New-ish Work

I've posted pictures of these on facebook and I'm finally ready to talk more in depth about these little guys.

I keep a notepad beside the bed for a good reason. Many nights, as I'm falling asleep, an image will pop into my mind. Something new to try and make when my brain and fingers are awake. I always try to jot these ideas down. Lots of times, I wake up in the morning and find that my notes make no sense to me or my brilliant idea isn't going to work for one reason or another, but sometimes it actually becomes something great.

My first attempts to make this butterfly pattern work resulted in the usual pile of twisted discarded thread. The basic idea was sound, though, and eventually I made a wing. I held a mirror up next to it to see just where to join the second half and finished the first one. I loved the way it looked, but it was turning on itself rather violently so I had to block it aggressively.

Pinned out you can see the butterfly starting to take shape. I left it on the blocking board until it dried and then added a layer of stiffener to make sure it maintained that shape and voila! A butterfly:

I made a two for a special order and they turned out beautifully. One had a body made of split rings stitched down the center and I attatched a cameo to the center of another.

This pattern is an excellent lesson in the importance of blocking. I don't have any pictures of the butterfly before I blocked it because it really did just look like a twisted mess. The first one is going to get pasted into my tatting journal so I won't forget this pattern. Hopefully, there will be a few in my shop soon :)

New Earring Designs

I know, I know, I've been neglecting my blog again. I can't help it. Writing patterns up in my tatting journal, filling orders, facebook, there are just too many distractions these days. But here I am to show off some new earring designs. So, while I've been off neglecting the handful of people actually interesting in reading about my life and projects, this is what I've been doing:

Shamrock Earrings

Bell Earrings

Captured Rain Earrings

Those are the new patterns I've added to my repertoire. Enjoy and take a moment to see some of the one of a kind items also in my shop.

Grumble, grumble, pattern, grumble

All right, I would just like to state for the record that the fact you can't copy from Word, Works, or Notepad and paste into Blogger is frickin stupid, annoying and useless!

Okay, got that off my chest. I'll feel a little better still after pouting and complaining about it for the next week and a half, but what can you do? So, because I love this pattern so much and want to share the love, I'm going to type this pattern out again. Now please go to my shop and buy something so I can tell that you all love me for doing this ;)

Old is New Again Shawl(ette)

I made my shawl with lace weight yarn and an F hook. Pretty sure it would work with other yarns/hook sizes and plan to experiment to that end myself. I'm not giving a gauge because, frankly, I'm too lazy to go measure it on the finished shawl or work up a swatch. Play around with it until you get something you like.

This pattern is an adapted version of shawl 7b in Beehive Knitting Booklets No. 9, A Practical Guide to Knitting and Crochet c. 1915. It has been tweaked to no longer be a full circle and written more simply.

Special Stitches:

Dc cluster: yo, pull up a loop in st indicated, yo, pull through first two loops, yo, draw up a loop in same st, yo, pull through first two loops, yo, and pull through all loops on hook. Counts as one st.

Beg dc cluster: ch 2, dc in same st. Counts as one st.


Ch 4, join with sl st to form ring.

Row 1: Ch 4 (counts as first dc and ch 1 now and throughout) (dc, ch 1) five times in ring, dc in ring. 7 dc with ch-1 spaces between.

Row 2: Ch 4, (dc, ch 1, dc, ch 1) in each ch-1 space across, dc in last st.

Row 3: Beg dc cluster, ch 1, * dc in next ch-1 space, ch 1, (dc cluster, ch 1) twice in next ch-1 space, ch 1. Repeat from * across, dc cluster in last st.

Row 4: Beg dc cluster, ch 1 *(dc in next ch-1 space, ch 1) twice, (dc cluster, ch 1) twice in next space. Repeat from * across, dc cluster in last st.

Repeat in this manner with one additional dc being worked between clusters in each row until there are 22 dc between clusteres. Begin edging.

Row 1: Beg dc cluster, ch 1, *skip next ch-1 space, [(dc, ch 1) twice in next space, skip next ch-1 space] twice, (dc cluster, ch 1) twice in next space. Repeat from * across, dc cluster in last st.

Row 2: Beg dc cluster, ch 1, *skip next ch-1 space, (dc, ch 1) in next two spaces, (dc, ch 1) four times in next space, (dc, ch 1) in next two spaces, skip next space, (dc cluster, ch 1) twice in next space. Repeat from * acrooss, dc cluster in last st.

Row 3: Beg dc cluster, ch 1, * skip next two ch-1 spaces, (dc, ch 1) in next two spaces, (dc, ch 1) four times in next space, (dc, ch 1) in next two spaces, skip next two spaces, (dc cluster, ch 1) twice in next space. Repeat from * across, dc cluster in last st.

Row 4: Beg dc cluster, ch 1, *skip next two ch-1 spaces, (dc, ch 1) in next two spaces, (dc, ch 1) six times in next space, (dc, ch 1) in next two spaces, skip next two spaces, (dc cluster, ch 1) twice in next space. Repeat from * across, dc cluster in last st.

rows 5-7: Beg dc cluster, ch 1, *skip next two ch-1 spaces, (dc, ch 1) in next three spaces, (dc, ch 1) four times in next space, (dc, ch 1) in next three spaces, skip next two spaces, (dc cluster, ch 1) twice in next space. Repeat from * acrosss, dc cluster in last st.

Row 8: Beg dc cluster, ch 1, * skip next two ch-1 spaces, (dc, ch 1) in next three spaces, (dc, ch 1) six times in next space, (dc, ch 1) in next three spaces, skip next two spaces, (dc cluster, ch 1) twice in next space. Repeat from * across, dc cluster in last st.

Rows 9-12: Beg dc cluster, ch 1 *skip next two ch-1 spaces, (dc, ch 1) in next four spaces, (dc, ch 1) four times in next space, (dc, ch 1) in next four spaces, skip next two spaces, (dc cluster, ch 1) twice in next space. Repeat from * across, dc cluster in last st.

Finish off, or continue in this manner for desired length. I did a row of beg dc clusters along the bottom to add little scallops before I finished off. Weave in ends and enjoy!

Happy stitching!

A better look

Ta-da! Finally good pictures! And it's even listed on etsy, I was productive today :) Rolling River Shawlette

I'll post the pattern as soon as I can figure out how to copy it from Works and post it here. It's not letting me for some reason and after taking half an hour to type it out in the first place, I really don't want to have to start all over again.

From the depths of time

I'm not scared of lace. Not at all. I mean, I tat, right?

Okay, I'm a little scared of lace. I can knit and crochet lace stitches like there's no tomorrow, as long as it's with nice safe worsted weight. My knitted lace never looks like the pictures and my thread crochet always buckles and ripples on me.

I've had some lovely lace weight yarn in my stash for ages. Every once in a while, I pull it out, fondle it, try a few stitches, cock my head from side to side, decide it looks like crap, pull it out and stuff it back in my stash again. Yeah, I'm a little scared of lace.

I finally decided to suck it up. It's time to work my way through my stash and put some new things in my shop. I just had to figure out what to do with the yarn. Lots and lots of false starts later, I landed on the perfect thing.

I knew from the start, I wanted it to be a shawl. Knitting seemed to be out of the question until I can learn more about patience and probably try blocking some of my swatches. (There, I admitted it, I don't tend to block things unless I absolutely have to.) I searched through all the books I've downloaded from antiquepatternlibrary.org and finally found something that looked simple enough to play with.

It was a circular shawl and I don't really like having to fold a great big circle over to drape it around my shoulders. I worked several rounds of the pattern as written until I figured out where to basically cut out a piece of the shawl pie. I did the foundation as written, and the edging as written, adding a few additional rows until it felt like the perfect length. And Ta-da!

I just love the way this turned out! The picture is awful, but I had to take it in my bathroom because it was raining all day yesterday. Better pictures coming soon and probably my version of the pattern. Stay tuned for that.

I'm working on another one in a solid color yarn that will be bigger. This first one is the perfect size for keeping the chill off your shoulders, but I want to see if I can make a larger one that will look as good. We shall see.

My Own Little Time Machine

I sent out a plea to everyone I know who knits or crochets for scrap yarn for my afghan project. How's that going, you ask? Well, I'm still working at it. NaNoWriMo is taking a lot of my focus away along with all sorts of various other tasks and distractions, but I'm still plodding along. The reason I bring it up is that my wonderful aunt sent me a box full of yarn and a few other surprises. The best surprise was one of my grandmother's cookbooks.

I'm not talking about my grandmother's copy of The Joy of Cooking or any other sort of published tome. This cookbook is essentially a scrapbook. It's full of scraps of paper, recipe cards, and even typing paper wedged, glued, and hole-punched in place. It's simply amazing. The book is more than just a collection of recipes, it is a scrapbook. It is a glimpse into my grandmother's life.

It helps that my grandmother was a librarian. Being a librarian, or in my case raised by librarians, gives one an overwhelming urge to cite every source, it seems. Noted with almost every recipe whether typed, handwritten, photocopied, or clipped from a newspaper is a little notation of where it came from. It's a time capsule.

There's one recipe hand-written by one my grandmother's students from her time teaching fourth grade. There's a basic bread recipe and numerous variations on it from when my grandmother learned to bake bread during "WWII (the big one)." A handful of recipes are from my great-grandmother, who I never got a chance to know. Just being able to look at all these scraps of paper covered in my grandmother's handwriting is rewarding.

I think one of the absolute best things is that I can now share recipes with my husband that I grew up eating. There are tons of recipes I remember loving, and even more I can't wait to try. If I'm really lucky, going based on the ingredients underlined in the dozen or so spaghetti sauce recipes in the book, I may be able to cook up something close to the amazing spaghetti sauce that neither my mother nor grandmother got a chance to teach me to make.

A Cord, a Cord, My Kingdom for a Cord!

Over the past month and a half or so I have been having a standoff with my laptop about power issues. I have come to a simple conclusion. The laptop hates me. Laptop cords hate me even more.

Because I am a very impatient person, I wanted a fast laptop. Because I am dreadfully addicted to World of Warcraft, I wanted a gaming computer. I have a lovely ASUS laptop. It has a huge display to show me all the pretty little pixels WoW has to offer. It's almost fast enough to please me. I'm sure that the computer actually fast enough to please me has yet to be invented.

There is a very big downfall to having a laptop with a large display and powerful video card: it eats power. After about six months of having a wonderful relationship with this powerful machine, disaster struck. The light on the power pack of the cord gave a sad little flicker and went out. I was running on battery.

The little card that displays the information about the computer at the electronics store we purchased it from (let's call them Preeminent Purchase) said that the computer had 3 hours of battery power. After some tears and a few nasty words aimed at the cord, I took a deep breath and realized that I has three hours to use the computer and find a solution. The first thing I looked at when I turned the computer on was the battery power indicator. My dreams slipped away as it proclaimed I have 1 hour of battery life. 1/3 of the amount I was promised by smiling salespeople at Preeminent Purchase. A fresh wave of tears and I shoved the laptop at the confused hubby and sent him out to Preeminent Purchase to see what they have to say about it.

Guess what they said. "Your cord is dead." Thanks, guys. I feel so much better knowing that I'm not just stupid. "Well, we can give you this $100 'universal' cord if you can find your receipt." Back home the hubby races to find the receipt.

Guess what happens next. No receipt. This laptop is a replacement to one we bought about a year and a half ago. We paid the difference between the gift card they gave us to refund the purchase price of the other one that died while still under warranty. We have the receipt for the original laptop and the packaging for the gift card. Did we save the receipt for the amount paid for the price difference? No. Can't they just look it up? No. We paid with cash from Christmas. Great.

The hubby searches on line and finds a suitable replacement. It says it will work with our model of laptop and it's only $10! We laugh in the face of Preeminent Purchase and their $100 cord. Thank you, electronics gods for bestowing this bounty on us.

The cord arrives and there is much rejoicing! Yay!

After about two weeks, the cord begins to have issues. It will still slowly refill the battery, but cannot supply power to the laptop during operation. This displeases me as it brings an end to my ability to play WoW on this computer. The hubby does some research.

Of course the new cord died. It's only a 90 watt cord. This powerful, energy eating machine requires 150 watts to satiate it. So . . . another cord is ordered. Almost $40 this time. With the hubby out of work, waiting on a class action suit before he can even get unemployment benefits (long story and I thought this one was rather short when I began, so we'll save that for another time) and us therefore surviving on my disability payments and etsy sales, this is bad for our lack of budget.

That was about a month ago. The new new cord, just a few minutes ago decided it hates me too. It will not cooperate and run this beast of a machine. I am displeased to say the least. Oh, I should also mention that the $100 "universal" cord that Preeminent Purchase wanted to sell us, as it is the only cord they carry, is also only 90 watts. Very glad that at least we didn't waste our money on that.

I'd like to tell you the moral of the story, but I don't know what it is yet. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.