Er . . . Skull Makeover, I guess you’d say

Some ten or twelve years ago, I picked up a ceramic skull bead from a hippie store.  It was weirdly painted, with big blue clown-like triangles over the eyes and too many drawn-on cracks and crevices.  Still, this was before shopping on the World Wide Web (as this scary new thing was commonly called then) really caught on, so it was the best skull I could find.  And boy, I really liked skulls then.

I ended up painting over most of the unnecessary details, popping in two red rhinestones for eyes, and centering it on a string of black glass beads:

Then I wore it once to a New Year’s party (of all things!) and promptly forgot all about it until last week, when I fished it out of one of my jars of jewelry parts, broken bits, orphaned earrings, and unsorted beads.  Because I was on a Dia de los Muertos kick, I took the necklace apart, repainted the skull with some Testors paint I had lying around,  and restrung it.  This time, I chose a colorful flower design, using the basic instructions found here.  This is what I ended up with:

I’d like to say it was a lot of fun, but I’ll be honest:  I’m in my mid-thirties now, and I’ve COMPLETELY lost my patience for seed bead work.  This is most likely the last such project I’ll ever do with teeny-tiny beads and a needle the size of a fine wire.  Believe me, I used to do a lot of them. Hmm . . . perhaps all those little flowers make a fitting memorial to my seed days  . . .

Caron Yarn Giveaway

I’m not trying to be a shill here, but if anyone’s a Caron fan, there’s a giveaway of their awesome Country yarn going on right now. You can get a free skein of the color of their choice–still, free yarn, eh?  So if  you have three Caron Simply Soft labels and a receipt, head on over here for details.

Feliz Dia de los Muertos!

Got the skull beads for this bracelet and earring set from a bead shop on the internet some years ago. I don’t think they’re around anymore, but if you google around for glass skull beads, you’ll find plenty that are just as cool or cooler.

 

And, just in case you missed it when I posted my Crochetos, here they are again:

Hope everyone is having a fun and festive weekend!

Pumpkins ‘n’ Gourds

I’m a fall freak, so naturally I was drawn to this adorable pumpkin pattern by June Gilbank over at Planet June.  I even managed to get it done–along with a few variations–in time for Halloween.

The darker orange pumpkin is straightforward Planet June’s pattern; the others are variations made by adding stitches, adding rows, making more hdc, etc. They’re all different hook sizes and yarn, and the gourd was made with a double strand (two slightly different light greens) where, at random, one strand was switched out for some orange.  The tendril is simply a twist tie, formed around a pencil and stuck into the stem.  Neat!

If you’re planning to make a crop of pumpkins and gourds, you should be warned.  They attract strange companions at dusk:

Well, the mustachioed purple pumpkin isn’t really a bad guy, he just prefers to come around when it’s not so bright outside.  His giant silver sequin eyes and mustache tend to ruin photographs, so he’s a bit shy about the papparazzi.  He’s really quite the sweetie in person.

Now, if you wanna see a really sinister cutie, head on over to Craftster and check out multibeavo’s Vampire Pumpkin. Adorable!

Amateur Photography Hour on a Beautiful October Day

I was raking leaves in my yard the other day when the sunlight–a rare commodity this autumn–struck me as particularly beautiful on all the yellows and reds.  Trite story short, I grabbed my camera and decided to have a fun photography break.  Here are some results.  Enjoy the fall, it goes by fast.

Slouch Bag

Well, I think it came out floopy, but I have it on good authority that calling it a slouch bag will make it seem more fashionable and au courant:

The bag in question is, of course, the popular Fat Bottom Bag from the Stitch n Bitch Happy Hooker book (google it if you want to see five million others).  It’s not quite my thing, as I prefer purses that can’t be easily snatched from my hands (yeah, I grew up in Chicago), but I did like the neat herringbone half-double crochet pattern, and I thought it might be a fun purse to bring to social occasions.  It made good use of my leftover Ivory Sparkle from the Knot Too Shabby I finished last month, too.   Another plus:   I can whip out my underused brooches (like the $2 secondhand birdie above)  and change out the look any time I want.

A few things to note, if you’re thinking of making a FBB yourself:  (1) there’s a perfect step-by-step lining tutorial from “Straight from the Life of Kel” that you’ll really want to make use of.  Second, even if you’re not planning to weave a ribbon or contrasting yarn color under the handles, you probably should.  The pattern kinda leaves you with some big holes along the edges of the body, and filling them up really makes a difference.

Potting Shed Makeover: Phase I Complete

We have a little potting shed tacked on the back of our garage, and last March I thought it might be a good first project for me, since, at the time, I was a bit scared to touch anything inside the house.  Here’s what it looked like then:

The first thing I did (besides shop-vaccing the hell out of the place) was to slap some green clearance paint on that long wall that used to be the back of the garage.  Nice!  Next, I got it in mind to spray paint that short back wall o’ pegboard with purple.  Not so nice:

I didn’t realize how porous the untreated wall would be, and it sucked up an entire can and still came out blotchy like this.  Plus, I neglected to wear safety goggles and ended up with a fine mist of purple dust on my prescription glasses.  I think I’ve cleaned that off, but on a microscopic level I don’t think my lenses are quite the same as they were.  Anyway, I found this whole debacle so depressing that I abandoned the project for about six months.  It was a hot, humid, and often rainy summer anyway, or so I said.

Then in September I decided I might try to use up my crappy old Liquitex Acrylic Basics and a sponge brush to touch up the bare spots.  The results are not perfect, and never can be, as the board is scratched and damaged in some areas (I can’t even get the paint to really stick on some rubbed places near the bottom) but the wall does look better:

Then I spray painted that old spice rack you see there.  It came out well, AND I remembered my safety goggles!  I added a bulletin board, and here’s how all that ended up:

As time goes on I’ll probably add more things to cover up the purple wall so that it’s really just a background element.

Now, as for the other end of the room, I got my husband to make some little scrap wood shelves next to the door, which I then painted.  And so:

That round decorative bit, by the way, is a cookie tin lid.  A couple months ago I happened upon a garage sale where these old people were giving away tons of cookie tins, and against my better judgement, I grabbed an armful.  I might use more as decorative elements when I start up Phase II next year.  We’ll see.

But speaking of Phase II, now the real work begins, because there are some massively unfinished areas going on.  Like this:

And this:

I have some ideas for covering these surfaces, but it’s going to have to wait until I can convince John this is worth spending money on spring.  Meanwhile, it occurs to me that I’ve spent a lot of time and effort prettying up a room that becomes clotted with dust, dirt, and spider webs like five minutes after I’m done cleaning it.

What Can Brown Do For You? or, My New Favorite Sweater

As I recently mentioned, I scored some brown yarn on clearance at Hobby Lobby.  It’s NaturallyCaron.com Country in “Chocolate Truffle,” and it’s my first foray into a wool blend.  And now I am in love, because this is a really nice, soft yarn with a great drape.

This is my second Knot Ugly Shrug from the Happy Hooker book.  I worked on it in the car on my way to an out-of-town wedding, and was nervous the whole time because I decided to make a medium, not large, and it looked a bit dinky. And unless I was willing to drag the whole project into a rest stop bathroom (I wasn’t) I had no way of trying it on.  But my gamble paid off:  this yarn has great stretch.  I finished the sleeves with the deluxe edging, decided to forego the ruffly front, and chose to make a button flap rather than ties in the front.  That button, by the way, is this beautiful glass thing that’s been in my button stash for ages.  I hesitated to use (and therefore risk losing)  it, but then I heeded the call of that other old cliche,  if you’ve got it, flaunt it.

More good luck!  I went back to Hobby Lobby yesterday and found more of this  yarn on clearance. This time it was green, and even cheaper:  $1.79 per regular-price $4.99 skein.  SCORE!  I also have some purple in my stash, and I’m getting ready to use both colors for some Doris Chan sweaters.  I bought Everyday Crochet months ago, and now’s the time to get started on some of those projects.

John’s Easy House Fan Cover

It’s quite a rare event when your husband wants to go shopping at Joann Fabrics, so when mine got the idea for making an insulating cover for our whole house fan, I jumped at the chance to go.  Plus, there was a Columbus Day sale and I had a 50% off coupon, and you know I loves to score me some cheap crafting goods.

So this is what I’m talking about.  You flip a switch and the slats open up and a giant fan sucks all the warm air out of the house and it goes out the attic vents.  Nice in summer, but drafty and energy-wasting in winter:

BTW, we're not responsible for that slapdash streak of crappy paint up there.

When we bought the house, the fan was covered by that thin plastic insulating film you get at the hardware store for your windows.  Because he’s obsessed with our heating bill energy conscious, John wanted to come up with something a bit more substantial for it this winter.  So I suggested we use some styrofoam insulation panels (I had a few which I had previously used for a flat surface on which to lay my Christmas train-track under the tree one year.)  When John found out that Joann’s carries bolts of white vinyl, he decided that might make a nice cover for the styrofoam.  So we took a little shopping jaunt, grabbed some supplies, and he got to work.

Panels taped together, laid on white vinyl

Fold, tape, staple.

Sticky-backed velcro. I have my doubts about how well this will hold up. I guess we'll see.

Stuck in place and ready for winter. Like many things, it looks better without the camera's flash on it.

And now for the really exciting bit, because I’m totally cheap budget conscious, I got to spend some of the money we saved on this project on my favorite things in the store.  Bargain Bin Buttons!

No, I didn't roll in them.

Have a happy Columbus Day, everyone!

My Russian Opus

When I started getting into crochet again two years ago (after at least a decade of sporadic crochet work, at best) I had a small stash of off-white, raspberry pink, and deep purple yarn I wanted to play with.  I was also trying to increase my range of skills, so I tried out a then-daunting motif called the “Russian Square,” which involves a lot of front-post and back-post work, which was new to me.  (Here’s a link, which appears to be the same pattern as the one I used from an old Harmony Guide to Crochet Stitches.)  I made mine six rounds big, which is not a bad idea, although the natural largeness of the corners and tightness of the middles seems to exaggerate more with every round:

This made a bit of a problem when stitching the squares together, and I ended up with “peaks” wherever four corners meet.  Ah well, it rather reminds me of Denver International Airport, which, if I remember the 1990s correctly, was much more of a boondoggle than this afghan:

Anyway.  I quickly ran out of my ancient practice yarn and spent the next two years buying whatever acrylic brand looked close enough in the store.  This is NOT a practice I endorse (do as I say, not as I do) but I didn’t intend this project to get as major as it did until I was maybe a year into it and realized, hey, I could maybe cover the whole bed with these things!

Just one problem with covering a queen-sized bed with dense crochet squares.  You end up with a nine-pound monstrosity that doesn’t fit in the washing machine.  I guess I could handwash it, if I could figure out how/where to dry it.

So that’s my biggest project ever (famous last words).  I am oddly relieved to be done with it.  A progress shot for posterity, before I go:

(You can tell my husband took this picture because he didn’t care if there was a big mess in the background.)