Stolen Moments

It's crunch time. I have one term paper and two final exams left. I have three presents to make, and a bazillion Christmas cards to send out. But I've been stealing moments here and there. Yesterday morning before I sat down to finish my first term paper I got inspired and sat down to make a tag.


Distress Inks, stamps, and Tim Holtz Ideaology gears on paper and "vellum"

It's something my manuscripts professor used to say. Can you read my handwriting? "Tempus fugit et non comebackibus." So true right now. Where is all my time going? I was ahead of schedule and now I'm definitely behind.

BUT there is EXCITEMENT to be had! My mom, yes MY mom, a luddite if ever there was one, now has her very own blog. I helped. Go, go, visit Zingala's Workshop. Comment. She'd love to hear from you :)

And, my Pocketeers, if you're not following Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas, you should be. There's all kinds of pretty going on over there. What do you think got me to do a tag?

Gobble Gobble

Happy Turkey Day! I realize I haven't posted in a looooong time, and Thanksgiving day seems like an odd time to take the time to blog, but I'll take what I can get.

Christmas is on the way, so naturally I can't post a lot of what I'm working on lest people see their presents, but I can say that I've got one finished and two in progress. I'm ahead of schedule, which never happens. I can't show you the finished one, or one of the in-progress ones, but I can show you what I've been working on while watching the Macy's Day Parade, because I'm pretty sure the recipient doesn't even know I have a blog...


Raven Clan color "Tlingit"

How about a glamor shot?


I know I'm overdue on a picture of my Raven Shawl, which I did finish before Halloween. To be honest, I haven't been able to get any good pics of it, but here's a teaser, taken while it was blocking:


I hope everybody's having a wonderful day with family and/or friends! Santa's almost at Macy's, so Merry Christmas season, too!

Back to School

Well, my two month break is over, but I've been keeping busy with the craftiness. And I've already got an entry for Michelle's latest Crusade! A couple of things for it, actually.

Took a class with Tim Holtz this summer... Oh. My. GAWD. He's a total rockstar. I had so much fun! The class was on bookbinding and creating covers with embossed metal and of course Tim's own findings. In one afternoon, we learned a simple bookbinding stitch, metal embossing, the use of alcohol inks, and what the faun to do with all his little findings and details. This is what I took home, along with a head full of ideas:





Since coming home, I've been doing a lot more stamping and paper art. Don't have much to show yet, but I'll give you a glimpse soon... :)

I've finished Ishbel, too, finally. I had to put it down for a little while sometimes, but I got it done!



Extreme closeup!


And I've had the chance to start the much-awaited Raven Shawl!


That's just the first three colors, accomplished while I watched the Ravens vs. Jets pre-season game. Oooooh I'm so excited for football season!

And, it being Monday, it seems like a good time to show off my most recently spun yarn. Yep, I've been getting back to spinning! This is what I've done with Mountain Colors targhee in Copper Mountain:


Spun on my Traveller, chain-plied for a good stripe effect.



I've decided that targhee goes on my list of favorite fibers to spin. It might actually spin easier than merino. Definitely a good fiber to learn :)

So, more on the learning front, I'm finally taking a rare books librarianship class. It promises to be super hard, but I'm really looking forward to what I'm going to be learning this semester. It's going to cut down on my crafting time, that's for sure, but given certain financial restrictions I'll have to make a lot more Christmas presents this year, so I'll definitely be finding or making time to get some crafting in. Nevertheless, crafting must needs take a backseat to academia sometimes. We'll see how the trip goes...

Shiny

Shiny is a great word. Shiny can mean reflective (of light), luminous. Shiny can mean glowing. To Firefly fans like myself, Shiny can also mean good, great, fantastic, wonderful, A-number-one awesome sauce.

Shiny is the work of Etsy artist Lura Jewelry.



You should check out her shop. My man did. And now, Shiny is how I feel.

The only question is how much of my wedding I can DIY without going insane...

Two weeks in a row?

Yes, another WiP post! Still Ishbel, but this time... I've started the lace!



I've got a portable project going, too - another Triangular Shawl by Doris Chan - but no pics of that yet. Yeah, I forgot to bring it out when I took the Ishbel pic at sunset, and I'm too lazy to do it now. But I have gotten people talking about crochet because they see me working on it in public. At my orthodontist, one of the technicians asked me to show her what I was doing because she crochets but can only keep track of simple stitch patterns. Now she and the receptionist want lessons!

Also, the Raven Shawl color sequence is all figured out. I'm going to wait til I'm finished with Ishbel before I start the Raven Shawl, though. There's a great story there, though. See, when I was winding off all my Raven Clan skeins, I found that some of them had more knots than I'm accustomed to seeing. A couple of them had two knots each and lots of slubs, which seemed odd, and one skein had four knots and slubs all through it. So, encouraged by Pam and Cristi, I went ahead and emailed Blue Moon. The next day, they had written me back apologizing and promising that new skeins of those three colors would be shipped to me by the end of the week! Awesome customer service. I'm very impressed. They're not even asking me to return the knotty skeins! So now I'm trying to think of little projects to use them in... :)

Well, that's all for now. Vacation this weekend, and I'll get to hit up Knitting Sisters. Woooo!

WIP: My Name is Ishbel...

Ahoy there!

Doesn't it look like a sail, there, hanging on the needles like that?

Yes, I'm working on Ishbel. It's way fun. I know, I'm only in the stockinette part, but something about it is reminding me of why I like to knit. The yarn I'm using is Blue Heron Rayon Metallic, in the Chesapeake colorway, which is making me realize that Ishbel sounds reasonably like Ishmael, which is appropriately nautical for this colorway.

The yarn choice was inspired by Pam's Ishbel and by the fact that the vine lace pattern looks to me like choppy waves. Just like on the Bay. So it was finally the perfect project for my one treasured skein of Blue Heron Rayon Metallic. I can't WAIT to finish and wear this :)

P.S. The awesome yarn bowl and lovely needles were birthday presents from the fabulous Pam. Thanks Pammi!

Independence

I hope everybody had a happy 4th of July. I spent mine with good friends, natural family, and my chosen family of retired Navy guys and wives. The best people on the planet.

In this past week, the first week of July, I also got to celebrate being done with my summer classes. I enjoyed them, but I think I'm going to enjoy my free time quite a bit, too :) After all, I've got so many projects waiting to be worked on! The ever-waiting Raven Shawl will finally get its start. And thanks to Pam I have another project in mind -- Ishbel is the perfect pattern I think for my skein of Blue Heron Rayon in "Chesapeake."

So as I declare my two-month independence from classwork, I find that I'm willingly binding myself to something else: a to-do list. Sort of a personal syllabus, just without specific deadlines. As much as I'm enjoying my grad school, I think this creative syllabus is going to be less stressful...

What's the worst that could happen?

OMG SEMESTER'S OVER!!!!!

And I start summer classes next week. Hmm.

I like learning stuff, it's the homework part that I dislike about school. It keeps me from doing crafty things. Although, to be fair, something else has kept me from my crafting recently. Class has been out for over a week now.

I picked up Twilight a while ago. How bad could it be? What's the worst that could happen? I get addicted like all the tweenie Twi-hards? Well, YES. I got completely sucked in. Read the first two books slowly during the semester, and read the second two in the week since class ended. Damn. I haven't done anything else. Work and read. Read and work. It's kinda scary how sucked into things I get. Oh, and for the record, Jacob Black is the MAN.

And last week was Sheep & Wool. I could only go on Sunday, because I had my last class on Saturday. (Did not keep me from getting to Pam's house that night for awesome party time! I'm so glad I got to meet/see everybody!) It was supposed to rain on Sunday. What's the worst that could happen? I have a raincoat and galoshes. No biggie, right? Well, mostly right. If you can ignore being soggy and miserable. Which miraculously I did, well, mostly. Let's just say that by the time I got home, I was really glad I got sheepskin slippers.

So I finally finished the mittens of doom. No more school means no more reason to not spend the time figuring out how to cross-stitch. (Oh yeah, I didn't mention that fact when I said I'd cross-stitch the letters on after the crochet was done? My bad.) So now I get to start my Raven shawl! I'm rinsing all the skeins first, to make sure I don't have any, er, surprises (dye-related ones) when it's finished and I wash/block it. I've got the first two skeins soaking now. What's the worst that can happen?

S'meeptopia

Nom.

Happy Easter!

Just because everything's changing doesn't mean it's never been this way before...

(Post title from the same song as the previous post title.)

So I finally have pics of the new and improved Narnia Jeans!





Sorry the lighting is kinda sucky. I was at trivia, and Pam's hubby was kind enough to take the pics but no amount of photo-fu can turn crappy lighting and a mediocre camera into professional conditions. Anyway, I'm actually happier with the re-paint than with the original. Don't know if you can tell the difference from the pictures, but I can see it. They're better this time.

The Narnia Exhibition was FANTASTIC. It was just magical. OMG seeing those costumes up close! Or as close as I could get to the glass, at least. Isis Mussenden is my new hero. The detail in the costumes is just incredible. Also, Tumnus' scarf is not just k1sl1/purl, because it definitely has knit v's on the wrong side too. So I have no clue what it is. I'm just gonna be happy with mine for now. I can't justify doing a third Tumnus scarf. Well, I'm sure if I really tried I could, but I won't... Anyway, I hope the exhibition comes somewhere closer because I would LOVE to go again. If it comes near you, go. It's definitely worth the trip.

I'm seriously itching to MAKE STUFF and it's killing me because I've got homework and the basement craft room is a colossal mess (yes, still) and there's just so much to do before I can really justify sitting down and playing. Argh!

It started out as a feeling, which then grew into a hope...

A new chapter is about to begin in my Narnia fandom. On Saturday, I will get to go to the Narnia Exhibition. Not with every friend that I wished could get together for it, but still with friends. Good friends. Friends that will not make fun of me for being a fanatic. Much.

And it is at this time that I realize that I never posted pictures of my most splendiferous paint job ever. Which really is a shame, because way back here when I participated in one of Michelle Ward's Crusades, I promised evidence of using my first hand-carved stencil. Well, the evidence has been tampered with. Let me explain.

I did indeed use my Narnia stencil, and I used it on a pair of jeans. I also stamped and painted ivy (with an ivy leaf stamp I carved for the project) around it. And I wore these glorious jeans to the midnight showing of Prince Caspian.



There's ivy on the left leg, too, to balance it all out.

One problem.

I didn't heat set the paint.

Yeah, it faded in the wash. Majorly. So now I'm finally getting around to repainting it. And this time, I will post pictures when I'm finished!

Glub Glub

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I'm just drowning in life a bit. Having lots of trouble keeping up with homework, which means that craftiness of course suffers even more. But there may be crafts to post this week, I have had a little time to play with yarn, so there might be a little bit of Valentiney blog fodder. In the meantime, check out what I found: www.geekcrafts.com I'm totally hooked.

What's Our Name?

RAVENS!!!



That is all.

Well Hello There...

Happy New Year! Hello 2009! For some reason, I'm not very optimistic about this year, but I'm trying not to focus on that. Instead, there is a bit of a short-term list of things I'm trying to focus on.

1. Operation Stashbuster 2009. Yesterday Mom and I weeded out all the stuff we don't want from the Yarn Room. It's all going to charity. Why have yarn you don't like anymore or are never going to use sitting around? Plus, we rediscovered stuff we had forgotten we had, and found perfect yarns for projects we've had in mind. Next step for me is to finish what I've got started, or else chuck it. There are some things that I have to finish. Other than that, if I'm not interested in it anymore, it's getting frogged or pitched. After that's done, I'm pulling from the stash and getting things done. Already streamlined my Ravelry queue down to things I'm actually going to make, which I can make from the stash. Plus, I'm going to comb and spin all of that alpaca fleece I have. It's been washed, now it needs to be used. Furthermore, no yarn or fiber buying, except at MDSW.

2. School is starting. I'm going to grad school, and it's going to consume what little free time I have. In the long run, this is a good thing. I'm also going to use it to aid Operation Stashbuster 2009, because I have a train ride to my campus, which I am going to use as knit/crochet time.

3. RAVENS IN THE PLAYOFFS!!!! Wildcard game against the Miami Dolphins is this Sunday. I'm psyched. Even if the Ravens don't make it past this game, I'm thrilled, because who expected that team, with a rookie coach and a rookie QB and a dismal last-year's record to do well at all this year? Not even the devoted fan sitting right here. Even one playoff game is a fabulous surprise. Dare I hope for the Superbowl?

So far, those are my thoughts on this new year. Not much, and not great, but that's another thing I'm working on: optimism.

P.S. It's been so long since I posted and there are no pictures because my computer got eated by a virus. Weeks ago. And I haven't had the chance to get it fixed yet. Cross your fingers for me that my files can be retrieved...