A stab at a new craft & LOTS of pictures!

This is my first try at drawing. I know I have very little spatial comparative ability and have never endeavored to draw before because of it. But here goes.

This horse is my first drawing ever (besides the doodles you do as a kid & in your notebooks in school if those count). Literally ever. It's done on sketch book paper with charcoal. I never knew how messy these stupid things were. My fingers were black for a day afterward from all the shading & blending.



The next one is another charcoal sketch that I did a couple of days later. He is a wizard modeled after a little figurine I have. I really like how he turned out. I love wizards with voluminous beards! His robe has moons & stars on it and the folds actually turned out very well. I was pretty proud of this one :)




These next few pics are in a series that I started that were inspired by the artwork of a woman I found on etsy.com. She repurposes book pages into art. I decided to do a little homage to her & made these. The first two are my metallic trees; the tree on left surrounded by silver, the tree on the right done in gold.

I love that you can still see the text in & around the trees. These two were from a book called "The Junior Classics" that was printed in 1985.



This one is another permanent marker drawing on "The Junior Classics" but it has a different feel. A hauntingly romantic red background paired with a tragically dying tree. A great allegory for love. The little twiggy parts are my favorites. They were a little wide so I tried the image again with an ultra fine point marker. Strangely I was able to get smaller lines by hovering the thick tipped marker over the page that I was with the UF marker.


The next two images are the same drawing but two different photos of it. This one is from the same book, on a page with nursery rhymes on it. Done with prismacolor colored pencils.

I love how the trunk is ashy white but you can still see the text through it!






And last, we have a few more permanent marker drawings. But these are smaller & on the pages of a different book. These are from a play called "Two for the Seesaw" from 1963. I purchased this little book specifically to be ripped apart. I love the size of it & the neatest part is that the book came with the agency card still inside reporting that the play carried a royalty of $25 per performance to be paid to the agency. So awesome!

The left image says "ERECT" and is supposed to be phallic. And the scantily clad can-can girl on the right says "LINGERIE".



These are the first two in a series of Naughty Images that I am doing. I have one that drops the F-bomb that I am debating putting up. I don't know how to censor it & don't want the wrong person to stumble across it. Maybe I'll just post it on Craftster so that I can tag the photo. We'll see. I also have several different subversive cross stitch patterns that I designed that I want to show off, so I may just put the warning in the title of my post.

I guess this post is long enough for now, so I'll let you all go :) Happy crafting and have a blessed day!
)O( Heather

Holy FO, Batman!

So this is a rare treat. I get to blog several times in one day. My digital camera is still in storage 3 hours away, so these photos will not be stellar, but at least I can show that I haven't been sitting on my ass the whole time I've been out of work :)

This first is a baby bib I made for Michelle Sargent's baby shower. I made everything in cream, chocolate brown & pink and called it my "Chocolate Strawbaby Gift Set". I didn't get a pic of the blanket before I sent it to its new home, but I did get photographic evidence of the bibs :)


This is the same bib in chocolate brown. The picture makes it appear much darker than it truly is. The thing I love about these bibs (aside from them looking like adorable purses) is that they are so modern that they could be heirlooms, passed down from generation to generation until they fall apart from overuse. For that reason, I made these in durable but soft yarn and doubled it up so they would be thick. I am really digging this assymetry too!


This dragon is from Dragon Dreams as well. She designed it for the tsunami that swept the pacific ocean, but her continent silhouette didn't include New Zealand, so I reworked mine to include it. It's barely visible over the dragon's hand, but it's there :) I would have preferred this little guy in green, but then the earth wouldn't have been in such contrast to the body, so I'm pretty ok with how this turned out.


This one is a cute little dragon in a tea cup from Dragon Dreams. The text says "A Spot of Tea." I think if I do this design again, I'll change the color scheme a bit.


This last little project is a garden square from Joannesanderson.com. I liked this little guy a whole lot & it's going to be a present for Brandon's mom. I've lost touch with her over the past couple of months and I need to rectify that. I didn't get to give her a b-day present this year because of the breakup, but I'm going to mat & frame this little bugger & give that to her :) This woman has the greenest thumb I have ever been witness to in my life!


My next couple of projects are going to be adult-themed cross stitches. I love it when these shocking phrases are so lovingly cross stitched. It's especially awesome when they have cutesy little borders and such. So keep the little ones away from the computer & keep an eye out for my next projects :) They'll be originals.

It's been...

a very long time. I know. I'm awful. But in my defense, life has been turned upside down & my darling boyfriend is trying to finish the first draft of his novel (160,000 words at the moment!!) and is monopolizing the computer.
So.... here goes a quick summation of life since my last post. Thanksgiving & Christmas celebrations for Brandon's side of the family were at our house this year. I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner all by myself. And the turkey turned out amazingly well!! (Though I did slice a large chunk off the side of my index finger off when trying to break down the leftover bird, ouch...) We also had homemade: stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, gravy, rolls, & whipped vanilla cream. I took a lot of pride in making everything from scratch. Next year, I won't have anything to prove, so I may just buy the rolls :) We put up the Christmas tree on Thankgiving night, as always. Christmas on Bran's side of the family was uneventful. The tree is still up (for shame), but I did manage to get all the decorations off on New Year's day like a good girl. Just never got around to taking down the tree.
On Christmas eve, my "niece" (my aunt's foster daughter that they are currently trying to adopt) was admitted to the hospital with severe bleeding problems, kidney & liver failure. They did not expect her to make it, but like the little 3 year old tropper that she is, she has finally regained consciousness. She is still in the pediatric intensive care unit at UVA, and has more severe brain damage than she had before (she was born to a mother addicted to drugs & has suffered from severe dibilitating seizures her entire life), but my aunt & uncle are ecstatic that she has regained as much of her old self as she has. She will never be able to talk; they don't think she'll be able to walk, but she is here :)
Then in January, my grandfather passed away very, very suddenly. He died of a heart attack in his driveway while my grandmother was in Shawville taking care of her other granddaughter (my 2 year old cousin Charlotte). She beat herself up for not being there with him for quite a while, but now seems to be doing as well as possible, all things considered.
Latest issue has been my mom. She's now doing a little better physically & mentally than she has been, but while she was in the hospital this last time, her credit card was stolen & long story short, she now owes the bank $5,000 in fraudulent charges. My family cannot afford a lawyer to fight this, so we have to eat the debt. And my bank has confiscated my paycheck to pay for my mother's debt. If my phone number hadn't been listed on my account, I never even would have been notified. They left a message on my cell phone for my mother, thinking it was her number, and then cleaned the account. Needless to say, I am up a creek. This is where my paychecks are automatically deposited, my bills are paid automatically from this act & it is the only money I have to buy food, gas, toiletries & all other necessities for getting through life. Thank goodness for Brandon. If not for him, I would be out on the street. I have had this bank account for 24 years (it was started for me by my family when my mother & father found out they were pregnant) & am going to be forced to close the account so as not to have my paychecks stolen to pay someone else's debt (since I should not need to assume her debt unless something happens to both her & my father).
But I have been doing a little something crafty to help calm my nerves. Mostly, I've been eating :) But I did make this little guy tonight. I call him Gus. He's for a woman at work who asked me to make her a turtle. I think he's a charming little fellow :)

Here be photos

Come one, come all!! To the greatest show in town. No, really it's just some photos of recent objects. As I mentioned in the previous post, I have finished the knitting for my Ravenclaw house bag. And here it is, in all its Fair Isle goodness:

And a close-up. And no, I still haven't attempted the blocking. Right now it's being flattened out by my double-points. Still looks ok even without the finishing touches added. I have a beautiful leather purse handle I've been wanting to use, but it's just a little too short for the size of this bag. Oh well, I'll figure out some sort of strappy-thing to add on.

Lastly, this weekend is my birthday!!!! Yay, for 24. I feel like my life is just whizzing by, and I'm stuck on the side of the road w/ a busted tire (all the while knitting another scarf/purse). But for my birthday, I'll be going up to Winchester, VA to rescue my piano from the storage unit it;s been trapped in for two years. I cannot wait!! My piano used to be my life; and I have not touched one in a very long time. I'm actually quite afraid to see how far my talent has degraded. But eventually I will build my finger strength & coordination back up. The next time you hear from me, I will be one piano richer & a much happier person :)

Love & light-- Heather

Here be swatches...

Today, I ate at Arby's. Not an unusual thing (I have very little will power when it comes to curly fries) However, today, it made me very very ill. So... I left work early. And instead of sleeping, what did I do? Watched CSI & knitted. I started my Ravenclaw Fair Isle Bag and am now about 3/4 of the way through the knitting. My fair isle looks a little lumpy/squishy, but I'm hoping that blocking it will help.

I must confess... I have never blocked anything in my life. I don't even know how to go about it, but I will cross that hurdle once I've finished the execution step. And lining the bag is another story all-together. I can quilt with the best of them, but lining garments is actually very time consuming for me. I don't know what it is about doing that, but it takes me FOREVER! Alas, I think the bag may simply wind up being undergarment-less.

But in preparation for attempting to get my dearest boyfriend to purchase the Level I Master Knitter requirement/assignment pkg for me for Christmas, I have begun to knit swatches. Again, something I've never taken the time to do before. I've been mostly about quantity, not quality. I think it's time to change that. So far, I am using Caron Simply Soft (cause it's cheap & I'm poor) and my Suzanne's size 6 dpns. I'm hoping to branch out to some different needles/fibers soon, but here are my first few attempts:

Moss Stitch

Andalusian Stitch

I used this site as a resource for some stitch patterns. I cannot believe this resource was out there for so long & I never used it. Well, I am making up for lost time.

On the homefront, my niece, Ellie, had her first ear infection while she was with her father & his family this past week. The fever spiked so suddenly that she also had her first seizure. Bridgette (Brandon's sister, and Ellie's mom) was understandably shaken up. We had her over to make sure she stayed as calm as possible (she is now about 12 weeks pregnant with her first child w/ her new husband, Ben) and then Brandon's mom Susana & Ben, came over later. Our little house was very full. I had forgotten what it was like to have everyone there at once. Bridgette & Ben wound up driving up to PA to see Ellie the next day, which I am very glad of. I don't think either of them would have rested soundly had they not been able to see her before the next weekend when they were to have picked her up. It's a little bit of a shame that this is the first time her father has seen her in over a month & the visit was marred by this awful happening. But luckily, Ellie is doing quite well. On anitbiotics, and ornery as ever :) In all honesty, I was a seizure kid myself. When they told us her seizure only lasted about 10 seconds I breathed a sigh of relief. I am quite aware that even a seizure that short can do lasting damage, but it was a much better sign than if she had had a grand mal seizure. I just can't wait until we can see her again, and I can make sure for myself that she is the same littly punky we all know & love to bits. Keep our little punkin' in your thoughts, if you can... it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! Blessed be. @-v- H.

More for today :)

Soon I will be taking some time off from making "things" to inprove my knitting and crocheting skills by making my own swatch/guage notebook. I want to try some new patterns/stitches but I want to do so w/o the commitment of a large pattern. And maybe after my tension issues disappear, I will go for my Master Knitter Certification from The Knitting Guild Association. But until then, I need to post my most recent FO's.

So here is my finished MILK purse. I used some cabling from a book in my knitting library, but I don't have it in the office with me. I will relay the name of the book in a later posting. However, I have found that my skills are very, very lacking in the sewing/lining department. But we don't need to show that part, now do we? No. Who needs to see the inside of a purse? Not I; please say not you, either. I beg of you...





And also, a take on this pattern... I made him into my own little mini-monster. He reminds me a little of Sully from the Disney/Pixar movie Monsters, Inc. His name is Liam, and I have decided he is an Irish monster eyeball, and he is laboriously trekking his way back home to Eire after having wound up on a cruise liner to the States. Please don't ask; he is quite embarrassed that he took the wrong boat. He only meant to go see his girlfriend, a lovely vampire eyeball, in London. Now, he will have a lot of explaining to do when he gets home. (Well, not until I crochet her... but then... he will have to spend a lot of time on his knees... err... lids, begging for forgiveness).

And in profile:

For now, I am gearing up for another long work week. And counting down the days to my vacation. Brandon, my dearest boyfriend, has his b-day on 2 September & mine is on 8 September. This year, we have taking off the 2nd through the 8th and I cannot wait!! Perhaps I will do some swatching... Who knows...

Heather attempts Blackwork...

I have had these photos for quite some time now, just haven't posted them. I've been sidetracked with my knitting & crochet. However, I stumbled upon a blackwork design book by and I fell in love with the style. I did my first blackwork project (a sampler from her book) in dark green thread, and then moved on to attempt to design my own sampler. Here is the almost end result of my first blackwork piece, and then some pictures of the piece framed.

For my own sampler, I decided to rely mostly on traditional blackwork designs and then took some smaller motifs and worked them in amidst some repeated patterns. I have yet to finish this sampler, but I am still working on it.

I really do get easily distracted before finishing what I start :( But I am quite proud of what I have accomplished in this new form. And the back of the piece doesn't look too shabby either. I'm starting to become proficient in the Holbein running stitch. If you're interested in blackwork at all, there are some amazing sites online (http://www.blackworkarchives.com/bwbib.html), and I highly recommend Beginner's Guide to Blackwork and Beautiful Blackwork Samplers by Lesley Wilkins.

The Evolution of Franken-pumpkin... and other sordid tales

This mild-mannered little guy started out as a test-guage project. I didn't have any autumnal colors on hand, but I was dying to try a new pattern for this fall. And... voila!




The evolution of Franken-pumpkin begins in the workshop of Frau von Yarninator. Once a mild-mannered house-frau, her genius mind became slightly cracked when one of her more recent attempts at knitting a lovely little sock pattern blew up in her face. After that infamous day, she no longer wanted to knit ordinary objects. She became obsessed with creating her own little mini-monster...

Several prototypes later, Frau von Yarninator settled on the graveyard look for her new beau. Taking him to the observation tower of her small cottage home (yes, a tower. It was added on as a "honey-do" project by the late Dr. von Yarninator), she tied him to the metal working table and began to give him shape. From the bolts on the neck (very in this season) to the small stem (for she knew her Franken-pumpkin would never have stem envy), every detail was taken into account. Except...

The FACE. Ah well, not all experiments can be a success. Frau von Yarninator will simply have to pay more attention when stitching on the face of her newest creation next year.

***********************************************************************************

And now, onto a real post. This weekend, I have so much to accomplish, but I just couldn't help starting a new project. It's a small one, though. I wanted to make myself a M.I.L.K. purse. For those of you who are not familiar with the term ( and by the responses of my friends and family, that would be most of you), it refers to M(oney) I(d) L(ipstick) K(eys). And I felt the undeniable need to do some cabling. So, I am working on a small purse w/ braided cables and two simple cables on a background of reverse stockinette. Soon, I want to do an Aran project bag. I know, I know. Finish what you start, then start more. But who among us actually follows that rule? Not I.

But to end the post, a few more FO's. First is Fetching from knitty.com, and a Cowl/Neck-collar I designed as a partner piece. And then, cabled fingerless gloves. I'll post the yarn and needle sizes later... Don't have the reference card on me. And last but not least, some severed fingers to round off some Halloween knitted objects :)

Have a good evening, all! @--^-- Heather

And now for randomness...

So this is my first pattern, kind of. It's going to be a crocheted lingerie top, or a bikini cover up, or something like that. It's got some scalloped detailing around the bust area, and the back ties, rather seductively, just under the shoulder blades. The bust was slightly too loose for my, err..., ample assets, so the flower closure did double duty as an ornamental feature and "cincher". This little unfinished top actually does provide quite a bit of support for a yarn only garment. :)





And an upside-down close-up of the flower detailing:

On the non-crafty front: this has been the week that would not die. Seriously. I know I only work 4 days a week, but those days I do work, I am in the stupid building for 11 hours, if not more. This week, the powers-that-be required us to all do a half hour of extra time before or after our shift. I suppose this would not sound so bad to most people. But I was prepared to chew off my own ear (stop the mental images, guys :)) to get off the phones by that point in the week, and I still had three more days to go. And I had started my first pair of socks at the beginning of the week, so I was slightly stressed out about that. Knitting garments with fitted details is something I have never attempted. And as those who know me are painfully aware, I do not deal well with doing something poorly. So what it's my first time...Who cares, I should still be able to do it well.
So more pics will follow. Lately, I have been an FO machine! But please do not get used to that. I get easily distracted. Peace out, peeps! *

*yes, I know, I am deemed un-cool simply by uttering that phrase, but I said it... yep, so there :)

Please don't get used to this...

BUT.... I have another FO to add. Several actually. I have started my Halloween crochet and knitting for this year. I am currently working on a Dem Bones scarf from Monstercrochet.com and several of lady linoleum's free patterns as well.

I have finished a glove from Purl Bee, however the yarn I selected wound up knitting up too tight, so I decided not to finish off the pair. Just something to add to the Gallery of Wounded Projects.

Well, I have to run and pull some muffins out of the oven. Yes, my darling boyfriend gets me to make him muffins at midnight. He has quite the little kitchen slave, no? :)

And here are the photos I promised!! And here is the source for this wonderful pattern that was a whiz to whip up: http://mkcarroll.typepad.com/mk_carroll/2007/07/mug-and-french-.html