Fresh from the desk: Pink camo purse

Yes, that's what it is!  The button is mother-of-pearl, hand-crocheted in 100% US-grown cotton yarn.  I wasn't expecting the color to turn out like this, since I'm new to crocheting and hadn't worked with anything variegated, so I didn't think the color would be so blocky, but the purse pattern was cute and I wanted to try it and by the time I realized that it looked like pink camo I wanted to just finish the thing.  When I was picking out the yarn, I had been browsing Fall runway fashion and was looking for something slightly more interesting than khaki (which is EVERYWHERE on the runways... seriously...) but was still basically neutral.  Oh well.

So, here we are!  It is a cute pattern, and as much as people love camo out here I'm sure it's perfect for someone.  The next one I make will have a longer strap but otherwise I like the pattern a lot.  And maybe some fringe or beads or something...hmmmmm...

Fresh from the desk: Coin pouches and cat toys

It's been suggested (twice, and somewhat strongly) that I expand my inventory to include items other than jewelry for the shows so that more people are drawn to my table, spend more time looking at the variety, and are more likely to buy something.  It makes sense, and I figured I could do that with some simple crochet projects.

Enter the "hundred yen pouch" pattern.  It's fun, it's easy, it's quick, and they're just plain adorable.  I can get small skeins of 100% USA-grown cotton yarn for a decent price at our local discount/department store in town, so I got a few colors and got to work. 

The first one I made (the green one) took about the length of a movie to make, but once I got the hang of the pattern I managed to cut the time to make one about in half.  I should get some more colors, but I'll just stick with these 4 for now and see how they do at the next show before I make too many.  The mostly white one has flecks of purple, green, pink, and blue, in case you can't tell.  It's my favorite color so far but I liked how the variegated brown/white/blue one turned out with the twist.

My other idea was toys, so I have a couple started.  The bunny pattern is behaving strangely... I always end up with the wrong number of stitches for each round but I think I'm doing it like the pattern says... guess we'll see how it turns out once I finish it or if it ends up horribly disfigured halfway through. 

I did get a couple cat toys finished though, and Cricket loves them!  The first was a "kitty tweet" which turned out pretty darn cute.  It was a little time-consuming for something so small, so the next one I made was just a stuffed disk, and not surprisingly, she likes that one better.  It skids across the floor nicely or something; it's hard to tell exactly what cats prefer other than "the simpler the better."  I didn't put any catnip in the first two, but I will for the next handful I make for the show.  Catnip grows wild out here and my mom has some in her garden so I harvested some of that to dry and put in the cat toys. 

I haven't tried a purse yet, but I'm thinking this one will be a good place to start.  Once I get there, I'll update on how it turns out.  Maybe I'll do that this week when it's too hot to do anything but sit in front of the air conditioner, like today was.  Today resulted in lots of lounging, 2 coin pouches, a necklace that I'll blog next, and a little bit of furniture rearranging while trying desperately to keep the house from getting too hot.  I failed in that attempt, so now I have all of the fans on and windows open hoping the cool air from outside will come in.  There's not much breeze so it's not working as well as usual, unfortunately.  Time for a cool shower!

Fresh from the desk: Changes in motion

Just a quick update.  I decided to let go of my extra day job up in Rapid City.  It always ended up wasting the whole day for not enough profit, so I told them last Monday that it would be my last day there.  They were a little bummed but they understood my situation and the agent was actually going to ask me soon if it was still worth it.  It was an iffy experimental job really, they needed some work done and I needed a little money but it was just not quite practical.

Good thing I told them when I was there, actually, so I got a chance to really say goodbye.  The next day, my boss at my main job and I sat down to chat about my progress with various areas of my job, sort of a mini-evaluation but I wasn't really nervous about it.  As it turns out, he can give me a $.25 raise and one more day per week, so now I'm up to 4 days!  We'll keep it up while business is decent for sure, though if the economy doesn't pick up by the time winter hits we may need to go back down to 3 days.  That's alright, it's definitely great news!

Lessons with my violin student have been going okay.  She's only 6, and she's a touch on the hyper side, and not being a mother or babysitter or ever having any siblings, I don't know what to do with a wired 6-year-old!  I have a few ideas to use at the next lesson, some rhythm games and such, so maybe I'll be better prepared when her mind takes off in a different direction.  I'm still thinking I should put an ad out for more lessons, get a few on one day a week.  I need to get a few things planned out first before I launch into that, and I want to take a viola lesson from my cello teacher just to be sure my technique is on the right track.

Crocheting is going well!  My first project is a blanket.  It's a surprise present for a friend (sssshhhhh! lol) so I'll hold off on pictures until it's done.  It's a ridiculously easy pattern that's coming together fairly quickly.  Oddly enough, it seems to be the perfect thing to do after supper when my cat insists on sitting on my lap (and I mean insists... he'd climb onto my dinner plate if it was in the way) but I can't handle just sitting there not working on something.  He doesn't mess with the yarn, we just turn on a movie and chill for a bit.  

I had a few custom jewelry orders to work on over the past week or two, and the most challenging was definitely a pair of earrings to match a necklace owned by the woman who was my babysitter when I was 2 or 3.  I barely remember from that... but since I've been home, I've seen her and her husband around town a lot so we keep in touch a little now.  This picture didn't turn out the greatest... the lighting was a little odd that day, but the necklace had a few red lampwork beads and several square and round faceted red beads, each flanked by a small hematite, spaced out on 3 strands.  I suspect the red beads may have been plastic... they weren't heavy enough to be glass.  What she wanted was a pair of drop post earrings like these that I had on display in bright red and amber, but with round darker red beads to match the necklace.  It was tough to find them, but I did after much shopping, and it was easy to put them together.  I forgot to take the necklace with me when I went shopping (oops... good thing I studied the color when she handed it to me!) so I didn't really notice the little hematite beads until I got everything home and started working on it.  Luckily, i always keep some hematite beads on hand since they're so versatile, even if they were a little larger than the ones on the necklace.  She loved them!  She has some graduation parties to attend this weekend and next for some grandchildren, so she was glad to have a matching set to wear to them all.  Success!

I've been away from home way too much the last few weeks so having a 3-day weekend with minimal plans is sooooo nice for me right now.  Speaking of that, I need to plan some meals.  Enjoy your weekend!

Spring Fever: I'm just plain crazy.

I'm seriously considering taking up crochet.  Why does this make me crazy?  I have a million other things on my plate already and I still haven't decided for sure what to do about my job situation so time is still a major issue. 

Pros: 
1.  I always have trouble finding belts, headbands, cardigans, etc. that do what I need them to do.  This will make all that MUCH easier on me considering how often I get to actually go clothes shopping for a specific item like that.
2.   I already have ideas for crochet-bead jewelry.
3.  Looks like fun, and not too hard to figure out considering many, many hours of my childhood were spent tying the house up in knots, right Mom?

Cons:
1.  Time.  I'll have to make room for it and I rarely sit down long enough for anything like that because, frankly, I have a lot to get done.  All the time.
2.  I'm good at starting gung-ho on projects that never get past halfway finished.  I must have inherited that.
3.  Cost...kinda, if I get into the fancy yarns, which I won't for a while... but again, this will expand opportunities for my crafting business.

I should pick up some macrame anyway since I'm working in hemp now too.  Perhaps I'm just fidgety and feel that learning something new will kinda propel me out of the rut I'm in.  I've only been out of school for a couple of years, maybe my way of coping with that and the transition to "real life" is to need to learn something completely new once or twice a year or so.  Hmmm, there may be something to that.  For now, I need to paint my window frames so I can maybe put my curtains back up this weekend.  It's finally a nice weekend and I'm finally getting some work done around here!  Yay!