I've been a bit busy in the yard

Before:

After:

(not pictured: me collapsed in a heap on the couch afterwards)

No mermaids here

This year I decided to pull the mermaid costume listings from my etsy shop so that I could concentrate on training my intern on the finer points of ninja-costume-sewing:

She ran the accelerator, I steered.  And nobody ended up bleeding on the costume - bonus!

Did I mention I'm growing potatoes this year?

Okay, so my "potato condo" is actually a collapsible yard waste bin from Target, and about four bags of potting soil ...

Who cares?  I still grew potatoes!

Today is my daughter's first day of school, so I'm going to wait until she's home to harvest the rest.  I can't wait to see how many we got in that little container!

And speaking of little containers, did you know you can grow awesome carrots in a deep flower pot in your front yard, and nobody will ever know (until you harvest them)?

Trufax.

If I had a hammer (and a decent staple gun)

My craftiness has been channeled into our new patio room, where I have traded my knitting needles for a hammer and some panel adhesive ...

While I had the paint out for the paneling, I rehabbed a wooden bookshelf I pulled off of a trash pile last summer.  One coat of paint and a yard of fabric later, and voila! Instant happy bookcase!

Simplest fabric project ever.  Fabric, scissors, staple gun.  I didn't even measure it, just cut it to fit as I went.

This won't be the last thing I'm making for the room, so keep your eyes peeled for more projects soon!

Super stash-busting extravaganza

A few weeks ago I taught a beginning crochet class at River Colors, and my student caught onto things so quickly that we had time to get into some of the more advanced topics, like changing colors and making granny squares.  One of the projects I used as an example of how she could use these skills was the standard stash-buster blanket ... which I've never actually made.  It's been on my radar for a couple of years now, and the stash of leftover sock yarn has been growing and growing, but I could never decide on a pattern I liked enough to commit the time and energy to make.

But I was inspired by my student to give it a try, so I hauled out the jar of sock yarn scraps and started organizing them.  I like the look of a scrappy blanket ... as long as it's not too scrappy.  I want the colors to sort of flow into each other, not look like I made the thing in the dark while blindfolded.  Kind of hard when half of my yarn is boring husband/in-law yarn and the other half is whackadoo Lazy Mama/Kid yarn.

So far, so good!

Pass it on!

Took a class in block printing from Lizzie House while I was at Squam this year, and as soon as I got home I decided I needed to share my New Favorite Hobby with Lazy Kid.  She took to it like a duck to water:

She's six years old, and yes, that's a sharp linoleum knife she's using, and yes, I did spent like 20 minutes going through all the hideous things that would happen if her hands got anywhere near the sharp end of the blade.  I've got her trained to the point where all I have to do is whisper "hospital" and she stops what she's doing and moves her hands back to where they're supposed to be.

She's really good at removing the background stuff around the main design, but I do the detail work for her.  That keeps her fingers well back, and prevents the "oops, the knife slipped and I ruined my block" meltdown that would inevitably occur otherwise.  But she's got a good eye for design, so she draws 'em, I outline 'em, she carves out the bulky stuff, and we both print 'em.  Great division of labor, I think!

I have decided that it is spring

And there's no going back now, because yesterday I washed All The Knits and hung them outside - in the sun! - to dry.  So I don't care if it ends up being 30 degrees and snowing next week, we're going to school/work/the grocery store with no hats and mittens, because those things are CLEAN!

Obligatory holiday knitting - complete!

Last night I finished weaving in the ends on the two gifts I'm making for LazyKid's teachers. It's a relief to be done, even if I can't post pics until after the gifts have been opened. That was all the 'required' knitting I had for this year. It's a nice change from the Great Sock Experiment of 2008 and the Cowl Christmas of 2009. Making your gifts is fun, for the first half-dozen people. After that, gift cards start looking like a really good idea!

It's about time ...

... that I finished these, which I started in June at Squam:

When in doubt, switch projects!

So I might be lacking mojo on the teachers' projects, but I'm zipping along on the embroidery I'm doing:

It doesn't look like much now, but it's the start of a tracing of one of LazyKid's early artworks.  This one was titled "Toudan," and features a bird that's recognizably toucan-ish.  Win!

Have you seen my mojo?

Finished one teacher's present, and I'm 1/3 of the way done with the second, and I.  can.  not.  work.  on.  it. It's like I sit down to do it and my head explodes or something.  Can't decide if it's a version of Second Sock Syndrome, or if there's something wrong with the project and I just haven't consciously figured it out yet.  Only time will tell, I guess!

Huzzah!

My sister-in-law is preggo, which means I now have an official excuse to knit all sorts of cute little baby things I've been afraid to start for fear of contracting the Baby Rabies.  Baby Surprise Jacket, here I come!

Today I ...

A.  Got four pages done in my scrapbook
B.  Make four kitchen towels using the awesome skillz I learned at Squam
C.  Turned a heel on a sock (mostly)
D.  Made little hats for the jars of jam I'm taking home for the holidays
E.  Vacuumed my house
F.  Took a shower

**********




If you guessed "everything except for F," you're right!  You know it's a good crafting day when you're too busy for personal hygiene.

Back to an old friend

I have a blanket project that I've been working on sporadically since, um, February.  It's been more off than on until this weekend, when I finally picked it back up and started making a bit of progress on it.  I need to take a more recent pic and my camera isn't handy, but here's what it looked like a while ago:



It will be a great project to take along when we head back east for Thanksgiving, as it's mindless and requires practically no thought on my part, other than occasional cursing at my stupid boucle yarn.  And maybe if I bring just that (and a pair of socks that's already 3 weeks late) I'll actually get some measurable progress made before the end of the year!  Yay!

I swore I would never do it

And yet I spent my whole afternoon ... scrapbooking.

And liking it.

Thank goodness for friends with an inexhaustible supply of things like paper and brads and sticky tape thingees ... I'd go completely broke if I had to do this on my own.  Especially since I have SIX albums of photos from Japan to redo like this ... -headdesk-

I said I'd post the pics ...

of the patio I was building ... but I never promised they'd be interesting!

Oh, wait, how about this one?

Now that's more my style!

Whoops

My craft of the day involved laying a brick patio to keep our trashcans on.  It's a lovely patio, yet I have no pictures to post because it got dark before I remembered to get the camera out.  Sucks to be me :(

LazyKid is undeterred by a lack of wrapping paper ...

... she just makes her own.

 She decorated it while it was sitting next to me at dinner last night, and she kept asking me for more "things I like."  That's why it's got stars, our two cats, a fairy, a self-portrait, and the Eiffel Tower on it.

Not to mention sparkly purple leaves, a heart-shaped peace sign, and apple trees.

Not sure why she thinks I love millipedes and some sort of green-antlered deer, but I'm willing to go with it.

Especially since they let me open the present a day early.  Score!

Wacky sock alert!

When I was at Squam Arts Workshop this summer I picked up a couple patterns that one of my teachers had in her booth, and I finally got around to starting one of them a few weeks ago - Stained Glass Socks by Elise Duvecot. (Ravelry link)

I finished them last night, and I couldn't be happier with them - well-written pattern with an interesting (easy) technique that makes awesomely cool socks.  Win!

The only problem with them is that I think I've decided to give them to my mother, since they're a touch short on me.  Maybe she'll let me come visit them a couple times a year?

Ouch! My hands!

Nothing crafty to report, as I've spent the last two days putting in a new flower bed.

It'll look much more impressive in the spring once I get some annuals in.  Right now it's got some roses, some lavender, some thyme, and some veronica, all of which were transplanted from existing beds around the yard. Oh, and a maple tree that was a volunteer in the trash pile at the back of the yard.  It's already chest-high, even if it does only have two leaves (which fell off the day before I transplanted it).

But it's cold and rainy now, so hopefully I'll have crafty stuff to discuss sometime soon!