In which I get distracted

I'm sorry... I have no attention span whatsoever. And as I am unemployed, forgot my camera st home, and am spending a month at my brother's I have a sad lack of pictures of things I am working on. The good news is that I found my tatted mask hours before we left and it is now tucked away in a more obvious place, awaiting my return and weaving in of ends for pictures. There is apparently some sort of Renaissance feast/gathering in January, So I may even have a place to wear the damn thing.

The drive down was long, but it was amazing to see my friends along the way.

I failed NaNoWriMo so hard it is sad. I still want that book to be written however. I keep thinking of logistics of plot points and how to make it realistic.... not being blind and all, which it is important that my heroine be. For the rest of the plot to make sense.

Hearkening back to all of that Renny talk... I started a project before leaving that I am incredibly enamored with. Even if it's lack of completion does reflect poorly on my ability to pay attention and stick with a project. If I can get the last step when I get home this sucker is going to rock my socks off.

Years ago I bought 10 yards of black satin on a 90% off after the holidays sale. I believe since then jo-anne's has become more consciences of its labeling practices, but it was on the inventory as "Halloween" fabric so deeply discounted it was. I almost swooned before I bought the entire stock they had left. Two summers or more ago I found a slightly too large Charlotte Rousse corset. The thing was 50 cents. I couldn't say no. I only wore it twice or so as cheap trendy corsets are... a little trashy to say the least. Not to mention SO anachronistic I wouldn't feel right wearing something like that to faire, even to giggle about the fact that I could (I used to work at a Renaissance Festival) I would be MOCKED, but good.

So now that I got my 50 cents worth out of the original corset and have some time on my hands, what do I do? I plot.....

Home at last!

Pictures to be uploaded... not as many as there should be. I made this amazing short scarf from crocheted maple leaves for my Canadian friend. Of course remembering to take a picture of it would be entirely beyond me.

But I am home and really needing to get my butt into gear... so more coming soon.

:-)

Eagle!

I didn't have the guts to just give it to the guy, so I put it in a card inside the DVD he'd asked for. The one I made was more like the actual pattern on be-stitched.com than this one and black instead of white. Unfortunately I didn't take any pics of the second one. This little birdie is going to go to my friend's wife... when we had lunch a few weeks ago she asked about tatting and I just wanted to send something as a thank-you and to show her what's up.

:-D

Yay me!

I set aside my books and my griping and actually have made stuff. The shawl is about halfway to where it was when I started ripping it out. And tatting has been happening as well, though I'm not certain I'm doing everything right and the internet on board is such an epic fail that I can't really look up you-tube tutorials.

Last week in Ketchikan one of the native American Klinket gave me this canoe piece he had carved. This was at the end of an epically bad week at sea, so it really meant a lot to me. That week came complete with a panic attack, to give you an idea of the massively bad start to the cruise. So I definitely want to make something for him. But what do you crochet or tat for an older gentleman that isn't some sort of hat or scarf... especially as I can't really ask him for color and yarn preferences?

EAGLE! I made a version of the eagle be-stitched.com... first try didn't turn out so well. I actually like it though. The thing is kind of cute and chubby instead of regal... so I will make another one for him later.


Promo time! Not mine but Agasunset's.... Who's awesome. (http://agasunset.blogspot.com/) My favorites right now are her chandelier ankle corset as well as the black choker with cascade, because they are simple, beautiful, and drape-y... and of course the mask that is the pattern in the promo...

You are the only one who's following on this blog... but er.... can I still have the pattern?

I liiiiiive!

I swear I do. I'm just at work now and being trapped on these stupid ships for so long that my will to live, much less crochet or learn how to tat. I'm working on a Solomon's knot shawl now. It's pretty. Someday it'll be finished.

In other news I would give an ARM for some black raspberries. Maybe a kidney. I have two of each... so one's a spare right? No one believes me that they exist. I've never seen them outside of Michigan, but apparently somewhere in Oregon there is a commercial farm or two.

Kay I did it

Check it out. Not everything is on there. But it is a start. I also gave 4 pairs of the Cardinals to Elixer downtown... so let's see if anything sells.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/BlueEyesWillow

Getting on the Etsy Train

Some things in life are inevitable, or at least they seem so. I like to crochet and learn new crafts. The things that I make I generally would wear, but not always and I seem to end up only wearing a few pieces with any regularity.

So I sign up.

Take pictures.

Realize that 70% of my pictures are crap and no one is going to buy anything based off of crap pictures.

I want a new camera that I can adjust the focus on my own instead of this auto-focus crap. That would unfortunatly entail spending money.

More tatting!

\Visiting my cousin left me with a good amount of downtime on the plane and when she was at work. So what else to do but craft? Hobby Lobby had a free pattern for a heart... this is actually my second attempt at it. I didn't have as much of an issue with twisting on the first one. Another issue I seem to have is with the picots, on the inside loops they are too close together for me to do them as evenly as I would like. :-( I guess that is what practice is for though.

My day-job work is something else. In less than two weeks I go off to my next ship. I need to figure out soon what crafts I have space for and want to take. There is so little space in one's room and definitely not so much time to experiment. I want to be able to practice my new crafts (aside from tatting I have started knitting and found a book on needle lace) However, it is also nice to have space for one's clothes. OOOOhhhh the dilemmas.

And now for something compleatly different: crochet!

This choker I designed all on my own! YAY! It looked a little twisty when I was making it up, but once I blocked it everything just came together beautifully (in my humble opinion). I am thinking more and more about starting something up on etsy or trying to sell the pattern at the very least. I was a good kid and for the first time ever took notes when I was working on the pattern. At least for most of it.

The final thing I shall leave you with.....




... a really bad picture. But seriously, this is a soon to be bunny earring that I set inside my dad's wedding band for scale. When I was working on this little baby I did think to myself for a moment that maybe some threads are just too small to work with. Then I realized just how cute this little guy is. I should have taken a picture when I was blocking out the ears.

New Blog

*Que Fanfare* The Old "Let's Do Lace" blog has closed and a new one has officially begun!

Not that I used the other one... I just wanted to have a craft/narcissist blog for all to see (I want attention, look at me!!!). The old blog had a grand total of three posts to it... none of them with pictures, if you can believe it! No more of that.

I successfully needle-tatted totsumel's flower pendant (http://www.instructables.com/id/Learn_Needle_Tatting_With_My_Flower_Pendant/)
The instructions were fairly clear.... no, I lied.... in order to make sense of them you need to watch the video repeatedly and slowly. I'm sure if I had gone into it knowing more about needle tatting everything would have made sense, but the reason I was trying to do this was to learn how! Once I got the idea of how to hold, turn, and tie everything it went smoothly.

Observe the awesomeness!