Photo update & Secret Company revealed!

Now that I have finally had the intro business lunch with the necessary person and had a bunch of questions answered, I can share all the nifty neato things I've been working on during January!

In addition to working almost-full-time for Ben Franklin in Monroe and still teaching crochet and jewelry classes, I'm also now making handcrafted models for Clover! Clover produces many kinds of tools for crafting such as crochet, needle felting, hairpin lace and punch needle.

So now, after long avoidance (not because of lack of interest, but because it would be yet another "skill"; although really, it seems like a skills that was born from someone's husband or child trying to be helpful and dumping the entire laundry basket, wool sweaters and all, into the washing machine and setting it on Hot water [because you take Hot showers, not cold showers, to get clean, right?] and washing and drying everything together).... Where was I? Oh, right. But don't worry, I know there's a very long history of purposeful felting for very good reasons.

Anyway, after long avoidance, I have now been producing a good nmber of felted bags, as well as a couple of fine crocheted items. Here they are!









I think that's everything.... There is a new hairpin lace shawl currently in progress, and then it's on to some punch needle projects. I'm having the time of my life with all of this!

Jewelry pics to be posted soon, I promise!

New Year's Resolutions? Nah, I'll pass, thanks.

We've survived through the holiday season, although we're still dealing withone someone in the house being sick at all times. This has been passing around since Thanksgiving, when Hubby and I caught the sickness from my mother's fiance. Fortunately, we've missed the stomach flu variation, but being sick through my mother's wedding (and trying to do the flowers and some decs for it as well while being the Matron of honor) was really no treat, and the night we arrived in Portland (with 1 day before the wedding), Hubby was congested and feverish again. A few days after arriving at home, MIL is also now sick. Whee! Although we finally convinced the furnce people to come out and fix a squished duct underneath the house, so she is now getting heat in her bedroom and bathroom. Progress made on fixing the previous people's stupid mistakes...

But the wedding was beautiful and meaningful to the people who mattered most -- my mother and her new husband. After 26 years of being a single mother to an only daughter, she has now become mother to several more daughters, a son, and some grandchildren who are old enough to be supplying great-grandchildren at any moment! Not sure that part sunk in, but she was willing to joke about having grandchildren now, not just grandhorses and grandcats.

We also, of course, forgot the camera, so am waiting anxiously for pics from other family members. Will post those once they start arriving.

My New Year's Resolution was going to be to make it through a large amount of the stash. However, something better came along. Near the end of the year, smeone approached me while I was demoing at Ben Franklin and offered the possibility of creating models for a variety of things, including hairpin lace and punchneedle items! Needless to say, much excitement ensued, and I doubt my ear-to-ear grin vanished for the rest of the day.

We haven't actualy managed to get together to discuss a lot of details, but my first project is to provide a couple of felted purses. Guess what? I've been reading all about it, but have no meaningful amount of feltable yarn in the stash to provide anything more than small pouches and clutches!

On the bright side, other needed items include crocheted lace (large amount of crochet thread in the stash) and punchneedle designs (good amount of appropriate linen scraps from past costumes in the stash). Woohoo!

Not sure I can really talk about who these models are for, but once my contact comes back from TNNA, we'll talk about more of those details.

In other news, I've finished a very cute pair of cabled socks based on a Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern from Ravelry, but they're somewhere near the bottom of the laundry bin, so will post pics later. Hmm, I owe you lots of photos now...

Happy crafting in the New Year!

Anyone have a spare nose?

Well, the Thanksgiving-and-meet-the-fiance weekend went quite well. It was obvious before, but now it's pretty certain (as much as you can ever be) that Mom and Bruce will do very well together and continue to make each other very happy. YAY!

The downside is that a cold bug decided to ride along. Whether Bruce brought it with him, or if Hubby brought it from work, or I brought it from demoing at Ben Franklin, it doesn't really matter. Bruce was sick by Thursday evening, Allan was sick by Saturday evening, and I followed shortly after on Sunday.

The worst thing is is the William Shatner sneezes: Must. Sneeze. Now. Look into. The light. Don't. Move. It's com-- And then nothing but sinuses and eyes filling. All that energy put into a triviality. Well, maybe to be fair, we should call them Captain Kirk sneezes.

So here I sit, reading through my blog list, attempting to get enough energy for the day. Although, I do have to say that Yarn Harlot's toilet seat adventure (yeah, you kinda have to read it) definitely strikes home. We don't have the freaky European fixtures, just ultra-cheaply made, non-standard manufactured house fixtures. We're still not sure if it was the previous owners who did things this badly, or if it was already made that way. We've already had it proven on multiple occasions that the owners weren't terribly bright. But how smart is it to personally finance a house to someone without doing some kind of credit check?

At any rate, here I sit with Zoe curled up on my lap...


Although, now that I've taken the photo, she has gone, shocked that I would take a photo of her with bed-body (sort of like bed-head, but cats tend to get the full-body effect), returned to squawk for attention, and left again in search of a warm spot that doesn't take humiliating photos of her.

In the meantime, I have to decide whether to cancel my beadpoint class tonight -- yeah, another one with no sign-ups, despite the heavy interest during demos -- and perhaps when to go in to demo and gather people for the next Beadpoint and Crochet 101 classes.

On the bright side, I've finished the drop-stitch knit skirt and returned to a very old UFO, a creme-colored afghan with a two-tone green Celtic knot border, all done with tiny granny squares. I'm trying to assemble the granny squares as I go, mainly so that Hubby doesn't have to listen to me complain while trying to assemble the whole thing at once. Here's some the progress so far, to make up for not posting a picture of the skirt...

Later today, I might write up and post the pattern for the little knit Christmas bells, 'cause they're just so darn cute!

Progress

Congratulations! You made it through Monday. Not long until Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving will be very strange for hubby and I this year. My mother is getting married in January after being on her own for 25+ years. She's had a few dates here and there, but they were all jerks... until Bruce.

This is the cutest story: apparently my mom had a crush on him while they went to the same high school in West Linn, OR. After graduation, they each went their separate ways, married someone else, had chidren, etc. Neither mariage worked out, after differing amounts of time, and they met up at a reunion a few years ago. This past spring, Bruce started calling, coming to visit from his home in Oregon to my mom's in Yakima. And now, as of January 5, mom is marrying her high school sweetheart. Isn't that the best thing ever?

Here's where it applies to the knitting and the crocheting and the crafting stuff. My mom bought herself a red wedding dress. Yup. Not that I have a problem with that -- she's done the white dress thing already -- but it's customary for the maid/matron of honor (me, in this case) to wear the contrasting color that the bride has chosen, right? How does the matron of honor wear white without looking like the bride? Do you see the conundrum here?

So my wedding clothing will all be handmade. It will consist of a flowing ivory chemise/blouse (similar to one from the Pyramid Collection, except that it will actually fit someone who has arm muscles), a hairpin lace shawl, and a drop-stitch skirt (which looks a lot like hairpin lace).

The red shawl here is the one I've made for the wedding. I don't dare show the full thing in case anyone who doesn't need to know finds out about this blog. The light blue hairpin lace is a practice wrap I made after first getting the lace tool. What fun!

I'll get the skirt done shortly, but that picture may wait until the wedding anyway.

In other news, I'll have a couple more beadpoit patterns available soon. These will first be available for classes at Ben Franklin Crafts next month.

The large-scale chainmail jewelry kits are also available on my web site at http://www.horse-round.com/shop/maille.html. These kits have been a lot of fun to put together!
And now the best news of my year: the Tunisian Crochet Basketweave Sweater is finally available!
It's available from my web site (http://www.horse-round.com/shop/crochet_basketkim.html), but it will soon be available from Lulu.com as well: http://stores.lulu.com/horsenround. It's grinding away on creating the printable file as I write this. I'm beginning to think that going back and embedding my fonts might have been faster than uploading the original file after all.

At any rate, that's all the news for now. My hands are freezing, which would explain why there may be so many typos. The other reason is that there is a large orange cat parading back and forth across the desk and screaming at me when I try to warm my hands under her stomach. Of all the rude things!

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good meal!

Not another new blog!

Here we go with a brand new blog -- by a Brand New Blogger. In the horse world, they say Green and Green make Black and Blue. I guess I'm about to find out just how dangerous this might get! Fortunately, I have some "on-the-ground" experience, having been a technical writer and graphic designer for almost 15 years. It's just the blogging and yarnwear (yarnware?) that I'm new to.

I decided to start this blog to post little triumphs in life: new knit/crochet/whatever patterns and projects, equine events, and who knows what else. No promises on how often I can update. Life can get really insane, and I thought the year would be slowing down once the summer and show season was done. That has not happened this year!

To kick things off, here's my first attempt at posting a few pictures...

Snowdancer is my first horse, bought with jousting, trails, and general horseback fun in mind. She is a Belgian Draft, purchased at an auction. The other bidder was a meat buyer. (Oh, and the same week I bought her, I started dating the man who is now my husband of almost 5 years. How's that for tracking!)

For the past few years, she has been working on a new hobby -- vaulting!

My second horse, Tempest, was purchased as a yearling who had barely been handled, by all accounts. After several years of trust-building, she has turned into one of the barn's adored love bugs.

That 2nd picture was our 3rd ride, and the first going completely solo. (No holding the lead, no help on, etc.) And for scale, keep in mind that I'm definitely not a small woman -- 5'11 1/2", 34" inseam, etc.

Other than that, I don't have a lot of good photos to post of my crafting, although there are several pictures of things I have for sale on my web site, http://www.horse-round.com/:

Well, that's about it for today. I might rifle through a few other projects and take pictures of what's on the needle (knitting), hook (regular or Tunisian crocheting), fork (harpin lace), wheel/board (loom knitting) or any of the other UFOs. In the meantime, I'll figure out how to add links to some of my favorite blogs, pattern sites, friends' journals, etc.

I'm really good at making lists -- have you noticed?

Happy crafting!