Owlishly

Hello November...

You're my favorite month; I know it should be a different month since both of my kids were born in different months, and my anniversary is in the summer, but I love November.  My birthday being at the end of the month probably has something to do with it, but it's probably because for the first 25 years of my life I could be completely selfish about not thinking about anyone else's special days :)  But to counter with something unselfish, I really do love Thanksgiving.  Not necessarily in the pilgrims and natives sense, but in the being thankful that I have all that I have and I love so many people who love me right back!

Unfortunately it's been a while since I was able to put any thoughts down in this journal of sorts- it's been nonstop busy for us here.  We dealt with preschool and first grade starting, and with the time my children were in school I thought I'd have more time to do fun stuff, that completely didn't happen.  Or at least in the sense that I anticipated. 

My little boy broke his arm (hello extremely undesireable first and hopefully only broken limb experience) and I was so thankful that his daddy had firsthand knowledge about what to do since I was completely dumbfounded.  We have both of our little ones in soccer this year, and our Midnight Striker and Little Mermaid are having a blast with that. 

We had a visit from some out of state family- Iowa and Texas representing!  Then my dad is running for mayor in a neighboring city, my husband was hard at work with his volunteering on both my dad's campaign and a measure that will hopefully pass in our own city.  In addition to all the fun stuff that comes along with him finishing up his masters degree and the weeks of studying for his comprehensive exam (we found out he passed today!).  Not to mention that he's in the military and on the 8th will be leaving for a while. 

I've also done my part to add to the ridiculous calendar that my family keeps.  I had issues with the way some of the things were done in our PTO last year, so guess who decided that being PTO secretary, in addition to heading the library committee, was a good idea. *Raising hand* yeah me, that's who :)  And since our school is a charter school (an excellent one I might add;), and since the economy is the way it is, I've been very committed to finding and participating in a lot of fund raising discussions and events.  I just finished a week of being the book fair chairperson and having to be at the school even more than I already am, but it's all for a super good cause- the library needs books, and how can the librarian in me refuse?

Anyhoo, I just wanted to check in and say hi! I'm really not neglecting you on purpose, I really want to spend time crafting and finishing that dang hula girl pattern- it shouldn't take me as long as it has!  But I do want to say that I'll try to be back a lot more often than I have in the past couple of months, I do miss this space and the creativity shared.

Guess who I've finished making?

Oh yeah! I finished the hula girl.  After like six or seven attempts on the lei, I got it just how I wanted it for the pattern.  I'd made a couple that I liked the look of, but were way too complicated to even want to try to explain in a pattern, and then the easy to explain ones were funky, but finally I think this one is just right- a good balance between looking detailed enough, but also something that I think will be understandable when you're reading the pattern.

I'll have to take some more pictures in better lighting for the pattern, but I hate posting without an image, and I wanted to share since I think she's really cute, and I hope you do too.

So, I have an appointment to take my computer in to get the topcase replaced, and it may be a week before I get it back so I'm hoping I can get the pattern done within the next couple of days so that it doesn't turn into a couple week wait!

Geez.

I just completely missed July didn't I? Sorry about that.  Well my dining/craft room still resembles this mess-

Which is just a tiny bit of the mess in there and I'm just nowhere near motivated enough to organize it.  I've worked on other rooms and picked up a sweater that I'd started last winter for my daughter to finish that while she still wears a 4/5.  Good thing I went up a size on that one :)

Unfortunately I hit a wall with the plumeria design- I think the thing is with this stuff is that I find myself at an impasse because I struggle with writing a useable pattern, but also wanting to make something that I find inspiring.  That doesn't always mesh, and I love writing patterns that people can make, and want to make. You know?

I'm also feeling guilty everytime I think about email or this blog, because I just really don't have the time that I used to to answer questions.  Maybe I should just have a FAQ's section where I answer the most common questions I get, and then refer inquiries there? I don't know.  I just feel like I get only so much time to spend doing crafty things, and I feel frustrated because my time is going towards responding towards questions or explaining how to sc2tog instead of being able to make the zillions of dolls that are on my design list and then write out the patterns.

Would it be better to refer people to the Owlishly Ravelry group? That way they can get help on the simpler type of questions like how to do a certain stitch.  I don't feel like I'm that great of a crocheter- probably intermediate level, and while I really, truly appreciate everyone who buys a pattern, I can't keep explaining what things like hdc means.  I sincerely want people to learn how to crochet, but I can't be their teacher, and there are so many online resources that will tell or show them how to do the stitches that I use in my patterns.  I don't think that I use stitches that are uncommon, do I?

Blech, I hate sounding so whiny, but I also wanted to get things off my chest.  So let's be constructive- if I did create a FAQ page, what type of question/answer do you want to see on there?  I can think of a couple, but it'd probably be better if you could help me out with this one since they're questions you have for me :)

On a lighter note, we've tried to maintain a very laid back summer vacation.  Some infrequent swimming, and very frequent library trips are keeping us busy during the week, in addition to a 4 day a week preschool for my little girl. I usually have a black thumb when it comes to plants but I decided to try again to clean up the air quality inside our house so I went with some rubber plants and aloe vera for the bedrooms.  And I've renewed my interest in making healthier food, or I should probably say just making food in general- cooking is so not my forte!  I do love reading recipes and books about food though so I have lots that I could recommend.

Anyway, I didn't mean to be a Debbie Downer (no offense to Debbies!) in what was supposed to be a quick "Hi! I'm trying to be back" type of post, so I hope you're all well, and I'd love to hear questions you'd like me to answer in a FAQs section :)

Hula body

So here's part of what I have, I'm deciding on the hairstyle, but do have the wig cap made.  Then I'll make a lei, but I'm still deciding on colors and whether I should make it out of yarn, worsted, sock or fingering, or embroidery floss or perle cotton.

Decisions, decisions! Oh, and my email was hacked into and then my address book was spammed.  So a big huge sorry for anyone who got a funky email from me today!

Winner of the Pearl pattern

is Martha Rickard thanks to the Random Integer Generator-  

Congratulations, and yum!

   

Thanks for everyone who participated, it's always so much fun to read everyone's answers- though this time around it was making me super hungry! It's not the best idea to read comments on an empty stomach :)

Pearl the panda girl amigurumi pattern available & a giveaway!

Took me long enough, didn't it!  I hope she was worth the wait... 

The pattern is 6 pages long with 11 images including the one on the cover and is available for purchase on Etsy & Ravelry (buy now).  Here she is from the front-

And now the back :) It's always the silly things or minutiae that I get hung up on, and in this case it was the tail- I'd always thought pandas had black tails, but in all the pictures I could find, both in books and online, they don't! Their tails are that cream-ish white color.

 

She looked like she needed a bow on her hood too since there was so much black and cream everywhere, and it was convenient to use the same embroidery floss that I used for her mouth and hair ties.

This one was a bit different than my typical dolls, I added an animal face to the hood.  I think I like the way it looks, and it's only a little more effort.  I don't think I'll always do that, but it definitely adds something this time around, and I think it'll just depend on what I'm making, you know?

Anyhoo, to enter the contest, all you have to do to enter to win a free Pearl pattern is leave a comment and tell me- What is your favorite food of all time? And if you want to tell me why, that's always more fun. Only one comment counts per person, and no comments will be entered after noon PST June 16, 2010. Oh, and if you don't want to wait to see if you've won, you can purchase the pattern now and I'll refund you via paypal :)

Sneak Peak of the finished panda girl :)

 

More coming soon...

Facebook and other musings

So school is out as of 12:30 yesterday.  Whew! I'm finding out more and more that I'm an all or nothing type of personality, and even though I tried my darnedest, I really did sign up to volunteer/help/do too many things that all culminated into the past 6 weeks of utter and total busy bee behavior.  I have 10 weeks until school starts again for my now preschooler (!) and first grader (!!!) to plan what I want to do next year and how to save time for myself to do things I enjoy doing also.

Meanwhile, I hadn't crocheted for almost 2 months, and while I was selling fundraising t-shirts at the kindergarten registration and assessments last week I was able to make 2 heads! Yay me :) Seriously, you wouldn't think this any major accomplishment, but I'm thrilled.  So, I'm just having my panda pattern tech edited and I should be releasing it next week.  I know, I'm so sorry it's taken this long.  Especially since I talked about it such a long time ago!

In other news, I finally figured out how to do a page for Owlishly on facebook. 

 

After much vacillating, I've decided to keep my MiaZamoraJohnson account for just family, and old and new friends, that way I can share personal information more comfortably with those that know me in real life and I don't have to worry about people taking things in ways that I don't mean them.  But now that I've finally made a decision I set up the page and added pictures.  Feel free to stop by and check it out, I'm embarrassed that I keep saying that I'll update things with more frequency, but I do really intend on trying to, and hopefully it'll be something that I can get done now that I have just summer time activities to participate in.

So I hope to be back soon with some new pattern news to share :)

What do you think- am I being copied?

I think I'm being copied. It's not in crochet, but it appears to be pretty blatant.  A site called Doodle Palace is selling digital stamps that look eerily similar to mine.  Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think!

   

   

 

 


Seriously?!

: : : : : ETA : : : : :

I had contacted them about it, and thankfully I received an interesting reply today with an apology and assurance that they had removed to images off of their blog and website.

When I'm designing a doll that I will be selling the pattern for, I do my absolute best to find images of anything similar to make sure that I'm not copying someone, even inadvertently.  I just expect that anyone else who does what we do would hold to the same standards too.  It's unfortunate that that doesn't always happen.

Within the last year or so, I just have gotten very discouraged by all the copying and pattern sharing on forums, and chasing down and all of the not fun stuff that has to do with designing these patterns.  Unfortunately I let that get to me to the point where I don't want to share what I make, but I do realize that almost all of the people that purchase my patterns do respect my work and my copyright choices and I wanted to let all of you who do follow the rules- I really appreciate you!

Happenings

Hey there, it's been a while hasn't it?  I keep having to take unintentional breaks for crafting, blogging and creativity in general and it's frustrating but I really want to keep trying, I figure if I can just keep coming back it'll stick one of these times :) Also, I have no pictures- I forgot to charge the battery in my camera and have been paying the price for that lately.

So in lieu of being able to do any crocheting/crafting I've been very busy with my son's school, I never thought I'd be *that* mom, but it is such a small school with great need and I can help, so I do, but mainly with the library.

I did get a chance to drive out to UCLA for the LA Times Festival of Books on Saturday.  As usual, it was fantastic! This year I had an ulterior motive- I was looking for book vendors that publish bilingual books, either Spanish or Mandarin and was pleased that I made some contacts.  I was excited to go since I usually see people that I went to library school with, or librarians that I worked with but somehow I didn't see anyone I knew.  I took my little girl and my sister (who ended up stealing the Babies t-shirt I won at the movie booth), and both had a good time, the only book talk we listened to was by Alicia Silverstone, who wrote a cookbook- The Kind Diet. It looks like a pretty good book, but my daughter wasn't in the mood to stay in one place very long and was still fairly upset over not being able to get a (WAY overpriced- $18!) Ponyo pencil topper at the Kinokuniya booth.

I can't wait to see the Babies movie when it comes out- it looks like it's going to be tons of fun and my kids can hardly wait.  Maybe I can finally finish my baby doll in time for the movie :)  Speaking of movies, I took my grandma on a movie date last week to see The Perfect Game, it was such a sweet movie and as a little league mom during the time the movie was set, she loved it.

I was also thinking about creating embroidery patterns or scrapbooking patterns of my dolls too, especially since not everyone can crochet and I think it'd be a cute medium to transfer them to.  During the course of researching this idea I've come across some major copying of my images so I'm working on that too.  I also recently bought a larger button maker- a 2.25" size that I can make mirrors with, I was going to do a fundraiser for my son's school with pictures of the students, but I thought that I'd try making a couple of mirrors with my dolls too. 

Anyway, I've got to go- I feel like a chicken running around with it's head cut off.  The golf tournament (that my husband and I are organizing) at my son's school is 5/14, he has his first soccer game 5/15, our kiddos are participating in the Mayor's Mile on 5/16 (celebrating the bicentennial of our city), I think our daughter's birthday party'll have to be that afternoon too, her actual birthday is 5/18, and we leave for Iowa on 5/20.  Geez, I'm feeling hive-y thinking about it all :) but I do hope to be back soon!