A New Addictive Hobby

My sister-in-law got me this amazing gift for Christmas this year - a Drop Spindle and plenty of roving in a gorgeous color!!!

I haven't started using it yet, but I can't wait to! I've looked into spinning my own yarn before, but thought I shouldn't even attempt to convince my husband I need ANOTHER form of wool. Now I have no excuse! I can't wait to see how this colorway works up. It looks like pink and purple cotton candy right now, and is insanely soft.

My Fancy Yarn Box

A good friend of mine's retired father loves woodworking. While I'm over at this friend's house playing D&D, I often bring a crocheting or knitting project along to keep my hands busy. All of the ladies in my friend's family also work with yarn, so the father has been making by hand gorgeous accessories to make life easier for them. He described a yarn box that he was interested in making and a few weeks later showed me this masterpiece and offered me one! It's two different kinds of wood all cut, sanded, and lacquered by hand. It comes in handy to keep the working yarn away from my helper-kitties, that's for sure.

Another Pokemon, another day.

Goomy here was made for my husband for Christmas. He has to be one of the cutest Pokemon ever! I'm so pleased with how he turned out, I'll be adding him to my Etsy Store soon!

Post-Christmas post

Christmas is a crazy time for a crafter. Suddenly those extravagant plans you had for a gift for loved one turns into "I have one hour to get this finished before I see them!" scenario. Well, that is, if you're like me. I seemed this year to have a pattern of crochet, frog half the project, then continue crocheting again. I know most people can't see that tiny little mistake BUT I KNOW IT'S THERE! In the midst of all of this I decided that I needed to make myself my first stocking!

                                                 Hand for reference - it turned out pretty big!

I reverse-engineered this pattern to make it: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/stuffable-stockings Instead of doing another hexagon for the tip of the toe, I did a pentagon to give it a more rounded-shape. It also made it easier to sew on, as I wasn't left with one wonky side. Sewing it together was much harder than making the hexagons!

Other than crochet...

I realized I have a bunch of non-yarn-related craft projects waiting for me in the basement. I have a metal coffee table to repaint, a cool chalkboard-letterbox thing to refinish and repaint, and a small end-table to sand/refinish. It needs to warm up a little more to get rid of all of the snow outside so I can get to work on these things! You can be sure that once I'm working on them, you'll see pictures.

In the meantime, while it's been cold outside I've been experimenting with cooking. This is a very brave venture for me, as I'm the kind of person who burns EVERYTHING. I once ruined Ramen by forgetting what I was making part of the way through and I drained all the water and strained the noodles. Once I realized my mistake, I tried adding hot water from the tap. It didn't taste good. I had Papa Johns Pizza on speed-dial when I lived alone. All of the delivery people knew they'd be greeted with a cloud of smoke when I opened my apartment door. But I'm trying to fix all of that by making easy recipes and staring eagerly at my family while they eat, asking constantly "Is it good?"

Here's some awesome Sugar Lemon cookies I made. They were a little bit too-tasty, and disappeared shortly after I pulled them out of the oven. I made something edible AND delicious, yay!

Cephalapods Ahoy!

This giant guy is still awaiting a name. I was asked to make him huge, and he certainly does fulfill that requirement now! It was actually pretty difficult to sew him together at the end, as he took up more space than my lap could hold. At some points it took teamwork to hold and sew. But I think it's pretty worth it!

Lymph Node Buddy

I recently did a test crochet for this awesome blog I discovered - http://mixedmartialartsandcrafts.com .

Behold Larry the Lymph Node! (I don't know what makes it a Larry, but it felt right.)

 Check out her site for the awesome pattern! 3$ of the proceeds go to a Cancer Charity, Stupid Cancer.