Yarn Pixie

I have a new pattern in the works for Crochet Pages. It's for a wacky little doll and so far it's turning out great. I'll get it posted when I have everything finished and the pics taken.

Some Progress has been made!

I didn't get as far with my cleaning as I had planned. But, I did get to some cleaning and lo and behold, it's starting to look like a studio instead of a heap of random arts and crafts junk.

Photos to come!

Cleaning my Workspace

Alright, so, I wish that my camera worked so that I could get pictures for before and after, but tomorrow, I'm going to go upstairs and start to get my studio put together, for really, this time. I've been putting it off because I wanted to paint first, but let's be realistic, I've been "getting around to painting" in that room for like 4 years now. I need to just get situated so that I don't have craft supplies all over the damn house.

Once all of the cleaning is out of the way, it should be much easier for me and Jess to put in whole Saturdays of work, I'm hoping we can aim for once a month, plus I might actually be able to find everything for once. Organizing gets a little crazy because most people organize their yarn, or their beads, or the sewing stuff, or their scrapbooking. I need to organize all of that, plus framing, floral arranging, website samples, patterns of all kinds, projects I'm doing for other people, and so on and so on. Also, cd's because I can't work without music.

At any rate, once I have an organized workspace, I'm hoping that a few things will come to fruition.

1) The house will be cleaner.
2) I won't have to say "I need to find my..." anymore.
3) I'll be more productive.
4) My husband won't be afraid of my craft room any more.
5) I could have company over, and not have to hide my art supplies behind the sofa.
6) I won't have to worry about the cat sleeping on things he shouldn't.
7) My allergies will get better.
7a) My asthma with be better.

And so on. Right now my craft room looks like the craft room I always swore I'd never have. And I HATE IT!

So, even though I won't have any before pictures, I do plan on having many after pictures to share with you. Wish me luck, and if no one hears from me by Friday, tell my husband where I was headed. ;-)

Let's Get Serious.

Ok, so, now I have my laptop back, and unfortunately, in the meantime, the battery pack for my digital camera went bad. The good news is, it should be pretty easy to find a new one. The bad news is, they're like $50.

But I still should be able to get website work done, although, a good deal of what needs to be done at this point is behind-the-scenes type stuff. I also need to get working on the Project Wonderful stuff - like deciding where on the site I want to allow ads and designing my ad banners and the like. I also need to get registered with a new host.

And then there's Because We Care. I didn't know this until the other day, but the Lehigh Valley has a local blankets for kids charity. I talked to the founder at length and I will be participating the best I can given that I can't get to any of their meetings. (They meet one Monday night a month at the Hickory Hills Clubhouse, and I work every Monday night.) But at any rate, I talked to the founder at length and they appear to have no internet presence at all, so I told her that I would put together a mention for my website and try to help her get their name out.

That being said, I forgot to get permission to give out her phone number, so if you want more information, email me and I'll get in touch with her and get the info to you.

I am not considering this the formal write up, because I would like for that to be a permanent addition to the site.

On other topics, I finally got a decent night's sleep, thanks to (I think) an aromatherapy pillow mist that I finally broke down and bought.

And, I finally got almost enough clothes for the new dress code at work. Maybe corporate should have looked to see if there even was such a thing as long sleeve oxford-style, white, women's button-down shirts before they required them. Everything is 3/4 sleeve, or has that weird open-neck thing where the buttons stop just above your cleavage and the collar is more open and wouldn't fit around your neck even if you added your own buttonholes. Or they have frilly little ruffly stuff as the top for wearing it under a vest. And I'm not allowed a vest, first off, and secondly, I don't do frilly.

All of that being said, I think things might *crosses fingers* be getting under control around here. We've got beautiful tomatoes coming in in the garden and we're finally gaming again. If only the house would paint itself.....

Granny Square Guitar Afghan

Granny Square Guitar Afghan

(click here for plain English)

materials:
brown yarn
black yarn
white yarn (or background color of choice)
crochet hook
tapestry or yarn needle (only needed if you sew squares together or are embroidering the accents)

notes:
I have not actually made this afghan. The graph was designed at the request of a visitor to this website looking for a pattern to make a gift. Unfortunately, that also means that I don't know the yarn amounts.

Allow extra black yarn to either crochet or embroider the strings, bridge, and tuning pegs. Frets optional.

on layout "\" and "/" denote which way the diagonal split between colors will run

pattern:
complete all squares using the traditional granny square and diagonal 2-color granny patterns.

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guitar body is done in brown
music notes and sound hole in black
background in white (or other color of choice)

join squares with method of choice

notes stems, tuning pegs, bridge and strings should either be embroidered on the surface of the afghan, or crocheted and attached as appliqué.
frets are optional