Birds on Wires, socks, and other sundries

Bird from a Wire

I have a wonderful friend from high school named Jen.

She was always either drawing or had her nose stuck in a book.

<= This is Jen back in high school. I hope she doesn't kill me. (I could kill her... look at those gorgeous natural curls.)

One of my favorite memories of Jen was a Halloween party we threw together. She lived on a hobby farm in Minnesota, and we decided to clean out the granary and have the party there. We blasted the Doors, cleaned up and decorated. The party was great, but mostly I remember sweeping the floor with my friend who understood my need for classic rock.

We had lots of stuff in common. We both read like mad, loved art (although she was the more talented one when it came to the actual practice of drawing, painting, etc.) and shared a very developed talent for procrastination. (Too bad you couldn't letter in it.)

Jen is now a mother to one of the cutest kids in the world, and a mixed media artist with her own successful Etsy shop, a really excellent blog, and she just published her first book!

It goes on sale November 17. I am so proud of Jen. She has really done some amazing things with her art in the past few years.  Let's see:

Successful Etsy shop with over 168 sales? Check.

A really though-provoking blog with a great voice and interesting topics? Check.

A fabulous artistic sensibility? Check.

A published book? Check.

She has been working hard, being persistent, and turning out really beautiful things. I am glad to claim her as a friend and wish her many successes in the future!

Go pre-order her book today! You'll be glad you did.

Socks


I finished KAK's sock last weekend and I was so proud! I made him don them and pose for pictures immediately.

And while he was lovingly wiggling his toes in the toasty comfort a dropped stitch in the toe ran all the way back down the top of his foot. I was mortified. I was crushed.

I was pissed beyond belief.

I undid the Kitchener stitch graft on the toe (which is NOT easy, especially the fumbling one I made), and worked back to ladder up the dropped stitch with a crochet hook. (And now it looks a little rough and bumpy.) I sewed the toe back up and proceeded to yank on it every which way to make sure the stitches were securely fastened before giving them back to him. And all is well in sock land, although I feel my confidence in the Kitchener Stitch to be less that magnificent.

But undaunted, I cast on another sock immediately. This time I am making a pair for myself out of some amazing Madeleine Tosh sock yarn in Robin's Egg. My heart does a skip every time I look at the color. I am just about ready to start the heel flap.

The sock pattern I am using is from an awesome book on knitting socks that I highly recommend. Getting Started Knitting Socks by Ann Budd. I think I bought it at Joann's or Michael's last winter and I love it. Excellent pictures demonstrate steps, and the directions are clear and easy to follow. And after you get the basics she has several pages of stitch patterns to make your socks even more pretty!

I think I might just knit socks for the rest of my life. Another convert has crossed to the dark side. At least everyone's feet are warm.

A Craft Room of One's Own
When we moved into our house three years ago (we're renting, but it's still a house) my husband graciously allowed the extra bedroom to be a craft room for me. (Of which he reminds me. Constantly.) I bought an old unmatched dining room table at a secondhand shop for a workspace, plus I have a couch, and desk where I alternately set my computer or sewing machine.

But this room has not been treated well. Yes, I love having a space for all my craft supplies, but having a full-time job does not let me use the room as I would like. Most often the room becomes a dumping ground for all the "stuff" we don't know what else to do with. Papers, books, the cooler, Christmas cookie tins, odds and ends, and my parents have all been stashed in there at one time or another until it isn't a craft room anymore.

It's a crap room.

When I began this blog it was to really help me focus on one art form for a year to help me stop bouncing from one media to another. I've always needed focus and the crap room was only feeding the fire. I would try to pick up but be distracted by this gizmo or that ball of yarn or that pretty paper or that colorful fabric. My head would swim and I would be wanting to work with them all at once.

In the past few months I've been thinking about what crafts I really like to do, which ones I do well, and perhaps which ones I might want to let go. And it hasn't been too hard to winnow the wheat from the chaff. So last weekend I had a day to myself on Saturday (KAK was at work), so I decided to start overhauling.

Here is what I was starting with:

Here is the wheat I decided to keep:
My knitting supplies (Well, duh...)
My mosaic supplies (Hemmed and hawed over that one, but I do love doing it, just haven't had the time.)
My needlework supplies (Really not that much there, and those dishtowels I wanted to embroider with saucy mottoes is still on my to-do list.)
My fabric (Don't have that much anyway. Just one plastic bin full.
My sewing machine (Because it really comes in handy, and I make one hell of a shower curtain.)

And here is the chaff I decided to get rid of:
My stamps (As much as I admit they were fun, they take up a lot of room and I have barely used them since I moved to Florida. My mom can give them a good home and I can get visitation rights even if she has sole custody.)
My card making supplies (Ditto.)
My scrapbooking supplies (Ditto.)

In all, I have three boxes of things going to my mother (who isn't nearly as thrilled about it as my father is.) and two boxes of miscellaneous items going to the Goodwill.

I realize that some purging was wise, but I don't know if I'm done yet. I guess I'll have to live with it (and actually in it) for a while to know if I need to go further. I hope it will help my focus.

I'll post pictures of the re-organized room when I get a daylight opportunity to take some photos. It doesn't look too much different to the untrained eye, but I know what I'm looking at.

(That didn't sound nearly as convincing as I had planned.)