Guild Retreat

Guild Retreat was earlier this month. (I'm apparently behind on posting) This was my view for most of the weekend. Just imagine more people.

Like this.

And this. We had some great times. Poor Jess and her yarn of doom. I have no idea what happened to this skein, but they had that whole thing moving. Essentiall the chair and Janet acted as part of the swift. I got video too.

It was great because we changed it up a bit this year. We went to Cedar Lakes and were able to stay the whole weekend. And we didn't have to bring food, because they have a cafeteria. It made things so much simpler.

And it wouldn't be retreat without goodie bags and door prices. A bit of the spread can be found below. I got some great fiber from Bearlin Acres. A cute bag with silk yarn. And a new case for my interchangable needles. I'm very excited it has the needle sizes on the pockets. It will make the organization a lot easier.

And I took my bags to sell and I sold enough to buy shoes. Not just any shoes. But my Sketcher Shape-Ups that look like black mary janes so that I can wear them to work. Thank you everyone. I've even gotten a few new ideas for bag designs while at guild. I think I have gotten the pattern and construction figured out. Now I just need to make a couple.

Steeking

So I have made another sweater. Yay! This one took exactly one month to finish. yay for bulky yarn. And it is just in time for lovely 90 degree weather. But I will still wear it to work. Oh but the best part about this sweater; I steeked it. For those playing at home, that means I cut it, down the middle, all those stitches. I was mildly terrified, but I had several women at guild who had done it before and they held my hand the whole time. And threw me chocolate. I liked the chocolate.

Here is the sweater before. Everyone kept telling me how much they loved the center detail. It was actually seed stitch for the selvage stitches. It was not helping my resolve to actually go through with the cutting.

I was a little stressed about cutting a sweater I had just spent a month on. Yay for support!

Almost done! All done and with a shiny new zipper. I was going to do a button band, but with the ribbing all around the bottom, I thought it needed something a little stronger to hold it closed. It is a bit roomy and the bulky yarn doesn't make it the most flattering thing ever. But it is warm and I wish I could wear it now.
Oh and did you like the skirt. Got home from work yesterday and had to go to a dinner that night. I didn't like anything I owned so I made a skirt. I love having a craft room.

Whatcha doin'?

Not much really. I've been working on bags and sewing and working on a bunch of big projects that seem like they will never be done and working on projects that are presents or for a swap so they are secret.

But I did think it was about time that I took some updated pictures of my Sock Yarn Blanket of Doom. And cool new feature of Ravelry, I am going to share the project page. It has more pictures and more information about the project. You can click here to see more about it. Lots of lovely people have donated sock yarn for this blanket. But I could always use more if you have it laying around. About 5 grams of yarn will make two squares. 5 grams of yarn makes a ball about the size of a walnut. So I don't need a lot. But I do have a pretty healthy amount of yarn accumulated so far.

Like I said before, a lot of sewing has been going on. I'm trying to get a good stock of bags done before the retreat, maybe try and sell a few there. But this project is just for me. A lady in our guild had done something similar to her wheel. Essentially it is just a padded pillow for the treadle. But she made hers and essentially upholstered it onto the treadle. Well, I didn't really feel like stapling fabric to my wheel. I sensed that would hurt resale value a bit. So I designed one I could take off. It has two velcro straps on the bottom to hold it on and my favorite design element is the non stick stuff on the bottom. You know that foamy stuff you cut and put into your cabinets as a liner. Well I cut a rectangle out of it and sewed it on as part of the bottom lining. That sucker isn't going anywhere. I tried it out last night. I am in love. Do you think these would go over well in the store? I would have to do them as a custom order depending on the size and shape of the treadle and where the hinge is. Maybe I'll see what the ladies in guild think.

Oh and more bags should be going up in the store soon. And I hope to get about 8 more made this week. We shall see. I heart this fabric.

Contest Winner

I would like to thank you all for your kind comments. I am working on getting a banner for the shop, especially since I can also use it for advertisting on Ravelry. My photoshop and design skills are limited, so I'm working on it. :) I promise.

As I received the emails from my blog, I entered everyone into a spreadsheet and they received a number (so it isn't the same order as how people commented) and then they received another number when they said they blogged or twittered. And then I used Random.org to draw a number. And now what you have all been waiting, very patiently for, the results of the drawing.

Drumroll...

And that number probably doesn't mean much to you, but on my spreadsheet, that is: Amy, who is KnitterofHats on Ravelry. I will be contacting you shortly about the bag. Congratulations! And again thank you all for looking and your feedback. Keep me in mind if you need a project or drop spindle bag.

Trying not to get high while crafting

Here I go starting an Etsy store and I get distracted and don't post anything for people to actually read. Sorry about that.

I'm sure you noticed the interesting title. Well that is exactly what I had to do last month. Ann, a lovely lady from my spinning guild, had some beautiful fabric with her at the meeting. She said she made it by drawing with sharpies on the fabric and then dropping/painting/dribbling rubbing alcohol onto it. Inconceivable! So I had to try. I dug out some scraps of white fabric and got to work doodling. I definitely need a better workspace for it. She said she used a sheet of plastic to work on. That would have been a good idea. Oh and this craft requires excellent ventilation. Just imagine the fumes of sharpies and rubbing alcohol. I opened the window quite quickly. I need to play more to try and get some better results, but I think it turned out pretty well.

This was the first thing I tried. It has a lot of color, because I wanted to see what colors I could get from the different markers. Most colors are made up of many other colors and I didn't know how it would break down when the alcohol hit it. So this one was an experiment.

This one turned out pretty well. I think I got the right amount of drawing on the piece. so there wasn't a lot of white space, but everything stayed rather separate. I think this piece is going to be turned into a project bag. Maybe it will end up in the Etsy store.
This last project was fun. I had a piece of sheer material that I had from when I tried to do some wet felting (fail). I had done a small test piece and really liked the way the colors ran. So I had a big piece and decided that I would turn it into a shawl/wrap. I have a couple weddings to go to this spring and now I just need a dress. So I colored on it for a while. But then came the dilemma of the rubbing alcohol. I was working on a pretty small surface and I knew that the alcohol and color would get all over the place. So I moved to the bathtub.

Ta da. I think it turned out great. It could have used a bit more color, but the white keeps it light and sheer. Now I just need to finish the edges and find a dress to match. Small note if you want to try a piece this big. Line your bathtub with something. Sharpie is still permanent even if it is in rubbing alcohol. I pretty much bled the design through. But I did get most of it back off. Except for the blue. Oh and another thing, bring a fan. The bathtub pretty much collected all of the fumes. I went in for a closer look as I was finishing and nearly passed out.

Nadine's Nook

So I have decided I need a better way of funding this fiber/knitting/crochet habit of mine. So I've started an Etsy store. I've added an Etsy Mini over to the right hand side for easy access to the store. Right now I am doing drop spindle, project and notions bags and stitch markers. But I plan to dabble in a bit of all the fiber arts. I want to eventually add spinning batts to the store. But as with most things in life, it is a slow process. I need to sell things and build up some money that will probably be invested right back into stuff for the store. I have found that you can have all the fabric, batting and thread in the world, but not having any zippers makes it very hard to make more bags. Oddly enough.

Example of a project bag.

So to celebrate me finally making good on all those "I'm gonna make these and open an Etsy Store" ideas and schemes, I am having a giveaway. Yay! I will be giving away one of my project bags. It won't be one of the bags in the store, but I will consult with the winner on color preference (and it might be very similar to a bag in the store because I still have most of that fabric, but I have a lot of colors and designs I haven't made yet, you know that zipper problem).

So how this will work-


You will have several ways to get points and each point will get you another entry. At the end of the time frame, I will assign all the entries numbers and use a random number generator to pick.

The ways to get points include:


1. Take a look at the store and leave a message on the blog letting me know what you think. I am working on a banner and getting more items up. Constructive criticism is great, but try not to make me cry :)


2. Twitter about my store or this contest and leave a message with your twitter name on here.


3. Blog about my store or this contest and leave a message with your blog address on here.

Feel free to combine all of your entries into one post if you want. Don't forget to include some way for me to contact you. This contest will run from today 3/26/10 to 4/8/10 at midnight (EST) and the winner will be announced that next day.



Oh and in case you need a link:
http://www.knittingnadine.etsy.com/

My trip

Goodness I am actually quite miserable at updating this blog. I start like 5 posts at a time and slowly write them as I stop being lazy. I mean they all have titles, pictures and an outline in them. I just never write them. That is why I end up with strings of posts, because I get motivated and write them all at once.

Anyway, so now I shall talk about my wonderful vacation that I got back from like a week and a half ago. Zach needed to use up his vacation time so we both took off a week and went to spend the week with his parents around Washington DC. I won't lie and tell you I was dissapointed we didn't go all the way into town, because that can be a very stressful proposition. Well I guess we did sort of once. But more on that.

Mostly it involved shopping and sitting around enjoying ourselves. And watching these two play fight constantly. Oh yes, they look peaceful now, but they are worse than Heidi and Lucy. Although it did make me realize how old Heidi has gotten. She used to run around and never tire out like Pixie, but now she mostly lays around all the time. Well not this week. Pixie had her running around the yard, around the house, chasing imaginary squirrels. I'm honestly surprised I was able to get a picture of them standing still.

Now Pumpkin on the other hand was very easy to photograph. While Tracey did most of the work on Aimee's wall hanging I had a kitty photoshoot. I got some really cool pictures. I like this one a lot. She look very regal with her legs crossed. This involved a lot of me laying on the floor.

And I saw my first hints of spring that week. Flowers!!! Yay!!!

And now for the shopping. We did a lot of shopping. We went to three yarn/cross stitch/fabric stores (In Stitches, Old Town Needlecrafts and JoAnns). I got lots of yarn (thanks Tracey!) and a bunch of fabric I will be talking about in another one of those posts I have half written (see below for fabric picture). We also hit up the grocery store where I found the motherload of British candy/food. I was in heaven. I still have a box of Jaffa Cakes I am oh so patiently saving for when my Mom gets here this weekend.

And one of the best stops was completely accidental. We were driving to a yarn/fabric store and drove by a Trader Joe's. I am completely in love with their crispy green beans. If I got them more often I would almost say addicted. But the closest Trader Joe's to our location is Columbus (3 hours). Blech. So I stocked up. Yay! I am still working on my last bag of them. And now for the sight seeing portion of our vacation. We went to the Manassas battlefield on our way home from Old Town Needleworks. We went to the Pentagon, which was interesting. They have a lot of displays all around the building. No pictures. But the windows are so thick and have so much reinforcement, they are green. I was intrigued but didn't get close enought to a window to inspect.

We also went to the National Museum of the Marine Corps. It was very interesting. They had a lot of great exhibits. Not a big fan of their observation deck. Silly fear of heights.

And since I was out of town for my regular knitting group meeting, I cheated on my girls with a group in VA. The Kniterati. They were a great bunch and were very welcoming. They invited Tracey to come back even though she doesn't knit. So nice.

So ta da! That was my trip, in a very condensed version. There was a lot of knitting and a lot of sewing, which I covered in a previous post.