Nothing

I got absolutely nothing done of import yesterday. There was a family walk, some reading, and a little cleaning, but nothing to share really. So here's a picture of some of the cats being adorable.

The kids are back to schooling today and so I doubt I'll get much done today either, but soon routine should kick back in and with it hopefully some orders or ideas. Until then I guess it's cat pictures and crossed fingers. The next Armenian lace video should get created on Friday.

Silly Cat

What a long day I had. It started with assembling a new nightstand for our guest room. I mostly mention that as an explanation for the photograph. The cat assumed that I made this object for him and climbed inside just as soon as there was an inside for him to climb into.

After that project the kids were off with their grandparents for the day, so I had errands to run. Then with an empty house, I had their gifts to wrap. That was followed by cleaning bathrooms, my favorite. I wrapped the free time by watching some Black Mirror and making more gift bracelets.

Late in the evening I got an order in the shop for a couple of necklaces, so I packed those right up and popped them in the mailbox so they'd be out first thing this morning. At least one of them definitely needs to be remade straight away so I'll start with that today. Of course there is still more cleaning and preparing for hosting house guests, so I'm guessing my day will be busy one way or another.

Calming Cats

It was mostly a nice and quiet day yesterday. Schooling wrapped fairly early with no issues and I sat down to knot with one cat who cuddled with me much of the day. I got a couple of rounds done before we were off to the comic book store early with the family. We wanted to go early so that we could get home in time to watch a DVR'd show before the debate.

Then there was that last debate and a couple of glasses of wine. I actually managed to keep knotting during the debate until someone was baited and lost the plot again. It's hard to knot when you're yelling, 'liar' and, 'yes, you did say that," at the orange man on television all night. I have to say that I'll be quite glad when this nonsense is over, provided it actually hasn't jump started the apocalypse. It's a good thing I'm surround by thread and calming cats.

Brown Paper

As I suspected our outing in the morning to Stanford stretched all the way to the afternoon. Once we were home, I had no energy to do anything aside from read and sit, so I have nothing interesting to share or tell. But I do have a couple of pictures of one of the cats playing with packing material so that's what I offer to the world today. This is JiJi, and that is his piece of brown paper. It is a cave and a costume, clearly.

Hopefully I'll get up to something creative today. There are no plans for the day, so it's likely that I'll think of something. If not hopefully the cats do something amusing.

Almost Done

Two more papers done for the child and turned in just in time. This morning she has to present one of them and her science project in an interactive online session. So today should still be a high stress one. When that's over though, we can all relax a bit and coast through nest week, the last week of the school year.







I'm looking forward to future creative bursts of energy as well as time to do things like catch up on the dozens of hours of TV that have been piling up unwatched on my DVR. There is also a generous pile of comic books that I'd like to actually read. So one more week and my time is mostly mine again for awhile. And since I have nothing creative to show you, you get pictures of Chi Sai, our three footed cat, being forced to sit in my lap. She has personal space issues and has to be caught unawares to put up with any physical contact beyond scratching her back from a distance. You can see her plotting her escape in her eyes.

Working

I stayed busy all day just tatting the two pieces that had sold. Well really, it was more like tatting one and half of the pieces that sold. I am still nowhere near finishing the mask. This one is the choker that actually matches the bracelet that I made the day before. I don't know what the odds are that they were sold to two different people in two days, but it made it easy to remember the pattern. This is one of my original design that I call diadem. I was obsessed with onion rings for a while there and tried to put rings inside rings whenever I could. I finished this one much later in the day than I thought I would which is why I didn't finish the mask.

The mask is actually one of my simpler ones, but all of them take more time than a regular piece like a choker because of the complex construction around the wire. Then there's the time consuming task of covering the wire. I haven't even gotten close to that bit yet. I have gotten much further than this photo though. I suppose I should be able to finish it this morning, if I work while schooling. I am hoping to have some time to play with the new motif and see if I can grow it any more.

I thought I'd leave you with a photo of one of my white cats, He sat next to this witch hat for hours as if it was his and I just had to get a picture. We joked that he wished he was a black cat so that he would properly match the hat. Personally, I wish all my white cats were black cats so my black clothes weren't covered in white fur all the time, but there's really nothing for that now.

Sad

Well Friday was a pretty productive day. I finished the last piece of bobbin lace and save for a few small issues, it was pretty good. Then I went ahead and did the next lesson on spiders and apparently forgot to take any pictures of it. Of course that might be a good thing as I made a few glaring mistakes on that one including not linking two bobbins together properly which resulted in a split in the lace at the top and a half spider at one point.

Saturday however, was just a really bad day. Our oldest cat, Isis, the last of all our older cats had been acting lethargic and losing weight in the last couple of weeks, so we took her to the vet as a family. I had done some research, so I already had a fear that it was her kidneys, but we figured months of treatments. Instead the blood work showed kidney failure, a condition that even if temporarily reversed with intensive treatments would take her life soon. So, with the kids right there with us, we had to decide to, as the vet tried to gently put it, let her go. She was the cat most bonded with the kids and really all of us. There were lots of tears all weekend. This one was really hard especially since it's only been three months since our last cat passed away at home. She was also a surrogate mama to the four sibling cats we have left and they have no idea where she's gone now. Basically the whole household is out of balance and hopefully we'll all adjust to the loss soon.

As you might imagine, we did little else with the weekend, a walk, and a movie at home trying to keep busy. That's what we'll continue to do I imagine. I'll keep on with the bobbin lace as it definitely takes a lot of concentration at this point. I'm crossing my fingers for a tatting task as well, because tatting is very meditative and I could use a little of that right now. So here's to a better week than the weekend.

Rats

Another long, mostly tatting free weekend. There were lots of errands and catching up on shows still clogging my dvr. We finished watching the season of Daredevil on Netflix, which was very good. I even did a little crochet to keep my hands busy whilst watching that much television.

The most interesting thing we did though, was to get the oldest daughter her birthday present over a month early. She'd been wanted a rat for some time and we were looking for cages while the kids swam at their grandparents house. We had intended to just get a cage and accessories and wrap them as a gift, getting the rats later. Instead we found that the shop had the rats we were hoping for. It was a terribly unusual that they has such young rats, so instead we took the kids and let them pick the pets now.

The child didn't even mind that she was going to have to forgo more gifts on her birthday for this. The cats however are seriously unsure of this new development. It's been many years since we kept rats, and that was before we had kids, so this should be interesting.

I didn't have any orders in queue and I currently have no good ideas for any new designs. As usual I'm hoping some outside force will act on the situation and cause some positive change. Fingers crossed for some lace soon.

Trapped

We had a long day of schooling, like I knew we would. It was well after lunch when I sat down to do some tatting. I got my blanket and my book and before I'd tatted stitch one, ninja lap cat was upon me. I spent literally hours like this. I read over the cat while I tatted the final version of the new necklace. There have been a few minor alterations on the new piece, but for the most part, it's going faster since I know where it's going this time around.

There's a good chance that I'll actually get the necklace finished today, especially if today plays out like yesterday. I still probably won't get it in the shop today though. There's just so little sun around here lately for proper pictures. I'll likely just move on to making the matching ankle corsets and get photos whenever the sun decides to make an appearance. Or I could remake the last mask that sold in the shop, I don't need any findings to remake those. Either way, I have plenty to of things to tat, more to read, and quite likely a cat waiting for my lap.

Chaos, Cats, and Snowflakes

Again, I am am up far before dawn as the cats have decided that I need to wake up a good forty minutes earlier than usual. I tried to ignore them, but their go to move it scratching gently at my face. That's pretty hard to ignore. Yes, these innocent looking cats are complete menaces to my sleep.

We had a good, if not chaotic holiday here with about 20 people in the house for a good chunk of the day. I cleaned and cooked, then cleaned some more, thankfully missing much of the day's political conversations. It's much easier to keep my mouth shut and not get into it when I have a pile of dishes in front of me that must disappear.

I think everyone was pretty pleased with their gifts though no one made any comments about their snowflakes except for a glitter comment that I'm sure I missed most of. Since they all have them though, here's an in progress photo of them as they were drying after the glitter modge podge. I thought it turned out to be a fairly interesting small snowflake, not that the world needs more tatted snowflake patterns.

At least some of our guests will be here through the weekend, so more family activities are likely. I also got a request from my sister yesterday to make her a pair of wrist warmers like the ones I made for the kids, so I'll have another knitting project just as soon as she brings over some yarn. She's bringing the kids over this morning for video gaming and relative visiting so it will likely be today as well. If only I hadn't woken up with a cold sore forming, the weekend would be looking good.

Nothing

Sorry, just another day of not too much to share. I think we got most of the work samples we need put together for the kids' promotion. I've just got some final organizing to do this morning before the meeting. I suppose after I hand all this stuff over, I can at least relax a bit. Of course there's always the chance that they will refuse the requests and then I'm not certain what happens, but I really ought not worry about that now.

I did get to a little tatting yesterday, mostly cat ear headbands. I have three complete ones now, so I think that I shall stop for now. I also remade one pendant that I actually sold sometime ago and forgot to remake. I did make another small sale yesterday, but it was a one off necklace, so I don't really have anything to remake from that. Of course I'm not sure how productive I'll even feel after the meeting this morning. Hopefully something will present itself over the weekend, a sale, or some inspiration to get me back to work. Here's hoping. I'll leave you with some cats in their new favorite spot under the Christmas tree. Everything is better with cats.

Weekend Recap

What a long, busy weekend. Not tatting busy unfortunately, but busy none the less. On Friday morning I finished up the crochet blanket that I've been working on. For some reason I actually kept track of how long I worked on it, I guess just so I'd have a ball park for next time I'm asked, and it was about 30 hours in all. It was so much crochet that when I finally picked up my tatting needle again the thread felt beyond miniscule.

I was pretty happy with how it turned out, particularity once it was washed and soft. Oh and I told you I'd get you the link to the edging...not that anyone asked, but I really liked using it, so I feel it's only right to share the source. It's the crochet All Shawl by Doris Chan. It's a free pattern and if you're comfortable modifying patterns, it's quite versatile as well.

The rest of the weekend was visiting wonderful friends and family and eating far too much. There was a little more cleaning of course and we managed to put up all our holiday decor. We're still only using the unbreakable ornaments because we still don't trust our army of cats, but the tree still looks as if Christmas threw up on it, so we'll call that a win.

Unfortunately I sold only one small piece over the weekend, so I have little to do today besides get back to schooling with the kids. I also finished tatting up my stack of snowflake ornaments for my mother-in-law over the weekend. I still need to glitter them up and get them on hooks, but once that's done, it's all just sitting about hoping the shop picks up so I can feel less guilty and actually do some holiday shopping. Here's crossing my fingers for some business.

Weekend Recap

Well I had a nice long weekend, but I fear not much tatting was even thought about. We had our pumpkin patch outing on Friday morning and then I was coerced into attending my nephew's high school football game that evening. While I love the child and want to support him, let's just say, football game, not my idea of a good time. Mostly it just induced flashbacks of my high school days. Between the two events of the day, all my free time was occupied.

Saturday was errand running and catching up on television with the husband. So there was plenty ofsitting on the couch that could have been used for tatting, but with the shop a ghost town, I'm barely motivated. Sunday we cleaned the house because the in-laws where coming over for dinner. They don't really care if it's clean, but it was a good excuse to do some anyway. It had been awhile and just like tatting lately, I need the motivation in order to get anything done.

So that's the weekend in a nutshell. I know, not particularly exciting. I did wake up this morning to the sale of a necklace that I can and should remake, so there is tatting on the schedule today. Since I apparently couldn't be bothered to create anything to share with you, I hoped a cat picture would fill the space up instead.

That's Better

It really was a Monday. I felt like I was getting back to work in a 'real' job. There was schooling and every other spare moment I was tatting. I finished up the black necklace early, but the weather was not well suited to taking photos for listing it in the shop. So the necklace, matching earrings and pendant will have to wait until the sun reappears long enough for decent pictures, which may not be today. Next I finished up a pair of navy blue earrings that were ordered late on Sunday. They'll be in the post today.

Most of the day I spent working on snowflakes in various variegated threads. I think I got three and a half worked up before dinner. That's when I got my first sizable order in months. It was just one piece, a pair of my spats/ankle corsets, but it was just what I needed to cheer up a bit. They are already packed and ready to go our this morning, but the order also gives me something large that needs remaking.

So today starts on a great note for me, order in the mail, tatting tasks in queue and new pieces just waiting for the sun. I'm crossing my fingers that this is just the beginning of a great week or better yet, a great month. I thought I'd leave you with what the oldest child did to all the cats yesterday. I think she managed this same torture on four of them, but these two stayed close enough to get photos. They kept these on for hours, though I am fairly certain that they were plotting their revenge the whole time. In fact I better inspect the house closely this morning for surprises.

Monday

Happy Monday all. Man, do I dislike the time change. I'm certain that I have mentioned that I have 6 cats, but have I mentioned that I made the mistake of feeding them when I wake in the morning? This means that when the time changes, they attempt to wake me at the previously established breakfast time. Their waking method can be...aggressive and it take days for them to adjust to the new routine. Yes, I am aware this is all my own fault for feeding them in the morning in the first place, but you can't go back, now can you?

In other weekend recap news, I haven't much news. There were a few errands and a little tatting, but not really all that much else. In fact the most interesting thing we did we go out to dinner with friends on Saturday. I can't tell you how much I enjoy getting out and listening to other people talk. It was a real joy to get out and talk to adults for a bit.

Now, it's Monday and I have a few pieces in queue to be tatted and later this week there's a school field trip on a train to Sacramento. They've done this trip in the past and it's one of our favorites, but it is all day long. That just means I spend much of the rest of the week before it getting more work done and catching up after the trip. I think I'm ready for the week. Now if only I could get the television advertisers to lay off the Christmas crap for a few more weeks, then it would be a perfect.

Working

Yesterday went just about how I expected it would. I stalled for a while before steeling my nerves to work on getting the large order finished. I've often thought that if I ever hired someone to help me, which is beyond unlikely, it would be just to put on clasps and press my pieces. This time I had the added fun of also carefully bagging up bobby pin sets and earrings, but I think everything is ready to go. I'm still deciding the best way to ship them all safely, but they should be on their way today or tomorrow at the latest.

Then I got to work remaking pieces. I've gotten quite used to working with my thread and finished pieces in a large plastic bag. With all the cats shedding for Spring, it really is the only pragmatic way of avoiding too much fur contamination. I wish I could say that this gets it all, but I still spend quite some time picking off stray bits as I press them. I have plenty more to tat up today. In fact I'm fairly certain the remaking will take me the entire week, but I'm determined to take a little time off as well. Maybe a little more of that book reading and if the weather would like to cooperate, a few nice walks could be good as well.

I took one other photo for you yesterday. The cat was being strange and that seemed a good thing to share. I believe she was attacking a cat toy that was on the floor beneath the chair. Why she couldn't have done so from the ground, I really have no idea.

So here's to a productive day so I can get around to some creativity this week as well. My brain needs the exercise.

Lovely

I didn't get nearly as much done yesterday as I would have liked, but on the positive side it was partly because I was tasked with making a custom pair of earrings around midday. These were made to match a necklace the customer had bought from me quite some time ago. They were very simple of course, but there's a certain extra bit of satisfaction to have someone come back and want more of your work, so simple or not, making them sort of made my day.

The rest of the day that wasn't devoted to schooling the children was spent making up a custom awareness ribbon bracelet and starting to remake a sold necklace. That's all I was able to get done during the day though, no art piece work at all.

That brings us to today's tasks. I need to finished remaking the sold necklace and get back to work on the white art piece and that is the whole of my queue. It should keep me pretty busy today and maybe even tomorrow as well. The necklace giveaway and the few sales it generated have put me in a much better mood. I'm feeling productive, creative and content. Oh and I have another cat picture for you, this time a chair cuddle puddle consisting of Isis, Chi Sai and Ji Ji, enjoy.

That's Better

I decided yesterday after I wrote my blog post that if I wasn't going to get sales, I was going to at least get a little attention or interaction at least, so I offered up a necklace as a giveaway there. Thankfully a few sales came with it as well. I honestly forget, after a giveaway, how ego boosting they can be for me. I ask for comments to enter and people tend to offer up compliments. Of course I use a random number generator to pick the winners so they don't really need to bother, but it definitely picked me up out of my slight depression and resulted in a nice productive day.

I had a back drop necklace to make so after a walk with the family I was busy with that most of the morning, but I also took a break from that to remake some chain maille pieces that sold. In fact I worked quickly enough on that, it made my fingers hurt. After I finished the necklace it was back to the art piece. After staring a while, I figured out my first picot changes and then remembered to take a picture of the one I finished over the weekend. It hasn't been pressed, so it's a bit off, but there you have it. I only got the first two side motifs done on the third and just started the first side round. Hopefully I can get it finished up this week. I plan on washing them thoroughly before pressing, just in case all my cleanliness and cat avoidance efforts failed and then I'll be done...I think.

We're back to schooling today, so I won't have as much time to work or worry about sales either. I think I may have just had too many days off from schooling the kids and that got me maudlin over sales, not that it wasn't a legitimate concern, but I really ought not whine too much. My life is otherwise just lovely. So after schooling I have a custom bracelet to make, a necklace to remake and the last white art piece in queue. It's going to be a busy, busy day and I'm very glad of it...and because I can, I leave you with a picture of Neko, the cat.

Ah, Friday

Another uneventful day...seriously, I'm about to write the whole week off as a complete waste of time. Of course that's not entirely true. I have gotten plenty of work done. It just wasn't interesting or note worthy and we're going on day 4 with no activity in my shop as well. Let's just say, I'm glad that today is Friday and perhaps the weekend can reset the whole mood so we can start fresh next week.

Before schooling I did get day 10 of the TIAS done. It was a longer bit than most of them, but split rings with the needle are fairly easy so, it was still done quickly. Jane really is one crafty, inventive designer. The patterns she comes up with to create recognizable shapes are just so clever. It occurs to me just now that I didn't email my picture to Jane though...oops. Not that she needs my picture, there are countless folks participating.

After schooling it was back to the white thread just like the day before and the day before that. I did get the first piece done and I started on the second. I am going to be making some aesthetic changes with each piece. It won't be anything structural, but a different picot combination here and there, just to give each piece a little more of its own identity while keeping them clearly related. Again, I felt the need for a nice abstract picture to fill in the boring blogging.

As you already guessed today shall be the same routine again. After teaching the children, the white thread will come out and I'll work on that until the evening or until something else takes my attention. Although the way this week is going I don't have much hope for distraction. I really need to think on something new to do or make soon...yeah, I've got nothing. Here's hoping the Universe sends some sales, a project, or a muse, whichever the Universe prefers is fine with me. And now, because I felt like it, I will end the post with a lap cat picture.

If It Isn't One Thing

Another day of nesting and I'm cautiously optimistic this morning that I've past the worst of the cold. Yesterday it was a monster, changing its tactics constantly, keeping me off balance most of the day. My strategy was the same as before, nesting on the couch with a blanket of cats, tissue, cough drops and teas...oh and tatting, there was much tatting.

I started out the day making a custom length bracelet and followed that up with the sewing of a hundred crystals onto the motifs made the day before. I'm not exaggerating with the hundred number either, this piece really does have 100 crystals. Why I did that to myself, I couldn't really say, but I did. I do get into a nice rhythm with them, four to a motif and I use the same exact stitching with each one so it moves about as fast as it could.

This task took me almost all day, though I would have been finished earlier had I not injured myself. Wait, no this is a good one. I'm working on the very last motif on the couch as the youngest child is finishing dinner at the table. She screams 'Mommy!' in that 'something is really wrong' tone so I jump up to rescue her and hit my elbow on the very corner of the side table, hard. Not only did I have a solid lump, but I hit the nerve hard enough to crumble me to the floor. This is when I discover that the alarm was the cat had stolen a bag of kitty treats and was running off with it. It took an ice pack and a half an hour before I could effectively use my hand again as the nerve pain radiated up and down my arm. The lump is still there this morning and it's sore to the touch, but everything else is functioning normally now. Of course I couldn't crochet the evening away and I got to contemplate how important my hands are to my daily life, so strange evening.

So this morning I have that necklace to assemble and then its back to the tatting queue. I think I should be feeling a little better today so I hope that means I get a little more done and actually move from the couch a little more. I think I might finally be getting stir crazy.