Macrame' Owl and Mitts That Are Knitted.

My goodness have I ever been busy! Today I worked on some mitts with cables and when I needed a break from that, I worked on my macrame' owl. I'm working my way through the design process and trying not to get intimidated by forging a new trail with the macrame'. I've never made an owl before and I'm not using directions, because I want it to be my very own owl, you know? I added the brass rings for the eyes today. It looks pretty wild made out of humble twine, but I'm liking it.

A True Story

I will tell you a story about an elderly couple I met. They were perhaps 65 or so. I met them at a swap meet. They had just moved up from L.A. All they had to their name was a beat up station wagon.

Each week at the swap meet I'd check in on them. At first they had a tiny booth with a few necklaces they had strung together with some beads and inexpensive supplies. Soon they had garage sale finds for sell and more and more jewelry that they'd made.

Eventually they had two booths on a corner at the swapmeet, and lived on a houseboat in Morro Bay, CA. Obviously they were doing very well. I asked her the secret, and she said, "Stay out of stores."

They also lived near a bead store, and had a deal with the owner to buy all the discontinued beads at next to nothing so he could keep his store fresh. The swapmeet was on Sundays so they would get the newspaper the moment it came out on Friday and hit all the yard sales early Sat. morning and then sell the stuff on Sunday at the swapmeet. So they worked every weekend, and I'm sure they spent the week making jewelry and such. I am always encouraged when I think of them.

A True Story

I will tell you a story about an elderly couple I met. They were perhaps 65 or so. I met them at a swap meet. They had just moved up from L.A. All they had to their name was a beat up station wagon.

Each week at the swap meet I'd check in on them. At first they had a tiny booth with a few necklaces they had strung together with some beads and inexpensive supplies. Soon they had garage sale finds for sell and more and more jewelry that they'd made.

Eventually they had two booths on a corner at the swapmeet, and lived on a houseboat in Morro Bay, CA. Obviously they were doing very well. I asked her the secret, and she said, "Stay out of stores."

They also lived near a bead store, and had a deal with the owner to buy all the discontinued beads at next to nothing so he could keep his store fresh. The swapmeet was on Sundays so they would get the newspaper the moment it came out on Friday and hit all the yard sales early Sat. morning and then sell the stuff on Sunday at the swapmeet. So they worked every weekend, and I'm sure they spent the week making jewelry and such. I am always encouraged when I think of them.

Are You On Artfire?

I just found out ArtFire has linked up with JoAnn's to offer 10% off cards for purchases made at JoAnn's. So I went over to my shop on Artfire, which is still empty, to apply for the discount card. I guess I'm done being made at Artfire for stealing my Steampunk name out from under me, and maybe I'll list some items on Artfire to see how it goes. Since I lost my Steampunk name, I now have a shop named Neovictorian. I may do some mermaid paintings now that I'm getting back into oil painting. We'll see.

Right now I'm supposed to be getting ready for an SCA event in Torrance tomorrow before my boyfriend nags me again. My interest in the SCA waxes and wanes, and right now I have no motivation to go there at all. But he's selling arrows there and I should go to help you know.

Busy Day of Making Things

My fortune cookie tonight said, "It's fun being a kid." They know me well don't they?

Today I had quite a battle of wills with my knitting project. I've dubbed it Albuquerque Sunset, after the place where I grew up. I love the Southwestern desert colors of orange, turquoise, rust, sand, pink, brown, and cactus green. It's done with a color graph and my eyes cannot follow which pink is which, so I abandoned the Kaffe color chart and started using my art skills to figure out the colors anyway. I love the green with the pink and the orange with the blue.

I went out to dinner tonight and got to wear my Plarn hat. I also recycled my plastic bottles. Go recycling! I came home with $13 for my gas tank.

I was sitting here chatting on Etsy with someone from China that had a million questions. Then the Etsy glitch got me where the room disappears off the room list, so no one new can come in, so the guy pretty much had me cornered. So I did what every crafter would do. I started crocheting another hat. This time in HomeSpun covered Bridge Red. Maybe I can wear the hat with the ponchini I'm knitting.

So I guess that's about it for art today. No sales to report.

Paleoplanet Gathering

Archery was hectic. Not that I did any actual archery in the hot weather, but we worked on bows, arrows, knitting, crochet, atlatls and the usual things. Aimee showed me how to make Dorset Buttons. I'd never even heard of them before. Fascinating! I shall have to try that when I have time.

James talked to me about chainmail and being a silversmith. His girlfriend is a chainmail artist.

Tom Mills invited some of his lacrosse team players. They enjoyed trying out the atlatls.

Guy delivered some arrows and got an order for another dozen. So it's arrow city in my house.

The next bowmaking meeting is Aug. 1, 2010 in Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley. I'm hosting that one so I'm excited.

Shorts, Plarn, and Crochet

I just updated my wardrobe website here: http://witchwardrobenolion.weebly.com/
In this heatwave I needed some shorts desperately. So I altered some pants and viola, instant shorts. Once you get to the website look for the daily blog.

I'm also busy working on a crocheted top hat with flowers on the sides.
And I'm making steady progress on my crocheted Plarn tote bag.

Sales have been so flat on Etsy, that I'm focusing on my writing instead. Last night I wrote an article on Plarn. I have to remember that just because I know about something, and most Etsy sellers know, that doesn't mean everyone in the universe knows, and it's good to have an article to send them to if they are curious. If you are a college student and short on cash, Plarn is a great free resource. You might even get to do a report on it for one of your classes. Or at the very least you can make your own slippers for wearing around the dorm.

Sewing Beads Onto A Skirt

I spent a pleasant part of today embellishing a skirt with beads and sequins. What could be easier? Just make sure your needle fits through your beads. Craft stores sell special beading needles, so just ask if you aren't seeing them. Visit my new Indie fashion website. http://witchwardrobenolion.weebly.com/photos-of-each-outfit-by-day.html
Each day I'll be embellishing or altering some new outfit.

Plarn Tote Bag

We are having a heat wave and my craft motivation has been a bit wilted. I just don't want to move in this heat. I try to squeeze everything into the wee hours of the night when it's cooler out. I even stayed up till 5 AM one night.

I'm busy working on a Plarn totebag now. So far it's tan and white, but that could change depending on what color of grocery bags come my way.

I'm also crocheting a freestyle top hat. The top circle will be a 2 colored spiral.

I went to the library and got one of the Kaffee knitting books again. I should just buy my own and quit wearing out the library copies.

Comments

Because of one very relentless comment spammer, I've now turned off comments. If you want to contact me you can email me at pigglewiggins at gmail dot com. Someday that spammer will get a clue and go away, and then I can put my blog back to comment mode.

Crochet Plarn Tote Bag

My boyfriend just went to the grocery store, and as often happens, forgot the tote bags and left them in the truck. So he came home with a new crop of plastic bags. Not to worry. I'm cutting them into strips to make plarn to make a tote bag. I already started the tote bag last night. I'm not going to worry about what color it is. I'm just letting the universe decide. The tops and bottoms get cut off, so those go back into the recycling bag and eventually back to the store to be recycled. I noticed this batch of bags is stamped,'This bag is made from a minimum of 15% recycled material.' That means the rest of it is could be new material.

T-shirt Makeover

Today I took one of my hand painted t-shirts and went over all the faded lines with embroidery. Pretty cool. I bet you have an old t-shirt you could refresh with a bit of embroidery. Imagine the possibilities.

Pirate Patch Skirt

I rescued one of my favorite skirts from the mending pile. And I finished my PLARN hat. Details are over on my Witch, Wardrobe, No Lion webpage.

PLARN and other projects

If you are new to my blog, welcome. I've been promoting it a lot lately, so hopefully people are dropping by, but I'll never know unless they leave a comment to say hi.

I'm almost done with my Plarn hat in shades of blue, gray, and yellow. I think I need two more rows of crochet on it.

I hit up Michael's and the dollar type store again today for more treasures. I got some erasers to carve. The best time to get these is in July and August when the back-to-school supplies hit the stores.

Someone on Etsy chided me for showing my earrings on 'Tupperware' so today I bought some dollar store wine glasses for photo props. Don't you just love unsolicited advice?

I got some yarn at Michael's to knit some socks with. And I got some more beads for a collar I'm almost done with.

I spent a lot of time today on my new upcycled wardrobe website. It's bringing me joy inside to know I'm saving some of my old favorite outfits from the landfill. The photos are of a dress I upcycled from an outfit I made in high school in the 70's. Now I'm glad I never threw it away.

I also made the necklace, the headband, and embellished the shoes.

Plarn Hat Demo

I was going to make a quickie PLARN animation so you could see what my hat looked like, but alas, I see no way to upload that to my blog, so I took a lot more time to make this video. Aren't I nice?

Plarn Animation

Let's see if I can put my Plarn animation of the hat I'm making here.

Happy 4th of July and Plarn

While many Americans are bbqing, going to parades, drinking too much, and setting off legal and illegal fireworks, I'm at home figuring out the intricacies of PLARN, or plastic yarn. I got a bunch of strips cut from 5 blue bags and a yellow bag, and I'm crocheting a hat out of the Plarn. Go me.

Any bit to keep plastic bags out of the landfills is a good thing.

I will dress in red,white,and blue a little later and take some photos though. And wear the new earrings I made.

Sweater in July

Well it may be too hot out to wear it for a few months, but at least I finished the sweater. I looked up my last Flickr photo on it and that was Dec. 2008. So it's been sitting in a bin about a year and a half and I had it finished in a bit more than an hour. How silly is that? Even though I added some extra inches to the arms, the sleeves are still a bit on the short side. Other than that it fits pretty well. I really had no idea if it was going to fit because I couldn't really try it on until all the seams were sewn together. Before that I just had a ballpark fit. I'm glad it fits; not perfectly but well enough I can wear it.

A Plethora of Projects

Yesterday I was busy as a bee finishing earrings for my Etsy shop. Then it got dark before I got all the photos. And I was spent after a long day crafting.

I also got some knitting done on my canopy cover. It's a big project so if I hit it once a day to move it along I won't stress over it.

Don't forget to enter the earring drawing I listed a few posts ago.

I just found out my niece is pregnant too. So that makes her, my daughter and two of my friends. It seems like there is one other person too. So I want to get busy with the baby booty knitting before it's too late. So much to do, I feel torn in many creative directions.

Oh, and I'm finishing a knitted sweater today. I swear the sun will not go down before I am wearing that darn sweater! I'm not putting it back in a bin to get lost again.