Work in Progress Wednesday, 8/8/2012

Well, I finished the first 71 (by accident) squares for my Granny Square blanket, and then started to sew them together, and very quickly realized that it wasn't going to be as big as I wanted, and I immediately launched in to making another 39 squares. Those are now more than half way done, but life is busy (between work, social life, and ALL OF THE CROCHET) and I'm not going to take the time to take new pictures. So instead, here are pictures of the first 71 squares! :)











The current plan is to finish these 39, then see where I am in terms of stash busting. I'm DETERMINED to use up these colors if I possibly can (at least one skein of each needs to be done, done, done). As such, I'll launch in to making more based on how much material is left. I'm currently thinking I'll just keep making squares til the main colors are gone. I want to keep joining them, but if I start running out of colors, and all of the existing squares are already joined, then the squares around the edges will be wonky because they'll all obviously be made with a different array of colors, whereas if I just mix them all together before sewing it won't show at all. This plan might mean that I won't be able to finish before the end of the Ravellenic games...but I'll know that I've at least tried my damnedest. :)

Check out what everyone else is making over on Work in Progress Wednesday!!!

Work in Progress Wednesday, 8/1/2012

It's the Ravellenic Games, and I've been working my tail off (or, really, working my hands sore) tackling what, for me, counts as an Olympic event: trying to finish an entire granny square afghan in two weeks. I started at around 5:30 PM on Friday, and have been working during nearly all of my spare minutes since then.

My project calls for 72 squares. I made six entire squares before switching to a production line model, and since then I've made all of the centers; yesterday night I finally got to adding the outer layer to all of my squares. So I now have 12 completely finished squares, and 64 to go...and then joining them...and then, if I have time, I'm going to make more squares to make the blanket bigger and to use up the stash yarn that I've been using for this. I want all of that yarn GONE. :)

And here they are...

Work in Progress Wednesday, 7/18/2012

It's still all Tour de Fleece, all the time for me - all my crafting time is going to spinning. :)

On Monday night, I went to my first spin in in ages! The NYC Spinning Group met down by the Winter Garden, and I joined eight fellow spinners to sit in Battery Park and pull out our spindles. :) I finally made some progress on the ochre I've been spinning - I've been neglecting it intentionally so I can finish it in August for Nerd Wars Work in Progress challenge. :)


Then, last night I pulled out the silk I bought at Maryland Sheep and Wool. It's my first time spinning silk, and I found it pretty hard, but I solicited some tips from my TdF group (and now from ya'll!) so hopefully I'll have less trouble tonight. :)

The blue is another project, it'll be on Friday's post, though. ;)

Check out all the Works in Progress over on Tami's Amis!

Work in Progress Wednesday, 7/21/2012

Not much to say this week - it's all Tour de Fleece, all the time! Here's what I'm working on now:

It's almost 4 ounces, I've got maybe half an ounce left of the first hank, then 4 more ounces after that, and I'll two ply it, should be fingering weight if I've gotten all my ducks in a row. ;)

Work in Progress Wednesday! Go over there! Check it out!

Work in Progress Wednesday, 7/4/2012

Happy Independence Day, to my fellow USA-ians! :) (and a belated Happy Canada day to my Canadian friends!)

It's Tour de Fleece, which means my WIP is all about spinning, and probably will be for most of the next month. The current project is 6.7 ounces of (I think) Corriedale that I dyed myself in May. Various pictures!

The braid:


Day 1 of TdF:
Saturday, I was out virtually all day, so I did like 25 minutes of spinning in the morning and that was all...


Day 2 of TdF:
In contrast to Saturday, on Sunday I was spinning for like 6 hours. My hand was quite achy by the time I stopped! This was also when I realized just how patriotic-looking my choice of fiber was...


Day 3 of TdF:
Monday I didn't have loads of time, but I made decent progress.


Day 4 of TdF:
Finally, yesterday I got to start plying!


I expect to finish plying this skein today, before I head off to the fireworks. :)

Oh, and by the way? If you're curious about dyeing with Wilton's food coloring (like this skein!) you should take a peak at my post from Sunday. :) See what everyone else is up to over on Tamis Amis and Other Creations.

Work in Progress Wednesday, 6/27/2012

This week has been pretty much all spinning, all the time. I finished a couple spinning projects - those I'll post on Friday - but my big time sink has been more fleece preparation stuff! Specifically, I finished combing my first pound of fiber, and then I dyed it and then started to spin it! It took a while, but it was great fun! I'm gonna do a whole post on this at some point, along with the "recipes" I used and such, but for now, just some shots of how the dyeing turned out...

I dyed my fiber in five batches, all using slightly different combinations of Wilton's food coloring. These were difficult to photograph in the light in my apartment; the purples didn't want to photograph true. But I did my best...Here they are!











Then, I started to spin it! I've actually done a fair bit more since I took this photograph yesterday, but it'll have to do. I'm hoping to have at least one complete skein done by Friday.



That's what I've been up to! See what everyone else has been working on over at Tami's Amis and Other Creations blog.

Work in Progress Wednesday, 6/20/2012

Don't even get me started on depression. I've been AWOL from this blog for a while. Anyway, I'm still here, and I'm still crafting! I've been up to a lot, but one of the biggest things has been fiber prep of my fleece! So I wrote up a bit of a step by step for how I'm cleaning it - I'm doing all of this more-or-less every day since the beginning of the month!

I've learned a bit that makes this go better since I started.

When I first bought the fleece, a friend and I broke it in to clumps of from 3.5 - 6 ounces. This is a fairly typical clump:


Pre-wash: I stick my clump of fiber in a colander and rinse it. It's amazing how much dirt this removes, the water runs brown for the first 30 seconds or so. (note that there is no agitation involved in any step of this or in rinsing, just running water right through)

Soak: I soak the fiber in tap water for around 24 hours.


Clean: I drain the water, rinse the fiber in the colander again to get the dirty water out of it. I refill the pot with hot water, eyeball between a quarter and a third of a cup of plain dish soap (I've been using Green Way Eco-Friendly unscented dish soap). I let it soak while it's heating up to temperature (which takes about 15 minutes) and then for a further 30 minutes, and then let it cool a little in the pot. I use a candy thermometer to keep an eye on the temperature.

Rinse: I rinse it again to get the soap out.

Dry: I use a towel to squeeze out the excess water, and then put it on a cookie cooling rack to dry. It takes around 24 hours to dry completely, sometimes longer.

Weight: I now weigh it again to see how much I've lost.

Comb: I comb all the fiber. I line up all the locks in my hand before putting them on the comb, and I've been doing smaller clumps since I've discovered it goes a lot better. When I'm done, I end up with two piles of fiber. One is all set and ready to spin, though I haven't quite figured out how to not have any little clumps/knots of fiber in there:


And the other is the left overs and more or less useless (though I gather it can be used as doll stuffing, and I bet if I dyed it I could use it to make some fun effects in an art yarn):


So far, counting the fiber I pulled out for the top pic, which I'll be starting in about half an hour, I've processed the follow quantities (not counting my swatch):

Raw, uncleaned, chunks of fleece: 2 lbs. 4.1 ounces
Cleaned: 1 lb. 4.6 ounces (three fewer chunks are in this number than in the previous)
Combed: 8.8 ounces (I've combed four chunks)
Or, just looking at the completed bunches:
Raw: 1 lb. 4.1 ounces
Cleaned: 14.2 ounces (a loss of 5.9 ounces of gunk and lanolin - 29% reduction in weight)
Combed: 11.0 ounces (a loss of an additional 3.2 ounces of bits and pieces that aren't big enough to use - 23% reduction from cleaned total; loss of 45% of the original weight of the fleece)

...I really would like to have a pound ready to dye by the end of the month. I think this is pretty doable, but I've been lazy the last few days, until yesterday, when I discovered that after doing this most of the month I've reached a point that I can comb out almost 3 ounces of fiber in about an hour and a half (when I started it took me about an hour per ounce...). So, that's my progress. :)

Still, I'm definitely still learning. So, audience! Time for your participation! Do you know any great strategies for fiber prep? I spoke to one friend on Rav about this and it turns out how she does it is almost COMPLETELY different from how I was taught to do it, so now I'm trying to get a sense of just what people do. ;)

Check out all the Work in Progress Wednesday fun on Work in Progress Wednesday on Tami's Amis and Other Creations blog!

Work in Progress Wednesday, 3/7/2012

Whew, another week! I'm feeling pretty good about my crafting this week, actually. First, for the first time in AGES, I've met a personal expectation: last week, I said I expected to be done with the cross stitching on the Dragonfly and Lotus pattern by this week...and I AM. I'm still working on the back stitching, but I think THINK I can have to done by Friday, so I'm not gonna post the almost-but-not-quite-done pictures today. But there's plenty else. :)

Dyeing
Last week, I bought this fiber to dye:

It took going to three different grocery stores, but this week I managed to track down packets of Kool Aid!

I'm REALLY excited to try dyeing for the first time, though I'm not quite sure when I'm going to find the time. I'm HOPING I can do it before I leave on the road trip I'm planning - nearly a month on the road, starting next Tuesday - but I may not get to it. Still, his weekend, there is a chance... :)

Spinning the Cloud!

I've been spinning the lovely Loop Fiber Arts cloud that I bought last week.

I've got two singles almost ready to go, and maybe another ounce of fiber left. I'd really like to get this done sooner rather than later, but I'm so close to finishing the cross stitch that I've been doing that more. So hard to pick which project to focus on. ;) Still, I've got to finish this spinning before I leave, since I'm not bringing my wheel on the road trip (though it's tempting, very tempting...I'll probably bring my spindle...)

Using Old Spinning!
I've decided what I'm going to do with this:

...which I made a couple weeks ago. I'm going to make Eva's Shawl, which a friend pointed out to me. It'll be my first shawl, which is damn scary, but I think it's a really good project to bring on the already-repeatedly-mentioned road trip. ;)

Not a Work in Progress, But...
The most exciting, fun fiber related thing I've done this week was a meet up with other New York City Ravelry ladies! I've never met a group of folks in quite this situation, but we were all geeks, and we were all Ravelers, and we'd all participated in Nerd Wars at some point in the past. (In the foreground is my friend Jenny, who is also my neighbor, she taught me how to spin!)

We met at Panera, and they all knit, and I cross stitched, and indulged in a bread bowl, and it was great fun. :)

Check out what everyone else is up to over on Tami's Amis and Other Creations blog!

Work in Progress Wednesday, 2/29/2012

I kinda love that the leap year falls on a Wednesday, now it'll be immortalized in this post! :)

This week is all about cross stitch! I remain entirely in the mood to work on embroidery, so I'm just going with it, and I had a fair number of evenings at home this week, so I actually got a lot done.

Dragonfly and Lotus Cross Stitch

I've made a lot of progress, I think! I've now got noticeably less than a quarter of the canvas left, and it's even a bit less than that, because I've mostly done the middle part (inside the pink ring) which is mostly cross stitch, whereas the border is mostly half-stitches, which take MUCH less time, so with that little of the center left, I should be done with the cross stitching quite soon (given my schedule this week, I suspect I can have this part of the project done by early next week). That'll just leave the back stitching! There is a LOT of back stitching in this project, though - pretty much every gold-lined "panel" has backstitching all around it on both sides of the gold. And I HATE back stitching. I wouldn't be surprised if I put this aside and get the backstitching for an older project done first.

Other Cross Stitch and Embroidery
Last weekend, I decided to go through my craft drawers. I keep most of my craft stuff in bins, which I've gone through a few times in recent memory, but smaller stuff (such as cross stitch patterns, knitting needles, bobbins of thread, etc.) are in drawers which I tend to just stuff full of whatever comes to hand. So, I decided to de-clutter, make a bit of room, and remind myself what was in the drawers; I last went through them about two years ago. Since I'm in the mood to cross stitch, I particularly focused on what cross stitch patterns were in the drawers that I'd already started. I knew I had a fair few, but it was actually a bit more than I thought, and I figured I'd share.


I don't even like this one very much, but I bought it at a time when I was really in need of SOMETHING to do. I only worked on it a couple days, though, hence why so little is done! I'll have to decide if I even like this one enough to bother making it...


I started working on this one when I was an undergrad, so about 7 years since I last touched it. I think it's lovely, but it has a lot of quarter stitches and such, and so was driving me nuts. Still, it's relatively small, so I really should put in the time and just finish the darn thing...


This is the oldest WIP in the pile. I started this and did this work on it when I was in high school - so more than 10 years ago. It'd probably take roughly an hour to finish, so I imagine I'll just DO it. I've always liked beading...


Early in college, I decided I wanted to get better at embroidery. So, I bought this, started it...then got distracted and stopped. Another project that I have to seriously consider if it's worth taking the time to do anything else with.


Yet another undergrad project. I actually always forget that I did even this much on this cross stitch. My then-boyfriend thought the cross stitching was kinda cool, so he picked out this one and asked me to make it for him. I just never finished, probably because it wasn't a kit, which meant it wasn't as easily portable. Also, not long after I started this (which was probably around 2002) I decided to make a MASSIVE project for my mother, a cross stitch that took me, on and off, about two years to finish (but I DID eventually, I call it my master work...). That kinda ate all my x-stitch energy. ;)


This is the most recent of these WIP, I worked on this a bunch in 2008 (again, I did more on it than I remembered). This was kinda interesting, I decided that I would keep track of how long I worked on it each day, cause I realized I haven't the foggiest idea how long it actually takes me to make a cross stitch, just that it feels like a long time. So I took pictures of each day's progress, and wrote down how long it took. When I get back to this one - which, I'd say, is mostly like to be next on my list if I keep feeling like cross stitching once I finish the Dragonfly and Lotus and the Fairy I've got sitting around just waiting for back stitching - I'll continue to do that, and write about it here.

See what everyone is up to on WIP Wednesday at Tami's Ami and Other Creations blog!

Work in Progress Wednesday, 2/22/2012

Wait, I'm actually keeping my resolution to keep posting? WOOT!

It hasn't been a great week for crafts. Oddly, it hasn't really felt like it's been a great week for ANYTHING. Somehow, I've been busy almost every day, yet I feel like I've gotten virtually nothing done. I've been working hard to dispel that feeling by concentrating on what I HAVE gotten done...but it still doesn't feel like enough, and that's frustrating, since the only standard I'm ACTUALLY trying to meet is my own, and I can't seem to let go of these ludicrously high standards that always get me in to trouble.

Anyway. I haven't gotten all that much crafting done this week. I had hoped to do a bunch of cross stitch on Friday, but I forgot to bring my project with me to the all-day work thing where said crafting was to take place, so that plan was DOA. However, I have done a bunch of spinning!



I've only very rarely deliberately tried to spin as thin-thin-thin as I could. But when I remembered that I had a bit more fiber in the house (I'm running quite low, and I'm still in the mood to spin, so this is a problem that is definitely going to come to a head BEFORE I get to Maryland Sheep and Wool the first weekend of May...) and when, after digging said fiber out, I found it to be a nice dark green/heather alpaca/silk blend, I figured this was an excellent material to see how low...I mean, how thin...I could go. :)



The answer is...pretty darn thin. I won't measure it til I'm done, and spinning 4 oz. this thinly is taking for-fricken-ever, but still, I've got to finish eventually, right? :)

Meanwhile, I've been spending a fair amount of time labeling photographs and moving on that part of things. I'm also writing fiction again! In the past two weeks, I've gotten down close to 8,000 words of a new story. Since my ostensible goal is only 2,000 words a week, I'm pretty happy to have written way more than that, even though it's all flagrantly self-indulgent, Mary Sue drivel. I just keep reminding myself it doesn't matter if it's garbage, I'm reminding myself that writing, badly or well, is just a habit, and one that I CAN fit in to my current life. Oh, and last week I also started a blog about the US Civil War, which is a passion of mine - it's here, if by any chance that's an interest of yours, as well - the content is going to be a mixture of book reviews, discussions of period art and documents, some related photography I've done, and - primarily - discussion and analysis of historical speeches. All of this is being done with a target audience of teachers and teaching-types in mind, though of course I'm still getting it up and running.

So...that's been my in progress activity for the week. :) How about everyone else? Check out what folks have been up to over at Work in Progress Wednesday on Tami's Amis and Other Creations Blog. :)

Work in Progress Wednesday, 2/15/2012

Well, I fell behind in my blogging the last couple weeks. I wish I could say I had a good reason, but the simple truth is that I haven't been doing much crafting, but I HAVE been spending a lot of time trying to get my head screwed back on straight. All in all, it's been a rough month and a half, but I'm really starting to feel like myself again, and with that - slowly but surely - has come a return to a desire to craft. Along with that, I'm taking a new approach to this blog. I will post three times a week, period. On Wednesdays, I'll talk about my current projects. On Friday, I'll talk about anything I've finished, and also just whatever other fiber-craft I feel like discussing, and on Sunday, I'll do a post about photography. I may do other posts occasionally on other stuff, but the goal is: three posts a week. I think, by not making it an "every day" optional thing and instead focusing on a "regularly scheduled" thing, it'll work better for the way that I approach work. ;)

I think it's one of those really hard things, as a crafter, to acknowledge and accept that sometimes we just don't feel like crafting, and that that doesn't mean that there is something wrong with us, or that we've failed, or that we're letting anyone down. It's a tough thing to accept, though - I know I tend to feel like, well, as long as I've got two hands with which I can keep doing this stuff, I ought to ALWAYS want to do it. But I don't. And I'm really focusing on telling myself that that's OKAY! ;)

Anyway, there are a few work-in-progress going on!

Paint Chip Collage


Last month, I got my bathroom repainted, which meant I had to go to Benjamin Moore. I decided ahead of time that I'd have some fun with it, and pick up some paint chips to play with. At first, I went about it in my usual systematic way (I should take one of each chip!) but then...no, I told myself, let's just RELAX, and have fun with it! So I grabbed every sample that appealed to me. Then, when I'd done that, I went through again and pulled out ones that I really, really loved. At the time, I was planning to do a rainbow waterfall with the chips, but now I have a different plan. In the next day or two, I hope to execute it (though I've noticed that I've been putting it off...I think the prospect intimidates me, what if I do a bad job, as if I have any one's standards to live up to but my own...wait, my own are stupidly high! ;) ) ...but I don't want to spoil the surprise. I hope to have it ready to share by Friday...though it's entirely possible it'll end up being next Friday, instead. :)

Dragonfly and Water Lily Cross Stitch


I've made a LOT of progress on my dragonfly and water lily cross stitch. I've been taking it with me to all of my meetings of late, and because it's on 14 count Aida, and doesn't involve THAT many colors, it's been coming together very quickly. There was one day, last week, where I made two ENORMOUS mistakes, but I ended up deciding to leave them, because one of the beautiful things about a project like this? Unless I tell folks, no one will EVER know the difference. Can you spot them?

No?

Positive? :)

Well, one of the sections along the border, the whole thing is one row to the right of where it should be, and I had to make some other changes to not make it mess up stuff. That's the less obvious mistake. Can't imagine anyone would EVER notice. The other, well, it does look a little strange, but the stylized "stained glass" look hides it well - that lily pad on the bottom? I used the wrong shade of green for a rather large section of it. There was SUPPOSED to be another shade between the darker shade and the two lighter shades, but I goofed. But ya know what? Screw it. Just much too much to undo, so I went with it. :)



(close up on a section that DOESN'T have any massive mistakes. ;) It's a VERY simple pattern, but I do love the colors...

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
The other thing that I've been up to is that I'm still working my way through the Artist's Way, one chapter at a time, approximately one chapter per week (it's actually been taking more like 8 or 9 days per chapter, just fitting it in around my schedule). I can't say it's really "doing it" for me, but I've decided to keep at it because I do think I'm getting something out of it, if not as much as I want to. The further in I get, the more I've been modifying the program to suit my own needs. Earlier this week, I switched from writing my daily journal in the evening from writing it in the morning, and it's doing me a world of good. I wake up in the morning feeling fresh and ready, the issues of yesterday are out of my mind. When I write my journal in the morning, all I do is stir up all the mess first thing in the day, and it was leaving me feeling drained and sad. This way, I put everything to rest right before I go to bed, keep my thoughts from distracting me before trying to sleep, and wake up the next day with everything out of my mind. And I no longer get stuck setting an alarm for 4:30 AM so I have time to write before my earliest work days. Definitely a plus. :)

But in the end? My biggest objection to her remains her idea that creativity comes from an external source and flows through us. I don't think that AT ALL, and no amount of reading her work has yet convinced me. I feel so empowered because I believe that creativity is something WITHIN me, that all I have to do is let it have it's way, it's my own strength, my own abilities, my own empowerment. It's funny, because if I were asked to describe it I'd probably use very similar terms to Cameron - I could see someone telling me, "no, you're saying the same thing she is!" But I'm really not - she says that creativity comes from outside of us and we're just a conduit, and I say that creativity comes from deep within ourselves and is all our own. Still, I find her exercises interesting, so I'm going to keep at it, I think I can get SOMETHING out of it, and it's at least interesting stuff to think about. ;)

Read about what everyone else has been making this week, over on Tami's Ami and Crochet blog!!

Work In Progress Wednesday, 1/18/2012

Well, I've not crafted all that much the last couple weeks, but I've been doing so when I feel up for it, between everything else that's going on in my life.

I've been in the mood to cross stitch - well, I've been in that mood a lot for a long time, but because of other crafting commitments, I haven't done so, but I've decided that I don't care about that stuff any more. :)

I finally started the back stitching on this project, though there's still loads more to do. :)

I also pulled this out of storage, and ended up doing like four square inches (the lower bit, including almost that entire water lily down there).

Meanwhile, I played with the loom that my friend gave me for Christmas...

Lastly, I have a friend who is having a baby in weeks, and I wanted to design and make her a baby blanket. I sketched out the pattern, charted it, and then I started!

So, lots of different types of projects. I also spent some time on the socks that I've been making, but two more inches of plain knit sock is not terribly interesting to look at. :) My main goal right now is to just be laid back, and do whatever I FEEL like working on, and so for the moment that means non-monogamous crafting.

Check out what everyone else has been up to, over on Tami's Amigurumi and Other Crochet blog!

It's Friday!

The first Friday of the new year! A bout of stress-induced insomnia chased me out of bed at 4:30 this morning, but I didn't let that worry me - I immediately got to work on my personal goals for the year to come, in this case, poking through my closet. Why? Because today, I'm going to the Farmers Market, which I intend to make a regular weekly task of. I want to go Green, it's one of my main goals for the year in fact, so I wanted to quickly sew up some cotton cloth bags to shove produce in so that I won't have to keep taking plastic bags at the farmers market, grocery store, or any where else. While I was at it, I decided to pull out a few other things that reflect my current crafting goals - to craft what I want to craft, when I want to craft it.

But first, my cotton bags! They took just over an hour to make. I made 2 big ones (like, to hold a whole head of romaine lettuce), 4 medium ones (like to hold a couple pounds of potatoes), and 8 small ones (like, to hold an apple or two).

I started with this muslin I got a few years ago to make curtains for an apartment I don't live in any more. It was plain, simple stuff - the same stuff I use as my photo backdrop, in fact.



Then, I cut it into 6 strips roughly the same width. Two of these, I left "as is," two of them, I cut along the center fold, and two of them, I cut along the center fold and then folded in half and cut again. This was all very approximate, but it got the job done.



To make them in to bags, I just sewed a flap along the top edge (so I could put in a draw string) then sewed up the sides. I used some random old scrap trim I had and some yarn bits to insert the draw strings, and then I was done, and ready to go!



At the same time, I pulled out a few things I want to work on. I've been loving Nerd Wars, and I'm not quitting, but it's caused me to focus almost exclusively on knitting and crocheting and spinning for the past year. I miss my other crafts. I miss sewing. I really miss cross stitching. It's time for me to start making better crafting choices. NW will manage, especially since I bet I'll be more productive across the board if I just relax and do what I want to do, when I want to do it.

So, what's in the pipeline?

Socks!
I started these socks in September. One is done (more or less) and this is the second. It's a great project for my purse - small, time consuming, and not too likely to fall off the hooks while I'm traipsing about town.

Sorceress Crochet!
Remember this project? It was what I was JUST finishing up when I stared this blog in August, 2010. I worked on it all that summer, and got it to this point...and then stalled before I finished the detailing work. I really want to get it done. It's so close. So out it comes, lets see how this goes. :)

Lap Loom!
One of my good friends sent me a lap loom for Christmas, with a note that I should use it to play with my homespun. She's BRILLIANT. So I'm gonna play with the loom, and see what I can do with the rainbow yarn I spun in November.

Cross Stitch Design
Lastly, I'm going through some rough personal stuff, and have felt pretty low for a few days, but last night I reached an epiphany point, and really finally absorbed (rather than just hearing and having it bounce off) that if I don't love me, no one else will either. While I was waiting to fall asleep, I thought about a strategy my step-mom uses, and that a friend of mine also suggested - leaving notes to myself. The one I was thinking about leaving was "I Am Beautiful," to help with my self-image. But then I thought...I should do this like I would do this. I wouldn't write a note. I'd MAKE something! So I'm gonna design and make myself a very simple cross stitch that says that, I already know how I want it to look. I feel really good about this project, and already have a few ideas for more.

All in all, for the first time in ages, I kinda feel like I have my crafting mojo back. I was excited to put all this together. I was excited to write this blog post. I'm excited to be about to cross stitch, and learn to weave, and to go back to designing things. I'm excited that I think that two of these ideas - the produce bags and the self-inspirational cross stitch - actually have some marketability potential, as I think about building this business more. It's a little hard to ignore the things that theoretically I HAVE to finish, but I'm just making myself relax. I have to love this again, first.


Read what everyone else is thinking this first Friday of the New Year, over on Wisdom Begins in Wonder and Tami's Ami and Other Crochet Blog.