Well that week FLEW by! Always the worst part of taking a week off - the CATCHING UP you have to do when you get back to real life.  

SOMEONE had a 17th birthday the other day. (Hint: it wasn't me.)

Thanks so much for the kind comments about my poor boo-boo kitty. He perked up a bit mid-week and seems mostly back to normal now, or at least his 'normal'. As his brain started healing though the 'must eat everything sight' switch got turned off again and I'm now back to trying to coax him into eating all day. He really, really, really hates the kidney diet prescription food. Like, really hates it. What's the point of food to extend his life a little if he's going to starve to death in the meantime? I keep trying to stick with it (and have for over a year) but at this point I think we have to concede that we are both terrible at sticking to a diet. I can't blame him for being happy with bits of ham or cheese. Aren't we all?

Anyhoo, I'm trying to catch up on photos, photos, photos. I keep taking photos of things but then never posting them. Grrr. I actually did manage to finish a few things on break, that I was very glad to get finished and off to the great Finish Bin in the sky, I mean my closet.

 God I really don't like these socks. I started them in January and JUST finished them, so that right there tells you how disinterested I was in them. I took a skein of yarn I really didn't care for (too thin and splitty) and paired it with a slip stitch pattern that I also didn't care for (because it's a TERRIBLE CHOICE FOR A SPLITTY YARN) and GUESS WHAT? They were a miserable knit from start to finish and I will forever be shocked AND awed that I finished them. (In my defense though I picked that pattern because it helped alleviate the thinness of the yarn. It creates an almost woven fabric that adds bulk.)

 Also finished: the bonus charts from the L*K mystery sampler that I started last summer. Very much not miserable to finish and I'm glad I finally got to it because these are cute and I love Halloween stitchies. :)

 And a bunch of totally unphotogenic Scrap Yarn Blanket of Doom squares. I needed something mindless and quick to start/finish to clear my head of the oogie-boogies from the stupid socks. Blanket square I can finish in 90 minutes? YES PLEASE. I think I'm up to 8 new squares now to add to this never ending, not even CLOSE TO BEING FINISHED project because I'm still having fun doing up new ones. Once I get a bunch, like a dozen, I'll wash and block them so they look pretty and totally not like wadded up Kleenex. :)

To 'reward' myself for finishing a stitchy wip I did up a brand-spanky new-to-me small one. I randomly picked colors for this Val's Stuff freebie and think it came out pretty good. (Though I curse you Belfast green linen for always being IMPOSSIBLE to photograph nicely. What is it with this color??? So pretty in person SO HORRIBLE ON THE INTERNETS.) Could use some more contrast in the nose but I can live with it. Original pattern doesn't chart a flower or bunny tail but it's pretty easy to put them in. (Can't have a bunny without a TAIL?!?)

Now that that is done I reached into the nether regions of my wip stack (also known as my storage ottoman in the living room where things go to die a lonely death) and pulled out another wip to tackle. Oh, how optimistic I was when I happily stitched in the year 2012 on this!!! Twice. *face palm* Oh well. 2012, 2013. Isn't time just an illusion anyway? How can be sure that ANY sampler with a date stitched in is correct, right? So I'm keeping the 2012. And don't be thinking I'm almost done with this because there is whole other section of frames that go on the bottom of this. I originally abandoned this because - SURPRISE SURPRISE - I made a little boo-boo with the border and one of those borders is off a little. And ripping out black floss is miserable so I put it in time out. I think I'm mostly over it now though. Aside from talking about my failure on the internets, of course. lol

Whew. Now I'm all caught up I think, aside from adding these to my project pages. Yay!! :)

Oh happy happy weekend!

And it's nice and SUPER sunny too, which is ALWAYS a mood booster this time of year. :)

 Hard at work this week on adding little goodies on the site/Etsy for Valentine's and spring. Ahhhh, spring! It won't hit here until May but one gets tired of working on nothing but snowmen after awhile. (Still no snow here though. Haven't had a single flake since Halloween, which is totally crazy! I really don't remember if we've ever had a winter with NO snow before?!?)

Also: finished my 'Christmas' hat this week. Yay!!! Another WIP killed, only one left to tackle now. Nothing like being two three weeks late and stuff with the christmas knits, eh? But it's just for the hubs so he can deal.*snort* 

(He *did* get a pair of mittens and socks that made into his stocking for Xmas so I wasn't TOTALLY off the ball here.)

The pattern is called Snowbird (check Ravelry for links) that I purchased from the Stitches East show in 2010. It's pretty funny looking when you are wearing it, to be honest, but this is the same man who goes around the yard in a humongous rabbit fur hat - complete with ear flaps - when shoveling, etc. so at least nothing DIED for this one. :(

Of course, I find ALL winter hats slightly ridiculous in a vague, make-me-chuckle type of way, so it might just be me.

He wanted to have something he could wear to work so I did it in the color palate of his uniforms/work clothing - though he still can't actually be caught wearing it on work grounds, they're so so so so picky about such things. *sigh*  He'll have to save it for when he is working away from work - if that makes sense - but that comprises 98% of his work day so it's all good. The double layer of wool will be nice and toasty for working outdoors all day. :)

The only change I made was to make the inside brim in the same wool (Cascade Superwash) as the rest of the hat instead of doing it in cotton like the pattern suggested. Hates knitting with cotton. Hates it. *shudder*

I'm getting a little tired of doing nothing but colorwork project after project after project but I still have a pair of colorwork mittens that needs some thumbs so once more into the breach....................After that is done though I'm digging into some serious STITCHING. I WILL FINISH SOME ORNAMENTS THIS YEAR. WILL. I WILL. I WILL.

Hope everyone has a nice weekend!!!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

That Maru is a cutie, isn't he? I LOVE that blog.

I have a few cuties of my own too though. :)

Maggie. Taking advantage of an empty tin on the stove. So cute but......*sigh*. Her 'new' thing is sleeping on the stove, which is sure to be completely disasterous at some point, of course, when she jumps up there when the cook top is still hot. :(

Yelling at her is useless because she's deaf. All I've got in my wheelhouse re: bad behavior is pantomiming anger with finger pointing and Angry Face and stomping my foot on the floor. Needless to say, she laughs in the face of my acting skills. lol

(Let's not pay TOO much attention though to why I have an empty 3lb.+ shortbread tin BEFORE Christmas has even hit, ok? December is for cooking NOM NOM NOMs. lol)

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!!!!! We're on the way out the door to go catch a movie after a busy day. I'm bringing along some knitting for the car ride (an hour each way.......gotta love living in the sticks!) because I STILL have not finished my Xmas knitting. lol  Nothing like last minute clickety clack clack clack knit knit knit knit!

My brand spanky new knitting bag from Ravelry. Adorable!!

Can't show what I've been working on until I pass them on but here's a peek of some of it:

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? :)

Random Tuesday.

 Nothing to see here...

Clearance Felici striped yarn from Knitpicks.

 *cough*cough*cough*

I, like, needed the darning egg though. 

That big 'for me' Black Friday purchase?

 

(Not my house.)

An official Ass Kicking Machine aka rower. 

I loves me some exercise machines, man! ESPECIALLY ones that fold up, like this one, AND it was on lightening deal for cheap-cheap. He joins the line up along with my skier, treadmill and Pilates reformer. (Though I'm mostly off that last one so I think it's on it's way out.) I always loved the rowing machines the most a long, long time ago when I had a gym membership. (A long, looooooooong time ago.) Not sure why but I did. It's kinda fun and it kinda kicks your ass without you realizing it. lol You use it and get a little out of breath but feel fine otherwise.........until you try to stand up and realize you don't have LEGS THAT WORK ANYMORE. Haha! It sneaks up and POW! You're dead. Maximum work out for minimum amount of time = appeals to my ultra-lazy self. I'll take that over walking on the treadmill for an hour. :)

 I was seriously behind on blog reading but have been trying to catch up the last couple days. I'm tackling it in blocks of ten posts at a time. lol 

You can't say I'm not a dedicated follower/commenter! :) 

If I missed your blog or you want me to follow your blog, just drop me a note!

Last week, in a word was... (+ lots of pics)

HOR. RIB. BLE.

The Horrible Sinus Sickness finally caught up with me. Like it does, every_single_fall. Every single one! It was getting kind of late in the season for it so I thought, fingers crossed, I had managed to not attract him this year. Uh, not so much with that. *cough*snot*hack*aches*death*

 (Plus some terribleness with my totally broken girl parts but we won't go there. Let's just say......bad timing. REALLY bad timing on that.)

Did that stop me from being terribly busy with work? Nope. Da beads get made no matter how bad I feel. Such are the 'perks' of working for yourself. You work every single day, no matter how deadified you are. lol

So knitting or anything else fun, not a bit.

Beads? LOTS AND LOTS.

OMG SO MANY NEW THINGS TO SHARE.

Mostly Christmas/holiday stuff. 

A welcome change from all the Halloween stuff I've done the last few months. New color palette, new blank stare characters.

That's not even 1/5th of the new stuff I've churned out lately. The rest can be peeked at here. WHEW! 

And that's not even getting into the special order stuff like...........

SQUIRRELS.

How cute is this squirrel party??

I think I'll go lie down now and rest a bit. *cough*

New beads and a new GIVEAWAY.

First things first, I posted a few new things up today including a couple 'new baby' sets. 

Is a 6 toed footprint bead weird? I think it is but I couldn't squeeze 10 toes on a 15mm lentil very neatly. Or consistently. (AND I have to do it on both sides of the bead!) So I took a little creative license and went with the more aesthetically-pleasing-and-easier-to-make-but-clearly-alien-baby route of 6 toes. Alien babies for the win.

Now on to the giveaway part.......

I have a bigger and bigger pile of 'extra' beads growing on my work desk here and it's getting ridiculous (or has been ridiculous for a long time and is now becoming RE-DONK-U-LOUS) so I pulled together a big bag of them to giveaway to whoever wants them.

It seems so unassuming in bag form, doesn't it?

Oh, but when it spills out.....................hello beady glassy shiny goodness! These are extras, a couple are plain ole wonky but most are what I would call 'pretty good'. (There are 4-5 Fairies in here too! AND a sterling silver cored Pandora bead!!)

Don't feel you have to have a PURPOSE for them to enter the giveaway either. Out-and-out bead hoarders just for the sake of hoarding are always welcome. :)

The deets:

1. To enter the giveaway all you have to do is email me. ( I will ship it anywhere in the world so everyone is welcome to enter.)

2. If you are a follower of this blog, let me know and I will enter your name in twice. I do so appreciate my followers and the comments I get here so of course you guys get extra special attention. :)
(If you are not a follower but want to be, just click the 'follow' link on the right side bar. Everybody has a Google account at this point................right?)

3. I will draw the winner next MONDAY because it's summer and it will give more people a chance to enter. (I know we're not all on the computer 24/7 once the sun is shining.)

And that's it. Easy-peasy, right? :)
GOOD LUCK!

Tin Can Treats & New Beads

What are y'all doing for Mother's Day?

Me? I'm an almost 40-year old who still breaks out the arts-and-crafts projects for her mother. Heh. 

Nothing says Mother's Day like a glue stick and paper cutters!

Hence my 'tin can treats' for the holiday.

Idea/gift tag template from Our Best Bites.

All I needed was a couple sheets of paper and some ribbon in her favorite color. I only own one pair fancy-schmancy paper cutting scissors so that's why the tags are done in crazy 'alligator teeth' style. (The more astute among you will notice the return of The Buttons here. *cough*crazybuttonperson*cough*) Oh, and a couple cans of mandarin oranges were needed too, of course. (YUM!) They provided the tin can aspect of this, uh, tin can treat.

What's in the cans? It shouldn't be too hard to guess for one of them seeing as I'm an obsessive sock knitter with more pairs of socks in my finish box than I need and/or can use. ;)

Anyhoodoozle. I also put up a couple new bead things for July 4th, to match the RWB Fairy I already have up. Uncle Sam will be coming in a day or two once I get some photos of him!

Have a great weekend!!

New item.

You guys (gals?) have kept me so so busy lately (THX MUCHLY *MWAH*) that I haven't had much time to do new stuff these past few weeks but I did get this little guy done up yesterday:

Bee Mine.

I'm always looking to do things with a bee theme because my husband is a beekeeper (hobbyist) so this one is a keeper for sure. :)

Few new items up today in the Bead Shoppe.

Just filling in on holiday-themed requests that I've gotten from customers. My favorite is the round Mrs. Claus. She's a cutie! :)

You can get your own over here!

Bright Idea/Epic Fail #938383

In which I 'save money' by trying to find  something locally (to save on shipping, you know) and end up spending way more than I would have if I had just shopped the internets. /sigh

Case in point #1:
Just Cross Stitch October magazine (the one with the Halloween ornaments)
There are no local needlework shops within a hundred miles of here (slight exaggeration but anything over an hour away ceases to be 'local', yes?) so a' trekking we went to find it because I didn't want to spend $6 shipping on a $6 item. I didn't find that issue but I found the Xmas ornament preview one so that's good but we drove here (Michaels), there (quest for a craft store listed in Google but seemingly invisible to the naked eye in real life), and everywhere (Barnes & Noble, ding ding ding! winner!) for it, spending more in gas than the shipping would have cost? lol  And now we have to go back to Barnes & Noble for the issue I ACTUALLY wanted at some later date. *head slap*

Case in point #2:
Trek to the (yayyyy!) local yarn shop for a new circular needle because I didn't want to pay $4 shipping from Knitpicks on a $5 item. Shopping locally is good anyway, right? Sure it is. Until you go in for one circular and end up walking out with 1) a circular needle that cost twice as much as the Knitpicks one and 2) with 2 skeins of yarn. /sigh

I couldn't resist the sherbert-y colors of the Zino striping and the Malabrigo skein is something I already have ONE skein of, which is great for socks, but now with TWO skeins I can whip it up into a great big ole scarf (or shawl) instead. (And with a side-by-side comparison, they seem to match pretty well, which is lucky! If it didn't match up, I was just going to alternate skeins. There are no hard color changes in this colorway so I figured it would work out either way.)

Wallet: Empty
Me: Failed but happy because LOOK AT THE PRETTIES! WEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Ahhhh, my poor neglected lil blog. *pets*

Time does get away from you sometimes, doesn't it? I don't know where the days go lately. We did manage to make our annual trek this weekend to the Country Folk Art show in Sturbridge, MA, though, in the end, it was a tiny bit depressing.  :(

 We've (meaning *I* want to go and he gets dragged along, albeit in a very good natured way) been going to that show (or it's twin show in November) for at least 12-13 years in a row now and and the large majority of artisans are the same, year after year. This year, with the economy being the way it is, half (!!!!!!) the people were gone and the show was much smaller. It was a little painful to see. I don't buy a TON of stuff from the show but I always find something I really like or something I needed. (Depending, of course, on  your definition of *need*. lol) The year I wanted to get a hutch, I found a perfect one there. Made by ACTUAL PEOPLE. That you could talk to, person to person. Ditto for a three shelf vegetable bin and lots of other little decorative things. None of those people showed up this year. It was very disheartening. It wasn't all bad though. My beloved Sydney & Co. (no link) was there, so that was nice. They are a married couple who do nice primitive woodwork items, with very reasonable prices, that I've been buying here and there since forever. The company is named after a cat they used to own and each piece is marked with the stamp of a paw print somewhere on the back or bottom of the item. :)

I just happened to break my paper towel holder last week and I found a perfect one from them to replace it. And then I saw some clocks waaaaay up high (remember: I'm only 5 ft tall so EVERYTHING is 'way up high') and I got one of those too. I've been meaning to replace my mantel clock for a looooong time, to something a little nicer and something that matches a little better. This one fits just perfectly with everything up there and I love it. (The paper towel holder, a standing one, is very similiar, except the tree on that is more of a weeping willow.) I also got some new place mats for my dining room table from another long-time vendor and then a few wee Blossom Bucket figurines that I love dearly. I'M DOING MY PART, PEOPLES, TO PROP UP THE ECONOMY. Y'ALL GOTTA HELP OUT WITH IT. lol We don't always go to both shows every year but I've marked the November one off as a 'do' and hopefully things will be a wee bit better then? It's nice to think it will be so anyway. :)

I also have 'encouraged' the husband to work through his grief by shopping..........specifically for things for me. (This is all tongue in cheek, of course.) It's only natural and organic to want to buy things for others in such circumstances, right? ;^) To that end, he bought me a new purse when we went to the mall last week to see a movie. I saw these the last time I was there (and we're not mall people, really, so we're talking 3-4 times a year tops) and should have grabbed it then. I know not everyone loves stripes. In bold colors even.

 But is it any wonder I fell in love with this considering the many, many, MANY striped socks I have knit? Kinda a given, right? Hahaha. It's like a stripey sock.......FOR MY SHOULDER. ;)

(I do believe the "D&G" on the front is supposed to be a faux rendering of a Dolce & Gabbana? Any one??? I fail as a 'girl' on all sorts of levels, so my only exposure to 'fashionable' purses is from what's on the shelf at the local Target. lolol It was only $40 and it looks good and holds all mah crap so I'm happy.)