knitted and not purled

The decision to learn to knit has been at the back of my head for quite some time now but the discovery of this yarn gave me that extra push I needed to give it a go:

So yes, I've decided to try my hand at knitting.  Can I just say that it's not as relaxing as I thought it was gonna be?  I'm not sure what I expected, but every time I pick up the needles my neck tenses up and it just stresses me out.  I think maybe knitting is not for me, but I started a scarf and dang it all if I'm not going to finish it!  I love the colors in the yarn and the bumpy texture, so maybe all that will hide my mistakes.  I think I may be doing something wrong because it seems wider in the middle than on the outside edges, but I've only made about 8 rows so I'm gonna give it a few more and see if it doesn't even out.   And my yarn twists so that when I get to the end of a row I have to hold the thread up and let the knitted part unwind.  Is this normal?  Of course, I got my instructions from youtube so that may have something to do with it, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, this is the yarn, and hopefully soon I'll have enough of a scarf to post a picture of my progress.

sewing like crazy

just wanted to give an update on some of the things I've been working on lately.  My mother asked me the other day when I was gonna start charging for making baby shoes and I said when my friends stop having babies! 

The silver ones and purple ones are for Emily Claire born Nov. 5

 


 




a very adorable apron made from a girl's dress and sadly I did not take before pictures to prove it was a dress. I'm gonna have to get better at before shots.

 



my mother modeling the apron

 



close up of the pocket

 



cute little doll made from a childs glove for Emily's 16th birthday (no, not the same Emily)

 




she even has red hair just like Emily!

 



made for Aubrey Faith

 

...and the best part of my day was the horses

We (my co-workers and I) were cleaning cabins by the lake today and we saw 3 young horses in the water, so we went close to take a picture and the horses came out of the water and surrounded us with their dripping wet bodies and proceeded to prance around and then dash off to the grass, with us in the the middle of their "stampede", lay down on the grass and start rolling.  It was literally the best part of my day.  How often do you get to see horses up-close play around and be...well...horses?

you think you got it together...and then...

this is how my Friday was planned in my head:

-get up about 8

-eat breakfast

-spend 2 or 3 hours making an apron for a wedding shower on Saturday

-eat lunch

-spend about 2 hours making baby shoes for a friend's grand baby

-take pictures of the mounds of vintage clothing I have piled on my couch.

-be done while it's still daylight outside.

This is how my actual Friday went:

- get up at 9:30

-visit with my sister and nephew that came over about 10

-cut out the apron pattern

-sit with my whiney dog outside in the sunshine because she was bugging the crap out of me

-realize I don't have enough fabric to finish the apron so ransack my fabric to find something that is close enough in color to pass

-eat lunch

-sew the pockets on, and the skirt to the apron bib

-stop mid-stitch to administer medical attention to my mother who was playing with our 17 pound cat when he decided to get rough, thereby puncturing a vein in her hand and instead of stopping at the kitchen sink went all the way through the house dripping blood all over the carpet which after I stopped the bleeding and made sure she wasn't gonna pass out, had to clean up with first carpet cleaner then when that didn't work, Oxy-Clean.

-realize that the day is shot so go back outside with the dog because she is antsy because nobody is doing their usual "sit in the living room and watch TV all day" routine and she doesn't like it.

-at 4:30 finally finish the apron, iron it, and take a picture to post here.

-feel inadequate about the apron so decide to make a potholder to go along with it but don't have any apron fabric left over so go on the hunt for a coordinating fabric and freak out when I have NOTHING that even closely matches.

-look on the internet for about 30 minutes for a good quilt binding pattern

-remember I have some Moda fabric squares and pull them out and they match perfectly with the colors I need so I sew them into a quick potholder with repurposed floral fabric for the back. yay!

-get done at like 8 PM and sit and watch Without A Trace until 10.

Needless to say my day did not go as planned but then again, it never does.

My mother wearing the apron:

My friend wearing the apron at her shower:

The pot holder:

the back of the potholder and my visible stitches that I was so unhappy with but don't know how to fix:

close up of the center

my cat telling me it time fo FEED HER!!

oops.

I totally forgot to post a picture of my finished tile that I made a couple of weeks ago. Without further adieu....









not as pretty as i hoped, but it's still cool looking. I'm going back to do more, I've got some great ideas!

football and shtuff

I did something last night I haven't done since highschool. I went to a highschool football game. Honestly I never intended to set foot back on school soil, but when you have friends who have kids, you find yourself in unexpected places. Our team lost miserably, like 30-0 but it doesn't really matter because I didn't know what was going on anyway. I don't follow sports. The only reason I went to the games in school was because I was on the flag squad. The highlight of the night was the band playing at half time, with selections by Billy Joel. Actually there were two highlights. As we were going in there was a rainbow over the field and it stayed there for about an hour. It was awesome.
So anyway, it was fun to be there with friends even though I don't like football. The rain held off and it was a very pleasant evening. I may just go back to see another game. Oh wait, maybe not. Cold weather is not my friend. We'll see.

An apron under my belt

I have been on a roll with these blog posts! I'm so impressed.

I was browsing some sites last night for a good (free) and easy apron pattern and came across this apron from My Byrd House. It is so cute and the website is awesome!

I used some vintage fabric that I've been holding on to, finally being brave enought to cut it. I found it at a thrift store and I knew instantly that I wanted to make an apron out of it, I just needed to find the right pattern. The instructions were super easy to follow, only taking about 2 hours to complete. It would have probably only taken one but I stopped to eat lunch in between. The only snag I had was in attaching the tie strings and turning the waistband, because I read it as attaching the ties to the wrong side of the fabric which was...wrong, but after a lot of thread ripping and re-sewing I got it right and it turned out beautiful! And it even fits me!

The ric-rac is a Walmart special and matches perfectly.

My mother was kind enough to model for me.









I love it! I think everybody's getting aprons for Christmas this year.

My venture into making baby shoes

I was looking for an easy pattern for baby shoes to make for a friend back in January, and found a great one in this Etsy shop.

My first attempt was successful, if not a little stressful because even though it said it was easy to follow I had a little trouble understanding where to place the heel so I could attach it to the toe. I was seriously stressing out about it because I did what I thought it said but it didn't attach right and it just looked like crap so I walked away for about an hour, and then when I sat back down it was like a lightbulb went on and I totally understood what I was supposed to do.

I made the first pair out of a thrifted scrub top and some purple fabric I had lying around, and they turned out so cute!

I attempted my second pair today and I think these turned out even cuter! I had a request for a red pair so I wanted them to look extra nice. I wanted something shiny but I was a little wary of using the sequined fabric because I wasn't sure how it would react with the iron and fusible stabilizer, but it turned out great with no melting or shrinking. I started out wrong by ironing the stabilizer to the edge without looking at the placement of the sequins, and so didn't realize the sequins didn't go all the way to the endge of the fabric. Before I panicked too much I just put the heel pattern on that part and made sure the other pieces were on the sequins. It turned out fine but next time I'm triple checking everything!

As I was reading the instructions it said to fold the material before cutting and I was like "why? that's stupid, I'm not doing that". It turns out you fold it because you need TWO shoes for a kid's feet. Who knew? OK so after that emabarassment was over, it went a lot smoother.

I knew that the shoes would not be able to be reversible because of the fabric I chose but I wanted a neutral lining so I found some white in my stash and I think it goes well with the red.

This was a lot easier than last time, and with a new niece coming in January I will be busy making her some for every occasion. I can hardly wait!

painting pottery is fun!

Today was a girl's day out for us girls and we decided we were going to take the way overdue trip to paint our own pottery!

There is a little shop in Dayton named Paint the Town Pottery that lets you pick a piece of pottery to paint and then they stick it in their kiln and fire it for you, and then you have an awesome, one of a kind piece of art that is yours to keep. They're on Facebook if you want to look them up!

It was the first time I was an actual paying customer, having painted the Buddha for the TVT production of South Pacific,

but this time I got to play with my favorite colors and start my very own "Sunset Collection", as Jennifer (the owner) refers to it.

They have so many great things to paint it was tough choosing, from little animals to big ol' bowls and platters. I want to make a set of dishes but I chose a tile, just to ease myself into it.

Kaia chose a little ruffled dish

and Tanya chose a little square bowl

and we set to work. It's very relaxing to plan out your colors,

which areas are going to be which colors,

finding the perfect brush,

and just the general act of painting. I especially liked my version which was just random placement and no thought at all required.

Kaia caught off guard.

some stencils to help us out

these little writing bottles are awesome for controlling the placement of the design you want!

The reference plate, and my tile before the firing.

a little decoration for the back. And yes, I realize I painted it with the tile upside down.

This was such an enjoyable afternoon, I don't know why I haven't done it sooner. I'm going back Thursday to pick them up, and we'll see how they all turned out. I can hardly wait!!!

the june update

Just when I think I've got myself together I forget to update and my poor blog goes neglected and falls into disrepair. blah.
I just finished the first weekend of TVT's latest play, South Pacific. yep, i'm a nurse. I know that's exciting to hear, I can hardly contain the excitement myself. So while I've been in rehearsal I've been negleting everything else and it's really starting to catch up with me. I've got a room full of vintage clothes that are ready to list in my store on Etsy, I've got fabric coming out my ears waiting to be made into aprons and potholders, I've got friends asking me to do this and that and am I doing any of it? Negative.

But I have exciting news! (for me it's exciting, ok) Two of my pictures have been featured on two different websites!!!

My photo of my sister and her friend's matching ankle tattoos was featured here at designsoftattoos.com . Here's a link to the original on flickr.

And my latest featured picture is here. It's a purple flower party light in the rain. You have to scroll almost to the bottom of the page to see it.

I've also got pictures on display at Tennessee Valley Theater while South Pacific is in production. I am very excited about that because it's my first public showing. Nothing like a public display of your personal work to make you feel humbled. I have never accepted praise well so it's kind of hard to get used to. yikes.

AAAnnnddd...that's about it. I think I need to work on my communication skills because I always feel like I'm talking like a little kid begging for attention instead of coming across like a comprehensive adult. hmmmm....yeah, i'll think about it.

playing catch up

ok so I suck at updating.
Last night was my monthly book club and April being poetry month the subject was....poetry.
I confess that I don't read poetry because it makes me feel like I'm intruding on the personal life of the poet. I realize that since they have published their poems they want people to read them, but still I feel weird. Ok, maybe I should say I have a hard time reading poetry from people still living, (I'm weird, ok?) with the exception of Maya Angelou...but Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and story poems (mountain ballads) are ok. I don't know why, it just makes me uncomfortable.

So anyway, one of the ladies brought a poem about quilts and I really connected with it. So here it is:

Quilts
by Nikki Giovanni

(for Sally Sellers)

Like a fading piece of cloth
I am a failure

No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter
My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able
To hold the hot and cold

I wish for those first days
When just woven I could keep water
From seeping through
Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave
Dazzled the sunlight with my
Reflection

I grow old though pleased with my memories
The tasks I can no longer complete
Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past

I offer no apology only
this plea:

When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end
Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt
That I might keep some child warm

And some old person with no one else to talk to
Will hear my whispers

And cuddle
near


Isn't that just great? It's not that I'm old and worn out, but I can see the quilt and the person comparing herself to that quilt. It's just very...stirring.

pet peeves

So over on the Self Portrait Challenge at Flickr this months theme is "pet peeves".

One of mine is people mispronouncing my name. My name is Leia. Lee-ah (or lee-uh if you live in the south like I do). Although I will not correct you if you pronounce it Lay-ah. I have foreign friends that pronounce it that way and it doesn't bother me. However, if you call me Lisa or Leeann or Lela or anything else I will correct you because THAT IS NOT MY NAME!

My sister calls me Speia but that's just her. She's trying to get Conner to call me ling-ling (why, I don't know) but that ain't gonna happen.

A funny story about the Lay-ah pronounciation. When I was in 5th or 6th grade we had a substitute one day for class. He was the brother of one of my classmates and he was really (to my young mind) cute. He had blonde hair, and he wore a pink tie. I don't know why that stands out in my memory, but it does. Anyway he was calling the roll and he pronounced my name as Lay-ah. Apparently we were not Star Wars fans because I had never heard it that way before and since he was really cute I just raised my hand and blushed every time he looked at me for the rest of the day.

If you've read this far then thank you. I tend to wander around in my thought process and blabber on. I apologize. If you want to stop here I totally understand. If not, please read on.

Another funny (or disturbing) story about my name.

I have a guy friend whose ex-wife did not like me AT ALL. Seriously. She left him 3 seperate times for some guy she met on the internet...3 seperate times. Each time resulted in her getting pregnant. The last time she had got pregnant she had a girl and the day she was born I was at his mom's house and he came up and said "Well, you've got a name sake" and I said "what are you talking about?". He said "She named the baby after you" and I was thinking ok, she just likes that name and was spelling it LEAH.

no.

she spelled it LEIA. Why would you name your baby after somebody you don't even like? That totally blows my mind. And to make it worse she call her Lee-Lee. Ugh. I was named so it would be hard to give me a nickname.

Well, I guess you can put a nickname on anybody.

oh geez....updates

This is only the second month of the new year and it has not gotten off to a good start. I thought this was going to be my year (since I'm 35 now...gasp!) but so far it has turned out to be disaster. I do not like confrontation but so far I've gotten into a very heated argument with a co-worker and then another one less than a week later with a friend. I don't know what's wrong with me! It's like somebody who doesn't care to offend has taken control of my body and totally thrown discretion out the window.

Oh well.

We've had a skunk that decided to crawl under our house last Sunday and wow did it stink! We've opened windows, burned candles, bought spearmint oil (it worked good) to spread around but nothing is taking the choking, nasty smell away! so today my brother-in-law came down to put moth balls under the house to run the skunk off and found it DEAD under the kitchen area of the house. Somebody got to it before us. Woo! But the house still smells and our clothes still smell. Suck.

I definitely do need a new job however. I am surrounded by negativity, gossip, and jealousy all day and it's starting to rub off on me. How can I do God's will in a situation like this? It is not condusive to a good Christian walk. But maybe I'm just weak and easily swayed; apathetic and lazy.

I don't want to be that way!

I want to be in God's will and doing His work. The only question is, how?