Creativity, Connection and Cynicism

These things have been swirling around in my head.
creating.
I've done it my entire life. I've always enjoyed crafting and making things. I honestly can't imagine life without this. What do other people DO with their time? It's a release for me to create something that I think is beautiful or useful. I want to leave a mark on this world in someway and goodness knows I'm not going to find a cure for cancer or lead the whole world to peace..but I might be able to leave my family a few items they will love and treasure for years to come.

connection and cynicism

I bill myself as a cynic and am the majority of the time. I hate lovey dovey kinda stuff and sweet just makes me smirk..but every now and again the cynic in me has to shut up. One of the things that does this, is the connection I feel every time I pick up a needle of any sort and create. I feel the connection from my hands running back through my grandmothers' hands and their mothers' hands etc. I feel it. I imagine women sitting with their embroidery hoops in medieval times stitching samplers.
It's there.
The connection.
It's real and I'm thankful for it.

I've been busy stitching and knitting some as well, but my laptop is still sick. :P It went to Compaq, came back and is shipping BACK to them as we speak. What a PITA. I have an older desk top that I can still check mail and read blogs, but I can't work with photos or update my iPod. Seriously. NO iPod updates. Do you have any idea how crappy that is? Erg. I'm hoping it will be back and functional in the next week. I am glad I have a fall back, but DAMN I want my laptop!!!

Thanks for all the sweet thoughts and kind words on my hands! Not having the laptop has been good for my wrists as well as taking a wee break from knitting. I finished up the hat I was working on and have cast on a pair of socks tonight, so we'll see how they feel after a few days. :) Luckily the cross stitching doesn't seem to be effecting them at all. I bought a stand for my hoop and my wrists are pain free. Yay!

I've also been wondering about how other people blog. Do you tell all about your process or just your successes or spectacular failures? When I've finished a great project and am looking around for a new one, it takes me so much longer to find what I want. It drives me crazy! I have a skein of Euroflax that I still can't figure out what to do with. I tried to make the everlasting bagstopper with it. I didn't get far, there are to many K2Togs for my wrists to handle right now. So it went back to marinate in the stash. I then remembered my basic little let's learn crochet book had a crochet version which would be much easier and much faster. I cast on and it seemed to be going well, but then I realized that I should have used a stitch marker and the previous rows were off. So again Frog. Again banished back to the stash. Most of the time I think I should blog about it, but it's come and gone and I forget. :)

Forgive me for rambling!!

When things go bad...

Bad things really do come in groups, don't they?

I have tendinitis in my hands. At least I'm pretty sure it's not carpal, the symptoms lean more towards the tendinitis.. Anyway! Both of my wrists have flared up. I've been doing a bunch of knitting at a small gauge, plus I've been working on my Cross-stitch. So poof.. I'm down for the count. Fingers prickling, hands swollen every time I wake up. Blah.

I put myself on a craft hiatus from last Thursday until yesterday. I let myself cross stitch a bit, but no knitting as of yet. Which sucks because Saturday was my birthday (yay I'm old) and I have an awesome group of girlfriends. I have a gorgeous hank of Mist Alpaca HANDPAINTED Chunky. It's just calling to me. It's in the Delphinium colorway. Here would be a picture of said goodness but remember? Bad things happen in groups..

My wireless curled over and died in my laptop. :P So we had to pack it up and ship it to HP since it was under warranty still (the silver lining I suppose). I'm happy to have my own IT department (DH) and they got me up and running on one of our older desktops. They even ran ethernet into the spare room so I don't have to freeze my toosh off in the basement. But it doesn't have any of my graphics crap on it, so no pictures.

So no knitting/crafting, limiting my typing/surfing online to help the wrist and the fact I don't have my laptop..not much to blog about!

I will have photos up of my birthday goodness soon. OH! And I ordered a set of KnitPicks Options. I can't WAIT to get them. :) That's when I'm going to let myself knit again. My Malabrigo laceweight is sooooo calling to me. I've caked it up and it sits by my chair, calling to me. :)

Hope everyone in the 'heartland' is staying warm. I am beyond sick of winter. I'm no longer mad at the season, just resigned and sad. Ugh 13 degree high today, and 12 for tomorrow and 15 on Thursday. This is ridiculous! Most of the local cities are out of salt. Yes I said OUT of salt. The roads are a rink. :P

Happy/Sad

These make me happy. Jimmies just make me smile.

These make my husband happy. Peanut squares are cupcakes turned upside down, smeared on all sides but the bottom with frosting and then smashed up peanuts are dribbled all over.

This does not make me happy. I'm learning to live with it, but I still don't have to like it.


Seriously look at that mailbox! And we are supposed to get another 3 inches tonight. UGH. Stupid groundhog...

I want to change my advent calendar..or rather how the girls hang ornaments on it. Now we use straight pins, not the safest or easiest thing. Today I tried to use gold pony style beads..

They looked cute but it wasn't easy to hang things from them. I only sewed on 3, so it didn't take much for me to take them off. I'm now thinking of buttons..maybe small shank style buttons or even regular buttons. Not sure if I'll go gold, or maybe rainbow colors so they look like tree lights. I'll have to poke around the button aisle.

I've restarted A's spiral hat. Hopefully it will fit this time! I've also finished my 'O' cross stitch and have moved onto 'Y'! Yay me. :) Looks like it will actually be done by next Christmas. ;)

Hope you are all staying warm and being creative!

Tons of Stuff!

This is a packed entry..packed mainly full of photos! I've been busy so I'm a bit behind.

I've been recognized by two of my fellow bloggers!

Peggy who Chases Bunny all over
I Love Peg, I feel like she and I could plunk down in a starbucks somewhere and knit along happily. Her blog keeps me entertained and teaches me new things as well.

and Nora who thinks she's Knot Much of Knitter
but I'm not convinced! She makes me laugh quite a bit and almost always makes me think.

Thank you ladies!

Of course there are strings attached - I now get to nominate 10 bloggers who make my day, so they can pass on the fun. Of course some people will be nominated more than once, so try to be a good sport if you’re a popular one! Here’s my list:

1.The Woman Who Says " Knit "

2. The Knitting Moose -

3. More Than One Way to Knit A Hat

4. Minestrone Soup

5. Knits with a silent K

6. Kerry Knits

7. Just A Knit Wit

8. Flatlander

9.dogged.

10. Crimson Purl

Now onto the promised pictures of various crafting!

I finished J and am working on O.

I've actually grown to enjoy the linen. It softens as you work with it and isn't as harsh as Aida cloth.

I reorganized my stash and felt a need to work some of it. I'd always wanted to make a felted bowl and I had 2 balls of Noro Kureyon just sitting there!

Here it is pre-felted.

And after a toss in the wash. Noro takes quite a bit of washing to get it to felt all the way. I like it when you completely lose stitch definition.

For all of it's vegetable matter, Noro is still a wonder to knit with.

Specs:
Pattern:
Large Shallow Bowl - Deborah Does Navel-Gazing
Yarn: 2 skeins Noro Kureyon - held double
Needles: size 13
Started: January 20 2008
Finished: January 23 2008

While stash diving, I found the yarn I'd purchased to make a stuffed owl. It was for a Harry Potter KAL for book 7..and well I was so busy reading I didn't knit! It's made with Bernat Boa, a very odd yarn. It's similar to Fun Fur, but actually easier to knit with. The pattern is from the Family Circle book of Easy Toys.


I still need to make his wings, tail, feet and attach his eyes. It's a cute pattern. I'll let you see what it's like finished when I'm done.


A liked V's Spiral Hat so much she wanted one for her. A's 7 and has 'outgrown' pink then purple and now she's an orange girl. ORANGE! I swear this Trekking colorway reminds me of all the 70's kitchen colors thrownup on yarn. But she likes it...so I'll make it for her! Unfortunately the above had to be completely frogged because it was too big. The yarn is resting in a time out and I'll start again in a few days.

My friends C and J drug (kicking and screaming no less) me to one of our LYS. And this jumped into my arms.

Malabrigo Lace Weight. Oh My. It's so light! It's so squishy! I am not normally a lace person. It's futzy and I can't imagine wearing a shawl so I've stayed away from it in the past. But this? This is Malabrigo, so I'll make an exception! These colors screamed spring to me.


I found two very pretty lace scarf patterns online. One is the Easy Flame Scarf by Wendy of Knit and Tonic. The other is a free Ravelry download. Leaf Lace Scarf by Janet D. Russell.

Finally I had an Oh shit moment.
These are the first pair of STR I knit, Sauvie Island
I swear this physically hurt me. *sniff* It must have been picked on something. Luckily the hole is just in the toe color and I have the left overs. I need to pick out the toe and reknit it, so it could have been worse!
I know socks are knit to be worn and all will eventually wear out, but it really sucks!

Currently we are holed up in our house waiting out the Winter Storm from Hell (tm). We are projected to get 14 inches when all is said and done...whenever THAT is. (June?)