Reformatting

Having three blogs to maintain is a bit much, so I've changed it up a bit. I'll keep spot thief, but make it private, and use it for journaling things I don't quite want to share with the entire world. The rest of it will go here. A little crafting, a little gardening, and probably quite a few cat pics.

I'm in the process of knitting up my Christmas gifts. I've managed to finish 2 of them, but still have 4 to go. Once I've worked my way through that, I have a couple of items I want to make for the wedding, but I may run out of time. I've got my fingers crossed that it works out. I am also making plans for the things I hope to accomplish next year. I've set aside yarn in bags with pattern names for the Personal FG Club, and I may set up a few more with random small projects to keep me entertained throughout the year. I would also like to spin up some of that fiber Heather sent me, and quilt a wall hanging.

Now that I'm in the house, I feel like life is starting to settle down. The cats/dog integration is going as well as could be expected, and I think we're getting to where we can all coexist. Friendship will hopefully come in time, but for now I'm quite excited by indifference. The wedding plans are coming together as well. The biggest thing still hanging is what I'm going to wear ;) I'm thinking I might get started on that one next weekend. Should be something to look forward to!

Ravelympics Day 1 - Finally Casting On!

Today I cast on for my Morris Island Hand Warmers, using the pattern, Pretty Lace Hand Warmers from The Purl Bee blog. I didn't get to cast on right at 8, because I unfortunately have to work today, but I did take a quick break around 9 to cast on and knit the first few rows 0=) I'm using some hand painted silk/merino yarn that I bought when Barton and I went on vacation to Charleston this past spring. I love the look and feel of it, and I think the hand warmers will work up beautifully.

I have a doctor's appointment early this afternoon do some testing to see if I have asthma, and then Barton and I will be house hunting, so I also brought my Lulu Mitts along to work on in case I finish the MIHW, but still find myself waiting. I don't really expect that to happen, but a girl can dream, right? ;)

Antsy

The "hurry up and wait" was something we used to joke about when I marched in high school and college band. Now I'm feeling it all over again. I'm here, ready and waiting, but the competition is still days away. I can't cast on for my Olympic projects until the 8th, and patience isn't one of my best qualities ;) I've wound the yarn that needs it into balls, printed and gathered all of the patterns, and placed them on my work table in my craft/computer room.


Seeing everything so prominently probably isn't helping. The main projects I want to finish before the games are all in tedious finishing stages, too, which just isn't quite as exciting as starting something new. To tide me over, I've started a few small projects. I have a hat on the needles at work that I plan on gifting to someone, and on the hooks I have a couple of crochet dishcloths. The first dishcloth was one I did with Laura to help her get a feel for the crochet stitches. The second is teaching myself something new...Tunisian crochet. It's really quite neat, and feels a bit like knitting with a crochet hook. I'm using the diagrams from Crochet Cabana to help me along. So far my stitches look like their stitches, so I'm taking that as a good sign. It wants to curl -a lot- so I'm not sure how well it's going to hold up when I'm finished. The yarn is the same for both cloths, and it makes me happy. The colorway is called Beach Ball Blue, and it's very summery. Hooray for instant crafting gratification projects! Let's hope they keep me in line until the games start 0=)

Ambition

...otherwise known as Delusions of Grandeur.

The Ravelympics are coming up, and I have set myself up for either spectacular failure, or truly remarkable crafting. Actually, it's all in great fun, and the only thing I'm really doing is over-taxing my sidebar a bit with all of the "in progress" projects. To enter the Ravelympics, you must setup all of your project pages, and have them properly tagged, before the start of the opening ceremonies in Beijing for the Olympic Games. Once the games have started, no further projects can be added. For 17 days, I will challenge myself to complete 1 project in the each of the events I have entered. My chosen events are: Mitten Medley, Amigurumi and Toy Toss, Hat Dash, WIP Wrestling, Free for All Freestyle, and the Shawl Relay. The shawl relay might actually be a bit of stretch, but we'll see how it goes. My original three events were mitten medley, amigurumi toss, and hat dash, so I'll honestly declare victory if I finish something in each of those.

In a further effort to push myself, and to keep me from getting bored, I've entered a total of 19 projects. Not finishing doesn't count against you, so I figured I didn't have anything to lose. I'm really excited, and nearly ready for the craziness to start. I have all of the yarn wound into center-pull balls, and most of the patterns printed. I would like to finish up a couple of projects to clear them out of the way before all of this, so I've been pushing myself to finish up the Tiramisu Baby Blanket for Robert and Miranda, as well as finishing up the Knitting Needle Bag and Fat Bottom Bag. I technically finished knitting the knitting needle bag in June, but being the slacker I am, still need to line it. I finished crocheting the body of the fat bottom bag last night, and hope to get it lined soon. All I lack on the baby blanket is to finish the icord "ribbon" to weave through the edging. The blanket itself it very pretty, and I hope to have it fully finished this week.

Destashing

A couple nights ago, I went through my stash and decided to get rid of all the skeins that didn't inspire me, and could be returned with fairly minimal effort. I pulled 33 skeins, and divided them up to return to JoAnn's, Hobby Lobby, and Big Lots. Many of these were impulse buys, and purchasing was scattered throughout the year. I didn't bother attempting to find receipts...they all would have been out of date anyway.

JoAnn's treated me fairly well. They took a large percentage off the total return value to cover their butts in case I bought something on sale or with a coupon. I was slightly pissed over that, but I guess I can see where they're coming from. That was my biggest return, and it's kind of nice to have a card full of JoAnn's money for the next time I feel like getting new crafty stuffs. I may venture more into their fabric selection, though, as I'm finding myself drawn more to the "fancier" LYS yarns. Those are much more difficult to access, though, which is such a good thing for me.

Hobby Lobby took the yarn back at the lowest sales price within the past 30 days. Again, not the best, but I probably did buy a lot of that crap on sale...and it was indeed crap. All of it was eyelash yarn. Very pretty, very soft, but I'll never use it for a damn thing, and I know it. A person can only make so many catnip mice, and I couldn't face 9 more skeins of that. Again, it's nice to have that store card in my wallet. I've been trying to really cut back on my spending, which can feel really restrictive. Having a little "free money" makes me feel good, even if it's not quite true.

Big Lots, on the other hand, was a total disappointment. They won't take returns past the 30 day mark, and they won't take returns without a receipt. Granted, I only had like $7 worth of yarn to return to them, but that's 7 skeins I'm stuck with finding a use for. I could donate them, and I might if my mood swings that way, but for now I think I'll keep them in a pile for charity knitting. Could be a nice rainy day activity.

I also returned some picture frames to Target last weekend, so I have all kinds of store cards to make me feel like I have extra spending money! Yay destashing=)

Declaring Victory

Today I was victorious over the previously mentioned rapidly decreasing openwork crochet fingerless mitts! My paranoia over losing the beginning of the row lead to my problem, I think. I quit trying so hard, and let the pattern flow, and all turned out well. I think the mitts are really pretty, but they're a bit too large for me. I'm going to give them a try at keeping my hands warmer at work, but if the constant sliding around gets annoying, I think I'll give them to Laura. She tried them on today, and they seemed to fit her well.

Exercises in Frustration

I cannot for the life of me seem to do anything right in my crafting world lately. The past couple weeks have been extremely stressful because of the wreck, and I guess that's spilling over. I managed to magically decrease the hell out of my crochet openwork handwarmers (Lacy Crocheted Handwarmers), and keep completely messing up the supple rib pattern in my Lulu Driving Mitts. I have ripped back a couple rows twice now in an attempt to fix it. At this point, I'm thinking it might be best to just frog it and start over =/

Part of me is tempted to blame the microspun yarn, which I'm using for both projects. This is the biggest bitch to wind up. I currently have a tangled mess on the floor for my latest attempt. I think when I knit up Mamaw's stole, I'm just going to deal with the skeins rolling around *sigh*