Where life takes you...

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much our lives can change for the positive, when we open ourselves up to the scary vulnerable state that is change. Especially us women... we want the change alright, but it also scares the crap out of us. There should be a "Crappers, I'm sorry" message for when my brain blanks. Seriously.

The reason for all of the thinking, (for all 3 of you who care! lol) is that I have a job interview on Friday. It's informal & with a small business, and the woman on the phone seemed wonderfully down to earth, friendly and honest. I use the phrase "down to earth," because she's Beth, who runs Lorna's Laces*. I will repeat that, for those of who who couldn't do the math there... I - me, awful blogger, etsy shop failure, small potatoes me - have an interview with Lorna's freakin' Laces this week! They make the best yarn!

I might even be able to put the year I spent on college in Fine Arts to use, so how bout that?!? Yes, Mother, if you're still reading my blog, you were right, it does count for something. Hhmmph.

So, I need some virtual hugs people! My support system at home is limited, and I hate burdening my awesome sister too much with my neediness (or my DH, who works so hard so I can maybe grab an opportunity like this one!) Even sappy cheerleader comments would be appreciated at this point! And, thanks for reading this and maybe thinking of, or posting. I know just how life gets in the way of best intentions.

Best wishes for a wonderful 2010 to the whole Craft-Blog-World!

Shirley, June, Karrie, Adrienne - you are the kindest friends a girl could have, even though we're all so far away. I hope I can talk to all of you again very soon, even if I do get a 9-5 job again soon. I know it's my fault we haven't talked, and I'm so sorry!

Jenn, I didn't mean to exclude you, I just hope I tell you more how much more I appreciate our relationship in person, than to need to do it on the blog - but for giggles sake - visit Jenn's Unblog. She's got the best blog concept, she posts inspiration content, and has nearly twice the posts I do!

* here's the obligatory Ravelry link - Lorna's Laces Yarn

Who Can Take A Sunrise...

... and brighten it with dew? The Candyman can!!! Or anybody else with bare yarn and Kool-Aid! LOLI liked Kool-Aid dyeing so much the first time I tried it; I had to go out and buy more wool to play with! This time, I cut 3 balls of Lion Brand wool into 25yd mini-skeins, and ended up with 18 (appx.) half ounce skeins. Yeay! LOL

I love playing around with color, and this is a great way to do it. I still want to try more, like self-striping patterns, and more variegated colorways. But, I wanted to start with a base, and know what each color was going to turn out as, that's why I dyed such small mini-skeins. I know the Knitty article showed a bunch of different samples, but I wanted to see for myself, what shade & tone each different color Kool-Aid would finish like. Single packets of color turned out mostly saturated, and wildly different effects can be achieved by overdyeing. I must mention, Kool-Aid dyeing is SUPER fun! Watch out! It can be addicting! LOL

Upper Left to Right - (Middle left was left undyed,) Grape, Berry Blue, partial packet of Berry Blue, Arctic Green Apple, partial (tiny bit!) packet of Lemon Lime, partial packet of Lemon Lime overdyed with a partial packet of Berry Blue, Lemon Lime, and Lemon lime (2 packets.)

Lower Left to Right - Black Cherry, Strawberry, Watermelon Cherry (2 packets,) Watermelon Cherry, Strawberry Lemonade, Lemonade overdyed with partial packet of Watermelon Cherry, Lemonade overdyed with Strawberry Lemonade, and Orange.

More of My Favorite Things!

My favorite craft is sewing. Yes, I like knitting; but it's so slow compared to a sewn garment. So many thousands of stitches, and usually I'll get a bug up my butt about any/all mistakes I made along the way. I find satisfaction quicker & easier to come by with my sewing projects. It's so much easier to fix a sewn mistake than knit screw-ups. No frogging!

I've really enjoyed dyeing recently though, as well. Right now it's yarn, although I hope to get into dyeing fabric as well. I've even dyed shoes with Kool-Aid! Hahahaha!!! Something about adding color, and in any shade or saturation my heart desires, is really satisfying for me. I actually have a background in fine art (in high school & college,) even though I'm self taught with most crafts I do. I love playing with color!

My favorite thing I've ever made is my Craft: skirt, which was a dual entry in both Whiplash, and the Etsy Craft: challenge last fall, and the silk slip I made to go underneath it. I didn't actually make the skirt, it was store bought, from J. Crew Factory for about 30$. What I love about it, was how the design came together. I found crochet lace I actually liked, most are too frilly for me; and a font that was perfect for my concept. The concept* itself was simple, put the definition of craft on the hem of a skirt; but I initially didn't know how I was going to do it. I wanted the letters to be fine (ie. not too big,) but the cotton fabric was too thin for embroidery. Fabric markers turned out great, the fabric was white, and all I did was put the text template underneath the skirt, and trace! It bled a little more than I'd originally hoped for, but in the end, I really like the effect. It goes well with the font, and it's practically unnoticeable from a few feet away. This project was so super easy, I should really make a tutorial for it. The materials (minus the skirt cost,) were less than 10$ and it took me all of 30 minutes to sew the lace onto the bottom hem, and trace the words.

What are your favorite crafts and projects? It was hard for me to narrow down, I like trying new crafts as often as I can.

*My concept was inspired by the fashion designer, Ann Demeulemeester. Several years ago, I saw her doing phrases on the sides/bottom hems of tulle over skirts(both black & white,) and absolutely loved the idea.

Life is Sweet!

My Mom's been having a really stressful time lately; her mother is very sick, and not showing very much improvement over the last 6 months. So, when she mentioned to me the last time I saw her, that she loved my birthday present to myself - my Betz White inspired cupcake pin cushion; I knew I had to make her one as well.

To make this one extra special I even added some fun ribbon trim, and a cherry on top! It's actually a felted bead, dyed with cherry watermelon Kool-Aid, and a fleece "mint leaf" - but it's all anchored to a silk pin, so it's totally removable, too!

An update on my broken heater - it's not broken anymore! My husband is so handy, he saved us a trip out from the HVAC guy! I guess it was just a valve or switch being flaky... or maybe it was a valve switch... I dunno, and I kinda don't care - because I'm not freezing anymore! LOL

Kool Aid Dyed Yarn

This is the final result - yeay robin's egg blue yarn!

Alright, so I'm obsessed with robin's egg blue, have been for 3+ years now! I still love purple (my first favorite color,) but I knew I had to try for robin's egg, since it's so hard a color yarn to find. I started with Lion brand Wool in cream. For my first try I only used one packet of Ice Blue Raspberry Kool-Aid, and it turned out slightly more minty green, and less robin's egg blue than I wanted. No matter, just dye, dye again! LOL

Here's the color after the first round of dyeing.

I couldn't find another packet of Ice Blue Raspberry to save my life, so I tried Berry Blue next. I should have probably only used half of the packet, but oh well! It's a very vibrant robin's egg blue, is all! LOL It does have some lighter areas (which I was hoping to avoid,) but I don't want it any more blue, so I'll live with it. I'd encourage anybody to try it, it's lots of fun! Be careful of dyeing your hands, though! The area circled didn't absorb as much dye as the rest, and stayed lighter.

Here's the whole skein layed out, after 2 rounds of Kool Aid dyeing.

Fancy footwork!

Craftster's current challenge (#10 - Footwear Facelift) totally had me thinking... I love shoes, and knew I wanted to try my hand - but I just wasn't quite sure what to do about it...

Then it totally hit me! I bought a pair of beaded white satin mules as a back-up for my wedding shoes, (my kitties had gnawed at my first pair, and I didn't have the heart to investigate for some time) and they cost like 9$ because I found them on clearance at DSW (but I wasn't going to be heartbroken if my little expiriment didn't pan out.)

Anyhoo - I've been wanting to try Kool-aid dyeing since I saw the article on Knitty, a few months ago. My original concept was to dip-dye the shoes, so the color was more intense at the tip and more subtle towards the top. In reality, it seemed that wouldn't work out very well... so I just dyed the toe end, and left the heel end white. I really like the contrast... and the beading is mostly white or clear, so the white heels tie the two colors together, I think.

Here's a work-in-progress shot... the blue in the cup is what the Kool-Aid really looked like! I was nervous my shoes would end up electric blue too, instead of the lovely aqua water color I was going for.

I started by adding 1/3 of the dry powdered Kool-Aid mix to 8oz. of water, and the remaining 2/3 dry mix to 6oz. of water. I originally wanted an ombre (or gradient) effect, and thought I'd achieve this in multiple color washes in the two different strengths. The more diluted solution seemed to barely tint the white silk at all, so I quicky switched to the stronger stuff. Basically I just painted it on with a brush, not being too careful as I had set the shoes in pyrex pans first. Some dripped off, but each "layer" was about 2-3 washes over the whole front of the shoe. Then I blasted them with a hair dryer, in the hopes that would set the colorfastness of the dye (I would hate to try and wear them, and then end up ruining them!)

I knew I wanted to do more than just dye these - although I was very suprised how well the Kool-Aid dye worked out! So, I dove into my bead stash... and came up with a bunch of seed beads (which I drove myself nuts sorting & stringing - only to decide they were too dainty to use!) and a wonderful strand of vintage aqua channel-backed rhinestones. The channel backs allowed me to sew them on... which was interesting, because I've never sewn anything onto shoes before!

Here's an in-progress shot of the rhinestones being sewn on... I was hoping to get away with only sewing every third or fourth down, but quickly decided I needed to sew them all. It was pretty tough, as I tried to use my fingernails as thimbles! I used 123 of the rhinestones, and have about 20 left, I think.

Well, I'm so tired I can't type very well anymore, so I'll just finish with pictures of the completed shoes!