seriously ugly.

so, there are a couple of redeeming options in this overview of this knitting magazine issue, but seriously, most of them are hideous. and even if they were done in colors people wear, like grays, deep blues, whites... some of them would be wearable. but ugly colors meets old lady style isn't something i could see spending time on.

in other news, I'm working on a lace scarf that is never ending, a bougainvillea pindle, still haven't lined the purse i've been talking about AND there are no pictures today. maybe later.

i have to do home makery things.

blue hydrangea

so there are dried blue hydrangeas all over this house. the flower i was trying to make for the purse that is all constructed and just needs to be assembled, well that flower was blue. or rather the color i bought for the embellishment was blue. i want to make a blue bird. i made a bird. jer says it looks like a bird of prey. it's scary. not cute. who wants a scary blue bird on their really cute purse? no one i'm selling to.

so you saw in older posts that i tried a forget me not. it was easy to forget. i had plans to try again, but wasn't too eager. and then...

i woke up this morning to set out on a blue hydrangea creating adventure. and upon the first try of making one of the small 4 petaled flowers that blue hydrangeas are made of, i accomplished what i had in mind.

which didn't turn out perfect, but the end result was pretty much what i envisioned. it was great. and here it is, for all your viewing pleasure.

goodnight.

grr

i found someone who does make flowers out of yarn that look just like the real thing

Suili

that is so rude.

BUT she doesn't make them to be pin/broaches AND she doesn't make them with beads AND she doesn't make things to put them on. like purses.

i'm still bummed.

still knitting flowers

i need to publish this simply because i took the picture and put it on the computer nad one last simple step is required - uploading it.

so, without further adoo - pictures of the petals for the next two plum blossoms:

these are hard to see - they are pink and white and have likts of strings
and then to the right is pictures of the solid pink ones.

i just had to do it.

knitting flowers

today was a day for knitting plum blossoms and forget-me-nots. That, over there is a picture of my first finished plum blossom. it's a lot bigger than an actual plumblossom, but once i have 5 made and attach them to a branch, they'll look pretty great. and they don't have to be perfect because they are for my banner, not for sale. and i think i'm going to play with the design before i sell these.

and here is a picture of the very funky and not at all like a forget me not:
So i'm thinking I might practice making the pin back on it. and then give it to someone as a silly thing. i dunno.

i have big plans for the forget me not. they are supposed to look more like this:



i have a lot of work to do on this... BUT it can be done, and i'm excited. no one seems to knit flowers with care about their natural details. this will be fun.

flowers

knit up some flowers yesterday. 4 to be exact. 3 of them look like ameobas. one looks like an awesome flower, but still is not quite what i was going for. i'll try, try again. the missing ingredient: little brown beads.

an update

so, i was thinking on Friday or maybe thursday that it would be really cool to knit some plum blossoms as a signature. then i thought it'd be really cool to knit flowers, actual flowers, buttercups, roses, calla lilies, plum blossoms, morning glories and make them look like the real flower. i could sell them as pins or broaches or whatever you call those and advertise purses and hats and scarves and wraps with those flowers on them - BUT sell them seperatly for like $7 a piece.

and then it would be like well, there was a lot of thoughts flying around in my head after that: i coud make things for these pins to go on that were like nature - like the dark brown purse i'm making reminds me of tree branches and then i was going to make a ittle blue bird to go with it. but what about like sand and sea shells or sand and desert flowers. or greens for grasses and leaves with pretty, bright beautiful renditions of different flowers. i've wanted to make a spanish lace purse with a kind of honey color and make bouganvilla flowers for it. and then i bought yarn that looks so much like birch bark and i could put on some kind of flower that grows near birch bark.

i could even do deep blue mountains with an acorn.

nature has endless beautiful flower and calm colored back ground combinations. my options are endless.

then i tried to make a plum blossom. it looks almost just like a hibiscus. which, one day, will be handy to know how to make. just not today. but i have a nice white one now.

so, i'm still finishing the brown purse and havn't started on the blue bird. and i bought stuff to make my own wood-beaded handles, which frankly, i'm afraid of because they may not work. BUT i should be able to get the majority, if not all of my money back for the materials. which would be aweosme, if it doesn't work out.

so - that's where i am. finishing the purse, worrying about the handle and contemplating the make up of a plum blossom.

awesome thing, part deux

so, yesterday i was fantasizing about all the fabrics i could buy at joann's to finish all the products in my head. including, but not at all limited to what i need to finish this purse.

and i decided that being a good steward of my husbands money, i should refrain until i get the coupons because then i can buy things one at a time for 50% off. it was a hard decision. when i'm sad, i buy fabric.

and then, the coupon book came! the same day! AND there are like 5 serparate anything in the store including fabric 50% off coupons! all for different days of course. but it's worth it. to go every week in january and save like a million dollars.

i was pretty awwed. i mean really, the EXACT same day. and how did they know that I moved?

one side

just finished one side of a hand bag. it's gunna be dark brown with a little blue bird on the front and it's going to have curved wood handles.

i have big plans for the bird. it's going to be knit also. and it's going to double as a pin or broach or whatever you want to call those. and i'm going to reinforce it so it's sturdy and back it with dark brown felt.

and then, depending on the ease and appeal of the blue bird. i might make more. and sell them. someone on etsy is selling such things for around $30 a piece. and people are acctually buying them. i think that's rather rediculous, i might charge 10 or 15, depending on how awesome they are/it is. i think $30 for something that seriously looks like it took all of about half an hour, well, it's kinda rediculous. i'd feel bad.

but maybe, just maybe they'll sell so quickly that i'll have to up the price.

or maybe they'll just sit there on the site like the things on their now with nary an onlooker.

i'm grumpy today. i need sleep, less brownies, less hot chocolate, more meat. lots more meat.

and i'm grumpy because the new year means that I cannot put off going to the pregnancy dr any longer. and i really don't want to go, and i can't find the paper that has the phone number and name of the dr.

so i just knit one half of a purse. maybe today will be a whole purse day, but i need to buy things to finish it and i need to buy baby food.

boo.

now what?

for some reason i thought that having a sale would do something. it hasn't. well no, it has encouraged me. that the labor intensive work of creating knit things paid off. I'm no where near even on my financial adventure. but I am validated. I no longer feel silly trying to tell myself that this will work.

it did work. on one of my little gambles. after all, isn't that what they are? I buy the yarn and the tools necessary, sit back, think of something to create, something someone may want to pay money for. then i set to creating it. purchasing things to create pictures in my head, well that's a gamble too. what if my fingers and needles can't do what i see in there? what if the yarn can't do what i see in there? and then, if it gets to be finished, then posting it onto my site and waiting. like a fisherman with his worms. only he grew the worms, with quite a bit of time and thought.

and he put some lines out there. one got a bite. he grew the right worm, used the right line. and every single fish can only be caught with the right worm, the right line, the right time of day, the right lake.

this, this is why i don't grow tired. this is why i don't give up. i'm like a gambler. yes, none of these worked, but look how close I came. maybe the next one will be a lucky break.

wow. i understand fishing now.

i'm excited to have found something in which the promise isn't too far from the labor. I can see it. quite clearly. I'm excited to have found something that I can do.

I don't have a yard in which to grow things and sell them at market. I don't have animals to breed and sell at auction. but i have hands, and ideas and the internet. and I can work with my hands like people were meant to do.

i can still cook my whole chicken, although i can't deny the urge toraise my own, have them slaughtered and pluck them myself. i can still use fresh veggies and home made broth. even though the veggies aren't from my garden. I can still drink milk, even though it isn't from my cute little jersey cow. jersey cows are the cutest, by the way. they have big doe eyes and are very gentle and much more like a family pet than a barn yard beast.

I don't want to be industrialized, techonological, metalic, mechanic and factory made. i want to be human. by knitting, i am a little closer.

Ode to Maple Bark Scarf

I made my first sale! I'm so excited. I woke up this morning with a million things on my to do list, and then my first to-do involved the computer, I checked my email and TAH-DAH! first sale!

i'm like professional now...

and yesterday, while my big sunday dinner was cooking, I finished the scarf and took the pictures. And last night, after dinner, when I was so full, I posted it and within 40 minutes it had already been looked at 7 times! And then, to my surprise and elation, I awoke this morning, the 5th day of the new year, a professional knitter.

so once i found that out I did two things, ate breakfast and took care of the baby while I put together the rest of my site. I'm so thankful for having the opportunity to write ALL the original FAQs for www.myschoolbookstore.com, my old job. My only job, really.

And I sit mystified.

In other knitting news I tried a pattern for the first time last night. my head hurt, kinda a lot, and the book kept saying these are simple patterns so that you can have nicely knitting backgrounds on which to paint your knitting masterpiece. They say Picasso, I think it's him, could free hand draw a perfect circle. well, mine are ovals and the two ends don't meet. and that is evident in my recent dance with the pattern.

oh i love knitting. two sticks, some string, and endless possiblities. I think I could live my whole life and never get bored of knitting. and if the craft remains as ming bendingly complex as last night, well, I also wont be senile demensia. or however you spell it.

3 things

three things:

I decided to get buttons at the craft store today but I only had $5 in my purse and I was determined not to use my debit card. so I went and I wanted two sets of buttons and some beads and they amounted to something like $7, so i went back to the button section to decide which buttons I liked better because I was going to have to choose between the two sets. just when I found buttons that were way cooler than either pair that I had this guy walked over with his wife and read a sign that I missed: all buttons - 50% off. so I grabbed three sets of buttons and my beads and headed for the checkout. they are rang up to $5.25, and after a minute of scrounging I found a surprise quarter! I realized later that I left the house with $5.37 and spent all but two pennies and a nickel.

how perfect.

so then, I can home and finished another bracelet, by sewing on the buttons. and then I started to finish my Owl Eyes Brown Scarf. I'm not sure I like that name though, i might change it. It was going to be tree bark scarf, but that's lame. and now it's hovering out there with no permanent name.

and THEN a present Jeremy bought me for Christmas came! It's a knitting pattern book, and there are some awesome patterns in it. He bought it for me because it's called Knitting Little Luxuries, which is the catch phrase or whatever for my site. And that makes me excited. VERY excited.

so that's my three things for the day. all is well in my knitting world.

oh computers...

so i just spent like an hour or more editing photos, choosing the perfect words and putting together another showcase of something to sell on my site. AND then i did something stupid and lost it all and had to start again. luckily, the pictures i edited on the computer itself and not on the internet. however. i was still angry. i decided to blog about it.

this is going to be a blog mainly about my knitting, because, well, my husband and baby and inlaws, whom i live with, they just don't understand the wonder of blocking, the mistery of kitchners stitch, the beauty of natural fiber over synthetic....

this for those of the world who get it.

maybe this is just for me to talk shop and not feel like a completely misunderstood dork.