Color Me Crafty

Well, it’s been exciting around here, and not necessarily in a good way.

I’ve been helping out with my cousins (and their cousins) a lot. My by-marriage-not-blood aunt’s brother-in-law was on a business trip and collapsed while out for a run. When he was brought to the hospital he was pronounced dead. Thankfully, my aunt’s sister and her two children, both under two years old, were here visiting her parents, so she had her family as support. It was hard on everyone from that branch of the family simply because everything was up in the air. For the past few weeks, I’ve been an emergency babysitter for the family. I absolutely love the kids and am starting to remember how to understand toddlers, but I just wish it had been under happier circumstances.

Because of this, I haven’t left the house much for fear that they might need help and not be able to reach me. And because of that, I’ve gotten a lot of knitting done!

My ball winder came and it has saved my life. I wound all my skeins into pretty little cakes that play nicely with each other. I’m slowly but surely knitting away at the sock yarn blanket. It’s bigger now, but I don’t have any pictures to show for all my work on it.

I also think I’m getting addicted to lace knitting, especially shawls. I started the Aestlight Shawl this past Sunday and am already on the edging. It’s smaller than I would have liked but I really enjoy this pattern and am already planning another. Oh, and the yarn is Malabrigo Sock, so it’s cozycozycozy.

I’ve also been given the task of cataloging the family heirlooms. My grandmother sent a big box of family jewelry home with us a few days ago, all with little notes from my great-aunt explaining the history of the pieces. The girls of the family went through the box and picked out what we wanted, but some of the notes didn’t seem to match up. Mom and I started looking at some of the jewelry that she already had and realized that some of the notes belonged with her stuff. So a few days ago, I built a light box (yay!), grabbed the jewelry, and took pictures of all of them. And now they’re all up on flickr with their notes and who owns them in the descriptions. I feel so accomplished! Some of my favorite pictures:

Top Left is a bit of a mystery, but we think it might be a brooch that was given out at Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.
Top right is half of a belt buckle from the Boxer Rebellion that’s been made into a brooch.
Middle Left is a Georg Jensen brooch from the ’50s. It’s in severe need of a good polishing
Middle Right is a complete mystery, but I’m obsessed with the stone in the middle.
Bottom Left is a pocket watch. The clock face pushes down into the base and the whole thing is smaller than a box of matches.
Bottom Right is a bracelet that is made of city charms from France when my great-great-great? uncle was stationed there with the Navy.

Epic FAIL as a blogger. It’s been what? over a year? Something like that. I feel terribly neglectful toward Color Me Crafty, but my first year at school was very time-consuming and my family insisted on having near-weekly updates from me on another blog. With schoolwork, theatre work, and a blog to update about my daily life, CMC got pushed into a corner.I’m back, though, and hopefully I’ll be better at this whole blogging thing this go-round!

Let’s see… No projects right now. I made the terrible mistake of winding all my yarn into skeins and then ordering a ball winder. Well, the ball winder is on its way and I really don’t want to hand-wind any cakes anymore. What does that mean? It means that I’ve been checking the tracking number for my order obsessively. My ball winder is currently in Southhaven, Mississippi and is supposed to come home on the 25th.

As soon as my new toy arrives, I’ll start knitting again and get some pictures up. I’m thinking about making a light box for photography so that I don’t have to keep using a pillow or waiting until it’s overcast-ish outside.

Craftily,
Mini

Alright, so looking back I realized that it’s been Too Long since I posted any pictures.  A lot has happened since then.

I’ve finished my second sweater, my Lace Ribbon Scarf, and one sock out of a pair.  I’ve also received my spinning kit and roving.  I’ve spun up two of my practice rovings and am growing more confident as I go.

Now, I’ll warn you that my camera’s batteries are being a bit resistant, so these pics are taken with my iCamera on my MacBook.  Forgive the fuzziness, please!

Without further ado, the pictures in the fabulous new WordPress Gallery!

I really like the gallery!  I’ve always struggled with trying to balance pictures of my projects with text.  This is perfect!

And now it’s time for me to get some sleep.  It’s been a long week and I’m exhausted.  Next week’s going to be just as long, if not longer.  And I won’t be able to knit as much.

More later!

So, I’m a member of the infamous Lazy, Stupid, and Godless group on Ravelry.  It’s known to the outside as a misbehaving, foul-language-using, and all-around rabble-rousing group of people.  Within the group though, it’s a pretty closeknit (no pun intended) group of people who run to the aid of one member when he or she is struggling.

Now, one of our members is committing herself to a hardcore diet to get in shape, so as a show of solidarity, LSG Lent was created.  Everyone in the group who wants to is giving something up or taking something on for the duration of the diet.  I’ve joined up, have posted on the thread, and am posting here to make sure I don’t even think about forgetting.

So keep me in line if you see me slipping!

Until I leave for school, I will get 30 minutes of exercise daily, be it walking around town, walking on the treadmill, doing yoga, whatever.  Once I’m at school, if I want a snack, I’m going to walk myself to Whole Foods and get me some fruits/veggies to munch on.  I WILL NOT buy crappy, processed snack foods from the convenience store because those are terrible for me.  Throughout this whole thing, I will get back to drinking water because I feel so much better when I’ve had enough water and am not dehydrated.

Here’s to reclaiming healthy living.  If you want to join up, and by no means do you have to, come on over to Lazy, Stupid, and Godless, and check out the LSG Lent thread.  It should be pretty close to the top.

Now, I’ve got to go, because I’m walking to the Farmers’ Market!

Well, crap.  I’ve been thinking about trying out spinning for a while.  It’s almost like magic, taking fiber from an animal, twisting it, knitting it, and then wearing it.  Ingenious really.  Well, Molly (aka nerdclub2000 on Ravelry) posted some lovely roving in her Etsy and I started lusting after it immediately.

So I started thinking… how can I get this roving and use it?  Well, I’d need a spindle.  And some roving to practice on.  And when I started looking at all the possibilities, I wanted to spin even more.

I took into consideration all the possibilities that I could get and finally settled on this starter kit from Maine Woods Yarn & Fiber and this roving from Nerdclub2000.  $42.30 total.  I could get that.  It’s not that much.  Plus, I just got paid!  Now, let’s convince Mom that I should get it.

Things went well up until that conversation.  The first time I brought it up, her response was very unresponsive.  She was in clean-the-house mode, even though she wasn’t cleaning the house at the moment I brought it up (I know better than that!).  So I waited a day and asked again.  And I was so overcome with the want of spinning supplies that I agreed to get 15 minutes of “dedicated exercise” every day until I leave for school.

She’s sneaky, that mother of mine.  Oh, well.  I’m going to get to spin!

Well, it’s that time again.  My family and I are trekking halfway across the country for our summer vacation.  What am I doing while we travel?  Knitting of course!

I was worried a little towards the end of last week since I had placed a Knit Picks order for a bundle of yarn.  I was hoping and praying that it would get to the house before we left.  It arrived super-early so I was able to start on a couple new projects.

1. Lace Ribbon Scarf from Knitty: Yep, I’m jumping on the bandwagon and I must say, this pattern is awesome.  I’m knitting it up in Gloss sockweight and it’s looking gorgeous. I’d love to use the same stitch pattern as a shrug.  I think it’d be very pretty in a white.

2. Short-Sleeve Cable Vest: I was originally going to knit Kepler, a pullover with Celtic knots on the waist and sleeves, but found a pattern I liked better for a short-sleeved cable pullover.  I’m swatching right now and am already two needle sizes up!

3. Clessidra socks:  I’ll be knitting these knee socks up for Knitting Olympics this August.  I’ve joined up on Team Teen and I hope we’ll all be successful!  I still have to swatch for these, but I’m really excited about working on these.

I don’t have much else to say, so I’ll be signing off now.