Tifffany's Ramblings

Saturday, May 29, 2004

Oh one more thing I forgot to mention. Monday, the new World War II commemorative stamp is coming out, and my mom (a postmaster) is unveiling it on the steps of city hall where she works. She has to give a speech and all. I'm so proud of my momma (except the part where she started smoking AGAIN, but that's another matter).

I realized yesterday that it was only 10 days til my mom's bday...with 2 sundays and a holiday inbetween, so I needed to get her pressie done. And get it done I did. I finally attached the bamboo handles to a denim bag I made from old jeans. Here is the finished product:



To affix the handles, I bought those ring things that come in the stationary section and put them through the holes then filled the rest of the hole with glue as best I could. Then I made little strappy flap things out of more denim and put that through the circle and attached it to the bag. I love the finished product and want to keep it...but I won't. The patches I put on the front and back match patches I put on a pair of denim skorts she had gotten some bleach spots on and had brought for me to fix last summer. So they will match with her new bag. And what else will match with it? The sigma tank which is hanging out inside the bag. The patches have purple and white...and the tank is white. Also included in her gift is a pair of flip flops (in pink with a Hawaiian print on the inside sole...I couldn't find cute purpley ones).

I also finished another set of cards for my sale page. Here are the Sparkly Mosaic Cards

I've been hit with the organization bug about an hour ago, so I pulled out all the items for sale from my craft closet and put them in a rubbermaid tub in my bedroom closet. All in one place and easy access, yay. I also got all the gift stuff that is going out this month (June is a big gift month for me, plus other stuff is going on that requires presents) out and somewhat ready for mailing. I've also been doing some crocheting, some to use up yarn and some work on the yo-yo afghan that will hopefully be ready this Christmas. I have a couple other afghans I want to make by then too, but out of homespun and not as huge as the one I made for Vance, so it shouldn't be too bad.

My cousin is moving from Chicago to Florida (this weekend) and tonight he will be spending the night in my town so we are going out for dinner in a bit. And then a week from Monday Vance comes back for my birthday and our 6 year anniversary...yay for visitors.

Thanks to Marie for a fun link. I'm yucky!

TTempting
IInfluential
FFabulous
FFamous
FFun
AAppealing
NNew
YYucky

Name / Username:


Name Acronym Generator
From Go-Quiz.com


I'll have fun pics later when the sun comes out

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

I got Ogre sized m&m's today at the store. They only had peanut, and I can't really tell how much bigger they are. Some are certainly quite large but a lot of them are the same...the bag itself is a lot larger tho (and expensive!). The swampy colors are fun tho...a few years ago I would have hated these colors but now I am so into these natural tones, mmmmmm.

I am NOT loving this new blogger. It doesn't keep me signed i (whereas the old one always did). Anyways, I reliazed I forgot to post pics of my kitchen/bath sets. Well here they are:

Blue Jeans Set

Ice Cream Cone Set

Pretty in Pink Set

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

I've finally got all my pink/purple/red yarn together for my big afghan project. Not sure how I am going to do it yet, so it's currently being stored in bags and such. Here is the yarn in all its splendor:



It's a big pic so it may look small but you can click to make it bigger. Included here are lots of novelty and regular yarns all blended together to make different looking skeins. I'm not going to go into all the brands or types, but it's a lot. :)

Monday, May 24, 2004

Well I haven't felt very bloggy lately, as is evident by my lack of posts. Between Vance visiting (and leaving), my back hurting (which started before he came, so no smart comments), my Papaw going into the hospital with a couple of infections, the post office losing my package, looking for jobs and not finding any, I've been busy and not really into blogging. Vance got me some yarn (Lion MicroSpun in royal blue) to make him a sweater (which I've been dying to do), so I've been playing with stitch patterns while making washcloths in cotton. So they are up on my for sale page now, I'll prolly link to them when I get home (I'm blogging from school). More later.

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

I finished the afghan for my boyfriend! Here she is:



This will be a gift for our anniversary...which is in less than a month. 6 years...makes me feel old. I got the pattern for this from Lion Brand's site. I used Homespun as follows: 10 skeins of Prairie, 2 skeins of Creole, and 2 skeins of a greenish color that may or may not be called arkadian (I forget the name). I really love the way the Prairie changes, and the way the other colors combine with it. Too bad the photo doesn't show that very well.

In other news, I still haven't gotten the yarn to finish my cardigan. It was sent a week from yesterday and it registered in town last Thursday but they haven't delivered it yet. I don't like to moan about USPS cause my mother and stepfather both work there, but they can be sooo incompetent. This is the third time I've had problems with them in less than 2 years. Once they didn't leave a package when they were sposed to, once a package was lost for a couple weeks, and now this. Not to mention the constant rudeness from some of the clerks when I go to send stuff.

Yesterday was a great mail day tho. I got 2 packages stuffed to the gills with yarn from LoriO. Oooooooh and there was some delicious chocolate in there too. Some of the yarn will go into my red/pink/purple blanket that is still in the planning & collecting phase.

My boy is going to try to come visit me tomorrow for some much needed relaxation time. And the weekend after this upcoming one I have dinner plans with a cousin who is passing through on his way to florida (neither him nor I can seem to stay living in one state for very long). So at least I have some fun stuff to look forward too. Oh and we might go see Shrek 2 tomorrow.

Now go knit and listen to some T-Rex! Cause you know you want to.

Monday, May 17, 2004

How very very strange...

I am Rickets. Hear your bones go boing.
Take the Affliction Test Today!
A Rum and Monkey disease.

click here to take more tests like this at internet junk!
Who's your inner rockstar?

Sunday, May 16, 2004

Weird Knitting Find of the Day:

I was browsing overstock.com (where I purchased Domino Knitting) and I found a book with an interesting title: Knitting With Dog Hair : Better A Sweater From A Dog You Know and Love Than From A Sheep You'll Never Meet. Now since overstock doesn't give descriptions or reviews, I jetted over to amazon.com and found the following review:

Excellent book., December 5, 2003
Reviewer: robertbrowett from Leeds, UK
I found this to be an excellent book. So far I have made a pair of otter skin gloves, mousefur socks and a Gerbil Thong. I plan on making a bearskin bra for for my wife and a chipmunk purse. Without this book I would never have discovered the joys of Animal fur knitting!!! Most useful although I don't recommend skinning your neighbours pets, although I'm sure if you gave them a catfur posing pouch they would forgive you.

Bearskin bra? Mousefur socks? GERBIL THONG???? I know what my nightmares will be about tonight...

Saturday, May 15, 2004

I stumbled across Art Frahm yesterday, and I am in love! The pictures make me laugh everytime I look at them, and I love the old fashioned ladies. How fun would it be to design a room to display some of these fab paintings, with celery green walls of course...:)

In other news, I got a major surprise in the mail today! A package from a friend of mine! And inside was a pirates of the carribean shirt, 2 trashy VC Andrews books, and Velvet Goldmine on VHS! That totally made my week!

My yarn to finish my sweater is STILL not here, grrrrrrr.

Friday, May 14, 2004

I've spent most of my knitting time the last couple of days winding yarn in shades of purple, pink, and red. I found some more in my stash I was able to utilize too. After 3 more packages come in (eeks), I think I may have all the yarn I will (and should) buy. So far I've been combining eyelash and novelty yarns with other yarns to add structure and to knit on larger needles. What this is going to be is a blanket for my (someday) craft room. Bright bright bright! Also, it's a blanket I won't have to worry about my boyfriend stealing, cause he hates fuzzy yarns (he won't even touch them). When I get the rest of my yarn in and combined in various ways I will post a pic of all my bounty. I also need to think about how I want to do this...I'd like different rectangles randomly in different sizes all over the place, but I don't want to deal with all that intarsia. I'm thinking perhaps strips in various widths and knitting the diff colors in various lengths may achieve a similar look. Any ideas? Let me know!

Thursday, May 13, 2004

The planets must be in alignment or something because I've got the FO pic I thought I might have. Here are my latest magic stripe socks...in Regatta Stripes:



Not bad for under $5, right? I made them match as much as I could but near the toe of the second one I ran out of yarn and had to make do with splicing and russian joins etc from the yarn I had pulled out to get to the same starting point. I have no complaints tho.

Per my trade...the fixation is claimed but the wool dying kit is still available. Scroll down and see what I'm talking about if you're interested.

I hope to have at least one pic of a FO up later today...if my camera works and the sun comes out...both very dicey. And if it doesn't rain while I'm walking into school then I will be mailing out my Critter Knitter blankets today.

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

I finally finished up the last few touches on my booga bag, and my camera worked again today. So here is the outside view of it:



I added a magnetic closure and so I cut the shanks off a couple of buttons and glued them on to hide the washers and stuff. I wanted them anyways. I also cut the flap off I had made because I decided I didn't want it.

Here is a pic of the inside to show off the nifty liner I made. I really love the fabric I just happened to find in my stash, the colors match well but the pattern is squares instead of stripes. And there's a small zippered pocket on the one side, seen here.

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

My camera is temporarily working so I was able to download the pics I took of my denimstyle cardigan. This doesn't show off the details very well, but it has Raglan Shaping. The pattern called for all edges to be rolled but I decided to add a border to the sleeves and bottom. The pockets and inside edge and around the collar are all rolled tho.

Monday, May 10, 2004

Does anyone want to trade? I have some Cascade Fixation which is nice but it hurts my hands to work with the elasticy yarn. What I have is:

2 balls of Hyacinth (color: 9989 dyelot:124023)

2 balls of Tahiti (color: 9916 dyelot: 25670)

I also have some natural colored wool and koolaid I am planning to get rid of and will trade too. This yarn readily accepts dye and felts very easily too. I have 3 wheels, I would guess close to .75 lb of this yarn (about 450 yards per 8 oz, worsted weight). My postal scale is being cranky and not weighing accurately so I'm not positive. I also have a baggie full of koolaid packets, more than enough to dye all this wool.

What I'm interested in: Normal sock yarn (the washable wool kind) or any sort of yarn with an interesting texture in any combination of the following: pink,red,purple.

E-mail me at goble@math.gatech.edu if interested.

Oh, I finished my brown sweater but my camera is not working. Am waiting on another ball of yarn for my blue sweater. Started a pair of socks in my most recent sock yarn purchase.

Friday, May 07, 2004

Just a quick note to remind anyone who may be interested that tomorrow (Saturday) is the post office food drive. If it's going on in your area just leave (nonperishable) food by your mailbox and they will pick it up.

Some good news on the sweater front. I finished the brown denimstyle sweater I was working on. After getting a few inches into the miles of stockinette stitch for the back, I said to myself "What in the world am I doing?!" Then I set up my sweater machine and whipped this baby out. I did make a few mistakes from not reading the pattern too carefully which caused it to be smaller than I wanted. It still fit but I wanted this to be a very roomy sweater, not a formfitting sweater. So i whipped up a couple of tapered panels and sewed them on the sides, under the arm, and up the sleeve. It worked out surprisingly well. The sweater doesn't lay flat when I lay it down, but that's ok cause I'm not flat. Also I didn't like the rolled look at the bottom and sleeves, so I added a little bit of a garter band. Holy cats, were there a lot of stitches to pick up and knit across the bottom!

In other news, the yarn to finish my blue sweater has arrived, and it was even the same dyelot. So I just need to finish the sleeve on that then I can wash these babies and take some pics. My computer has been ignoring my camera again so we'll see how well this works.

Monday, May 03, 2004

Woohoo! Happy Bag-O-Mania!
I don't have to be boring anymore! What I mean by that is that my computer is letting my download pics from my camera again. No idea why it stopped or why it started again, but I'm just gonna take it and run. Here are the bags I've been sewing up.

Patchwork Bag

First, I found some old quilt scraps. These came from the first set of fabric I bought upon receiving my very own sewing machine. I bought 8 different fabrics, 4 patterns in a blue shade and 4 in a green shade. The blues all matched as did the greens. And some of the patterns between the blues and greens matched too. The quilt top is done (and awaiting being quilted, which I'm no good at), but I had exactly one 6" square left of each print. So I cut each of these up into 4 3" squares, found a fabric in a turquoise that exactly matched in pattern one of the prints I'd used in my quilt (and I found this in my stash) and used it for the top and bottom border and the handles. I also used a plain turquoise fabric inside (which you can't see) and I used a heavy duty double sided fusible webbing to make the patchwork portion and the lining one piece. Then I cut the pieces into a tapered design and assembled it. Here is the finished product:



The tapered design makes it stay open at the top rather than sit flat as 2 rectangles sewn together would. I'm really glad I made this choice. However if I do mash it down flat it has a fun shape to it.

I think this will make a nice wine caddy (altho it also perfectly fits longish straight knitting needles). It may become a Christmas gift along with a bottle of wine and a set of the wine charms I have been working on. Because of the heavy duty adhesive the bag has a crinkly proprety to it...it stands very stiff and reminds me of a thick cardboard bag. But prettier.

Denim Floppy Bag

On to the next bag. This came from a pair of jeans where the zipper had come off one side of the track. I cut 4" squares and sewed them together with a .5" seam allowance. My original intention was to let it fray and use that side as the outside, but when it was done it looked way too 80's. So I turned it inside out and now it's much more 90's looking, hah! I bought some pretty trim at walmart (got a yard of this for under $2, and had a little left for the pocket bag, below). I also used an iron on applique that I'd gotten on clearance. Back at the Walmart near my undergrad institution they had a ton of appliques and bags of ribbons clearanced to $.10 each, so I bought nearly all of them. Here is the bag, stuffed full of the baby items I am sending to my cousin:



I figure my cousin can use this as a diaper bag or whatnot. The handles are only glued on (with fabric glue that seems to actually fuse the fabric together), so it can hold a decent amount but I wouldn't trust it with books or anything. And the handle is made out of either the side leg seams or the inner leg seams, I forget which.

I'm working on a similar, but smaller, bag in the same pattern. Changes are that I used interfacing to make it more stable, didn't allow ANY fraying, and am attaching handles. It has a much cleaner look and sort of reminds me of a linen bag. I used appliques on it that I once put on a pair of skorts of my mom's (she had some bleach marks she wanted me to fix somehow), so I am going to give it to her for her Bday. I really like it tho and may have to make one for myself as well.

Denim Pocket Bag

From the same pair of jeans, I had 2 pockets. I cut these out and sewed them together, then used a little bit of the seam for the handles. The sewing was a pain cause I had to do some of it by hand due to the thickness of the many layers of denim. I really like the way it came out tho. I then washed it with some new jeans and since one pair was very dark, it ended up dying the fray blue. Bonus! I then decorated each side with a dragonfly applique and some trim. The first side is colorful and fun, while the other is more mellow. Here they are:



This is likely to become a gift for a little girl this Christmas, stuffed with girly goodies. I may consider adding sticky velcro or something, not sure yet.

That's all the bag talk for now! More pics when I sew the handles to the other one (camera and computer permitting).

In other news I decided on a pattern to knit with my Bernat Denimstyle. It's the jackety cardigan with pockets from the Vogue International Knitting Winter 2003/2004 issue. I'm alreayd loving how the little bit I have done feels!

Sunday, May 02, 2004

Well I finally ran out of yarn on my cardie. I've got the first sleeve done and did some of the crochet edging and I have absolutely no yarn left, so I ordered 3 more balls (which better be enough). I actually worked this to gauge and still I was waaaaaaaaaay off on yarn amount, grrrrrrrr at FCEK! I'm dying to start a new sweater out of my bernat denimstyle (in one of the 3 colors I stocked up on, eeeeeeks). Not sure on a pattern yet, but I'm considering the LoTech Sweat.