Oh, hey, it’s Wednesday!

How’d that happen? On Monday I took the boys and went to Walmart (although, thinking about it now, I don’t know why I didn’t just go to Joann’s. It’s only about ten minutes farther down the road) to pick up some fabric and supplies for a special project. You see, on Saturday I bought something:

Clover Takumi bamboo needles. (Also, possibly, 2 skeins of Patons Classic Merino in a nice chocolatey brown. $3.79 a skein, score!) They’re my first bamboo – in fact, my first non-metal – needles, and I am entranced. They’re so natural, and light, and pretty (and coughexpensivecough) that I decided they needed a proper case. I see people all over the internet popping out these cute little dpn rolls, and it looked well within my skills as the operator of a sewing machine. Yeah, despite my curtain-sewing prowess, I am somewhat…not inept, perhaps just less ept – differently epted? with cloth and a sewing machine than I am with yarn.

Still. As I mentioned, I picked up supplies on Monday. I wanted to use some fabric left over from a dress I altered (I hacked off the skirt and made it into a shirt) which is black with small red flowers. I didn’t bring it with me to the store – small mistake – but picked out another black fabric, some red bias tape, red ‘shoelace’ ribbon, a small package of thin quilt batting, and a card of buttons. Then yesterday I spent a few hours in my closet. The result?

Reasonably satisfactory. It is not as far off of the square as it looks. It is slightly off square. And slightly wrinkled. And – well. Overall I am very pleased with it. See? You fold down the top bit -

and fold/roll it across.

It hasn’t quite got a proper fastening yet, and I need to take it back to the sewing closet and further divide some of the pockets so that they’re smaller compartments, but it’s both usable and pretty. I like it! I would do a few things differently if I ever made another one (for instance, you don’t need to turn over a seam you’re going to cover with bias tape) but it was fun. I should really sew more often.

Oh! Good news. I found my F hook, so I can finish the pink and yellow church baby afghan!

Getting some work done

I haven’t done much crafting for…oh…almost two weeks? I don’t really count the sponges, it takes less time to make one of those than is does to properly leaf through the Knit Picks catalog I got in the mail the other day. I think it started as that ‘between active projects’ lull – you know,  I finished the first Hedera, I made Max those socks, I finished that airplane. I tried to work on something else, but I’ve lost my hook for the church baby afghan, I can’t find anything to do yet with the Misti Alpaca that I like, Greg’s scarf is waiting for an untangle…and so I turned to other things that needed doing.

Now I’m sort of trying to see how much of that ‘other stuff’ I can get done before I can’t take it any more and start making coasters again just to make something. I don’t know that it makes for the most fascinating blogging, but look! I’ve released the Shooting Starf,  I’ve redone, written up, and released the Mini Stuffed Airplane. My Crochet Marketplace was disheveled for several hours yesterday as I switched it over to a sleeker, cleaner new look. Seriously, go look, I’m so proud.

Unfortunately for you, this doesn’t necessarily make for interesting blogging.  If I spent hours with a hook in my hand, I’d have something to show for it – when I spend several hours coding and uploading, you go over there and say, ‘Yeah, that looks nice. Was it different?’ Ah, well. Here, let me distract you with a picture that could be captioned, “Childhood is…”

Have a great weekend.

Busy Week

Prepare yourselves for a shock, ladies and gentlemen: we have another pattern. That’s right, I’ve written up the pattern for that little airplane I showed off a few weeks ago and it’s available for free over at Inner Child Crochet. I fixed the windows, and took some new pictures -

Max helped. You can find the pattern here, and I’d write more but Charlie says I really need to go.