Surprise Guest Star....

We found out who the surprise guest star is in the Nutcracker... It's Danny from this last season of "So You Think You Can Dance". He performed as the Prince last night and will again tonight. If any of you watched that show this year you know he is an amazing dancer. My daughter got to talk to him last night...which was quite exciting for her since she's such a fan of that show...she said he was really nice. The bummer is that I have tickets for the show this afternoon instead of tonight so I won't get to see him perform. :( Oh well....it's much more important and exciting to hear my daughter play her harp. There are two harps performing with the orchestra and they are alternating who plays "Waltz of the Flowers" and she'll be playing it this afternoon. :)

Nutcracker

If anyone is interested in seeing the Nutcracker..... My daughter is a harpist and is part of the San Diego Civic Youth Orchestra (they are amazing!) and they will be performing the music for the Nutcracker at the California Center for Performing Arts in Escondido (a huge, beautiful theatre) tonight, two performances on Saturday, and one on Sunday (12/21-23). There are surprise star guests in the show tonight and Saturday night (I think it's those two shows). You can get specifics on times and prices by calling the box office. Just google the theatre for numbers and directions. I expect it will be awesome....I know the music will be. :)

Hat for Hubby

It's been a while since I posted a blog but I am knitting again. I made this hat a few weeks ago for my hubby. He has several others in various colors and stripe patterns from the past few years. He loves wearing them when it's cold...even in the house. I started a pair of socks a few weeks ago but with everything going on I've only been able to fit in a few rows here and there so I'm still on the foot of the first one. It's looking good though.


Here's a picture of that freeform crochet bag I worked on months ago. It was so much fun to do but it turned out a cross between really cool and really funky. I haven't decided what to do about handles. When I draw it up where I put holes for a drawstring it doesn't look good. So, I think I'll take it to JoAnn or somewhere and see how it would look with wood or plastic handles or something. Hmmmm? Hopefully I'll come up with something that works well with it. Only problem is that my daughter wants to steel it! I guess that's a compliment. :)

Too much fun....

I'm back in the fiber again! In fact, I think I dove in too fast...I have knitted so much this week that I had to take today off because my right hand and arm hurt! Argh! I was doing so good. I had almost a whole sock done in about a day and a half...that's amongst cleaning, errands, cooking...and life. I impressed myself...until I woke up sore this morning. I was having so much fun too!!! Well, maybe I'll get to knit again tomorrow. I knew I needed to give my muscles a break before I do damage and can't knit for weeks. I've done that before. It's no fun. So...tonight I'm having fun looking at other people's knitting works of art and I found an amazing blog...check it out on my blog link section on the left "Glove Knitting". Wow! I really want to try making some gloves. I've never done that. They look so cool. I found a bunch of free patterns on that blog or one of the ones from her site.

I'm still here...

I finally had some time to catch up on blogs this week and realized I haven't posted in a long time. I don't have any projects to show or talk about because life has been crazy/insane lately. So much so that I haven't even wanted to play with fibery stuff. That's really weird because that's usually what is comforting to me when life gets stressful. But...I lost weight through it all. Now I just need to exercise regularly so I can keep it off and firm up. Life seems to be coming back to normal now. I'm trying to figure out a new knitting project. That's a good sign. I even pulled out fabrics this week and worked on finalizing a pattern for my next quilt. I hope things keep improving around here. That'll be great! Then...we just have to get through the holidays! lol I can't believe they're here already!!!

I haven't posted in a while so I thought I'd put something on today. It's been so smokey here from all the fires but we're ok. Just have to stay inside to breathe. I sure hope the air clears soon. Especially for those with asthma and other breathing problems. It's kinda scarry for them. We've had a lot of extra time on our hands because of things being cancelled due to the poor air quality, and staying home to stay out of the smoke and out of the way of fire trucks and evacuees. You'd think I'd be busy crafting but since I have to stay home I get restless and want to do anything but that. I did manage to weave a rug this week though on one of the days that I had the news on all day. And, my daughter is weaving one right now while I'm doing this. Other than that I've mainly watched news and cleaned the house. I'm going a little stir crazy. My daughter's school is closed today and now we have an open weekend too. Hmmmm? What to do?!

I don't like to post without a picture and I don't have anything new and exciting to show so here's a picture from beautiful Julian, CA taken last fall. They are under evacuation again. I sure hope the town makes it through.

Busy Fun!

Wow! Things have been so busy around here lately...but I managed to get the binding sewn onto my quilt this week. Hooray! That makes two quilts this year that I started and completed. It's such a great feeling of satisfaction. This one is the first one that I've ever made that I had professionally quilted after I did the piecing. There's a back side to it too...I figure that if I'm putting so much time and money into it I may as well make it two quilts in one. The back is mostly plaid with a big pieced square in the middle. I like it. I made this with Moda Charm Packs in the Chocolate series and yardage from the same line, except for the plaid. I made it to hang over our loft wall to add color and warmth to the living room. I'm really happy with it. In fact, I can't believe I did it! It's so awesome to see it with it's handsome quilting (leaves and vines) and the edging came out so nice. Ahhh! Fun! Besides that I've been so busy with my daughter's life. She's playing her harp in her high school production of "Midsummer Night's Dream" as a fairy. So, I had a costume to sew and lots of taxi service to provide taking her and her harp back and forth. Last week she practically lived at school as they rehearsed until late each night and then two performances. This week has less rehearsals so I've been able to see her a bit. There are two more performances. The kids all do a great job. It's a fun show to see. We were able to find some time a couple weekends ago to go out and take some pictures with her and her harp (something we like to do from time to time) and I got some pix of her modeling a shrug-vest thing I knitted. It turned out really cute. I'm just not sure if it's ok to post her picture on here. I know some people say it's not a good idea to do. Not sure why but I guess I'll go along with that, for now anyway.

I'm pretty excited about quilting after completing the binding on this one last night but I need to focus on other things. Especially since Christmas will be here before we know it. I need to really get busy on gifts. So....I think that's what I'll go do right now.

Happy crafting!

Free Form Fun!

Ok...I can't wait...I have to post this strange looking bit of fun that I'm having. It doesn't look like much yet...or maybe it looks like a sun? or a flower?...anyway...it's my free form crochet bag that I'm making. It's so much fun that I'm having a hard time putting it down. It's more time consuming than it might look and I've been working on it so much that my left hand is cramping up. But it is so much fun because it requires creativity every step of the way. Selecting colors, textures, combinging yarns, and figuring out how I want to crochet the next row. So much fun!!!

A Gourd, A Scarf, and a Purse

I'm working on several things right now and nothing is ready for it's 'Kodak moment' yet and I don't like to post without a picture. Pictures make it more fun. So, here's a picture of a gourd bowl that I made a while back. I cleaned, cut, cleaned again, drilled, sanded, stained, sanded, stained, sanded, finished, and crocheted. Now it does a great job of looking pretty on our desk containing all the wires for our "wireless" devices....phones, ipod, etc. I have some ideas rolling around in my head to work with another gourd and incorporating fiber into the design.

I haven't worked on the lace again...yet. My mom is doing a couple of rows a day on hers...probably about all she can stand since it's so hard to knit those angled stitches. So, I've been working on the scarf that was suppose to be a "two hour or less" project...wrong! I have no idea how long it has taken but it sure wasn't two hours or less. I bound off this morning and even though my gauge is right it's too small. So, I get to be creative to make it fit. So I started crocheting around it and adding some little ties to the corners. So far so good. I need to give my hands a rest though. I knitted and crocheted pretty much all day yesterday and my hands are feeling tired and sore. I went to Crochet Cafe and enjoyed the company of some ladies that took a free form crochet class last week and were working on some purses from the class. I was inspired and came home, pulled some yarn from my stash, and got to work trying to re-create what they're making. I got the basic idea of the construction and because it's "free form" there are no rules...that's pretty cool and fun! So far so good...it's looking like the ones I saw yesterday. Right now it looks like a spider but it's coming along. Pretty exciting.

Knitting Lace....or..."LACE" is a four letter word!

Ok...soooo...this looks easy...my mom and I understand (or at least we think we do) the stitch pattern (easy?!) but we have started, restarted, restarted again (many times), changed needle sizes, made many, many swatches and we're ready to burn this project! It seems easy enough...knit a row, purl a row, then start the pattern of slipping the first stitch of each row and then YO, K2tog (P2tog on alternate rows). Simple, huh?! Well, we don't know if we're missing something, if it's the thin yarn, or what but it's not easy! The angle of the stitches on the previous row make it almost impossible to get the needle in to knit the next row, no matter how incredibly loose we knit. Because of this, it takes so incredibly long to knit a row that this project could take 10 years, at least, to complete!!! And...we found out why the pattern says that if you come out short on a row to just increase to add a stitch, or if it's too many on a row to just knit two together....if you try to go back it screws up the whole thing and we end up starting all over again (which both of us have done several times). Argh! We don't want this pattern to win but we need a break! If anyone has suggestions, we'd love to hear them. Thanks! As you can see....I've ripped mine out to start again.

In the meantime...we've gone on to some mindless projects. My mom is crocheting an afgan for charity and I'm working on this little scarf using leftover yarn from some socks I made last year. This lady doesn't seem very happy with her scarf. Hmmmm? I think it's cute though.

Lace!

Here it goes...my mom and I picked a pattern, got yarn and we started our lace shawls this afternoon. This will be the first lace I've ever knitted. Exciting and scarry! hee hee

Well, I couldn't resist...I started another project. It's one of the washcloths from the "Knitter's Stash" book, the basketweave one. But, for some odd reason, which I can't seem to figure out, everytime I go from knit to pearl it's leaving large stitches. I've never had this problem before. I'm not sure if it's the thread/yarn I'm using or what. I'll see my mom tonite and see if she can figure out the mystery (she's an amazing knitter, by the way). So, I stopped that project for now. I worked more this week on a bag I've been knitting with handspun yarn but I ran out of yarn and need to spin more. I'm planning to go to fiber night at Crochet Cafe but I don't know what I'm going to work on now. Maybe I'll shop for yarn. I found a gorgeous book yesterday that I couldn't resist buying...Victorian Lace Today. It's all lace shawls and such and they are rated by skill level. I looked at the ratings on Amazon last night and people say the patterns are easy and clear to read. I have one picked out to try. They are all stunning! Even if I never make any of them, the book is a joy to look at. But, I intend to try!!!

I finished the other striped sock last week. I had some problems near the end so I ended the project with some frustration but overall they turned out pretty good. The stripes on both socks match pretty well. I just had to add a couple more rows at the toe of the second one so it would have purple on the toe like the first one...so it's a little pointy compared to the other one but the colors match and it looks fine when it's on my foot. I'm on the hunt for another color of that yarn that I saw made into a sample at Black Sheep. Unfortunately, every yarn store I go into either doesn't carry that type of yarn, they're all out of it, or they only have one color and it's not the one I'm looking for. It was a beautiful combination of soft blue and green with a pretty taupe/tan. I can't believe I want to knit another pair of socks! I use to think that people who knitted socks were amazing knitters and that it was far beyond me to ever do that. I made my first pair last year and thought that was enough and that I could at least say I did it. (And, by the way....I'm far from an amazing knitter...I still feel like a beginner. I plan to attempt something lacy soon...maybe I'll feel a bit more advanced after that.) Then, I saw that striped yarn and had to make another pair. Now I think I've caught a sock knitter disease or something. I want to make so many different kinds and colors. I've been looking at various yarns and searching through patterns. I want to try a toe up version too. Soooooo much fun and just not enough time to play with sticks and strings. I'm trying to complete a couple of other projects before I start a new one. But, it's pretty hard. I have a feeling I won't make it and another project will be started verrrrry soon.

Here are some things I've been up to lately...

I found this cool striping yarn in January and finally got around to knitting socks with it. I finished this one and I've got a good start on the second. It's so fun to knit with this yarn because it keeps changing colors and making stripes without any extra effort. Cool!

I spun this last week by alternating colors with a creamy white for one strand and plying it with a solid cream strand. It turned out kinda cool. My husband thinks it looks like saltwater taffy.

I've been playing around with felting this year. Here a some of my experiments...

Felted soaps.

Here are some pin cushions I made. I plan to try out some new ideas this week.

I decided to try my hand at needle felting about a year ago.
Here's a kitty that I made. Isn't she cute?!

Well, here I am...with my own blog. I've been thinking about this for quite a while. Just needed a lil nudge from another crafty person to get me going. Now, I need to learn how to work this. This should be fun. Anyway...I'm a lover of many things crafty and arty (is that a word?). I love to knit, crochet, needle felt, spin, weave, quilt, sew...and try new things. I love to teach these things, inspire, and to be inspired by others. I've been inspired by other blogs and gotten smiles from them. I hope mine can do the same for others.