Author: Sarah

A Girl’s Gotta Do…

Sarah Crafts

…what a girl’s gotta do! I really want a light box, to help with my quilting efforts. What quilting efforts, you ask? Well, see, I know I haven’t been quilting much lately, but I started the Mystery Quilting Project the other night. The MQP involves a lot of applique and…oops, I’ve said too much. Anyway, tracing patterns taped to the window is a little tough, and pre-made light boxes as big as I want aren’t too cheap.

So, I found these instructions. The only modification I’m making is that the finished size will be 15″ square (14″ usable), since the MQP blocks are 12″ square. Not only do we have all of the power tools required, I went to Home Depot and got all of the raw materials last night. The employee who cut the acrylic top to size was totally surprised that I’m making it. I took shop class. Granted it was, ah, 14 years ago, but c’mon, how hard is it to use a table saw?!?

Don’t worry, I’ll be careful with the table saw. Gotta keep the quilting (and knitting) fingers intact!

Socks, Socks, Socks

Sarah Crafts

I finished another pair of socks! For some reason, this pair took me quite a while – I wasn’t as fond of the striping sequence as I thought I’d be, but they’ve grown on me.
ocean socks done

Knitting socks may seem silly, but there is nothing more comfy than a pair of made-to-fit socks. Plus, it’s highly addictive to knit them. There’s something magical about the transition from something that could be a sweater sleeve to something that is definitely a sock!

All Better!

Sarah General

The solution? Trash my entire preferences folder. Something not obviously related to Photoshop Elements must have been the culprit. (I think it was Quicktime.)

Total, Complete Frustration

Sarah General

Let me preface this by saying I love my titanium powerbook, I love Mac OS X, and I have not had a single problem with it in the 6 months I’ve had this setup, or the three years I’ve been using OS X in general. Now, on to the gory details. I am so completely frustrated with my computer right now, it isn’t even funny. The card reader adapter I’ve been using ever since Murphy chewed the first one (long story)…well, I knew it was trouble from day one, when it caused my computer to crash for the first time ever.

Saturday, I sat down to edit some pictures and update my craft pages, stuck in the card reader…CRASH. Fine. This happens maybe 1 in 10 times I use the card reader. I restarted, downloaded the pictures, then went to fire up Photoshop Elements, which promptly crashed before it even finished launching.

I’ve reinstalled Photoshop Elements, removed my preferences, went through several disk repair utilities, trashed my fonts in case one was corrupted, scoured the internet, prayed to several gods, and even contemplated small sacrifices to them. I’ve posted support requests on a couple of forums, but haven’t gotten any useful advice.

Now, I’m stuck without an image editing program, lots of updates to make, and a sock that could have been finished if I hadn’t wasted all of that precious knitting time dealing with my computer. (And I’m running on very little sleep, since I worked on this until midnight last night, and started working on it again this morning at 6:30.)

I guess I’m going to have to try some of the paid support options with either Adobe or Apple. Grrr.

Happy Blogiversary!

Sarah Crafts, General

Hooray, my blog turns two today! This is definitely the absolute longest I’ve ever kept up a journal in my entire life…probably even if you added up all the times I tried to keep one in the past it wouldn’t be two years.

In honor of the occasion, I added to my yarn stash. ;)

Oh, and apparently, I’m a “cutsie knitter”:

Little mouse knitter
You’re a cutsie knitter! Knit anything for kids or
babies, it doesn’t matter what yarn or needles
as long as the end result is *ADORABLE*!

Are you a knitter?
brought to you by Quizilla

You Know It’s Really Summer…

Sarah Dogs

…when you walk into your house and have to search for the dogs under mountains of dog fur. Why aren’t they bald yet?!? I wonder if Murphy would take to being vacuumed? Molly is too terrified of the vacuum to even consider it. At least this means the warm weather will be sticking around for a while. The dog fur always knows!

Knittin’ Right Along

Sarah Crafts

I made some progress on the Christmas gifts I started!

Anyone know how to photograph really bright colors with a digital camera? Because I apparently don’t. I mean, come on – 2 1/2 years, 3,319 images, and you’d think I could manage to take a decent picture!

Sorry, I’m done ranting. Imagine the main (cable) color of the one on the left to be blue, while the main color of the one on the right is dark purple. That’s what they look like in real life!

Harry Potter 5

Sarah General

Since I’m sure there are people who haven’t read, or finished reading, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I’m putting my thoughts about it in the extended entry. If you want to read more, click the link below. Please be warned that it does contain some spoilers!

…and now back to your regularly scheduled knitting… :)

Read more

Splish, Splash

Sarah Dogs

Murphy is not so sure about the pool. In fact, he was downright terrified of it. He’ll probably get used to it – he can swim (which I suppose is instinctive) and he started getting interested in the toys we were throwing for Molly to retrieve after a while. He’d run along the length of the pool and look like he was about to jump in, but then thought better of it. The couple of times I carried him out the length of the shallow end, he just swam in a straight line and tried to get out. Poor pup. But at least we know he can swim.

The pool is still pretty chilly, 70°, but considering it’s supposed to be upwards of 90° all this week, it will probably get quite a bit of use!