Month: October 2003

Happy Halloween!

Sarah General

It was a close call, but the costumes are done…note to self: next year, do NOT wait until the weekend before to start costumes! I think I have enough candy (and I only snuck a couple of treats all week – you know, quality control!) The pumpkins are carved and ready to be lit. All we need now are some trick-or-treaters, who should be out in full force tonight since it’s unseasonably warm today!

I really didn’t do much decorating other than the pumpkins, though…I kind of feel like Halloween snuck up on me this year. Or maybe it’s just the general feeling I’m having lately where it seems like time has accelerated all out of proportion to the seemingly slow pace of most days, because I’m pretty sure that it was June just last week…

Am I The Only One…?

Sarah General

Am I the only one who, when faced with excessive and annoying advertising, will intentionally not buy, watch or do whatever it is the advertising suggests I buy, watch or do?

See, these television banner ads (I don’t know what they’re called…and can’t seem to find any information about them on the web) that have become incredibly common in a seemingly short amount of time are driving me crazy. You know the ones: they cover up 1/4 to 1/3 of the bottom of the screen, sometimes all the way across, in the middle of a show. They usually cover up the text at the bottom of the screen in “Whose Line is it Anyway”. I’d hate to see what it would do to closed captioning. To me, it’s as annoying as those @#$!% pop-up ads on the internet…which I no longer have to deal with thanks to Safari.

Maybe it’s just the shows I watch. But even when I randomly watch something on actual TV (as in, not TiVo’d) that’s not one of our “normal” shows, they’re still there. Last night I saw an ad not for another show on the same station – which is generally what they are – but for an actual product… Pretty soon, I expect that the shows will just have floating <blink> ads, centered over characters’ faces. Actually, why bother with the shows at all? Just run long, continuous blocks of blinking, scrolling banner ads in between the commercials.

But don’t expect me to buy, watch or do whatever it is they’re advertising. I’ll just unplug the cable box and watch old DVDs instead.

Detail-Oriented

Sarah Crafts

They’re just Halloween costumes…so why did I spend all of last night and an hour this morning hand-stitching hems and tacking down seam allowances?

Sometimes I worry myself.

A Plethora of Proto-Projects

Sarah Crafts

What are proto-projects? Those are the projects I have in my stash that have all the necessary pieces: yarn, pattern and needles (or linen, pattern, embroidery floss; or fabric, pattern, thread…you get the idea). They are in a state where they could be started at any time…I just need to find the time to start them.

Now, these are different from stalled projects, since they’ve never been started (aside from maybe a swatch). They also don’t really qualify as pure stash yarn/fabric/threads/etc., since they’re marked for specific projects. I have, oh, at least several dozen of these proto-projects floating around my house. They’re most concentrated in my craft room, but there are several in my living room, and I’m sure that I could find some in other rooms too.

I think I need to get control of these proto-projects. (I say this as I gaze longingly at the yarn I received yesterday for a new sweater…which can’t be started until Christmas knitting is under control.) I know it’s two months early, but I’m making my first new years’ resolution now: I must at least start a proto-project (thus moving it into my current project rotation…and probably eventually into stalled project mode for some amount of time) before buying supplies for another project. The word “start” is, of course, subject to interpretation… :)

An Avalanche of Stuff

Sarah General

My house is a disaster. I think I have too much stuff…and I’m not talking yarn stash here, either. I decided to sign up for the FlyLady emails, figuring that any amount of direction is better than none when it comes to decluttering. I’ve only been getting the email for half a day, and it’s sort of funny and sort of annoying – we’ll see if I like it enough to stick with it. I’d really like to reduce the amount of stuff that’s crammed into every nook and cranny in the house, preferably before the holidays. (Just not the yarn!)

To that end, I spent an hour going through three drawers yesterday: my sock drawer, which yielded several pairs of socks that I can’t remember having worn for years; my long-sleeved shirt drawer, which contained turtlenecks I haven’t worn since moving into this house*; and my…um….unmentionables…drawer, which actually just needed to be straightened up. Now I can put away the socks and shirts I actually wear, instead of keeping them in (folded) piles near my dresser. Yay!

Of course, I still have a laundry basket full of sweaters that won’t fit in my armoire due to the large volume of sweaters already in there. And I do wear most of them…deciding which ones I can part with is going to be a bigger challenge, and I’m saving that for another rainy day.

*How do I know I haven’t worn those shirts since I moved in? Well, you know how people have different folding styles? Some of them were still folded the way my helpful unpackers did them when we moved in. :) Hopefully they’ll keep someone else warm this winter: they’re going in a box down to the salvation army bin this evening!

Isn’t It Romantic?

Sarah General

See why I love this guy? Yesterday was our tenth anniversary. I know what you’re thinking…”Wait, didn’t she just celebrate an anniversary in May? And wasn’t it her fourth?” Well, yes. But ten years ago yesterday we started dating. So Denis came home from work with ten roses: four white ones for the years were were dating, two red-tipped yellow ones for the years we were engaged, and four red ones for the years we’ve been married.

Then we got all dressed up and went out to dinner at the Spring House (and ate sinfully delicious desserts!), came home, took care of the dogs, and watched baseball and knitted until bedtime. (The last trip out with the dogs revealed…snow?!? Well, flurries, anyway.)

It’s fun being married to your best friend!

I Can Spin

Sarah Crafts

Well, at least I keep telling myself that! Actually, I found this site, ICanSpin.com, which has some helpful videos showing different aspects of using drop spindles.

I am, of course, impatiently waiting for the day when my hands figure this out and I can produce enough consistent yarn to actually use for something. I seem to have two choices at the moment: consistency or speed…although I almost managed to figure out how to draft the fibers at the same time the spindle was spinning last night. Almost.

Sorry, I’m probably going to blather on about my beginning spinning efforts way more than I should for the next couple of weeks. New hobbies are dangerous!

Indecisiveness

Sarah Crafts

So, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with my new lace-weight yarn. I have the Folk Shawls book, and I just purchased this butterfly shawl pattern. Although there are a couple patterns I really like in Folk Shawls, I don’t think I have enough yarn to do many of them – except maybe the Highland Triangle Shawl. I love the butterly shawl, but I think the yarn is too thin, it would be a very open stockinette/garter pattern. Which might be ok. The swatch shows the yarn by itself (bottom), and with a very thin mohair (top)…neither is quite to gauge, and I really prefer the orange yarn alone. Oh, decisions, decisions.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on mystery knitting. I’m getting close to finishing up a Christmas gift or two! Yay!

Fiber Acquisition Alert!

Sarah Crafts

The following items were actually from my wish list: a nostepinne (a swedish ball-winder that makes center-pull balls of yarn), a yarn swift (at a fantastic price!) and two (yes, two) drop spindles – a beginners’ spindle (with sheep faces drawn on it) and a lovely green swan spindle. (OK, I confess, I really only had one spindle on my wish list – the other one just had to come home with me too.)

I also bought some roving (well, I need something to use with my drop spindles!) The heathery-purple roving is the softest merino (which I will need to wait to spin until I get a little better at it), and the blue, blue/green and white balls of roving came with my beginners’ spindle.

I also bought a few orange things (well, what did you expect, with all the tempting fall colors scattered around the place?) The orange/yellow/red roving is blue faced leicester wool, which is most likely destined to become a felted hat or something; the variegated lace-weight yarn is project-less for the moment. Also, some other little goodies: a sheep mug and a beaded row counter.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with my new stash! I’d better start saving my pennies now for next year, especially since I now know what to expect.

Oh, and does anyone know exactly how Sleeping Beauty was supposed to have pricked her finger on a spinning wheel? I saw many, many spinning wheels, and none of them seemed to have any sharp things on them…

Fate? Luck? Cosmic Karma?

Sarah Crafts

OK, I promise pictures of my goodies tomorrow – I was too tired (and lazy) to take pictures today. And too busy playing with my drop spindle. In the meantime, here are pictures from the festival. Enjoy!

So I’m sure you’re dying to hear about our weird coincidental encounter. We stopped at a rest stop near Utica for dinner. We were sitting down already with our food when a tour bus rolls up…consisting almost entirely of women in their 20’s – 50’s. (Hmmm…wonder where they’ve been?) I overheard one of them say to another, “well, we’ve been on the road a little over two hours, so we’ve probably got another two left.” (Hmmm…that sounds a lot like our trip!) Using the fact that I had forgotten napkins as an excuse, I got up to get some, and lo and behold, one of the ladies was wearing a souvenier sweatshirt from…the Dutchess County Sheep & Wool festival (aka Rhinebeck)!

Well, long story short (ok, not really), I asked if they had just been to the festival, and where they were from. Get this: it was a tour bus out of Rochester, organized by the Genesee Valley Handspinner’s Guild…which conveniently meets just down the hill from my house! Be still my beating heart! They said to absolutely come and bring my drop spindle and fiber, and they’d be more than willing to help me out.

I think I have another hobby to add to my ever-growing list of things I do in my spare time. Heh. Good thing I’m gainfully employed, or I wouldn’t be able to afford myself!