Fiber desperation

Must.  Buy.  Fiber.  Before.  Starting.  New.  Budget. 

Clothing rant

Despite that standards of women's beauty dictate that women with big breasts are beautiful, clothing lines continually fail to produce garments that fit my bust.  Ugh.  I was looking for a nice summer at Ross the other day, and ran into this problem:  I find very cute cotton dresses but they all have these nice triangular boob-covers with spaghetti straps attached to them.  Alas none have sleeves or thick straps.  The fundamental flaw being that they appear shockingly revealing and borderline x-rated on me, and they cannot adequately hide bra straps.  The dresses that do fit me are the ones that are made out of that obnoxious stretchy material that accentuates every lumpy bumpy part of my body that I would prefer to hide from the public at large.

So then I thought:  Gee, I have a sewing machine.  I know how to use said sewing machine.  I have made medieval costume components on the sewing machine, but do not know how to sew patterns.  I can probably learn.  So I go to the Simplicity website and find some patterns I would like to make.  I go to sizing information and get this, "Misses patterns are made for a B cup with 2 1/2" (6.3cm) difference between Bust and High Bust measurement."  So I could sew a pattern which fits in the bust but is loose in the waist?  I would not even begin to guess how one would modify the pattern to fit correctly.  Really, what's the effing point?

But I think it might be worth my while to start learning to sew patterns anyway, especially due to the dazzling fabrics that I was salivating over at JoAnn's all those times I was searching for purse linings.

In other news:  Andean plying WIN.

Mini craft update

Yesterday as I gazed adoringly up at my spun yarn still on the niddy-noddy I made a pitcher of Kool-Aid with the schtuff I was supposed to use as dye for said yarn.  It tasted like procrastination.  And deliciousness.

So, yep.  I haven't dyed my yarn or finished spinning the small amount of fiber I have left.  Or even figured out what color I want to dye it.  My yarn may have gone from super-bulky down to plain ol' regular bulky, but since I don't know what I want to use it for it's difficult to decide what color it needs to be.  I think it may end up beeing (I made this typo and I thought it was funny, so I left it) another trophy skein, since I don't know what the heck I'd do with 84 yards of bulky with summer approaching so quickly. 

So what have I been doing with all of this non-spinning time?  Knitting and crochet.  I finshed my cabled bag with enormous satisfaction and immediately embarked on a hard-core crochet spree.  I made half a baby blanket (still in progress), some hackey sacks, a clutch purse and an apple cozy.  On the knitting front I started a lacy shrug which is progressing quite nicely.  I also spent a lot of time on Ravelry searching for patterns and put a LOT of stuff on my queue.  Which isn't exactly progress, but it kinda is.

I'm really excited about the lacy shrug.  This is my first time knitting lace.  I LIKE it, and it seems to go by a little more quickly and at the same time looks delicate and complicated.  The pattern is pretty easy, but I don't think I could talk and knit it at the same time.  I have to chant in my head: k2tog, yo, yo, ssk, k2tog, yo, yo, ssk....

Springtime at the ranch!

I went to the ranch in Dilley for the first time in several years.  I still know all of the dirt roads by heart.  Despite my long absence, I'm more sure than ever that this place is in my blood. 

Lillesand

And I will get my Ikea bed this year, regardless of the housing situation...

Happy ripples

I've given myself a Facebook ban.  I am way more content with what I have when I have no one else to constantly compare to.  Today is day two.  I feel better about myself already. 

Also, we may have found our new apartment.  If all goes well we will be back to small town living, but close enough to San Antonio for those juicy little necessities [such as work...doh!].  It is entirely possible that the next move after this one will be more permanent--if all goes as planned I will be a librarian with a salary.  And Ollie, who knows?

But that's what I like about Oliver.  He is off the wall.  To illustrate, I went Christmas shopping at Target with my friend this past December.  I asked, "So what does Will want for Christmas?"  She says he wants a certain DVD and a certain book.  Things that are completely obtainable.  She asks, "what does Ollie want?"  My answer:  a two pin mill for milling his own grain.  Or 50 feet of coiled copper tubing.

He does his beer-making thing, I do my yarn stuff.  His parents are very non-traditional in some respects as well.  They don't have real jobs.  Oliver's dad makes a living by making handmade knives, and his mom's only income comes from selling homemade tamales.  I suppose we're shaping up to be a DIY kind of family.

Short craft update:  I'm working on a ripple baby blanket.  I'm really lovin' the pattern.  It does not produce harsh, pointy ripples.  It produces soft, flowy ripples.  The colors are a dream. Complete gorgeosity.  I'd take a picture, but it's night and my camera does not work well with artificial light.

I also finished my cables purse.  It still needs the decorative button, but I have been planning outfits around it for the past two days.

: /

I'm desperately trying to avoid coming down with the Envies.  Our lease is almost up on our apartment and I'm starting to realize that there is no way we can find a house or any other abode with two bedrooms.  Looks like we'll be moving to yet another one bedroom apartment, hopefully one with a patio this time.  There will be no yard, but there will be a chance for patio gardening. 

I'm tired of moving.  I've moved so many times since turning 18.  Let's see.  I moved to UT dorms, moved out 9 months later.  Moved into an apartment 2 months after that.  Moved out of that apartment after 9 months.  Moved into another apartment 2 months later.  Moved out of that apartment after a year.  Moved back in with my parents for a year and a half, moved into this apartment.  Now I get to move again, and again, and again until I gain some sort of PERMANENT residence.  And who knows how far in the future that will be, because my Ollie and I are supremely unambitious.  We are students and make absolutely NO MONEY because I only have a part-time job and his only source of income is selling plasma from his veins. 

So, no craft room this year.  And Ollie doesn't get his beer-brewing room (otherwise known as a garage).  I just really want to graduate and have a real job where I can have a salary and buy a house (and with it some stability).  And have furniture, like where the box spring does not have to sit on the floor and we can have a real non broken-free-hand-me-down-couch and a dresser.

Either that or move to the commune already.

Plus, this moving business is really gonna freak my cat out. 

Zippity do da, zippity day...

 

Today is a damn fine day.  The sun is shining, the flowering weeds are out.  I had a terrific Mexican lunch and some fantastic ice tea.  I ate a lot of semi-sweet chocolate chips straight from the bag, and my hair is behaving nicely.  I also did a ton of spinning today--finished plying some Corriedale that has been hanging out on the spindles for several weeks just chillin'.  I did flowerpot plying, like I did with my first batch.  It went pretty well, I find that things don't get too tangled as long as I use my hands to separate the strands immediately before the twist so I can smooth them out before they begin to spiral. Towards the end, though, my spindle got heavy and unmanageable as my notchlessness became more and more noticeable.  Things started slip-sliding away.  BUT, 'tis done.

  

 

My next spinning step will be to 1) dye this lot that is currently on my PVC niddy-noddy (yay!) and 2) learn how to spin without all this annoying pre-drafting business, which, I have read, is not even necessary.  Okay, I admit that I started #2 already to a limited extent, and it worked out pretty well for me except for a couple of minor slubs.  I saved some fiber that I can experiment on, which will probably end up filling a spindle.  And THEN I can experiment with Andean plying.  Yay!  Everyone is a winner!

I must admit that I had some fun at work yesterday.  I love love love designing book displays, and yesterday I designed one for National Craft Month.  It says:  Spring into a new hobby.  This is surrounded by some crochet flowers (which I crocheted at WORK!) and some swoopy loopy yarn that I glued in a decorative flourish.  The whole scheme is yellow and pink, the happiest colors there are.  And THEN I hosted Teen Night and socialized (more like absorbed the voice of one teen who nearly succeeded at talking my ear clean off) and made an apple cozy, which fit my apple about three seconds before I ATE it. 

Other goals in my hopefully near future:  learn how to run three miles.  Part of this motivation springs from the fact that the ol' number on the scale has been creeping up on me and this week's delicious brownies and last week's ice cream obsession did not exactly help those numbers decrease.  And the pants are beginning to be uncomfortably tight.