October.

 Yay! An update! I keep meaning to do this and meaning to do this but it never seems to happen. Grrr! I lost a bit of time there in September due to a vacation week and - even more importantly - a BRAND NEW COMPUTER. I am no longer computing like it's 2006, people! 

My old computer actually wasn't in terrible shape, aside from being nervous of a hardware meltdown happening at any time because, you know, that stuff wasn't built to last forever and 7-8 years is asking a bit much of it. *ahem* The bigger issue was that more and more things weren't working with Windows Vista now that it's no longer supported so, rather than upgrade an old computer, we just got a new one! (A Windows 7 machine though because, MAN!, have I heard horrible no good things about Windows 8.) I was dreading moving everything over but apparently things have changed a LOT since I last bought one of these dang machines and it was actually pretty easy. *blink*

ANYWAY. I'm in a good mood today (mostly) because tomorrow is the Stitches East show and I looooooooooooooooooovveeeeeeeeeeeee the Stitches East show. And now it's here and I'm excited, even though I haven't been knitting much lately. I did so much knitting over the summer that I decided to take a break from it for a little while and get more stitching done. 

Turns out when you work on stitching a little bit each day (or most days) you actually FINISH THINGS UP. I know, right? It's miraculous.

These finishes here are the L*K Song of Spring kit , the rabbity 'small' that comes with that and the 2nd part of the BBD Honeybee Hill. (I haven't had occasion to use that sparkly green linen before and I quite like it here with Mr. Rabbit. )

I finished another piece as well but that may/may not be a gift so I don't want to post it and I have a big Plum Street piece 'in progress' that I am plugging along on. I can't go to the SE show without something on the needles though so stitching progress might be halted for a bit while I get my sock knitting on. :)

Relatedly, that new iPhone x-stitch app making the rounds is quite brilliant. An online/device accessible detailed accounting of everything in your stash?  YOU KNOW I had to snap that up immediately because I *LOVE* a good spreadsheeting, organizing, finger snapping, alphabetizing project. 

I went through pretty much everything I have pattern wise, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap and.......

Honestly, it's not AS BAD as I thought it was going to be! Of the 315 patterns I own, about 75-80 have already been stitched. Now, that is still more than I can probably REALISTICALLY finish in the years I have left to me (or have left in my eyesight/hand dexterity). And it doesn't take into account that I own 14 years of the JCS ornament issues which, well, have a lot of stuff in them. But. It's STILL not as bad as I thought. I would have guessed I had no less than 500 patterns to get to, so, yay? Buy more? ;)

(Also not counted: the patterns I have given away over the years. I gave away a GIANT stack of used Shepherd's Bush/misc. patterns at some point, a fact I am a little bitter about, to be honest, because REASONS. Things did not turn out well on that one. *sigh*)

After the patterns were done, I did my hand dyed threads but not my DMC. (Because I own ALL OF IT so I don't need a stinking list for that. ) All of the info is in that mysterious Cloud thingy now  and I can open it up on my phone or Mini so I have NO EXCUSES not to keep up on it. The app is really great and I wholeheartedly recommend it for anyone with Apple devices and a wish to have an easily searchable database of their stash.

OH well. I probably had a million other things to say but this will do for now, right? :)

BTW - those little guys at the top are the new Mummy beads I posted on Etsy/my site this week. Cuties! :)

New Hobby.

But not for me! For the hubby. :)

Last week we made the (2hr) trip up to Northhampton, Masschusetts to the much-loved and always-awesome WEBS yarn store so he could take a 2 day class in......

WEAVING. Specifically weaving on a Rigid Heddle loom. 

He's always wanted to try it out and the basic class they offer is a good way to figure out if you like it or not. They provide the loom and most materials to take the class and a Rigid Heddle isn't too expensive an investment, as far as looms go, if you decide you want to continue on with it. (Very easy to store as well because it folds in half!)

Northampton is a college-y New England town and we were blessed with the most glorious fall weather while we were up there so I got to spend a lot of time walking around town, enjoying the fall weather and colors while he is in class. The Yarn Harlot was teaching classes all day there at the same time so I even got to bump into her - in the doorway of the restroom at WEBS. Because OF COURSE that is where I would literally bump into her. No nice conversation over yarn for me, just HEY LOOK........bathroom?

I didn't spend too much time in WEBS myself  but the time I did spend there was pretty neat - as far as customer watching. I never get tired of seeing what projects/yarn people are hunting for. :) They had 3-4 registers going, almost the entire time I was there, which is pretty nuts for a YARN STORE, you know? SUCH a busy place! I love it. The Freia yarn above is the only yarn I bought while I was there so I WAS REALLY GOOD, too, as far as that goes!! :)

Anyhoo. I hope he sticks with it...........I have dreams of woven cotton dishcloths and plaid scarves..and lots of stuff for ME *fingers crossed* Wait. No, no, no, I mean I hope he's happy and has fun with it. That's what I meant. *ahem*

This brown scarf is the first thing he worked on at home, made out of, I have to say, TRULY TERRIBLE yarn. Yarn I should have thrown out long ago but the colors are pretty so I never got around to it. (I did a pair of socks in another colorway in this stuff and had to THROW THEM OUT after *one* wearing because the yarn was THAT felty and awful to wear.) It looks great but I'm still throwing major shade and side eye at it because I just know that sucker is going to felt if worn out in wet or snowy weather. :(

Oh well. If it felts, it felts. He needs to do a bunch of basic scarves to work on his tension and stuff anyway. I'm always happy to share my yarn stash, too. Maybe not ALL of my yarn because I have a few favs that are too near-and-dear - but MOST of my yarn is up for grabs at any rate. It is an interesting thing, weaving. I could see me doing it but you can only have so many hobbies so I'll leave this one all to him. :)

I've been busy busy with bead orders lately but I've been TRYING to squeeze out a little time here and there to do a few new things as well. To that end, I've uploaded some new stuff over the last few days:

Fingers are totally frozen now putting this post together. Whew. Need to go do dishes or something to warm them up!! :) :)

Not gonna lie.

I kinda hate July a little so far. It's the weather. Ugh.

Too hot and WAY too humid to do anything fun outside. Or anything outside really. (You could swim.......but I don't have a pool.) I've been reading a lot lately. Which is good for working through the stacks of books (both paper and digital) that I have. But man, I hate humid. It turns me into a whiny princess. :(

Way back a couple weeks ago, before the dew point parked it's ass in the 70-75 degree range and refused to budge, I did manage to finish a couple projects.

Cookie A - Jubilee pattern

Yay! Socks! Only my second pair this year. NUTS. I am seriously lacking in sockitude this year because of my tendonitis issues. They are..........a little weird? They look massively big but fit pretty okay. Probably too thick to wear with lace up shoes but, as luck would have it, I tend to wear clogs more often than not in the winter around the house. (I contemplated doing the smaller pattern size but the gauge was telling me they would have been too small then so I didn't even bother to try it.) Cheetos-colored socks aren't for everyone though, obviously, so these I'm definitely keeping for myself. :)

That's it for me with knitting though until the weather changes. I started a scarf but it's too too too sticky draping over your legs, etc. to work on it right now.

Also finished, little L*K strawberry sampler that's......also a little weird? I had almost none of the hand-dyed threads it called for and the DMC conversions provided were........less than stellar. I'm not 100% on some of the colors, as far as them all working together, but, you know - it is just a little sampler. No sense in driving yourself mad over it either.

Do you know how hard it is to find collectables that have LIGHT-colored Himalayans in them? IMPOSSIBLE. Everything is done up with the darker Seal and Chocolate point Himalayans.  *pout* 

So I was SUPER stoked to find this original watercolor on Etsy with a Blue point kitty, just like my Mooshie. OH HELLO, I MUST HAVE YOU.  (The seller is Amble and Sing. SUPER cute stuff!) It's just about the most perfect thing EVERrrrRRrrrrr. *ahem* I put one of his favorite 'glitter' balls he loved to fetch with  it and I just love it. Makes me smile every time I pass it in the hall. :)

I'm really over how quiet the house is too. I had tuna fish for lunch yesterday - alone.
By myself. Do you know how sad that is? No one cared. No one came to sit with me. No one begged for a treat. It tasted like salty tears and disappointment. 

To remedy that, expect a can of whoop ass to be unleashed around these parts around mid-August. Hopefully. *fingers crossed*

New new new.

Firstly, I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. :)

I'm not a mother but I didn't want to feel left out so I made myself a nice home-cooked 'mother's day breakfast'. lol (It was YUMMY too!) And then I was busy for the rest of the afternoon doing lots and lots of housework and food shopping. Hmph. (That part wasn't as fun.) The weather was just PERFECT perfect perfect though and I did manage to enjoy a bit of it out on the deck, doing my nails and chillaxing with a book.

I also finished a new stitchy!

This was the Shepherd's Bush kit that came out a couple months ago. Quick stitch and even quicker to finish. I went digging in my fabric stash and, shockingly, found something that closely matched the chenille trim that came with the kit. (Shocking because I don't have too many fabrics in the purple-mauve-plum tones in my stash.)

Not too cool? The chenille trim didn't fit the piece. 

!@#$!@#!@#$!@#!@#!@#

Disappointing because the kit instructions call for cutting the square to 8 inches and I actually cut it to 6 - so by my reasoning I should have had EXTRA trim, not fallen an inch short of it. Grrrr.

The gap is on the bottom so it's not really noticeable but it's going to bother me knowing...it's...there...mocking....me. I'm going to email them and see if they can send me out another piece. If they don't have any extras, I'll hit up the lovely Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe for some other chenille trim. I'll get 'er done one way or the other. :)

Also new, some new beads are up on the shoppe pages and Etsy:

(Plus others.)

I also spent a little time redoing the front page of my web site. Always good to spruce things up once and again. I get bored with it so I have to think OTHER people get bored with it too. lol

There's more work to be done to it, I think, but I'm done with it for the moment while I think on it. I'm no pro when it comes to html and style sheets and blah blah blah geekspeak so I have to move carefully and slowly and to get where I want to go and my brain is melted after this first go round.

Yay!

 I got the tree up this year before Christmas Eve! A WEEK AND HALF before Christmas Eve, to be exact. I'm so proud of myself. *pats self* 

I'm not going to bother to try and take a 'picturesque' photo of it though because it's impossible. Large sunny window + killer huge tv that can be seen from space on one side = no good angles for proper photo taking. Plus, I'm not dedicated enough to have a theme tree so I'm not sure how photo worthy it is anyway. I pick up a few ornaments every year to add to the mess, take out a few as the years go on...........it's a mix of everything and nothing but I wouldn't have it any other way. lol

Here a few new ones for this year:

How cute is this? I got this off of an Etsy seller. Looks just like the  hubby in his moon suit bee keeper suit! Super adorbs!

Simple ones from Target but I love their knitty-ness. They look/feel like they were fashioned out of old Fair Isle sweaters or something. Now THAT I can get behind.

And here are my kitties, in clay form. Robyn did a post last week showcasing a whole bunch of crafty kitty ornaments made for her by people and it made me pouty not to have any crafty kitties too so I found a bunch on Etsy and................good god I don't have $15 each to spend on crafty kitties on Etsy! They are lovely but no. Sorry. I'll have to plan for that during the year, one at a time. So when I was at Michael's last week for something else, I hit up the clay aisle and got some supplies to make up my own gang of kitties. For less than $15, I made up a Meisha, Mooshie, and Maggie kitty plus something else that can't be shown because it's a gift. :)

Meisha says: Uhhhh, like, my nose isn't pink though? 

Me: Sorry, bbs. I didn't buy any black so pink had to do. 

Meisha: Pfffftt!

Of course, now I have all this leftover clay because I only used up the ivory pack. What to do with it?!? lol My 'career' as a clay artist (sooooooooooooo kidding!!!) was short-lived because rolling out the clay balls DECIMATED my hands. My middle knuckle, palm side, was inflamed and owie for two days afterwards. No more clay crafts for me. It's now DAYS later and my inner palms, where the joints are, are STILL a little hurty if I press on it. :(

It's always fun to bring on the cross-stitch ornaments too, here are two are my favs, a JCS ornie and a L*K one:

I have so so so so many less than I would like to have though. I totally, miserably, horrendously FAILED on that front this year. Need to rethink crafty goals for next year. Hmm.........

And finally, look at this super great birthday gift that Cookie A. sent me. A loverly skein of cashmere infused yarn and an organic cotton sock drawstring bag. So very very thoughtful of her to think me of like that when she's so busy flitting around the world doing super-important knitting things and..............OK so this is really just the last installment of the 2011 Sock Club......that was sent out to hundreds of people, not just me. A girl can have her delusions, right? :)

It's the Halloween apocalypse.

Lots and lots...

and lots and lots

(and lots)

of Halloween stuff is now posted.

I still have to tweak a few items here and there but that's pretty much all of it. *falls over dead*

It's been a VERY busy couple of days trying to get all that up. :)

Beady Lovelies

Look at this nice pendant from Donna Goodman of The Finishing Touch, that uses one of my starfish beads:

 Beach Daze Pendant

And here are the matching earrings:

Beach Daze Earrings

I'm a big fan of Swarovski crystals. Big big fan. I love 'em to bits and love 'em even more when they are clustered up like this. Thanks so much for sharing the pics, Donna! I love seeing what people do with my stuff. You guys come up with the best stuff ever. :)

New Year, new beads!

Go me for starting the year off with at least a stab at productivity after taking a few weeks off. (I figure this kind of thing can only last about a month before I lose steam though. I mean new beads, new Etsy *and* a giveaway all in one fell swoop? Mark the date because it may never happen again. lol)

I've got a few new things up in the Bead Shoppe (though, admittedly, not as many as I hoped but there is always next week):

 

I also had a good time sorting through my bead box to come up with some sets to offer up at huge discounts. (And I do mean HUGE.) I put them all up on Etsy because these are all 'one offs' i.e. no redos on these. (And, as always, I will combine the shipping if you have more than one order. One shipping charge covers everything!)

Etsy Buy Handmade moonrakerbeads

And something new for this month - a GIVEAWAY. Because we all like free stuff. Spend $35 or more over the course of the entire month and you will be entered into a free giveaway for this little set:

No need to keep track of anything or send me an email on it, etc. I'll tally everything up on the 1st of February and contact you by your Paypal email to let you know you won. (International customers are also included!)