TiLT - More Random

 1. Succulents. These are my baby plants. I have been nurturing inside and now they had to come out into the elements for lack of a good place in the house with the kitchen upheaval. Succulents are some of my favorite plants because of their various shapes and their uncanny ability of regrowth.

2. Cat bed Roll. I saw this tutorial off of Pinterest which led me to the original link here. The kitties LOVE it. Also nice and convenient since it will pack away very easily when we have guests over. Since it is all fabric I can easily wash it by throwing it into the machine. This was one of the few sewing projects I felt I had to get done before the house was a wreck and I no longer had access to my studio.

3. Bribery from the Hubby. I love that my hubby knows me well enough to bribe me to do simple things such as walk through a street festival without getting distracted by jewelry vendors. He heads it all off by buying me pretties. Usually it's stuffed toys but I'm not going to complain at all. The  Artist is Ashka Dymel and her website is here.

 4. Lakehouse Weekends. With the start of summer also comes trips up to the Lakehouse. Relaxing weekends of just hanging out in a clean house with very little TV or internet. Just sweet nature and the local sights and attractions

5. Organic mass. Some new work I am doing that is yet again small scale and portable. Much like how I need my life to be right now in the chaos for lack of space and sanity. I plan to do a series of at least 5 in red and pink then we'll see where I take it from there.

Summer approaching

With Summer pretty much on the doorstep I keep thinking about how great my last summer ended with getting married and our amazing whirlwind honey moon to London, Paris and Rome.
As I daydream of the fantastic time I had I am avoiding the reality of things that will be this summer, the kitchen renovation.

Everyone looks nice and dandy right? Wrong....... when we did the Tear out the cabinets were from 1948 shipped from California and made proudly in the USA by Union workers. The oven is failing, 2 of the three stove top burners are no longer working and there is no dishwasher. The counters and cabinets are also too narrow to fit in with modern appliances. I loathe the vinyl flooring so that will be replaced with the same Bamboo throughout the rest of our first floor.  We are also getting a wall demolished to open the area up, moving the window by the oven to the opposite side and installing a half bath.

In other news the beginning of summer also means the start of summer classes for me to teach.
Over at ye' olde stomping grounds of CCAD for teaching I'll be doing Pattern Drafting and Sewing Construction per usual, then my favorite Summer program College Preview teaching another summer of heart wrenching fashion elective! Sadly my Draping and Fabric Manipulation class did not have a large enough enrollment to happen this summer. I love teaching draping, it is just more my style and such a fun loose class to get creative in.

I also will have a few classes over at one of my favorite local stores Wholly Craft. I'll be teaching beginning crochet and also an Amigurami class for a little Jelly fish doll.

I'm trying to work on some new pieces of art and just jewelry in general that I'd like to sell on Etsy. It's very annoying to be out of my element and without a proper work space. I'm making do as much as I can with just the small handicrafts that I can transport around with me. It is seriously stressing me out not to be able to sew and work in fabric freely when ever I want. Today is just Monday so hopefully the rest of the week turns around. Tomorrow is my first day to teach with the summer class so that'll be exciting to meet some new people and find out why they want to learn basic pattern drafting.

Cheers!

Crochet Along

I found this great pattern on Pinterest and I decided to give a it a whirl.  They were not joking when they named it "The Wooleater"  I am very behind since I just started this about a week ago but it is coming along nicely.  I've decided instead of sticking to gradation of colors I am going to do contrasts to make each row pop.

Here is my progress from the past two weeks.  My wrist starts to hurt when I try to do more than a row at a time.

Weekend Crafting

Over the Weekend I was a big slug.  I ate too much, played video games and crafted much.  I started off going to Sew to Speak on Saturday with my friend Claire.  What started off as innocently taking her to the fabulous fabric store for the first time ended up in me spending $35 I didn't need to on fabric to make an Amy Butler Gumdrop Ottoman. It was a quick and easy project took me just a few hours on Saturday night and about 8 bags of fiber fil stuffing.

It turned out much bigger then I anticipated (I hate to do the dimensions on pillows before I start them).  You can see it is about half the size of our new couches.  Granted the couches we got are smaller then conventional couches but still it is unwieldy.  It is working out better as a spare chair and cat throne.

 In other Craft news I continued to work on a second Sock to this one I had finished before Christmas and simply lost my interest in.  Since my scaled crochet project is finished I felt the need to pick up and finish the sock.  Wisely I am using the already complete sock as my yarn guard/holder whilst I make it's mate.

I also got into my Japanese Tatting books!  Very excited for this because their charts are so easy to read and I completed several small flowers and a lace heart for valentine Cards. I'll post pictures tomorrow and perhaps a book review.
 

To end my wonderful weekend of relax and craft I started another Entrelac cowl out of this luscious silk/wool/cotton/nylon blend of Noro in sweet pastel colors.  The colors just make my heart flutter and the silk makes my fingers sing in the softness being worked in my hands.

Amazing what amount of things I get into when I'm not stressed out with a grad school application.

Bountiful Christmas

I know I keep apologizing for the lack of content on my posts lately.  I'm just very focused on this whole Grad School application business. I have been turning down parties and free time left and right to squeeze in some more "art time" for making new pieces for the portfolio and explore my own feelings about why and what I'll do with an MFA. It's like the Hobbit, where it was supposed to be a simple journey when started and then things expanded and changed around you (yes I am that big of a nerd to reference the Hobbit in comparison to my current life status).  I'm in the home stretch where all my letters of recommendation are in, I have started to load my portfolio and my Letter of intent is at a comfortable state to be edited and finished for submission.

One thing I did do was take the time off to enjoy the Christmas Holiday.  I put down all my projects and picked up something relaxing to work on while we were doing the holiday bustle between relatives.  Taught myself how to do this Scaled Crochet Pattern and stared some wristlets for myself. I had a good amount of downtime at various relatives houses and events.

Now for the Booty!

(and there was much rejoicing *yah*)

 The Classic Christmas Tree and the family dog enjoying her own little Christmas gift

 This was the combined load of the Hubby and I for Christmas.  Lot's of nuts, candy, coffee and then some luggage that was on our wedding registry that we never got, new light weight bike jacket for him, some his/her mugs.

Then there were the gifts from Andy and his Family just for me, mostly from Andy.

 Two Japanese Tatting books from the brother in law

Japanese pattern book Drape Drape 3 from mother in law

The rest is from my darling hubby who knows me all too well.

Angry birds, macro/wide angle lens for my camera, electronic/game devices.

 I can't wait to go through these books and give you all the reviews!

 My electronics included the super snazzy Kindle Fire! (which I also look forward to reviewing for you), Wii-mote charger station, ridiculous Wii-mote sword and shield adapter while I am playing Zelda's Skyward Sword.

That's right........... it glows blue!

In addition to these fantastic Gifts I got a month free of Amazon Prime to use with my Kindle Fire so I ordered my self about 5 new presser feet and some accessories for my Kindle in a 

"Treat yo self" fashion.  I'm eyeing a few more Japanese craft books to spend the last of the Christmas cash too.

Patterns Versus Charts

Whenever I have a the need to record a knitting or crochet pattern it is always so difficult for me to judge what type of pattern I should churn out.  Personally I rather enjoy making projects that use Chart type Patterns but it seems like more of the american population that I talked with are more adept with the text and acronym filled version of patterns.

While writing a pattern myself before editing it down for the public eye it is a huge messy conglomuration of the two.  Depending on my mood I can find it easier to explain something in text form but when I am jotting it as notes I am doing chart indicators in rows and rows.

Here is my Chicken Scratch

This is a Chart from a Japanese Knit/Crochet book

This is a Text Base Pattern that most people are Familiar with

(it also happens to be my first published Pattern!)

The pattern I am currently working on is for this little Huffalump that I am going to teach a Class on soon at Wholly Craft!  Along with the huffalump I will be teaching Broom Stick lace crochet and some Crochet  Flower patterns for Spring.



2011 Inspirations

As I slowly trudge into this new year kicking and screaming to get out of my holiday slump I snatched up some pictures to put me back in mood to sew and create. Once again I am at a lose to tell you where they all came from but I'll try!

Wonderful Tentacles Knitted into a wreath, I'm love the idea of this into a collar of a sweater or jacket

I believe I got this off of Craft:

 Gorgeous texture and shape on this knitted Pineapple bag that I randomly found on the net.

Delicate spidery effect on this crocheted Hanger makes me want to do unpatterned lace panels into strech knit garments.

I just love the way this looks.

(Found on Stylebubble)

This shape just calls to me and the craftmanship of the wood is divine

This was an entry from Etsy for the contest of sending a craft to the Moon.

Her unconventional freehand embroidery on this gives me so much mojo for hand emboidery goodness.

By Average Jane Crafter

I want so badly to create a little hanging plush city like I keep seeing all around. 

 I feel like this came from the same place as the Pineapple

Speaking of that Devilish Pineapple here he is again with closer look at those sublime knitted stitches

Something a little more class in Embroidery

No yearly inspriation can be complete without a look back at some Alexander McQueen

I think I saved this because of the Orgnaza Collar on the chick on the left side.  It made me want to do some more work with Organza while I am working on my wedding dress.

Goergeous ruffles in layers and layers and layers. 

This came from once again Style Bubble

Gold Paillettes Dress also from Style Bubble

The layers of these discs just looks like luscious scales from a dragon

These Images are from Park & Cube

I just love the knit wear inspriations of doing something a little bit different to something so simple and the gauzy layers with the open knit work.

Lastly no year for me can be without a little octo friend.  This image was taken from National Geographic site about strange new animals found in the year 2010.  This is a purple breed of Ocotpus.

Purpose without Pattern

An odd phenomenon that I never thought of is how a large majority of knitter's can only do so using patterns.  I almost never use patterns for knitting.  Sure I can write them (check out this earlier post) and make them up to use a pattern to make something is extremely rare for me.  Perhaps this is one of the things that set's me apart from conventional knitter's and why I can easily transpose back and forth from Knitting and crocheting.  The difference between knitting and crocheting for people is another interesting phenomenon.

Currently I am working on a pair of long knitting gloves for myself to go with my cropped black rabbit fur jacket.  It just happened to be a stripe pattern as I knit out this sock yarn.  I like it though.  Happy accidents are all over my knitting projects and that gives them character.


It was interesting to work on this as I have never done fingers before.  Trying to gauge that and work around 9 different needle points was frustrating.  There were quite a few times I needed to tear out and re-work.  Right now it is coming along just dandy.  Below you can see a complete thumb!


What I really need to do is get back to sewing.  I have two clients and a friend that I need to get some work done for.  One involves revamping a 70's jumpsuit that is 4 sizes too big.  Another is making a fencer inspired jacket with stays and out of patent vinyl.  The last is taking approx 2 yards of hand felted wool into a winter coat.  Not to mention the two skirts I had planned for myself, and winter coat.