Drowning in WIPs

I have a lot of things on the go. I buy material or yarn or little kits on impulse. It's not a good thing, given that I work in a craft store. :p

So when the New Year came along, I decided that one of my resolutions would be to finish at least one project a month that I already have the materials for.

I have two knit blankets on the go, two sewing projects, and the material for five other sewing projects. It's not entirely impossible to do.

At the moment I'm focusing on the knit projects because they're bigger and will need the most work. I'm really pushing the blanket for my brother and kind of idly picking away at the Elf Blanket. (I'll post about that tomorrow)

With the sewing projects, the two on the go are already cut out. I just need to put them together. If by the end of January, I don't think I can finish a blanket, I'll switch to one of the sewing projects.

The real problem is the yarn and beads that I've bought on spec. I didn't include them in this endeavour, but I'm hoping to find something to do with them. Or trade them to someone else.

Luckily, I know that it's not as bad as the stash other people have. My beads are confined to two shoeboxes and a little caddy. My yarn a large shopping bag and a medium box.

Well, we'll see what happens, right?

See you next time!

Danglies

Made these today. Mostly from dollar store beads, but for the connectors I got at my local bead store.

See you next time!

'Feather' Earrings

I love the look if feathers on earrings, but I'm too lazy to learn how to use crimp beads. Then I saw these glittery hard feather beads. Had to have them dangling on my ears.

Beads!

I bought some beading findings at Michaels today. The clearance stuff was being marked down an additional 70%, and the way I worked the math this worked out to 82% off in total. So I walked out with 157$ worth of beads for under 25$.

Expect to see some beading projects in the near future! :D

Blanket

This is my most current Work In Progress. I started this blanket after my brother moved to Alberta. Then he moved to a camp in Saskatchewan where his bedding is provided. *sigh* So I didn't finish this blanket in time for Christmas, but it will be at home for him whenever he gets a place to call his own. I'll post again when it's actually done.

It's a variegated yarn, and I'm finding that it doesn't show off the basket-weave knitting pattern as much as I would like. Ah well. It's warm and that's really all that matters. ;)

-Sylvan

Angry ray of sunshine

A couple years ago, a friend and I took a road trip to the mountains and back. It was awesome, it was a blast! And at the end, we had this long long list of quotes, things we had said while driving down the highway, or looking at lions at a petting zoo, or in a bar. One of these was "I am the angry ray of sunshine that gives you melanoma."

We both love it, and toss it at each other constantly and laugh. So I made it into a shirt for her.

About halfway through painstakingly cutting my stencil with an X-acto knife, I realized that I could probably have used my Cricut to cut out the stencil for me. But by that time, I was committed. And I didn't feel like fighting with two pieces of technology to create the pattern for the stencil. :p

I'm really pleased with how it turned out. :)

See you next time! Tomorrow, I will show you the blanket of epic proportions.

-Sylvan

Etched mirror

Long time no see!

I've been really busy this past month, working at 5 am for most of the month, and doing some crafty gifts.

First, I made my mum an earring frame. I must admit, it was my dad's idea.

I drew(free hand!) and cut the "Family" onto some contact paper. I made sure that the piece I cut would cover the entire mirror in case I globbed some of the etching cream on to the mirror. I'm glad I did it that way, but it really was a two person job to get it onto the mirror nicely. (Thank you, Boyfriend!)

A word to the wise though. Don't use contact paper and etching cream. The etching cream melted the plastic contact paper a little bit and smudged. It turned out pretty good though, you can only see the smudge from certain angles.

Now this is where having worked in a frame shop comes in handy. I had my local frame shop mirror mount the mirror in a stretcher bar frame(normally used for canvasses), then had them stretch aluminium mosquito netting over the stretcher bar. Then, to cover the stretcher bar I had a mat cut that would hide it. I tried to choose a mat that would hide minor scratches that will of course accumulate over time. Added a second frame. Beautiful.

Added bonus is, because I asked to not have backing paper put on, the mirror can be removed and cleaned.

Check back tomorrow for the Inside Joke t-shirt I made my friend! :)

-Sylvan