Owlishly

look what's come in the mail! (and a flower blanket pattern update)

Almost everything in this post, save the flower blanket :)

I ordered some new steel hooks, I'm hoping this will be the impetus needed to get started on some doily things for my mom's Christmas gift.

Then the lovely Sublime Stitching Sexy Librarians embroidery pattern, oh, and secretaries, I keep forgetting the part about the secretaries...

Then the organic veggie tote from Ravelry that I've been coveting, and was so lucky that I checked on Sunday when it was in stock and that I had the paypal funds to swoop it up!

Finally, here's more progress on the flower blanket, I'm planning on the pattern being done by the end of the week.  Not like I have that many days until it's over ;) but really, if I can get off the computer and get to it, it may be finished up tonight since now I only have 1 petal to connect & then a quick go-round the border and voila! it'll be done!

Raquel's pattern & more from the road

Finally a quiet moment.  I'm awake a little earlier than normal because my back and our hotel bed are not cooperating and I just needed to be up.  We'll be checking out of our hotel here in South Dakota today and heading to Wyoming after one more stop at the Mammoth site before lunch. I'm really looking forward to it, and in fact, I've really enjoyed our time here in South Dakota. 

We ended up modifying our plans a bit and instead of going up to Pierre to see the state capitol, we just came a day early to the Black Hills and I'm so glad we did.  We got to go through the Badlands at sunset which was rather fascinating.  It is really strange how you're just driving along and everything is still looking like a big flat prairie and then all of a sudden you see these big gaping holes in the landscape, and then the closer you get, the bigger they get, until it's mostly craggy.

Going through it was fun too.  We were so excited to see a couple of deer nibbling the grass outside our window when we first entered the park, and then as we drove and drove and drove through even my little ones became more blasé about it and kept saying "more deer" in a very ho hum tone.

Yesterday we went to Mt. Rushmore and while my husband and I were suitably impressed, our little ones were more interested in playing in all the snow.  Which is pretty much what we'd expected.  They enjoyed running through the area with the flags, and then on the little hike around they resigned themselves to letting me take occasional pictures of them, with the concession that I would get their cooperation as long as they could play in the snow the rest of the time.

Then after our little girl's nap, we went for a drive through Custer State Park which was more interesting to our little ones than Mt. Rushmore. We saw tons of deer, wild turkeys, pronghorns & finally buffalo, or as my little boy used to say- buckazoe! The second picture is of one that had no plans for stopping, whether we were on the road or not, it was right by the side of the road that we were on and then decided that we were going to stop- not him.  It just walked out in front of us.

Now to abruptly change the subject from vacation to a little monkey, Raquel's pattern is available both through etsy & ravelry too.  I was able to finish it up, and maybe today while we drive I'll be able to get to some more crocheting :)

My patterns for sale at Ravelry

I just wanted to let you all know- my patterns are almost all for sale over at Ravelry, if you go to my Pattern Store you should be able to purchase directly from there.  If you a member then the pattern will go to your pattern library, and you'll get a downloadable link that lasts for 30 mintues, or if you're not a member, you should still be able to buy patterns from there and get the downloadable links sent to you via email.  I'm not sure if you can go to my pattern store if you're not a member yet, I may need to create a separate page here on my blog to have the direct buy link by an image of each pattern.  Let me know if you can!  The pattern stores are still in beta, but I'm a tester for it thanks to Casey!  So if you're all about instant gratification, definitely thank him!

Add another book to the list

I went to Joann's tonight to look for purple yarn for my little octopus boy, and as usual, on the way to the back of the store to check out the yarn I check the books.  The books at my local Joann's aren't organized worth spit, and this drives me batty, but on an eye level shelf, beckoning me, practically jumping into my arms was Vintage Crochet!

I've been waiting for this book to show up there.  I wasn't going to buy it until I could get a super duper deal on it, and I caved in a moment of weakness. I was going to buy it full price since I'd used my January mailer coupons already on the borders & flowers books.  I got the yarn I needed and went to pay and was mentioning to the wonderful employee that was checking me out that I'd already used my coupons, but had been waiting for this one to show up.  She found another customer's mailer that wasn't going to be used and scanned the coupon for me- yay 40% off!  How fortuitous!

I've been pooped lately, and actually fell asleep while nursing my daughter to sleep, but since I had tons to do tonight, I'd forewarned my husband that if I did fall asleep I'd need him to wake me up.  He'd gone outside to workout while I got the kiddos to bed, and came back in to move our little guy out of our bed into his own, and I popped awake.  I'm assuming it's because for the past 4 years I've been waking regularly to soothe and feed a child that I don't sleep very soundly.  It's weird too, because I feel like I haven't slept at all, tonight even, but my husband said that I was snoring when he went in to move our little guy.

Anyway, I'm in the midst of typing the pattern out for the sheep and the angel, since it is late again, it's probably not going to be ready until tomorrow or Sunday. I also plan on taking a lot more pictures of the little lamb, I need better light than I have access to at 11:52 pm.  So, I'm off to finish up some pattern writing for tonight, and trying to get enough rest to be a functioning mama tomorrow.

One last thought, it is ridiculously easy to get sucked into the vortex that is Ravelry.  I love it, but I can look for something there in the forums and then look up and it's like 2 hours later. Man alive.

Super imaginative blog post title

I know. I'm not very clever about titles to each post.  I was over at Ravelry adding my little hat & blanket that I'd made for my niece and I was attaching blog posts to the projects in my notebook and noticed how very sad the titles for each post are.  I'd be sad if I were them.  Anyway, this post is just going to be a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

After my computer died last month and then I got it fixed, I ended up upgrading the operating system and have had to reinstall programs that I'd had before.  All have gone smoothly until now.  I'd installed Photoshop last week and tried to use it for something and there was an error message, so I waited until I had time to mess around with it again (which ended up being today), and tried again- to no avail!  I'm still getting that stupid message and now I'm pretty annoyed about it because I need to use it before adding my pattern to etsy. Argh. I may have to go buy another program, which isn't the biggest deal, I just want it to work right NOW and can't get it to. I guess I'm getting a lesson in patience.  My pattern is going to have to wait until I get my Photoshop debacle over with.

So I've been tinkering with that this evening, and as mentioned previously, I've been thinking about different doll patterns.  I'm thinking I'm going to go through with them since the first one is almost complete now.  I think this series is going to be the Big Head Babies. Not meanly, since it's been a nickname for both of my 2 little ones, it's definitely in the most loving way possible.  It's just funny since in proportion to the rest of their bodies, babies do have super big heads, and I think that's super cute!  My son's in particular was really round when he was born, it didn't really mold at all, and let's just say that I was acutely aware of EVERY one of those 15 centimeters.

Anyway, getting back on track, I'd made a head that I'd planned on using and then made the baby's body with a chubby cloth diaper bum too, but the head just seemed too small.  So tonight I ended up making a bigger head and used bigger eyes and I like it so much more.  Usually, the girls that I make are tanner, and the boys fairer since that's representative of my own little girl and little boy, but I was trying different yarn out, so this little girl is the fair one.  She's going to be wearing one of those infant gowns, like she's ready for bed.  She's all done except for her embroidery and her gown, but I already just want to squeeze her and give her little besitos all over!

By the way, I think I'm going to use the other head for maybe a monkey or a bear.  I've gotten different requests for the monkey, but my mom's birthday is next month and she likes bears so I don't know which one I'll do first.  Maybe I can actually get them both done!

Ravelry - where my stitches at?

I just got back from a weekend away and in my email box was an invitation to join Ravelry.  I'd been pretty excited about joining since reading about it in Kim Werker's crochetme blog, and I had jumped onto the waiting list as soon as I finished reading their intro page.  I'm finding it to be a really interesting place, it's providing a place to sift through all the information regarding yarn, gauge, patterns, crocheting and knitting provided by it's community.  I just joined and already was able to post information about my own patterns with pictures linked from flickr and a rss feed that posts my latest blog posts in my particular notebook section.  Discussing the projects I'm currently working on whether they're knitting or crocheting, and then include all the information about what hooks and yarns were used and any notes you'd like to include about the project.  The status can be marked including your progress, when you started and completed the project, rate it up to 5 stars, gauge it's difficulty, and connect blog posts to it.  You can also search patterns, yarns, people, -alongs, events and forums, it's a great place as far as I've seen.  I'm off to search there now!