crochet « CrumpArt

September 11, 2009

Star, star teach me how to shine.

Filed under: craft, crochet, yarn — Tags: strokes — Crumpet @ 11:18 pm

I believe this process is called “kicking arse and taking names.”

Another week, another finished project. This is the baby blanket I’ve been plugging away at since January (January 14, to be exact — damn you Ravelry and yr guilt tripping ‘date started’ and ‘date finished’ sections…)

The pattern is the Baby Starghan. The blue wool is Patonyle sock yarn from my stash and was an absolute dream to work with. The green and lavender yarns were left over from old projects. Nicholas is around six months old now, but I’m sure he’ll still get some good use from this, and I thought it especially apt to make it star-shaped as a celebration of the International Year of Astronomy. The next family baby is due in November. The project I have underway is officially called Not a Blanket.

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January 23, 2009

Hand over.

Filed under: art, craft, crochet, film and tv, photography, pups — Tags: greyhound, handmade, hands, heavy cameras, self portrait, sore arms, twitter365 — Crumpet @ 7:59 pm

The twitter365 week three round up.

Turns out taking decent photos of your own hands is a lot harder than you think it will be.

As I mentioned, I was at work for a lot of the week, so had the added burden of less than stellar* light for some of the pictures. Like this one, taken at 10:44pm, as soon as I got home from work one night.

I have a soft spot for this next one. It’s taken against my bathroom wall, in a patch where the morning sunlight shines through a textured glass brick, throwing up all sorts of fun overlapping, wrinkled light. Yes, greyhounds really do have necks that long. Again, I didn’t have much time with this… it was taken in the minutes between showering and leaving for work in the morning.

I’d tried taking some pictures of my hands in various poses, but it turns out that hands often look incredibly ugly and lifeless in photos. Well, the ones that I was taking, anyway. I promise I don’t have ugly hands. My solution to this problem was to pull out the macro lens.

This next one is the photo I tried to take at the start of the week. It was an incredibly difficult shot to capture, what with my moving hands, the self-timer and the problem of focussing. I’m making a gift for my new niece or nephew, due in February. I still haven’t started the second sock.

Handwork that fits in my palm. It’s less than the width of three fingers.

Finally, all week long I’ve been pondering Doubt, most notably the cleanliness and length of my fingernails.

*Quite literally, really.

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January 16, 2009

Still waiting.

Filed under: bookmaking, craft, crochet, reading — Tags: bookmaking, books, crochet, handmade, soap — Crumpet @ 10:02 am

Yes, I’m still waiting to hear whether or not I’ve been accepted into Honours for either Printmaking or Media Arts. If I don’t get a letter today I’ll be starting to ask what’s up again. In the meantime…

I’ve made my first ever batch of soap! We had a severely blocked drain in the bathroom, and when I went to buy something to clean the drain with, I found a tub of caustic soda that said “perfect for making soap” on the label. How could I resist? I still don’t know if the soap I made is any good or not, because it has to sit for a few weeks before use. And if it is good, we won’t have to buy soap for about a year, because the recipe made a crapload of it.

After the soaps were done, I had to go buy a button for something and didn’t have any cash on me. So I used my card, and in order to get the purchase up to the $10 EFTPOS minimum, had to buy some yarn too. Just had to. There was no alternative. So I bought some bamboo and bamboo/cotton blend yarn and have started crocheting facecloths with it. Being a crochet newbie, I decided to use a pattern, and picked this potholder. The Patons Serenity yarn is lovely and soft, if a bit splitty, and I’m really happy with the end product. Rav details here.

And all of you who’ve been asking for new books in my Etsy Store? I’ve caught the bug again. Behold.

I read a review for How to Make Books: Fold, Cut & Stitch Your Way to a One-Of-A-Kind Book by Esther K. Smith on the CraftyPod blog the day before receiving a $10 off wishlist items coupon from Fishpond. So I ordered it and Magic Books & Paper Toys: Flip Books, E-Z Pop-Ups & Other Paper Playthings to Amaze & Delight and I couldn’t be happier. I’m so happy with these books that I’ve deleted every single other bookmaking book from all my wishlists. I have a couple of bookmaking books already, and have borrowed a few from libraries in my time, and on the whole they’re either so dry they could catch fire at any second, or they have that slight scrapbooking, “here’s how to make this exact project this way, look! pretty!” vibe. These two books are the perfect combination of whimsy and practical, and you can expect to see some new books from me here soon.

In the meantime, I’m off to work…

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