Quilty as Charged!

So, this year for one of the Christmas presents I'm making, I thought it'd be nice to give quilting a try - nothing huge, just a nice throw with a simple pattern.  It's a craft I've never really tried before, and we get a fair number of quilters coming in at work, so it seemed like a good idea to get a little experience with it.

This is just four of the blocks laid out to give a general idea of the overall pattern.  I realised once I drew things out on some graph paper that the best way to assemble the quilt itself was going to be to sew the blocks into strips, then sew the strips together - otherwise things were going to get a bit awkward cramming everything into the machine.

Now the part where this gets tricky is that I forgot we weren't actually going to be seeing them at Christmas. I need to have this finished in time to give it at Thanksgiving...in less than a week.  I am so very glad that I remembered to buy a fresh case of energy drinks last time I was at the store.

Greetings from under the avalanche...

Well, it's that time of year again - crafting frantically as I watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation on a constant loop.  I actually got a pretty good start this year, so everything's at least started, it's just a matter of prioritization to get everything finished in the right order. Highlights of this year's workload include:

• Hooded Scarf (that didn't start off as hooded, but then she was pointing out a hooded one she liked, so oh well...)
• Dog Sweater
• Convertible Mittens
• Socks
• Cowl
• More Socks
• Hats (oh yes, so many hats)
• Flavored liqueurs
• Assorted bath goodies

And, of course, it's the holidays and I work retail...

You probably won't be hearing from me again until around New Year's...

A White Freaking Christmas

So...this is my mom's neighbor's mailbox...

We got just a little snow for Christmas.  Fortunately, we'd thought to bring overnight bags and the cat with us, so we've just been having something of a Christmas sleepover party.  I felt bad about having to call out from work because of the weather, but when I saw the mail truck start up the hill, then give up and turn around I felt a bit less wussy.

3 Kind of Sad Things I Would Like for Christmas

At the risk of sounding like a grownup, there are actually a few depressingly useful things on my Christmas list this year:

1. A decent hairbrush
     - I used to have a really nice, actual boar bristle brush.  It worked great, and I've never been able to find another one I've liked quite as much. I need something with bristles rather than the plastic spiky things that just static up my hair.

2. Pumpkin moisturizer
     - I don't even know if they make this stuff anymore (it may have been seasonal), but they used to carry it at Beauty Brands. I really loved it, it smelled incredibly tasty, and it actually felt like it was moisturizing instead of sitting in a greasy film on the surface of my skin.

3. New valve stem caps with pressure indicators
     - I have no idea what happened to mine.  I think they got left at the garage last time I had the car serviced.  I've bought the regular caps in the meantime, but I really like being able to tell at a glance if I need to actually check my tire pressure or if I'm just parked in a dip in the parking lot.

It's not like they're even really hard-to-find items, it just seems like I never really go anyplace that sells them, and they're not really essentials, so I'd feel silly making a special trip just to buy them

Quite a bit of knitting, indeed.

So, I'm finally getting some of my older projects finished (mostly because I've got great ideas for new stuff and I'm too cheap to just buy more needles). Right now, I've got a kitty pi that's all done but the felting running through the washing machine. I'm a little nervous, honestly - I haven't felted anything in this machine before, and the damned cat bed took me so long, I'd really hate for anything to go wrong at this late stage. I suppose it didn't take that long in terms of continuous knitting, it got set aside for about a year, year and a half, but still... I did the math, and there's over 600 yards of yarn in this thing, not counting the eyelash yarn worked in at the top edge. Pre-felted pic for the sake of posterity (34 inches in diameter):



Also, since the **SECRET SWATCH** turned out so nicely, I got the needles today to start working a few more kinks out of the design. I'd love to have a prototype done soon, maybe get the pattern out by Christmas, but I really need to finish the other two in-progress patterns before I start in on it. After all, it's much easier to teach a class on a project you have a pattern for, hm?

Got the yarn to start in on some of the Christmas knitting today, too. Very excited about it, but (of course) I have to finish up another project to free up the needles I need. Although...it was just something for myself, so I could always just throw it on a stitch holder for a while...

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Now playing: Moxy Früvous - King of Spain
via FoxyTunes

Knit, knit, knit, CROSS-STITCH!!!

I'm finally starting to reach the end of the knitting backlog.  Got both of the remaining pairs of handwarmers done, and the socks are coming along nicely.  I really need to get the handwarmer pattern all polished and posted - it's not going to be a free one, though.  Assorted reasons lead me to believe that I should charge a little something for it - not much, probably only 50 cents to a dollar.  I'd feel a little silly selling them if I was handing out the pattern for free, and well, quite frankly, I could use the ego boost of people buying something I've designed.

(Yes, I know I designed and/or wrote several patterns for sale at work, but I don't actually get credit for those.  Or more importantly, money.)

However, as the Christmas crafting winds down, other holidays loom before me.  Namely, a shitload of birthdays.  I've got ideas for most of them, it's just a matter of gathering the necessary time and/or money.  In particular, I've got a couple of very interesting cross-stitch/embroidery ideas in mind. (wow, I'm getting some mileage out of my forward slash in this post, aren't I?).  There's a couple of neat things I ran through Dark Lilac before they took their pattern generator down, and the rest I should be able to cobble together okay, as they're mostly text.  

All of this, of course, being dependent on getting the last of this Christmas stuff finished up soon.

Sigh......

Race to the finish line

Caution - I don't think anyone's going to have time to read my blog until after Christmas, but just in case, I've made certain parts a bit hard to read as something of a spoiler protection.

Well, I figure there's no time to get every project done in time, so I've finished the ones for the out-of-towners, and I'm going to make sure all the others are at least started, so I can wrap the projects with a picture of the pattern and everyone will know I didn't just flake, and know what things are going to look like.

So I'll have a pair of socks, two hats, a two and a half pairs of handwarmers, a pair of slippers, a couple of plushies, a small pile of cellphone charms, sleep pants, possibly some more earrings, and a sweater that the freaking yarn hasn't actually arrived for yet (seriously - this is two years running!  I order the yarn to make the sweater back in October, and it just never arrives.  Last year's was discontinued, I can't wait to hear the excuse for this one)

Then there's also rewiring the plug that fell off of the tree (shouldn't be too hard, but it's the downside of the pre-lit tree), wrapping everything, and I think I was supposed to make cookies. I don't know anymore, my caffeine level has dropped slightly below rational thought, but still holding above motor control.

Christmas Looming...

Bleh.

Eight days of crafting time left.  I sort of hope we get more snow tomorrow so I can just tuck in for the day and get some quality crafting time in. (of course, I'll probably need to go get a few extra supplies, so....)

There are ends to sew in, knitting projects to finish, bits to be sewn together, jewelry to finish, prints to be made, inks to be heat-set, items to be pre-washed before wrapping, patterns to finish, etc, etc, etc.  I'm a little glad that not all of the relatives are going to be able to make it in for Christmas, since it gives me until New Year's to finish up their stuff.

I'm supremely confident that I can get everything done, but there's gonna be one hell of a crash Christmas evening when I fall over from exhaustion.

NaNoWriMo Fail

Once again, I did not complete NaNoWriMo.  November is really never a good time for me - it's usually when I start panicking about getting the Christmas crafting done, not to mention that I had a craft show to prepare for this year and the brief possibility of hosting Thanksgiving.

However, on a brief spin through Wikipedia trying to recall if James Bond works for MI5 or MI6, I happened to read up on all the other MI agencies.  Most of them were wartime sort of things and are now defunct, but....there was never an MI13.  At least not one anyone knows about.  I think I have next year's NaNoWriMo idea.  Or a kick-ass Hellsing fanfic.  Or Torchwood. Must...resist...fanfic...save...good ideas...for original works...and stop...talking like Captain Kirk.

Updates all around

Well, I just finished going through my Ravelry notebook and taking some fresh pictures to update my projects in progress. The big one to update is the hat I'm working on - it's an original design, and I'm really very pleased with how it's turning out. Took a little while to get the hang of the shaping in double-knitting, but it looks pretty good, and I think I've explained it nicely in the pattern. I'm actually pleased enough that I think people might be willing to pay money for it.

The felted satchel for Tiwaz is coming along nicely as well - I'd hoped to have it done for our aniversary, but I don't think I'll quite have it done by then. Definitely before Thanksgiving, though. Now that we have a washer and drier, I have a bit of a backlog of things that need felting anyway - best to just set aside a day for it.

And, of course, we're heading dangerously into NaNoWriMo time again. I'm thinking this year I'll actually prepare a bit, try working up some character profiles and such. I've got two pages of a comic that I drew as part of an art project, and I'm thinking that might be a good jumping off point for me this year - I essentially drew a trailer, no plot really involved, just a hook. I don't even think there was any dialog, just character introductions. I've got my author page all updated, though, and I just need to grab this year's badges and fix my sidebar links.

Starting the Christmas Crafting

Well, the Christmas crafting has begun in earnest. So far I've got one original pattern I'm working on, and two more projects I'm working on from other patterns. I'm trying to do smaller projects and not take on too much, possibly famous last words.

Wist pruning

Ah, my favorite time of year - going through the Wist to see what I can delete. Did pretty good this year - six things. Technically, seven, but one turned out to be the wrong size so I'll have to wait to see if I can exchange it before I remove it from the Wists.

Not like I have much else to do tonight, after all. Thanks to this miserable cold, my boss sent me home early, and at this point I can barely type. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to go in tomorrow. Granted, this may not seem like such a terrible thing to most people, but I'm paid hourly, and I have no sick time allowance, so if I can't get in tomorrow, there's about the week's groceries worth of wages I'll be missing out on. Not to mention there'll just be more to do later. I wish there was some way to bring some of this stuff home with me, but I suppose that's not really compatible with the whole 'hourly wage' thing.

White Christmas FTW!

And it just keeps snowing...

Well, everything went off surprisingly well - I managed to get all the gifts ready, everyone liked them, between me and Tiwaz we managed to get the house whipped into company shape, and dinner went off without a hitch.

The downside of course, is that the lack of sleep required to accomplish this feat wore me down so much that I've caught some nasty bug that either my uncle or one of my cousins brought along for the ride.

Doesn't matter, though, because now I can finally get back to working on personal projects. I've got a pile of stuff to finish up for etsy, not to mention two original designs I'm working on. If the yarn would just finally arrive...

Gearing up for Christmas, gearing down for driving (ha ha)

Well, I figured out how to guarantee a white Christmas - wait until the second week in December to start your Christmas shopping >_<. We had snow, then a round of ice, and now a few more inches of snow on top. I'm glad I took the trouble to clear all the ice off the driveway, or it would be a real bitch now. Of course the roads in our little town are beautiful and clear and dry (I swear, one of these years I'm going to drop off some cookies at the road maintenance office - they're just awesome) but once you hit the city limits, all the neighboring towns have done a craptastic job.

I don't really have that much shopping left, since I braved the freezing rain last weekend to shop (seriously, why does the weather only do this on my days off?), so I suppose the snow is actually a plus because it'll force me to stay inside and get the present knitting finished.

And the cleaning.

And the painting.

Inviting all the in-town relatives for Christmas Eve dinner was sort of a spur of the moment thing, and I probably should have given it a little more thought as to the general company-readiness of our dining room, but I think it was a good idea in the grand scheme of things. I really have to have deadlines to get anything done, so if I hadn't invited everyone over, the dining room and main bathroom would probably be sitting there with half-removed wallpaper until next summer.

Stuff and Things Part 2

I can't believe how far behind I am on my writing. Not even a thousand words yet. I think my problem was that I was trying to write in order, though. I'm just going to write jigsaw-puzzle style like I normally do and go back and fill the necessary gaps later. The point is to get it all down, not to keep everything bottlenecked in my head until I forget half of it waiting to get one chapter out of the way first.

The knitting is going well, though. Almost got the pedicure socks finished, got the next Christmas project lined up, and my local chapter of Church of Craft has a charity crafting project that should help me clear out that stash of cheap acrylic I've had hanging around pretty much since I learned to knit. What exactly is it with that? For some reason, every knitter or crocheter seems to have a stash somewhere in the back of a closet of really cheap nasty acrylic, usually that they got from someone else right after they learned. I know one of my friends has a truly vintage stash of Sears brand Orlon yarn she got from her grandmother-in-law, and I've got stuff I must've bought when I was about ten, because it still has a Ben Franklin price sticker on it, and I can't think of the last time I saw one of those.

But I digress.

We're going to be making squares for the San Diego Wildfire Blanket Project, and so far it's been a pretty good stashbuster - I've gotten three done since Saturday. It's a good chance to try out some different stitch patterns - I'm even thinking about getting out the hook and seeing just how much attention I was paying when my great-aunt tried to teach me to crochet.

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Now playing: Feist - Brandy Alexander
via FoxyTunes

stuff and things

Miserable day - I forgot to tell Tiwaz that I was working late, but fortunately (ergh?) any annoyance on his part was quickly dispelled by me tripping as I got out of the car and scraping the hell out of my knees and hands. We got the kitty back, but she's still a little buggy. We're going to hope that the stuff the vet put on her is just taking a few days to work, if not, we're just going to have to board her again and possibly just toss that couch the neighbors gave us.

Fortunately, all my yarn and crafty supplies are being kept well isolated from the cat and surrounded by citronella oil, so there shouldn't be a problem there. In fact, I've already almost got one of my Christmas presents finished. May be a record, finishing any knitting for Christmas before Thanksgiving.

And of course, I almost completely forgot that today was November first. I'm really not liking my original idea for my story, I think I'm going to go for something completely from scratch. I think I'll take a day or two to get some basic notes/outline on paper and then sit down and get some serious writing done on my day off.

That time of year...

Well, it's official - I just got my Christmas knitting started.

I've got a couple of things I'm doing for my Etsy store, but I'm working on a few presents already, and planning a few more. With any luck, the patterns for some of the planned stuff will turn out nice enough that I might submit one to Knitty.

At the very least, I'll share here ;)