Spring Fever

Something is wrong with me. 

I haven't been using my usual colors or motifs.

My aesthetic has been drifting.

The colors I've been using have been bright, and feminine, and, well... Springy.  I've been using flowers and green things.  I know I'm not really as rock and roll as I like to pretend, but this stuff is just so not me.  And yet, I love it.  After this past Winter, I'm finding it hard to deal with dark colors.  I want bright and more bright.  Sunlight and growing things and warmth.  It's Spring Fever.  So I've cranked out these:


(I tried a couple of Tim Holtz techniques that I hadn't tried before on this one.)


(The rays at the top are one of Michelle's stamps from her Stairway to Heaven set, and it was just what this tag needed.)


(This is where I realized I'd gone outside my normal pallete and style...)

And something a little different. I got a cheap frame at Target, and put something together just for that:


The flowers are Prima flowers with a Tim Holtz Foliage flower. The background is a paper from a Rock n Roll themed pack I have, embossed with a flourish and then whitewashed and wiped so the embossing acted as a resist (it's a Tim technique). I added a ticket in an Ornate Frame and metal corners to give it a bit more something.

I've got lots to show, but for now I'll just stick with the Spring stuff. Soon, though, I hope to have enough to show of a series I'm working on. Let's just say that HIM was awesome in Baltimore, and after the concert I was really really inspired.


P.S. Links to Michelle and Tim's blogs are in the sidebar.

Snoverwhelmed

Snow days make for a productive time here in the Pocket.  Not getting useful stuff done, necessarily (like cleaning, organizing, homework...) but getting fun stuff done.  Like knitting, and sewing, and baking.  You've seen my Valentines from the first blizzard of the week.  Between then and now, I've finished a scarf, an applique, and a batch of cupcakes.  Woohoo!

Pics of the scarf in its completely finished state are forthcoming after it's blocked, but here's a general idea:


Imagine that with a crocheted lace border, and you have a preview of the finished finished object.

Today I had time to do a bit of a fix that I'd been planning on. See, I found this adorable t-shirt at Target:


Now, I'm definitely not that cynical about romance. In fact, quite the opposite. But how could I pass up that squirrel? So with the help of FusiKnit, Misty Fuse, a black long-sleeved t-shirt, and some perle cotton, I ended up with this:


And, of course, because I can't let an opportunity for cupcakes go by, I made amazing cupcakes of Win.


Want a closeup?


Mmmmm nom nom nom...

It's the first time I've tried 7-minute Frosting. I'm totally sold. And anyone with a snowmobile or snowshoes or a dogsled is welcome to come over and help me eat these, because I don't know how my parents and I are going to manage to eat all 24 of them ourselves before they go stale...

What have you done with your snow day?

Snowpocalypse?

Yeah, we've got a lot of snow out there.  But I'm one of the lucky ones.  We've got electricity (knock on wood) and no need to go anywhere.  So this has been a great opportunity to play along with Michelle Ward, which I haven't done in months! 

This month's GPP Street Team Crusade encourages using letters.  Preferably those particularly affectionate ones, X and O.  Well, I needed to make Valentines.  And I happen to be snowed in.  Soooo, perfect timing, right?  Pooling my inspirations from Michelle, Tim Holtz, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and, well, my own pure brain, I came up with a couple of well-lettered tags.

This one, I can only show part of, lest its recipient happen to check my blog this week...


I made my own shimmer mist (End of Time pt 1, anybody?  warning, spoilers...) with Perfect Pearls and reinker ink, diluted with water.  Got a little heavy handed on that first tag...
I've been rereading the Scarlet Pimpernel books.  I honestly don't think there's a more romantic story, anywhere.  And Tim's flourish stamp strikes me as somewhat 18th Century, somewhat romantic, definitely cool.  Aside from an initial wash of a neutral ink, I did every layer of this in the same Fired Brick Distress Ink.  No, I am not shilling for Ranger.


These next two were originally one tag, but then I decided the two elements didn't go together physically or stylistically, so I cut them into two tags.  One hang tag and one little rectangular one.  The Dymo label on the top one came after the cut.




Michelle did say to do letters any way we wanted, and when I sat down at the work counter and saw my Dymo labeler, I knew it just needed to be involved.

Sometime I'll have to catch up and post stuff that I've started and finished since the last time I posted.  But for now this post is just dedicated to the Crusade.  Tune in later for yarny goodness.

Merry Christmas! Oh, wait...

I missed it!  Well, in real life I didn't, but in blogland I completely missed blogging about Christmas and all the stuff I made.  I guess that shows how much fun I was having :)  But tomorrow I go back to school, one "real" class and one practicum, so who knows how much time I'll have to make stuff to post here.  I'd better post now while I've got the time...  Picture heavy.  Very.  You have been warned.

My Christmas inspiration came mainly from Tim Holtz this year (link in the side bar).  I got a little bit addicted to his 12 Tags of Christmas.  And all his fun products.  He and Michelle Ward are like art crack.  I just can't stay away from their blogs.  (And let me tell you, as soon as Michelle's new rubber is out, I'm gonna be stamping everything in sight... also, her link is in the sidebar)  Anyway, Tim's techniques are easy for me to do in my tiny little workspace, so I went ahead and made gift tags for everybody this year:


Ta-daa!

My faves, close up:

teh Man


Dad


Mom


Big Brother

And of course, I had to do a big Narnia one. I mean, it's me. It's wintertime. What do you expect?


"Carrie, where did you get that fantastic rooted lamppost stamp?"
"Why, I cut it myself, thank you for asking!" :) 



Present-wise, this year saw the march of the Triangle Shawls.

One for my sister-in-law:

Manos Silk Blend. Yum.

And one for Zingala (once again, sidebar):

Rowan Summer Tweed. If yarn were peanut butter, this would be crunchy. And delicious.

I think winter is messing with my brain.  Hopefully I'll be able to crochet and knit enough to warm it up and thaw it out.  Cross your fingers for me!

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!