One Craft Day Remains

Until the craft fair. I've still got lots and lots and lots to do. Including getting an item felted and dried by Saturday morning. Here's my monster messenger bag that I had a major problem with:
My major problem is that I ran out of yarn. It was supposed to have a flap that would fold over the top and cover the front. And it's supposed to have a massive strap so it can actually be used as a messenger bag. Instead its got a rather pathetic little flap that I will have to fins a toggle to add on post-felting. And the strap is just horrible. I was hoping to do it all in green but ran out of green so I had to use some of the yellow. And I didn't realize until I was just looking at this picture that the second skein of yellow is ridiculously different than the first skein. We'll see just how salvageable this bag is when the felting finishes. That's my iPod nano for scale.

And then there's some cute as a button baby booties:
These match the baby thumb-free mittens that I made the other day. I'll try to sell them as a pair. But this isn't an original design. I found it on someone else's blog (I can't remember who)and thought it was just too cute not to make. So, I don't know if I can legally sell it. I'll be designing my own soon with just a single strap so I can sell them, and one button would be much better anyway.

OK, I'm off to knit some more thumb-free mittens. Much better than the booties, as cute as the booties are, they require a seam and the mittens are seamless (a definite plus on a deadline). Oh, and I'll have an etsy shop soon. . . Stay tuned for details. I hope to have at least a few things posted before the craft fair and then whatever doesn't sell will be posted for sale on etsy.

A Very Crafty Day

Today has been a most productive, crafty day. I thought it was going to be a wash out of a day after the slow morning that I spent playing on the internet, reading people's blogs, and browsing Ravelry. But after lunch things turned around. I started a batch of my homemade dog treats. I'll hopefully be selling a lot of those at the craft fair, if not they'll find a good home in the bellies of a kennel full of poodles I know. Then I finished the second thumb-free baby mitten.I think it came out just about as cute as can be:
I just ran next door and tried them on to my 4 month old neighbor. He is a large baby and the mittens just barely fit. I would say they'll fit a newborn to 3 month old baby pretty well. I'm going ot work on some booties now to match.

I also finally figured out my whole key fob thingy and started sewing those today. These are strips of fabric with interfacing to give them some rigidity and some hardware to attach a key. They just slip over the hand and stay on well. I'm going to start using one for when I walk the dogs and just need to bring the house key (currently I use an elastic hairband to hold my key). So, anyway, I started with this one:
It came out real nice. It was a bit frustrating the first few until I realized that ironing before I sew the fabric together through the metal piece was a whole lot easier. But then I started thinking maybe there is just a bit too much hardware. There's a piece with a clasp thing so the key chain is removable, but then when there's actually a key on it may dangle a bit more than would be comfortable. So then I just switched to doing this:
Much more streamlined, much easier to sew, and much more attractive overall. I just hope people want to buy them! I wound up making 10, 6 with the elaborate hardware and 4 with just a keyring. I think I'll make a bunch more. They go quick now that I figured out what I'm doing.
OK, off to make some booties!

What's better than free yarn?

Fantastical gorgeous yummy free yarn!!! I won a skein of Lotus Yarn from the Sock Knitters Anonymous group on Ravelry. It was from the September knit-a-long where we had to knit something by Sockbug or something lace. My entries were the River Rapids sock by Sockbug and the Fawkes sock. They had over a hundred entries and only 4 or 5 winners. I never win things like this so it completely made my day. I got a ravelry message right away from Melanie at Lotus Yarns saying I just need to pick out a color and she'll send it right out. I chose Dig and my sister commented that it matches her winter work wardrobe quite nicely. Sorry Val, it's all mine!! Two days after telling Melanie what I wanted, it showed up in the mail!It's so nice and soft I can't wait to work it up into something. I thought I took better pictures but they were all fuzzy. Oh, well, I'll take awesome pictures when it becomes a sock or 2.

I've been working on some more stuff for the craft fair. Right now the main project is a messenger bag:
It's made out of Manos and will be felted. I have no idea if I have enough yarn, I just kinda sketched something out and started knitting so it may be much shorter or the color pattern may change drastically or it may not have a front flap if I run out of yarn. I'm going to work on some sewing stuff for the fair today since my sweetie is out of the house most of the day.

I'm slowly making progress on the Sweet Pea sock 2. I'm still finding it interesting to work on and I'm excited to try a different sole on the second one to make it fit better.
But I'm getting very distracted by all the craft fair projects including this little cutie:
It's partner is on the needles right now. It will be a pair of little thumbless mittens for a baby. I'm going to make a bunch out of the leftover sock yarn (this is the leftovers from the River Rapids sock) and try to sell them at the craft fair. I may also make matching booties if I have enough yarn left.

Quidditch round 2

Here are my answers for the Hogwarts Sock Kit Swap Quidditch Round 2:
1. c, 2. b, 3. a, 4. c, 5. b, 6. d, 7. a, 8. b, 9. b, 10. d

And the pictures

Ravenclaw Quidditch Uniform
Gryffindor Quidditch Uniform
Hufflepuff Quidditch Uniform
Slytherin Quidditch Uniform
Room of Requirement

As a bonus, here's my own personal room of requirement!

Oh Boy!

My sweetie quit his job on day 2 after he showed up on day 1 to find out that he was not going to be doing the job he was hired for and that the pay on the job he is going to do is far lower than what we can live off of. So, the job search starts all over again. We're surprisingly upbeat. He's got an interview in Ohio. We're not very excited about Ohio, but if it pays well we may be able to have me be a stay at home wife (hopefully mom), which would be perfect. We'd be a little farther away from my family, but if I don't have to work it's worth it. But I'm getting ahead of myself, he hasn't even interviewed yet.

I've got my knitting mojo back, although I haven't taken any photos. Sock 1 of Sweet Pea is finished and sock 2 has about 3 inches done. Super Secret Project #2 is finally making a LITTLE progress. The first part of about 20 or so is finished. I'm also putting a few rows on my sweetie's sweater here and there. Although now that I'm much more experienced then I was when I started that sweater, I realize I'm not a fan of working with cotton. Oh well, I'll push through and get this thing done sometime. I'm also working on a messenger bag for the craft fair. I have a few other projects I want to work on for the craft fair. I've already bought supplies so I really want to get them done. And if they don't sell I have some ready made Christmas presents and some charity items for my favorite charity that my knitting group has an auction for every year.

Sorry about no pictures, I'll take some today and post them later.

Can you say freak out?

Wow, life has thrown us a few punches this week. We redid out house budget and realized we can't afford anything like what we thought we could. It's my fault, I never realized just how much is taken out for federal taxes. I never made much as a student so my taxes were $100 a pay period and my sweetie didn't get pay stubs sent home. Now that we have $1000 less a month than we figured, we're kinda screwed. I've started searching for a job and hope that something comes through soon. In the meantime my sweetie started his job yesterday and it was just miserable. No one thinks that he is going to have the job he was offered and it seems like he's going to be stuck in a job that he's far overqualified for. He's talking to the person who offered him the job today and if it's not what he was lead to believe it was going to be, he's going to quit and he'll have to start the job search all over again. That sucks, but I'd much rather do that than have him stuck in a job that he doesn't like and that doesn't pay much. In the meantime, we close on the sale of our current house the end of October. If my sweetie quits his job, we just may have to take my parents up on moving into my grandfather's house for a while. We'll have to live off our savings, which sucks big time, but I'm glad that we have a back up plan. This has probably been the most stressful time for us. Hopefully everything will be settled by the end of the October cause I don't know how much longer I can deal with this stress level.

Not much knitting has been done lately. I've been trying to keep my mind off of things and knitting just gives me too much time to think. So, I've been reading a lot. I just finished the latest Kathy Reich's book and I'm just starting The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (Or something like that). It's pretty good so far but it just may be a little too involved for me. There's a lot of European references that I don't understand but I'm barrelling trhough the first few chapters and I'll see if I get hooked.

Flash my stash

My Secret Pal 11 host is having a flash your stash contest. So, here's my stash.
It's relatively well contained in one of those cubicle bookshelves from Target:

And here's what's in the cubes:
I recently had a major clean out of my stash so most of what's in there is quality stuff. The middle top cube is roving and my drop spindle, which I still haven't gotten the hang of. And the bottom right is my basket of sock yarn that lives on top of the bookshelf for some daily inspiration.

House hunting, Part I.

Yesterday was our first day of house hunting and it was a complete bust! We went to see 5 houses in the town next to us and there wasn't a single one that we were interested in. There were a couple in a great neighborhood that I would love to live in. But they were so weird. They were old, which is ok, our current house is 70 years old and we haven't had any major problems with it. But either their were lots of very small rooms (which is one of the reasons we're looking for a new house, we want an open floor plan), or the kitchen was tiny and all the appliances were out of date (another reason we want a new house), or it was just a weird layout (like a loft that looked over the den but was completely useless as a loft since it was about 4 feet wide.)

Today we're crossing the bridge and venturing into new territory for us. We've never really been into the towns that we are going to today. We've driven through them but we've never stopped. This will be a real adventure. Most of the houses are in housing communities, which I'm not thrilled about, but if the houses are gorgeous, they have the open floor plan I want, and they have up to date appliances . . . I just may have to change my mind on that.

WOOOHOOO!

My sweetie has accepted a job offer and we're going house hunting tomorrow! We're staying in the area we're in now in southeastern Virginia. We shouldn't have any problem finding something by the closing date of our current house (end of October). We just need to find something that we can take early possession of so we can have everything moved out by the closing date. I'm so excited!!! I don't think my sweetie is as excited as I am cause this means he has to start working again. It was nice with both of us having almost 2 months off but it would have been nicer if we could have taken a vacation. My sweetie has to start his job on Monday which doesn't leave much time for house hunting and vacationing. Oh well. We've got tons of wedding in the next year so we'll just have to use those as mini vacations throughout the year.

I also bit the bullet and applied for a job. We'll see. I'm pretty well qualified for it and it doesn't involve teaching classes so I think I'd be pretty happy about it. But it does require going to work everyday which I'm not so keen on anymore. It'd be nice to have a second income though. The application due date isn't until August of 08 so I may not hear anything at all for a LONG time. I'm keeping my eye out for other jobs too but there's not all that much I'm interested in. If only we had a major natural history museum in this area!

A little update

I haven't really been up to much lately. I've been spending most of my time talking with my sweetie about what job he should take. It's a great thing that we have a few options now but we both hate making decisions. We need to make up our minds by Thursday though and then it will be a whirlwind of trying to find a new house and moving in the next month!

So, onto knitting. I apologize now for the horrible pictures, I just ran around the house and snapped a few pictures, I'm hoping to get this post up before Trapper comes downstairs from his morning nap. Here's the Sweet Pea Sock

Apparently the gauge issues I had are coming back to haunt me. It's a big baggy on the underside of the foot. The point it's at in the picture is right at the end of the gusset decreases. I think on the other sock I'll just pick up 20 stitches instead of 30 along the heel flap and see how it fits, if it's all good I may redo this one (probably not, I'm far too lazy!)

And now onto the knitting I'm doing for the craft sale. All I can say is that I'm not nearly as good at felting projects as I was last year. Everything just looks like crap (and it's not just because the pictures are fuzzy, they're really crap!)

First off is a dog toy that I thought I make a few of and sell with the dog treats I made:
It turned out ok, I even managed to stuff it and put a squeaker inside before felting so there are no seams the dog could rip open. The only problem is it's actually a lot of effort and quite a bit of yarn to make this thing so I probably won't make anymore. Oh that reminds to, I forgot to take a picture of the cat toy I made, I'll have picture next post.

Then there's a couple felted totes:
The purple one came out ok, the other one is a bit too short and the sides sag a little. I think I'll just use it to display the dog treats or cat toys.

Lastly is the little bag
It's very small. Maybe 6X4 inches or something like that. I tried to put a nifty magnetic closure but I had to put the bag so hard to get it open or pry it apart with my fingernails, so I took it off. I'm going to add on a black canvas strap and make it so it can go across your body, messenger bag style. We'll have to see how it looks after I add the strap, but I'm happiest with this bag so I'll probably make more of them.

I also attempted wristlets and decided that I'm really not a zipper friendly person. Maybe I'll make really small wristlets with a front flap and put those magnetic closures to good use!

And I made some progress on Super Secret Project #2. Not much, but the first section is getting closer to being finished. That's all for now.