Making, Crafting, Creating... aka Whatcha workin' on?

Yesterday, I went through my collection of necklaces (I’d had them packed away for 7 years). Then I dug through a few craft bins and found parts to put together, so I could display the baubles and get back to actually wearing them.

A painted wood plaque, some cup hooks, eye screws and wire. Sometimes it pays to be a little bit of a pack rat.

After I hung it up, I relocated the bottom cup hooks. I think it’ll do for now!

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I bought this vanity stool for $5. I’d been looking everywhere for one that wouldn’t cost me $50 or more, so I made a spontaneous trip to a thrift store/antique mall and this was literally the first thing I saw sitting out in their sidewalk sale. $20 of fabric and spray enamel later:

And now my “dressing room” is complete!

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In the latest season of The Americans, the daughter Paige has one of these in her bedroom. My eye gravitated to it immediately, and brought back memories of childhood, moments spent in the bedrooms of girls…

Pics!

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Made boot projectors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwoLzUZpjTU

Working on an upgrade with custom text:

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Oh, those are cool! :sunglasses:

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those are great looking. Always love your stuff.

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That always perplexes me, because I’m a right-handed knitter who learned to knit from her left-handed grandmother… who knitted right-handed. She always insisted knitting was a two-handed operation, and that calling it handed was BS.

She said the left hand drives the motion, and the right hand feeds the yarn (we tuck the right needle under the right arm – that gets called “factory knitting” among other terms).

I’ve taught both righties and lefties, and the people who have the hardest time are the lefties who keep on seeing it as a handed activity, and the righties who are freaking out that their left hand gets to do something important.

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Yeah, I get that now, and eventually taught myself (thanks, YouTube!) enough of two-sticks knitting to realize I didn’t want to invest the time to develop competence. I think it says a lot more about my family members and their (in)ability to deal with both beginner’s mind and imperfection than handedness. Knitting was not the only skill where this happened. (Although I do still resent that certain tools really are designed for a right-handed world – side-eying the electric compound mitre saw and the jigsaw.)

The interesting thing in dealing with the machine is that I actually now understand two-sticks significantly better. I have gotten derailed in the past week, because I need to move furniture again (to accommodate lighting, having a public-facing room, weather, and for us, moving furniture is best accomplished all at once, while Spouse is out of the house) but in the process of swatching and skills-development, I can run multiple tension and pattern experiments, and I don’t feel all that grumpy frogging something that took longer to cast-on and cast off than it took to knit. I learned how to integrate a hem and increase and decrease, and while my cables are ugly, that’s my learning curve. None of which I ever would have learned on my own. The downside is the machines are noisy and they take maintenance that two sticks don’t. But the upside is that Spouse may indeed get the 4th Doctor scarf (though not at the 16 foot length) that he’s always wanted.

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Tonight, I’m off to the local library to get certified on their 3D printers and vinyl cutter.

Tomorrow, the world! (Probably a small one to start with.)

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Doctor Blancke wants a new bathroom. So I am up to my neck in concrete board and pvc pipe. The worst thing was getting the old tub out and the new one in, it’s on the third floor. Deep quasi-Japanese soaking tub. Tile everywhere. Heated floors. I will post some images when it starts to look like less of a disaster.

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pussyhat

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First day warm enough to get outside and spray!

I’ve been doing the multipart stencils for a while, but I recently bought a Cricut, which reduced my time to design and cut something like this from 8-12 hours to maybe 2 1/2.

It’s based on a selfie posted by my friend Bella- One of my favorite models.

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I’ve been working on this and I’m previewing it this Thursday if anyone is interested. http://bit.ly/2oNfzPv is the Zoom Registration link.


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Working on the Humboldt Firkin Tappers 2017 Boonville Beer Fest button. The theme of the beer fest this year is, we’re legal. Not sure where I’m going with the design yet

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And, finished!

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That looks awesome!

I’m always amazed at that sort of piecework, I feel like if I ever tried it I’d lose my mind about halfway through, complete with nightmares about “just… a few… more… buttons… huh!”. So kudos for the tenacity!

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Thanks! I think the losing one’s mind part way through is a part of the process. I always panic when I’m partway through the final grind that I misspelled something in the design, or otherwise botched it. Because after I’ve seen something many times, all the words look misspelled.

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Better than the opposite experience:

A friend’s husband, who is very careful and precise in general, created a full-color birth announcement for their son. After they both proofread and made a few stylistic changes, they printed 50 copies. I took one look at the page and immediately pointed out that they’d misspelled their son’s middle name. :scream:

On the bright side, I will never forget that kid’s full name!

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My daughters grew tired of sharing a room, but our house has no more individual bedrooms for either of them to more too.

So, last wednesday, on their birthday, I put 3 contiguous/colinear Ikea vidga curtain rails in the ceiling to turn part of the living room into a new bedroom. I almost think it would have been easier to just frame up a non-structural wall, but then good sense kicks back in and I remember that the project you imagine is generally about 3 times easier than actually doing the work.

Anyway, curtains look good, there’s no debate about shared space. And in the lazy hazy someday when they move away, I can just push the curtains to one side and have a giant living room again

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