From Our House to Yours…
by Lynn Daniels on Thursday, December 25, 2008 at 8:51 am
Reindeer and Elves and Stockings … Oh, My!
by Lynn Daniels on Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 4:41 pm
In keeping with my crafty theme in the run up to Christmas, I thought today I might show you some of the plastic canvas ornaments I did for the upstairs tree.
~ * ~
I’d decided to do plastic canvas on a whim — I’d gone to a local craft store (and by local I mean a store about thirty minutes away; I live in the sticks, remember?) to pick up yarn for the ornaments I’d intended to crochet. As I wandered, I spotted the plastic canvas supplies.
I’d done some plastic canvas many moons ago. A set of frog things for the bathroom, including a toothbrush holder, tissues box cover, and a wall hanging. The wall hanging was the greatest; it depicted a frog in a bubble bath. Seriously, does it get any better than that?
Anyway, the plastic canvas stuff looked intriguing to me. Although I hadn’t done any in quite some time, I recalled it being pretty simple. Well — simple may not be the right word, but it’s the closest I can come up with. Suffice it to say I was confident (there’s that darned word again!) I could get a few ornaments done up quickly, or at least before it was time to take the Christmas trees down.
~ * ~
Unfortunately, I didn’t have any patterns in hand, so I wasn’t sure what to buy. I studied the stuff on the shelves, then did what any self-respecting fair-weathered crafter might do: I just bought a little bit of almost everything. Tiny skeins of almost every color yarn they had, two different sizes canvas, and a bunch of needles.
Made sense to me.
I was missing something very important, however. Patterns. I had no plastic canvas Christmas ornament patterns. While I can make ornaments and other fun doodads, I can’t wing it. I’m not a pattern designer; in fact, I’m completely wing it challenged. And I mean that with everything. I can’t wing a crochet pattern. I can’t wing a machine knitting pattern. I can’t wing a recipe. I’m not a winger.
That sounded completely wrong, but you get my meaning.
~ * ~
And to that, I say Thank goodness for the internet. Seriously, what did crafters do before the internet? For any type of craft pattern, the internet is amazing. The internet is amazing for other things too, obviously (how else would teenage boys satisfy their undying need for porn?), but for my purposes in this post, we’ll just say the internet is amazing for crafters.
After extensive googling, I found some great patterns. I haven’t managed to make all the great ones I’ve found, but the three ornaments you see in this post (plus the other three I haven’t posted pictures of) all came from the same site, and I would be remiss if I didn’t recognize the designer publicly.
So, THANK YOU to Mountain Harmony Creations for posting free plastic canvas patterns online, the results of some of which are now gracing my longer naked upstairs Christmas tree. I think two reindeer, two stockings, an elf and a snowman are a great start! And they’ve made great neighbors to the craft foam snowflakes and Christmas trees, and the strange concoction of styrofoam, flat-sided marbles, and chenille stems (it looks cool, really!).
Two more days!
Wiggle Me Proud and Confident
by Lynn Daniels on Monday, December 22, 2008 at 10:17 pm
…and VERY long-winded
A couple weeks ago, I mentioned knitting a baby blanket for LittleDude’s teacher, who was about to start her maternity leave. Of course, being the doofus I am, I’d put it off to the last minute. Won’t I ever learn?
THE PLAN:
LittleDude’s teacher was going on maternity leave, and I wanted to make sure LittleDude had a gift for her. I thought a handmade baby blanket would be perfect. I’d received my new Bond Ultimate Sweater Machine the week before (it replaced my old one still lost somewhere in the black hole of our storage unit — SoundGuy’s fault, not mine) and was looking forward to putting that baby to work. I knew from experience projects could be made quickly; after the first Harry Potter movie was released I’d made Harry Potter scarves for my children in a matter of hours.
As I mentioned, I’d put things off until the last minute, but I figured since I’d been pretty good with the USM years before, my learning curve wouldn’t be as steep and I’d be able to get a blanket done in a day.
THE EXECUTION:
Ready to go!
December 4, 1:00pm: There are some things you never forget, and one of those things was how to set my machine up. It nearly took up the entire length of my dining room table, but I was set up and ready to go!
After setting it up, I stopped to watch the instructional DVD that came with the machine. A refresher course, if you will. I had a few ohhh, yeah! moments, a few I remember that instances, but most of it was almost old hat. When the video was done, I was even more confident I’d be able to make the blanket without problem.
Looking back, that should have set my warning bells to clanging.
Testing 1, 2, 3!
I sat down in front of the USM and just kind of looked at it for a minute. How the hell do I start? I asked myself. I looked at the components scattered around my dining room table and drew a complete blank. After considering — and rejecting — the idea of watching the DVD again, I opened up the instructional book (all kinds of how-to information with this sucker!), found and read the section I needed, then did a literal facepalm.
Oh, yeah!
Still, because of my brain fart (Lord knows I should be used to those by now!), I opted to play it safe and knit a quick test swatch — just to make sure I still could, don’cha know. I e-wrapped about twenty needles, loaded the yarn, and got that purple carriage flying.
Swatch success!
After ten passes with the carriage (equal to ten knitted rows), I decided to remove the swatch and give it a looksee. I’m sure you can well imagine the happy butt wiggling that ensued when I realized I had a good-looking stockinette swatch.
Success!
If you’d been listening closely at about 1:20pm on December 4th, you might have heard the odd crackling and popping sound of my growing confidence. Almost like what you hear when standing in the middle of a cornfield at night. It’s a sound that’s often proven dangerous for me, but I never realize it until after the fact. Hindsight and all that mess.
Please ignore the clutter on my table!
Hindsight still in the not-so-distant future, I charged full bore into starting the actual blanket. I knew I’d have to break for my children’s TKD lessons (they both had lessons at different times that day), and I’d also have to break in order to cook and eat dinner, but I was still oozing that dangerous, project-killing (for me, anyway) confidence.
2:18pm: Once again, I e-wrapped needles, this time the full bed of 100, then got it boogying. Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along… Back and forth went the carriage, back and forth, back and forth. I was almost giddy, watching the product come down from the bottom, growing longer and longer with each pass of the carriage. This was a breeze.
Just for you: a closeup of the knitting coming off the machine
2:44pm: RATS! I stopped to look at the blanket so far, and realized I was dropping the end stitch every time I passed the carriage from the right. Important lesson learned: always check the knitting every few rows to make sure every needle is working, every stitch is knitting. I’d known this important rule in the past, but very unconveniently forgotten it, darn it all. You can bet I wouldn’t be forgetting that one again.
I frogged everything I’d done thus far (rippit, rippit) and reloaded the USM for a restart. I was a little frustrated by the setback, but not defeated by any stretch of the imagination. The USM would not beat me! I was running out of straight working time, though. LittleDude was due home from school in an hour, and I was remembering other things I needed to take care of before the after-school march began.
4:09pm: Time to leave for LittleDude’s TKD lesson. I’d finally worked out all the kinks, though, and was starting to make good progress despite frequent forced breaks for little things like helping LittleDude with his homework and other mondo-importante stuff. When we walked out the door, I’d finished 50 rows. A quarter of the way there!
Almost finished...
6:09pm: (What is it with me taking pictures or making reports at nine minutes past the hour? Strange…) Stopped for one TKD lesson. Stopped to make dinner for LittleDude. About to stop again to take MiniMe to her TKD lesson. Lots and lots of stopping. But lots and lots of progress, too. I’m three-quarters of the way there!
After MiniMe’s TKD, we got home and I cooked. Then I ate. Then I indulged in a little television because my back was torqued with me after spending a majority of the day (on and off, of course) bent over my knitting machine (Relief! it screamed. I need relief!). But eventually, I did get back to the blanket. And eventually, I even finished knitting it! At 11:14pm (funny it wasn’t at 9 minutes after 11 — sad how easily I managed to break that pattern) I was able to declare the body officially finished.
The body.
Finished! Finally finished!
I still had to edge the sucker. I grabbed my crochet hook, plopped my butt down on the couch, and commenced crocheting. I crawled around internet before I started, trying to find the perfect edging for this blanket. Most I came across were waaay too froo-froo for my tastes, at least for this project. Never did run across an edging I liked, so I improvised. And crocheted my butt off (not literally, although I wouldn’t have complained if my butt’s surface area had been somewhat reduced…).
It was nearly 2am when I finally called the blanket complete: body, edging and all. And there was happy butt wiggling all around. Bleary-eyed happy butt wiggling, but happy butt wiggling, nonetheless.
Cut me a little slack here. At least I didn’t Cabbage Patch. In my defense, I don’t think I have ever Cabbage Patched.
THE COMPLETION:
At this point — at 2am — I still had to wrap the blanket and make the card. And that would keep me up until nearly 4am (damn my perfectionism, anyway!). But I had done it. If you didn’t count my initial misstep, I had completely made a baby blanket start to finish in less than 12 hours.
Pardon me a moment while I indulge in another happy butt wiggle. A proud and confident happy butt wiggle.
I love my Ultimate Sweater Machine.
Saturday Shot 20 DEC 2008
by Lynn Daniels on Saturday, December 20, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Does anybody else stress as much around the holidays as I do? I swear, come holiday time I spend all my waking hours running and running and running, only stopping long enough to sleep at night. I will be so grateful when the holidays are over.
Somehow, I managed to find enough time to process a photo, get back online, and post. Aren’t you excited? I know I am.
Sarcasm aside, here’s a Saturday Shot for you! Being that it’s the holiday season, I thought a little whimsy was in order. This shot is from our second day in Yellowstone Country. We took my favorite drive over the Beartooth Scenic Highway, but this time we made a stop we’d never taken before.
On the Montana side of the pass is a large rest area, complete with restrooms and an overlook. While my family hit the restrooms, I trucked my butt on out to the farthest edge of the overlook and took a bunch of pictures. I also took some pictures for other tourists who saw my camera rig and figured I could get a good picture of them with their little point-n-shoot.
I sure hope that photo came out well for them.
At any rate, once I’d taken my fill of shots, I turned around to rejoin my family back by the parking lot. After two or three steps, I was laughing my butt off. Somebody had built a little snowman up on one of the walls, giving him little stick arms and hair. That person had been generous enough to leave the snowman behind for others to enjoy.
I enjoyed it, then went one step further. I took a picture.
Have a great weekend!
Stubborn Leaves
by Lynn Daniels on Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Today is a special day in my household; it’s my SoundGuy’s birthday. He’s– well, let’s just say he’s a lot older than me. Centuries. Eons. No big plans, though. I’ll pick up a cake at the grocery store and I picked up a gift for him. His birthday is tough with gifts, as so much of our money is going toward Christmas.
Kind of like how my birthday is tough because it’s right before Valentine’s Day. I think he got the shorter end of the stick, though.
I’m taking a few days off of writing to do some crafts. LittleDude’s teacher has a baby due soon, and I’ve got to get her gift finished so LittleDude can take it to school with him on Friday, her last day before maternity leave. I’m also trying to make a bunch of ornaments for the upstairs Christmas tree. This will be our first year with an upstairs Christmas tree, and I thought it’d be cool to have one with all homemade ornaments. I don’t know if I’ll get enough made before Christmas, though, so that upstairs tree might be pretty naked.
Maybe we’ll just dub it Naked Tree.
Oh, and it’s December! Do you know what that means? It’s time to check in with Huey, Dewey, & Louie in my front yard. If you need a refresher on last month’s look (for comparison purposes, of course), you can find that post here.
Now, for December’s pictures. What a difference a month makes! I just went out and took these about an hour ago, so they’re extremely up to date.
Here’s the first picture. As you can see, the leaves have most definitely changed color. You may also notice that many of them are still clinging to the tree. The bane of SoundGuy’s winters.
Picture #2. SoundGuy actually foiled my plans this year. The leaves you see strewn across the yard are those that have fallen after SoundGuy’s gone out twice during the last month and cleaned them up! While many of the leaves are from our trees, we’ve also got a forest across the street that deposits beaucoup leaves in our yard.
And finally:
I realized that I had managed to decapitate the trees in the first two photos. That’s what I get for being a smart ass and running outside in my t-shirt (it’ll only take me a couple seconds!) to get the shots. In 46 degree weather. I’m lucky I was able to hold the camera steady. Seriously. So anyway, here’s Huey with most of his head intact to show how many leaves he’s still holding on to.
And now I leave you. I’ve got to get crackin’ on that baby blanket! Have a great day!
How Was I to Know
by Lynn Daniels on Monday, December 1, 2008 at 7:41 am
I suppose I should add a disclaimer: not my child
NaNoWriMo 2008 is over. I didn’t realize there would be such a letdown once the NaNo site officially said “NaNoWriMo 2008 is over“. I was riding such a high last night after finishing, reality hadn’t hit me. But this morning…
SLAM!
Suddenly, I’m faced with a big question. What do I do now?
During NaNo, because I’d loafed so much in the beginning, it came down to the wire. I found myself with very little time left and lots of words yet to go. Naturally, I buckled down and spent every available minute writing. Yes, I discovered that hard deadlines work very well for me.
I’ll ask again. What do I do now?
No hard deadlines. Other than my own desire and pride, no real reason to finish Chester and Rube (I absolutely will, though). I’ve got time — not much, but there is some — and no need to fill it all with writing.
Knits 1200 stitches a minute!
Okay, I’ll come clean. Part of me was looking forward to the end of NaNo. I wanted time for my other pursuits, too. Like crochet. I want to start crocheting ornaments for a small Christmas tree I’ve decided to put upstairs.
And knitting. My Ultimate Sweater Machine (my second one — SoundGuy can’t figure out what he did with my first one) arrived early last week, and I’m dying to put some yarn on that baby and make something. I just have to figure out what to make.
But with all the yarncraft I plan to do (and I plan to do a lot), I still want to write. I want to finish Chester and Rube. I want to finish Emma’s yet unnamed story (and decide if her name is going to be changed to Desiree). After having so much fun writing Chester and Rube I’d like to try my hand at another similar-type story. Just for fun.
And since I work better with a deadline, I learned of a site through the NaNoWriMo forums that does NaNo-type challenges all year called Dream Writers. I signed up. I’m not sure yet if I’ll use it, but it could just be the kick I need. Or it might kill NaNoWriMo 2009 for me. We’ll see.
Despite the initial Oh, no. NaNoWriMo is over letdown, it’s starting to look to me like I won’t have trouble finding things to fill my time. How about you?
Random Photo
Twittering
NaNoWriMo
