Movin' Out

I'm attempting to reboot the blog. I've found myself a host and bought a domain and I'm going to be setting up at www.craftywitchscottage.com using Wordpress. I'm going to be reorganizing a bit as well, but we'll see how that goes. More details at the new site.

Getting Crafts Confused

One thing that drives me bonkers is people who see me crocheting and ask if I'm knitting. It's worse when the person asking has seen me crocheting before and knows I'm not a knitter. So why, when I posted pictures that were clearly labeled as "crochet hooks" did somebody make a comment about knitting? (There's a new comment up on that post that plays off the confused comment. I don't mind that one.)

Anyway, I completely sympathize with the crafter in this cartoon.

Heehee, more yarn!

After closing my store, I had a lot of shopping bags that I wasn't going to use. Well, it turns out that my local yarn pusher supplier uses those exact bags, so she traded me some yarn for them. They're mostly cotton, but the cotton appears to be plied with a very thin nylon or similar synthetic fiber.

Here's a couple of picture of the yarns,. Yes, I know the pictures are lousy. I need better lighting to do this right. Still you can see the plying in the second picture.










I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do with them. Given the time of year, it's tempting to try something patriotic with the cones.

Update: Illuminated Crochet Hook

Illuminated crochet hooks are available at JoAnn Fabrics. There's still no sign of them at AC Moore though. I didn't get to Michael's so I don't know if they've got them.

Update: Michael's doesn't have the hooks on their website, so I assume that they don't have it in their stores. AC Moore's website is so poorly designed that I can't tell if they carry the line or not. In fact, I think I want to submit it to Web Pages That Suck, it's so bad.

Crochet Carnival the Second

In the better late than never department: The second installment of the Crochet Carnival! is up at What's Cluttering My Couch and has been since June 15. I've to stay on the ball with these things.

What now?

So I've finally finished getting everything out of my store and either into storage or home. I'm trying to figure out where I go from here.

1) I need some kind of work, preferably something that actually pays money, as opposed to the shop which didn't. I'm looking into some options here, but don't really know what's going to happen or what I'll end up doing.

2) I need to actually start exercising regularly. I've renewed a gym membership that lapsed a couple of years ago, now I need to start using it. Unfortunately, the personal trainer option is expensive, so I'll have to see what I can figure out on my own and with a doctor's help.

3) Household clean up. The Button Lady needs to help out with this as a significant chunk of the mess is hers, but I've got several years of accumulated paper to filter and pitch. This is gonna take a while. What's worse is that at this time of year, I'm really gonna need to work in the wee hours of the morning or after sunset to avoid the day's heat. We can't put in the AC until we clear a path to a suitable size window.

4) Improve the diet. Before I even think about counting calories, I need to work on a) my fiber intake, b) my intake of fruits and vegetables, especially ones high in vitamin C and folic acid. I've installed menu planning software and plan to start using it to come up with suggestions for things I can add to my diet and ways to prepare them. Of course, I'm also going to be scouring my dead trees cookbooks as well.

In addition to all that, I want to start posting regularly on my blogs. Think that's a big enough "to-do" list?

I Promised Pictures and Here They Are (Take 2)

This is my second attempt at posting these pictures. The first attempt failed because I needed to debug an HTML widget before posting anything.

I ultimately used the Elmore Two Color Hoist-on foundation for starting my square although the first photo shows a standard foundation built on chain stitch. I'll try to get video of the hoist-on foundation when I start my next square. At the rate things are going though, closing up my store is taking too much time for me to finish this square by month's end, much less do two. Fortunately, the coordinator of this project isn't too concerned about the deadline.

Picture of the yarn and an afghan hook:

Sadly the hook is a bit dinged, but it works which the main thing I care about. I hadn't yet decided to try the two color foundation when I took this picture, but it suffices to show the kinship between Tunisian crochet and knitting.




Pictures of an illuminated crochet hook:

Turned off




Lit

Lit in the dark

Got yarn for Va Tech square

Went to MLYS, found some 60% angora/20% wool/20% polyamide yarn in suitable colors, and am now trying to figure out what sort of design to do. I'm thinking of playing around with a Tunisian variant. I'll put up pictures when I get the chance.

My LiveJournal

Silly human. I recently started a LiveJournal called "Raven's Roost" and forgot to announce it here. Well, consider it announced. It's going to be a bit of a catch-all for the stuff that doesn't fit this blog's foci. You know, things like SF/Fantasy, role playing games, and home repair rants like my complaint about the furnace repair.

Va Tech Afghan Project

I just found out about this a couple of days ago from my local Stitch 'n Bitch group, even though the initial announcement went out on April 22nd. The Mosaic Yarn Shop of Blacksburg, VA is collecting knit and crochet squares to make into blankets for the victims of the VT shooting. These will be going to the injured and the families of the dead, although there's apparently some debate over whether or not to make any for Cho's parents. Personally, I say go for it. After all, they lost family too. I'm not sure how much they could have done to prevent this, or if they even recognized the risk. I will note that the people at the school who realized that something was wrong couldn't do much because you really can't help someone who doesn't want it. It's not like no one tried.

Requirements: The squares should be 8x8 in black, white and/or the VT colors of maroon and burnt orange. Squares are due by the end of May.

You can send them to:

Mosaic Yarn Shop
880 University City Blvd.
Blacksburg, Va, 24060