My First Foray into Cheese Making

I attempted my first try with making cheese.  I won't say it was a total failure, but I only got about a half cup of cheese (maybe, that might be pushing it) out of the whole recipe.

Of course, it wasn't all my fault that things didn't go well, just partially my fault.

I used this recipe to make Fromage Blanc and that's where things went downhill.  The printed recipe is not correct, but the one on the video is.   So, guess what I didn't do?  Yep, skipped the video, printed out the directions (or destructions as we call them around here) and proceeded to the actual making of the cheese.  I could have saved myself a lot of grief by just watching the darn thing.

I used a half gallon of whole milk - the two quarts that the written directions called for, and only got a half cup of cheese.  Methinks that's very little return for the investment folks.

This photo is what I got when I didn't add enough buttermilk and lemon juice.  Do you see lots of curds forming?  Me neither.  I reheated it to the proper temp three times and ended up adding more of the buttermilk and lemon juice.  It helped some, but not lots. 

But.  I kept what whey that I had and used it to make pancakes and I'm going to use the rest to make some muffins. So, it's not a total loss I suppose.  Made the pancakes healthier too and the kids never noticed what went into them.

The little bit of cheese that I did make successfully, I used in a nice little lasagna.  I layered red sauce ( made from diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and some tvp (textured vegetable protein), lasagna sheets, spinach and cheese and baked it all for about 30 minutes.  It made for a great meal.

   The Hillbilly Housewife has a frugal version of a recipe that makes this kind of cheese as well.  I might give that recipe a shot instead.  Her recipes are pretty darn good.  I ran out of chocolate syrup and made hers and it was better than what I had been buying!

I'm going to try to make cheese again and this time I swear it's going to work.  Well, I hope it's going to work anyway.  :)

SideWinders Discussion

Today I want to talk about the SideWinders Sock Pattern by Nona of nonaKnits. 

A while back I got turned off of the whole making socks thing.  Tiny needles, tiny yarn, same 'ol construction and it took forever to make a sock.  Meh.  For me, worsted weight yarn + bigger needles = quicker project, mainly with sweaters, which I needed, so that was a total win.

This pattern does have some of the things I don't like: tiny needles and tiny yarn.  But the cool thing about it is the construction.  This pattern is done flat, not in the round.  There are no dpns or two circs to deal with.  It very much reminds me of the Baby Surprise Jacket that EZ created.  It looks very weird as you are knitting it, but when it comes together,  you just have to say, Wow!

To be upfront, let me state that I have not finished the pair socks.  One sock is complete and the other is on the needles.  This post is both my notes to myself and to get your input on the changes that I want to make on these socks.

The completed sock above is done on US Size 1 needles in Malabrigo Sock Yarn in the Stonechat colorway.
When reading about how other people did this, I found that most were talking about how fast the pattern was to complete.  I was shaking my head in confusion because mine were not moving quickly off the needles.  Then I went back and checked.  Most people are using thicker fingering yarn and US Size 2 needles.  So, I've totally been doing this to myself by picking smaller yarn and needles.   That's okay, I'm still getting gauge. 

The pattern is well done.  When it was published, it was done serially with one section of the pattern being shown a day.  During the Olympics I tried to challenge myself to getting one section done a night and it was great fun doing it that way.  It didn't work, thanks to life and children interruptions, but I did try.

Each line of the pattern is broken down thusly:  Cuff, Leg, Heel, Foot, Toe.  I used a different color stitch marker for each section so that I could better remember the stitch patterns in that section.

Cuff:  Done in a Garter Rib

The cuff is probably the most difficult for me out of the whole pattern.  Evidently, remembering which row comes next, even though it written down in front of me, is too much of a mental challenge.  It looks fine from this view, but trust me, it's not.  It doesn't bother me enough to go fix it though.

Leg:  Has calf shaping:

There are three times that you must stop and put in some short rows to shape the calves.  You can see the shaping up above pretty well.  Probably the simplest short row technique that I've done in any pattern.

One odd thing about the leg section though, is that the back of the leg is done in garter stitch while the rest is in stockinette.  I would like to know why the author did it that way.  I'm curious.  The garter did an excellent job hiding all the grafting.  Ewww!  there's that word, "grafting".  More about that bad word in a minute.  On my next set of socks, not this pair, I would like to do the whole thing in garter stitch, just for fun.  But would the bottom of the foot catch on too much stuff? 

Heels:  Done only with increase and decrease stitches:

Notice anything different about the two sides of the same heel?  One is done with increases and the other with decreases.  This is my first issue with this sock pattern.  They look completely different.  Also, one side has major holes, especially when the fabric is stretched to accommodate a foot.  I am not a fan of the M1 increase.  I don't like the look of holes in my fabric.  I am considering using a kfb or pfb increase in the second sock.  I might even use Techknitter's invisible increase.  I haven't decided.  What do you think?  The two sides would still be different, but at least one side wouldn't have large holes in it.

Toe:  Look how pretty the top looks:

I love the look of the toe section in the top of the foot.  Look how clean and pretty that is!

But the bottom? 

 

Not so much.

In the toe part, the author has you use a slip stitch edge.  In a perfect world, each of those edge stitches would be exactly the same size and quality.  Not in my world.  Just look how awful that turned out.  On the second sock, I am omitting the slip stitch edge altogether.  When it comes time to graft the two sides together, I plan on using the Bickford Seaming Method.  I love it for making almost invisible seams.

Grafting:  Now comes the dirty word.  By the end of this pattern, if you haven't conquered grafting, you never will.  There is a section of seemingly never ending grafting.  You will learn it, learn it well, and never be fearful of grafting again.  There's nothing like repetition as a teaching tool.  I got to where I was saying "In down, Off needle, Out up, Now the other side!"  Tedious, but if you embrace the whole thing in a zen kind of moment, it's not too bad.

In summation:

I'm loving the pattern.  I love weird construction.  These are also, by far, the best fitting sock (soon I can say socks here in this sentence) that I own.  I have a very, very narrow foot. Most socks slide all around on my foot and slip at the heel.  Not these babies.  Nona breaks down the pattern into narrow, normal and wide and I absolutely love that.  I just paid attention to gauge and shoe size and now I'm a happy camper knitter.

One complaint that I have seen from most people is that it's too tight at the top of the foot while putting it on.  I found that if you point your toe the entire time you are putting the sock on, it's not bad at all.  If I put it on without that toe pointed though, yeah, there's no give at all.  Some people are adding a few stitches in that section to combat that.  I'm leaving it alone, I'm not messing with the perfect fit that I've gotten. 

What changes would I make?  I'm still going to change the increase section and I really want to do leg in garter stitch.  My Dad requested some socks and he may get the next pair like that.  I am also going to do the different toe graft on the second sock and I'll let you know how it goes. Other than that?  I wouldn't change a thing. 

We interrupt the regularly scheduled post...

We interrupt the regularly scheduled post to bring you SNOW!

Everyone down here in GA is shaking their heads this year.  We never get as many days of snow as we've had this year.  I don't remember a year like this one.  It's really freaky.  Whatever happened to the "Global Warming" that Mr. Gore had been telling the entire freakin' planet about? 

So much for that.  We got three inches (you northerners are laughing at that tiny number I know) of snow today.  The kids got sent home early from school.  Which was great for them.  The boys headed outside and started a snowfight that went from our porch and continued over the entire rest of the back yard.  Even the dog got in on it.   That would be the stupid dog.  The smart one stayed inside where it was cozy and warm.

Note the cute pirate sweater on the dog:

The Youngest even decided to eat a few snowflakes. 

Those were the voluntary snowflakes that he ate.  The rest that he ate were courtesy of his older brother throwing snowballs into his face.

Me?  I'm still working on socks.  The first SideWinder is finished and the second on the needles.  Changes are being made to the second one.  Update to resume at it's regularly scheduled time tomorrow!

Costumes for Less

It always amazes me when I see people paying outrageous prices to rent or buy a costume.   I can understand it if you are doing theater work and need a period piece for a renaissance play.  How else would you come up with something that looks like Marie Antoinette?


But it you're really going to do it right, do like the people in theater do and hit the thrift shops!  Most theater productions don't have two nickels to rub together.  Budgets are ridiculously tight.  In one production we needed costumes for the 1930's and where did we get them?  We combed the town and hit every thrift shop within  (and I'm not kidding here) a 50 mile radius.  It was a large production and we had about 40 people to costume. 

I took my own advice this weekend and hit the thrift shops to pull together a Paul Revere costume.  I started with this picture that I found on the web at the Paul Revere House Site:

What I wanted to portray was Paul as a working man, which he was, a Silversmith.  So, he had a blouse-y poets style shirt and a brown leather vest.  That's what I would shoot for.

I could have gotten a 1776 Revolutionary Patriot Kids Costume , but do you really think Revere was wearing a "please shoot me now" military costume when he went wildly riding around the countryside warning about the British coming?  Um, no.  It would have been an everyday outfit where he could blend into a crowd if necessary.  He wasn't a stupid man by any means.

So, off we (The Eldest and I) went on Saturday to canvas the thrift stores.  Can you believe it?  We got everything we needed in one store!

White blouse-y Shirt from the women's section?  Check.   Brown leather (suede) vest?  Check.  Tan pants?  Check.

Candlestick to use as a prop with the antiqued paper we made?  Check.

 I'm going to spray paint these candlesticks (I got the pair), but that will be for a later post and after the Eldest's project is over.

Total price for all this costume awesomeness?  $12.32

Think you could buy a costume for that price?  I think not.

The hat is actually a Captain Jack Sparrow Hat from Pirates of the Caribbean that we already had.  We pinned up the dreadlocks and tucked them in.  The boots are mine.  Can you believe a 9 year old boy has the same size shoe as me?  It's scary.

The really cool thing about this costume, is that it could easily double as a pirate one.  Same time period after all. Just add sword, hook, eye patch and beard and it's yours for the taking!  Aye, me hearties.

So next time you need a costume, rethink the whole "I'm going to go out and just rent or buy" thing.  Hit up a thrift store instead!  You'll be amazed at what you can pull together for a tiny amount of money.

Aging Paper

The Eldest has a project at school coming up where he will portray Paul Revere.  He has to give a speech and dress like him (haven't dreamed up a costume yet) and do something creative.  We put our heads together and came up with several ideas.  The one he wanted to do involves him doing a one act play basically.  It's going to take place on an evening during his "great ride" where he has reached an Inn.   While at the Inn he's going to take the time to write his wife Rachel a letter.  He'll be pretend to be writing the letter while speaking aloud.  The letter will also be his creative part of the project.


So, The Eldest and I started to age some paper for his letter.  This was a pretty fun project and here's what we did.

To Age Paper:

1.  For this project we are using legal size copy paper so that he can roll it up.

2.  We mixed a solution of water, tea and lemon juice.   I boiled a small pot of water and threw in a family size tea bag.  Then added in the lemon juice.

3.  In a jelly roll pan we placed the paper and poured the above solution on top of it and let it sit for a while.  Warning:  If you let it sit too long and then don't handle it with extreme care, the paper will tear.

4.  After sitting for a while in the solution, move the paper to another cookie sheet and put it into an oven that has preheated to 200 degrees F.  This serves two purposes.  It dries the paper and ages it a bit more.   If you leave it in too long, it will brown too much along the edges.  I'm not going to give you a time here, oven temps vary too much and you will be far better off by checking the paper frequently until it is aged like you want it.

5.  We did one more thing to age the paper.  Once it was completely dry, we took some cinnamon and rubbed it into a few spots.  You can still see some of it clinging to the paper in the final pic: 

Next we will run it through our printer (carefully) and use an old calligraphy font.  Once the ink is thoroughly dry we're going to crumple it up several times to finish the aging process.

The Eldest loved it.  It's not often that he gets to do something so fun for school projects!


Anybody else out there have any more techniques for aging paper?

Disney Collage

I've never been able to get into the craft of scrapbooking.  I tried to, I really did, but it's just not something that I knew I would keep up with and the expense of doing it was just a little too prohibitive.  Yet, I look at all the cute things that people come up with and how cute their kids' pictures look and my fingers itch to have something that cute too. 

Here's my solution, which happens to go with my walls needing some love.

I went to JoAnn's (cause there was a sale) and grabbed a cute collage frame.   It was 50% off!  12 bucks spent.  Not too bad.  Then I went over to the scrapbooking section of the store and found some really cute Disney stuff that was 40% off.  2.99 spent.  Again, not too bad.

I gathered my stuff and headed to my computer to print the pics out.  Here's where I had some trouble.  The places where the pics go are not necessarily standard sizes.  My software (microsoft crap) wouldn't print out custom sizes and flickr only measures in pixels, not inches so I don't know how to use it for something like this.  I went on the internet and downloaded a photo resizer, but again, it didn't do what I wanted it too.

Another restriction that I ran into during all of this was trying to get as many of these onto one page as I could to save on printer paper.  This printing stuff was supposed to be the easy part of the whole project.

My solution?  Microsoft Word 2007.  Who'd a thunk it, huh?

I put my pics in, resized them, set the printing to best photo and whammo!  It worked.  My pics were printed, cut out and put into the frame.  The Youngest helped me figure out where to put the stickers and we were done!

Our cute Disney Pics:

SideWinders

So yesterday in my very hurried post I mentioned that I've started a new project while waiting on my test knitters to do their thing with the mitts pattern.  They are already finding things that I missed and it's wonderful.  If I had handed this over to the hubby his brain would have exploded.  It's very hard to proof something in a language that looks alien, and boy do knitting patterns look alien!

The project that I've picked up is called Sidewinders.  Socks done not toe up, not cuff down, but sideways.  Just wrap your brains around that one if you will.  I'm amazed that Nona ever came up with this.  The math alone would be prohibitive enough to ever keep me from attempting something like this on my own.  I'm a math wimp.  I can do it, but it makes my brainz hurt.



The pattern has been messing with my mind though.  I'm trying very hard to "trust the pattern."  I'm not very trusting, so of course this has been difficult for me. 

In a lot of patterns you read directions that tell you to do x amount of rows of the same kind.  What I hate is when the next paragraph reads "at the same time..."   I know, I know, I should be reading the pattern all the way through before beginning the knitting, but does anyone really do this?  Maybe it is just me.  I'm such a rebel.

There's no way this would be a good car pool line or grocery line kind of knitting project for me.  I've been having to constantly refer back to the pattern.  I'm loving the project so far, but it's far from a mindless project.  Which, on the whole, is good for me.  I get bored far too easily.

The Malabrigo sock yarn is looking lovely knitted up like this.  I'm having to use size 1's to get gauge with this yarn.  It's on the lighter side of sock yarn.  It would actually be a great lace yarn for a shawl.  It feels so silky soft, a real pleasure to work with.  Now I know why everyone's been raving about it.  Here's how it looks:

Ignore the orange-y stuff at the bottom.  That's waste yarn that will be discarded later so that I can pick up the live stitches.  Besides that, it's pretty isn't it?

New Sock Project

Yay!  I've got test knitters working away madly on the new fingerless mitts.  The mitts have also got a name:   Chimera Fingerless Mitts.  Does it mean anything really?  Not yet, but someday I'll have an explanation for why I chose the word Chimera.  "Flight of Fancy" maybe?  :)

I also started yet another sock project.  I'm going to make Nona's Sidewinders.  I've been wanting to try this for ages and the new Malabrigo sock looks like it'd be great for this.

I'm  off to the Cub Scouts Blue and Gold Banquet for this not so 'Lil Guy:

See ya tomorrow!

Disgusted

Anyone else disgusted with Facebook?

I was on a group there last night and it got spammed with some disgusting porn junk.  I commented on it and told the guy that it was inappropriate and that he had been reported.  Well.  I got a lovely note from my aunt saying that now all my friends could see what I had commented on and would I please take it down?

Just wonderful.  I try to do the right thing and get burned by it.  I was horribly embarrassed.   I'm now seriously considering removing my account from facebook.  The only thing is, I've been using it as a vehicle to sell some of my jewelry stuff.  What a dilemma.

Anybody else had something like this happen?

Sneak Peek at Fingerless Mitts

Wanna see what my new fingerless mitts look like?  Here ya go:

Outside lighting

Inside lighting:

I'm not thrilled with the pattern on the thumb, I'm changing it now, but wanted to show you how the cables and lace worked up on the top of the mitt.

Take a look at how the palm side looks:

Notice the horizontal garter ribbing that I came up with?  This keeps the glove snug on arm and wrist and makes the knitting a little more fun too.  I considered straight garter, but it wasn't snug enough and it bored me to tears.   

What I'm doing now is finishing up the right hand mitt and tweaking the thumb pattern.  Next I'll be typing it up, charting the cable and lace, getting a pdf created and then be throwing it out to some test knitters to get some feedback.  If you are interested in being one of those, please let me know in the comments below.

I really need to come up with a name for these.  Fingerless Mitt Prototype just doesn't seem to be zingy enough, ya know?

Serious Knitterly Business

I gave you the goofy pics of the Florida trip that the boys and I took over the very long weekend.  Now it's time for the serious stuff!

I drug the boys into a knitting shop that I found in Cocoa, FL called the Knit and Stitch Boutique.  They were not particularly thrilled with me about this.  They thought I was joking when I said I wanted to go to a yarn store to look for sock yarn.

I really wasn't impressed with the shop for several reasons:

A.  As soon as we walked in, one of the women working there began following us everywhere like we were going to either steal something or the boys would destroy everything in sight.  I keep a very tight rein on my children when in stores, so it ticks me off to have someone do this.  Yes, I know, not everyone controls their children, but still.  I also know that this is not a very child friendly town, but honestly, do they expect every knitter to be ancient and childless?  Others in the store (regular customers) were much more friendly to me and the kids though and that was much appreciated.

B.  I got lectured by this same woman on how to handle yarn.  I pretended to hug the skein of yarn that I was holding (and eventually bought though I was tempted not to) and she began lecturing me on not to touch my face with it.  Worried about makeup getting on your yarn, honey?  You have no idea how bad I wanted to do that after the stern talking to she gave me just out of spite.

C.  If this was the owner of the shop, she has a lot to learn about customer service.  Never tick off a potential customer.  She might be a knitter, spinner, and crocheter and just might have a blog to tell others about your store and the service in it.

D.  The shop was so cramped there was hardly space to move.  A class was going on and there were large tables taking up much of the floor space.  They would have done better to have chairs set up instead.  The people in the class were very warm and friendly though and very patient with my trying to get around them to look at the shelves that contained the yarn.  They need to find a place with more space and better parking. 

E.  The yarn selection could have been a bit better.  The shop caters to those who work with thread in general as well as knitters which is cool and I haven't seen that before so it gets a plus for that.  However, if you're known as a knit shop, shouldn't you have a bit more of a selection of yarn?  Oh, and what about stuff for the crocheter?  Just my opinion.

Okay.  'Nuff said about that.

I did get what I went in for and that was some pretty sock yarn!  Malabrigo sock yarn to be exact and in the Stonechat colorway:

Pretty, huh?

I Took A Trip To Disney And All I Got Was These Really Weird Pictures

I seem to have survived my trip to Florida even though I didn't think I was going to last night after driving about 10 hours.  I was walking around like a zombie at that point.  Just for the record, a four year old stuck in a car that long is not a fun person to be around.

While on my trip, I finished my first draft of my fingerless mitt pattern.  I'll show you the results tomorrow.   I found one thing in particular that I want to tweak, but I'm pretty happy with it.

We went to Disney for one day and stuck with just the Magic Kingdom park.  In between the long, long lines and the fussing about sore feet, I think the Youngest enjoyed it.  I know the Eldest did.  I enjoyed it a little less thanks to having to carry the Youngest for most of the day.  He's still a little young to handle that much walking and has zero patience for waiting around before getting on the rides.

I got some great pics and some that are funny, but can't necessarily be classified as great.  Classic maybe.  Does anybody else have a member of a family that behaves like this when a camera is pointed at them?


Like this?

And this?

Or this?

Is it really that difficult to face your Mom (whose holding a camera) and smile?  Am I doomed to have every picture of him for the rest of my life look like this?  If so, at least I'll be laughing when I look back on them!

Travelin'

It looks like my plans to head to Orlando have been moved up a day.  The South is expected to get a snowstorm starting sometime tomorrow.  I've decided to check out the kid from school early and go about half way and spend the night instead of getting up early, early Saturday morning and drive the trip straight.  The Youngest is not his best when strapped down in a car seat for that many hours in a row and I don't want to be exhausted from driving that long with no one to spell me behind the wheel. 

I'm taking two projects to work on while I'm down there; my spiral knit socks and my fingerless mitts.  Remember the fingerless mitts project?  Probably not.  It's been so long since I started this project that I could barely remember it when I picked up my notes again yesterday.  I decided that I hated the way they looked and promptly ripped them out and started over.  This is the latest incarnation, but will probably be changed as well.  I'm getting closer to what I want, but I'm not quite there yet:

The yarn for that project, some leftover Cascade 220, is definitely looking worse for the wear.  It's been frogged about 15 times now and it's looking downright sloppy when knit up now.  I'll probable ditch this yarn and go for something else. 

While working on this pattern for the mitts, I've been researching chart symbols so that I can chart it out.  Well, I found that there are quite a few ways of doing the symbols for the charts.  I'm going to have to investigate this further I think. 

So, since I'm leaving early tomorrow, I won't be doing a Friday post and I may not be posting again until Thursday.  I'm going to have to play that one by ear.   You guys have a great weekend!

Sick kid

The Youngest has been sick for about two weeks now.  I  thought it was just a normal preschool cold, but it started getting worse.  There's no way I'm walking all over Disney with a sick kid.  Talk about a downer.

So we went to the doctor today.  We spent 30 minutes in the waiting room, 10 minutes waiting for the doc to come into the little room where the left us, all for a 2 minute prognosis.  Know what they said?  "Yep, he's sick.  Here's some antibiotics."  That was it.  Way to get technical there, doc!

Thanks Mr. Hair Dresser

I've been totally traumatized today.  I went to the hair dresser today to get a trim.  The operative word here folks is TRIM.    Not cut, TRIM.    Well.  Guess what happened?

When you tell a hair professional that you want a chin length angled bob, aren't you supposed to get that?  Where, for the most part, your hair is supposed to be more than three inches long?

So I went in expecting this:

And got this:

Except, it's shorter.  Not happy folks, not happy.  I'm about to go on a trip to Orlando and I'm feeling way insecure about my hair now.  Thanks hair dresser.

Why do hair people do this?  You tell them one thing and they decide to do something else.  I would pay extreme money for a good hair dresser that listens.

Amateur Photography and Lace Scarves

Last night The Eldest was working on a photography lesson for Cub Scouts.  Not to be outdone, The Youngest had to take some pics too.  This is what happens when a four year old takes a photo:

Of Himself

And of a cat:

 

But wait!  I bet you missed the cool part of the cat photo.  Let's zoom in a little closer (I didn't say clearer, I said closer):

Did ya catch it that time?  He caught the cat in mid-yawn.   Cool.   That cat's got a really big mouth.  I guess it goes well with the rest of him too, all 16 pounds of him!

******

I finally finished my Queen Anne's Lace Scarf!  I did it in two sessions.  Unfortunately, I put it down for about two weeks in between sessions.  But it's finally done:

Here's a closeup:

This is destined to become a gift in the future for my Sister In Law.  The greens will look fabulous next to her red hair.

Toggle Clasp Bracelet

Remember me saying that my Great Aunt was a waste not want not kinda person?  Well, I guess the nut didn't fall far from the tree.  That's what I get for growing up around people who grew up during the depression huh?  It wasn't my Great Aunt that I grew up around, I never knew her well.  I'm throwing the blame at my Grandparents.

For a while I had been making my stitch markers using the round piece of a toggle clasp.  Which meant that the bars from the clasps were just sitting there, staring at me.  I couldn't bear to throw them away, knowing that sooner or later I would find a use for them, and I did.

Check out this bracelet:

 

And here it is laid out:

 

 

Isn't that fun?  I call it the Toggle On Bracelet.  

It's up in my shop now, but it's super easy to make.   I took a 7 inch piece of chain, grabbed some jump rings and just started attaching the toggles all around the chain.  Then added the lobster claw clasp pieces to both ends of the chain.  Very simple.

You should hear the pretty jingle it makes!  When I came up with the idea, I didn't think I would like it.  I made it anyway and I'm so glad I did.  It's actually kind of neat and would look really cool with a black turtleneck sweater.

Toggle On Dude!

Crochet Nostalgia

Have you heard the phrase "It's in her genes"?    Or is it the phrase "Nothing comes between me and my  genes but my crafting"?  In this case, maybe both would be appropriate.

I come from a line of crafters:

My mother sews, crochets, paints, draws, designs jewelry, etc.     Every formal gown that I ever wore to proms and college dances were handmade by her.   She's an amazingly talented woman.  The one thing I didn't inherit from her are my artistic skills.  I can't draw or paint worth a flip.

My grandmother sewed and made jewelry.  She was also a very crafty woman.  Feisty too.  The only person that I've ever known to tell a pastor to kiss her a**.   You should have seen my eyes bug out of my head at that one!

Here's the one that I specifically want to tell you about today though.

My great aunt.  Tatter, quilter and crocheter extraordinaire.  I never saw the lady without a needle of some sort in her hands.  There's no telling how many miles of afghans that she made.  Somewhere in my attic is a couch back cover that she crocheted of granny squares.  It's a particularly amusing piece.  The colors are brown, green and yellow.  Except for about two inches that are in your face RED where she ran out of the proper color yarn.  This woman was from the "waste not want not" generation.   She saved every scrap and used them whenever the opportunity arose.

One project that she got absolutely right though, was her crocheted teacups.

Look how dainty these are:

 

Aren't they lovely?

They live on a book shelf in my bedroom now.  They sit on the lowest shelf so that The Youngest can have tea parties with them.  Wouldn't she be tickled to know that her Great nephew was playing with them now?

Let's hope that all us crafters leave such a legacy behind.

Cats and Freshwater Pearls

Pay no attention to the cat behind the light box!

 

I had a helper whilst taking pics of some of the pieces that I've been working on over the past couple of days.  

Here's one of the things she helped me with:

 

Freshwater Pearls in every muted color of the rainbow with silver accents.

I'm not completely happy with this piece. I need to go back and alter it just a little.  There's too much string and not enough beads on one of the strands and it's bugging the heck out of me.  Maybe if I hadn't had a cat in the middle of things that wouldn't have happened.  I'd like to think so anyway.  :)

Make a little Money with your Blog

I had a friend ask me not to long ago if you can make money by blogging.  His son, a recent high school grad, had heard you could do this and get wealthy doing it.  Well, yes and no.  I don't have a high readership on my blog, so I don't make loads of money.  But with my BlogHer ads, I do have a little money trickling in.  If you have a higher amount of readers coming to your blog, then perhaps this is the way to go.  You can click on the above link for more info.  Remember, more readers = more people who see the ads = more income for you.  How do you get the higher readership?  Write more articles that actually go to your target audience.  Mine target audience is mainly knitters/crafters/diy-ers.  Most of whom are struggling in this economy and looking for more ways to add some dollars to their wallets.  Thus, this article, although not crafty, is still targeting the audience.  I hope.  :)

Another way to go would be with Amazon associates.  I haven't done this much in the past and that's just plain not smart of me.   It's a win/win for everyone.  I direct you to something you will buy and I basically get a referral fee for it.  You, in turn, do this on your blog and we all continue winning and making a little pocket change.  For instance, here's a book that I got this weekend: "Fitted Knits: 25 Projects for the Fashionable Knitter" by Stephanie Japel.  Love this book by the way, planning on making several of these sweaters.  See?  Amazon link to my associates account.  Now if I can just learn to do this quickly I'll be set.  Again, it won't bring in loads of cash, but any is better than none, right?

Want a little more money from your blog?  Add a SwagBucks link.  What's SwagBucks?  It's a search and win site.  You use their search engine for your searching and you can earn enough swagbucks to redeem them for awesome prizes.  For instance, I earned $15 dollars in January in Amazon e-cards, which are stackable.  Meaning that you can use multiple cards for a single purchase.  Another bonus, the amazon e-cards don't expire.  You just put them in your account and use them when you want to.  My kid wants a Wii, so I'll be saving up for one of those.  Oh, and that $15 was without any referrals earning me the Swagbucks.  Get a referral or two and your earning of Swagbucks goes up exponentially.  The best thing about Swagbucks?  It's the only legitimate site that I've found that basically gives away free money.  Cool huh?

1.  So can you earn some money while blogging?  Yes.
2.  Will it pay all your bills and buy you that Mega Mansion you've been wanting?  Um, no.

3.  Should  I build a blog just for making money that has no content whatsoever besides links and adds that will make me money?  Please, please, just don't do this.  Make sure your blog has real content.  Your readers will thank you also.

The Business Side of Things

The past week I've been spending tons of time working on my jewelry business instead of playing with my sticks and string.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to play with jewelry either.

I've been trying to get a lot more serious about photographing all the items, alter them and get them entered into Etsy.  I mean, if it's not up there for someone to buy, it won't get sold will it?  Money is still very, very tight here in my household and it's stupid not to be getting everything up and out there for the public to purchase.

I never realized how much time went into the back end of things though.  Yes, it's fun to make jewelry and it's quick, instant gratification.  What's not fun is the time the rest of it takes.  Photography is so important when selling products online.  Since the customer can't touch the item they're looking at purchasing, they need to see tons of pics.  Etsy has five slots for photos of the items to go in and I intend to use all of them.  So I've been taking like 20 shots of each item, moving them over to my Flickr account, altering the exposure, color and sharpness.  Then I have to narrow it back down to five again.  Folks, that is incredibly time consuming!  Written that way, of course, it doesn't really sound that way at all, but it is.   I'm trying my best not to get lazy.  I need to have someone standing behind me with a whip.

Here's an example of how I'm using the Flickr/Picnic account to adjust my pics.   I took about 114 photos one day and got only a handful that I could ultimately use.  But look at the before and after difference on one of the pairs of earrings that I've got up for sale:

Before:

After:

See the difference it's made?  Well worth the time, I'd say.

Another issue is that my Mom and I have joined up together in this business (which means way more inventory to photograph).  My store front name will be changing soon and I'm going to have to create a new banner/logo for it.  I don't have a clue what we'll go with yet and my brain hurts just thinking about it.  We're also going to start doing some craft shows together starting in the spring and we've lots to do for that as well.

One good note that happened this week with the new jewelry business is that we've found a temporary supplier of beads that is incredible.  I'm so excited about the prices we've managed to get from this source, but it will only last until the inventory dries up.  Even so, paying this much less for the product means so much more profit, if the stuff sells.

I've also been working on the marketing side of things as well.  I totally suck at this, but I'm working on it.  :)

So, that's what I've been doing.  Spending way too much time in front of my computer screen instead of clicking away with the knitting needles.  I'm hoping to get some free time this weekend though, my fingers are starting to get itchy for the wool!

Potted Kitty

I'm afraid my green thumb doesn't extend to kitty gardening. Are they annuals? Perennials? If they re-seed themselves, will I have a porch full of kittens? How much sunlight do they need?  Do they need to be moved indoors at the first freeze?  Are they herbs, weeds or wildflowers?

Pinewood Derby Skateboard Car Followup

Well, the 2010 Pinewood Derby is finally over.  The car did not do as well as the Eldest would have wished on the track (his father set the wheels wrong and they scraped the center of the track), but everyone thought the Skateboard Car was really cool.  That's good enough for his creative department (me) to be happy!

I wanted to show you guys the finished product:

Specs:

- Painted Hemi Orange
- All artwork was body tattoos!  Had to be very careful placing these on the board.  They wanted to slide all over the place.
- Coated the car in resin to get a high shine.

Queen Anne's Lace Crochet Project

I started a new project the other night, but it wasn't knitting, it was crochet.  Ya'll, it's been so long since I've done crochet that I had to look up some of the stitches to make sure I was doing them right!  I've been crocheting off and on since I was eight and my Mom semi-patiently tried to teach me, but it never sticks with me.  Over the years I've either forgotten how to hold the yarn or how to do certain stitches.  I don't know why I can't keep it all in one tidy little place in my brain so that I can reference it as needed. 

It didn't take long to look things up (I love the internetz) to remind my poor brain what it needed to tell my fingers and I was off and running.  I'm working on the Queen Anne's Lace Scarf from here.  If you follow the link, he's taken off the pics, scroll down to get to the free pattern. 

I'm using some of my homespun yarn that has a huge range of greens and black in it.  It's lovely, but it's not photographing well.  For some reason, variegated yarns never do photograph well for me.  I got two shots that I liked:

Here's the first:

And here's the second:

This is a really quick pattern.  I finished half of the scarf in one day.  I'll go until I run out of yarn.  There's approximately 222 yards in this skein.  It should end up just the right size.  Hopefully it will look better once it's blocked.   This is probably going to be put away as a gift to my Sister In Law for next year.  She looks stunning in any form of green (she's a redhead.)