You Should Be Jealous of All My Shiny New Things

You really should.  Okay, let's get started here . . .

First, my engagement ring.  It's totally an owl.  Like, a giant rhinestone owl head.  You may think I'm lying but you can see it in the picture right there.  And that's my hand, completely unlike any other hand so now you must know I'm telling the truth.  At first I was skeptical, but the more I thought about it and wore the ring around the more I realized how perfect it is.  He looks kind of fierce but I think he's just protecting my honor in case Tim isn't around.  Also, if you angle his head up he looks really sweet.  I won't tell you what Tim paid for him but in Barnes and Noble paycheck terms after taxes it equals out to about 3 months salary.

I also like him because he matches the white tiger t-shirt I found at the Goodwill today.  $2!!  I think Rilke-cat was jealous because I've been wearing it for about 2 hours and it already has black cat hair all over it.

And on to . . .

Okay, this isn't quite "new".  I've had it for about a month but I can't believe I haven't blogged about yet because it's super awesome.  Gaze upon the amazing vintage table I found on Craigslist for $30.  $30!!!!!  I know that's a lot of exclamation marks but we saw basically the same table at a vintage store for $200!!  It's got a very 50s red and white painted tin top and a cute little drawer which I haven't decided what to put in yet.

I've tried to accessorize it with complementary colors like turquoise and yellow.  I've made myself a bright little cozy spot in the kitchen.  It's a great little spot to use the laptop because I'm not tempted to watch an entire season of "Say Yes to the Dress" on Netflix. 

I also put my Rilke painting up there because the colors match so well with those cute Target canisters my Mom got on clearance for like $3.  Aside: (Kathleen Thompson, if you're reading this, that glass juicer in the middle is for you so you better not have one already!)

Lastly, a big shiny thing . . .

We bought a new car!  Exciting and scary at the same time!  Monthly payments=Scary.  Operating vehicle excellent for scavenger hunting=Exciting!  Thanks to my Uncle Rick who bled the salesman dry and squeezed every last bit of profit from that car to get us a better deal.  I think it's so cute.  It's a Kia Rondo.  I just used Wikipedia to look up the word "Rondo" and it turns out its a musical term which is appropriate since we'll mostly be towing instruments in its spacious back seat/trunk.  Amazingly it seat like 7 or 8 people if you squeeze in real close and I'm pretty sure my Mom plans on every inch of that space being filled with screaming grandchildren.  We were thinking more of vintage furniture and guitar amps.

Okay, that's all for now.  Try not to be too envious of all my great stuff.  I know it's hard.

What?! and Seriously?! and Another Contest

Big news, big news people.  This has nothing to do with crafting really but it's such big news I have to share it.  I'm engaged!  Like, getting married engaged.  I've felt all butterfly-y and girl-like since Tim proposed on Friday.  Yep, the old man even got down on one knee.  Who knew my life would become a Rob Reiner movie from the mid- 1980s?  I don't know, but I'm feeling pretty good right now.


And yes, this is definitely the wedding dress I will be wearing.  Definitely.  I do like those Christmas lights.  Plus, I think the lace top really adds to the whole effect.  Plus, I like the idea of the train incorporating either a battery pack or a green power chord trailing off the back.  Classy.


Okay, onto the contest which I'm completely making up as I write this.  I'll start by telling you about the prize to give myself more time to think about it.  My friend Kathleen at Lark Books sent me this awesome volume called Craft Corps by Vickie Howell.  If you're involved in the crafting community, whether you buy or sell crafts online, tour regional craft fairs, or just have a local quilting group that you love, you should definitely check out this book.  It's a really fascinating view into the lives and techniques of other crafters as well as the crafting community as a whole.  And I'm giving you the opportunity to get a copy for FREE.  FREE, I tell you!






Here's the thing I thought up in the last 3 minutes:

Think of the most creative and non-tortuous way we can use our cat (pictured) in our wedding.  Whoever has the best idea will get a FREE, FREE I say, copy of this book.  And by FREE I mean that I will send you this book without you having to pay a dime, even for shipping.  I'm including shipping!  Or, I could just hand it to you when I see you because if you're reading this I probably know you.  I will decide whose is the most creative because as you know, I am an authority on such things.  Okay, go be creative.  Go!

Minor Works of Art

Okay, so I'm not sure beauty like this needs an explanation, but if you insist, these are the results of Tim and I doing "blind" portraits of each other while manning the Prairie Dog Inc. booth at The Big Crafty in Asheville, NC.  I have to say, I think there's a kind of ridiculous awesome-ness about these portraits that I can't put into words.  Also, I think Tim's hair is perfect.

In other beyond really nerdy news, I did a portrait of my cat to hang up in the kitchen.  Let me say though, Tim requested this portrait.  It was NOT my idea.  And our friend Jesse says that doing a portrait of your cat is only worrisome if you're single, although I think that's kind of unfair.  Single people should be able to enjoy the thrill and sense of accomplishment that comes from painting a larger-than-life-sized portrait of your pet(s).

Lastly, here's a fourth of July fireworks picture I took.  Getting on top of the roof to watch the fireworks at the park nearby= good idea.  Giving out roman candles to everyone on the roof to shoot out before instructing them NOT to point them at trees and/or people= bad idea.  So, in short, don't do that.

Small Harvest

As you may know from previous blogs Tim and I are VERY amateur gardeners.  For the past couple of years we've tried our hand at growing our own veggies in a little box garden in the backyard with mixed success.  For some reason we can only seem to get large amounts of the things Tim likes.  Hmmm.  It feels pretty good to go outside and pick your own food and then cook it up yourself.  It's cheap and environmentally friendly too!  Yeah, we're pretty much saving the planet with our backyard garden.  Maybe we can use our compost to plug up the oil leak in the Gulf.


We've been trying to be a lot more home-made these days.  Recently Tim has endeavored to make his own beer, a venture that's been a lot more successful than I ever expected it to be.  He looks like a some sort of warlock in the kitchen with his giant pot of hops and whatnot.  Oh, and it stinks something awful in process, but if he's happy, I'm happy, and he's brewed enough beer to keep him happy for a long time.













Tomatoes!  Aren't they pretty?











These little guys have been breeding like crazy all over Athens, and they seem to be centered in our backyard.  They're cool to look at but bad for a little fledgling garden.

Growth, Decay, and Rock n' Roll Marching Bands

Many, many things going on of late. I'm just going to bunch them all together here and hope it doesn't sound too rambling.

Last week we trekked my little car down to Florida for the second annual Harvest of Hope Festival. I'm happy to report that there was a noticeable drop in the number of gutter punks roving the fairgrounds this year.  Much less smelly, even with the addition of the muddy ground.  Harvest of Hope is a great organization that raises money for the families of migrant workers.  We saw some great bands this time around, including The Mountain Goats, Billy Bragg, and Broken Social Scene.  One of the best acts we saw was a band from Chicago called Mucca Pazza, a sort of rag tag punk rock marching band.  They were awesome and amazingly well-arranged for having about 20 members dancing around the stage with horns, pom-poms, and guitars.  You should check out their music but don't miss a live show if you can catch it.

On the seven hour car ride back to Athens we drove the back-roads and meandered around some old Southern towns.  It was a bit sad to see the downtowns with all the empty buildings.  Tim and I are planning on moving in the next year and opening our own store in some unknown place.  All the empty storefronts made me feel both nervous and excited to get started.  It's like when you begin a big project and the task seems insurmountable but you can see a glimmer of the ultimate results.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . . we've started once again planting our little garden.  I'm afraid we're not very attentive gardeners, but I'm determined that this year we'll get more than just a handful of beans and tomatoes from our harvest.  I spent the day digging up the soil, planting seeds, and redesigning our compost so we don't lose so much to little scavengers.  As I was digging through the compost I came upon a big colony of earth worms.  I love those little guys.  They're so simple and singular.

Cat in a basket . . .

                



                                              

Felt-Up #2

Success! Sort of. Ok, maybe not success per se, but better than last time, right? Right. I knew you'd agree with me. I actually think the gray looks rather sophisticated. And, although the lace pattern didn't show up as visibly as maybe I was planning, I think it adds a nice textural flare. Blah blah blah.



Anyway, I sent it to Detroit so you Detroiters should go to City Bird and buy it. All of you buy it!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the hilarious train of badly felted items is chugging along and some pretty awful things are beginning to accumulate around my house. For example, this "hat" which resembles something like a tea cozy and I didn't even use a pattern for, thank you very much! I think I'd better just toss it, but if growing up during the great depression taught me anything, it was to eat anything I can find and don't throw anything away. So, any suggestions for what I should do with this?



Here's what I've come up with: pillow, cat saddle. Okay, that's it.



I've actually started to enjoy getting ideas from other people and using them as my own, so anything you guys could come up with would be much appreciated.


Cat stare:

New Year, New Blog, New Unnecessary Pictures of My Cat

Well, what can I say? I've made blogging my New Year's resolution and already it's taken me until almost midnight at the end of the first week of the year to even BEGIN accomplishing my goal of posting regularly. But you know, I feel good. This is gonna happen.

I'm like one of those plucky heroines in movies who leads a listlessly dull life until something sparks her to become ambitious and confident, and then she moves to New York or Paris or something and becomes a top pastry chef or frees someone wrongfully imprisoned or finds the cure for a rare disease. Ok, actually I'm not that person at all. I'm just blogging and crafting over here, there's no reason to get carried away. But, still, I'm confident that I'll cure Lupus by the end of the year.Also, I'm going to create some really awesome felted things. I got this book for free because they were throwing it away at day job (Barnes and Noble) and have now become fascinated with the idea of putting nuts or marbles into wool, rubber-banding them securely and felting the heck out of it. It sounds insane but this book makes it seem like a REALLY good idea. I'm not finished with the scarf I'm going to try it on and I have to be sure it's still long enough to be a scarf after I felt it so I have to make it extra long. If it turns out well I think I'll send it to Detroit where I'm selling some things at City Bird. So, if you live in Detroit you may one day have the opportunity to BUY one of these crazy experiments of mine.

I think I also may try to knit an actual garment, like a little sweater or something. This idea terrifies me. I'm imagining spending hours and days and weeks sweating over this project only to end up with a useless mass of knotted yarn only suitable for a toddler to suck on. But I feel it's a challenge I must take on if I'm to call myself a knitter.

Ok, here's the picture of my cat as promised. I got a light box for Christmas to photograph crafts to put up in the shop. I unfolded the structure and went into the other room to get the camera. I came back to find Rilke(cat) looking at me curiously from inside the tent. She loves things like this. Every time I do laundry she ends up pulling the basket over herself. Anyway, when she would sit still I got some pretty cute shots. Here's one:
Rilke says Happy New Year and demands adoration for her photogenic adorable-ness.

The Long Wait Part 2

So, you don't have to tell me that it's been a ridiculously long time since I updated my blog, though some of you already have. The good news is that when I wait this long I usually have more to say and more pictures to show you. I'll start with the more recent . . .

This past Sunday we awoke (in the early afternoon) to find gobs of snow on the ground and still more spilling from the sky. A week earlier we were in Detroit for my lovely sister's birthday and saw snow there, but any snow at all is a rare sight in Georgia and this was a positive blanket. Being from the Midwest (El Kansas, to be precise) I've seen my share of snow, but Tim (the bf) and basically everyone I know down here is from the South. Tim didn't get to see snow until he was 17! He just kept walking around saying, "This is blowing my mind!" To the left you'll see the slightly retarded but endearingly lovable snowman we made.

All in all, I'd say we got about a foot of snow. In the north this wouldn't be such a great big deal and people would pretty much go about their normal lives. But this is the South, meaning two things: 1) No snow plows or salt trucks, and 2) No one realizes the importance of cutting down dead trees. We were most effected by the latter, as our street became strewn with fallen limbs, and one especially monstrous tree that fell across the entire road and took out the electricity on our block. We survived by candlelight for about 36 hours until about midnight on the second day, when I had just finished a candlelit shower (luckily our hot water heater is gas) and flipped the wall switch out of habit, only to find that our electricity had miraculously been restored. I definitely don't think I could have survived before the late 1800s without complaining a lot.

Though the snow was a bit inconvenient, I think overall it was a nice change from the routine.

In other news, I have been a total bum about my Etsy shop which I guess isn't really news so much as lack of news. I have all these new ideas for really cute pillows with some embroidery, but I can't get myself motivated. So, I've decided that today is the day. I finally posted my first new item in a while. It's a cute lacy little scarf. I love this goldish mustard color a lot. I think because it looks kind of vintage. Also, it makes me want to wear shirts with poofy sleeves. Don't ask me why. This me trying to look all fashion-y and stuff. That's not what I really look like though.

Tomorrow we'll be heading down to Florida for the Harvest of Hope Music Festival. We'll only be spectating, not participating so hopefully it will be a stress-free weekend with some good music. We'll also be camping which is always both fun and irritating. Like I said, I like modern conveniences. I like to think I can be a little rough and tumble when I need to be though.

Thanks to anyone who has been willing to wait for months to read a new blog post. I hope you weren't holding your breath.


This is our cat Rilke, looking positively pissed that we've decided to let here experience snow.

The Trappings of Cold(er) Weather

Back blogging again. It's been a while now and the weather is getting colder. Our new house seems to have drafts in all the appropriate places, inlcuding our bedroom. We've been keeping warm by drinking lots of hot chocolate, playing music, and listening to our friends play music. Not to mention, of course, a whole lot of knitting.
I've become rather addicted to Lion Brand Thick and Quick yarn because it's so big and fluffy, and I love the bright solid colors. I feel like this may be a habit I need to grow out of, as most of my recent knitting projects revolve around this yarn, and I'm afraid the effect will get old. Neverless, I've used it to create some new items for the shop, some which I'll show here . . .

I just posted this hat today. It came out looking a lot more boy-ish than I had anticipated, but that's all right since boyish-ness isn't exactly prevalent in my shop, except of course for the adorable beardie men who are really more for lover's of beards than beards themselves. The ornaments are back, and the pins are always available.


People don't seem to be in much of a buying mood these days (hmm, I wonder why?) and the vibe over at Etsy has been decidedly down-hearted. I'm coping by trying to wear out my knitting needles and use every scrap of yarn and fiber I have in the house before buying new supplies.
Despite somewhat desperate times the changing seasons puts me in the mood to be productive and not to whine too much. Whine a little, just not too much.

We've been enjoying our weekend with our friends from the band "The Accident that Led Me to the World". They have beautiful harmonies and a very melodic acoustic sound. Check them out. They had some unfortunate luck with their van breaking down . . . twice. I'm sure they could use some encouragement, and some CD sales to help them get back home. They played a great show in our living room while we ate caramel apples with our friends. All lovely cold weather activities. Not that it has to be cold outside to do any of things, but it's probably better if it is. There's too much to write about to cover it all in one post so I'll just leave you with a few more pictures.


This is an example of a new kind of neck warmer I've been working on. The lace-up kind. They haven't sold yet, but we'll see how it goes closer to Christmas.



And this is my cat, Rilke.

Cotton and Wool

The weather is getting warmer and that only means one thing for knitters: cotton. Beautiful, soft, reliable, pure cotton. It's almost impossible to make a hat or mittens out of cotton because of it's notorious lack of stretchability. Also, you really wouldn't want to because it's not all that warm. However, it's perfect for spring and summer shawls, cardigans, loose sweater, and especially bags. I'm knitting this one with some beautiful Egyptian cotton hand-dyed by this lovely company in Chile. Only most of one side is done, but hopefully it will be as beautiful as the yarn itself.




Also, in light of the sad but undeniable fact that it is no longer winter, I must put my creative efforts toward something other than knitting. So, I've started making some felted necklaces and stuff. I started out by knitting things out of wool, but then started adding needle felted elements as well. Needle felting is very fun if you remember not to stab yourself too much. The way it works is almost like magic. You don't really fell like you're doing anything, and then, poof, you have a necklace, or a pendant, or a full grown koala bear (this can really happen!). It's pretty great.


In other crafty news, Prairie Dog Inc (www.prairiedog.etsy.com) will be selling her wares (okay, I'LL be selling MY wares) at the Athens Indie Craftstravaganzaa in Athens, GA on May 10. So, if you're in Athens, or near Athens you should come and check out all of our awesome local crafty people and their oodles of talent.

Oh, and here's a picture of my cat Rilke just because . . .