Making Stuff
I've made almost nothing in the past week and a half, but I'm almost done with the crochet Zouave jacket (just need more materials and some buttons, then I could finish in about an hour).
Nerd Wars
Well, the first whole round - all three months - of Nerd Wars on Ravelry is over. This month is a month off, which is great because I've been so focused on making things for it that I haven't finished a bunch of other stuff (like, I've got three new dolls designs - the starfish, the roly poly king, and the fox - plus the unfinished gokk - each of which I need to finish a remake of before I can test them). Now I can take some time to make additional versions and get them ready to go, which is great. :)
However, if you've heard me babble about Nerd Wars on here and find that you're tempting, it's also recruiting time for the teams for next round. You can learn all about it here - basically, we all break in to teams based on fandoms, and then compete! There are a lot of old teams that will be continuing (for roleplaying games, and video games, and Babylon 5 and Firefly and Star Trek and more) and there are some new teams (like for grammar nuts, and reading fans, and Psych). But the best team of all...is my team! I'm going to be a team captain next round, for fans of the TV show Supernatural! Which means I'll be a mod! So come check out the fun - I've found it to be a great source of inspiration and an awesome way to meet other crafters.
Free Pattern Testers
Speaking of increasing authority and becoming a moderator, after several weeks of back and forth communication, I am now officially the third moderator for the awesome and helpful Free Pattern Testers group on Ravelry. I've got a very small and specific job, and I was so honored to be asked to join the team, and am so excited (and nervous) to be starting.
1000 Amigurumi Crane Project
The Project has been featured on This Week in Ravelry, but unsurprisingly, as time passes and new issues enter the public eye (such as the tornadoes in the US south) the steam has faded. However, I'm going to keep trying to put time in to this when I can - my problem is I am just over committed right now, and so I haven't been able to do as much as I've wanted. Still, we've raised around $300 total, which is awesome.
Stash Work
Over the winter, I really worked on stash busting, and got things to a the point that this was all I had left:
...at least, that WAS all I had left, until I went to Michaels and they had a lot of awesome colors in a kind of DK/thin worsted weight on sale half off...
The state that the addition of these skeins and some others left my closet in was really rather horrifying (and I thought I'd taken a picture of what it did to my closet, but sadly I don't appear to have). Anyway, it was a disaster, but last Saturday I spent the whole day in hard-core spring cleaning (like, going through stuff, getting rid of stuff, re-organizing my closets, etc.) And now, things are in much better shape:
I actually have room to hang things in my closet again, and all the yarn is one crate! Now just to keep working...
Travel
May is a month of travel for me. I just got back today from three days in Louisville, KY, for a friends wedding. (and I'm running on 5 hours of sleep and having been up since 3:30 in the morning!) Next weekend (Friday night to Sunday night), I'll be in Maryland for Maryland Sheep and Wool. Then, ridiculously early on the morning of the 11th, I'll be getting on a plane and going to Bali, in Indonesia, for another wedding. I'll be back on the morning of the 20th. I'm currently acting on the assumption (supported by no evidence what-so-ever, but a lot of hope and optimism) that I'll have internet while I'm there, and therefore be able to post, but even without that, it's mostly a trip of relaxation, which means there will be yarn, and tons of photography, and lots to share when I get back. I'm pretty excited. :) I can't believe I'm leaving in a week, I've been planning this trip since I was invited a year ago.
Spinning
Speaking of Maryland Sheep and Wool, I learned how to spin on a wheel last week! No photos of any thing about that yet, but I promise I'll take pictures the second time. It was hard, but I kinda thought I was getting the hang of it...
9/11 and Memories and Thoughts
I've spent all day wrestling with how I feel about the death of Osama bin Laden and considering whether or not to do a post on here about it. In the end, this isn't my personal blog, and my feelings about 9/11 aren't related to my crafting, and I don't want to go in to politics. But New York City is such an integral part of who I am that I realized I couldn't just not mention it at all. When I first heard, I almost cried, and I couldn't figure out what I thought, but now that I've had all day to reflect (I didn't find out til this morning), all I can say is that I feel grim satisfaction. This city is in my soul. I love it, adore it profoundly, and 9/11 is a wound that will never quite heal. I still remember when my mom took me to the observation deck when I was a little kid, and from the 90th+ floor, the cars looked like matchbox toys and the people like ants; when I was in high school, I would go there to hang out and shop at the Borders cause my school was only a half mile away; when I was in college and would drive home on Route 80, I would catch my first glimpse of the skyline and it would make me smile because I knew I was home. Thanksgiving after 9/11, I went home on that route, crested the hill, saw the sky line, and there was a vast emptiness, and I realized for the first time how profoundly life would never be the same. I've now done that drive dozens of times, and I still feel that emptiness and loss every time. It's been a decade, but this wound will never heal, but I think that now that that SOB is dead, justice has been done for what was done to my city and to her people, and we can finally try to move on.
(this is a shot I took of the tribute from 9/11/2008 - I knew a lot less about photography then, which is why this isn't much of a shot, but it still seems appropriate here).
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