Velma's World: 2010YIP

Showing posts with label 2010YIP. Show all posts

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Craft or Bust Week 7

CRAFTASTIC! That's what this week was. I'm bangin' out those lingering WIPs & generally gettin' down to some seriously crafty bidness.

Finished three long-standing UFOs, garnering me 3 WIPs Dancing medals in Ravelympics:
- Saddest Project Ever is now Sad No More
- Veltrelac Socks do NOT make me look fat, &
- My World Record Scarflette is D for DONE!
Made mine Matchy Matchy: Knit a MM Hat to go with my MM Cowl, medaling in Hat Halfpipe, Stash Compulsory Dance, & Single Skein Speed Skate events

Frogged-but-not-blogged my UFO of the Damned, Bean's Bear, & Valentine Elf Topper, adding three 'new' yarns to my stash!

What else? Oh, yeah, still continuing on with my Year in Pictures: Work in Progress blog. What with Spring springing around here, I've been taking flower pictures some. First daffodils, first bloom on our new plum tree, & quince blossoms. Love me some spring!

1. Quince 52/365, 2. First Growth 50/365, 3. Harbinger of Spring 49/365

I also did a lot of reading this week, although that's not so crafty; but so what! ;) I read 2 books this week, & sent 'em both out into the world via Bookcrossing.com - my favorite way to 'recycle' books. I read The Grief Stop, by Vicki Stiefel, and A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George. Been in the mood for mystery. That brings my totals to 6 books and 3,033 pages read in 2010 - 12% of my goal of 52 books & 25,000 words!

That seems like PLENTY for one week, don't you think? And what about you, what did YOU do this week? Did you Craft or did you Bust?

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Craft Supplies Out the Yin-Yang

Look at all the pretties! Saturday I was able to pimp my craft supply stash, courtesy of hands on CRAFT proprietress Kristy's yard sale, with this vintage fabric yardage. I can't turn down a bit of mid-century mod orange upholstery fabric, now can I? This feels like pillow covers to me, & I think I have enough for 2.

Plus I got a whole load of crochet cotton + a bunch of green & orange ribbon + a giant sack of fabric scraps - I see some new BOMBit Kits in our future!! Any suggestions on BOMBits you'd like to see in the shop? I'm planning a St. Paddy's colorway, of course. Maybe a pastels combo... Your ideas are welcome here.

I also scored this lovely vintage paper cutter, something I'd been trolling our local Craigslist for: only five dollah - holla! I've been experimenting a lot with bokeh photography, and I figured you already know what a paper cutter looks like, so I'm getting all artsy-fartsy on your ass with this shot. I started a bokeh set on flickr too, if you're looking for more. This one & the middle fabric pic are both featured on my Year in Pictures: A Work in Progress blog, days 33 & 32 respectively. I'm really pleased with the photos I've been taking for that project, & I'm kinda surprised I've only got one follower over there.

Well, I'm heading over to my wheel now. I've got a singles ready to ply up in a NEW style! Stay tuned for the introduction of Turbanator™.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Go, Team, GO!

Didja hear the news? I'm captaining a team for the Ravelympics & I want YOU! Team COLORBOMBers: there are prizes (!), a discount in my Etsy shop, a personalized Ravatar, & even a custom BOMBits colorway in our Official But Optional Team colors, (orange & pink) available only to Team members! There are 8 of us on the team so far, but the festivities don't start for another 2 weeks, and we'd love to have ya - join us today!

I also put up this NEW skein of handspun art yarn in the shop, 'Spruced Up', one of my Tufty™ style yarns with tufts of fiber wrapped like little presents of love and sprinkled throughout.

It's a whopping 132 yards of snow-on-evergreen goodness, in undyed BFL wool with silky green hand-dyed mohair locks from my friend Janet Heppler's Nebo-Rock Textiles in Covelo, CA, plied in with a coordinating cotton thread. Weighing in at almost a quarter-pound, I daresay there should be plenty enough for a hat or other small project, even a pair of matching kids hats!

This last pic I'm throwing in 'cuz it makes me giggle: this is my Day 26 Year in Pictures entry from yesterday, entitled 'Busy Week at the Bomb Squad.' Seems bomb threat #2 of the week wasn't any more threatening than the first one (which turned out to be a bicycle light, not a bomb). Maybe this chin-stroking Humboldt's finest is contemplating what this one will eventually prove to be?

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Socks, & Books, & Collages - Oh My!

Doh! Look what I did! I muffed Cole's socks. Compare the heel on the right to the one on the left. Notice anything? Yeah, well. I forgot to knit the 2nd one in my preferred K1S1 pattern (for reinforcement), instead going balls-out in stockinette. That's what I get for knitting while I'm on like 4 cups of coffee! Oh, well - if I don't tell him, he won't even notice. All that's left is Toe #2!

Day 19/365

Books, yep, we got books. Last year, you might recall, I signed on for 30 Books in '09, the brainchild of Knittering.com's Sinta. Guess how many I actually read last year? 2. Seriously, only two books read in 2009. In years past I have averaged more like 2 dozen/year. But I'm back on a reading jag, and although I'm not making any predictions on my numbers this year, I know it will be more than 2, haha! I just finished Second Chance Pass by Robyn Carr, a gift from Mia. Right now I'm finishing the two books I left unfinished last year, blink and World Light, & I started The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk a few days ago. You can follow along with my reading progress in 2010 if you want at Goodreads.com, where I do all my updates/reviews/&etc.

Between sock knitting, & reading, & the accompanying blogging of these activities, I made this photo-collage of my UFOs for Craft or Bust. Thought it might just inspire me to keep on plugging away at my finish or frog goal. I'll leave you for today with one final photograph: Day 18 of 365 from yesterday, which I didn't blog about here, but which is posted on my 2010: A Year in Pictures, A Work in Progress blog. Can you figure out what it is? No? Click here to view the whole thing.

Glow 18/365

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Blue

We are bracing for a bad-ass storm here in Humboldt. Prediction is 6-10 inches of rain in the coming week. Viva El Niño! Figured, what the hell, let's make that part of my YIP project today. But, how to capture wind??

I tried getting a decent shot of one of our wind chimes whipping around, but that didn't fly. (Get it? I slipped in a pun there.) But then the first big drops started plopping around me & I changed tactics. The result is the view out my kitchen window, showing the stained glass moon that my friend Diane made and gave to me for my 40th birthday, with some of those ripe raindrops on our very dirty window. It's a blurry shot, but I like it. Can you see the trees blowing around in the background? Whee, hold on to your hat, it's a Winne the Pooh day!

Yesterday, some yarn showed up at my house. I stash-dived (dove? dunno) on Ravelry and came up with 2 skeins of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool + 2 skeins of Knit Picks fingering for dyeing, 1 each of Bare and Color Your Own; I can't resist stash enhancement, particularly for the bargain basement price of $23 for all including shipping!

I've got a couple of ideas for the Silky Wool: Ishbel, a popular small lace shawl, or the Cool Hemp Poncho, but neither really feels 'right'. I'd like to find a Help for Haiti pattern that would work for this yarn; the most likely candidate right now is the Calm Waters Cowl by Sara Amoroso, but I'm thinking I might want something a bit more lacy... Anybody with a suggestion, I'd love to hear from you!

Obviously, the Knit Picks yarns will get dyed; I'm thinking one will be done as a self-striping yarn using the warping board Cole made me last year, and the other I'll try out my Kenner knitting machine with, see if I can make myself a sock blank to dye and knit. Should be fun!

Saturday, January 16, 2010

A New Day, A New Blog

Still Life - Day 16 YIP

A decent photo, but criminetly it took a lot of effort! I took 72 pictures to get one I liked. I kept asking myself why, exactly, I was spending my Saturday agonizing over a stupid photograph. Oh, yeah, that's right: I'm trying to get better. And that takes practice.

The impetus behind today's photo was my acquisition yesterday of that cute vintage plaid Thermos. I filled it up with my collection of vintage straight knitting needles that belonged to my grandmother, and then looked for a sunny spot to photograph them. The shelf over the kitchen sink, that looks out over the side yard between our house and our soon-to-be-landlord's. I like our 'shabby chic' fence, although I fear the only thing holding it up are the blackberry vines on the other side in our backyard.

After finally finishing my photoshoot, I spent some time setting up a new blog, just for my Year in Pictures photos. 2010: A Year in Pictures, A Work in Progress can be found at www.yipwip2010.blogspot.com (I call it YIP-WIP, haha!)

How about a Craft or Bust update to wrap up the week? I've been plugging away on Cole's socks, the ones he was supposed to get for Christmas; I'm on the gussets of #2 after turning the heel yesterday. Maybe they'll get finished this week, & be my first FO of the new decade? I want to get 'em done & move on to frogging some of those languishing UFOs I catalogued; I'm itching to -get this!- start a new project, LOL! I want to do Ishbel with the Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool I bought from de-stashing Raveler Chronicles. It arrived yesterday along with some Knit Picks Bare that I want to dye using the warping board Cole made for me last year - stripes, here I come! I'd also like to do a project made from a pattern on the Help for Haiti list on Ravelry; there are several that have caught my eye, & supporting a designer that is donating the proceeds to the Haitian relief effort is, well, a good thing. I'd like to choose one that is donating 100% of their proceeds, but the Calm Waters Cowl is really intriguing, and 50% of my $4 purchase price would get donated. Hmmm, decisions, decisions.

I also thought and blogged a bit about creativity, learned a new Photoshop skill, and got a surprisingly cool self-portrait of myself knitting. Not a bad week #2!

Friday, January 15, 2010

Who Knows What's at the Bottom of the Hill

Big Day in B-Arcata

I had my annual "women's" checkup today; what a joy that was. I don't really mind the pap or the cancer-screening boob grope, but jeez, they made me fill out new paperwork for peri-menopausal/post-menopausal women. And I've shrunk an inch. I am waaay to young to be shrinking already. WTF?!? But that's not what the pics are about (I already took a photo of me in the stirrups when I did 365 in 2007. No need to go there again.)

Nope, this is a post about our most recent Arcata Plaza fire. I came down the hill to find all of Arcata Fire Department on-scene in front of Arcata Liquors. Apparently, some genius threw a cigarette butt through a grate and into the crawlspace under the building housing Arcata Liquors. Firefighting ensued.

This isn't the first Plaza fire I've witnessed (although, to be honest, I didn't actually see any flames today; but, then again, I didn't see actual flames for most of the other ones either). I saw the fire at Crosswinds in '89 or '90, the fire in 1990 that burned Hensel's Hardware down, the 1994 Fuerwerker Bldg. fire, and the big Marino's/NEC fire in 2001. Those were real fires, danger & damage & drunks oh my!, but I think this one, thankfully, was caught quickly & no damage done. Since there's no buzz on Twitter, everything must be fine, right? So, I leave you with this shot of Arcata's finest, my YIP pic for the day.

View from the Knee Cam - 15/365

(Added: Oh yeah, I forgot - While at the gyno today, I turned the heel on Cole's Sock #2!! Wooooohoooo!!)

Thursday, January 14, 2010

My Trip to India

Ghostly Knitter 14/365 YIP

Guess what I did today? Among other things, I spent 3 hours online in a live chat with a tech from Symantec while he dug around inside my computer from afar. Me in California, him in Kerala, India; how weird is that?!? Magic. My Norton AntiVirus has been causing untold problems (no, really; some I didn't even know about), but now my laptop is all better! And I'm freshly prophylactic-ed, safely surfing teh internets and opening documents without fear of sudden infiltration. Bots & spyware & trojan horses, be gone with you! Thanks, Abhilash!!

In between answering Abhilash's questions, I knit a bit on Cole's Xmas socks. Somehow I captured this ethereal photo of me knitting; I think it was the low-light setting that gave me the dreamy pink pic. I like how it looks like I'm knitting with 8 needles! I didn't knit long enough to get very far, but I am working on heel #2, so the finish line is in view.

Now I'm off to finish COLORBOMB shipping for tomorrow and watch the premier of Archer. Ta!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Playing with Filters

Sketchy - Day 13 YIP

No mo' photo mojo today, so I decided to take my own advice and make lemonade from lemons. Dicked around all day trying to get some good yarn pictures, with zero success, and that didn't really feed my creative side when it came to doing today's year in pictures shot. After capturing some truly un-flattering shots of Cole, I decided to use what I had instead of wishing for something I wish I had (as in, I wish I had a DSLR, but at least I do have Photoshop). Played around for awhile and found a couple of filters that yielded this interesting 'sketch' feel (combo of the stamp and ink edge filters). Since I can't draw any more than I can dance en pointe, I'm liking this pseudo-sketch effect. Cole was intrigued by it too. 'Til I can upgrade my camera, I think I'll just have to keep playing around in Photoshop.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Under the Big Top

Sparkle - YIP Day 12

Spun in December, I finally took pictures of 'Circus', one of my CurlicueyExtra™ style yarns and listed it in my shop on Etsy. First COLORBOMB Creations listing of the new decade!

Circus freak bright, texture out the butt, and a bit of bling in the form of angelina, it's loaded with as many beehives, turkish knots, and supercoils as I could cram into 34 yards. Doesn't sound like much yardage-wise, but it is uber-bulky so you can probably get a hat or other small project out of it. Wanna see more views of it? Head over here to see it from all angles.

I need to get spinning & dyeing again, don't I? Maintaining my motivation and inspiration is always a challenge for me. I am disheartened by the same-ness I see in most yarns, and it seems to sap my desire to create. Not sure why I let others' efforts affect me so much. Maybe I need a jump-start for my creative mojo, a tool or a workshop or something. Yarnwench uses daily journaling in the form of a "spontaneous watercolor" each day. Crystal has accepted the Creative Every Day Challenge and is working her way through The Artist's Way. Here's what you get if you Google 'how to stimulate creativity'. Gotta be something in there to get me going.

What do you do when your creative juices are all dried up?

Monday, January 11, 2010

Hardbodies - 11/365 YIP

Kinda down today, no real inspiration or motivation. Seems to happen when I don't have my coffee. So just putting up today's Year in Pictures effort for Day 11.

My mom used to make concrete sculptures when she was alive, using mannequins as forms. These have been living in my backyard for 5 years and have grown some diaphanous moss "clothing".

To see the rest of my YIP set here. Follow along as I do a photo-diary of my days throughout 2010.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

It's Not ALL Earthquakes Here

But it is a lot of earthquake - 10/365

In case you didn't hear, we had a 6.5 magnitude earthquake on the Northcoast yesterday, centered right here in our own Humboldt County. Here in Arcata Cole and I fared just fine; no damage, nothing even fell down. I spent the 15-second temblor under our 6' wooden table while Cole looked on from a nearby doorway. Knocked the power out for about 5 hours, but the worst part for us was being out of beer, haha! Not so along Bar Row downtown, as you can see if you watch the Plaza Cam video posted on CNN.

No power means earthquake romance.

Our neighbors to the south in Eureka didn't fare as well: windows are out, a few historical buildings have been red- and yellow-tagged due to damage, several blocks are cordoned off, my friends Garth & Claire have a busted water main beneath their house... Sending out hopes to everyone that they escaped unscathed. BTW, if you felt it, be sure to visit the USGS website and share your account on their Did You Feel It? page for this event. And for a chuckle, here's a YouTube music video my old boyfriend Chad created - a the tongue-in-cheek recount of the Great Earthquake of 2010:

A note: We joke around here about these things when nobody gets hurt, but my heart goes out to the 20,000 people left homeless in the wake of a 5.0 earthquake in Tajikistan on Jan. 2nd and a 7.2 quake + a tsunami in the Solomon Islands on the 4th. Please send them your thoughts.

In other news, it's the end of week one of Craft or Bust 2010, and I used it to get my organize on! I let my inner librarian run amok, & organized my knitting/crochet WIPs, complete with photo-documentation of looong abandoned projects. I dug around and found 10, count 'em ten!, UFOs that I'd forgotten all about. That brings my total number of partially complete projects to a whopping thirty! Geez. So, let the cataloguing begin!

Bags:

Hats:

Socks:

Sweaters:

Wraps:

Other:

Now that I at least have them all wrangled and documented, I can begin setting to the brutal task of culling. There are a couple here that have been hanging around my neck like fibery albatrosses since 2001! Ridiculous. I don't want to see any of these lurkers come next year!The goal here is FINISH or FROG! There will be some of each, I guarantee (your time has come, UFO of the Damned! I have no time for seamed hats such as yourself). Decisions, decisions...

Saturday, January 09, 2010

She Said 'Staff', Huh-huh

Ever wonder what your feet see when you're spinning? This is it - 9/365 YIP

As you spinners probably know, today is the celebration of St. Distaff's Day, our very own yarn-y holiday! Marking a day off work after the 12 day Christmas celebration, Roc Day (as it is also known) allowed free time for European women (who traditionally did all the spinning) to return to their spindle and distaff (the latter holds their flax fiber) for the "pleasant" chore of spinning, while the men, who didn't return to their ploughshares until the following day, took the opportunity to punk the women by putting match to flax, setting it afire. Ha ha, guys. The appropriate ritual response by the women was to toss buckets of water on the presumably be-liquored men. The traditional poem by Robert Herrick describes the "festivities":

St. Distaff's Day; Or, the Morrow after Twelfth-day

Partly work and partly play
You must on St. Distaffs Day:
From the plough soon free your team;
Then cane home and fother them:
If the maids a-spinning go,
Burn the flax and fire the tow.
Bring in pails of water then,
Let the maids bewash the men.
Give St. Distaff' all the right:
Then bid Christmas sport good night,
And next morrow every one
To his own vocation.'1

Here's the description from The Book of Days:

"This mirthful observance recalls a time when spinning was the occupation of almost all women who had not anything else to do, or during the intervals of other and more serious work—a cheering resource to the solitary female in all ranks of life, an enlivenment to every fireside scene."

I would have made such a crappy medieval farm wife.

Our local fiber guild is having their annual Roc Day celebration today, but as I'm unable to attend I'm hosting my own private spin-in to mark the occasion. Just me, my wheel Harry, and a wee dram of scotch to take the chill off.

I'm also spinning for 2 specific projects on my Jenkins Turkish Delight drop-spindle right now: Hatsie and 100% BSG. Hatsie is currently a singles of superwash merino samples from Perchance to Knit on Etsy in green, purple, & teal/red/yellow/black mix. In order to spin enough to Navajo chain-ply and knit a hat, I'll need to add to that. I'll have to dig around for something suitable in my fiber stash, but I'm not sure I have any more superwash that will do; uh oh, there might be some shopping in my future!

The other project, 100% BSG, is a long-term lace project. At Black Sheep Gathering 2009 I purchased a Jenkins spindle from my friend Morgaine of Carolina Homespun, and 2oz. of yak/merino from Tactile Fiber Arts with the intention of spinning enough laceweight yarn to knit up a shawl with all materials/tools from BSG, then wear it in the 2010 Spinner's Lead. We'll see; that's a LOT of spinning & knitting!

But today I think I'll stick to the wheel. Maybe I'll work on that bamboo I've been spinning. Happy spinning!

Friday, January 08, 2010

Knitty Prize in My Mailbox

Miss December - 8/365 YIP

Look what the postman brought! My complimentary copy of the Knitty.com 2010 wall calendar, featuring me & my Monkeys! (That sounds weird.) Yep, I'm Miss December, at least my feet are. You may remember from my Sock Summit post that Amy Singer used this image in her presentation there, splattered on the big screen, and she also selected it to appear in this year's calendar. Too bad I didn't get a better picture, but it's raining today and the light (and my photography skills) suck ass. But I'm reveling in my most recent 15 seconds of fame!

While searching high and low this morning for my rental agreement (gotta get my deposit back!), I found this limerick. I wrote it a few years ago for some online contest or other, and I'd forgotten all about it. Made me giggle.

There once was a Velma who knitted,
Some said she was awfully quick-witted.
When her sweater was wrong
She thought hard and thought long,
Then she ripped and she ripped 'til it fitted!

Leaving you to your weekend with that. Enjoy!

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Happy Bubbles Abound

Still pretty giddy 'round these parts over the news that we get to stay in our home, but I'm trying to keep my feet on the ground long enough to eke out a YIP pic & a blog post today anyway. So I'm breaking my (rather flexible, I must admit) rule about blog memes & I'm accepting Tamdoll's Creative Blogger award (thx for the nomination, chica!).

This is one of those "honors" that smacks of those chain-letters we all abhor - tag 5 bloggers & get 25x more blog readers TODAY! - but I'm still drunk on happy juice over not having to move. I want to share the love today, so here goes.

The rules for the award acceptance:

Thank the person giving the awards, and link to their blog;
Copy award to your blog;
Name 7 things people don’t know about you;
Nominate 7 bloggers, link to them & leave a comment on their blogs letting them know of their award.

Yeah, it requires a bit of effort, but what the hell, why not! Tamdoll thinks my blog is creative, and that makes me smile. I want to put smiles on the faces of some of my favorite bloggers too. So, in no particular order, I hereby nominate the following 7 creative minxes & manxes - you totally need to check them out:

Garth of Extreme Craft bringsthe fringe of craft into the light of day;
Janice Rosema & her spectacularly creative fiber arts;
Lil' Miss Drama Pants who makes me laugh;
hizKNITS' Stephen doesn't post often but is worth the wait;
Tara of Blonde Chicken Bouique, eco-happy fibers and mentoring;
Naomi is IttyBiz is a small-biz whiz;
Bonnie aka The Bon, photographer extra-ordinaire.

Oh, yeah - my 7 unknown things:

I've had surgery 6 times
I once rode 1,400 miles on my bicycle in 4 weeks
My love for music is so great I own over 1000 CDs
I am an excellent cook but don't like to
I've backpacked naked in the Grand Canyon
My only flying lesson was in a glider
I'm allergic to wheat. And nuts. And penicillin.

There ya go! All that's left is today's Year in Pictures contribution, which I'll leave you with happy, bubble-blowing Velma.

Still Happy - 7/365 YIP

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

We're Not Homeless!

News! - 6/365 YIP

We just received the best possible news: Cole & I don't have to MOVE! Viva la status quo! Yep, our neighbor's offer to buy the house we rent was accepted by our current landlords and we are STAYIN'! 2010 is already better than 2009 ever was.

Been absolutely BUSTING since last night to talk about it, but had to wait 'til today when escrow started. Thanks to everybody that sent their good vibes our way here in the comments and on Twitter and Ravelry - you turned the tide our way! But now that I've spread the word on teh internets, it's time for more celebrating. Cheers!

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

My Stash Will Make You HOT!

I got nominated for a Ravelry Bobby Award again this year: 'Most Colorful Stash'! The competition is STIFF (heh, I said "stiff" ). I think I found my people in the other 9 nominees. I just want to crawl into their yarn and roll around nekkid in it!

The 2009 Bobbys people asked for a picture and a description of my stash for the voting process. I spent some time this morning taking screenshots of my stash and Photoshopping them into the collage here, then discovered that they'd already done that! Great minds think alike, I guess.

But this is how it looks in my craft room (read: giant storage nightmare hole, aka The Bitch Cave). Floor to ceiling tubs o' YARN!!!

I used to organize by color, but found that didn't work that well for me. I switched awhile back to a fiber content organizational system: silk with silk, mohair with mohair, etc. It works much better.

As for describing my colorful stash I have one motto: "Color Can't Hurt You!" - same as my business motto for COLORBOMB Creations, my handspun art yarns & hand-dyed fibers shop on Etsy. I live in Humboldt County, California, where it is gray and rainy much of the year, & color is my antidote to the dark, colorless skies around me and the bland, earth tone clothing favored by my neighbors.

I had a friend in college say she could always find me anywhere on campus just by scanning the crowd for the person wearing the most colors together! And that was before I discovered knitting and the plethora of indie dyers out there! I can't tell you how many times since then I've had people compliment me on a hand-knit I'm wearing, declaring how much they love the lovely bright colors, only to say that they could never wear that color themself. I always take that as an opportunity to encourage people to be less afraid of color.

When shopping for yarn, I generally seek out the brightest colors I can find. The ones I refer to as "retina-burn" -- acid green, international orange, neon pink -- those are my absolute favorites! I came home from Sock Summit with a whole list of new and new-to-me dyers and colorways to add to my wish list. Can't wait 'til I win the lottery so I can amass even more color! I also spend a lot of time stalking the trade/sell pages on Ravelry. So, if you have any truly LOUD yarn you want to unload: think of me first, I’ll take it off your hands!

Monday, January 04, 2010

Panicking Much?

Hopeful - 4/365 YIP

Trying not to, but... Hope. That's today's word of the day in Velma's World. We (& by we I mean me, 'cuz Cole is working in Willow Creek for the next few days) are on pins and needles over here. Freaking out, actually. I've kept this under my hat since the week before Thanksgiving, but we got our 60-day notice from the landlords - they're selling the house we rent from them. OUR house! We've been here for four years come February 1st, and although this place ain't perfect, it suits us. And I don't have to tell you how much moving sucks, do I?

Seriously, we DON'T want to move. To say nothing of we can't AFFORD to move. Rents have gone up since we found this place; we'd have to downsize our living space for an upsized price. And moving without a car? We could kiss all our friends with trucks goodbye, I'm sure. (At least yarn isn't heavy.)

BUT. There is a possibility of a reprise. A potential non-solution solution. As in: maybe we won't have to move after all. It all comes down to our next door neighbor.

Today is the day she submits her bid to BUY OUR HOUSE. Yep, Jeanne, the neighbor who brought us wood last month when our heater was broken because she felt bad that we didn't have any heat - she likes the neighbor status quo. Afraid that growers, or a loud & crappy jam band, or a bunch of partying college freshmen, or a developer -- possibilities all -- will move in, she's decided to try to purchase it herself and continue renting to US, with no increase in rent!

So for the past month we've been ushering a host of inspectors, estimators, and appraisers into our house to suss out what all needs to be done. It's a circa-1950s era, standard-issue for the area, approx. ~1000sqft house that hasn't had any real maintenance done on it, EVER, so it has, let's just say, issues. A fair amount of work would need to be done just to get it up to code; we're on fuses here for cripes sakes! No bank will touch the house without an electrical upgrade to circuit breakers, as far as I know.

But Jeanne is prepared to take on all the work that needs to be done, & today she makes an offer to the current owners. Cole & I are counting on this going through; the housing market here is so tight, there are almost no comparable options available to rent locally.

So -- my plea to all my readers this week: send your good housing thoughts this way!! Hopefully the house fairy will tell the landlords to accept Jeanne's offer and we'll still be here in 2011.

Sunday, January 03, 2010

I Can Haz 52 Weeks of Craft Challenge!

Looks like I'm not the only one in search of a crafty motivation to stay on task in 2010: my friend Crystal (Impstar on Twitter who blogs as Quicksilver) was inspired by our friend Tara of Blonde Chicken Boutique to challenge herself & others with The Craft or Bust Project.

Take the pledge with me?

I hereby challenge myself:
-- to work on at least one craft project per week in 2010;
-- to capture photographic evidence of said work;
-- to post a weekly blog update containing the above evidence written testimony as to What Has Been Crafted.

I'm a joiner by nature, but as you learned earlier this week, I'm not a finisher. But this is the year to change all that!! I can get behind this challenge 'cuz all it takes to reach the finish line is to work on my projects, not necessarily finish them! It's just 52 little, bitty mini-challenges all lined up in a row. Shit, I have that many in-process craft projects going already! As Crystal says: "Just craft, already!"

Today is the first CoB round-up over at Quicksilver Crafter 2.0 and in the CoB Flickr pool. I consider my effort this week to be Accepting the Challenge. Ha, I'm letting myself off the hook with mighty little actual crafting, aren't I? Actually, I think yesterday's Admission of Project ADD, Accepting I Have a Problem, and Organizing of the UFOs process to be a reasonable effort for the first week. And check out my mad Photoshop skillz in the photo, that's hella crafty! Oh, yeah, and I worked on Cole's Xmas Socks '09 too (sock #1=DONE!), so there was some actual knitting involved (photo-documentation here). But anyway, this is the start of Week 1; I've got 'til next Sunday to make actual crafty progress.

My personal challenge in the coming year is twofold (2 ways to succeed! ups my odds!): to finish or frog all my pre-2010 Ravelry WIPs AND to Go. All. The. Way. 52 Craft or Bust posts. 52 Craft or Bust pics. 52 weeks of crafting not busting. Yep. The full monty.

Wanna play with us? Check out The Rules.

Saturday, January 02, 2010

Do You Have Project ADD?

Suitcase of Dreams - 2/365 YIP

Yesterday I mentioned my procrastination problem. Some days I'm afraid I might have a terminal case, and one of the symptoms is what I call 'project ADD'. Also referred to as "startitis", this is an altogether too common crafter's affliction.

To wit: I currently have 16 knit/crochet WIPs entered on Ravelry. This number doesn't include the projects I'm spinning for, or the projects I've started a page for but haven't actually started yet, and it doesn't include the other 10 projects (that I can find) that never even got entered into my projects page! I'm drowning in UFOs - & this is just the knitting & crochet projects!

Also on my plate: testing my warping board made with love by Cole to dye self-striping sock yarn; spinning for 3 overdue handspun swaps; drop-spindling the yarn for my Spinner's Lead shawl & Hatsie; 555 items in my Ravelry queue; finishing 2008 AND 2009 xmas gifts (sheesh); 3 partially-completed embroidery projects; sewing a needle roll; writing patterns for 3 of my designs... Will it never end???

How do you choose/manage your projects? I need to re-think my strategy for crafty to-do'ing. Having this many projects -- abandoned or looming -- is waaay more stress than a hobby is worth.

I've decided that 2010 will be the year of the crafting equivalent of fish or cut bait: time to Finish or Frog! This week I'll start culling from the "suitcase of forgotten dreams" - at the very least, I'll get some "new" yarn to add to my stash. First up on the block: Valentine Elf-Topper.