A Stitch in Time

As fall quickly approaches Northern Indiana, I've been scouring the consignment shops and secondhand stores for new additions to my wardrobe. So far, my darling husband has been the genius in that situation, scoring 2 skirts and 2 blouses - 50% off too! - at our favorite little shop, Twice As Nice in Goshen, IN. She takes in the 'good' stuff - names brands, barely worn more than once, etc.

And on top of that, as it's getting to be sweater season, I decided that I needed to stitch myself up a nice little cardigan. I do more than just crochet baby booties and afghans you know!

I caught sight of this pattern on the back of a Crochet Today magazine that I picked up at (where else?) Walmart. (I do not condone shopping at Walmart, but when they're right across the street from work, and you need yarn quickly, where else ya gonna go??) It was a free pattern available from redheart.com, which I have conveniently linked you straight to. So go download it, quick, and then come back and finish reading what I have to say!

This cardigan pattern was listed as being for advance/experienced crocheters, but personally, I would have labeled it intermediate. It really only has two types of stitches - half double crochet and single crochet. The 'tricky' part, if you want to call it that, comes in the HDC F&B pattern. Half double crochet front and back. In other words, you work your HDC in the front loop or the back loop (alternating) of the row you're working in. There is quite a bit of increase and decrease as well.

I will warn you that there is an error in the sleeve pattern. You have to increase on BOTH sides of the sleeve when stitching the increase rows. Otherwise, it will come out increased on one side only and pretty wonky and ugly, resulting in the tearing out of 3 hours worth of stitches. (Experience speaking here.)

The yarn is Red Heart Sparkle, which is a pretty acrylic yarn, probably not ideal for wearing right against your skin, but soft enough. The names come from a single strand of sparkle that runs through the yarn. I chose chocolate brown - boring banker color - rather than lime green as the pattern suggests. Any of the Sparkle colors would be more than appropriate though. It all depends on your tastes. I am hoping to add blue, black and magenta to my wardrobe over the course of the winter.

I usually purchase my yarn from knitting-warehouse.com, who seem to have roughly the best sale prices, usually $1 or more cheaper than the stores, depending on what you are purchasing. This pattern only requires 4 skeins, so it's also inexpensive and economical to make. I put about $20 and a couple days worth of work into mine - minus the 3 hours of stitches I had to tear out. :)

Anyway, I'll post a picture this afternoon, when Alex comes home and can weild the camera for me. I don't find pictures I have taken of my reflection in a mirror to do justice to something I worked so hard on. Ciao for now!

Creative Inventory Part 5

What activates your creative energy? What deactivates it?

I don't think I can even list all the things that get me in the mood to create!! I am inspired always by beautiful things. Now wait, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so what can I possibly mean by that? I guess it's more complicated than simply "I am inspired by beauty".

Remember how I said I have a natural talent for seeing the possible? It goes along with that. I am inspired by blank canvasses. A raw, uncut piece of fabric. A huge open stretch of land that has nothing growing on it yet. Entire days where I have nothing that has to be done! (I can't wait for Wednesday, my day off this week!) A basket-full of balls and skeins of yarn that haven't been woven into anything yet.

Sunny days inspire my Earthiness and pull me out-of-doors into the sunshine to dig in the dirt, to design gardens of flowers and vegetables and fruits and to adore the beauty of Creation.

Stormy days bring out my 'hand-made' creativity. All things fine arts are produced on stormy days - new dresses, new crochet designs, new tales of haunted house, pirates, and best friends, new drawings and worst of all - encourage me to redecorate a room of the house. (This occasionally gets me into trouble.)

Days that are in between stormy and sunny make me want to play the piano for hours and sing. Cloudy days don't give a lot of leniency for sitting around, nor do they make me want to coax seedlings to grow taller, and so my heart begins to sing the blahs away.

BUT I begin to feel drained when the project has carried on for too long. This is my creative downfall and why I am so terrible at follow-through. I begin projects with gusto, anxious to bring the thoughts in my head into reality. Once they begin to take much longer than I originally planned - especially sewing projects if they must be ripped apart and resewn - I begin to lose my creative spark toward that project and it will become just another statistic in my pile of things unfinished. When something no longer stimulates my eye for the possible, I lose interest, and, often, move on to the next stimulus. This is something that makes me believe that I need a partner to work with - someone to hold my nose to the grindstone.

Deadlines are especially effective for me. If I promised to deliver something the next day, you can bet I will pull an all-niter to finish it!

Grand Re-Re-Opening

It's official! L.Peek Designs is re-opening tomorrow morning!

It's actually open right now, with one single listing - a pair of orange Baby Chucks. :) But tomorrow I will begin the relistings and while I will not be crocheting full time like I was prior to March 1st, I will be devoting a good portion of time to maintaining the shop.

I'm really excited about this. This is one of my true loves so it's going to be wonderful to get going again.

Missed the Centennial Posting

Well!

Yesterday I posted my 100th blog posting without realizing it! Kind of makes me wish I had said something important rather than a breif bit of prose about what rolls around in my head on nights of insomnia. Last night I slept well though.

We put a lot of importance on the number 100. 100 years is a long time, 100 objects is a lot, 100 of anything can become overwhelming. 100 rejected job applications....well, let's not worry about that right now. I'm pretty impressed that I've made it to 100 postings. I've started 5 different blogs in the past 2 years, but this is the one that I've been keeping up with. Little pat on the back for me, as I have never been very good about keeping up with the things I've started.

I would be overjoyed with 100 sales in my Etsy shop and I believe I am well on my way there. Last night I reached 42 sales, and I am still playing catch up for the upcoming bazaar and promotions. I'm a little sad that there has been almost ZERO interest in my Superbowl Sale, but I also understand that it's only been a few days and that not everything works as quickly as I would like it to.

I have discovered the joys of audio books! They are wonderful for the crocheter/knitter because they do not require you to pay attention to a picture on a screen when you are trying to count stitches! All this week I have been listening to James Patterson's 'Women's Murder Club - 1st To Die'. It had very mixed reviews, but those are the kinds of books that I enjoy - murder mysteries, crime dramas, suspense thrillers, etc. - and I have really enjoyed it. Except for the narrator. She's a little bland. I still have one free credit left on Audible.com that I want to use wisely, so I've been scouring the bestseller lists for the best title available. Then perhaps I will head to the library for some more.

These weeks have been beautiful. I feel great promise for us this new year. January is already nearly over, and though I am tired of the snow and the blizzard conditions, I will be sorry to wave goodbye. But February, though usually the least favorite time of year for me, has the same amount of promise this year. Bring it on.

New Discussion

L. Peek Designs now has a Facebook fan page! Look me up and 'like' me!

And if you do, please add your thoughts to the discussion board!

The topic is what you would like to see in the Etsy shop this spring.

Baby Uggs?

Baby Vans?

Baby Ballet Slippers?

Baby Blahniks?

I would LOVE to read your thoughts on the matter. :)

And while I'm shamelessly promoting myself, here's another look at what's in the shop right now!

Always Talking About The Weather

Personally, I was delighted with all the snow.

When we woke up Saturday morning, we got up very early because we were supposed to be helping our church deliver 8800 food boxes to our community. So much for that. It was cancelled due to a massive dumping of lake effect snow! So instead, we were quite content to stay inside, venturing out only to clear a path between the house and the garage, and eventually to shovel the driveway. At it's highest point, the snow was level with our front porch, which is appoximately 30 inches off the ground.

So I got a lot of crocheting done, and experienced great joy, as I recieved several requests from friends and potential new customers on my Etsy webshop.  Alex shovelled and napped and then later in the evening we rented a movie after venturing down to the grocery store for some bread and eggs. Pizza Hut provided our dinner. Snow days are wonderful. They provide excuses to be lazy that no one thinks twice about.

Well, for today, it's back to the yarn basket and crochet hooks. There are 4 new orders to fill and I am pretty pleased about it.

Just Some Things

What a week. I hope I hear from my new job soon about when they are officially going to hire me and start their training courses. I had a call last week, to tell me that they don't know when it's going to start yet and am I still interested, but haven't heard from them since. Being at home all the time is kind of messing with my head.
I've been crocheting like a crazy person here lately! Seriously - a crazy person. Yep - part of being stuck in the house and not working. However, I am getting ready for a handmade/vintage bazaar that will be held on April 10 in S.B., so it's not necessarily bad that I am being a bit crazy about it. I am also in communication with a fellow blogger who does promos and giveaways for handmade goods and shops to be a featured seller in the next few months. Giveaways always attract potential customers.

I have been working out some new baby shoe designs, beyond my tiny Chucks, with some success. Alex's big contribution to the effort has been to suggest that I attempt the classic Vans skater shoes in mini crochet scale. Not a bad idea really. I've also been working on tiny Mary Janes with flowers on the toes. I hope to have them available soon, but with my freehand designing, it's always a process of trial and error. 

So back to the studio I go to run yarn through my fingers until they are dry and stiff with hopes of completing a finished product or two today. If you ever loved me, share my Etsy.com shop with your friends. :)

Off To A Pleasant Start

Not really - I have a strange ailment upon me that could be linked to anything. I had a migraine last night, sinus troubles, stomach-ache and intestinal discomfort this morning. Let's just give it a broad title and say that today I'm not feeling my usual chipper self. This also means the bathroom did not get finished yesterday. (I was also short a helper.) And so I plan to stay home today and crochet a few more pairs of baby Chucks,
try to get a couple more of my famous projects unleashed on the world, and practice my drawing skills.

But to start the day out, I have put together two Etsy Mini-Feeds for my readers to enjoy. One is from the list of things I have marked as favorites from other crafters and artists. The other is the list of things I have for sale in my shop right now. It's all baby Chucks - but hopefully only for the rest of this week. I have big plans in the works that include more baby items, and some wickedly awesome new blankets based off of old-school video game designs. It turns out that pixels really lend themselves well to crochet!

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