A month late for Groundhog's day

Here's godfrey the groundhog in his mound of dirt, mentioned in my Valentine's Post. I bought a pattern download through Mochimochi shop. I left the eyes off the dirt mound as per Corrie's request.

This worked up really fast. It was pretty easy, except I had a hard time getting the hat to look right on him without covering up his ears.

Just checking in

No, I didn't vow to stop blogging in 2009. I just haven't been too bloggy lately. What's there to blog about when you're doing the same thing everyone else around here is doing-trying to cope with the cold, trying to eat just a little more moderately after the holiday indiscretions, trying to get through the 31 long days of January.

These past cold days, I've been challenging myself not to open the doors to go outside any more times than necessary. (novel idea, I know.) Itty Bittiest has made that challenge easier since she caught the cold that the rest of the cats had last week. I made the mistake of letting her back outside into her natural habitat last Saturday afternoon, thinking she'd be back in her bed on the back porch in plenty of time for me to snatch her up and bring her back in the house for the night. Itty Bittiest had other plans, evidently-it became dark and she still wasn't around. This cat has spent every night over the last 6+ months on the back porch-it's not like her to not be around. After several checks throughout the night and one trip around the block Sunday morning, there was no sign of her. After coming back in the house and feeling like something was not right, who comes up to the back porch but Itty Bittiest. Since then, she's been under house arrest, so I haven't had too many reasons to be opening and closing doors and checking on kitties.

Otherwise, I've been crocheting and knitting a few non-holiday items. I knitted a hat with nice-looking cables, but I didn't end up liking the hat very much. Not warm enough, and it felt like it was going to pop off my head. I've been throwing the idea around of starting a mini-mini craft business via etsy, too. I thought I'd start with offering a few knitted cat toys stuffed with organic catnip and see where that gets me. I definitely don't plan to pay the bills with this idea, just maybe cover some of the costs of my craft habit.

holiday craft wrap up

It became quite clear this holiday season that while I love to knit and crochet, I really don't like finishing my projects. I waited until the 22nd, 23rd and 24th to finish several gift projects when I had them ready to be finished weeks before.

For example, I originally wanted to give one of these cute elf gnomes to my sister when I saw her for her birthday at the end of November, that way she could have it for December decorating. I think I had most of the parts made, but sewing it together and stuffing didn't sound like a lot of fun. Well, at least she'll have it for next Christmas.

Another Christmas gift project that actually went a bit better was these crocheted cookies. Except for the peanut blossom cookies that required a little bit of stuffing, the only finishing I had to do was to sew two sides of each cookie together. I made quite a few of these earlier in December but still needed to make a couple more Christmas Eve so I would have enough to fill a jar for my mom.


Once I got in my "finishing project" mode, I also dug out these crocheted candies I made last year (or possibly the year before-yikes!) and added cellophane wrappers and ribbons. I would like to cover my entire tree with them.

If I'm able to hold on to the finishing bug, maybe I'll starch the batch of crocheted snowflake ornaments I came across as well!

This Woman is My Newest Hero

Before I could even start browsing for a scarf pattern on ravelry.com, I stumbled upon this jem of a craft blog: http://loomlady.blogspot.com/. This woman is my newest hero: she offers patterns for all sorts of overly cute creations that she knits using those looms you see in the craft stores. I will have to visit again.

Yes We Carve

I guess creating an Obama-inspired pumpkin this year is not going to make mine the most original jack-o-lantern on the block:

ravelry.com

Thank you, Jana, for recommending the craft community site, ravelry.com. Still in its beta phase, the site already has well over 100,000 members. (I thought that was the number I read when I put my name on a waiting list to register for the site. I can't seem to find that number again.)

The purpose of the site is to bring together all sorts of crafters-knitters, crocheter, designers, spinners, and dyers-into one online community that includes the ability to connect with other crafters, share patterns and advice, and keep track of your own projects and even your yarn stash with their notebook feature. You can log all of the specifics of your project, from the kind of yarn and needles you're using and where you bought your supplies to the date you started your project and how much progress you've made on it. Gone hopefully are the days when I had to bookmark a pattern or print it out and add to my overflowing pattern library-if you find a pattern on ravelry.com that you'd like to try, you can store it in your queue.

I've only added one project to my profile so far: a crocheted baby blanket in the fighting Illini colors for my friends, Kristin and Brian. (I don't think they read my blog, otherwise I suppose that ruins the surprise.) While not traditional baby blanket colors, Brian is an Illini alum, and since meeting I think Kristin has become a big fan as well. I hope they'll like it.


It's going to be pretty large, too, but I don't think a blanket can really be too large. Corrie's striped blanket is evidence of that.

Fair Fun

I can't believe after today the Nebraska State Fair will be done for another year. We went on opening day to see if my craft entries had garnered any prizes.



My baby blanket earned a third place ribbon in the crocheted baby blanket-multicolor category, and the pig and piglets won a 5th place ribbon in some kind of knitted-other category. I realize now I probably should've entered them in the toy category.

There were some very impressive entries across all categories, including this really cool felted tote with diamonds on it.


I keep changing my mind on what I'll enter next year, but I think I will try to do a couple of extraordinary projects. I'll take Corrie's advice and I'll make something out of wool yarn and will felt it, and I think I would also like to try one of these beaded doll dresses-do you think I needed to start on it about 5 years ago in order to finish it in time? It does look like there's some sewing involved, sewing and I don't go together.


Thanks to Seth who sent me this link, I could also make this rat, although I suspect Amy will beat me to it.



Corrie and I sampled various tasties while at the fair as well. I had my standard pork chop on a stick and fried peach on a stick. The pork chop was good, the peach coating wasn't as crispy as I remember it being last year. Corrie tried an Indian Fry bread taco this year, too.


One thing we didn't try was a beef sundae. Maybe next year.

One Fair Entry done, one to go

My first Nebraska State Fair craft entry, a crocheted baby blanket, is complete! I'm a little surprised with myself that I finished it this early, but when the entry deadline is August 1 and the crafts themselves have to be delivered to the fairgrounds the week after that, I didn't have a lot of time on my hands.



Even though there's a 20 page entry booklet on the State Fair's website that listed every category of needlework project and various rules and regulations, the entry process itself wasn't too complicated. You can complete your entries online in just a couple of minutes. I didn't realize that needlework entries don't require a fee, yet you still get to purchase fair tickets at a reduced rate! Pretty cool!

It was a little tricky for me to decide which categories my projects belonged in. For my blanket, I couldn't decide if it belonged in the "one color" or "multiple color" category. As you can see from the photo, the yarn has some speckles to it. While it's not a project made of several different colors of yarn, I also didn't feel right calling it a "one color" project. So I listed it in the multi color category. For my pig and piglet project, it had to go in the "other" category of the knitting division.

This is probably one of the first times I will "block" my project. Not a fan of checking my gauge or blocking, I decided because this was for the fair and because this blanket had a lot of picots throughout the last border row, it was worth the trouble to try to do it this time. I fully expected to have a photo of the finished blocked project here, but long story short, I just started blocking it a little while ago and it's not done.

I chose this pattern because 1. I felt I was in a time crunch and wanted to make one I've made before so that I was very familiar with the pattern and wouldn't have to spend time figuring out any tricky parts, 2. it looks more complicated and time-consuming than it is, the most time-consuming part was the very last time around the border, 3. I thought it would look really nice in this yarn.

While I really loved the look of this yarn (Lion Brand baby soft candy print) before I started working with it, I feel like it would've looked better if the pattern didn't have so many spaces in it. I think that detracts from the speckled aspect of the yarn pattern. I have almost 2 skeins left over, so I plan to make something else with a tighter pattern to it so I can enjoy the speckles.

The knitted pig and piglets don't take long to knit, but they take awhile to finish (adding legs and ears and snaps). It would be nice to start and finish them within the next week.

Bernie crochet pattern

For my Firebrand pals-

bernie refrigerator magnet crochet pattern:

supplies:

-small amount of turquoise yarn
-size F crochet hook
-2 googly eyes
-small amount of white felt
-glue gun
-magnet

1. chain 13, turn, skip 1st ch, sc in next 11 chains, 3 sc in last chain.

2. working in free loops of the chain, sc in next 7 chains, ch 3, turn.

3. skip 1st ch, sc in next 9 st, 2 sc in ea of next 3 st, sc in next 6 st, ch 3, turn.

4. skip 1st ch, sc in next 10 st, 2 sc in ea of the next 3 st, 1 sc in next 5 st, ch 3, turn.

5. skip 1 st, sc in next 10 st, sl st in next st, finish off. Weave in any loose ends.

6. cut pieces for back of eyes and mouth out of felt. glue felt, eyes, and magnet to flame. Do all of this to whichever side of the flame you like.

(photo to be replaced by finished product photo)

BEA Wrap-Up, part 1

Even though I focused on a few priorities this past weekend at this year's BookExpo America in L.A., I think it's going to take several posts to sort it all out.

Sure, I got my picture taken with Daniel Vosovic from Project Runway, and I snuck a sneaky photo of Alec Baldwin, also saw Lewis Black's act, but the highlight was getting to meet Laurie Perry, aka Crazy Aunt Purl. I had planned for this-I brought along the cat bed crochet pattern I've been working on for an autograph, but I hid it in one of my press's book catalogs on the way over to her booth. I don't think most of the fanatics in this business have a lot of room to ask questions as to why I'm carrying around a cat bed pattern, but I didn't want to take any chances.

I was far up in Laurie's first book signing line. I noticed right away she was as cheery as I expected. She was really nice to her publisher's booth staff as well (being the first one to say hi when one of them walked by) which I have a feeling isn't the case with every author. I got my copy of her book, Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair signed to the Yia Yia's craft night group, and I told her if she's ever in Nebraska, she needs to come to craft night. Laurie then mentions that she's read about a book about a girl in Nebraska and also mentions flyover fiction, which happens to be a series my press publishes! What followed was a series of squeals.

me: "that's us! We publish flyover fiction!"
Laurie: "no way!" (sorry, Laurie, if that's not a direct quote)

I left that book catalog at her table so she could peruse our books. I got a picture, too!

Homespun Fun

Corrie's matching pillow and afghan set is officially complete, unless I decide to go back and sew a little around the button holes, because I suspect that the buttons are going to slip out some.


I think I will make myself a pillow as well (as I bought an extra one that was too small for Corrie's cover, and I was too lazy to return it), perhaps in purple, however I have had my fill of working with Lion Brand's homespun yarn. I like that it's so soft, but I get tired of struggling with it fraying, and I left one mistake in the pillow because I was afraid if I backtracked, I'd lose a stitch and with the bumpiness of this yarn, I'd never find the stitch again.

I've moved on to the next project: an overdue replacement for the kitty couch. I crocheted this purple one at least ten years ago, and it has seen plenty of kitty gnawing and kitty naps.


Don't think I came up with this pattern idea myself-someone else did and hopefully made some money off of it. (Does the cat model receive royalties?)


I've done the lower two side panels so far. Luther seems to approve. I'm using Red Heart TLC Essentials-Sedona. I think I was swayed a little to use it when I saw the kitty on the label, but now that I've gotten into it, I'm afraid it's going to look like a couch from the 70s. Oh well.

v bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb v (Todd says "hello!")

The Blanket is done, now the baby can come

Amy and Jeff's baby blanket (not for Jeff but for the baby, sorry Jeff! I can put you on my to do list if you'd like a full-size blanket) arrived safely in Colorado last week, so now I can talk about it without ruining the surprise.

It was a really fun pattern to do, but it turned out bigger than I expected. I think I had to make two extra trips to the yarn stores to buy additional skeins. I really wish they made yarn that repelled cat hair because I spent a good amount of time and a good amount of my lint brush removing the stuff, even though I was very careful while crocheting to keep the cats away and only expose as little yarn as possible between the bag it was in and the piece itself. (and yes, Scabbers, the cat of cat sweater fame, is in the upper part of this photo, but he was not allowed on the blanket.)

My new project is a knitted pillow to match Corrie's striped blanket. I'm only using one of the colors from the blanket (thank you, Jana, for the yarn freebies) and the pattern incorporates a striped motif. It's hard to tell it's a pillow from this photo, but it will make sense later on. I have a long ways to go-the main part of the pillow pattern is supposed to be at least 32" (you fold it in half to make the pillow shape) and I think I've only knitted about 10" of that right now.


In other news, the tulip report this week is not good, as anyone who lives here could guess. I'm sure they'll be fine-they got an extra layer of insulation, thanks to Thursday night/Friday morning's snow. I realize now looking at this photo that I didn't get the same tulips we were monitoring before, but it was too cold out to go back and find the right ones. I didn't even bother looking for the crocus.