Get Stuff Done

It's crunch time for Christmas gifts. I make most of my gifts. I have a lot of things partly done. So today I have a long to-do list with a goal to get the main box into the mail tomorrow. So I have knitting and crocheting to do in order to meet that goal.

I also missed my grandson's birthday, so I need to get something together for that. And my granddaughter's birthday is early next year. I'm going to have to ask what day it is. Maybe I should go back to updating my perpetual calendar that is in an recipe box under my desk. It's a bit of a tickler file.

And it's sunny out, so I plan to spend some of it soaking up the rays, feeding the wild birds, and cleaning up the glass that broke in the windstorm.

I think we may be going to town to get a ham today too, while they are on sale. I can take my knitting along. It's almost 40 minutes of knitting time if I knit all the way there and back. Time to get off the computer and get stuff done.

The wind carried this about 400 feet in the last storm. A neighbor tore them out of his house and I was going to use them for either a cold frame or an art project. Too late now.

Fun Christmas Party

Great fun at an SCA Christmas party tonight. I got to talk about knitting, tatting, and crochet. I started an archery target hat for myself. I got a Gothic style candelabra in the gift exchange too. And my pyroglyphed owl gourd went to a woman that enjoys gourd art. In the exchange you picked a gift to open, then another person could steal it from you or pick a fresh gift to unwrap. I went through four  presents until I got to keep one! It was a lot of fun. Everyone was dressed so fancy in their SCA party garb, which was good because it's cold enough to snow outside.

Then when I got home there was a post from my daughter wanting another Christmas stocking so my granddaughter can have one to match the rest of the family stockings that I made last December. And it just so happens I spotted one of the rice bags they are made from in my bedroom, so I'll have to dig it out and see what I can do. I was just about to send my daughter a box, so I hope I can whip up the stocking and put it in the box so she can have it before Christmas.

Great knitted Santa hat.

Lots of pottery showed up in the gift exchange.

Holidays Fast Approaching

Sometimes when you are multitalented, it's hard to focus,especially with the holidays fast approaching. I've been derailed again into teddy bear land. I'm knitting a little silver teddy bear on size 0 needles. Yes, I'm crazy.

 I did some minor porch decorating for Halloween. I'm not all that motivated, because no one will really see it. We don't get many visitors out this way, and no children that live close enough to come trick-or-treating. I imagine the locals go to the Halloween tailgate event at the Lucerne market, so I volunteered to do face painting there to get my name out and so I could see some cute little kids dressed in costumes for Halloween. You just don't go door to door trick-or-treating when houses are half a mile apart.

 I am still hoping someone hires me to read tarot cards at a local event. This used to be my most lucrative day of the year, and the earnings would help me survive Christmas. I have three grandchildren to spoil and I haven't had the money to do it.

There's a fat little chipmunk scarfing all the seeds out of the birdseed bowl. I tapped on the window to scare it away and it just glared at me with it's beady little eyes.

I'm working on my Slytherin witch costume. So happy I found these poison apple green gloves at the .99 store. I wish I'd bought them in pink and white as well, but didn't have the spare change.
They probably had black too, but I imagine they sold out immediately with Halloween around the corner.

Acid Green Gloves

Christmas Stockings From Rice Sacks

Here are photos of the Christmas stockings I made. I thought all 3 were on the flash drive, but now I only see two so I won't be able to post it from the library. If you are having trouble with Blogger letting you load photos in the last few days, try clicking on the HTML tab instead. Add them, and they will be in code, but then you can see them when you switch back to the compose tab.

Knitting and Felt Ornaments

Getting used to my new home is challenging. Today was a reminder of how much I hate laundromats. But while the clothes were in the dryer I got to knit on my 'buttered popcorn' scarf. I also worked on it some at an archery event yesterday. It was way too hot to shoot arrows, so I stayed in the shade and worked on knitting and beadwork. My friends Aimee and Sal dropped by and she brought her beadwork as well. She's making Christmas ornaments of felt and sequins in the shapes of hearts, moons, birds, and other things. We swapped some beads as well.

When I was coming out of the grocery store the other day, there was a woman in a van and on her dashboard were all kinds of things made on a Knifty Knitter.  So I stopped a bit and talked to her about it. Crafts are a universal language.

Christmas and Crochet Hooks

I think it's already time to start working on Christmas crafts. The dreaded Christmas. I still want to make Halloween stuff. But my mind is trying to come up with Christmas ideas for tutorials. I'd love to think people come to my blog just to hear all about me, but most of the pages that get regular traffic are the ones with tutorials.

I also ran across a page yesterday on making creative coverings for crochet hooks. I've noticed that thicker hooks are easier on my aging hands.  So I think some sort of wrap in felting, polymer clay or cord wrapping will not only make my hooks look unique, but will make it easier for my hands to crochet longer without fatigue.  My boyfriend knows how to make cordage wraps on knife and tool handles so perhaps he will share his methods with me.  It will also keep the crochet hooks from rolling away if I set them on a desk or table. And at the end of the night, if I've loaned out my hooks to students, I'll be able to tell which ones are mine. So I want to try that from now on. Every hook should have it's own pajamas.

Christmas scarf I designed a year or two ago.

Hot Water Heater

Most artists know how insane the last week before Christmas gets as you try to balance deadlines, family expectations, cleaning, work and travel.  It usually creates a snowball effect. This year is no exception. The day I was supposed to open my new Etsy shop, I was hauling soggy boxes out of the garage after our hot water heater failed.  I forgot about opening the shop entirely! I did have a few listings sitting there in draft form, so in lieu of my planned grand opening, I just made those listings live today, because I need to get the garage put back together again.


I'm also working on a crocheted sweater that kept me busy late into the night and again this morning, as well as doing my daily paintings.  Yikes!  I'm getting so far behind.  Then Sunday we'll be out of town delivering arrows in Pasadena at our monthly archery gathering. Some of these arrows are gifts so there is no getting around going. I don't have any plans on Christmas day. And I just realized it.

My friends got a new horse

My friends from Synergy Arts in front of the tree they designed.

Each panel can turn in the wind.

Me ready for the Christmas dinner.

Daisy's First Day

Glad someone else is installing the new one.

Old hot water heater needed replacing.

Rainy Day Again

It's been raining, raining, raining. And the weatherman said it's only going to get worse. Someone's cat bashed into our front window. Evidently the cat thought it could come inside out of the rain and maybe didn't see the glass in the darkness and the rain. Soon after the cat came the owner, who scooped him up and nagged him about running outside in the first place.

I was restless today. Our archery meeting was supposed to be today, so I had all this pent up energy.  I read some, worked on my dragon cross-stitch, studied a book on rubber stamping techniques, and posted new images to Zazzle.  Towards evening my boyfriend decided he wanted ice cream. When we walked to Dairy Queen, got our ice cream and then walked home, it wasn't raining. But soon after we sat on the couch, down came the rain again.

I also got a stubborn string of Christmas lights to work. Every time I got ready to chuck them into the trash, they'd work again. By the time I draped them over the door, they'd go out. I was about ready to throw them out of the nearest window when they started to work again.

Five New Tutorials

I'm super busy today. I got 3 of my five tutorials finished this week. My first one was just added here: http://www.youtube.com/user/AllFreeKnitting on AllFreeKnitting's new channel. I'm so excited. I'm about to send them a holiday scarf tutorial as well, but I have another foot to knit on it and I can't knit and type at the same time.

I'm enjoying this red/white/green variegated yarn. I've had it in my stash forever and I'm so happy it's going to be something lovely to sell or give to someone special.

My other two tutorials are on a Plarn Rain Hat and a crocheted jingle bell holiday scarf.

If I get the knitting one finished, I want to get on to finishing my pumpkin diorama today.  I'd dying to work on it, but had to get my paid work out of the way first.

I still have no plans for Halloween, but I may be out of town at an SCA event, so we'll see. Does SCA garb count as a Halloween costume if the event is on Halloween?

What are the rest of you doing for Halloween?

It's a bit mentally confusing to be making Christmas tutorials the week before Halloween. I keep having to shift my porch decorations.

Five New Tutorials Coming Out on Knitting and Crocheting and Crafts

My next five tutorials will be:
How to Purl
Quick and Easy Christmas Scarflette
Quick and Easy Crocheted Scarflette
Crocheted Plarn Rainhat
Skeletonized Mermaid Pumpkin Part 2

Hopefully they will be up on my Youtube channel by the weekend. Ambitious I know, since it's already Wed. Time flies when you're having fun.  Plus it's been raining for three days. So it's been a wee bit challenging since I do all my videos outside where the light is better.

Holiday Cards

I just finished my article on making greeting cards. Watercolor Cards. I'm glad I finally felt well enough to put the cards together today. And I remembered I had some great ornamental papers stashed away to use for the card itself. Making cards is pretty time consuming. And the watercolors really should dry overnight and then flattened before assembling the cards. Leave enough time to trim everything to size.

For me the hardest part is thinking of something to write inside the card that is sincere and not canned. And also to not offend people, because not everyone is celebrating Christmas. I'm celebrating Yule, and I have friends that celebrate Hannukah. Sometimes 'Happy Holidays' or 'Seasons Greetings' is the best way to go.

So make yourself some cards or gift tags and have some holiday fun.

Greeting cards

As Christmas approaches I'm debating what to do for a holiday card. Do I want to make them or buy them? I really only need to send 5 or 6. So it wouldn't be unreasonable to make them. It's times like these I miss my Gocco printer. It's probably in storage. I hate storage.
What do the rest of you do about greeting cards? Make them, buy them, recycle old ones? Or build a stash to keep on reserve so you have them when you need them.

Cross Stitch Christmas Stocking

I found a Christmas stocking kit that is about 25 years old that I no doubt meant to make for my daughters when they were kids. So now I get to make it for my Grandson. Everything is still in excellent shape. I sorted all the colors out tonight. The kit is by Dimensions.

red, green and white

My newest crocheted hat/tam/beret in Christmas colors.