My new tattoo

Based on an Alphonse Mucha painting called "Winter", drawn by my father-in-law and done by Indelible Ink. Soooooo in love with this.

Swapping Blorp

I signed up for the Crafty Detective swap on Craftster..this entails filling out a detailed questionnaire and having your partner "stalk" you to make you the perfect gift. I filled mine out, but later realized I left a lot of things out...so here's a few more for my partner's stalking pleasure!

• My dog, Annie. We call her Annie Dog, so any items with that on them would be great! She is a rescued Basset, and she weighs about 36 pounds. The length from her neck to base of tail is 17", and her width for sweater purposes is 12". Her neck is 17". She likes chewy treats only..she ignores crunchy ones because she had some teeth trouble when we got her and still thinks she can't eat hard things. I love pink and brown things for her, but a superhero-type jacket would rock! She's not big on toys either, unfortunately...but we do have to bathe her a lot, so if you know how to make doggie shampoo we would sure use it! Oooh, or a special towel just for her!

• My three cats. They love catnip mice, especially furry ones. I crave a spiked collar for Violet. She is just your average smallish cat size. I would LOVE this silhouette of Bowie cleaned up and framed!

• My husband and I are both very into cryptozoology and dinosaurs. He wears a size XXL t-shirt and prefers black, I wear a size M and prefer black and pink. T-shirts that say "RAWR means I Love You in Dinosaur"; "Cracka Please" (with a parrot) would be most appreciated.
  
• 
  

The classiest thing I've seen all day.

Of course, most of my day was spent attempting not to think about the small runny noses I was wiping, so it wasn't much of a contest.

Free tutorial via Craft

Making Space

My craft room before New Year's Day:




My parents will recognize this as the natural state of every room I have ever occupied since birth.

"After" pictures to come when I have finished compulsively labeling everything in the hopes that this will help. I am optimistic! Yes!

I spent the morning alone with the snow falling outside, knitting myself something:

• Stockinette tube to be used as cowl. Yarn: Mystery ball of something pretty from the thrift store. From the very lovely and unexpected color changes, I suspect it of being something expensive. It is almost definitely wool, and very soft wool too. I'm using big old size 15 needles and it is just mesmerizing. I love it.

This pig is something I made this week. I wanted to write up a pattern for my old Aerial Pig crochet pattern (I just now realized I still haven't replaced those pictures from the Slimy eBay Incident; better get on that) for knitters. I have the notes and everything written down for the pattern....but then I did a few searches, just on a whim, and guess what? I'm not the first the think of it. There are already some lovely, and very similar, patterns for small knitted pigs out there to be had on Ravelry and Knitting Pattern Central. Some are free and some are not.

This spearheads a dilemma I ponder often. The crafting world has absolutely exploded while I was out of the loop. It has grown from a small, badly photographed and rabidly enthusiastic community to a mangrove swamp of gorgeous designs, books, and talented, dedicated people. This is AWESOME.

It does, however, lead to a lot of overlap and it's part of the reason I hesitated to get back in. What do I have to offer anymore? If there are already many similar designs, is it a waste of cyberspace to offer up my own, even when mine was created in complete ignorance of the already existing one? This is really a moot point when it comes to selling, and it is definitely worth the time to research what's out there already before putting work into an idea you have for a product. That's happened to me several times already; someone else came up with it first! For free things, though, I'm not sure. I think it's worth it. Maybe mine is just exactly what someone was looking for, someone who's not quite willing to fudge things yet and would like some really specific instructions. I don't mind putting some time in for that person. After all, others did it for me.

Business Time

Just a janitor note to say I've packed up and moved the old blog over here now, so all the old posts are in the archives and can be reached by the sidebar. I'm also in the process of moving all my free patterns to Ravelry, although if anyone has a better suggestion for how those should be hosted I'd love to hear it. Geocities won't be cutting it for me anymore. Geocities! Land of my first teenage webpage! My, my.
I'd prefer something for pattern hosting that a. has no bandwidth issues and b. doesn't require membership to view.

Should I just put them into blog posts here? Eh? Opinions?

Vinni Puh

There is probably nothing more adorable on earth than this Russian ripoff Winnie-the-Pooh video. At least for today.

The Kim Hat

To celebrate the new year, the husband unit and I went up to Denver to our friend's brand spanky new loft apartment. It is super-swanky, all original 1940's pipes and molding and ceilings that go up for miles. It almost made me want to be a city girl, but I'm pretty sure the honking light rail at 3 am gets old fast.

So obviously this was a New Year's Eve Party, so naturally I spent it with my face in yarn. I believe there were salsa dancing lessons happening at one point, and I know there was Rock Band because I helped carry the drums, Xbox and other accoutrements up the parking garage stairs, which underlines the point somewhat.

But I worked on and finished a hat just minutes before midnight, because I promised this hat to my friend Kim at the Guy Fawkes Day party on the 5th of November, and it's been sitting neglected since then. Now it is on her head, and I have pictures, and a free pattern for you all!

There is a reason these pictures are all sepia'd up. They are unquestionably party pictures: you may rest assured there is somebody holding champagne, strawberry margaritas, and/or something my husband calls a "beer-garita" and I call "incredibly ill-advised" cropped out of every one of these. And party pictures always come out sickeningly dark or overexposed, which bugs me more than it used to.

Pictures now. This one here is of the one I made for myself first. I used Brown Sheep Bulky and Size 13 straights.

There you can see the color, which is one of my favorites and whose name I cannot recall. Grass Green, possibly.

Now here is Kim's version: She likes her hats slouchy and more loosely knit than I do, so I used double-stranded Red Heart Worsted in Tan and size 17 straights.



I love making things for these people. Their appreciation knows no bounds and I am always a little overwhelmed by it.

The Kim Hat

Materials:

• I use straight needles, but you could do this in the round with a nice 16" circular and some double points in the same size, which should complement a bulky yarn. I recommend anything in the 13-17 US size range.
  
• Bulky yarn or double-stranded worsted.
• Yarn needle or crochet hook for seaming
• pompom maker or your fingers for the making of pompom if desired.
  

How To Make It:
1.Figure out your gauge. Most heads are 21" around, and it's important with berets to have a good tight band fit so they don't fall off. I figured on a 20" band for Kim's hat, and my gauge with the double-stranded worsted and the 17 needles was 2 st/inch, so I cast on 40 stitches.
2. Knit in 1x1 rib (k1, p1) for about 5 rows or however long you like your hatbands to be.
3. (right side) Increase row: Increase every other stitch using your preferred method. I did this row: *K1, Kf&b* to end, turn.
4. Purl.
5. Knit.
5. Now, for me that would be slouchy enough, but Kim likes hers really poofy so I used my little ridge row I stuck in there to do another increase. You're going to knit a row here even though you're on a purl row. This creates the ridge on the other side. I did this as an increase: *K2, kf&b* to end, turn. If you don't want yours any more slouchy, just knit this row.
6. Knit.
7. Purl.
Continue in this manner, knitting a purl row every three rows for that little ridge, until your total knitted length measures 6 or 7 inches.
8. Start decreasing.I fudge this big time. Starting on the right side, *k3, k2tog*, then a purl row, then a row of *k2, k2tog*, then a purl row,then a row of *k2tog*, then a purl row.

9. Break your yarn with a looooong tail and thread that through a yarn needle. Use your yarn needle to gather up all the stitches you have left on your needle and pull them into a tight ring. Tie off and sew up your seam. Add pompom. You are done, and odds are it took you less than three hours. Hooray!

I'm Moving

to a new blog for a new start on crafting! Come have some tea and cupcakes with me at

my love as deep


Thanks for being here for the journey and I hope you'll join me for the new adventure; my free patterns will be joining us later, but will hold down the fort here for the time being.

A Brand New Beginning, Smelling of Mint

Welcome to my new blog! If you've followed me here from Lucky Wings, welcome and I'm glad you're here! If you're new, you can still get my free patterns at Lucky Wings until I get them all moved over.

Well, kids, it's been awhile. As I look back on this past year off from crafting, it is laid out like black ink on white canvas how the choices I made decided the course of my life...and yet, I didn't think those choices through particularly hard. I think a good list is in order to clarify.

Top Choices of 2008 and Their Results

• I stopped blogging. Reason: I got engaged and had someone to talk to who appreciates and admires my work, filling that attention hole I have in my chest. Result: Nobody checks the old blog anymore. It is on life support. Thus, my fresh start here.
  
• I stopped designing almost completely. Reason: I was BUSY planning a wedding (OMG the wedding, here are some pictures for you, and I would like to point out that my AMAZING mom and aunt made my dress by hand. Themselves. From a pattern. ) and that sort of took up all my time. Then I started teaching kindergarten. I know, right? Just what you do with a degree in English Education 7-12 and a longstanding feud with little kids. It has actually worked out really well, because through making all my classroom materials I've been inspired in ways I never would have been otherwise, and developed an appreciation for children's books.I guess that's the result for that one. Also I am married.

• I let my Etsy shop sit empty and stopped posting on Craftster. I fell out of the loop completely. Result: Every time I went to those sites, I felt guilty and strange watching the parade of craftiness move on and evolve without me. Then I wondered why I felt that way. Not too long ago I read an interview with Yokoo, who makes super-huge scarves that are like crack they are so awesome. Here is what punched me in the chest and made me GET IT.
  

"Artists are jealous enthusiasts. We are privately vain depressants. If we see something admirable, we feel rather overwhelmed to take some sort of action against it. Be it productive or barren."-Yokoo

Ohhhhhhhh....

Result: It's okay for me to feel mad that I didn't make the choice to keep crafting through my life changes. My frustration means that I am an artist, and watching other people fulfill their potential makes me want to take action. So what's stopping me now?

• Primarily, House. Like the show. And how I watched all the seasons. Oh, how I love House. But it ate up all my after work time and by the time Amber kicked the bucket I was so stunted creatively that I felt even worse. And then I read a list by blogger Anna Borstad (I don't know if you guys use StumbleUpon; it's how I found her blog, and while I'm happy about that, if you can't handle another thing in your life that eats time for breakfast, don't do it). Here is number 5:
  

"5. I have prioritized creativity in my life, and made time and space to honouring that pursuit, and I feel richer and clearer for it"-Anna Borstad

Result: I wanna do that. So I did. I asked for a sewing machine for Christmas, got one, battled that damn bobbin until I finally won, and started filling the Etsy again. Not with things I think will sell, but things I want to make, based on sketches I've done and daydreams I've had. I'm not underpricing and I'm going to advertise. I am making time every day to work on my designs and I am taking my time and working carefully.


Wanna see some pictures? I am so freaking proud of this:

For all the time I've stored up

Here it is.


See this? This is me, and my Cuyler, and the scarf I made him...and a very sparkly ring on my left hand.

I'M FREAKING GETTING MARRIED, KIDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. The cable on the scarf is from here.

I felt like that was all I wanted to say, it being the big event, the disco ball of life at the moment, so to speak.

But there's more, right? Never mind not blogging all this time, I haven't even journaled. It's been a really, really busy time...Mostly because I now work 40 hours a week and there's no such thing as Christmas break anymore.

But also I haven't felt it. I know there's a lot going on in my subconscious, but for some reason I don't feel inspired to lay it out in neat little rows. I'm sure it's coming..

Getting married means...wow. It means the rest of my life goes this way, and I have to get my shit together and quit wasting money, quit putting off the paperwork for certification, get some interviews and make my life really start. Maybe that's why 'm not thinking about it. I've always looked forward to the future after college, always knew it would be painful and hard but worth it.
Now that it's here I'm scared. So I'm plugging through it, even though this 22-page teaching application gives me an automatic stress headache just to think about. Not that it's that tricky. It just seems so intimidating. Why? I think it's my fear of failure, that I won't measure up. I won't get a job, I won't be able to teach effectively. I know the fear is separate from me, and I won't let it keep me from trying. I was really enjoying not thinking about it, though.

I went home to New York and visited my family a week ago. I saw my dearest Heather a few times and on the way home, I cried. It really struck home that I chose to move so many thosands of miles away..for good. Or at least for the future I can see from here. Instead of seeing her whenever I like, it will be twice a year if I'm lucky, and she is such a huge part of my soul.
I found my husband (it makes me shake inside just to say that) and he will be my best friend. He is like steel, like a rock, like everything safe and right for me. He loves me absolutely unconditionally and calls me on my shit unmercifully, which is exactly what I always wanted.

I will still miss my Heather. I hope life gives me a few new twists so that it doesn't turn out to be as hard as it feels right now.

It generally seems to turn out right. I don't underestimate how lucky I am.

And Carl says I'm introverted.

Check that off the list.

Well, last night I met my number-one hero. Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld series and the world's greatest comic genius, and a damn fine human being. Of course, I was only able to get pictures on my camera phone, so until I figure out how the heck to upload those, you'll have to check him out at terrypratchettbooks.com. I was able to get my advance reader's copy signed, thus ensuring my retirement fund. Working at a bookstore is sweet.

Best quote of the night: "I read books that support my pre-existing view that the world is a very interesting place."

Also.."No-one seems to have caught on yet that in Wee Free Men, there is a toad. The toad is yellow. He says he is yellow because he has been ill, and for a lot of the time, the toad is leading Tiffany....and yet no one seems to bring up the phrase, "Follow the yellow sick toad"."

To my shame, I'd never caught that either.

Oh, what all is happening...all sorts of stuff. I guess in knitting news, I made my very first boyfriend scarf that was actually appreciated...and when I say appreciated, I mean I am blown away by this man's level of commitment to keeping the scarf within two feet of his body at all times, and it hasn't even snowed yet. I think I hit the jackpot, ladies and gentlemen. I will get pictures as soon as possible.

It provides such a contrast to every other knitting I've ever offered to an object of my affection. In fact, want to hear a story that will make blood come out your ears? I know you do. It's sort of funny in retrospect, it being such a fantastically yarn-based tale of betrayal.

I made a scarf, oh, two years ago for the fellow I'd been with for two years. It wasn't much, a simple 1x1 rib, but I picked those colors carefully and knitted it carefully out of beautiful brown Lamb's Pride and presented it with love, as we all do with our knitting. He liked it okay but my knitting was always sort of an object of resentment for him. I think it had something to do with his mother, or some such foolery. Anyway he wore it for awhile, and then he stopped, and then as we continued to fall apart it lay in the backseat of his car covered by Wendy's bags. I had a health scare one day and showed up on his doorstep for help because at the time he was the only one I could go to. He opened the door and THE BASTARD WAS WEARING A SCARF. Not MY scarf, no, but a badly-crocheted hunk of PURPLE ACRYLIC Lion Brand Homespun. I eyed that for a minute. Who made that for you? Carolyn! Oh, of course it was Carolyn! Naturally! How silly of me! I guess that settles the question of our future!

Now, in non-knitting circles this might seem sort of, well, not as bad as it could have been, but you all understand, I am sure, that to wear another girl's knitting (or crochet--even worse) is a slap in the face to everything you are, and rather worse than actually discovering him doing the dirty with the tramp in the living room. The fact that I did not come in the night and slash his tires was owed solely to the fact that it might jeopardize my student teaching.

The point of this story is that the fact that I have found a man who thinks my knitting is "bitchin' righteous" (direct quote) is enough to make me want to tie him to the couch to prevent him escaping. Did I say that? Woops! I mean...I feel lucky. Really lucky. I am.

NDK 2007

I made my Mononoke Hime costume totally all by myself, and I was not detected by anyone at the convention as the anime enthusiast poser that I am. My cousin decreed me a perfectly acceptable San. It was fantastic. And we are totally hot.

Juxtaposition

• Sweetheart Sweater
• Based on Stephanie Japel's top-down raglan recipe
• Circular size 7
• Caron Simply Soft, Wool-Ease and wool scraps
• Buttons from local yarn shop
• Heart chart: http://www.soxie.com/valentine.html
  

I think this is the best fit I've ever had in a sweater, and it's definitely going to get more wear than any sweater I've knit before. I did a bunch of increases for the bust, and in retrospect I clearly have no idea what size I am. I need to learn to make darts.





So in local news, I'm in Colorado and feeling at home, for the first time in my life. I'm working in a bookstore and Terry Pratchett is coming to Boulder next month. Life is very, very good.

A rant.

I've been browsing an online dating website lately. It's great entertainment. Only one out of every 30 guys seems to have any ability to use words. There are a few stock phrases that you see over and over...I really think they just copy and paste each other's profiles."Chivalry is not dead"; "Do nice guys finish last?" "Part teddy bear"...Good god. One of the phrases you see in almost every single one is, "I know how to treat a woman."

This fascinates me. How, in fact, is a woman supposed to be treated? I have two theories as to why they are saying this.

1. They think that "being treated like a woman" means flowers, candy, door-holding, being given presents and inane flattery. They also think that women like this. So if they say they know how to do that, women will like them.

2. It's some sort of ############ innuendo.

Regardless, I just can't imagine saying anything like, "I know how to treat a man." What, bring him his beer while he watches the game and swan around the house in a negligee? I know how to treat my man! Could anything sound more archaic?

How is it possible to be a human being living in the world today and not realize that the "way to treat a woman" is to treat her as a friend? With respect and kindess? Treat her as a unique human being who is not to be put on a pedestal nor put down for your amusement. I would treat any man the same way.

How is this not obvious?

where troubles melt like lemon drops

Dress: Vintage with the original tags, $2 at the Salvation Army. Cat: Fat and fluffy and entertaining, $30 at the local shelter.

I just read an amazing book which I'm prepared to bet you haven't read. The librarian tells me that I was the first one to check it out since it was purchased..six years ago. Did you know that a man named W.C. Minor, a primary contributor to the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, did it all from inside Broadmoor Insane Asylum, where he lived as an inmate? Because of schizophrenia manifesting as extreme paranoia....and guilt...not to be a spoiler, but the man felt that perhaps God would forgive him for certain spicy thoughts if he..well. Too bad that eighty is a bit old to start a new career as a castrato singer. A thrilling read! *bright smile*



The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

Hey Ma, I gradyeated!

I just watched The Squid and the Whale. It was so real and hit so hard. The characters were so true..and the issues so powerful. Your parents and their love, sex, what potential these things have to be land mines..they are like the giant forces, the squid and the whale, battling it out. They are so huge and dark and powerful that just witnessing the fight can make you do things you can give no reason for at all. What makes us lash out and why in the way we do? I read The Stranger by Camus the other day, and it was clear to me there was something I was missing..and this is it, or part of it. In the face of death, sex, and love, people do destructive things that make no logical sense. Why? Why? Because nothing we do matters in the face of death, or because the breakdown of love is overpowering, or because sex is too frightening a concept, outside of love, to handle? And if love dies, then where does that leave us?

Rocky mountain high

I passed student teaching! There's a whole passel of thought and growing and pain and stories in that which I am not yet ready to discuss. I'm moving to Colorado in 11 weeks! They use sheep to mow the grass by highways in Colorado. This was at least 50% of my decision-making process.

Knitting!

I finished this in four days during my vacation to Colorado. It's a modified Forecast by Stephanie Japel, free pattern on her website and Knitty. I used size 10.5 needles and good old dishcloth cotton. I didn't actually follow the pattern, I started off with it and then sort of went my own way. It's getting a lot of oohs and aahs! The ribbing hits me above the belly button, so it's a sort of bolero thing. Anyway it's cute and light and it makes me happy! Enjoy!