Cable Knit Scarf

I've been working on a new knitting project with 3 variations of cables. The first soft blue teal yarn didn't work very well. If I had to remove the stitches from the needle they just pulled loose too easily. So I switched to this dusty rose colored Red Heart brand yarn, and though it's much easier to keep track I don't like the hand quite as much. Ah well, a compromise.

Saturdays are for friends and fun!

We got together with some friends yesterday and took along our bows, arrows, and drums. We went out for lunch at a cool rustic cafe and I got this funny onion ring.

We made dinner as a group. I took along beans I made in the crock pot. We had recently given them a crock pot and we took stuff to make chili. And I took beats from my garden. My friend Lynn made cornbread and German chocolate cake and a big salad. Okay so we had enough food for a small army. But they were expecting relatives today so I'm sure they finished what we didn't eat.

Here are some photos.

Gourd Drum cont.

I decided to do a wax resist on the gourd. So I drew a sea turtle freehand, filled in between the lines with white crayon, and burned in all the lines with a wood burning tool. Then I applied yellow dye and then blue dye. Then I flicked alcohol on it so it would drip and make interesting spots and runs. Now I will let it dry until tomorrow and then remove the wax by heating it up with a hair dryer and wiping the wax off with a clean rag. Hope it works, but even if it doesn't it looks pretty amazing the way it is right now. I don't think the alcohol disturbed the wax any. I may regret not doing it with melted wax and a brush, but that's a hassle and the crayon was much easier. Plus crayon doesn't run.

Gourd Drum Project

With the help of a drum maker on Etsy listed here: iletambor.etsy.com I got inspired to get off top dead center and get started on a gourd drum. I bought a gourd just for that purpose a few years ago. So I went to find it in the garage and then got to work. So far I scrubbed it, cut the top and bottom off, and cleaned out the guts. Now I'm trying to sand the rim flush. I don't have a head for it yet. I'm thinking of woodburning a sea turtle design into it. The piece I cut off of the big end is going to be a bowl. I'm taking a bit of a break right now and then I'll go do some more sanding.

If you are in the market for a drum that is already finished, please visit my friend's shop.

Happy Solstice Everyone

Longest day of the year, i.e. shortest night of the year. I'm trying to go to bed early (midnight is early for me) so I can get out to the archery range in the morning to meet with the people from http://www.paleoplanet.com. My friend Sal broke his arm playing soccer, so he can't shoot a bow right now. But he said he's still going to go and use the atlalt instead. It's more of a one handed weapon.

I made brownies to take to the meeting, and we are taking watermelon too. So no one will starve there if we don't kill a wooly mammmoth.
Today I didn't work on crafts per se, unless you count baking brownies. We did cut out a piece of plywood to slide between my mattresses because it's an old bed we inherited and I felt like I was sinking into the middle of the bed.

This morning I worked in the garden and planted a dish garden with succulents and repotted 2 other succulents. They sell them in teeny tiny pots, so the 2nd I got them home it's time to repot them.

Enjoy the solstice.

Twibes of Mine

I've been a busy girl. I joined some Twibes for bellydance, steampunk, poets, puppetry and so on, and I made a few Twibes called FIREDANCER and NEOVICTORIAN if you are inclined to join. Oh and I joined a burlesque one.

Yesterday I worked on a woven wallhanging. Just a small one so I could still sell it at a price buyers can afford. I have to weave in some stray ends and maybe add some shells or something to it.

I need to quit skipping meals because of the Internet. My head is like woooooooooo. I haven't eaten today and it's almost 2 PM. What's up with that? So I'll go do that now.

MuuMuu Monday

I'm sewing a muumuu for a Flickr group I started called MuuMuu Monday. If you'd like to join muumuu Monday. I got the pattern on Sunday. And I cut it out today. There were a lot of pieces to cut out! It has 3 tiers and each tier piece has to be cut out three times. The pocket pieces four times. The tie two times. I cut out the bodice front and back but I need to find a solid fabric to line it with. I also have to find my elastic stash as the dress has elastic in 2 spots. Being taller than average I also added 2 1/2" to the bottom tier because I want the dress to come down to my ankles. I hope I have the courage to wear such a bright and gaudy dress when I get it finished.

14,000 Views

Wow, one more hit on my page and I'll have 14,000 views. Thanks to all of you for taking the time to drop by. I hope I've added something to your life. I hope I've been entertaining or inspiring or at least distracting.

Sleepy Time

I just bought myself more work. I bought oodles of tulle for tutus and a stack of patterns for summer clothes for muu muu Monday and Tu Tu Tuesday. I bought stuffing for sockmonkeys and sock critters. I bought iron on interfacing for my cross-stitch t-shirts for my http://www.spankytease.com t-shirt shop. Right now I just have stuffed Norkels (aliens) in that shop. And I got some yarn for crochet and also for weaving. And I got some beads for jewelry for my http://hypnotic.etsy.com shop.

I also need to get more puppets made. My poor puppet blog is floundering away. Felt puppets coming soon I hope.

I also told someone I'd paint portraits of their two kids. Don't ask me when I'm going to do all this stuff. It's almost 1 AM so the only thing I'm going to do now is sleep.

Embroidery and Weaving

Today I got a square weaving loom meant for potholders and I'm trying to figure out how to do normal over/under weaving on it. I think it's going to work but I won't know until I pull it off the loom and see if it comes all undone.

Tonight I started a t-shirt design of a little green alien using waste canvas. Waste canvas looks like aida cloth but it's designed so that when you are done stitching you pull out the canvas threads and leave only the embroidery. I thought you were supposed to wet it first but it doesn't say that in the directions so we'll see. But it's midnight and my eyes are too tired for any more cross-stiching.

An Interesting Copyright Issue to Ponder

Recently on Etsy I saw a crochet pattern for Eeyore. Now Disney owns that cartoon version of Eeyore, so the person who did the pattern really has no rights to be offering it, but she says in the listing that if you purchase her pattern, make an Eeyore you can't sell it on Etsy, because she holds the copyright. So let's think this through. She stole it, and offered it illegally for sale, but doesn't want you to steal it, because, well, that would be wrong.

I'm not a lawyer but even I can see the problems in trying to enforce the rights to something that wasn't yours to begin with. What's she going to do if you steal it? Sue you?

MuuMuu Monday

I decided to make a self-portrait theme group called MuuMuu Monday. Only one problem...I'm like the only person in CA that doesn't own a muumuu. So I went to the fabric store and picked out a pattern and 3 fabrics for the muumuu. Except I'm not going to buy the pattern until it goes on sale at Joann's for .99 or $1.99. In the meantime I prewashed the fabric.

Tomorrow is TuTu Tuesday and I don't have a tutu either. And I know I have tulle around here somewhere and I'm on a budget so I didn't buy that today either. That will give me time to decide what color of tutu I want to make. And to decide what to wear with the tutu. The fabric store has about every color of tulle under the sun.

Of course I don't expect the men to wear muumuus. They can wear Hawaiian shirts or Luau attire.

A Needle A Thread and Some Creativity

I'm continuing my embroidery theme by writing another article for the Hubchallenge called Discovering Embroidery and Stitchery. So hop on over here and check it out. I added Youtube videos to it so you can start right in and make yourself something. I hope you will share it with me when you finish it. Embroidery can be as simple or as complicated as you care to make it. Pick something easy for your first time so you don't get bogged down. You'll be a wiz in no time.

Owl Dishtowel 2

I've been all over the Internet today looking up various types of embroidery, and now I wish I hadn't because it sure can be intimidating when you see what other people are making. I looked up SCA embroidery on Flickr and there were 519 photos. I only got through about 200 before my eyes started to glaze over.

I miss my SCA days but it can be a very overwhelming group and a big time and money suck if you don't set some boundaries.

Anyway, I made another owl today in 'chicken scratch' style embroidery. I'm just not sure that anyone but me will be able to tell it's an owl. It was fun though and a technique well worth exploring, but perhaps in some more abstract way, like a border on an apron perhaps.

Owl Embroidery

Today is a very happy day for me. My new camera came via Fed Ex. It's just like my boyfriend's camera and a step up from my previous canon that was stolen. It's a Canon Powershot A560. And I'm not letting this one out of my sight.

I finished my first embroidered owl on a towel for my new etsy shop Tweeters and Hooters. I haven't listed it yet because I want to wash it and pre-shrink it first. I expect it to hold up just fine but if something's going to run amuck I'd rather find out before I sell it.

I remember hearing about chickenscratch embroidery when I was a child so I looked it up on Flickr. Since the towels are checked I thought I'd try some. I found some beautiful examples on Flickr. I'm very excited. It looks a lot like blackwork embroidery I think. So I used my new camera to take photos of my new embroidery.

Update: I decided to go ahead and list it.

Retro Style Embroidery

This morning I swung by Joann's and I'll be darned if they didn't have that weaving book I looked for for 2 hours last time I went. I wasn't even looking for it and there it was. And I didn't have my 40% off coupon on me. I could have screamed! But I explained it to the cashier and she gave me the discount. I felt so happy about that I went in and bought another book too. The other one is on retro embroidery. Granted I can't use any of the transfers in the book because of copyright issues, it does give me a record of that 'style' as a stepping off point for my own design work. And I will tell you why I do it. I want to make an owl embroidery in the 70's style for my Hooters shop, so I went to google and typed in retro owl. I saw the same owl transfer on numerous projects, some for sale, some not. Not only is that copyright infringement in most cases (unless they got the design from Dover or something), but do you really want yours looking like everyone else's that used that transfer? Sometimes the transfer faced left and sometimes right but it was the same owl on the same branch with the same leaves. With so much resource material, there is no reason not to just draw your own, transfer it to the fabric and go from there. If you don't think you can draw, grab the nearest kid under 8 and ask them to draw you an owl or two. Kids have a great eye for line art and are not so hung up on each drawing being perfect. While you are at it, ask them to draw you a robot, a horse, or a mermaid. Anyway, the embroidery book I got covers the 30's through the 70's. This will be fun.

Scroll Saw

I decided to try again with the scroll saw. Last time I dragged it out it was almost dark and I never really got it going right. So after about 30 minutes of messing with it I finally got it going in the right direction. After another hour of cutting shapes out of wood, my hands were too fatigued to continue. Between trying to hold the wood flat so it wouldn't rattle up and down, and the vibration, my hands feel weak. Even typing is hard. I did get three shapes cut out though. But if it takes this long to cut them out, much less sand them, decorate them, and put a finish, I'd have to sell them for $20 a piece. So let's hope I get better at it with some practice.