Moving the blog

It's quite exhausting for me to keep up with two kids and two blogs.

So I'm combining them, finally. The new blog is on Wordpress, and you can find it here.

I hope you will all keep reading and commenting. I know I haven't blogged much at all lately, but I'm hoping to start blogging daily/semi-daily again. So for regular updates about my adventures in the worlds of Craft and Unschooling, as well as any future patterns, please update links and/or bookmarks. I have already exported all the files from both blogs to the new blog. If you are interested in the knitting but don't care about the unschooling-- or vice versa-- I've categorized everything accordingly.

Smallest monster yet

I've just listed this guy in my Etsy shop:



He's about 9 inches tall in all, 6 inches from head to butt. I love him bunches. I've been trying to make more monsters to fund my homeschooling adventures, and it's a bit tiring. My plan was to go for roughly 5 a week, a few small ones like this one here, and a couple of large ones like the other one I just listed:



That one is 14 inches tall. I dunno what happened there, I was trying to make a small one, and he ended up being giant. This one seems to be popular, so I'm going to try to make up a few more. He's delightfully squishy.

But yeah. It's getting tiring. My hands get really sore, and I get nothing else done around the house. Unless I schedule every minute of every day (SO not me) I wouldn't be able to make a steady income doing this. Perhaps a steady tiny income. Like $40 a week. ha! Which is why I am thinking of coming up with more designs and selling the patterns.

So do you guys think I could sell a pattern for the smaller monster? I've really worked the kinks out of my designs. I've noticed that my free patterns are a BIT wonky, but people haven't seemed to notice. I would want my newer designs to be effing perfect.

Back and Feeling Lighter

I'm posting this to Embracing the Strange too. I want some encouragement. Also, I'm thinking more and more about building a homepage, putting my patterns on there as both html and pdf downloads, and combining my blogs. I want to post daily but can't do it with both blogs, you know?

I've gotten really inspired by this flickr set, by a girl who downsized from a 3 bedroom, large house to a one bedroom apartment with her husband and little one. Her name is Sara, her blog is interesting too. I found all this through this thread on MDC.

It's gotten me to think a lot... about all my stuff. How I just purged a shit ton a few months ago, and how I've been working on it, filling my previously bare closet with boxes of the kids' toys and clothes that they'll never play with/wear-- and how I still have all this crap everywhere! I can't even sweep or vacuum! It's complete insanity.

So today, I've worked on purging. I have about 6 garbage bags full so far, of just TRASH. I'm talking about pizza boxes and juice bottles and trampled artwork and random papers that were just laying in the middle of our living spaces. Insanity, I tell you. I cleared off the kitchen counter, mostly, just by throwing stuff away. While Boo Bear was splashing in the bath, I was getting THREE garbage bags full of stuff out of the bathroom. No shit! Three. I went through all my makeup and products. I don't use that shit. Ever. I kept enough makeup to halfway fill up a tiny box. I now do not even own any foundation. I kept some makeup because occasionally I like to pretend I'm not a granola muncher, and wear some. Just sometimes, you know.

I have a plan. A glorious plan, to radically downsize.

--throw out most of my magazines. Except the craft ones.
--make a giant thick bag out of all my crappy scratchy acrylic yarn, slightly smaller than the giant tupperware I have my yarn in now, and store the rest of my yarn in there.
--trade in a lot of my books for fewer ones of better quality.
--I have a lot of old empty ripped up photo albums, for some reason. I'm tossing them.
--I'm throwing out the old journals I've kept that are mind numbingly boring.
--Clothing: purge even more, radically reduce all our clothing, especially shoes, and blankets.
--Donate D's old stroller and carseat.
--Kitchen: clean out cabinets and toss old food and random junk that's in there now. Get rid of extra plates, utensils, and gadgets.
--Bathroom: Already downsized that shit, but do it some more. Am I really going to use a hair iron?

I also have some space saving/decorating projects in mind that don't involve throwing shit away all willy nilly. I've decided that if I'm going to keep my yarn and fabric I'm going to have to start using it like crazy.
--Sew up some hanging shelves for the closet.
--Make a needle roll case.
--Make colorful wall hangings with pockets, and some without.
--Make archive boxes out of paper covered cereal boxes for the few magazines I'm keeping.
--Go through the giant bags from my old car that I have had around for MONTHS.
--Put books I'm keeping on shelves. They're mostly in boxes now.
--USE MY DRAWER SPACE. Clothes everywhere and empty drawers. WTF.
--Make some aprons. I made one last week that I really love and hope to get pictures of it soon. It makes me feel like a homemaking goddess. I'm wearing it now and I feel so strong and awesome.


Becca sent me a big box of yarn the other day and I've got plans for that. I'm making Boo Bear a sweater already. She sent me a lot of Caron Simply Soft, which I adore. Enough to make me and the kids a couple/few sweaters, and stuff. Also some really soft and fuzzy white acrylic which I may make bears or something out of. And some yellow sport weight that I'm thinking of knitting into lacy curtains with big needles. I have always wanted yellow curtains in my kitchen. There's some cotton-like stuff, that I'm thinking of making into baskets. She even tucked in some homemade soap and a little Martha Stewart craft mag for kids (which Rowan is going to spaz over!) So thanks again, Becca! It made me so happy to get that package.

I shall update on my purging/downsizing progress. This week is my Major Purge Week. Anyone want to do it along with me? I figure actually taking stuff to the dump and to be donated all week, and then doing at least 15 mins a day after this week, should get my stuff as radically simplified as I'd like.

Who's with me? It's quite freeing.

Monday was fun.

I met my friend Ariel's sister Kara on Monday at my dad's house, to trade off on yarny lessons-- she gave me crochet lessons while I taught her the basic knit, purl, cast on, bind off stuffs.

I think I'm getting the hang of crochet. I started this on Monday night:



I made a hat! Crocheting in the round, no less. (I would have thought you were crazy if you'd told me Monday I'd be starting this in just a few hours.) I used this pattern for guidance. I had to rip back quite a few times, and found that wow, that's easier with crochet. You can't drop stitches down the entire rung, just one stitch back. Sweet.



It's mostly various worsted wool from my stash-- with a stripe of fuzzy Moda Dea Wild. The top is MORE of that Paton's Classic Wool, color Too Teal, that I had a gajillion balls of.

I'm quite enchanted with crochet. My children sort of suffered for it yesterday, until I got this hat done. Then I did about 4 days worth of dishes and the Boo Bear crashed out, so I started working on some tiny knit dolls for Rowan. I'm using a basic body pattern and she's making me knit dresses and such. I think I'll make three or four, then I'm going to make some gnomes for Boo Bear (only with faces) which are easy enough that a monkey could make them.

I think I'm just going to work on more toys for the kiddos for awhile. Oh, and now that I can crochet, there's this gnome home!

Imma go wear my hat around for awhile.

The Hazardous Scarf

Jeez, have I really been gone since January 10?

I guess so. Well, I've undertaken a project for my friend Professor Hazard:



...and it's going a little slower than I'd originally hoped. It is going to be extra sweet, so there's that.

The stitch pattern is Diagonal Slip Stitch Pattern from a Vogue Knitting Stitch book, which my poor ass happened to find in this sock pattern from MagKnits.

Here's a detail:



I had wanted it to look more like this. But I think it's pretty nice the way it is. Hopefully he will like it and stuff. I cast on 68 stitches on US size 7 needles-- 16 inch circulars. I'm using four balls of Wool-Ease. (I know, I must have lost my mind. I'm halfway through ball 3.) It's a long tube, then my required task is to sew up the ends, attach yellow and black fringe, and attach a logo much like the insignia badge from the Prof's shop. In a pleasing manner.

I've had a few days at a time off from knitting this (and anything else) a few different times, which is why it's taking so long. I started homeschooling a couple of days after I started this and well, that takes time, especially with two tiny ones. Ro just turned 5 and my Boo Bear is almost 2. I'm blogging regularly at Embracing the Strange lately, in case anyone is interested in my more personal daily existence and unschooling journey. There are a lot of good resource links there for folks who may be interested in homeschooling/unschooling.

I'm using this scarf as a sort of meditation for when things start to close in on me and the white noise sets in. The days that I have taken off of knitting have been hard ones. It's not right for me to knit all the time, I know that now, but it is okay to sit myself down and say, "Hey, why don't you just relax for a minute. Stop worrying about the mess. Here, let me do something nice for you." Sometimes I'm an asshole. (I've been writing about this at the aforementioned other blog.) And when I have fits of guilt I feel like I don't deserve to knit. So I have to have these little talks with myself, to move on, to move forward. There are times-- if you can believe it-- that I have to force the needles into my hands.

Spherey and Sunshine

I was so fired up to show Ro's present that I forgot to share what I made for Boo Bear. It is, of course, Spherey, designed by the lovely Jess Hutchinson. Since like most people I don't have access to the pattern booklet, I used the Poor Man's Spherey instructions. I really like how he turned out-- but the baby hasn't even looked at him.



I used Paton's Shetland Chunky on size 7's for the body, and double-stranded Wool-Ease for the limbs. I learned a few tricks doing this. I made something else with this yarn and these needles and had a lot of holes. My tip is, when you are doing the kfb: when you insert the needle into the back of the same stitch you just knit, pull your working yarn taut. This really creates a beautiful tight fabric.

I also wanted to share my progress on Sunshine:



Again, the color freaks out my camera, it shows up more teal here but is actually a very intense blue violet. This thing fits me like a glove! It's hands-down the most flattering thing I've ever made, and also probably the most flattering thing in my wardrobe (or future wardrobe).



I've learned so much with the construction of this sweater: how top-down raglans come to be, the sewn bind off. One sleeve, a collar, and the lace panel are all that is needed now! Of course it still might take me awhile as I'm not really able to do much knitting for myself these days.

Crocheting... and Lucille

Last night I put the baby in the tub, and he was having so much fun without my interaction. So I decided to get my crochet hook that I just bought, some yarn, and a really old craft magazine with crochet instructions in it. I sat down in the bathroom floor beside him and started.

My entire childhood, I went to my Mamaw Lucille's house really often and we created non-stop. We made dolls with safety pin/bead dresses and those creepy doll heads on wires, I did my first sewing there, then later embroidery. She built the foundation of the artist inside me. For one of the very last crafty things we did together, she taught me to crochet doilies-- I was 13 or 14. Mamaw Lucy died when I was 17, during a painful teenage angst time in my life.

So I was surprised when I picked up the hook last night-- I didn't expect it to feel so deeply sacred. I could feel Lucille in my heart.

I've had an aversion to crocheting for a long time. I'm not really sure why, exactly. I looked over the instructions rather vaguely, and then figured out how to chain on my own. The diagrams were weird and confusing, so I just sort of found a rhythm for something akin to single crochet. I decided that although I was fairly certain that I wasn't doing it "properly", I didn't care, because the "rules" of crochet just seem sort of silly, restricting.

I played around while the baby splashed, and this is what came of it:



Then after I got the baby all dried off and dressed, I started another doodad, this times experimenting with that very cool quality of crochet-- where you can just break away at any point and go in a different direction. The freeform aspect of the art intrigues me. This is the result of that experimentation:



I've looked around a bit and found this really great set of lessons (There are ten, I think, if you click on the link at the top of the page). Yet, I still think that there is something beautiful about the way that I am going through these motions that feel so deeply sacred, in complete ignorance of the way it is "supposed" to be. I'm sure that I will eventually decide to learn the rules.

But for now, I'm just thankful for this clean slate.

A new way to love my yarn.

A new way to celebrate Lucille.