needle felting

So for my bday I got some Alamitos Bay gift cards, and I went down there..bought some yarn, and some needle felting tools - just for kicks. Then I was talking to a coworker, who ordered a coin purse for her sister with "princess" embroidered on one side, and a crown on the other and I had an epiphany for how I would do the crown! Here I come, needle felting!
woohoo.
I finished a pair of socks yesterday - a project that has been half done for about 3 years. Man. They're cute. I also have a child sized scarf I am almost done with - I think I want to weave some other colors through the white yarn. I am also working on a purple bag - which I plan on felting and then incorporating needle felting and beading into. Then there's NV's sister's gift, Reggie's kufi, and the other half to the manos del uruguay pair of fingerless gloves.

Good night for projects.
Oooh - also a good night for making things with my new Magic Bullet - I made guacamole and a smoothie yesterday and am excited to make more. I wish I was more creative - all I can think of is throwing in fruit. Any ideas for fancy blending, anyone?

it feels like fall!

Oh my gosh, this morning it feels like fall. I need to knit myself some fingerless gloves so I can sit in my freezing office at work and actually type. I love mornings like this morning - I woke up so warm and in blanket-nest, and there was pastel sunshine like only fall can have, and I knew as soon as I got out of bed it'd be chilly, but I got to snooze for ten minutes and just scrunch down in the warm and sunshine.

Last night (this morning, technically) around 1:00am Adam and I went running again - this time in the park. We were visited by all three coyotes again - they are getting incredibly bold. Adam now runs with a large stick just in case. I tried for a while, but it's annoying, so I gave up any pretense of badassedness.

We did a 3 minute run then a 5 minute run, twice. Adam says he feels improvement, but I just feel tired. I guess mentally there is an improvement - five minutes does not seem like the end of the world the way it felt the first time we did this set. We made the mistake of looking ahead to next week - the first day are 3 5 minute runs, then there are two 8 minute runs, and then 1 TWENTY MINUTE RUN. Yikes. I am afraid, but also looking forward to the challenge. I am liking the idea of being able to just run and run, even if I am cursing under my breath while we do it.

My coworker just came in while I was writing this and put in an order for an African Kufi for black history month. I am excited. He's been such a huge supporter of my work - has bought 1 birthday present and 3 christmas presents so far from me.

I now need to make a to do list for all my orders:

1. Finish JW's bag - which means

going to the fabric store and buying nice black liner, sewing liner

2. Wrapping JW's bag, SC's scarf and KG's scarf in christmas wrapping

3. Wrapping EL's picture frame in christmas wrapping

4. Take a photo of JW's bag to put on alchemy

5. Take a picture of all of them wrapped for appreciation pictures

6. Make Alex's Andrea's scarf - finish by Nov. 12th!! (I am so proud of this scarf - I taught myself how to do intarsia on this one. I had a picture of a hat to go by, and it's WORKING. It's just going slower than I'd like.)

7. Make Noemi's sister's coin purse with a crown (since she's a "princess") in pink, black, and gold.

8. Finish the 5 bags and 4 makeup bags I have in progress (buy liner, sew liner, attach handles, put in zippers, etc.)

9. List them!

10. Voila.

Meanwhile, I have an abnormal psychology class I NEED to catch up on today, (quiz tomorrow), work, and dishes like you wouldn't believe. Also - my cabbage and lettuce is getting eaten by something and I want it to stop. My tomatoes and strawberries are doing good, but I am afraid for the rest of my garden.

Tomorrow evening Amber will be coming over to knit with me, so I hope to get a lot of Alex's scarf done then.

I have so many things I want to do that I can't decide so I am running around in circles it feels like! Guess it's time to quit dreaming about the things I will do when I get home and get to work.

cold fingers!

Oh my I need to make myself some fingerless gloves. It's about 85 degrees outside, but in my office, it's FREEEZING.

I finished attaching the handle to JW's custom bag - it's spiffy. Made me realize how much I really love the look of BIG bags. I'll do the lining this week and get some wrapping paper to package it and the scarves up for R.

Another coworker bought a frame from me yesterday - also need to wrap that up with Christmas paper for him. I know I keep saying this, but I really need to take better photos of the frames!

Also - if anyone out there has any old art history textbooks, I'd love them! I need the pictures.

Tonight I want to start on making my personal christmas cards. I was making the list of people-to-send-to and I realized I have many more than I thought, so I should start NOW.

My garden is sort of hit and miss. The tomatoes and strawberries look excellent, and some of the cabbage seems to be alright. One or two planters of the romaine lettuce are growing growing growing, but everything else seems a little frail. I am so bummed. I had really hoped to have a ton of squash and stuff. Maybe it needs time. Maybe it needs...fertilizer of some sort? Is that cheating? I should do some research.

However, not now! Now I leave from work, go home, make sure my house hasn't exploded (Adam exchanged dryers today), work on xmas cards, go to karate, go out to eat with karate, come home, read psychology textbook, run, sleep. sleep. sleep. lather. rinse. repeat.

I am incredibly tired tonight - just from a sheer lack of sleep. A coworker bought 2 scarves from me, which is amazing, wonderful, superb, yay! I also did the crochet portion of a new granny square bag. I have two others that I have to attach handles to and sew linings for. I'd really love to get to a fabric store and buy some zippers to try to make little coin purse wallet things.

I downloaded the etsy sellers spreadsheet, but it's not quite working for me. They have awfully elaborate excel formulas and I'm afraid to alter anything in case it affects something else. I might go old fashioned, and do it by hand. My aunt has one of my favorite family heirlooms - I want to say it was my great grandfather's - it's a giant ledger from his grocery store...and this tiny, fragile pencil spiderweb script for thousands of pages reads "eggs...mrs matherson... 25 cents. bread...mrs johans...15 cents.." etc. It's amazing. One day my great great grandkid is going to open up my archaic excel spreadsheet... hardeeharhar.

tomorrow I will delve deeply into the etsybloggers team site and figure out what I need to do to get more involved! I am having a hard time keeping track. I am like this at work lately, too. There are things I just think "okay, tomorrow" and put them off each day. No more ostriching! I am gonna do it!

But right now - I am going to fold some laundry, then get to bed!

delivered the black granny square bag with red flower today. I was really proud of the lining I sewed for it. It was classssy. Today I also sold the Raphael pencil holder! yay. I really like the items I have made from famous paintings, but they are not showcased well in my shop. At some point I would like to retake photos of the picture frames where they are up on a bookshelf, or somewhere looking like picture frames.

quick post for me tonight. I have a lot of crocheting to do. I have the pink granny square bag to work on - I am going to make it a "granny rectangle" bag instead, because the person who ordered it said they want it that way...so now I get to make up the pattern for that, which will be fun. Then I get to try to recreate it for the other side. ;)

Also for the purple granny square bag, I need to sew the lining. I think I am going to do a light yellow lining, I just need to sew it!

yay!

plus, the weather here is getting collllder, finally - I hear it is going to rain this weekend. EXCITED.

oh, I keep forgetting - the person who bought the red flower bag, suggested I make little coin purses out of small granny squares, and put a zipper in it. She said if I start making those she'd buy one. Also, a coworker wants me to make a dog sweater. Plus, I have the three christmas gift orders from RB. Gotta get crackalackin.