Pastel Squid

This past weekend I spent most of my time in my craft room cleaning, organizing, and ogling my supplies. I've gotten it to a point where I can see and find what I need, and I (finally) have work space! I created an L shape with a small desk and craft table and have my laptop set up on the small desk, along with decent speakers so I can watch videos or listen to music while I work. There's a small portion of the 6ft craft table taken up by supplies, but the rest is cleared off for working.

Earlier this week I did a few drawings, and last night I decided to do a little chalk pastel painting. I might change it, add more to it, or just leave it and start working on something else. But it feels wonderful to have space again!

I'm still plugging away on my yarn bombing project for Strangefolk. I'm hoping to finish the canvas part of the project by the end of the month (or sooner!) and then start on the embroidery.

New Yarn & Thoughts for the Day

About 2 ½ years ago, I bought a friend a gift certificate to one of my favorite yarn stores, Knitorious, shortly after teaching her to knit. She ended up giving up the craft and forgot about the certificate, which she uncovered a couple months ago. No longer a knitter herself, she contacted the shop and asked if it would still be honored (which is was) and then re-gifted it back to me. Sandy, the owner of Knitorious, was great about honoring the gift certificate and last weekend I went up there and picked out two gorgeous yarns, as shown on the right.

I haven't had much else going on craft-wise lately. I am still working on my yarn bombing project for Strange Folk Festival. I'm almost to 3 feet! Completely non-craft related, I thought I would share some thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head this week.

Recently, someone close to me made a comment that really got me thinking. They criticized something, judged. I think we all judge others to some extent, and sometimes I think we scrutinize the people who are closest to us more than we do anyone else, including even ourselves. We have built-in expectations that the people we love will live a certain way, feel a certain way, act a certain way, and when they don’t live up to those expectations, we end up feeling disappointed in them.

But what if we got rid of our expectations? What if we instead accept people for who they are. Love them as they are, not as they might someday be. Help them when they ask for it and offer it even when they don’t. What if we don’t tell them how they should feel, how they should act, and how they should change? Most of the time we spend judging others would be much better spent if we instead focused on ourselves, the things we want to accomplish, and the person we want to be.

Finished Object Friday: Head Wrap

Left to my own devices last night, I decided to finally pick out some buttons for the head wrap piece I finished a few months back. It originally started out as a shawl, but my cat destroyed the last skein of yarn I had and since the yarn is from the 70s, I was unable to find a match for it.



Ironically, when I went to visit my grandma over Memorial Day weekend (a month or so after I'd already bound off this project) we found more of the red mohair I'd used for this. Go figure. That might explain why I've taken so long to do something as simple as sew buttons on to the project to finish it. Since it didn't work as a shawl (I was about 2/3rds of the way finish), I decided it would make a good head wrap for winter.

In the below photo on the right I back lit the piece; I think it makes the pattern really pop.



I can button it all up under my chin, or button it under my chin and behind my neck under my hair if I want. Mohair is a little scratchy for me, but overall I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.

The more projects I knit, the more I learn to be happy with mistakes/mishaps and the unexpected. Something can start as one project and end up a totally different item by the time you're done with it.

Strange Folk Festival Yarn Bombing Project

In my previous blog post, I mentioned yarn bombing, and this project that a friend is putting together. Instead of finishing the red scarf I've been working on this month, I started on my piece for this project. My tree is "Super Grover" and my piece should be 7ft by 2-ish ft.

Below is the design I currently have which will involve knitting one giant canvas and then crocheting/knitting the bigger pieces and sewing them on. And then doing some type of embroidery I'm thinking. In the end this will be more of a yarn painting or mural than anything, but I'm OK with that as long as I can get it finished in time!

Yarn Bombing!

Ever heard of yarn bombing? It's like graffiti, but less permanent and a LOT more fun. This year, Autumn Wiggins, owner of Upcycle Exchange in St. Louis and organizer of the Strange Folk Festival (held every September in O'Fallon, Illinois) is leading the charge for yarn bombing at the O'Fallon Community Park for the festival this year.

To join in and help with knitting (locally or from a distance!), visit here. If you're in need of yarn, Autumn has a great selection at the Upcycle shop!

A Red Scarf, 70s Yarn, and Unicorns

Back in April I started working on the pattern for this scarf. Unfortunately, the scarf started curving like crazy. Thanks to a fellow knitter on Ravelry, I made a minor adjustment to the pattern, frogged the original scarf and started over. I'm about halfway through now with minimal curving/shape issues. The pattern's pretty simple:

R1 - K
R2 - K
R3 - K
R4 - K2 *y/o, K2tog (repeat 8 times)* K1
R5 - K
R6 - K
R7 - K
R8 - K1, K2tog *y/o, K2tog (repeat 7 times)* y/o, K2

Repeat to desired length. End by knitting 3 rows.

A few weeks ago I went to visit my grandma to help her sort her yarn. This is the stash I came home with. A while back she gave me a couple skeins of the red mohair (on top of the pile) to knit up into a shawl, but my cat destroyed the last skein to finish the project and up until my last visit, neither my grandma or I could find more. I bound it off a couple months ago to turn it into a head wrap not realizing there was more yarn just waiting for me. As soon as I find the right buttons to sew on, I'll finish it up and see how it looks.

I was told most of the yarn is from the 70's and I love the colors but haven't decided what to do with any of it yet. I imagine there will be some fun projects in the future...

And speaking of fun projects, I won a give away from this blog. Can you say Unicorns?! I haven't done cross stitch in a while, but this might give me the perfect excuse.

June already?

June has snuck up me this year. My online class started yesterday (Intro to American Government here I come), and I feel overflowing with ideas and projects. Besides knitting, I also do photography and just last month got in with a local shop whose selling my work. I spent the weekend matting greeting cards and working on my pendant necklaces. The rest of the week will be spent matting prints and trying to get some photos of my products taken.

This has left my knitting sorely neglected. I'm still working on a pattern for that scarf that was curving on me; I think I'm about half way through after frogging it and starting over. I started on a pattern for a fingerless glove and in my disarray of a house right now, I lost the notes half way through and am debating starting over or just moving on for now. Tsk tsk, I know.

The weekend before last was spent at my grandma's down in Tennessee where we went through and organized her yarn stash. While helping sort, I was also given a few additions to my own stash. Most are missing tags, but I think the majority are acrylic yarns so at least they'll be washable. She's starting to work on a weaving, something she hasn't done in a decade or two. As we were talking about it, it reminded me of the shoebox weaving I did in school as some 1st or 2nd grade project. Does anyone else remember doing those? I think mine ended up as little rugs for my mom's flower pots.