Today is another Day...

...And onto other projects!

But before I do, I have to cover the wonderful Alcott Vest. Wonder of the Shetland Islands and their glorious wool and bright colours! Ahh, I could wax lyrical for...well, longer than I should but I'll get it out of the way since I'm sure you are all sick to death with the thing!

 Here is the vest pre-blocking with the amazing steek stitches behaving like arm and neck interfacing's, as they are supposed to!

And here, TA-DA! is the completed blocked AND worn Alcott vest.

To say I am pretty pleased with it and myself is a gross understatement, but there you go. It is shorter than I would really like but that just means I have to be good and stop tugging at the bottom because it isn't actually too short at all! I just like wearing things too long! But now, I swear, I will no longer bore everyone with my creation. It is beautiful and wonderful and,...and everything, but I will desist...

I swear!

But I have been good! I immediately got back onto the cross stitch poster I've been making for Eldest Son, the mad Monty Python fan!

Look! I finally finished the first line of characters! Don't ask me who they all are supposed to be because I've never watched The Holy Grail that I can remember. And besides the first character on the left who I assume is a character played by John Cleese, I've got no idea of the rest!

But I have realized again why I put it away. I can't do it at night! I just can't see properly and so at night I knit. Another pair of socks using up some of the yarn I dyed a couple of years ago so it's nicely variegated (unintentionally but it's still nice) in a rich crimson that fades in and out of blood red and then petal pink. Very nice. I'll get photos of it soon but I keep forgetting to during the day and by the time I'm doing it, it's night and the light is terrible! Oh well. First World problems.

So there we are. I'm still toiling away on the second line of characters and again questioning my sanity in choosing such fine cloth gauge (muttering to myself, about strands of thread, bad light, constant blinking to try and focus...mumble, mutter, whinge...) and knitting a hole in my finger with my pointy 2mm circular needles so I can knit two socks at once...

Because I can!

Is any one else keeping their hands out of mischief with crafts? What sorts? 

See you all later!

Dx

I have a Cushion!

We went to the city to pick up youngest son to spend the Easter Break with us and while we were there (and the shop's were open too. And absolutely EVERYONE was on the road!) I went to Spotlight and bought a cushion insert! Oh joyous day! Huzzah!!

Back, with flap opening

Front, and looking so pretty!

So I am pretty stoked with that! Pretty, pretty, pretty!

And other than that worrying at the back of my brain (The cushion's not finished until it has a cushion insert! Must get cushion insert!!) I have been busy with my Alcott Vest. I am getting closer to the first stage of actually finishing the vest, by completing the knitted body. 

See the lines of colours? They are my steek stitches. I have three, two armholes and the v-neck. When I've reached the length I want I am going to bind off the shoulders together and then...I am going to CUT the middle of the steek stitches and pick up stitches to do the rib stitch rows around the armholes and the v-neck. How awesome is that??

I must confess I am both excited and worried and really hope I don't screw it up.  But I really want to master this great technique so I am boldly going where I have never gone before!

Has anyone out there master any craft techniques that both excited and scared them?  Tell me I'm not the only worry-wart out here!

See you all later!

Dx

I have a question to ask...

And I'd REALLY like some objective opinions.

I have an etsy shop where I was trying to sell my resin pendants and some knitted items.

I'm not at all gregarious or outgoing and I hoped that my pretties might attract people to look and buy without the terror associated with an actual craft fair.

Well, I was right in one aspect.

Lots of people looked...

...but hardly any bought. I think in the 3 or so years I've been on etsy,I've sold about 4 items and one of them I had to refund they're money. They sent it back because the colour wasn't actually what they wanted!

So, about 6 months ago I put my shop on vacation so I could regroup, find where I'd   stored all my goods in the last move (since it had been that long since I got any of them out!) and ponder if this was really worth the effort.

I try to buy gifts, when I can from etsy, because you can get really great unique items and I also try to buy any jewellery findings and pendant trays from etsy as well because I like to support other artisan crafters. But do I just suck at selling? Am I only a gifted technician and should leave the business of presenting my wares to more gifted individuals?

So the question I have is...should I shut up my etsy shop and try something else or get everything out, go through the trauma of photographing it all again and try to work out what I'm doing wrong??

I  keep making things and I only have a finite amouny of space to store them in! Any comments or advice would be invaluable!

Cheers!
Dx

Achievements!

I have actually finished stuff this week!

Isn't it pretty? But the back is nice too!

See? I used some of the yarn I used in the front to make the lines every 15th ridge of garter stitch so it lined up with the squares on the other side. Made it real easy to line up and sew together too so, bonus! Also, the first pic is with the flap edge tacked to the other back so it wouldn't stretch when I washed it and the second pic is with the tacking taken out. This is where I'll be able to shove the cushion insert...when I get one! I was really peeved when I found that the insert I had was too humongously huge to fit so now I'm itching to get one so I can bask in the gorgeousness when it's a proper cushion!

But this is not all! I have been puttering along with out any urgency on a fair isle pattern I got from  The Knitter, Issue 56. It's called Alcott by 

Mary Henderson and I ordered the yarn from

Jamieson & Smith so I got just what I needed. I've

 been really enjoying this. It's challenging but

 not too hard and I've reached the part where

 I'm knitting the steek stitches for the v-neck 

and the armholes. Imagine! I'm going to have

 to cut these suckers later!! But this is how it 

looked just as I started the steek stitches.

Isn't it nice? I love the interplay of all the colours. It's just so captivating! 

Needless to say, while I'm knitting this, I'm not reading much. But while I was doing the cushion back I started going through my collection of the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs. I love these books!!  And when I say I read through the series again...this is the series so far!

  

  

 

You know,..just a few. 

I love the characters. I love the premise. I love that when my husband asks me what I'm reading (he's not a reader for pleasure) I can say "It's about this mechanic who can turn into a coyote who is in love with an Alpha Werewolf, her garage used to belong to a powerful fae metallurgist who can handle iron and also a vampire from the local vampire seethe. Oh, and the mechanic is a christian." The "wtf?" look on his face is priceless. But the books really include all that stuff. I love "What if..." stories, where the unexpected becomes the everyday! 

I've ordered the next one for my birthday in May. I hope I continue to like it. I hate it when an author betrays its readers in an attempt to keep the tension mounting. 

But now I'm doing the fair isle it's probably just as well I've finished the series again. I wasn't really very useful while I devoured the books. I could quite happily sit in one spot and do nothing but read for hours and hours. Not really a good idea. But a lot of fun!!

So there we are. Let's see what I'm doing next week.

Wanna see??

See you later!

Dx

Wow. What HAVE I done all week??

...Truthfully?...not a lot.

I've been chugging away with the backs of the cushion I'm knitting with the domino knitted front piece. That's been mindless but pleasant.

I've read three books while I knit it, one my brother bought me. And I liked it! Even a bigger score! From the Dr Who History Collection. Now I have one I'll have to look into how many more there are! Sadly, it doesn't take much to activate the OCD collector in me!

So here's the pretty, pretty front!

And here's the first half of the back. I'm now cranking away on the other half and then trying to figure out whether I'll try and do a I-cord cast-off around the whole thing to tie it together...

But we'll see!

See you later!

Dx

Domino knitting and a little bit of Art!

I finally finished the cushion...front. There's no way I'm doing domino knitting on the back. For this I wanted something simple and mindless. I am happy with the colour combinations of the Domino part though.

 Isn't it pretty? Wonderful kaleidoscope of colours and gradients!

All in all I'm pretty pleased pleased with the front and I decided I'd do a simple back so I can just put a pillow in there without a zip or buttons or anything...and for some reason the picture wont turn the right way so here it is anyway. A nice plain grass green wool in garter stitch and at every 15th ridge I knit using one of the 5 colours I used on the front.  I'm liking it so far.

But while I've been doing this I've been fiddling with my art supplies. I wanted to do a picture showing a sort of analogy for depression. So this is what I came up with.

Then I added a wash of ink, really black at the bottom of the well and getting lighter as it reached the top. And remembered that I'm really not very good at adding paint.

It still seemed a bit blank so I added colour with some pencils.

All in all I quite liked the effect...except for the paint effect. What I really wanted is some kind of paper with an ombre effect that would go from midnight blue to light sky blue. But apparently such a thing does not exist. Because I thought perhaps I could cut out the section I don't like and place the picture over another sheet of paper with the effect I want. I've done it before and it works quite well, especially once framed.  So I painted the effect I wanted using some art paints I had lying around.

And then I got to the business of cutting out the middle. I tried using a scalpel at first but I'm no better at that than I am at painting so I used a pair of really slim, pointed scissors. They worked much better! And eventually I managed to get it all cut out.

So now I had to attach the picture onto the painted background. I used some mod podge I also had lying around and a brush and then proceeded to nearly ruin the whole thing by almost making the cut-out picture stick backwards to the background. But after that small panic passed, I was pretty pleased...

I'm really pleased with it all told. I think it shows how I feel anyway when I'm particularly depressed. It's so dark down in the bottom of the well that it's hard to remember that there is still beauty and hope to be had,...that this feeling wont last forever, which is kind of what I was trying to suggest with the falling blossoms into the well. That this too will pass.

I'm waiting for it to dry now to see if I need to tidy up any details and one day I'd love to get it framed in a nice thin frame. I think that would look nice.

But, yeah, that's what I've been up to. So now I'm off to my knitting again. I think I've used up enough of the artist to keep it quiet for the next year, anyway.

What do you think of the picture? 

See you all later
Dx

But some experiments don't work, so...

You just have to bite the bullet and move on.

Speaking of my last post...

...I looked at it some more and decided...I really didn't like it...so I...

...unravelled the whole thing down to one starter square! See? There it is, right at the bottom. And THAT became my new starting point!

I decided not to tinker with this and just knit it the way it is supposed to go, generally speaking.

I used 5 different sock-yarn colours from Moda Vera Noir 4 ply range and decided to do a square 9 squares high and 9 in width. That should get a nice shuffle between the different variegated yarns involved and as I ran out of one colour I'd just bring in a new one from my collection. There is one yarn that isn't Noir, a pretty Patons Patonyle I had a bit left over of, so I thought I may as well use up the last little bit. It fits in quite well!

  

But watching it grow is SO absorbing! I'm enjoying this much more than my first attempt. All the different colours and patterns are really quite nice with no big blocks of colour sounding any discordant notes. And it's very relaxing.

Both a nice mindless knit while at the same time not boring at all! I find myself having to make myself put it down! To stop telling myself, "Oh, I'll put this down when I get to this point in the decreases...oh look! I've nearly finished the square, I may as well finish it...Oh, I'll just pick up the stitches I need for the next square so It's ready when I..."

You get the idea?

Here I've got 4 squares width...

...And now 5 squares...

Doesn't it look lovely? I love running my hands over it and feeling the lines running diagonally across it because of the decreases down the middle. 

And now 6 squares wide. I've actually started the seventh row now and the end result of a cushion is looking pretty good! And although I love this way of join-as-you-go construction, I'm not sure I'm so in love with it that I'd want to commit to a whole blanket like this!

But all in all, I think the sacrifice of my first idea was a valid choice. This is now something I like to look at and touch. Not something tinged with a little regret.

Have you had to change an idea of something you thought would really work when it wasn't developing as you'd imagined? Any craft has that propensity! Tell me about it and share!

See you all later!

Dx