lots of personal changes including getting married. (Now there's one I never thought I would do...I'm still a little shell-shocked, but very happy) This year will bring a move to a new city and home. Where? I'm not sure yet.

On the creative front, I'm planning to continue with knitting, but also get back into the quilting and cross stitch. I've got an itch to be creative after what seems like a long "down" time. I've been knitting but I haven't felt ideas spark like they have been lately in a long time. I guess I'm in a better space mentally now and I know from my past that my crafting makes me happy so I'm going to craft.

I hope everyone has a wonderful 2009. Things may be tough, but I'm confident we can all make it through. I look forward to continue reading different blogs for inspiration and helpful tips. I just hope I'm able to contribute more on my end than I did this year.

Here's to 2009!!