Category Archives: Craftin

I can bore you to tears…

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My mom came down this weekend and she and I went yarn shopping. Yarn shopping is one of those magical things for me that makes me wish I had a hundred billion dollars and 80 zillion hours. I’d do nothing but create fantastic and beautiful things from the end of my hook.
My big find this weekend (besides size 30 crochet thread and a 99 cent big eye bead threading needle) is this fabulous Chinese yarn. It’s extra fine lambs wool, spun out to a thread weight. It’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s fine enough to do lace work but lighter than cotton thread so it will actually drape. I promised a friend of mine a long time ago that i would make her a scarf. I’m going to string these light green seed beads on this pink yarn and make up a beaded lace scarf for her. I’d like to make something bigger, but at $20 a ball, I’m not really going to be buying a lot of this.
Let me just say, I just cannot tell you how lovely this yarn is. It’s so soft and pliable. I’d post a link to it, but I can’t find anything about it. I’ll keep searching, then you guys can buy me yarn!
I started making tiny beaded bags. It’s easier than I thought, but it makes my hands ache to work on it. I got 2 finished on Saturday night and started a 3rd, but I don’t like the way the 3rd is working out so i’m frogging it and starting over.
I’m hammering out my finger puppet pattern. The basic design is there, i just need to get proportions right. I’m stash diving for the finger puppets, just using those odd ends of skeins that accumulate in the bucket. I’d separated them out and put them in a bag to pull from as I needed them. I stupidly left the bag on Chester’s kennel and last night while David and I were out at the Guthrie, Chester ripped open the bag from below, pulled all the yarn through, chewed up the bag and then managed to unwind probably 187 different skeins and twist them together. Luckily he didn’t eat anything, I don’t relish the thought of pulling 100 feet of yarn out of my dog’s butt.
So there you have it. A post even more boring than the ones I do about food!

cross-eyed

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I’m cross eyed from the tiny lace making. Pillow case edging must be done in pairs and I just finished my second set. My second set of tiny little stitches with a tiny little hook. Now I am on to my new project, I need to make 50 tiny little beaded lace bags and 50 little bitty funky finger puppets.
If things work out I’ll post pictures AND tell you why the hell I had to make 50 tiny little beaded lace bags and 50 little bitty funky finger puppets.
If things don’t work out, I’ll never mention it again and you will forget because you were raised by MTV and you can’t remember when your last crap was (hint: your last crap was at 4:47pm).
Now my surgery hand in numb and my left hand is cramping up so I am going to bed.

A very crafty christmas

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Here’s where I get you those photos you never asked for for presents you never got (well, most of you anyway)

This is the purse I made for Auntie Sue. She actually asked for a different purse, but I’m a dick and I can never just give people what they want. Actually, the purse she asked for had been knitted and I just didn’t feel like knitting, but also, I’d been trying my damnedest to modify the knit pattern to crochet and it just was not working. So, I spent and evening flipping through my pattern books for inspiration and stumbled across a really ugly hat. Go, look it up in the Stitch n Bitch Happy Hooker Crochet book, it’s called the “Strut”. I just hate the hat, but I made the larger pattern option and added a few rows and knit and I-cord handle and Voila! We have a purse. I even popped a few flowers on there for extra cuteness. If you want me to make one of these for you I need you to send me 4 skeins of Noro Kureyon yarn in any colorway you like.
Enamored with how quickly this purse stitched up and how cute it was when it finished up, I wanted to make more! Fate is rarely on my side, but people will always need gifts. My cousins, Emily and Rosalie were going to be at Christmas dinner. What girls don’t like scratchy wool purses made by their weird cousin with the blue hair??


Rosalie’s Purse



Emily’s Purse

And then there’s the jam making. I foolishly did not get any photos of the 120 jars of jams, syrups or relishes that I canned at my mom’s. I also did not get any photos of the jams I canned here or even of the mustards. Dammit. And I really loved the labels I made for them along with the names:

  • Dona Frambuesa’s Easy Kitchen Sauce (chili-raspberry lime glaze)
  • CornBob RelishPants (corn relish)
  • Heather Ward’s Def Strawberry Jam (strawberry lemon marmalade)
  • Redbeard’s anti-scurvy sauce (orange raisin and cranberry sauce)
  • Leminger (lemon ginger marmalade)
  • Red Squirrel (strawberry ginger syrup)
  • St Maple’s Extreme Nerve Calmative and Itch Tonic (maple pecan syrup)
  • Hawaii 5-0 (pineapple, lemon, orange, ginger marmalade)
  • Herr Saftiger’s Wundermustard (mit spice)

David helped me with the lables and David and Jason helped me with the names. The only good photo I have is here, the basket I made up for the tech guys.

It’s all in the wrist

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Saturday was that kind of day where chilling in the tub with the boy and burning through your library books are your highlights. It was incredibly realaxing, exactly what I needed.
but also…..
1) I took this recipe and made it, but instead of using it as an enchilada sauce I threw the pureed result in a big pot, added a large can of hominy (not to be confused with the GIANT can i could also buy), diced tomatoes, kidney beans, black beans and pigeon peas. I thinned it out just a bit and added a touch of brown sugar. Cooked it up into a spicy chili like stew. To my bowl I added chopped pork from the roast I’d made a couple nights earlier. Filling and delicious.
2) In a lazy mode, not feeling like making dinner the other night, David and I prepped some italian kale. Then I sauteed garlic in oil over med-low heat until just golden, added the kale. Sauteed, added a can of diced tomatoes, Penzy’s pasta sprinkle and cooked down some of the liquid. Dumped in cooked pasta. Sometimes the lazy meals end up being the tastiest.
3) This morning I got up and made banana pancakes, served them with home made red squirrel sauce (that I canned myself). Red squirrel is stawberry ginger syrup, sweet, tangy, fruity and sharp. I love it. It was delicious on the pancakes.
4) I’ve started crocheting lace edgings for pillow cases and table cloths. If things work out, everything will go into a christmas box and that box will fill up over the year and people will get presents. Sadly, last year, my plan to make stuffed animals and dolls for all the kids I know kind of got squashed by depression and Ghengis dying. This year, I’m hoping to be more determined about staying on track.
5) I made 3 purses in 5 days and gave them away. I’ll try to get photos posted soon. I’m still on David’s computer and he doesn’t have Photoshop so my photo editing abilities are limited. One purse went to my Auntie Sue, the other two went to a set of cousins. I had to be careful, everyone wanted to steal Auntie Sue’s purse. I was pretty happy with it and would make another for anyone willing to pay for the materials (it’s Japanese wool, I mean, seriously, that shit ain’t cheap).
6) dog are good and sweet and fun to play with. Chester is learning to be my buddy. I definitely need another dog-buddy.

who are you freaks, anyway?

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Here we go again, you freaks! Time to see what your thought process is before you show up here. December was busy, many more search terms used.


Click the image for a larger view
  • As always, Velvet Cerebellum leads out the list. Yeah, that makes sense.
  • analworld is a popular bet, it’s almost always there. It makes me feel good to know that my mom frequents a website also browsed by people looking for the best in anal entertainment.
  • “gilbert easyasphosting”. Okay, this one fills me with much joy and happiness, more than most of them. If you recall, I struggled for nigh on 3000 hours trying to make Movable Type work on my previous web host’s servers. ‘Gilbert’, one of the falsely name wads from tech ‘support’ in India sent me the fucking microsoft kb article defining the problem and then helpfully suggested that the only way to fix the problem was to contact my network administrator. When I pointed out to ‘Gilbert’ that he sent me a solution that told me to contact sim for support he said “I doubt at the installation part of you”. Fucker. At least I know someone else is having issues with him or one of his drone replacements.
    (as a sidenote, I still recommend LivingDot for your hosting needs. All the tech support is in the US, they speak real English and I have never ever waited more than a few minutes for an email response to any tech question, no matter how retarded.)

  • Stupid Mortals? YEAH!!! Of course a search for Stupid Mortals would send you here and of course all of your Stupid Mortal needs would be met by my website! Need Stupid Mortals? Come to the velvet Cerebellum!
  • Removing vomit smell from leather seats? yeah, I’ll accept that. Chester did vomit all over the leather of my car.
  • Roller derby girl upskirts? FUCK YEAH
  • Off the chain ass 07!!!!! That’s right aaaaw…what?
  • Couple things in there about recipes that i’ve made. That’s cool.
  • Vagina Velvet….upholstering a sofa near you
  • pound vagina. Once again, something I wrote was taken out of context. It’s not “pound vagina” like a command, it’s “100 pound vagina” like my coworker.
  • and my personal favorite this month…Nurse Humping. I had to take off my pants when I read that, I was so excited. Nurse Humping, on my site. Scorching hot.

you people have problems. Deep and serious problems. I’m just glad I provide the outlet for you.