Which should make me more proud?

A) The fact that I willingly hauled 50 pounds of craft supplies outside so that LazyKid and some neighbor friends could do plein air glitter glue painting?  And I remained sane after having to help squeeze the 1,000 different tubes of glitter glue out onto paper that was on a knee-high table?


B) Or the fact that not only did I get 5-year-old LazyKid to help me iron fabric scraps, she was good at it, and I got her to enjoy it enough that she has requested to do it again tomorrow morning?


Yeah, I'm going with B, if only because I could really use an extra pair of hands in the Scrap Management Department at LazyMama HQ.

Knitting milestone - reached!

Today was LazyKid's first visit to the unofficial "sock club" that convenes at my local yarn store every Saturday afternoon.  Well, she's been there before, but today - worldwide Knit in Public day - was her first time as a participant.  She got a couple inches of spool knitting done while attempting to charm the pants off of everyone in attendance.  She wolfed down her weight in blueberries, carrots, strawberries, and broccoli from the snack table.  She remembered the names of some of the ladies she had met before, and she was polite to all of them.  I was so proud of her, I didn't even remember to take a picture!

What do you say when everything was just ... perfect?

One week ago today I was in the car, driving through five states with a friend, en route to Squam Lake, New Hampshire.  The trip was easy, if long, and while we didn't see any moose ...

... we did see a deer fly off the hood of a car in the next lane on the highway.  Did you know that deer bounce when they hit the pavement at 65 mph?  Now that's something I never expected to learn at ...

Four and a half days of crafting bliss - just me and 150 other crafty people taking over a historic family summer retreat on an idyllic lake ...

... for classes, camaraderie, and (at least for me) a lot of this:

Our first class was at a cabin that was, as I fondly referred to it, at "the ass end of nowhere," which was reached via a brisk 10-minute hike through the woods ...

Luckily, I had a hearty breakfast that morning, so I even after the hike I was ready to tackle my first class - Latvian fingerless mitts in five color stranded knitting, with the incredible Beth Brown-Reinsel.  I've done colorwork before, but never with so many colors, and she really opened my eyes to some of the things I've been unintentionally doing wrong (can you say, "dominance? what dominance?").



Really, it's not that hard once you get used to the whole idea of controlled chaos on the back side of the piece.  Don't give me that look - you know you want to try it, too.  Look how easy it is - I didn't even break a sweat!

My class the next day was even farther away from our home cabin, which gave me plenty of time to gather inspiration from the woods around me.  I'll spare you the approximately 48,000 pictures I took of ferns, and instead show you the most interesting bit I stumbled upon:

I swear, those puppies looked so fake, I was tempted to see if somebody had hot-glued plastic mushrooms to the tree.  Anyway, I needed all the inspiration I could get, because I was supposed to be designing botanical-inspired things to print on fabric in Maya Donenfeld's awesome class.  I was also totally copying designs out of that Japanese book on the corner of the table :)



Squam wasn't just about crafting, though - there was plenty of time to enjoy the facility and its surroundings. I decided to use a free afternoon to drag myself up to the top of a mountain the hard way (i.e. on the shorter path that went straight up the side of the damn thing, which meant there was a lot of actual "dragging myself  up the hill" involved).  Luckily, the view was totally worth the schlepp.

My last class was only half a day, which was a shame because I really had a good time meeting Jared Flood and starting the blanket he designed.  The thing was so fun that I couldn't resist working on it more in the car on the way home.  

Luckily for me, wool is very absorbent, because there may or may not have been a few sniffles from my side of the car as we drove off into the sunset (well, actually just away from the sunrise, since we were heading west at an ungodly hour of the morning).

I'm not a normally effusive person, but I have to say, this was among my best vacations ever.  Nothing went wrong, everyone got along, I didn't forget anything, the people were nice, the place was spectacular, there was plenty to do, nobody thought you were weird if you didn't want to do anything but sit on a dock with your feet in the water, and everybody was crafty.  I'd go back in a heartbeat, and while I don't know if I'd say it was life-changing, it was certainly awesome.  And fun.  And inspiring.  And only slightly mosquito-filled.  So if you're even slightly crafty, go check it out.  You'll be glad you did.

I came, I S.A.W., I Squammed!

I'm still planning to put together my thoughts on the experience, but here's a video from Jen Grey that shows where I was last week.  I'm in the video (look for the red capris around 1:30-2:00) and my partner in crime is the lady in short overalls walking through the dining hall later in the movie.  Thank you, Jen, for capturing the experience so wonderfully and sharing it with us all!

teehee

Sewing humor - you have to love it!

Something that's making me happy

Check out the patterns here:

http://www.magpiepatterns.com/embroidery-patterns.php

Makes me want to drop my yarn, pick up my floss, and get started. If only I could ...

Damn, she photographs nicely

And for once, I'm not talking about the kid.

Shawls are usually so jammed up on the needles that it's next to impossible to see the pattern develop as I'm knitting, so blocking a shawl is almost always a delightful surprise. This was even better than most. Half an hour ago it looked like a big purple snotrag, but a quick soak and a bit of tugging revealed this beauty - behold, my Morpork Pi shawl designed by MMario:

Wow.

Now that's a rather impressive use of 3 1/2 skeins of sock yarn, wouldn't you say?

Closeup of the pattern near the edge:

Closeup of the center section:

Inspired by colors

Went for a walk in the Metropark as part of my 3-Day training yesterday, and the wildflowers in some areas were just spectacular. Acres and acres of forest carpeted in emerald green leaves with quarter-sized bright yellow daisy-like flowers on top. And just around the bend, it was completely barren - not a leaf or petal to be seen. Around another bend, big clumps of lily of the valley foliage were up, and a few rogue daffodils peeked out here and there.

Now I want to make a "spring in the park" quilt in those greens and yellows ... it would look sort of like the Emerald City exploded all over the Yellow Brick Road, but at least I would know what it was.

You didn't think I'd skip the fundraising message here, did you?

This summer I'll be participating in a very special event called the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure. I'll walk 60 miles over the course of three days with thousands of other women and men. But as crazy as that sounds, that's not the end of it ... or rather, that's not the beginning. Because in order to survive walking 20 miles a day for three days, I have to train, and train hard. I'll be walking four times a week, every week, in every kind of weather, from now until the end of July. I'll be averaging more than 30 miles every week, for a total of more than 600 miles by the time I'm done. I'll be rearranging my schedule, fighting blisters and chafing and boredom, and dragging my 5-year-old "training partner" behind me in a wagon for part of it. Why on earth would I do this to myself? Because net proceeds from the Komen 3-Day for the Cure walk are invested in breast cancer research and community programs. I've been lucky so far - while breast cancer has touched the lives of my family and friends, so far it hasn't taken anyone I know. But unless something changes, it's only a matter of time. Consider these chilling facts: - Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer and is the leading cause of death among women worldwide. - One person is diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes in the United States. - A woman dies from breast cancer every 68 seconds. That's why I'm walking so far. To do something bold about breast cancer. With every step I take, I'll be helping to stomp out breast cancer. I hope that you'll share this incredible adventure with me - by supporting me in my fundraising efforts. I've agreed to raise at least $2,300 in donations. So I need your help. Would you please consider making a donation of $60? Keep in mind how far I'm walking - and how hard I'll have to train. I'm hoping to complete my fundraising by June 1, 2010, so that I can more fully concentrate on training as the event approaches. You can give online at The3Day.org. Just follow the link below to visit my personal fundraising Web page and make a donation. You can also call 800-996-3DAY to donate over the phone. Thank you in advance for your generosity! Sincerely, Gretchen Woods P.S. Ask your employer if they will double your donation through a matching gift program! Click here to visit my personal page. If the text above does not appear as a clickable link, you can visit the web address: http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/2010/ClevelandEvent2010?px=5018396&pg=personal&fr_id=1464&et=Py5QUNZdp2wZculbOglr5w..&s_tafId=415331

For more information about the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure or Susan G. Komen for the Cure, visit The3Day.org or call 800-996-3DAY.

Breeding like, well,

This is what happens when I decide to make destash Easter rabbits for my daughter's preschool class ... they take over! That's fourteen rabbits, including the two evil zombie twins there in the back row. I'm partial to the decapitated bunny heads in the front rows, and not just because they took half as long to make :)

Anyway, the pattern is loosely based on my Zombie Bunny crochet pattern, which you can find in my etsy shop here.

New tutorial: Changing color in the Zombie Bunny ears

I had a question from a customer about how to do the color changes on the ears in my Zombie Bunny pattern.

Since it's really easy to do, just hard to describe, I went ahead and made a photo tutorial on flickr. You can find it here.

Feel free to let me know if there are any other techniques you'd like to see - if I can manage to photograph them without growing an extra arm, I'll be happy to post the pictures!

Another thing to do with your kid's artwork

When Lazy Kid painted some lovely watercolor fruits this summer, I knew I was going to have to do something special to preserve them for posterity. One scan, 10 minutes of editing/cutting/pasting, and less than an hour of sewing later, I've got two new placemats for our table.

I used the inkjet-ready, colorfast cotton pages you can find at most sewing and craft stores. I set my printer to print photos at the highest quality, and they turned out pretty sharp:

After I got the Lazy Kid fabric printed, I dug out some of my favorite stash, which I've used to make curtains for my last two kitchens, and which happened to coordinate perfectly with the colors of the fruit. Score!

I sewed strips onto three sides of the art to get it to be the right height for a placemat, then sewed the larger block onto the side to make it the right width. Grabbed some coordinating fabric scraps for the back, found some batting that was just large enough to work, and made myself an inside-out (quilt) sandwich. Stitched around the outside but left an opening for turning, turned it right side out, then topstitched around the edge to help it lay flat and close the turning opening. Topstitched around the Lazy Kid art to help it lay flat, and it was done!

Now, the fabric I printed at home is only "washable," not actually washable, so I'm going to have to Scotchguard the living heck out of these before I let Lazy Kid anywhere near them. But once that's done, I have hopes that these will be cheering our table for the rest of the summer!

This cracks me up

I've known about guerilla knitting for awhile now, but I never thought I'd see it in Cape May.

http://www.stylelist.com/2010/03/11/midnight-knitter-covering-new-jersey-town-in-yarn/

Props to my parents for pointing this one out to me.

That sound you hear is me pounding my head on the desk

As I think I've mentioned before, I have opened a second shop on etsy to sell my photos and related products. If you're not reading this through a feed reader, you can check out some of my new items over there <-- on the sidebar of the blog.

Getting this sucker ready to go has taken way more time and effort than I expected. After all, I already took the pictures - how hard could it be to get them listed? I didn't want to bother just listing one or two photos - nothing looks sadder than a store that's practically empty - so I wanted to be ready to populate it quickly when I was ready to go. That means that for the past few months, I've been going back through every digital photo I can locate, copying the ones I thought might be worthy of selling, and then winnowing the selection down to something reasonable.

I've been researching other etsy sellers to determine pricing, and shipping costs, and what sizes and products I might want to carry. I've been playing around with some different ways to present the photos, things that might set me apart from the 14 million other people shilling photos on etsy.

I've been editing the photos, cropping and color correcting and adding watermarks to keep the deadbeats from stealing my stuff.

And I've been procrastinating. The period of uncertainty at the beginning of any project is the worst for me ... I hate not knowing what I'm doing, I hate having to make decision after decision relating to things I know little about. If I could wave a magic wand and it could be DONE, that would be so much less stress-inducing. But that, of course, isn't possible, so instead I've just been ignoring it. I've been getting lots of knitting done, and cooking, and the house has been pretty clean for the past couple of months.

Until last week, when I realized that the two hours each week that I'm stuck sitting at the nature center while my daughter takes a science class is the perfect time for me and my laptop to have some quality time together. Two hours each week when I can focus, without any phones ringing or kids calling or wash that needs to be done.

I've been getting lots done, but my god, is it tedious.

open picture

edit to 5x7

correct color

save file

add watermark

shrink file

resave file

open etsy listing

copy and paste most of the description

manually select pretty much all the same options for the rest of the listing where I can't cut and paste

import pictures

save listing

repeat.

I just took a bathroom break to relieve the monotony - that's how boring it is.

But at the same time, it's really cool to go back through the files, picking the best of the best, seeing all the places we've been and things we've seen. Even if I never sell a single print, I've got some damn fine photos, and that makes me proud.

Proud of my princess

Lazy Kid is almost 5 now, so I figured it was time for her to try her hand at embroidery. Here she is with her first piece, about half of which she completed on her own, with my only help being to hold the hoop for her while she handled the needle and thread:

We used some leftover Aida cloth I had in my stash, and some perl cotton that my mother got at a yard sale or something (because I know I didn't buy it). We used a slightly sharpened tapestry needle - basically, whatever I could find that had an eye large enough for the cotton but was still small enough to fit through the holes in the cloth.

I got her started, making the knot and showing her how to handle the needle safely and make the stitches roughly where she wanted them. I did a cross for the center of the flower, and she filled in the rest. I did one leaf, she did the rest. I started the sun, she finished it. She was patient, moving the needle around until it came out exactly where she wanted. And she knew exactly what she wanted, specifying when I had to change the thread colors for her and even asking how to take out one stitch that didn't work the way she wanted it to.

And when she was done "drawing with string," she insisted that she had to sign her work. I did the "Z" and "A" in her name, and she did the rest.

I am unbearably proud of her. Now if she'd just show any interest in doing it again ...

Book recommendation

This week Lazy Kid and I are focusing on learning about art, so I checked some books out from the library to expand our repertoire of craft techniques. One of the books I'm most excited about is called Easy Art Fun, by Jill Frankel Hauser. This book is really designed for use in classrooms, but a lot of the projects lend themselves to home crafting, as well.

What I like best about the book is that it's designed to be used by early readers, so the format of each page is the same, and it's all really clearly spelled out. Each project fits on two page sides (which face each other, so there is no flipping back and forth to finish something), and each offers variations on the project to make it more complicated or with a different theme. There are sections that focus on coloring, cutting with scissors, making toys, making gifts, making things for pretend play, making music, and making wearable art.

Lazy Kid is not quite five, but she reads really well, and she was able to breeze through reading several of the projects to pick out one she wanted to do. The book is a great way to get kids some practice with real-life reading, rather than story reading - practical reading really does use a whole different subset of words and phrases that kids need to learn.

And the projects are quite nice, with several old favorites and quite a few that I've never seen before. Lazy Kid chose to make the Monster Mouth game, where you decorate a paper bag like a monster face and try to throw balls of paper into the open mouth. Personally, I want to make some bendy people (paper cutouts with baggy ties taped to the back to let you bend the dude into different positions) and a few other projects that are new to me.

Well, that wasn't nearly as scary as I'd hoped

Yesterday was a momentous occasion for me - I cut my first steek! And, since I'm always driven to do things farther, faster, and longer than anyone else thinks is reasonable, it was 6 feet long.

I've been knitting a fair isle afghan in the round, and once all the main knitting was done, the big long tube of awesomeness had to be cut open so it would be less of a muumuu and more of a blanket. Now, I've heard all sorts of people talk about how scary it is to cut steeks, and how they held their breath and prayed the whole time, and how some people are too scared to even attempt one. There are a multitude of methods for stabilizing the knitting before cutting so that the whole thing doesn't unravel if you look at it sideways. But when the steek is 6' long, hand sewing down both sides of the area to be cut just isn't going to happen, and shoving the thing through the sewing machine isn't a good idea, either. So, no stabilization for me, just a pair of scissors and a blanket I've been knitting (intermittently) since October of 2008...

...And all of my sock club friends from River Colors Studio, who I drafted to help me. We were all new to cutting steeks, and everyone seemed to have some insane idea that I was either super-brave, super-dumb, or super-well-informed-about-this-whole-thing. In order to dissuade them of all of these notions, I figured I'd involve them in the process. So I brought all my cutting materials in to the studio yesterday, and everyone got a chance to cut about 10" of my steek. We are steek virgins no more!

For future reference, what I did was this:

Lay the blanket flat with the steek area centered on the top. Slide a long rotary cutting ruler in between the top layer and the bottom layer of the blanket, making sure it covers all of the area under the steek. Use sharp scissors to cut through the center of the steek section, about 10" at a time. After every 10", stop and stabilize the edges by wrapping a strip of packing tape along each edge lengthwise. This will keep it relatively unfrayed while you cut the rest of the steek open. When you're done cutting the steek open, open out the blanket and admire your handiwork - then whisk the blanket to a sewing machine and machine-stitch down each side of the steek to stabilize the remaining threads. Make sure to sew in the area that will still remain once the excess steek area is trimmed off later in the finishing, if that's what your directions tell you to do.

Since then I've been picking up the stitches along each side of the steek to make a binding to cover up the cut edges, and let me tell you, picking up like 300 stitches SIDEWAYS down a blanket is all sorts of fun. Really. But it's looking awesome, and the end is in sight. Whew!

******

Pictures? You want pictures in the post? Nope, sorry, that's going to have to wait for a while. There are secret things afoot around here ...

Lazy Dad's shawl pins, now available!

My very handsome and talented father has been carving for decades - actually, we can actually measure it in fractions of a century at this point - so it was no problem at all for him to whip up some shawl pins for me when I started whipping up shawls. They were so beautiful and functional that I encouraged him to make some extras to sell. And the owner of River Colors Studio in Lakewood agreed that they're awesome, so now you can buy them there!

Stop in and grab one before they're gone, because you never know when Lazy Dad will get sick of making these and then they'll be gone for good.

Really running behind with this posting ...

Check out how cute the Fairy Skirt pattern looks for raindrops for a school play!

http://juliespp.blogspot.com/2009/09/dancing-raindrops.html

Thanks for sending along the link, Julie, and I'm glad they turned out so cute for you!

Why yes, I am insane - why do you ask?

There's still time to order your custom Halloween costume ... mermaid tails are now available in a limited edition spectacular green scale print with purple backing.

Order ASAP for Halloween delivery, but definitely before Oct. 25.