Great Hats!

I made three of these cool hats peach hats with yellow spots using Rowan, all season cotton, peach yarn.  One was for Rachel and Stephen Wheeler's baby, Rylan, coming in January one was for Marissa Brown and Daniel Lopez's baby, also coming in January, and the last one is for Micah and Abby Eades baby boy, coming in several months.

They are kind of ugly...and look like Halloween decorations.  But it's kind of an angle thing.  You could look at is like cute Mushie hats from super Mario.  I'm pretty sure none of the above have ever played.  I don't know what I'm going to do about that.

There are two other hats in the works, one on size 5 double points and another on size 6.  One, a green one, for Joseph and Joanna Jenkinson's baby girl, and the other, a red one, for Faith and Alan Webb's baby.

Update...

I have some for Joanna's sister and brother-in-law Nathan and Martha-Ann Fellman, and another for Even and Ada Dye's new baby boys that I am making out of various yarns.  There's a blue one that I've started and it's a silky yarn, and I'm not sure how it will turn out.  We will see.

Haha.  I don't remember what happened to this.

The Worst Day

I have experienced the worst crafting day ever. 

I cut my flannel fabric into the correct specifications, but it's not fitting the knitted part of the blanket.  So I have to add on fabric.  Cutting and measuring the fabric is a pain because all I have is a flexible fabric tape measure and not any good surface on which to measure it.  It's hard to get a straight edge at all.  I don't have any good cutting scissors, the only sharp ones are embroidery.  The sewing machine has a habit of seizing up and leaving great balls of thread on the underside of the fabric.  I don't want to ruin my fabric, since it is the only piece I have. 

I got more embroidery floss for my cross stitch kit, and I have messed up all over the place.  It is a wreck.  A travesty.  The worst.  There are parts that I've forgotten, things moved up and down and to the right and the left.  Everything is the worst. And I have the problem of not having enough thread to complete the "IS"  in "THIS IS." 

All in all, the worst day in my crafting history.  I don't think there is a worse day.

I still have that crossstitch, my venture into group crossstitching ended in huge embarrassment, while the ladies chatted and crossstitched speedily, fancy stitchings so above my head.  I didn't cross stitch to talk, I cross stitched to piece together missing pieces of my life.  Selling and buying them with random numbers, I counted, heavily breathing, screaming at mistakes.

Blanket and Hat

I'm knitting this thing for my relatives, Rachel and Stephen, my cousins, who are having a new baby, Rylan Wheeler.  It's a girl's name, kind of a mix of things.

I ordered peach colored yarn, but tonight, looking at it, it looks orange.  A prison jumpsuit orange.  But we haven't added the flannel to it yet, so that may be part of the problem.  I can just imagine the looks on their faces as I usher their new baby daughter into the world.  Into the world of incarceration.  Maybe it's just the artificial lights.  One can only hope.

It was pretty easy to do, Dyan's Baby Blanket and Hat.  (I haven't started on the hat yet, a mix-up in needles with LovingKnitty, the company from which I bought the yarn and supplies) from AlterKnits, by Leigh Radford,  a great book full of projects for me to expand upon.

I will post pictures in the morning, the light will be better.  I still have to post pictures with my laptop, whose angle is weird, so you have those to look forward to.  Also I have not mastered the art of not ending my sentences with a preposition.  You'll just have to forgive me.

I did finish this, with my mom's help. It was a blue blanket though and I don't remember if we did the hat as well.  I think we didn't use any paint on it because the paint was too rough.  I may have taken out or threw away the peach blanket part.

Cross Stitch Thingy

 This is a cross stitch thing I had for ages and never finished.  Really only about two years.  The picture is shoddy, but it's hard to take a picture from my webcam.

I finished this and gave it to my mom.

Newest Fall Project

I'm making this super ugly chunky red and grey scarf out of 3-4 different types of yarns.  Knitting on size ten needles, this is a super easy piece to complete.  Pics, forthwith coming. 

I love it.  I love the easiness, and the feeling that I can make mistakes and get away with it.  A couple added stiches, hello yes.  Not exactly perfectly square sections.  Definitely.  Be my guest. 

I can knit and watch The Big Bang Theory at the same time.  I really am into the Indian guy.  He seems pretty together.  Raj.  Good knitting vibes.  Laughter, even if it is canned.

I don't think I finished that piece.

Plastic tubes. Straws.

Finally the plastic tubes from China have arrived.  I'm afraid to blog about them, they are so colorful and whimsical and not everything I wanted them to be.  They are like extra long, extra tiny colors of the rainbow plastic straws, and I have no idea what I'm going to do with them.  For now I think I'm going to leave them on the table, they are as pretty as flowers. 

They aren't thick plastic tubes so if anyone is looking for tubes for their art project or what have you, I have 28 bundles.  I only hope that that Scoubi I ordered off of Ebay went through, but with Paypal and what have you, I think that I'll have to do some snooping around to figure out what exactly I ordered and when and how, if at all. 

These materials are expensive and hard to get.   Not exactly what I look for in a great hobby.  I think that I will  need to be more careful in my ordering from now on.  

Buttons hava arrived!

We got the buttons!  The holes are so big!  I'm excited, but after finding out what the plastic lacing really is, Scoubidou or Scoubi, and ordering some I think that one knot maybe too small for the holes.  I could try some buttons I have with normal sized holes, but it's all just speculation until they get here.  I love the buttons, I don't know what exactly I'm going to do with them yet, but they came from Etsy, so I just want to give a shout out to them here. 

Evil Wins

So I'm looking for this tubing, the ones I order from China haven't come yet and I realize I need help. 

The help I'm talking about is from other crafters, experienced and wisened crafters.  So I search for Craft Forums.  I've had pretty good success on online forums for knitting, the Ravelry Community, there's always someone who's already done a project and wants to share their story.  So I see Craftster.org.  I peek around on the site, looking to find that connection.  I'm on there and I look through the jewelry posts, specifically since that's what I'm looking for help in.  All this is great and I realize that these people are just like me - craft whores, a name I've come to embrace, since I know it means, I try to craft, but could never be serious.  People who have no clue what they are doing, but buy expensive supplies to let their inner craft shine forth.  It's less a striving for perfection and more a striving to let nature out.  That was the connection that I was looking for. 

So I register.  So I thought.  This captcha.  That captcha.  None of the above captcha.  I guess I was wrong.  The elite people at Craftster must read minds to register for their forum.  I left after 5 tries.  A person gets disappointed, and seeing as the captcha never matches up with the type, I realized. 

I hate captchas.  And my will to get into a burgeoning society of crafters, and ask them about my mysterious plastic tubing for my awesome button rings was thwarted.  Evil wins again.

There has been an Evil Society of Writers.  I have heard tell of them.  So perhaps there should be an Evil Society of Crafters.  How can crafting be evil?  You haven't met the crafters! I think it's more advanced craft whoring.

Waiting and Anticipation

I haven't gotten any packages yet with my ring making supplies, the plastic tubes or the wooden buttons.  I'm still waiting with bated breath.  I really want to get started on these. 

I've been looking a the buttons and I am worried that they are just a really big close up and have normal sized holes.  This is tragic.  I can't make rings out of that!  That's the problem of buying online, you are never sure what you are going to get.

I never did anything with these.  I still have the tubes in the garage and I think the buttons are in the button tin.

Getting in Gear

Ok, no awesome crafts to report.  However, I am going to the craft store, hopefully this week.  To get some materials for some rings, that I want to do.

Has anyone had problems with finding plastic tubing? or even nylon coated wire for bracelets?  I found some plastic, but it was in strings, not in tubes, where the book I have has a visual of plastics with a hole in them. 

I thought I would have to wait to go to the craft store with my mom, which is always a "interesting" experience, but I realized I could order online, which is more expensive, but more niche appropriate, meaning you'll always know if you've found something which may or may not be in the more general hardware stores.  I found this nylon mesh tubing, which could easily be melted to close the ring, and these awesome wooden beads with huge holes that I know I can paint!  Super great. 



I still have these buttons