Tired

It was a lovely day of constant working. First it was a Woven Rose pendant. I made two, one for the order and one for the shop.It's a nice simple piece, but the weaving in the center round gives it a little complexity.

After those were finished it was onto remake this bracelet.  This was is quite a bit harder to make. I call this one Ornate and it isn't quite back in the shop yet. I finished remaking it late yesterday so I'll post it later this morning. I still have at least two more necklaces to remake for the shop, so as long as the winter tiredness doesn't continue to win, I should stay nice and busy for at least a couple of days.

The fairly sudden lack of sun around here is definitely taking a toll on my energy levels and it's been a bit of a struggle to keep from snuggling up on the couch and hibernating. That's just another reason that having orders to make for people is such a good thing for me. If something really needs to be made because someone is waiting for it, that's a very strong motivator for me. Restocking the shop, not so much. Here's crossing my fingers for more powerful motivation.

Very Nice

Well, yesterday turned out much better than expected. I decided to do a sale after I blogged and assumed it would be a bust, but I actually got a few sales out of it from some lovely repeat customers. Even better I got two more sales this morning after the sale was over. Yesterday I worked on remaking the first piece that sold, a necklace I designed based on one of  Marilee's patterns. It's a favorite of mine with a nice, unique silhouette.

The next two orders I got in both had custom color pieces to make up, so after the necklace I started on those. I've still got one more of those to make before I get those two orders in the post. With the other orders I got this morning, I have quite a handful of pieces that now need to be remade, so I guess I have my work cut out for me for at least the rest of the week. I shall be happily tatting away to get all these orders made and the pieces replaced in the shop as soon as possible.

Monday

Happy Monday after all. Well, I survived the entire weekend. Friday, I finished all the cleaning and pulled out the Christmas decorations. Saturday we put those all up and the change of seasons was complete. I got a couple of sales over the weekend, but only patterns, so I was given nothing to tat or make and frankly not a lot of money. Today is suppose to be the biggest online shopping day, but I'm not holding out much hope for my own shop. Of course we did a little shopping ourselves, but I am trying to keep it to a minimum for obvious money reasons.

I did get a little knotting done last night as we ended the long weekend in watching a movie. I also started a knitting project to keep my hands busy as well. I seriously have a problem when I don't have something that needs making.

So I guess I'm started the week with crossed fingers and hope for my shop to get some shoppers soon.


Oh...a last minute addition to the blog:

CyberMonday SALE!!!!
Get 30% off purchases over $10 with the code 'CYBERMONDAY' Today only!

Thank You

Good Friday morning all. I meant to write yesterday morning and then got distracted with preparation for the holiday dinner, not that I had much to share. I had spent Wednesday cleaning the house including my most favorite tasks like the bathrooms. Yep, I know you missed that information.

Anyway, yesterday was lovely and exhausting. I still have a sink full of dishes, because I couldn't be bothered to wash them all last night. That means that I will be washing them all today, and cleaning the house up a bit, and probably pulling out the Christmas stuff to start to get that all up.

I know I haven't done a sale in my shop in a while and it's too late to start one that would be effective at all, but here's what I will do, get free domestic shipping throughout the holiday season with the code HOLIDAYFREESHIP at my etsy shop. I know it's not much, but thank you all out there for reading my ramblings and supporting my work!

What Next

Another day, another round on the doily. Also, there was more cleaning and a copious amount of laundry. The doily is around the 5 inch mark now and I'm planning to make this one a smaller one, so there's only a few more inches to go before it's done. Then I'll have to decide if it really is going to be a gift and if so, order the frame for it. 

Once Thanksgiving is over I'll pull out all the doily gifts and get them photographed, so I'll have pictures to share after Christmas. I really can't believe that I've made so many of them. Maybe I'll start a large tatted doily as a gift project to get me back to tatting in my spare time. I've been making these ones up as I go, but I'm not sure that's the way to go with a tatted one. I'm sure I'll find one already designed that I like, or I'll just wing it and hope. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

A Little More

There's not much to share this morning either. My etsy shop remains silent and I'm continuing to work on the doily which may or may not have a recipient. I guess one thing is certain, after all of these doilies, I will definitely have the technique down. Other than that though, I've not got anything to share.

The rest of the week is likely to continue in this vein, so I'll at least continue to get photos of the doily progress to try and liven up the nothing that I have to share. Still crossing my fingers for next week and a few shoppers though.

Another

In between the errand running and cleaning tasks of the weekend, I did start another doily. This one may or may not have a recipient at the holidays, but I think I needed the focusing power of a task like the doily. Without something to focus my creative energies, I end up doing inane things like playing on my phone for hours and that's just not healthy.

I wish I had some tatting idea to create, but I've been in a rut there for some time. I know that has a lot to do with the lack of sales in my etsy shop, but rather than continue to complain about that, I'll just focus on knotting and quietly wish for something to give.

This week should be full of distractions as I get ready for Thursday's hosting duties. I've got more cleaning to do and so far I've managed to do just a bit at a time to keep me from getting overwhelmed. Here's hoping the shoppers show up at my virtual shop door and I don't have time to complain come next week.

Nothing

I've literally got nothing of interest for you this morning. After schooling yesterday, I used most of my time to do laundry and start the slow and painful cleaning process needed to host Thanksgiving dinner next week. I happily live among clutter most of the time, but I do like to get everything looking nice for these large family dinners. Instead of whipping through all the cleaning in a day long whirlwind early, I prefer working up to it slowly, then panicking at the last minute, only then resorting to the afore mentioned whirlwind. Oh, and I think I just thought of someone else to make a doily gift for. It's going to be an interesting weekend, I think.

The Museum

Whew, what a long day. We were on a train first thing in the morning, after powering through a couple of classes first. Then it was off to Sacramento. We had lunch in old town, a little shopping and then hoofed it to the Crocker Art Museum. We'd been there once before, but I think we still haven't managed to see everything on permanent display, not to mention the special exhibits This is me and my girls in front of the old mansion section of the museum before the tour. There are actually two additions built onto it in order to house all the exhibits and the rest is much more modern.







I feel weird taking picture of the art on the walls, so I didn't really do that at all. I figure I can look at much more professional photos of them online later, should I really want to, but I did take a picture of this statue by Calder because I really liked it. I thought the man only did mobiles.

After the museum it was another walk through old town to the train station and the long ride home. I didn't take any tatting and regretted that pretty quickly as I remembered that reading on the train is only marginally less nausea inducing than doing so in a car. Oh, well. It was a lovely, if overly long day and today should be a nice quiet day for recovery.

Center Sussed

Yesterday's schooling was a little more relaxed, but I still ended up with less time for thread than
usual. I did manage to suss out a new center for the tatted/knotted snowflake. Though it's admittingly, not looking too much like a snowflake since the beads connect the points quite densely.

I quite like the center like this, it holds the piece together better, but doesn't look too busy. The piece does need to be stiffened to see if that helps it from folding a bit when I hang it. It doesn't droop from the top, but does start to fold side to side if I mess with it.

Today, we're off to Sacramento for a train field trip and to the Crocker Art Museum. I probably won't bring anything to do on the train because that just means I have to carry it all around with me when we're there, or maybe something small. I don't know yet, but don't expect much.

Beaded

Yesterday's schooling was particularly stressful. It took a while to decompress from it. Once I did sit down I played with the tatted/knotted snowflake. So here's the finished prototype that I didn't show you yesterday. It feels like it could be a snowflake, but I felt like it was missing some things.

On the second go around I used some pearl-like beads on the bare spaces between the peaks. I also tried long joined picots in the center. Turns out the beads work fine and don't even cause the drooping I was afraid of when I started with them, but the work is slower going as I add in the beads using a beading needle instead of a normal one. The center however, is not what I was hoping for at all. There were a lot of suggestions about adding something large to the center like a button, but as I can only work with what I have on hand, I think I might try some combination of the same sort of beads. That's the only plan I have for today, so here's hoping the day goes well and I get something in the shop to do.

Weekend Recap

The weekend started with dinner out of town for three family birthdays and it was lovely to get away for just a spell. The rest of the weekend was pretty normal and fairly uneventful.

I told you last week that I finished my crochet project, so here's a particularly bad picture of it. It is probably the single most comfortable thing I have ever made to wear. The amount of cozy this cocoon is, is incredible. My only regret is that the yarn I used sheds a bit. I'm hoping after a couple of washings I can stop worrying about wool fibers adding themselves to the already collected cat fur on all my clothing.

I also spent a little time yesterday tatting and knotting together. I was trying to come up with a snowflake-like design using both techniques. I forgot to take a finished picture, this is it on progress. I finished with little triangle peaks. Yeah, sorry, that's a horrible description. I'll get a photo today to make that make sense.

I like the finished piece okay, but I think I'm going to have another go at it, maybe using beads on the long bare threads between peaks. That will also give it a little weight, but I don't know if it'll hold it's shape when hanging if I do add beads. Hmm, I guess it'll be an experiment then. Here's hoping it's not a complete waste of time.

I Tried

I wanted to just blog today about how lovely it was to get an order in my shop. It came in early in the morning and I got to spend much of the day tatting. It was soothing and focusing for me. Schooling went well and afterwards I got to sit on the couch with some comfort TV and my needle and thread.

Later, when the necklace I was remaking was completed, I pulled
out my crochet project and worked on that. I even finished the project, my cocoon. I'll get a photo later today to show you. It is beyond comfy. Then in the evening when the husband and the oldest daughter were out at a football game, I stayed up a little late with my youngest and we read our novels side-by-side until we were tired enough to go to sleep.

Then I made a bit of a mistake, I checked my emails right before bed and saw the notification for a comment on yesterday's post here. I wanted to just ignore it, but I decided that the gloves are off now and I can't just follow the rules of polite conversation and pretend that I'm okay with all of this anymore. This is not a matter of simple divergent political views, I respect those even when they are diametrically opposed to my own. Diversity is the spice of life and that is precisely why this election result is so sad. I understand that people were frustrated and wanted economic and governmental change, but I refuse to accept that this was the right way to get it. We are faced with a leader endorsed by the KKK, loved by the Alt-right, the preferred choice of Putin, white supremacists, misogynists and those people are already using his election as tacit permission to be awful in plain sight. We are faced with millions of people possibly losing healthcare they won't get back, rights that they fought so hard for stripped away, being deported, banned or forced to register because of their religion. Will all of that actual happen? Who knows, but he said he'd do it all and why shouldn't be believe that it's certainly possible.

Look I don't like ranting like this, I like tying knots in string and telling you about it. I am going to do that every chance I get, but I'm still dealing with my own grief cycle here and since this is my space, I'm going to use it when I need to. The comment I got said they they won't be reading my blog anymore and frankly if everything I just ranted about is totally fine with you, please do go and don't come back, because none of that is okay with me.

The Day After

Yesterday was far from normal I'm afraid. It was pretty somber around here, though I did make it though without crying all day...there were a few further moments of it though. The kids concentrated on school more than ever before. Apparently focusing on work allowed them to 'not think about it', for awhile. There was an essay written without nary a complaint. My sister came by to commiserate for a spell as well. Speaking of commiseration, thank you so much for the comments of it yesterday. I needed them. Based on my social media feeds, I think a lot of people needed that comfort and will continue to for sometime.

I did sit down and crochet, a lot. It was my way of focusing on something else. Again, I'm sorry for the unusually maudlin blog posts. I fear this isn't the last of them either.  There's a lot to work though and a lot to, well, it's just not good and we won't know how bad it might be for awhile yet. I will try to focus on thread though. I will do my level best, but please forgive me if I falter.

Sad

I'm sorry guys, I just can't this morning. I am so very sad today, and a little angry, but mostly, mostly I'm scared. I'm scared for everyone around me who needed this country to move forward, not backwards. I'm scared for the economy, health care, and climate science. I'm scared for women's rights, for free speech, immigrants, religious freedom and a free press. I'm scared over international relations, the Supreme Court and the nuclear codes.

I hope that I'm overreacting. I hope that underneath all the bravado, lies, rants, and fear-mongering, there is a decent human being that will not let us devolve into a nationalistic, hate-filled country. Right now though, I'm scared for it all and I'm sad that my daughter's won't get the first female president and that they'll be scared too. Scared because they know all the things this fellow did, got away with, and still got elected. Scared because they know he gave a voice to people like the KKK and the Alt-right and made racism, xenophobia, and misogyny socially acceptable behaviors.

I know that the sun will still rise today and we still have to go about our lives, but I've read enough history to know that this could be the beginning of much worse to come. So today I'm just going to try to make it though without crying all day and that will be my first step.

Not Much

Well, I've really got nothing to share this morning. Yesterday was mostly cleaning and schooling. I cleaned the oven and gave myself a four hour long headache and then there was the laundry. When I did get to sit, it was just working on the crochet. Since that's just a gigantic rectangle, there's nothing much to share until it's finished and that's going to be a while.

I did have some requests in my etsy shop, but after questions were answered I didn't hear back with orders. I did get one order over the weekend, but it was a bracelet that I don't plan on remaking for the shop, so it just gets popped in the mail today and it's back to the crochet. Well, crochet and worrying about the fate of the nation all day long. Here's to surviving the aftermath.

Well, That's Done

So, yes the weekend was a ball of activity. There was a football game that took much of Friday night. There was house quest to visit with on Saturday and we went and saw Doctor Strange. On Sunday we went shopping for three different people's birthday gifts and then we managed to sit awhile and catch up with the DVR.

I did finish the last doily and they all got mounted in their frames. There are five large ones and three small ones and they represent weeks of work. Part of me is thinking about offering them for sale after the holidays on a custom made basis, but they rely on the availability of this particular frame, so I'll have to do a little research first I think. They'll likely have to be pricey as well, so I can't imagine that they'll fly off the shelves at all.

Just so this post isn't just text, here's the crochet project I've been working on. I think they called it a cocoon. It's basically just a rectangle they fold in half to turn into a sweater-like piece. It looked easy and super comfy. So this it what I'll be working on unless I decide someone else should get a doily gift, or I get some sales in the shop again.

The Same

Yesterday was pretty much a repeat of the day the preceded it. Schooling was followed by knotting and a little crochet in the evening when I needed a change of pace. I got maybe another inch completed on the doily with about an inch left to go on it. I should have it finished by the end of the weekend if I get any good sitting time.

There is a chance that won't happen though. One of my brothers is visiting this weekend, so I might be a bit more distracted than usual. We have a high school football game to attend for my nephews this evening and the new Marvel movie to go see Saturday as well. Sunday might be quiet though, so I guess we'll just have to see if I can sneak in a few hours of sitting time.

Doily Progress

I'm making pretty good progress on the latest doily, but I do still have a couple more inches to go before it'll fit in the cute 8 by 8 shadow box that I got for these last two gifts. I'm hoping that I'll get this one finished by early next week and have all of them mounted and put away until the holidays. I might even wrap them early, but I promise I will get pictures before I do so that I can show all of them to you after they've been given.

Still quiet on the etsy shop front. I had that lovely burst of activity for about a week and then it's back to the new normal, which is a like a ghost town. Good thing I have knotting and crochet to keep me company in the meantime.

Not Quite

Trying to shift gears back after Halloween and the all the tasks leading up to it, is hard. It took me a bit to finally settle down and get back to, well not work, but working I guess. I got a few rounds done on the doily and I worked on my crochet project a bit. There was also a bit more consuming of Halloween chocolate than there probably ought to have been.

There have been no new orders in my shop for a few days now, so I'll just keep up the knotting and crochet until something changes. I do actually still have some tatting pieces in queue to be remade, but I guess I lost my groove working on them, so they'll be there when I need another break from gift making. I guess that's it for me today, here's to a more interesting day ahead.

Halloween Recap

Yesterday was all about Halloween around here. As soon as lunch was eaten, I spend nearly an hour painting one child's face before we headed off to the husband's work to trick-or-treat. Then it was home and dinner before going out again with my sister and her kids for another rousing bout of trick-or-treating. The weather was perfect, so I think we stayed out longer than we have in recent years. I promised costumes, so this one here is Marvel's Squirrel Girl. This is the source of the work with faux fur as I created the boot cuff and ears. the tail was mercifully discovered premade in a Halloween store this year. Oh, and that utility belt is duct tape and band-aid boxes.



The other child is La "Cat"rina, a sugar skull cat and the source of my hour of makeup time. I was pretty proud that she came up with this one herself and held fairly still while I worked. Of course we couldn't get all that eye makeup off last night, so she should wake up a bit of a racoon this morning. Most of her costume was bought, though I did have to make the rose hair clip at the last minute.

Orders have dried up in the shop presently, so I'll be working on the last doily today as well as likely a crochet project for myself. What? I couldn't help myself. I had a coupon for the yarn.