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Slowly…things progress

I haven’t been sleeping much lately and that seems to leave me with a lot of time for crafting. I mean, God forbid I do the dishes or vacuum the house. Not that it would be a wise thing to do at 11 o’clock at night. I mean…what would the neighbors think? What? I don’t have downstairs neighbors right now? Um…yeah…well…

Crafting is pretty quiet.

Except for the sewing, which I try to keep to a minimum after 9 p.m.

I finished two skirts recently. Yay, something to wear this summer for work! The hand sewing hook and eyes with black thread was a real treat for some evening fun in low light. MY EYES! MY EYES!

I had some fun with a hot glue gun after knit-a-long last Sunday and made some cute hair flowers.

My daughter is thrilled with Mommy's attempts at girlieness

Then there is the knitting…all the knitting…

I have slowed down a little on my strappy tank, but it is pretty much all stockinette at this point. So it is more my mindless knitting. It’s “I’m half asleep on the couch watching bad t.v. shows” knitting.

So. Much. Stockinette.

Then my baby for the moment, the Insanity Blanket. It is coming along nicely. I got some great yarn from Vilma and Camille this week!

Vilma's contributions.

Camille's samples: noro from her poncho, and some of her koolaid dyed yarn from a class she took

The new stuff is amazing, and it is hard to get sick of knitting the same thing over and over when you get to try out all kinds of different yarn. It is really starting to grow.

I am going to knit some more squares as soon as I am done blogging.

I have been making sure to keep track of where everything is coming from. I have been tagging all of my flickr photos and labeling each square. Yay me!

Also, in a “hell must have frozen over” moment, I have started spinning again! My wheel and I have not had the occasion to spend much quality time together since the new year. It feels good to get reacquainted.

Of course I have been spinning all of my fiber samples for use in my insanity blanket. Man, ulterior motives!

I spun them end to end...

Later I will break the ends and ply them on themselves.

Now, off to knit some squares!

Tags: Classic Elite, Insanity Blanket, strappy tank

Go ahead and say it…

I am clearly insane. I *know* this and I really can’t help it.

This week’s craft update is just stating the obvious, because what would I be doing if I *weren’t* crafting?

Oh yeah, probably cleaning my house or something…

So, my WIPS (”works in progress” for you non-knittahs):

Classic Elite Strappy Tank.

Faerie Mountain Fibers spinning (drop spindle, this may take awhile).

2 skirts I am currently half-done sewing. I have waistbands and hems left.

Grey, my little alien friend.

An Insanity Blanket.

<insert screeching tires sound here>

What the heck did I just say? An Insanity Blanket. Yes that is right! For the record, I am not the first one to make one of these…you can see the original, and find directions on how to make your own on The Heathen Housewife’s Blog. That banner at the top….that’s it. The one that pushed me over the edge belongs to The Other Side of The Pom. Really, click that link…you may fall prey to it’s magic too.

So what is an Insanity Blanket? It’s a blanket made up of mitred squares. Sound crazy? Not really…until you throw in the fact that it is knit up of stray sock yarn…and I am knitting it on size 2 needles. It is sure to take me a very long time to finish, given that I don’t even own enough sock yarn to complete it, but we’ll see what happens.

I am also planning an taking it an extra step further and journal/blog my progress and chart where each square “comes from”. I figure there is a story in just about everything.

So here is a little example of what I have so far…

My squares.

The attached ones on the end there are the foundation corner of my blanket. Now to figure out how many 2 3/4 in. squares I will need to make a Queen size blanket. Eek!

Tags: Insanity Blanket

Crafting Hijinks…

There is no way that there are enough hours in a day for me to get done the things I *want* to get done.

I am knitting…

The Office Blanket of Doom.

Yes, out of hibernation and appearing on my living room floor is the Office Blankie of Doom! This isn’t the only thing I have on the needles right now. I am also taking part in a knit-a-long at Unwind sponsored by Classic Elite Yarns. I am knitting the strappy tank…I’ll take some pics of it eventually.

I am also sewing.

I started a couple of skirts...

There is a lot I need to learn about sewing. I did do a happy dance when I figured out how to pop off my presser foot. The lapped zippers were a little less fun.

I am also learning how to skin a puppet.

I meant sew skin onto a puppet.

I know…it’s all new to me too…

I would take some pictures, but this puppet gig is for a friend at work and I will wait until he has more of his stuff ready…plus I haven’t asked if he’s down with it yet. I will though. In the meantime, you can check his stuff out here:

http://bfandg.blogspot.com/

Oh lookie….he has pics up!

Tags: Classic Elite, KAL, puppet, sewing, skirts, tank