I finished my first handspun. This pic shows it partially spun, with the original color of the batting.

( More pics of the process and the finished work )

Last weekend was the Wool Market in Estes Park. We have gone the past few years, but this was the first time I signed up for workshops on Thurs and Fri. My friend Kathy and I rode up together and stayed over Thurs nite at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes.

Thursday, I went to the Ravelry class. It was taught by Jess, Casey, and Mary-Heather. They were the three people behind Ravelry for a long time, but they have recently added a 4th person. Sara was not at Estes though. They talked about the history of Ravelry, its neat features and how to use them, and they answered questions. Poor Jess had bad altitude sickness and clearly just wanted to get to lower elevation so she could feel better.

Here is a pic of Mary-Heather, me, Jess, and Casey from after the class.


( More + swap and animal pics! )

My friend Sian sent me a great package in the mail - all the way from England! It had a bunch of wonderful stuff in it:


( Warning - picture heavy! )

I made a little apple for my son's other teacher. He spends a lot of time in his classroom, so I figured I needed to make something for him as well. It is from the Lion Brand pattern "Amigurumi Apple" http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/80283AD.html?noImages=. I gave mine a face because, well, it needed one!



Cross posted to WLA

For my son's teacher this year, I made the Lion Brand graduation bear (http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/80285AD.html?noImages=). He's not graduating, but I thought it looked like something for a teacher. I used old yarn from my stash (actually, I think it is from my Mom's stash so no telling how old it is!), and after doing the head, body, and arms, I decided I was definitely going to run out. And they don't make that kind anymore. So I turned the arms into the legs and made smaller arms. Also, he really needed something, so I made him a little sweater in the school's colors to match his mortar board. I am not totally thrilled with him, but eh, he'll do. I know - terrible attitude, but I don't have a lot of time to make him better right now. I need to move on to making something for a swap at the Estes Park Wool Market with some Ravelry friends.



Cross posted to WLA

I've got two more items to show off. The first is one that I sent to a friend, so I had to wait till she got it to post a pic.
( pics )

For Earth Day there was a reusable tote bag contest at work. I decided to try making a plarn bag - plastic yarn. You cut the bag into strips so you end up with circles of yarn about 1" wide. Then you loop them together to make a double stranded plastic yarn. The bag took about 45 bags to make!



If I made one of these again, I wouldn't attach the handles with bows. I don't like how they look, but I couldn't fix it at that point without ruining the handles. And I didn't have time to redo them.

I made a walrus for a friend, and now that she has it, I can post!



( side view )

Check this out. During the 30 hrs that a 98 yr old woman was trapped under the rubble of her collapsed house in Italy following an earthquake, she kept herself occupied by crocheting! http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/08/italy-earthquake-survivor-crochet If I ever get trapped in a disaster of some sort and am waiting by myself for rescue (or even death for that matter), I want to have my knitting or crochet with me too! That and a good audiobook. :0)

I also wanted to share this awesome poster I found online. It sums up this blog pretty well.

I found this quote on an artist friend's blog (http://www.brithammer.com/) and it really speaks to me. I am *so* inspired by color.

"Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air - explode softly - and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth - boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either - not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with their imagination." - Robert Fulghum

My 4 yr old daughter is really crafty already, and for her birthday in January, I got her a bunch of her own Sculpey, some tools, and some tiny cookie cutters of animals, flowers, and things. She has been doing a lot of clay playing lately, and she often asks me to play too. I have made a couple of little things lately that I am happy with, so I thought I'd post pics.
( sculpey goodness )

You have probably already seen this somewhere since it has been all over the web, but just in case, I'll add it one more time to the growing number of mug cake posts.  My mom sent me this recipe in an e-mail, and I had to try it out.  It was yummy!  I used apple sauce instead of oil or butter, and it worked fine.  The cake was a bit dense, but that could also be because I used bread flour instead of regular or cake flour.  The applesauce was chunky, so there were little bits of apple in the cake.  I couldn't taste them because of the chocolate, but I want to try this again without the chocolate (maybe add 2 extra teaspoons of flour instead of the cocoa?) and add cinnamon to make an apple cinnamon cake. I also saw people online adding things like chopped hazelnuts to the chocolate version.  If you make it , let me know how it tuns out, especially if you try something different!  Also, if anyone has tried this version as well as the cake mix version, how did they compare?  Which was easier?  Did you have to use up all the cake mix quickly?

5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG  CAKE

 

  4 tablespoons flour
  4  tablespoons sugar
  2 tablespoons cocoa
  1  egg
  3 tablespoons milk
  3 tablespoons oil  ..or try real butter...worked very well
  3 tablespoons  chocolate chips (optional)
  a small splash of vanilla  extract
  1 large coffee mug

 

  Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well.  Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil  and mix well. Add the chocolate chips (if using - but then again, who wouldn't want to add more chocolate?!) and  vanilla extract, and mix again.

 

  Put your  mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts (high). The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but  don't be alarmed!

  Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired (the chocolate chips all sink to the bottom - probably better to use mini ones). EAT! (this can serve 2 if you  want to feel slightly more virtuous).

 

Yesterday I finished a little bear I was working on.  I think I am going to start an Etsy site to sell him and his pattern, but first i want to get another ami and pattern ready to put in there so I have more than one thing.  What do you all think? And does anyone know what I patterned him after?



( Another Pic )
Cross posted to We Love Amigurumi

I got the following from thropots LJ:

Fictional Album created via meme
1. Go to Wikipedia and ask it for a random article. The title of the article you get is the name of your band.
2. Go to the Random Quotations Page. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page are the title of your album.
3. Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

Band Name: Ivesia paniculata (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivesia_paniculata)
Album title: At the Village Pump (en.wikiquote.org/wiki/656)
Album Cover:

What's Your Word?
My Word is "Think"



I see life as an amazing mix of possibilities, ideas, and fascinations.
And sometimes I feel like I don't have enough time to take it all in.

I love learning. Whether I'm in school or not (yep, again), I'm probably immersed in several subjects right now.

When I'm not learning, I'm busy reflecting. I think a lot about the people I know and the things I've experienced.

[Pretty accurate, except it doesn't say anthing about the time I spend crafting]

What's YOUR word?
http://www.blogthings.com/whatsyourwordquiz/

Wait till you see the amazing swap things that kidmissle made for me! I was in total awe when I opened the package. They are absoulutely amazing!!!! I wish you could see the details of the work, but my camera just doesn't do macro well enough.



( Read more... )

Over Christmas I went to England with my family to see my BIL and his family. It was awesome. We went to London and to Cornwall. A day trip we went on was to Dorset to Lyme Regis to go fossil hunting on the beach. England is so different from the US. Here, they would make it a park so you couldn't just find stuff and keep it. Or it would be privately owned so you had to pay money to hunt. But there, you can just go and find stuff and keep it! The main fossils there are belemnites (described by my DH as squids with shells) and ammonites.

I'll add more to this later, cause my DH just asked if he could take this computer with him.

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me!

My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- what I create will be just for you.
- it'll be done this year. no guarantees when, it will be a total surprise!
- you have no clue what it's going to be. it may be poetry. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. maybe a beanie. who knows? not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to repost this, and repost right away. We can all make stuff and make someone's day a little bit brighter!

Now lets see if at least 5 people read my blog.

Q: Let's say you're unfathomably wealthy. Money is not an issue- you could spend off-handedly for the rest of your life and never keep track and never run out, and because of this you could be and do anything you wanted, anything at all, for the rest of your life. What would it be? Of course, you want things. Let's say you've gotten them all, and as you discover new things that make you happy you can keep buying them. But what else? How would you occupy yourself for the rest of your life? List the first nine things that come to mind if you can.

ETA:  Damn, I obviously didn't read this very well.  I thought I was supposed to write about what I would buy with all my money.  Not what I would do since I had so much money I could do whatever I wanted.  Oh well, here are my answers of what I would spend my unfathomable wealth on.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Crap! I just spent a hug amount of time answering this, and my answers went away! I turned around to talk to someone, then I turned back and they were gone!  Where did they go????

Well, here is a recap as best I can. But I'm sure it won't be as good as the original. They never are. :(


1) I would help others. No, really. This is the first thing that came to mind. I have so much and there are so many people with next to nothing. I would give them food, clothing, shelter, education, training, and whatever else was necessary to help them be comfortable and self-sufficient.  If the money is never-ending, I should be able to help a lot of people!

2) I'd pay off our debts and the debts of my friends and family.  We'd all own our houses and cars and have not credit card debt.

3) I'd travel.  I'd go wherever we (DH and I) decided to go.  Sometimes we would take the kids (with a tutor) and other times we'd leave them with family or the best care money can buy.  Spain, Italy, Turkey (is Turkey safe for Americans right now?), Egypt, Greece, Africa, etc.

4) I'd fund research.  As a former scientist, I know how hard it is to get research funded, especially when all the money is going to bombing the crap out of Iraqis and Afghans and others.  I'd fund alternative energy research, scientific research, medical research, and anything else that sounded like it would benefit humanity or provide us with cool info about how the universe works.

5) I'd buy the most energy efficient car out there.  Heck, I'd buy a fleet of them and give them away to people with old, gas-guzzling cars.

6)  I'd buy a bigger house to hold all our stuff.  It would have lots of windows, a nice big yard with several gardens and someone to take care of them, someone to cook for us when we didn't want to, and someone to clean for us.

7) I'd donate enough money to Barak Obama and the Democratic Party that he'd want to meet me.  How cool would that be?  Barak is the man!

8)  I'd buy art and I'd buy stuff from small locally-owned businesses and other underdogs.  Any time I heard about a reasonable business that was about to go under, I'd buy a ton of whatever and help keep them afloat.  Then I'd find people who want rubber duckies or whatever I just bought and give them the goods or services.  I wish I had been able to do this for a friend recently whose restaurant had to close.  And it was a good restaurant with a nice atmosphere.  :(

9) I'd buy wild land all over the world to preserve it and the plants, animals, and other organisms living in or on it.


I know I sound like a total idealist, but I would really like to do these things more than I would want to go out and buy a myself a Hummer.  Heck, I wouldn't drive a Hummer if you gave me one.  Well, maybe I'd drive it off a cliff (after jumping out at the brink). 

Did I mention yarn?  I'd need lots of yarn to play with during all of my travels.  :)