Photo A Day Challenge: January 30 "Nature"

Photo A Day Challenge: January 29 "In Your Fridge"

It ain't pretty. We have an old energy inefficient refrigerator which runs loudly most of the time. Since this summer, ice has started forming on the inside ceiling of it!

Pictured: Flax Seed Oil, Pinot Noir, Salsa, Apple Pucker, OJ, Water

Photo A Day Challenge: January 28 "Light"

Japanese + & X blocks on the design wall in the morning light

Photo A Day Challenge: January 26 & 27

"Color"



Another Japanese + & X block


"Lunch"



At the Waffle Shop. Notice Erin giving my fruit salad some bunny ears.

Photo A Day Challenge: Jan 24 "Guilty Pleasure"

The movie Airplane.
"Surely you can't be serious?
"I am serious...and don't call me Shirley."

Also, 80's hair bands

Combos

Singing loudly along with Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) & songs by the Cranberries, especially Dreams.

Okay, I think that is good for now.

Photo A Day Challenge: January 23 & 25

Yes, I am skipping 24 until I figure out what it is and get a photo of it. Do you want to know the theme? Guilty Pleasure. Yarn? Chocolate? What if I don't feel guilty about it? :) You'll be the first to know when I figure it out!

January 23 "Something Old"



I think my Singer Featherweight is one of the oldest things I own--it is from 1938.

January 25 "Something You Made"



I made my bed and I made the quilt on it. :) People, I finally bound this quilt! I had it quilted about a year ago by Deb Kerr of Stone Valley Quilting and she did a fabulous job. I don't really know what took me so long to get motivated to do the last simple steps of cutting off the excess fabric and binding the quilt. This quilt is huge and heavy. It is beautiful and I love it!

Photo A Day Challenge: January 21 & 22

January 21 "Reflection"


January 22 "Your Shoes" (slippers) :)

Photo A Day Challenge: January 20 "Someone You Love"

My Sweetie and I went out to dinner last night after I had a mini-breakdown when I pulled my freshly bound and washed quilt out of the dryer and discovered the colors had run (yes, I prewashed my fabrics). I threw it back in the wash with some color catchers and Synthropol and it is better. I think the only person who can see the color transfer now is me and I have to look for it. Next time I am double washing my batiks and throwing in color catchers with the quilt on the first wash. Sometimes quilting really stresses me out. It's a good thing he took me out to dinner!

Photo A Day Challenge: January 19 "Sweet"

Photo A Day Challenge: January 18 "Something You Bought"

Now, I just need time to sit down and enjoy it! It looks like it will be a great book. At first glance, I like that it shows a project and then a swatch of the motif joined together. It is interesting to see how different something might look just based on the yarn that was chosen. I also like that it uses both charts and written directions.

Photo A Day Challenge: January 17 "Water"

Photo A Day Challenge: January 16, Morning

A cup of tea and my first go at origami--cat bookmarks. I couldn't resist trying these. They are a bit challenging. There are parts of the video on YouTube that I couldn't quite follow but eventually managed them, though I don't feel confident replicating them yet. Don't worry, I have 47 sheets of origami paper left and I'm nowhere near done making these! :)

Origami Neko You Tube Video

January Photo A Day: Jan. 15, Happiness

Photo A Day Challenge Jan 14: Something You're Reading

I heard about this book, The Greater Journey, on the Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast. They did a really interesting interview with the author, David McCullough, about his book on Americans traveling to France in the first part of the 19th century and why they were going there (many went to study medicine because the education in Paris was so much better for doctors). Writers and artists were going, as well, to study/ get a different perspective.

Photo A Day Challenge: January 13: In Your Bag

I came across this challenge to take a photo each day in January (there will be more challenges each month) with a different theme on the blog Fat Mum Slim using the instagram camera app. I am sure you can participate without the app, but I just got an iPhone and thought it would be a fun thing to try.

Today's theme: In Your Bag

Finding Balance in Crafting in 2012

Well before the New Year came along, I was already brooding (yes, brooding) over what I would work on in the New Year. What were my goals? What did I need to finish? I started making a plan of the techniques I wanted to learn and all of the quilts, knitted sweaters, etc., I felt I should finally complete. After a couple of weeks of thinking about it, I can't say I was very inspired. It was a to-do list.

Then I was reading Janet, the Twisted Knitter's blog, on a post about choices and I saw "...knitting is not my job." and I realized that I had truly turned all of my crochet, knitting and quilting into work. On some level, I already knew this but seeing her post hit home for me that I had turned what I do for fun into more work. I try to make myself "responsible" for finishing what I start and learning new things, as if I might become some out of control person who never finishes anything or tries anything new. Janet went on to say in her post "I can knit what I want, whenever I want, without explanation whenever the mood strikes me." I want to be like that! I had an epiphany right there and I knew that I had to ditch my goals for 2012. I mean, I was maybe even a little too productive in 2011. I want 2012 to be about slowing down, doing things for fun and actually having fun while doing them. And I confess that I want it to be more about me--what I want to do or make, not what I should do.

Finding balance is going to be hard. I make rules and then try to bend them. Whenever I try to give myself a break, I find some way to fill that break up with work. I need to let go of this drive to press forward and accomplish, or hand make gifts for everyone I know. Knitting (or quilting or crochet) is not my job!

So how can I go about finding balance in my crafting for 2012? I don't quite know but I think it involves letting myself be moved by what inspires me. And it includes embracing imperfection, which I learned when I was reading Kim's blog post about her word of the year to guide her creative process. I'll ignore that list of goals I made. If I don't finish something or several things, it is not the end of the world. Sometimes, the value comes in trying something out, not necessarily making it into something finished.

How about you? Is there an imbalance in your outlook on crafting? Have you thought of ways to change that?

Happy New Year and What I did in 2011

I'm not going to lie. I did a lot of crafting in 2011 and it was awesome!

A few things escaped photos and blogging, but here is most of what I managed in 2011:


Crochet




Sewing & Quilting




Knitting



In 2011 I...

Knitted 5 hats
Finished 9 pairs of mittens/fingerless gloves
Made 4 shawls
Sewed 7 bags
Made 10 toys/amigurumi
Finished 10 ornaments
Completed 13 potholders
Finished knitting 2 sweaters
Finished 1 quilt (oops!)


I'm really pleased with what I made and the only thing I would like to change is to make more progress on my quilts because I can feel the weight of so many unfinished projects starting to burden me. I want to try new things but I need to get at least a few quilts done this year.

Next, I'll share my last FO of 2011, a cowl finished on New Year's Eve, and my first new project of 2012: a striped shawl. I've been wanting to start one for months and told myself I had to wait until the New Year. I cast on right away on New Year's Day. :)