Mail in: May 31, 2007

Got my Fiber Swap package from Australia today. Woo! Lots of yummies! Must take a photo. Must do a lot of things. ;)

...Zipping off again...

Mail out: May 30, 2007

The not-so-Tiny Box of Joy swap went out today, along with Flory's ring for her granddaughter. Woo, woo.

Mail in: May 29, 2007

Earth Mother's Tote Bag (awesome stuff :D) and payment from Flory for the latest Etsy order. Woo. :D

Mail: May 25, 2007

Mail out: Creative Letter #1; mail in: Ratings Booster(?) from Cecily (starrypurplehaze)

Another contest: clothing design

BurdaStyle is having a clothing design contest; the deadline for this one is June 15. Hmm...

And catching up on mail in

Mail in, some from today:

*Blue postcard from Yuh-Shan Goh in Malaysia (cool -- she might be near where my mom is from ;))
*Postcard from Elke in Germany
*Postcard from Cibele in Brazil
*My Republicans for Voldemort shirt from Goats

And from before:

*Surf the net with me from NerdGirl
*Newbie Pick 3 angel from Kristin McKnight
*Creative Letter 1 from SummerLion
*Smile for Under $1 from Kika/CandyRagz (and she succeeded! A great necklace that looks like serpentine, plus sterling silver, that arrived on my anniversary and got worn for it ;D)

Mini wishlist, away!

That is, mail out: Mini Wishlist 2, including some of these lovely little items ("lovely" used here solely in the sense of "Isn't it lovely I've finally got it sent?" ;)):

A good luck charm, hopefully to help my swap partner win a bit more at bingo ;):



A pair of earrings, so she can win in style:



And some wall art, potentially for her kitchen, because she likes roosters:



And there you have it. ;D My latest late-ish swap is out. I catch up.

Another sewing contest ;D

This one is from Etsy, and it's the "Sew Helpful" contest. Entries are due June 15. Hmmm. What can I make that's useful? :D

...And yet more

Mail in today: blue postcard from Bratz

No mail out for today, but tomorrow there should be at least one package, which Shall Not Be Named in case I might jinx myself. ;) I did make a pair of earrings, a good luck charm, a wall art collage, and two pairs of point protectors today, and although that sounds like a lot, it doesn't really feel like it.

More mail updates

Mail in today:

*Ratings Booster from Kat

Mail out:

*Surf the net with me

Yay for being behind but determined. I will catch up, I will send nice swaps, and then I will take a swap diet. ;D

More catchup

Mail in:

*Calming Waters

There's some other stuff I have evilly not noted, too, but it's sitting in my car on the passenger seat where I can't miss it.

Still catching up on swappage today since Friday was spent cleaning and doing every piece of laundry I could find, then we spent all weekend in Daytona doing more grandparent-house cleanout, spending time with Brian's family, and chasing the sun, by which I mean we managed to see the sunrise on the east coast and the sunset on the west coast, which Brian has been talking about doing since we first got together. :D

I sent the blue postcard swap, theoretically, on Saturday when I dropped the postcards into the drop box at the condo. Today I'm going to send the "Surf the net with me" swap, including this little ATC as an extra goodie:



Oh, and I picked up some things for the Tiny Box of Joy at Brian's grandparents', but intelligently, I forgot to take them out of the box and bring them with me to package up and send. Oops. Well, there's always tomorrow...

It's swap catchup day!

And the test of my swappycrafty abilities is to see how much I can get done ... without stressing myself unduly. That is the true evidence of skill. ;)

I hear thunder in the distance. Mmm. Thunder. Mayhap I shall print out my Catchup List so I can't be too derailed if the power goes out. ;D

Pasta machines are evil.

Or maybe it should be fun to have a giant hunk of clay stuck behind the rollers so I have to take apart the machine for the second time, suffering the excitement of loose washers maddeningly running around inside the half of the machine that I can't figure out how to get off because the screw holding the side on is underneath the thickness adjustment knob, which isn't coming off in any logical fashion. (Unless the logical fashion is "pull really hard," a method I almost never use unless I first see it used without harm to the thing being pulled on. ;))

Oysh. Why didn't Troy have the sanity to show me how he got the machine apart and then back together? Silly boys. ;)

Mail in: May 08, 2007

Received today: Tiny Box of Joy from N. Rykers

Another DIY lightbox

And this one looks really easy, too. (And hey, it's another way to get rid of some of the boxes around here that aren't quite the right size for shipping anything I'm sending out.)

Sparklies and such

Mail in for yesterday, May 07, 2007:

*Free paw pin from the Animal Rescue Site
*Awesome blue postcard from Siobhan

Moving on, I listed two pieces of jewelry on Etsy yesterday:





That covers me for Week Two of SpoC 2007, too. Woo!

I also finally dyed Anne's custom yarn order -- it's the first time I've ever hand-painted something, and the results were pretty decent, although not exactly what I was going for ... ;) (I used this tutorial for general guidelines.)






While I was at it, I used some of the leftover dye to paint an experimental batt; I used some of the "short" Corriedale. With both the yarn and the batt, I pre-soaked them in hot water for long enough that it got pretty cool (more out of convenience than intent), then put them on a piece of plastic wrap. Food dyes (Lemon-Lime Kool-Aid with a few drops of yellow food coloring for bright green; royal blue icing colors -- not Wilton's -- with a little Pink Lemonade Kool-Aid for blue; and Black Cherry Kool-Aid with a little of something redder, can't remember what off the top of my head, for the red) got mixed in plastic cups with hot water, then I used a syringe to squirt them onto the fiber. Note to self: squirt less dye or else the darkest color will take over. ;) Rolled up the plastic wrap as per directions, put the roll onto a bamboo steamer in a wok, and steamed with the wok top on for forty-five minutes, then rolled the fiber out into a bucket of hot water plus soap, soaked, rinse-soaked, and voila! Photos of batt forthcoming. It came out pretty well, although I seem to have lost most of the green in the yarn and pretty much all the red in the batt. Doh.

I did another experimental Corriedale "short" batt that I'd pre-soaked in case by putting it into hot water in my dye pot (a little more than just enough to cover), pouring the leftover dyes over different sections of the wool, then transferring the pot to the stove and turning it on medium heat for a while. I knew we were going to bed soon, I was being lazy, and didn't want to felt the wool. Then I turned off the heat when we went to bed, and more of the dye appears to have absorbed overnight. I'll probably end up turning the heat back on tonight when I get home, because someone said recently that dye needs a certain amount of time at temperature to actually set, and I might as well. It's only a little over an ounce of fiber, so I won't have a fit if I mess it up horribly.

In other news, wildfire smoke has blown in from the north and appears to be covering most of Pinellas County at the least. It's a bit cough-inducing, but more importantly, I can't go outside to take photos, hence the even crappier than usual photography. ;) I may be forced to improvise a lightbox today. (Ohhh, how terrrrrible. ;))

Swatching

...for Sahara. I'm quite close to gauge with size four needles (as the larger set), so I'm going to pretend I have gauge, at risk of messing things up. ;) (I'm used to things being just a tiny bit not the right size anyway...) I switched to CottonTots yarn, too, instead of generic worsted-weight washcloth type yarn, which may have helped a smidge, or maybe I was just being a freak before and couldn't knit to gauge. So okay. Now to cast on and start the SKC knitalong. :D

Mail in: May 04, 2007

Payment from Flory for 2 sets of stitch markers and Surfer Girl ring. Yayyy! ;)

Break time!

Oops. Forgot to charge the camera batteries last night, so still no photo or listing for the necklace I made for Week One of SpoC 2007. Oh, well. I did at least attempt to take a picture before the camera batteries died again. ;)

I also finally chose a wristwarmer pattern for my delayed trade with someone on Swap-bot: the Cider Moon "April May" lace wristwarmers. I have no clue whether I have the correct size needles to get that gauge, but I'll deal with that later today, or maybe over the weekend. Here's hoping I get them knit faster than I get the pattern chosen. ;)

And I started on plying a yarn for the also-delayed Orphan Handspun Swap (I suck! I suck! But I'm so going to send the package, so I'm not re-orphaning my partner -- just slacking, is all ;)). It's a fairly fine yarn (maybe sport weight?) and I'm using one ply of Columbia and one of Jacob, and the Columbia's been sitting for a little, while I just dyed the Jacob an interesting purple last night. As my brain seems to be on standby today, I'm not processing what that means for the active vs. passive statuses of the twist in each ply, but anyway, plying is, er, interesting. At least the yarn isn't misbehaving before I get it plied this time, as singles on the way to the two-ply, like Anne's yarn, but I'm a little paranoid about how much twist I'm putting in to keep the plies together at all, and how kinked up the resulting yarn is. The kinks aren't very determined, though, so I figure I'll ply it and wash it and see how it turns out, and I can always go back and add more twist or take twist out, or something, if I decide to. Or I can go, "Well, it's a crazyfunky yarn and you can do something with it that will look interesting with an inherent bias." After all, there is stuff out there that looks cool with a slanty fabric. ;)

After this week, I'm pretty burnt out on doing things for other people. Maybe it doesn't seem like I did that much (or does it? Like I said, my brain is on standby), but it feels like I've thought about other people and their projects a lot this week. It's time for me to put some energy into doing something for myself. I may attempt to re-swatch for Sahara, or to weave the side squares for that tote for me. Ponder.

Mail in: May 03, 2007

...from Brooke, a quite entertaining Fantasy Travel Agent swap.

SpoC, Week 1: Success! (Well, mostly. ;))

Today is the "deadline" for the first week of my Springtime of Creation project, so I got off my butt and made a necklace. Sort of. I took a fat disc pendant bead that's been sitting on my computer desk since around Valentine's Day, knitted an I-cord for it, shaped and attached a clasp and loop, and then tried to put a bail on the bead. Oops! The seed beads that were embedded in the polymer clay decided they didn't like having copper wire rubbed on them, so the pendant plus finished bail is waiting for the repair glaze to dry, and then I'm going to put on a layer of fixing glaze over the entire. (By "glaze" I actually mean Aleene's Paper Glaze, which looked like it would work and was handy.) Note to self: don't skritch seed beads out of polymer clay thingies. ;)

Anyway, I'm counting that as a first-week success, since even if I technically get the listing up late, it's not because I was a slacker and didn't do it; it's just because of the normal unforeseen delay type stuff, and that's totally okay.

Whew. Week one (mostly) down, seven to go.

More mail updates

I have word that my SBS Teas Secret Spring Genie received her package finally -- whew! I was a little paranoid about it getting there since the tracking number said it had been forwarded to another address, and I wasn't sure if the old address was a business address, but I do know that my Spring Genie just sold her business to someone else ... eep! Anyway, I'm glad she got it. Relief. :D

There's a butt load of mail waiting to go out today, too:

*Earth Mother's Day Tote Bag O'Goodies (finally!)
*Fabric Scrap Craft (UberLate!)
*Creative Journal Swap (UberLate!)
*Old Box ATCs #3 re-send to Mary Rousseaux (who didn't receive her first ones)
*A postcard to Cibele Fraga (RAK)
*Newbie/changing bad ratings swaps

...for now. I have some other things I ought to put together to add to the pile, too. This list will probably grow. ;)