Owlishly

Odds and ends

So with the time change I'm hoping to start getting up regularly at around 5:30 or (more likely) 6 to be more productive, especially since my husband won't be taking the kids to school every morning for a couple of months :) 

I'm also thinking about holiday crafting too, I've been looking at different square motifs to make a fun and festive garland.

I will be doing a giveaway soon, I need to get everything together and choose a morning next week to decide what's going out and what the parameters are going to be.

I also need to come up with some tasty and healthy crockpot recipes, I'd like to need to spend less time cooking dinner and more time hanging out.

I'm trying to get back into blogging regularly, so if I sound disjointed just know that I'm trying to work out the kinks, and it's kind of hard when I don't have the time that I used to for crafting, so I'm trying not to blog anything too mundane and boring, but at the same time this is a blog that chronicles what's happening with me too so mundane will pop up from time to time.

Be back tomorrow, hopefully with something good :)

My favorites folder 11.4.10

My favorites file is overflowing onto my computer's desktop right now, being online and clicking from one link to another is always fun in a serendipitous kind of way.  Not everything in the wish list is for me though, most of it ends up being for my kids, though I do have to add a thing or two for me regularly.

To buy:

• I think these plates would be a super fun for my little ones, I think they'd get a big kick out of eating off of their faces.

• My daughter loves rabbits, for the longest time she thought when she grows up she'd marry one.  Thankfully she's outgrown that line of thinking, but she'd love to have one- I think this might be the next best thing, though I'm wondering if 4 is still too young for a necklace of any kind.

• I don't know if I'd buy this desktop dodgeball for my kids or myself- I think either of us would spend quite some time playing with it.

• This would make my son's day and his birthday's coming up in December, but I don't know if this might be more his speed, or if he'd think that it was too babyish.  Heaven forbid a soon to be 7 year old get something a bit young, and since he broke his arm and had to go to regular appointments with his orthopedic surgeon and pass (and touch!) a full sized skeleton each time the former may indeed be the best choice.

• I on the other hand am really digging this necklace, it would eliminate my constant desire to see the longest shaving I can get whenever I sharpen pencils. 

To make:

• This doll quilt looks like it's a doable holiday project, eventually I'd like to make one for our king size bed, but I think I need to start my foray into quilting with something more manageable and work my way up. Although it might be a while, these might be too tempting!

• We've also recently adopted a dachshund named Chloe and I've been itching to make her some sweaters.  I'm still undecided, but here are some free patterns to try, even though I already bought the wurstwarmer pattern the day she came home with us.

To contemplate:

• I've been thinking about our home, and how I keep it a lot lately too- this seems to hit the nail on the head for me.

Now thankfully, I can close a bunch of open tabs and go listen to some Pride and Prejudice (via craftlit) while I was dishes, Jane Austen never ceases to lift my spirits!

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.

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 :)

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!

Hello February.

You're one of my favorite months. The one I'd always planned on being married in.  That plan didn't work out, but you're still one of the best months.

I promise to be a better documenter of what I'm making this month.  It's fun, and I forget that part and get hung up on all the things I haven't done, rather than focusing/sharing/celebrating the things that I have done.

Here's to a great month!

This and that

I've tried to sit down and crochet a couple of times lately, but I've been getting to distracted with other things.  So I'm going to do a brain dump to purge it all out and see if that'll get me back on track with the Hula girl pattern I'm working on. 

Well. First off, I've always had fairly sensitive skin and with the hives thing the summer before last I've been super careful about what I put on my skin.  But lately I've been in the mood to find a good makeup foundation.  This seriously has been an off and on quest since I started wearing makeup as a teenager.  I don't really have complexion problems so it's never felt like a must, but I'll like to have it in my repertoire just in case :)

Before having kids I used to wear makeup a lot, never gobs of it, but it was fun to play with and I'd gotten pretty adept, but never found a good foundation.  I suck at color matching and now recently with having to be more careful about what I put on my face I was thinking about trying Bare Minerals, and did a couple of times have people at a BM store, or Sephora try it on me and the four times I did it, I had four different color recommendations.  Not really fueling my confidence in the makeup artists either :) 

Anyway, I'd have them apply it in the morning and I'd wear it through the day to see how it felt, and every single time my face itched at the slightest appearance of sweat.  I live in southern California, there's no way I could not sweat, and at first I was thinking maybe it was the brushes, but upon further research I think it's maybe a combination of the rough brushes, and the bismuth oxychloride perhaps?  So I've been looking at different mineral makeup that's bismuth oxychloride free. 

So far, I've tried Jane Iredale and it's been lovely, no problems and it's felt good all day long, but the makeup artist that tried it on me last week was having a hard time matching my face too.  I'm hispanic with light tan skin, but I think I'm a cool and have naturally rosy cheeks so while there were a lot of colors in my range, neither of us were exactly sure which to go with the two closest matches were latte and natural for those of you familiar with the range.

I was thinking about Mineral Hygienics, but have heard/read a lot of either love it or hate it about them, and then kept finding my way to the Everyday Minerals site too.  So anyway, in a roundabout way, have any of you tried and had success with any of the above-mentioned?

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Next up has been a bunch of crafting for new babies.

A friend had a preemie last week, so I've been sewing a couple blankets & knitting & crocheting a bunch of hats for him since they were completely unprepared and there were no complications up until that day.  Luckily, he was born at almost 33 weeks and was around 4.5 lbs so he'll only be in the hospital a couple of weeks.  It just seems really strange because the majority of babies that've been born lately amongst my family and friends seem to be preemies.

One of my cousins also had a baby on the 8th so I've been trying to make some stuff for her little cutie too.  I've been putting off going to see the baby because I wanted to give my cousin a chance to rest up a bit, and to get stuff made beforehand.

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Also, I've been intrigued lately with woodburning.  Too many whims I tell you! I did buy a woodburning tool at Joann's a couple of weeks ago to try out, and I've been burning a ton of little dolls for my little ones, but haven't thought until now to take any pictures.  I get a little obsessive when trying something new to find out absolutely as much as possible about whatever it is I'm obsessing about, and with the wood thing, it's been trying to find a natural finish.  I think I'm going to try a mixture of walnut oil and beeswax since no one I'd be giving the toys to has nut allergies.  I was thinking of just buying a salad bowl type of finish, but where's the fun in that- I like to making things harder for myself ;)

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Anyhoo, what's been sending you off on wild internet searches lately?

Back so soon?

Why yes, yes I am :)

I know, I'm horrible at blogging this year.  I blame it on a multitude of things that have happened since this summer that I have no control over and realizing how horribly I deal with them.

I did have a good reason for not coming back as soon as I wanted.  I was sicker than a dog last week.  I wrote that post and then the next day couldn't get out of bed.  And then didn't get out of bed for 2 additional days after that.  The flu really kicked my butt this year, and it's so nice that it happened when I have a million things to do.

Seriously, so many of you are better people than I am.  I don't know how you manage to run households, make gifts, get ready for guests, and just keep up with life in general! I was not even close to thinking straight last week, and I'm am so embarrassingly far behind on emails, but I'm trying very hard to make sure that pattern purchases get sent within the 24 hour window I've given myself. 

I have two dolls that I'm almost finished with, but I have no idea when I'm going to be able to type up/design the pattern- one is a panda girl and the other one is a winter themed girl.

So instead of dwelling on that and the other 32 million things I need to do, I'll share the two little knitting projects that I finished last month for my daughter's dolls- a sweater for the girl and a sweater vest for the boy.

Eventually I'll work my way up to knitting for bigger bodies, but it's nice to start small. (more details are at flickr & I'll add them to Ravelry soon)

I should probably start cataloging my accomplishments more often than talking about what I haven't done/need to do.  So I will share that I've finally saved my computer's guts to an external hard drive that I bought months ago, but never took out of the package.  I've also organized my desktop, deleted a bunch of useless photographs cluttering iphoto, reorganized my music on itunes and caught up on all the software updates I needed to get to. 

I also cleaned out the cupboard underneath the kitchen sink- I'm super sensitive to chemicals and when we moved 6 years ago the woman who came and cleaned the house for us left a box under there for me that I never opened... until 2 nights ago.  Got rid of that sucker, and breathed a big sigh of relief!

My brother-in-law and mother-in-law will be flying in for a visit this Saturday and will be here until Tuesday so I don't know how soon I'll be back before their visit.  Since this month is my birthday month though, I was going to have another pattern sale- it'll probably only run for a week, maybe like next week because we're going to be gone on my actual birthday.  We're stopping in at Disneyland on the 29th for a couple of woo-hoo-it's-my-birthday rides before heading down to the beach to camp for the week.  I love camping at the beach around my birthday- it's my absolute favorite type of beach weather :)

Well, that post was all over the place, but I always seem to be needing to play catch-up when I post lately :)

Howdy

It's been a while hasn't it? I keep making resolutions to post regularly, and then weeks go by.  This kindergarten thing is fun, but I've forgotten how to manage my time it appears!

I've been practicing a lot of knitting, though it's not up to snuff just yet.  I haven't taken too many pictures of anything because my camera's been seeing a lot of action with family type stuff.  Lot's of activities, a wedding or two and now a family reunion for my dad's mom's family tomorrow.  I get to try out a 10-22mm rental lens tomorrow for the group pictures that I'm pretty excited about too.

There's been my niece's curtains that I work on occasionally, and hemming pants for my other sister, and today we made a skirt.  So dang busy, but not much crocheting has been in the mix.  I'm hoping to remedy that soon with all the yarn in my stash just figuratively collecting dust!

I did start weight training with my husband this week.  It's pretty funny because we are complete opposites, and typically prefer doing things by ourselves since we both are really opinionated and end up snipping, but this seems to be going pretty well. 

I used to have pretty good form, but definitely need to be reminded of it, and he's been actively doing it for years so he's been a great resource for me.  It's surprising both of us how well it's working out.  I'm completely out of shape too, so hopefully with the slow start I'll stay motivated.

By the way, that completely unrelated picture up there is from a trip to Disneyland the day before the boy started school a couple of weeks ago.  You'll have to bear with me while I get back into my blogging groove, but I just hate posting without a picture!

Life is getting in the way

I can't believe how quiet I've been lately, but too many things have been going on that are just sucking up all available time and preventing me from getting anything finished craft-wise.

These are the two things that I've been able to work on in between sick kids, dentist appointments, an emergency appendectomy for my husband, t-ball, preschool and trying to cook & clean more than I like too :)

This doily is something I've been working on for quite some time now.  I like the peacock feather/fan things, or whatever they're called.  Anyway, they're always my favorite designs to look at, and the ones I'm drawn to over and over again.  I thought it'd be nice to crochet & frame for my bedroom, since I think it'll turn out fairly large.  I intended to make it bigger and am using size 3 mercerized teal thread which compliments the rest of the blues and greens in our room.

The doll had been a zebra in my mind, but when I started making it I kept having problems with the stripes.  I changed it 3 or 4 times before deciding that it was never going to be the zebra that I wanted, and it made a better cow girl. Sewing on the felt is what's taking longer than normal, but I keep thinking about working on it when it's not with me.  Or when I do have it around, I have to use the time to do something else. 

I'm hoping to have it finished soon, especially since a couple of the keys on my laptop have decided they'd rather pop off every time I type and I'm going to take my computer in to have the entire keyboard replaced. I have an appt. tomorrow for that, but I may be rescheduling.

Some more randomness to note, last weekend I'd gone to the LA and Costa Mesa Kinokuniya's looking for some Japanese crochet books, but sadly there were barely any that were interesting to me.  It may've been because there weren't very many in either section.  There were a lot of clay, sewing, quilting, jewelry making books, so I'm wondering if they just don't carry as many fiber related ones as the weather heats up, or maybe I was there after someone came and bought up all the good books. I don't know. It was just strange.

Also, my books came in that I'd ordered, or at least two of the three.  The Japanese doily one is perfectly lovely as usual.  I have to spend some time with the Spanish one to see how much I like it, but as noted before, I haven't had time for anything I find particularly interesting of late. Dang it. Soon I hope!