Gualala

I'm off to Gualala bright and early tomorrow morning. I thought I'd share a few pictures from my trip there May 2009.

The view from our room.

My secret love is Geology. IT ROCKS!

Yes, it was cold, but it's okay. I couldn't feel anything at that point.

I loved the misty forests near the ocean.

My wonderful boyfriend Shipoopi is the one to credit for all these lovely photos.

If you'd like to see more, check out my fickr Gualala album here.

Alien Illusion Scarf

I knitted up the Alien Illusion from Stitch and Bitch. The chart confused the heck of me in the beginning, though I forget why.

If you've never seen or heard of illusion knitting before, it's a way of knitting with two colors, where purl stitches raise one color so an image is seen when it's at an angle.

Face on it looks like this:


From an angle you see the illusion!

If you want to learn more about illusion knitting, here is a great place to go for how to, and a variety of illusion knitting patterns.


This will be my last completed project for a few days, it's because me and my fella are going to Gualala, a little ocean town a few hours away for the weekend.

Baldar Blue

Right now I'm in a gradual process of beautifying my apartment. A lot of what I'm doing right now is adding art to our blank white apartment walls. I painted our kitty Baldar, who is evil and a spazz, but I like him anyway.


Painted with Acrylic. 5 x 7 inches or something like that. I got a bunch of cheap dollar store frames and this is one of them. I'm not really a painter. I don't have the steady hand for it, so I'm not expecting to win any art awards.

My First Knitted Sweater

My first knitted sweater! Also my first knitted baby item. I'm very proud of this one. I didn't use a pattern, I figured it out with math and determination.



Also, the buttons match. The lighting was weird or something. Also I'm not a photographer.

50 Completed projects in 2010

One of my many goals for 2010 is to complete all those little craft projects that are almost done, but got put in a box and forgotten. Or all the projects I say I want to do, but haven't gotten around to doing yet. I also want to get my little [crappy] apartment more comfortable and more aesthetically pleasing.

All these things sort of fit in together in the common crafter's goal of 50 projects in a year. I've been working on and off at this year and wanted to share my progress so far.

Bold= in progress
Green= finished

1. Vases Painting
2. Baldar the Fox painting.
3. The Rose, mixed media
4. The Purple Baby Sweater for a friend's baby. need to deliver it to them.
5. My Mom's birthday scarf
6. Homemade Granola
7. Illusion Scarf
8. Homemade tortillas (but I want to try again. It didn't turn out well)
9. Homemade Horchata. Came out perfect, except I wish I made more.
10. Gray Cabled Hat
11. Painting the corkboard
12. Ugg booties- crocheted
13. Forest Painting
14. Gualala painting- Start over!
15. Pin-Up Callender
16. The Ugly Scrap Knitted Quilt
17. 5 X 7 painting
18. 3 x 5 painting
19. Replace the back couch cushions with my own pillows.
20. Organize the closet. I know this isn't technically a craft, but a lot of my craft supplies are kept in the closet or at least should be!
21. Pasta from scratch!
22. Friends and Family inchies! Have all my close friends and family do a few inchies each to be placed on a mosaic-like piece of art.
23. Alter/Make clothes for my trip to Vegas.
24. Make a dress or top from fabric from my stash.

I'm a little behind as you can see from posting photos of quite a few of these. I'll probably update my list about once a month with links. I'm off to a good start! At 50 projects in a year, that means I need to have about one completed project a week. We're about 7 weeks into this year and I'm already 10 projects in, with even more in progress.

What are your craft related goals for 2010?

Two Drawstring bags.

I love lacy things. They seem so romantic and feminine. I made both early on in my crocheting career when I was learning beyond the basic single and double. I liked them then, and still like them now. That's not something I can say about a lot of my early work. Now if I could only figure out where I put these two...

Someone gave me this yarn. I think it was acrylic but I'm just guessing. I still love those little tassels.

Cotton yarn. I think i got it at a thrift store if I remember right.

Oskie M. the Sheep the Vulgar Creep

I made this little sheep a few years ago when the song "Get Low" was at the peek of it's popularity and I named him after my interpretation of the lyrics. I heard the song as "OOOOoooooski ski ski mutha----ers... Oski ski g-ddamn." I loved that song and thought it was hilarious despite (or maybe because of) it's overly vulgar lyrics. So I named the first sheep Oskie M. M being abbreviated for Mutha----ers.



I have no idea what happened to this sheep and the other one I made. I had planned to make a bunch of them in all different colors but being a teenager distracted me. They were made with a combination of crochet and knit. I could be convinced to make a new one and write a pattern if there was enough demand.

Granny Square Rainbow

Granny Square Rainbow
Originally uploaded by rubidiumdawn

When I made this I had a ton of cheapo left over acrylic yarn in so many colors that I had no idea what to do with them! I had different amounts of each color and wanted a creative way to use most of them up. I wanted the colors to make sense, not just whatever color I had thrown together without care. It'd look pretty crazy with all those bright colors.


What I came up with was each diagonal row would have two colors, and any row it was next to would have a color in common. The colors would blend into each other and the colors I have the most of would be the longest rows in the center. The only thing I wish I changed was making it a bit bigger.

Until this project I hadn't used granny squares at all in a completed project. They are quick to wip up, but they've been abused so much over the years. I think granny squares are associated with cat ladies with moldy little apartments, so I steared clear. I like this one though and quite a few I've seen turning up at craftster.org, and they seem hip, colorful and stylish.

What do you think? Should the granny square be left to grandmas or can the new generation of crafters revitalize it into a new golden granny age?

From the Pantry

I made this quite a few years ago but I wanted to share. It's a scarf based off of one in the book Fruits. Fruits is a collection of photos of Japanese street fashion. I ended up selling it since at the time I didn't have a lot of yellow in my wardrobe. Bon appetit!

Proof that my photography skills have been consistently mediocre over the years.

A Bit of Earth

A few days ago I went outside to get the pots and dirt from last year that are on our apartment balcony. My dear friend Monique gave me some seeds to plant and this year I wanted to get a good start. To my surprise two of the pots had already sprouted from last years seeds!


This is Cat Grass, which despite being something I don't plan on eating, it's a lot of fun. You can leave for a few hours, come back and see a noticeable difference in size. Watching the grass grow can be fun! I bought the seeds last year so my evil cat Baldar would have something to destroy. Unfortunately his plant-murdering lust was taken out on the rest of the seeds I started in 2009. A moment of silence for the lost souls.

This one I have no idea what it is. Time will tell. It's nice that I have a head start on whatever it is!

In a week or two I will be getting a plot at a church's community garden two miles from my apartment. I've started quite a few of the seeds and some have already sprouted.

What I have started:
Roma Tomatoes
Basil
Purple Basil
Sage
Chamomile
Oregano
Spearmint
Peas
Lettuce Mix (this will stay in my window-sill or go since it likely will not deal with the heat very well)
Arugula (same as lettuce)

My window where it's all getting started.

Lettuce sprouts! There are more sprouting plants but they are quite hard to photograph.

There are more things I want to grow, but that's the seeds I have so far. I still want to get one or two more varieties of tomato, corn, squash, bell peppers, zucchini and cucumber. Soon as I get paid I'll be making a trip to the nursery.