I started thinking this morning about all the crafty projects I have that I'm either in the middle of, or that I have the stuff for but haven't started yet.
Crochet - I have a lot more yarn than I thought. I got this great teal wool blend that I want to make a cardigan out of, and I have the supplies to make my cupcake hats and acorn hats, plus some leftovers from previous projects. In fact I just started a pair of socks tonight using this fuzzy yarn that was originally going to be a blanket. I also have been saving plastic bags from World Market to make "plarn" water bottle carriers out of. But the good news is, I did manage to finish a project that had been languishing in my bag for about 7 months!
Quilt - My new bed quilt project is spread out on my work table, being pieced together a bit at a time. I'm not in a hurry to finish it, since we won't use it until next summer, but since I don't know how long it will take to have it quilted, I should probably get on it. I also have a box of t-shirts and sweatshirts that will be made into a cozy throw at some point too. And lastly I have some leftover blocks from my pink quilt that I need to turn into shams or throw pillows.
Sewing - I have all the fabric and pattern to make an adorable messenger bag with an appliqued owl on it... sitting in one of my storage bins. I also have a stack of dog food bags (the kind made of woven plastic) that I'm going to make into grocery bags, leftover lampshade fabric and batting that I'm going to turn into a cat bed, and all sorts of other leftover fabric that I'm saving for... something.
Glass painting - I don't have any projects started, but I still have all the materials ready in case something comes up. Same with batik stuff.
Beading - I bought some cool pendants on clearance, and have plans to make some things to add to my Etsy shop in time for Christmas... I just can't find the motivation right now to squint my way through the projects.
Cross stitch - I have a huge tote bag FULL of unfinished cross stitch projects, including a wedding announcement for my best friend who was married I forget how many YEARS ago now, but maybe I'll get this thing done for their 20th or 30th or 50th anniversary... There's also a Christmas stocking, a wall hanging of the Footprints poem, a baby announcement that I can't even remember who it was originally for, and maybe 2 or 3 other things that haven't even been started yet but I have the kits for them.
One good thing about having so many projects is when I get tired of it, or my hands/eyes get worn out, or when I'm on a TV marathon, or traveling, I can set down the boring/eyestraining/callous-forming/attention-stealing project and pick up one that's more interesting/uses-different-muscles/can-do-while-watching-the-tube. So it's fun. It just takes a bit of space to store it all.
Another good thing about being a Crafter-of-All-Trades is being able to come up with good gift ideas. This list doesn't even include the things I'm making as gifts
for other people, which I can't talk about here or I'd ruin the
surprise, but know that there are a FEW of them. Also if anybody wants something made for themselves or someone else, you know who to ask. :-)
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Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Up for a challenge..
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| The pattern (with some rows added to make it Queen size) |
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| The fabric scheme, which matches the duvet my mom made |
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| Getting a running start! |
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| And, of course, my "Assistant." |
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
The HELL.
I can't believe I forgot to post the end result of the kitchen repair fiasco. The maintenance guys, whose praises I was singing, totally failed. Sure the drain line got fixed, but when it came to patching the walls & repairing the cabinet they punched a hole through, well, let's just say a monkey could have done a better job. Two weeks and a new set of maintenance guys later, the wall was fixed properly, and I got the blue paint up. I did wind up using the Behr ultimate fancy whatever stuff with the primer in it, and it only took two coats, but lordy did that black & white monstrosity cover a multitude of sins. Now every crack, bump, and uneven spot in the plaster sticks out like a sore thumb, but at least it's a pretty sore thumb.
We're still not sure if we're going to paint the living room. We got our bookshelves arranged and art on the walls, and if you keep your eye-line pointed somewhat down it's really not that bad. The palm trees are still ugly, but they're ignorable. We've really just lost interest in trying to make this house better. Which is sad, but really isn't that how renting is supposed to be? I can't even bring myself to garden.
Beyond the kitchen, I survived another adventure - flying to Seattle, picking up a 10-foot moving truck, loading up furniture and stuff that my sister had been storing for me for the past 10 years, and driving back to Ohio with Mom following in her car. o.O It really wasn't all that bad though, and we made it in one piece with Mom only getting lost once (and that was the last HOUR of the trip, when trying to get off the Turnpike to get to the house!). She's staying in the apartment at the in-law's house for the rest of the summer, and it's been fun having someone to shop and craft and generally rat around with. Of course it's so much better because she's not staying at MY house - and she agrees with me on that too so I can get away with saying it! :-)
Work is... meh. There might be something happening at the bookstore for me, and the work-at-home job is still waiting on further negotiations, so it's the whole "up in the air" thing happening all over again. Which is really getting old.
Other than the "life update" I don't have much else to talk about I'm afraid. But Mom and I are going shopping for fabric today - I'm starting a big quilt project, so I'll share all of that.
Welcome to my (boring, insignificant) world!
We're still not sure if we're going to paint the living room. We got our bookshelves arranged and art on the walls, and if you keep your eye-line pointed somewhat down it's really not that bad. The palm trees are still ugly, but they're ignorable. We've really just lost interest in trying to make this house better. Which is sad, but really isn't that how renting is supposed to be? I can't even bring myself to garden.
Beyond the kitchen, I survived another adventure - flying to Seattle, picking up a 10-foot moving truck, loading up furniture and stuff that my sister had been storing for me for the past 10 years, and driving back to Ohio with Mom following in her car. o.O It really wasn't all that bad though, and we made it in one piece with Mom only getting lost once (and that was the last HOUR of the trip, when trying to get off the Turnpike to get to the house!). She's staying in the apartment at the in-law's house for the rest of the summer, and it's been fun having someone to shop and craft and generally rat around with. Of course it's so much better because she's not staying at MY house - and she agrees with me on that too so I can get away with saying it! :-)
Work is... meh. There might be something happening at the bookstore for me, and the work-at-home job is still waiting on further negotiations, so it's the whole "up in the air" thing happening all over again. Which is really getting old.
Other than the "life update" I don't have much else to talk about I'm afraid. But Mom and I are going shopping for fabric today - I'm starting a big quilt project, so I'll share all of that.
Welcome to my (boring, insignificant) world!
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Oh, the joys of a house.
So, our main drain line is busted & leaking down in the basement every time we shower/flush/wash. Thank god for maintenance guys! They were here for a good 3 hours last night finding the leak, & they're coming back today to replace the line. I will have a big hole cut in the wall of my kitchen, but thankfully it will be covered by the cabinets. And considering the walls in the kitchen are an ugly-ass black & white sponge faux finish nightmare, it'll be painted soon anyway. (Blue, if you want to know... "French Court" by Behr.)
The living room walls above the chair rail will be painted too, a plain tan to go with the sage green bottom half (right now the top is a metallic gold faux finish nightmare with added palm tree wallpaper border hideousness).
The maintenance guys, bless their hearts, also found where the dishwasher was leaking - ok, not so much "leaking" as "dumping" - the drain line had been taken out of the utility sink & tucked up out of the way when the basement was painted, so it was draining straight on top of my brand new washing machine. Yuuuuuck. I had to run an empty cycle with vinegar in the dispenser to purge the grossness.
To add insult to injury, Jake has stress-peed on the carpet in the living & dining rooms lord knows how many times now, since the carpet is dark tan and we can't see it. But we can smell it for sure. Amazingly, the cats haven't done the same. I think I'll try a good coating of baking powder first before renting a steam cleaner, just to neutralize the smell. We use a baby gate on the stairs at night to prevent more accidents and are getting him back on a set potty schedule too. He'll snap out of it soon - this has happened with each move so we know the drill now.
We have to put in a temporary fence in the backyard to keep Jake from visiting the neighbors - he's on a cable tie, but it's a bit too long. Plus we found out that the property lines in our neighborhood don't go from driveway to driveway, but that part of our backyard is actually the neighbor's. They don't care, thankfully, but our plans to rip out the overgrown area under the tree now have to be approved by them. Argh.
And of course, our garage floor is still gravel. It's only been 2 weeks so I know we need to be patient, but B's tools are still in our storage unit and we have to have a place to put them by the end of the month so we can close that expense out. We're probably going to have to put some planks or sheets of plywood down in the garage or something.
My mantra right now is "Our lease is up in a year, just a year..."
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| Put DOWN the sponge... |
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| The 70's called, they want their metallic paint back. |
To add insult to injury, Jake has stress-peed on the carpet in the living & dining rooms lord knows how many times now, since the carpet is dark tan and we can't see it. But we can smell it for sure. Amazingly, the cats haven't done the same. I think I'll try a good coating of baking powder first before renting a steam cleaner, just to neutralize the smell. We use a baby gate on the stairs at night to prevent more accidents and are getting him back on a set potty schedule too. He'll snap out of it soon - this has happened with each move so we know the drill now.
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| Keep up the shenanigans, mister, and you WILL wear a diaper. |
We have to put in a temporary fence in the backyard to keep Jake from visiting the neighbors - he's on a cable tie, but it's a bit too long. Plus we found out that the property lines in our neighborhood don't go from driveway to driveway, but that part of our backyard is actually the neighbor's. They don't care, thankfully, but our plans to rip out the overgrown area under the tree now have to be approved by them. Argh.
And of course, our garage floor is still gravel. It's only been 2 weeks so I know we need to be patient, but B's tools are still in our storage unit and we have to have a place to put them by the end of the month so we can close that expense out. We're probably going to have to put some planks or sheets of plywood down in the garage or something.
My mantra right now is "Our lease is up in a year, just a year..."
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Surrounded by Boxes
Between the somewhat more time-filling schedule at the bookstore than I had anticipated, plus the scramble to find a place to live in Akron so B didn't have to commute 45 minutes every day, and then the subsequent move... I'm away from my desk, please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. If you need immediate assistance, press 1 for the operator. Beeeeeeeep.
Long story short, we looked at seven different places in Akron, the first being awesome but too expensive, some in the middle that were just meh (and some that were yuck), to the last one which, strangely, has the same floorplan as the house we rented in Toledo. It felt like home right away. It has its downsides though - no fenced-in yard, so Jake has to be on a cable; fully carpeted; sump pump right in the middle of the basement floor (yick); neighbors literally rightherenextdoor; and no central air. Which we thought would be manageable with the massive attic fan upstairs - open the windows at night & turn that sucker on, and in rushes the cool air... but unfortunately this only works when it's actually cool at night. So we bought a portable air conditioner. Emphasis not so much on the portable really, but easier than a window unit for sure.
But we're settling in, slowly but surely. The cats stayed at B's parents' place until last night and are now exploring happily, Jake has "christened" the living room carpet already but at least it's a darker color so it doesn't show, we had some mildew on a few things from the storage unit that had to be cleaned, we finally got the basement carpet dried out after the homeowner's valiant effort with a steam cleaner, but most importantly, the beer glass collection is put away in the china display cabinet (which are almost identical to the ones we had in Toledo too). We're still unpacking (the heat slowed me down a lot, plus the aforementioned crazy work schedule at the bookstore) and we have a wedding to attend this weekend so we probably won't get much further with it until late next week. I'm off to Chicago for NeoCon on Monday & Tuesday, and B's new job leaves him wiped out when he gets home, so the non-essential stuff will just have to wait I guess.
Long story short, we looked at seven different places in Akron, the first being awesome but too expensive, some in the middle that were just meh (and some that were yuck), to the last one which, strangely, has the same floorplan as the house we rented in Toledo. It felt like home right away. It has its downsides though - no fenced-in yard, so Jake has to be on a cable; fully carpeted; sump pump right in the middle of the basement floor (yick); neighbors literally rightherenextdoor; and no central air. Which we thought would be manageable with the massive attic fan upstairs - open the windows at night & turn that sucker on, and in rushes the cool air... but unfortunately this only works when it's actually cool at night. So we bought a portable air conditioner. Emphasis not so much on the portable really, but easier than a window unit for sure.
But we're settling in, slowly but surely. The cats stayed at B's parents' place until last night and are now exploring happily, Jake has "christened" the living room carpet already but at least it's a darker color so it doesn't show, we had some mildew on a few things from the storage unit that had to be cleaned, we finally got the basement carpet dried out after the homeowner's valiant effort with a steam cleaner, but most importantly, the beer glass collection is put away in the china display cabinet (which are almost identical to the ones we had in Toledo too). We're still unpacking (the heat slowed me down a lot, plus the aforementioned crazy work schedule at the bookstore) and we have a wedding to attend this weekend so we probably won't get much further with it until late next week. I'm off to Chicago for NeoCon on Monday & Tuesday, and B's new job leaves him wiped out when he gets home, so the non-essential stuff will just have to wait I guess.
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