Roundup of Week 29: What We Crafted From July 18-24
- Jessica knit ~six inches of the back of her Dad's sweater, brought a design project from January back into the light and did about a quarter of it, made paper flowers (any suggestions as to what she can do with them now? ;)), got a box of yarn and needles in the mail, put in some job applications, made Crock Pot macaroni and cheese, and made a bunch of yummy birthday good for her father's birthday party. Hurray! Happy birthday to your dad. :D
- Sarah's back! She learned new things! ;) And she hereby declares this a kinda-sorta July update: She learned to can jelly (in the process of which she learned "to closely monitor overfilled pots of boiling sugar syrup! And further, to wait out small kitchen fires rather than freaking out and also to call and let my significant other know that no one was hurt and nothing was damaged before I begin tweeting about said kitchen fire." There I go with the quotage again, but how can CoB survive without its regular dosage of funny Sarah quotes?) She also learned that watermelon jelly is good, even when it's not super-watermelony. (That reminds me: I think I need to make some lychee jelly. Care to share any recipes or procedures?) She also learned about stamping metal, which coincided with her turning 30, and then she signed up for a silversmithing class — yay for acid, fire, hammers and sharp things! — and made a cute little silver ring. Woo!
Check-in for Week 30: What Have You Done Lately? (July 25-31)
On to my own babblage. The productivity-cycle musings above are partly inspired by my general lack of inspiration in the past few weeks. I know what's behind them, but I still wonder whether this stuff might be cyclical. Why not? I shouldn't disbelieve until I have evidence one way or another, right? ;)
Anyway, this week I continued writing every day. Which is getting harder when I don't know what I'm doing in the middly bits of this book. Need to remedy that. Sunday, I knitted a gauge swatch for a hooded shrug test knit, and made and sent in the listing info for a super-limited-edition Waves of Compassion shawl pin for the Help the Gulf Coast Etsy shop. Monday, I made an end-of-Tour-de-Fleece yarn collage and bought some US size 6 double-pointed needles for further hooded shrug swatching. Tuesday, I made pork bone soup (and discovered that my suspicions were correct about needing more than two pork bones to effectively do this ;)), re-swatched for the hooded shrug and washed the swatch, and downloaded Feedly to help organize all my creativity-inspiring RSS feeds in a way that will encourage me to read them. Wednesday, I took some photos of the world outside when it turned yellow (and then it turned purple, but I didn't photograph that, alas), read someone's novel synopsis and sent feedback, and started using the Read It Later Firefox add-on to save all the creativity-inspiring but computer-killing tabs I usually have open. WHEW. I also started a digital dream board, on a site which I shall fail to share because I haven't given it a thorough enough testing to be sure I want to spread the word about it yet. ;) Thursday, I made a Gulf Coast Compassion treasury on Etsy, swatched yet again for the hooded shrug, and actually SPUN a little bit of yarn from the Gypsy batt that was in progress when TDF ended. Friday, I wrote notes for some costumes I'll be making for Dragon*Con. And Saturday, I read some of Jane Eyre — reading is creative, too! It helps keep my brain's imaging capabilities honed and sharp. ;)And even though that list looks pretty long, I still don't feel like I spent a lot of time really MAKING things. This week was kind of like treading water. I hope there's a little more creative swimming next week.
So what did you do this week? Share your own crafty accomplishments in the comments here, and don't forget to use the standard check-in format on the rules page!
And as always, if you're new to Craft or Bust, check out the CoB rules page and sign up if you like — it's easy!
