A Pleasant Time

I've been enjoying a bit of company lately while youngest son, Jordan (who looms over me alarmingly!) has been spending the week here with us. Saving some money and eating free food! I'm more than happy to have him. Hubbie's quite often pre-occupied with work or training and there's no-one else to talk to but the dogs and the cats. So I have been enjoying it greatly!

He even was good enough to join me working with polymer clay!

His water lily was so nice too but he discovered that if you roll the clay too thin it really does compromise the stability of the whole thing and sadly the middle petals fell apart. But I have pictures to prove it was beautiful!

I've also finally discovered a way to use the clay that I like. The pendants and the large disc have given me renewed hope that I might actually like using polymer clay. I've finally used up my pendant trays so now I'm wondering how to proceed...ordering more is NOT an option. 

I'm still making progress with the combo yarn beanies and the Monty Python cross stitch. 

I've finished up the last beanie using the blue combo yarn...

...And I finished the third line of characters on the cross stitch. Only one more line to go!

Still busy, still compulsively crafting!

I find it sometimes really discouraging to think of how many completed projects I have stored up, jewellery, tatting, knitting, various crafts that I have no use for. I will never wear all the things I make. If I were a bit more like everyone else I might. My mothers has hundreds of earrings and wears many of them because she likes social occasions and is both gregarious, cheerful and outgoing. 

I am not. I'm just an overly anxious introvert!

Social occasions fill me with an underlying wave of panic and anxiety that I can usually disguise adequately enough when I have to but invariably leave me washed out and exhausted afterwards. It's lovely when people compliment me about the things I make, but sometimes I question what point there is in me constantly churning out various crafts when all it does is cost me money. I feel a bit like a crazy crafting ant. Constantly creating things I have absolutely no aptitude to convert into anything useful. 

Obviously I'm still a bit blue at the moment. On Friday I'll be driving Jordan back to Perth. 

I think I'll even miss the continuous talk about movies and famous Directors...

Ah well.

See you all later

Dx

I found another craft to tinker with!

Polymer clay!

I bought some clay in Albany a while back. But it was all white and I wanted to try colours. I have art pastels and used those to add colour to the white polymer clay. I wanted to make something small but the clay got so hot in my hands it was difficult to work with. I found out later that Fimo is much better for detailed work but Sculpey is a bit softer and not so good for smaller details. Anyway, I made a cute little gnome house to try it out.

It's certainly cute but I still don't have a handle on dealing with the clay before it gets impossibly tacky. So, for my birthday I bought a lot more clay (still Sculpey. There didn't seem much point trying anything else when I already had Sculpey) and some more tools. But even with the colours I had I had trouble wrapping my head around what I wanted to make and what I could actually manage.

I tried cutting out medallions and impressing tatted motifs on to them. Of course, totally forgot to put a hole at the top to hang them from. I tried pushing coloured clay into the tatted impression but that didn't workout as well as I had hoped. I tried making a pendant with lots of flowers on it but I used a phillips head screwdriver to mark the tops and actually the pendant looks like a horde of molar teeth covered in murky paint. So as you see I haven't really been very satisfied with my experiments. I used ink and watercolour paint to colour in the impressions. Not bad but not brilliant either. 

The only pendant that I liked I ruined when I had to fix the back because it cracked. I tried to protect the clear coating I had put on the design when I recooked the new back but...it didn't work. It went kind of bubbly and cloudy. Not happy...

But, nothing daunted, I tried some more. I had a lovely mould with heaps of faces so I thought I could play with that...

I like this better than anything I've done so far although it still frustrates me that the flowers became difficult to handle as my hands heated up the teeny pieces of clay. And as for trying to get them to attach to the face...Arghhh! As you can see with the face, my big, hot, clunky hands have battered it around a bit, flattening the detail.

I still have hope! I decided to try something different. I tried using stamps dusted with chalk to make more medallions. I'd have used ink pads if I'd had any that were any good but they had all dried out from lack of use. They're nice enough but not really very good.

And with the new cutters I have I added leaves to the flowers on another face. I tried adding colour to the lips but I don't think it worked very well. Sigh.

 I'm enjoying playing but I get so frustrated when my expectations fall dismally short. But I will not be defeated! I've ordered some more colours and maybe I'll manage to get a pasta machine so I can condition the clay that way instead of in my hot little hands! But there's a huge potential here for a lot of cute little creations...if I can just come to grips with the medium!

Polymer Clay! Great stuff!

See you all later!

Dx

Late! So late!!

But I couldn't think of anything really earth shattering to share since last time so instead I've decided to be quick and brief.
I have been knitting like a machine with my combo beanies. I'm really starting to use up all that combined cone yarn I turned into more knittable 8 ply weight yarn. I made some headway on the lace socks but unfortunately knit holes in my fingers so I've had to put it aside for a bit. And I finished the first character on the third line of my Monty Python Cross Stitch.
All on all, pretty productive week I thought!
See you all later
Dx

Okay, I may have knit a bit too much this time...

I know, shocker, huh?

I've finished all these beanies over the last 2 or 3 weeks. I've used up all the Moda Vera Bouvardia ball I bought on a whim and loved watching the colour change as I paired it with the dark grey of the combo yarn. I thought it worked really well. And it feels gorgeous!!

And as well as all that I've also finally packaged up the beanies I need to send to my niece and youngest son. All nicely labelled and wrapped up ready to trundle down to the post...on Monday.

So, after I'd finished the last Bouvardia beanie I thought I'd do some more of the sock I've been slowly working my way through. I'm knitting up the extra gusset stitches after doing the heel and that's really not that interesting. And they're on 2mm needles. And there's a certain amount of tension because the gauge is firm.

Alas! I have knit HOLES in my fingertips! I'd like to pretend that this is a new thing but my family will loudly refute that claim. I OFTEN knit holes in my fingers. Indeed, I even fashioned a couple of finger thimbles to wear to counter this very thing! But I forgot and by the time I remembered, the damage was done! My skin splits where there's been constant friction and pressure and there is NO PAIN quite like the pain of poking yourself in your open, abused flesh with a pointy metal needle!

So I thought I'd better give the knitting a day or two off to give my skin a bit of time to think about what it's done and get back with the program! I mean, damn it! I have stuff to knit!!

In the meantime I've finally gotten out the paracord I bought when last in Albany and looked up all these instructions for paracord bracelets I'd been saving on Pinterest. I had even bought the right clips for it too! The hardest part though was figuring out what to do with the left over strands when you got to the bracelet end. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to tie a knot (Tried that. Looked clunky. Didn't like it.) or somehow slip the cords behind the back. In the end, that's what I did. It took the broadest wool needle I had and a pair of pliers but I managed it!

They look pretty good, don't they? Well worth the experience and now I can thing of heaps of other applications and really wish I'd bought more colours. Bother!

And last of all, I finally finished 3rd character 2nd line on my Monty Python cross stitch. After not really picking it up at all for over a fortnight, I thought resting my fingertips would be a good time to pick up a sewing needle instead.

There he is! Slightly underwhelming but you can't have everything. Next is the Green knight. But we see how I go with that tomorrow maybe.

So there you are. Manic knitting resulting in physical harm brings on a Paracord experiment and leads on to Dogged Cross stitching!

Yes, that pretty well describes my week.

See you all Later

Dx

Better late than never!

We're away for the Anzac day weekend. Hubbie was lucky to get the public holiday's off so we came back home to Albany to enjoy family time together. Hubbie at his parents with our dogs and his sister visiting and me at my parents place while my brother and his family were staying here as well. We've had a lovely time!
We went and saw the Anzac march, spent time with my bright, active little 5 year old niece, enjoyed ribbing my brother and girl time with my mum and Kim, and a great time (I hope!) was had by all!

I have done a lot of knitting. I'm churning out beanies like it's going out of fashion and using up quantities of cone yarn combo yarn. I gave David and Kim a beanie each so that's  two off my hands. Now I have to make one for Mackenzie, the lively 5 year old. I'll be posting it to her when I've finished it but they had to go home today. I'll have it ready no doubt by the time I arrive home in Kellerberrin tomorrow.
It has been a lovely weekend all round!
Really lovely!
See you all later.
Dx

Okay,...I think this time I've got it!

The right day, I mean!

I'd have done this yesterday but we went to Perth so Hubbie could do some swimming in a proper sized pool undercover instead of in a 2/3 sized pool subject to the nightly temperature plummet that only the wheatbelt can deliver! Not quite cold enough for ice but, By Gee! it feel like it!!

A productive day was had by all. We got to hang out with the sons, eldest cheerfully and carefree as usual and youngest burdened with the stupidity and foolishness of the world in general...but specifically his older brother. These two board together if you can believe it! I was forced to note as we sat down to eat lunch, youngest glowering at sniggering eldest that there were times I could not believe that they came from the same womb! More sniggering from oldest, faint smirk from deep and thoughtful.

I have a tooth in the front giving me hell at the moment making biting anything before chewing it nearly impossible and consequently didn't eat enough lunch to match up with my insulin (I've been an insulin dependant diabetic since I was 14...so it's been a while!) and energy expenditure. Meaning I became uncomfortably low in blood sugars while at a shopping complex and had to be herded to a table at a cafe while hubbie bought a hot chocolate for me, and the boys made sure I didn't fall over before I sat down. I hate feeling helpless! And stupid!

SO! anyway, since I'm a disaster on legs stumbling from crisis to crisis, on to the things I'm actually good at. CRAFT

So far these are the beanie's I've knit with the combined yarn I made up with my various op-shop finds. The first one I knit with 3mm needles. For the white yarn you see in the second beanie this was way too small. The fabric I knitted up was like a slat of wood! So I unravelled it and the next beanie I knit after the first one is the blue and black one and I used 3.75mm needles. This particular yarn combination feels lovely, cosy and warm! But I wanted to use up the white/grey stuff and since it could only be classed as chunky, I went up another needle size. Even knitting with 4mm needles the beanie is quite firm, but not so much that it's uncomfortable. It's also bigger than the proceeding two and youngest son has already put his hand up to give this a home...once the weather obliges of course.

Now I'm knitting another beanie using the same chunky white/grey yarn but on 4.5mm needles. Using another chunky yarn I have in my stash so we'll see how big this one turns out. These are all using the same beanie pattern I got for free on Ravelry. Garter Stripe Beanie by Terhi Montonen. It's absolutely fabulous and makes such a neat folded beanie when you're not wearing it.

And of course, the ubiquitous Monty Python cross stitch. Still plugging along with the three headed giant (I think that's what it is anyway.) I am enjoying putting the stitching together but I'm not sure what I'm going to do when it's done. I guess I'll worry about that when I get there. After this guy there are two other characters on this line and then I can start the next line! Onward and upwards! 

(Or downwards, really, in regard to the cross stitch anyway!)

The weather is finally beginning to turn around here. The nights are definitely cooler. We can even sleep under a doona at the moment without feeling smothered! And the farmers around our district are starting to get the paddocks ready for the next crop. They first sign of this is usually burn-offs of last years chaff and trash out in the paddocks. As we were driving back from Perth last night it looked like the place had been invaded by small dragons. Ribbons of fire running down the lines of chaff up and down the paddocks. Really impressive looking but I couldn't capture how awesome it looked on my phone. But this was the best I could get. 

I love fire, it's colour,and warmth. Mind you, only tame fire. Wild fire is entirely different beastie and not at all nice. Every summer we're reminded of that here in Australia.  But at pre-seeding time, fire is just another one of the tools of the farmers. Useful but only under certain circumstances.

Today is another day

And more hours to put craft into to keep fidgety hands busy!

It does puzzle me why I can sit hunched over a cross stitch or drawing up a picture or nutting out a new technique I've  never tried knitting before for hours! But when I have to tidy a bathroom or hang out laundry...blimey! It suddenly takes on the proportions of some enormous, insurmountable chore, sucking all the fun out of my creativity and rudely breaking in to my own little world. It's so inconvenient!

So what have I achieved so far this week?

The Marvellous Vest is all done and put away. I dusted off the Monty Python and the Holy Grail cross stitch and have actually managed to progress to the next line of characters! The light issue still remains so I can only do it during the day, so at night I knit.

I'm knitting a pair of socks with a lace insert with some yarn I dyed about 2 years ago but I still don't have a pic of those so I'm keeping them as a surprise for later when they look more like socks.

Also I realized I had accumulated a large number of left over cone yarns with ridiculously thin yarns on them that I really couldn't use in their present state. So I dragged them all out and combined a lot of them to make useable yarn for beanies. I must say, so far I am very pleased with the results! Much better than I'd expected and since they're almost all acrylics, they should be easy to wash. I'm going to see how many I can make and then I'll donate them to my local charity.

So there you have it. Does anyone else suffer from excessive creativity and nil enthusiasm for useful accomplishments?

Maybe it's just me :)

See you later!
Dx