Teaching Kumihimo

Yesterday we drove down to Monrovia and I took Joyce her Kumihimo kit I put together for her. She caught on pretty quick and took it to the nursing home with her, where she was standing watch over her hubby who just had a broken hip fixed. Someone has to keep him from getting out of bed, because with Alzheimers he may forget he even had surgery. In slow moments she worked on her Japanese braiding, and called this morning to let me know she'd made some progress.

On the way there we stopped at Michaels and I bought some more embroidery thread for my own Kumihimo projects. I got some metallics and some tie dyed embroidery floss. I can't wait to see how that turns out.  But currently I'm making a pink and brown spiral and have to get that off the disk before I can start any new colors.

She gave me a quilting magazine. I also ordered a quilting book through the library and can't wait to see it. It shows how to design spiral quilts. I'd love a spiral quilt to hang in my hypnotherapy office. That would rock. If I like the library book, I'll order my own copy from Amazon.

Steampunk Boomtown is a Bust

It was just hours before the gates opened for Boomtown, a big Steampunk event in Apple Valley. I had camped over night and was ready to go when I heard the buzz that it was cancelled. So I packed up my toys and went home.

I still have partially finished costumes that I planned to work on while I was there so I'm going to go ahead and finish those. Surely another event will come along, or at least I'll have some cool things for a photo shoot.

It has finally cooled off here, so I'm going to take my crochet outside and work until dark. Whatever you did for Memorial Day weekend, I hope you had fun.

Boomtown Steampunk Event

I'm volunteering at Boomtown this weekend. It is a Steampunk event in Apple Valley CA, right down the street from me. So much for my preconception that nothing worth going to happened out here!

So everything has been dropped so I can work on my Steampunk attire and put together at least 2 passable looks for this weekend. So I'm stealing from my pirate, my gypsy, and my clown costumes to make this thing work somehow. (Crossing fingers).

I turned my 'cro-knit' hat project into a waist cincher project for my wicked steampunk circus clown costume. I can visualize it. Let's see if I can make it work. I also have a black parasol from India, something my persona could have picked up while on an adventure to exotic lands.

My persona's name is Theodora Sterling. My career is a hypnotist. So now I really wish I knew where my pocketwatch is. It was hanging next to my computer when we moved from Anaheim.

And my tiger mini-tophat would come in handy but I don't know where that is either. I keep hoping my subconcious mine would whisper things to me and remind me where I put stuff.

Some People Have Nothing Better To Do

I hate to admit it, but sometime tonight I picked up some sort of malicious ad server that is both displaying flashing ads on my blogs, or sending pop-ups through, or highlighting words of my text for you to click on. Don't click anything that looks weird please. I'm looking for a solution even as we speak, but it's already late so I'll have to continue on tomorrow.

If this has happened to you, maybe you know the fix. If so, please advise. Thanks.  Sorry for the inconvenience.
Update: I added adblock.org, and for the most part, the ads are gone. But I still have words underlined in my blogs that lead to sites I don't endorse. A computer tech just sent me a long list of things to do to clean my computer, so when I get home from Boomtown next week, I'll do those things.  For now I'm just happy my sites are mostly back to normal, except for the weird underlining thing. 

Stay Calm and Crochet On

When my computer is taking its time uploading  photos, I work with my double ended crochet hook. I made some good progress. I like the bulky texture. I think it would make a great autumn vest or perhaps a mermaid baby blanket in greens and blues for the mermaid outfit I crocheted for my granddaughter.

There are some mistakes in my practice piece so I will probably make an envelope hat out of it.

Some tips: Do two rows in color A, then two in color B. Repeat. If you need to put the work down, always stop in the middle of the row. Otherwise, if you go to the end, its hard to tell what to do next.

Double Ended Crochet Hook

The resulting fabric is reversible, with color A prominent on one side and color B prominent on the other.

Double Ended Crochet Hook

My current project is trying once again to master that weird crochet hook with a hook on each end, sometimes dubbed 'cro-knit'. I almost had it but not quite so I found a youtube video on it last night and now I think I'm on the right road if only I could remember to do 2 rows with each color and then turn the hook around.