Sunday

Sunday mornings are made for coffee and crocheting. See?



I finally finished my twine privacy panel. I kept letting it sit in the evenings and only worked on it while I was watching Masterpiece Theatre on Sunday nights. So I finally put it up a couple of days ago:



Yesterday I got some new mesh chairs and a table at Target, to replace the blue chairs. I will take more pictures when I have more plants - right now the patio looks kind of devoid of life, except for mostly what you see in the pic - I have a beautyberry, a blueberry and a mint plant; and a jasmine on the other side of the patio.

Today I've spent quite a bit of time outside crocheting swatches for a still-secret book project, and now that the sun is streaming onto the patio I'm inside. The weather is cooler than it has been the past couple of days (right now it's 80), and I'm enjoying the quiet.

A Boring Day in the Life

My life is pretty boring these days, which is why I haven't been the best blogger in the world. It's one of those catch-22's that Flight of the Conchords mentions on their website - whenever anything interesting happens, I'm so busy that I can't blog about it. But when nothing's going on, I've got all this time to blog but nothing to blog about. But I'm coming out of boring-land to post a boring day-in-the-life, as Everybody Else is Doing It and yes I would also jump off a cliff if you do it first. (And were OK once you landed.) I suppose what one considers boring may be exciting to someone else, but I'm serious. Observe (and I made it extra detailed so it looks like my life is interesting):

5:30am - Wake up to the alarm. I put it on my dresser across the room because if it's within arms length of me while I'm half asleep, I will either press the snooze button (which isn't so bad since the snooze on this clock is only four minutes) or turn it off altogether (which can mean I'll sleep much longer than four minutes). Luckily I have a backup - my husband is usually awake before me, and he'll come wake me up if he knows I'm supposed to be awake. That makes me sound like I'm not a morning person, but I am - once I wake up I'm bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Anyway.

5:30:45 - Give myself a second to stand in the middle of the room and rub my eyes and realize that I'm awake. Find my glasses and follow the cat downstairs. She likes to lead me to her food dish whether or not she needs more - I think she just likes to be petted there - it's her happy spot.

5:35-6:00 - Finish waking up by reading my email, LiveJournal, Bloglines, Ravelry, etc etc etc. And a little bit of the news. (I don't like watching TV in the mornings, I prefer to read it 'cause it's quieter.) Pet the cat some more, because usually in the mornings she's starved for attention and needs a cuddle.

6:00-7:00 - S-l-o-w-l-y get ready to work. This includes taking a leisurely shower (unless Cory used up more hot water than usual, then I'll take a leisurely shower until the water runs out and then I have to hurry to finishreallyfast), dry my hair (sort of - it's curly so I kind of run the diffuser through it for five minutes and then let it finish in the air), put on makeup (moisturizer, mascara, sometimes a little spot cover-up - I'm low-maintenance), talk to Cory, agonize over what clothes to wear, curse the fact that there's not enough light near my closet so I have to feel for everything, decide I don't look good in this outfit so I must change to that outfit, put lotion on and sit for a minute to smell it (mmm, lemon verbena), and whatever else sounds like fun with regards to preparation.

7:00-7:30 - Chat online a teensy bit if someone's there, read a little more of the news, put on my shoes, gather my things.

7:30-8:00 - Throw Cory and his bike in the car, drive to Starbucks. I get a double-tall nonfat cappuccino in my travel mug, he gets a grande coffee with no room in his. Drive to Oregon State Uni, drop Cory off, turn on NPR, dodge college-aged pedestrians and bikers and drivers on the way off campus. Close the windows on the way past the dairy. Open them again. Close the windows on the way down the very dusty gravel road leading to the mill.

8:00-5:00 - Workie workie. I'm an accountant for a little lumber mill, so I do all kinds of things - AP, AR, monthly financial statements, IT, answering phones sometimes, etc. Jack of all trades, I guess. When things are slow, I write boring day-in-the-life posts or read a book. (Currently it's Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin - I'm not planning on getting pregnant anytime soon but I'm super interested in natural birth, and am fascinated by the culture of the people in the '70s (like communes and the social and political upheaval and all that good stuff) and this book covers both of those. ("I felt the baby's head and it was so psychedelic and Holy!") Break for lunch sometime in the middle there, and go home to eat with Cory, who rode his bike home from school.

5:15-9:30 - This can be either the most productive or least productive part of my day. Gotta make dinner, straighten up, do dishes, and lots of crochet. I've got two projects going on right now - writing a pattern for one book and crocheting swatches for another book. While it's a little daunting to have two projects due on the same day, I also like being able to switch between them - sometimes I have to process things while doing something else, even if I'm not consciously thinking about them, in order to solve a problem. Gotta watch Jeopardy, too (sheesh, we're so old) and maybe play a little World of Warcraft with Cory to unwind a little. (I like to put him on "follow" so I can crochet wile we travel through from one quest to the next.) Sometime during the course of the evening Cory announces he's tired, so I follow him up to bed (I like to go to bed at the same time as him if I can). It's much easier to get ready before bed than it is to get ready before work - teeth-brushing and jammie-donning and window-cracking is done in a flash, and I usually watch from bed while Cory plays with Trout on her cat tree - they swipe at each other and meow and that sort of thing. Then it's unwinding in the dark with conversations about what we did during the day and what we have to do tomorrow, and sometimes spooning, and then sleep.

9:30-5:30 - Zzz.

Patio Privacy

Yesterday it got up to about 82 in Corvallis! It was gorgeous, and Cory and I had a nice dinner outside of our local McMenamins pub. It's been so long since any of us around here have been able to be comfortable outside in the evening in short sleeves, and I loved the happy energy everybody seemed to have, biking and walking out in the neighborhood.

Today is a little different - 15 degrees cooler (it's a nice comfortable 67 out now) and the sunshine is pretty weak, but it's there. You just can't see it in pictures.



There's the front of my townhouse. It's in the middle of a row of 3, staggered a little. The overhang over the door is actually Cory's closet upstairs, set off the room. The patio is right off the front walk. (Notice I haven't done much on the patio yet - once the weather stays nice for awhile, I'll start putting some more pots out there and get out the chairs and table.) I like having the patio out front in a way, because I can see the beautyberry and the bird feeder from where I sit in the living room, but I don't like being out there for everybody to see when they walk or drive by. The privacy fence works for the most part, but there's still a big expanse of openness. (Once the beautyberry grows some leaves it will help as well.)

Last year about this time I also had high aspirations for inhabiting my patio in the nice weather, but in order to do so I needed to solve the privacy issue. So I picked up some twine at the hardware store and swatched with it, hoping to make some kind of panel that would hang perpendicular to the front door from the overhang, right where the gutter downspout is in the picture above. I imagined flower motifs and a few other things... and then gave up. Today, the happy weather helped me bring the twine back downstairs for another go.



This twine is hard on my fingers, so I won't be doing much at a time but I do like the way it looks so far. At first I thought since it was so unforgiving I would have to resort to mostly chaining, making a lattice, but I can coax it into a double crochet pretty easily. Unfortunately, I may be a couple of inches too short so I might have to rip it out and make it a bit wider.

Drunk Sailors

I completely forgot to blog this long ago, but since I set up the pattern page the other night in Ravelry I thought I might as well throw it up here as well.

Here's the official photo for my cat o' nine tails, Dungeon Decor: The Captain's Daughter:



I like the creative photo editing in the Anticraft book, though I'm interested in knowing exactly how much black ink went into my copy - that book is black!

I wish crochet were exciting. I mean, it is exciting. It's exciting when you finally finish something you've been working on for a long time. It's exciting when you buy some super-yummy yarn from the LYS. It's exciting to start projects (probably more exciting than finally finishing them). It's exciting to send a submission to Interweave Crochet:



But the un-exciting part is how I can't really fill a blog with daily posts, no matter how much I want to. Unless you want to read things like "I did six rows on my sweater today during our break at choir rehearsal." Or "I didn't crochet today because I was too busy vacuuming with my new vacuum." That's not very exciting for y'all (though a new vacuum is exciting for me!). Sorry about that. :)

But yeah, hopefully this orange sweater of death will not actually be the death of me. I've been working on it on and off for a long time, having tons of gauge problems and such, and it feels good to actually send it away. If it doesn't get into IC I have a couple of other places I'm going to try. I may even put it up on Ravelry as a for-sale .pdf - we shall see.

Namaste!

Usually when my husband asks me what I want for my birthday I hem and haw and can never decide. This year about a month before my birthday (which was March 1, by the way) I started doing some research into knitting bags (or crocheting bags, which is the same difference I suppose). I'd been carrying around my little old Fred Meyer purse along with an old tote bag that had an open top and was canvas so it would tend to get wet if I set it down on the floor of the coffee shop during the rainy season or something. Plus it was annoying carrying two bags around everywhere. I looked at several bags and narrowed my choices down rather quickly.

Shortly after that, I sent Cory a text that went like this:
"Birthday present: Namaste Bag, Everyday style, Dreamweaver Yarns, $70!"

He sent me a text back that went like this:
"OK! Just ordered it!"

That was very efficient. :D

Anyway, the thing came before my birthday and Cory left the big box out in plain sight to taunt me. Big jerk. So I salivated over it for a week at least, and then finally I got to see how much stuff I could fill it with. The answer is a lot. Observe:


There it is on my desk. Also admire the bottom of my Flight of the Conchords poster, which was also a birthday present from Cory.

Now let's see how much stuff I cram in it.

There's what fits in the front pocket that has the cool locky doohickey on it. I even labeled everything on Flickr, for your convenience. I probably don't have to tell you which of those things is my wallet, but I did anyway. For you. I found a little zippered pouch on Etsy this morning in which to put the little stuff, like lipstick and breathmints and such. They tend to get lost even in the little front pocket, and I don't like them getting pulled out with my phone or something. Speaking of that, my phone belongs in that picture, but it was in my hands taking the picture, so you'll just have to imagine it.


There's a shot of the interior of the main compartment of the bag. When you unsnap it (they're magnetic and not really snaps, I suppose), you can open it up so that the walls are straight, which makes it convenient to put on the floor of a coffee shop so you can crochet right out of it. It's got two areas, separated by a zippered pouch that runs the width of the bag. And each side has two small pockets and one large pocket.


Here, I've pulled everything out for you and labeled it thoroughly. See that it fits an entire sweater-in-the-making, though I think if the yarn was much thicker it'd be a snug fit. It holds everything else I need, including too many pencils and lemon verbena hand lotion. I need to get a smaller bottle for that, I think. It's also nice to be able to keep a reusable grocery bag in there, for those days that I go to the grocery store to grab just a few things and I forget to dig the pouch of 'em out of the drawer under the passenger seat in the car.

Cory tends to tease me even a week and a half afterwards that I'm carrying an overnight bag around. He pretends to try to climb into it and such. It is quite a bit bigger than my old purse, which probably could have fit inside this about six times over. I've found it a little difficult to squeeze past people in doorways and such, but I think it's totally worth it to have a slick-looking way to carry my projects around. I do not miss that tote bag at all.

Oh hi.

I did NOT get a submission approved for the book I sent submissions to. Which turned out OK because I had time to make a scarf for my coworker who admired my scarf when we were out having mojitos a few weeks ago. We took a lunch break together at the local yarn shop and she picked out two skeins of Maizy in the Neptune colorway. We tried a couple of stitch patterns out to see what the yarn wanted to be, and settled on a simple wave stitch which is similar to the zig-zag/ripple stitch but not quite so pointy. Then it took me ages to finish it because I kept getting distracted at home in the evenings. Thank goodness for Masterpiece Theater running Pride & Prejudice - I got most of it done during the miniseries, and stopped crocheting during the show only to sigh at the cute Jane Austin language the two pre-lovebirds were spouting. (Two episodes down and Lizzie is finally realizing she may have been too hasty when she turned down Mr. Darcy's proposal!)



I took that picture on my stick-chewed-by-a-beaver that I found in the log pond behind the office long ago. (You can see the edge of the pond behind the utility pole there on the right - not to be confused with the gigantic puddles in the parking lot.) The stick usually sits on my bookshelves next to my accounting textbook and log scaling code handbook. My coworker came up behind me as I was standing on the porch of the office yesterday morning, laughing at me as I held the stick out at arm's length and leaned back to get as much of it in as I could. I think our parking lot area is pretty on misty mornings - it almost looks like the Oregon coast or something, all fog and moistness.

Crocheted Lamp

I've been kicking around ideas to make crocheted pendant lamp shades lately (among way too many other things), and swissmiss pointed me towards these gorgeous Minimal Lamps crocheted out of the cotton-covered cord that powers them. These are great! I might have to try making a similar one sometime.

Samurai Baby!

You know how, during your life, at a certain time EVERYBODY seems to be getting married? Well, now is the time in my life where EVERYBODY seems to be having babies. I know several people who are pregnant, a few who have had their babies, and even more people who are trying for 'em. Even the news is contributing to it - celebrities are getting knocked up left and right. I feel kind of like I'm in the eye of the storm, at the moment.

So because this didn't happen until recently, I never really had the opportunity to make baby clothes. And it's fun! It's another good instant gratification project (where instant is relative - I finished the following projects in 2 days or so, and half the time I spent trying to find a good pattern). My friend Trisha is having a baby boy, due on Leap Day. Her shower is the day after tomorrow, so last weekend I grabbed some Lion Brand Nature's Choice Organic Cotton and some Moda Dea Bamboo Wool and a copy of Julie Holetz' Baby it's Cold Outside. A short time later I ended up with this:



That's a 1-year-old-sized BICO. I figured since he was being born in the spring, he'd be almost a year by the time he'd need a sweater. But I didn't want Trish to have to put everything I gave her into storage for a year, so I made the Lion Brand Elfin Baby Hat in a newborn size as well. It turned out looking sort of like a samurai hat but it's definitely cuter on a wine glass than it is when it's flat.



Now, I shall insert a placeholder for a whine I'm formulating, about how all this rain and snow and sleet we've been having makes for very poor picture-taking. Just ignore the fact that I'm not a very good photographer. :)

Thanks for the nice comments about Rick's helmet, by the way. He's worn it a few times when it's been super cold out. The first time I saw him wearing it, I asked him what he thought and he said "all the guys are making fun of me for it!" I don't blame them, it's really not that attractive, but he wanted utilitarian so that's what he got. So there.

Rick's Helmet Liner

Rick's Helmet Liner
Originally uploaded by loopdedoo

Every time the temperature goes into the extremes, I feel so bad for the men who work out in the mill at my company. Some of them are out in the weather (which isn't so bad lately - bright sunshine), but even those who are under cover and inside some of the buildings have to suffer through the cold. It's 6am and most of them have started work already, and here it is 20 degrees for the fourth day in a row.

The manager of the planer (where the lumber gets sanded down and sorted into different grades) was complaining of the cold the other day and asked me to make him a warm hat to wear under his hard hat. I found some LB Homespun in my stash and worked him a helmet-style hat, and put some Moda Dea Bamboo Wool around the edges to smooth them out a little (and the difference in gauge means the hat cups the wearer around the ears, keeping the heat in).

Ahhh - instant gratification is so nice after having spent so much time on one project.

Peekie

I've been quiet lately. It's because I've been busy! And the crappy part about being busy is that I'm not really allowed to post any pictures of my progress. Sorry about that, folks. However, I have permission for this one, so here we go!

This is another of Robyn's patterns, using Mission Falls wool. After the inevitable gauge mishap (we crochet very differently in terms of gauge), and one small annoyance trying to figure out how to piece the sides together (hint for next time: start at the hem), I flew along. I like being able to connect motifs as I go - though it doesn't completely eliminate the weaving-in of ends, I don't much like the look of whip-stitching. I finished this on Sunday evening and it's in a box now, ready to go back to its mommy.



I also had a very forgetful Sunday a couple of weeks ago - I took the cowl along with me to Portland, hoping to get a few stitches in during lunch or coffee or wherever I was going. When I had an opportunity, I pulled it out... and realized I'd left the patten at home. My friend graciously allowed me the use of her wifi, and I grabbed the pattern from my email and copied it down onto a little card, and then my friend and I went to a vegan bakery down the street to have cake for dinner. While we were waiting for the coffee, I pulled the cowl out again - and realized I'd left the card at my friend's house. So there was no crocheting for me that day. Whoops.

Next up I have two small projects while I wait to hear if one of my submissions has made it into the new Interweave book. I'd like to do one of Julie's Baby it's Cold Outside sweaters since it works up quickly, for a baby shower I'm going to in a couple of weeks. And the manager of the planer at the mill asked me for a warm hat with earflaps to wear under his hard hat, since it's been super cold the past couple of days. Those should be easy to knock off in under a week. And it means a trip to the yarn store - yay!

And as if I didn't have enough to do already, I just volunteered for a teensy solo at my choir concert in a couple of weeks. Oops.

Happy Oh-Eight!

Oh-Seven was good to me. I had two patterns published in books. I did a lot of production crochet. I played with yarn in all sorts of ways and had a great time doing it.

They say that the things you do on New Year's Day will be the things you do the whole year. I prepared two submissions for a new book that I sent off via FedEx today. If that's what I'm in for for the rest of Oh-Eight, life will be grand!

Best wishes to you and yours! Happy January and Happy 2008!

Leaf Lace Scarf

Christmas gifts are aaaalmost finished. Our plans changed a little last week - we decided to drive from Corvallis, Oregon to Houston, Texas the weekend before Christmas so we can spend it with my husband's family. My Christmas gifts didn't include much gift crocheting, but I thought a lacy, not-too-warm scarf for my mother-in-law would be nice. I don't know her very well so I'm not sure this colorway will suit her taste, but it's so soft that it'd be hard not to forgive that. :)



Though the photo is a bit washed out in the foreground, it's easy to see the stitch pattern. I found it online somewhere - probably Craftster. It's a fun little project once you've memorized the pattern, and it was the perfect little thing to take with me in a coat pocket, to pull out at a slow moment.

So things are hectic here at the moment. I have had choir practice for 2 1/2 hours every day this week but Monday and Wednesday. I have a concert tonight and tomorrow night, and then we have to make sure all our gifts are bought and wrapped, and get everything packed, and arrange a kitty-sitter. So for now the house will stay messy.



In other news, my photogenic feline has lost her voice. She sounds really funny when she talks to us now.

Christmas Stocking Commission

Years ago, when I was still a fledgling crocheter, I posted in my Livejournal asking friends if they wanted me to crochet them stockings. I got a few bites, including my friend Amanda in Canada. I made a pair of stockings for her and her husband. A couple of weeks ago she emailed me asking if I would make a third stocking for her new baby daughter, so I spent most of our drive to and from Seattle this Thanksgiving weekend crocheting for Chelsea.




...And with a magazine for scale:


I always seem to have more crocheting to do as Christmas approaches, even though I didn't plan on it. I just found out my grandmother will be in town for the holiday, so next on my list is a lacy scarf for her to wear.

Crocheted Bangles!

As I was surfin' around in blogland, I found adorable knitted swatch bangle bracelets. This was a perfect time to try out a few Tunisian stitches! So I went out to Target and got a couple of ugly bracelets.


I spent a lot of time in the jewelry department, trying to find a bangle that would fit around my hand. Either the bangles Target was selling were tiny, or I have man hands. I hope it's the former. I also got a Christmasy bracelet that had some elastic to see if that might more easily fit over my hand.

I grabbed some Moda Dea Bamboo Wool in dark grey at the craft store and a little Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino left over from my Shrug and went to work. And here's what I came up with:



(I ended up giving Mom the light blue bangle before I could snap a picture of it.)
I'm pleased with how it turned out, though I probably will try going for a lighter yarn next time, and if I can find a slightly less ugly bangle I might try a lacier stitch as well. Overall it was a quick project, and I was happy to learn the Tunisian knit and purl stitches - they look neat!

Felted Oak Leaf Garland

OK, so this isn't STRICTLY crochet-related, but it's crafty and there is a teensy bit of crochet in it so here it is.

Last month, Craftzine gave me a good idea for Christmas ornaments. Every year, my mom and sister and I make ornaments for our family and friends. For the past couple of years, mine have been crocheted, which is great but also takes quite awhile as I have to make somewhere around 30 of them. Usually I give up and give them just to family so that I only have to make about 10, but I always feel bad about leaving my friends out of my crafty gifting.

So I went to Goodwill sometime at the beginning of October I went to Goodwill and bought myself four sweaters and one sweatervest in fallish colors. (OK, one was blue, but I figured it'd work in the grand scheme I had.) Side note: there weren't many 100% wool sweaters at Goodwill. In fact, I think I cleaned them out. Anyway. I threw them, whole, in the washing machine for two cycles; cut them apart at the seams (since they were mostly felted already I was able to be a bit sloppy with them), and threw the pieces into the washer a couple more times until they were nice and tight. Then I set to cutting them into leaf shapes using three cardboard templates that I borrowed from some website or another.

I have no pictures of the sweaters (which is OK because they were ugly), nor do I have pictures of the pile of sweater pieces. I do, however, have a picture of the finished leaves, plus one cat who sat there from the time I started laying the leaves out until well after I'd finished taking pictures. She likes being in pictures, as evidenced by my previous post.

That picture was taken just before Halloween. It didn't take me three weeks to finish, technically - but after cutting I think 175 leaves in one weekend, my arm hurt so bad I could barely move it for a week. So I had to take a crocheting (and typing and everything else) break for a bit.



While my arm was healing, I went to Franklin Park (the oldest park in Corvallis!) and collected some acorn caps, and then stopped at the craft store to see if they had any felt balls so I didn't have to make my own. 'Cause I'm lazy. The only brownish colored ones also had little sequins and tinsel-y stuff stuck to them, which I wasn't too sure about at first but I think they turned out festive. I used a drill bit and twisted it with my hands to drill little holes in the caps of the acorns, and threaded silver thread through to match the threads in the felt balls. Then I glued the caps to the balls.

Fast-forward to today, when I was getting tired of having a bag full of felted leaves sitting by my feet - I made Christmas ornaments, which look much like the ones at the link up there. I've never finished Christmas ornaments that quickly - it feels good to get them out of the way. But I had a TON of leaves left. (I knew when I bought five sweaters that I would have extras, but this was bordering on ridiculous.) So I made a garland.

I started by grabbing some dark brown afghan yarn and a K hook from my stash and made a chain. I held it up in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen to make sure it was long enough. Then I threaded a needle with some crocheting thread and started sewing leaves onto the chain.

I threaded through the leaf from one edge to the other where the stem met the body of the leaf. Then I stitched through the chain and turned the garland a bit so that the leaves would hide the chain.


There's your crochet content!


And shortly after I finished it (and after I modeled it as a lovely boa for my husband), it went up in the doorway and I threw a few acorns on for good measure. I like it! I might keep it up all year.

Trout likes yarn, too

I was taking pictures today in the patch of sun in the living room. The light wasn't quite at the right angle for me to take superb pictures, but I wasn't going for superb, as neither my camera nor my skills are superb.

Trout decided to invite herself to my little photography party, probably because I was taking up all the sunshine, so she kept sitting between the light and my subjects and casting a shadow right where it shouldn't be. And then when I put a ball of yarn on the floor, she immediately attacked it.

So I gave up and started taking pictures of her. I was rewarded - I love this picture:







Chomp.

Crochet Me Book Signing

Crochet Me Book Signing
Originally uploaded by loopdedoo

I had a blast yesterday up in Portland! My friend from fifth grade and I went to a cute little hole-in-the-wall restaurant for brunch (mushroom omelette with goat cheese!), and then I ran up to Yarn Garden to meet Kim. She had taught a class earlier in the morning, which was sold out I heard, and then six women tried desperately to make her move down to Portland while Kim signed books. I got to sign books too - that was odd. I didn't like messing them up, but I suppose it's not messing a book up if it's an autograph. Heh. Anyway, after Kim showed off the patterns in the book (as well as a few from the Interweave Crochet magazine) and answered questions, we spent another couple of hours browsing through the yarn and touching everything. I finally got to see camel yarn in person (I'd only seen it online) and it was so light and soft that I almost bought some, but I wasn't pleased with the limited color choices. So I got two skeins of Jade Sapphire cashmere silk. It was SO hard to decide - I had to keep carrying skeins around the store with me before I settled.

When we'd finally decided on yarn purchases, we skipped over to the other side of town and shopped at Anthropologie, where we found that the lovely Anthropologie people are trying desperately to make the penguin the new owl. (See?)

We also visited Powell's, a must for anyone stopping in Portland for at least a few hours. And then we were famished, so we refueled on extremely healthy burgers, fries, and beer at McMenamins' Blue Moon. We had a good walk and good conversation and lots of good shopping, and I had a great time! Kim said she wanted to get her husband to come down sometime (he's never been to Portland!), and I'd love to go back up to Vancouver now that I know someone who can show me around! We shall meet again I'm sure.

Come see me on Saturday!

Just a quick reminder - I'll be at the Yarn Garden in Portland the day after tomorrow, most likely during Kim's book signing which starts at 1pm. Come see us!

This week I'm in the process of compliling two months-worth of financials - my deadline is tomorrow afternoon. Crocheting these last few evenings have kept me sane. :)

I think a squee is in order.

Crochet Me Book
Originally uploaded by loopdedoo

My copy of Crochet Me was waiting for me in the mailbox this morning!! It's gorgeous! I love it! I carried it around with me all day, and didn't want anyone to touch it for fear they'd smudge the pages or get a fingerprint on the cover. Heh.

I have a repetitive stress injury at the moment, from cutting oak leaves out of felted sweaters. 178 4-inch leaves plus one ouchie arm. So I'm taking a break from my right hand for a bit, which means no crocheting. Dangitall.

Oh, and for anyone in the Portland area - I'll be meeting Kim at Yarn Garden on 14th and Hawthorne on the 27th. I've told her I'll be there, anyway - I haven't heard back as she's super busy on her book tour at the moment. But I'll be there, anyway. So come say hi!