Rainbow Of Possibilities

Have you ever looked at your to-do list and said, "I have no idea where to start?" That has been me for the last two weeks. Every item on the list was really 50 hidden jobs in order to finally cross it off the list. I've been doing my best to break down each job and work on them a little each day. Some of those items have been more mundane like returning a pair of pants or cleaning the fridge coils. Others have been a bit more fun to tackle, like the quilt.

I finally decided to do the quilting with 3 strands of embroidery floss (out of six) in a square pattern that doesn't match latitude and longitude. In order to make the lines relatively straight, I decided to baste little x's into the quilt. Part way through basting, my measurements started to go off and I raged.

Enter Connor. He offered to help and we've spent our evenings with him measuring and basting while I do the actual quilting. We've been listing to Anne of Green Gables on audiobook while working. Of course after watching Anne With An E on Netflix, Connor was curious about the book because I had so often yelled at the TV about how "that wasn't in the book!"

I didn't realize how big this quilt was until I put it on our Queen sized bed for the photo. I might need to make the quilt a little less tall.

I've also been trying to work out what brand of paint to use for long distance trips. I love M Graham watercolors, but they just will not dry in my pans. (I poured these more than a month ago and they are still wet.) It's fine working with them near home, but as we have a bigger trip in the works, it has become clear I need to come up with a new solution.

The reason I love M Graham is because they rewet so easily; great for painting, not great for tidy transportation.

Deciding what paints to use instead isn't easy, especially when you are still sad that your favorites aren't working out. I started by making swatches of what I do have. Then after puzzling a few days more, I decided to order a color dot card that will allow me to try out some new colors. I'm just waiting on that to arrive. Hopefully I'll be able to make a final decision soon.

What kinds of things haven't been coming off of your to-do lists? And is it because of lack of time or a lack of a plan? (Or something else?)

These Boots Aren't Meant For Walking

This past March was a "put one foot in front of the other" kind of month. With a combination of family health scares and a pile of difficult tests, I ended up pretty stressed out. It's taken me a week or two to start feeling better. But rather than focus on the negative, let me show off some things that helped lift me up.

1. I have made a new pair of baby booties. The last pair I made unfortunately didn't fit the recipient. After seeing the tiny baby feet in person, I decided to make up my own pattern. They look weird without feet in them, but I'm pretty sure that with small feet inside them, these new cowboy booties will look much cuter.

2. I finished embroidering the lower 48 states. What a job! I'm not anywhere close to finishing this quilt, but I feel pretty darn good about how far I've gotten. I've ordered some new embroidery floss and plan to quilt the remaining background with longitude and latitude lines. (Alaska and Hawaii will be added too!)

Toughest coastline embroider: Maryland

3. Yarn! My Plucky I ordered at Stitches West arrived. I initially felt it was too dark, but it's growing on me. Then a fantastic package from Wei Siew arrived. She sure did spoil me. Dark Harbor, Bleeting Arts, and Fiber 2 Go?! She also sent a few other unpictured goodies.

4. I finished my Groovy Socks and have cast on two new pairs. Vanilla Latte socks in Stray Cat Socks's Blue Moon color way and Woodpile socks in Spun Right Round's Bug Jar color way.

5. Just today I decided to paint a scene from the TV show Riverdale. Connor and I recently finished it and I really liked the design for Pop's Chock'lat Shoppe. 

How has life been going for all of you? Have you focused on anything to help keep you sane?

Tour De Fun

Hello friends! It has been a rather productive week here at the Bear Ears house, but maybe more importantly, it was a fun week. I finished up my skein of Cider House from Greenwood Fiberworks. It came out to 250 yards, which is the same as the last time I spun a braid of Greenwood Fiberworks. I remember wanting that skein to have more yardage just like I wish this skein had a bit more yardage. Maybe it is the fiber and not me? It sure is pretty, though.

I didn't expect to finish the braid of Cider House before the end of Tour De Fleece, so it was a great surprise that I might be able to spin something else. I've pulled out two braids of Wonderland Dyeworks' 80/20 Merino/Tussah Silk in the Coral Reef color way. 

This time around I'm aiming for a DK/Worsted weight two ply. I've made a great start. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll have a second skein by the end of the tour.

Meanwhile, I've kept up on my knitting. Connor and I have been watching Vikings. It is interesting enough that I can't work on anything that requires looking down, but my hands were getting itchy so I found that the many rounds of stockinette in the Dude Sweater kept them happy. I'm at the next stretch of color work though, and I'm a little intimidated. It took me a few days to get though the color work when I was doing it on the sleeves. The sweater body is three times the size of a sleeve... 

Dad's Peeta Sock is also growing. I have found myself in the car pretty often. Although the car rides aren't very long, a few rounds here and there really add up.

Connor and I have also been playing the odd round of Scrabble. I think I mentioned last time that turns can last a while, so it didn't take many games to finish the latest lavender sachet embroidery. I've now got three embroideries waiting to be sewn up. I think I might wait until I finish the sweater body that will need to be steeked before dragging the sewing machine out.

Is anyone else joining in on the fun with Tour De Fleece? Leave a link, I'd love to see your lovely skeins.

Sucking The Fun Out Of Fun

Has anyone else had a time in their life where they forgot how to have fun? I feel like that has been me lately. Since the last week of April, I've been staying disciplined by working on getting The Comic up and running. Every day I edit at least two pages and after I get a pile edited, I (digitally) cut them up and Connor posts them. The thing is, I had gotten so efficient that even when I left room for myself to do something fun, like knit, it wasn't fun anymore. My efficiency spilled over into my hobbies. I'd tell myself, "The faster you finish this knit, the sooner you can finish the next one." I made myself into a machine. This isn't any way to live. 

After making myself miserable for the last two plus months, I heard a sermon that snapped me out of it. The sermon itself was about envy, but in it the preacher talked about the movie Chariots of Fire. (A quick aside, I've never seen all of Chariots of Fire. I watched about 10 minutes at which point I realized there weren't going to be any chariots, so I stopped watching.) The plot follows two runners. One is always worried about who is catching up to him and who might beat him while the other throws his head back and enjoys the act of running. I realized I was the worried runner when really I'd rather be the happy one, so I've been practicing mindfulness. When I catch myself strategizing what I need to do next, I write it on the list, then promptly think about what I am enjoying about my current activity... even the ones that aren't really that fun on paper. I'm happy to report that it has been working. I feel like I'm having fun again. An added bonus has been that I've found myself more productive while I've been having fun.

What are those things, you might wonder? Wonder no more! First off, I am happy to say that I have finally finished editing Book 1. Connor and I need to still put the latter half of book 1 on the website, but we have made that a more pleasant experience by listing to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. (We have especially enjoyed episodes 303, 305, and 310.)

I've continued to make great progress on my father's second Peeta Sock and Connor's Dude Sweater. In typing this, I realized that there is nothing on the needles for me. Gasp! Actually, I'm having a great time knitting both projects and I look forward to giving them away when they are done.

I also started work on the next lavender sachet. I have embroidered several now, but had put them aside to stay true to the comic. I pulled it out again while Connor and I were playing Scrabble. We both can take a long time to come up with a word, so I've been able to make good progress on the new one.

And last, but certainly not least, I've been putting time aside at night to work on my Tour de Fleece project. I entirely forgot Tour de Fleece was coming up until a day or so before it started. In an effort to stay in the moment and not suck the fun out of it with too many goals, I only have the modest goal of spinning a three ply sock yarn out of my braid of Greenwood Fiberworks 80/20 Merino/Nylon in the Cider House color way. It's been on my mind for a while, but like the embroidery, I wasn't going to work on it until I had "earned" it by doing enough of the comic.

It seems so silly now that I was punishing myself by not working what I really wanted to. Connor reminded me that everything will eventually get done, and I suppose that is true. And if it doesn't get done, maybe it never really needed to anyways.

Has anyone else had the problem of sucking the fun out of their hobbies?

Little Bit Of Everything

It didn't take long for me to put a new project on the loom. I don't know when the spell will break, but weaving scarves has become quite addicting. I spent just one evening working on this particular scarf and found that I had woven half of it! 

Warp: Doespins sock in Paua. Weft: Verdant Gryphon Mithril in Green Water Snake.

Even though weaving is my new best friend, I haven't neglected my first love: knitting. I finally finished the test knit I was working on. I wish I could show the fantastic patterning that goes along the side of each sock, but for now I'll have to hide it until the pattern is released. Once that happens, I'll be happy to show off the socks in all their glory.

Yarn: Canon Hand Dyes Charles Sock in Etude 120

I'm also pleased to say that I am on the second sock in both my vanilla pair and my Haleakalas. Once these babies are done, I'll be out of projects on the needles. But with all sorts of fun new sock yarn to play with, it will be hard to choose what to cast on next! 

Left sock yarn: Der Kleine Prinz in Die Rose Der Kleine Prinzen. Right sock yarn: Malabrigo Sock in Pocion.

I have another project that I haven't been able to show much progress on, even though there is lots going on behind the scenes. I've finished up the embroidery sample for my USA travel patch quilt. There have been lots of decisions to make like: What kind of thread should I use? If I use the six-strand thread, how many of those six strands should I use? Which stitch would look best for the outline? Which stitch would work best for the numbers? And on and on and on. I've done the sample on linen, but the front of the quilt is going to be a cream-colored cotton, so the colors reflect what is going on the quilt. If I was doing it on linen, I would use colors that had higher contrast.

If that wasn't enough, I've signed up to take some classes at my local junior college in the fall. (Accounting and watercolors) I've also been working hard to format all my daily comics to put on the web. Connor has kindly been assisting me with the website side of things, so hopefully we will have the first few up soon.

Catching Up On Crafting

I've been pretty productive with my various projects as of late. After realizing that I was not quite starting or finishing anything, I knew that I needed to make a list of what was causing each project to stagnate. It seems silly, but every project just had one step that needed to be worked on before I could go full steam ahead. 

For the Iceland sweater, I needed to swatch, so swatch I did. The swatch wasn't very helpful though. Since the pattern doesn't have a very good schematic, it was difficult to know how to successfully make the adjustments I wanted to. Eventually I decided that maybe I should just cast on. If it goes badly, I'll just rip it out and try again.

Next up is this test knit on my to do list for a while. It doesn't have a solid deadline, so I've waited until I had some brain power to put to it. I did my swatch, got confused over the stitch pattern directions, got clarification from the designer, and cast on. Of course after I got past the cuff, I realized that I had another question. This project will sit for a little while longer, but I'm glad to have gotten it started.

I recently wove in the ends to two different pairs of socks, but they still weren't being added to my sock rotation. I've mentioned in the past that I like to re-fix the color in all my socks before wearing them. If I have several pairs of socks close to completion, I'll wait until they are all done so I can do them together. I wasn't getting around to re-fixing the color and I realized it was because the Hieroglyphic Socks were a little too long in the toes. I wanted to fix the toes before re-fixing all the color. I don't know about the rest of you, but I wasn't really motivated to unweave in the ends and rip back color work. I finally caved and am pleased to say that both the Hieroglyphic and Rainbow socks are now re-fixed and drying.

My lavender sachet project also had been languishing. I often thought about embroidering, but kept putting it off because I needed to set up the fabric. After having a good think, I worked out the spacing I needed between each sachet. (2.25 inches) And to prevent myself from putting it off again, I'm sewing all the bag boundaries before I keep embroidering. It's going pretty well.

The last project that I'd been putting off was catching up on my comics. After Hawai'i, I was nearly two weeks behind. I've been slowly catching up by doing two comics a day: the previous days' comic and one from when we were in Hawai'i. Eventually I'll be up to date.

How has everyone else dealt with stagnating projects? Do you find a list helps or do you have a different method?

On The Hoop

After my last post, I still tried to put off starting my lavender sachet project. Of course because I had said I would stitch at least one stitch, I was too embarrassed not to go through with it. So I stitched a stitch and it was ugly. Then I stitched another stitch: still ugly. I stitched a bunch more stitches before pulling them all out and trying again. My second try went much better. I stitched a smaller stitch and it was less ugly. Then I stitched another stitch and it looked nice too. Eventually I hit a rhythm and was sad to put the fabric down at bedtime. I finished up the next day, broke out the sewing machine, and voila! I now have a completed lavender sachet. The pattern has been stitched on both sides, so there is no wrong side.

This sachet has a quarter cup of lavender in it.

I've already started my second project. This project also suffered from some ugly stitches that I pulled out before getting a size I liked better.

With knitting a WIP is "on the needles." Is an embroidery project WIP called "on the hoop?"

While I was getting my pictures together for today's post, Scooter came out and joined me. I snapped a few pictures of him too, but he wouldn't make any eye contact with the camera today. I'm happy to report that since his surgery to remove fatty tumors back in November, he has fully recovered and has so much more energy that he previously had. It's always a pleasure to see him bound around joyfully.

He looks grumpy, but he was quite happy while he was following me around.

Breaking Down A Quilt One Lavender Sachet At A Time

One of the goals I have this year is to work on my quilt of the US to display my patches on. (It's goal #2 on this year's list.) But if I'm honest, I've had the supplies for this project for a year now and it has been sitting. I thought it was sitting because I didn't have time for it, but now I realize it's because I am intimidated by it. It is too big a project and I have too little knowledge. I need to break this project down into smaller pieces, and I've decided to do that by first working on a small embroidery project for practice. I was given loose lavender for Christmas from my in-laws, so I'm going to make little lavender sachets. To accomplish this goal, I've done some prep. So far I've bought some books on embroidery.

I've gotten fabric, needles, scissors, a disappearing ink pen, and a hoop (that isn't pictured).

I've bought my thread, wound it, and labeled the colors on the bobbins.

I've sketched some ideas out.

And because I'm so thorough, I've even drafted out patterns for the sachets: one with seam allowances and one without.

I plan to sew french seams on the sachets since I don't have a serger.

I've done all of these steps to help break down the process.... but I'm still intimidated. It's silly, really, but my perfectionistic tendencies have gotten the better of me this time. It's clear that I just need to jump in and just start. Today is the day. I will stitch at least 1 stitch. Wish me luck.

It Only Took Me A Year

Almost a year ago I agreed to embroider a moth for some album art. I just finished today. Whoops. Time does fly.

The moth is for Nat. You should check out his music at http://www.myspace.com/natlefkoffmusic. He's going places.

Thrift Store Score

I love going to the local thrift store. It is so much fun to see what someone has discarded or deemed worthless.

Behold. Today's score. An antique book in reasonable condition (it has all it's pages and the binding is still together - a bit weak, but still together). My guess is late 1800s, early 1900s. The textile is definitely something that recycled into a pillow case. Best guess, and Afghani embroidery. Total cost for both: $5

I found these a little while ago. ~Que Bond Music

When I got home with these my conversation with Brennan (my housemate) went something like this.

Me: Brennan, Brennan. I found the coolest thing at the thrift store today.

Brennan: This had better be the best thing ever.

Me: (unsure if Brennan would feel the same way about books as I do) I found the whole series of James Bond books.

Brennan: That IS the coolest thing ever.

Price of coolness: $6 for all of them (maybe $4. I can't remember)

I have a bit of an obsession with little candle or oil lamps. I have a hard time saying no. When I saw these I was sold. When I saw the price, I probably looked a little like Golem. Something about "My precioussss" Two oil lamps: $4 total

I also have a love for textiles. All the time an effort that is put into them. It disappoints me how undervalued textiles have become in western society. I blame the industrial revolution.

I can't help but buy embroideries. (The one on the bottom right is a Mola, from Panama or Colombia) Each were bought for $1-$6

At some point we needed pot holders for the house. $0.50- $1 each. I think I got a good deal one day and paid $1 for 3. When I saw the owl one, I could only see the feet. I thought it was a hamster.

I have a favorite thrift store out of state. It is so cool, I won't even mention which state in an effort to keep it to myself. I found this afghan for $1 there. Actually, it was a $1 a bag sale. I stuffed the afghan into the bag along with some books.

I've saved the best for last. At the same super secret store, I found this for $7. It fits my full size bed. The lady who sold it to me said her grandmother had made it and she remembered it from childhood. So the quilt is at least 50 years old. The picture will never do it justice. It has teddy bear fur all along the edges! Teddy bear fur! So warm and snuggly. Scooter agrees. It is all I can do to keep him and his fur off of it.