Tag Archive: crafts



A part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “signa…” Find a word that starts with “signa” and use it in your post. Enjoy!

There, I found my favorite signage.

Sadly, I’m at a standstill on  today’s fun. I need to study the YouTube about the Fishlip heel. It isn’t easy to know which tutorial will get the results I need. I’ll share when I know which to choose. The author of the pattern is very restrictive with her pattern. And I totally get it. She worked hard on her baby and deserves credit. Soxtherapy is her tag. My problem is trying to just use her heel part and not the rest of the sock.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll get it figured out.


Faerie Knitting: 14 Tales of Love and MagicFaerie Knitting: 14 Tales of Love and Magic by Alice Hoffman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a delightful bedtime book! Especially the Audible version with January LaVoy narrating. The stories are short enough to do one a night. Normally, I don’t like short stories. But after reading Braiding the Sweetgrass, this felt similar enough not to feel a shock but an excellent way to hear stories of love.

AND the book comes with knitting patterns—even the Audible. I picked up the PDFs and printed them to my knitting folders. I can’t wait to try some of these. Although, I think a few are way beyond my abilities. But the way knitting is woven into the stories is captivating. I’m sorry to be finished with the reading.

If you are unaware of Alice Hoffman, she is the author of Practical Magic, among many others. She writes with the pen of a poet. This particular book is co-authored with her sister. What fun that must have been.

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Embrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash CreativityEmbrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash Creativity by Felicia Day
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This has been on my Currently Reading list for a year! It wasn’t that I was struggling to read it. It was digesting and doing the homework. I highly suggest doing it the way a friend and I did it. We held each other accountable as we worked through all the tasks, well, most of them. We often thought about bringing other people on board but realized adding anyone else would make it harder to stay on task.

Both my friend and I found many of our creative issues met through Ms. Day’s carefully set up agenda toward creativity.

Felicia kept us going, her sense of humor lightening some old personal issues of social anxiety and performance anxiety, worries if our art is good enough, and seeing us through those walls we had built up for ourselves. Ms. Day told us about her own issues and helped us see from another point of view. And though her problems were from a young mother’s perspective, we could relate, having been through her issues, and could apply the precepts to our seniors years. We all feel insecure about our soul searching writing and artwork.

Whether or not you use the book in the buddy system or solo, I think you will find depths in your own abilities if you take your time and work on the tasks.

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I didn’t feel the blues because it was either Monday or sort of rainy. But with my cataracts, my wonderful husband agreed to help me find my medical insurance today.

We started with this book:

Yeah, useless.

Our tiny hamlet doesn’t have anything for older people. No flu shots without albumin, no vaccines. To get those, we need to spend $50 for something free. And indeed, finding helpful insurance has been stressful and sad. We finally settled on something… I think. Meanwhile, I need only green spray paint to recycle/reuse this piece of *&#$+*for the trees wasted.

Calling for green spray paint and glitter.

What Day Is It Anyway?


Well, today was exciting. I had contacted our local meteorologist about leaving out our little town, which has its own microclimate. She agreed to include us more and asked for a recent picture of the area.  I sent her this one:

She actually used it today and gave me credit by my written name and she even said it as she offered the hour by hour forecast for us. Well. There are my two seconds of fame. Check.

I wish I could share the craftiness I’ve been up to but I am trying to give my friends some of the fun they have given me in the past and I want it to be a surprise. Needless to say drawing, poetry writing, even in Spanish, Rainbow Loom fun. There is so much more to do and I promise to share when I feel I can. While the gel pens are out I plan to do my coloring.

And I am hoping to finish the boyfriend’s second sock within a couple days.

So soon I will be taking a bunch of stuff to the post office. That should be fun!

On another level, we have the smallest amount of grass growing in front of the house. Mostly our acre is full of sagebrush that has protected our chickens. I’d love to get some of it removed. I can’t, neither can my husband. The younger guys here have issues that keep them from doing it. And we don’t have the money to hire someone so we are stuck with the overrunning sage. I don’t mind the look. Or the smell of sage. But it poses a fire hazard. Still, I ignored the sense of guilt going out into my yard gave me and found myself walking barefoot on the little patches of grass that are freely popping up near our house. My feet were so happy. And the breeze was just right to keep it from being too hot. So I had a moment of heaven.

Yeah, not my foot. My big toe is longer than the second. This was a Pixabay.com. But hopefully, you feel that total comfort of cool grass underfoot. Isn’t it the greatest?

Did I answer, What Day Is It Anyway? No? Well, the trash is at the ‘curb’ That means tomorrow is Friday. And for the next hour and fifteen minutes, it is Thursday. Do I win the prize? No? That’s okay I had a moment of fame!


Sock Loom BasicsSock Loom Basics by Leisure Arts Inc.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Since I haven’t read every single pattern in this book, I can’t actually judge in entirety. Still, I did find it easy to follow in a couple of patterns I did use. The illustrations are far better than most of the loom knitting books. I do plan to keep it as a reference. There are still a couple of the socks I want to try.

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50 Loom Knitted Stuffed Animal Pattern Collection50 Loom Knitted Stuffed Animal Pattern Collection by Scarlett Royale
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is kept for its reference capabilities. I have not made every animal in the book. But I have made enough to know that I am happy to have the book.

One of the problems I have with the book is that sometimes the patterns can be confusing and there are a few errors. But the best part of this book is the links to the tutorials. They take you right to the YouTube teaching how to make what you want to make. My latest is the snowman, that looks so cute! And it had very little sewing.

I would like to someday get the paper version so I don’t have to be on the computer while making these little cuties. But in the meantime, this will do!

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The Organic Artist: Make Your Own Paint, Paper, Pigments, Prints and More from NatureThe Organic Artist: Make Your Own Paint, Paper, Pigments, Prints and More from Nature by Nick Neddo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Okay. I didn’t read this word for word. It isn’t that kind of book. I doubt I’ll ever read it that way. This is a reference book of how-tos. It is well illustrated and the instructions for each craft is well-written. I loved what I saw here so much that as the book became due back to the library I had to go to Amazon and buy my own copy. By the way, our librarian recommended it to me. Thanks, Julie! I can’t wait to try some of these crafts!

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How To Color With Colored Pencils: The Complete Step-By-Step Beginners Guide To Color Palettes And Coloring Techniques For AdultsHow To Color With Colored Pencils: The Complete Step-By-Step Beginners Guide To Color Palettes And Coloring Techniques For Adults by Margaret Fox

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, while preparing to write this review I couldn’t find a page on Amazon to read stats and reviews about the book. I did find a place from a link in Margaret Fox’s book to place a review so I will copy this there next.

I read this a couple nights ago when I was between fiction books and not ready to get involved in a deeper story. It fit the bill. It inspired me to get out my pencils and start playing again. As much as I love my coloring books, though, I am not enjoying ‘coloring’ with the pencils. I think I’ll start trying sketching and coloring in my own work so as to really experiment, and pull out my Crayola (not some cheap knockoff that is always way too waxy) and work in my coloring books that way.

Does anyone find themselves over-inspired most of the time? I’m planning out my NaNo for this year–hey, I have one character–that makes it less ‘seat of the pants’ than former years. I don’t like my stories when I pants it. I continue loom-knitting toys and comfort items for charities. I have started working on needle felting. I still think about and sometimes get in and spend time at the piano or singing, or just listening to music to keep my musical brain happy. I still try to work on Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, and German on DuoLingo daily. So when I find a book that inspires me to action I have to weigh what to give up or lessen to have time to devote to the new creative avenue. So much fun to try and so little time!!!!

Anyway, this book did the job. And, of course, I learned of new items I will have to buy to try some of the technics I learned in Ms. Fox’s book. But there are plenty of endeavors I can try with what I have. I think I will use colored pencils to draw my characters as they develop.

I hope this book will be available for others to try soon. It is a good beginner’s book or one to inspire and get you started playing again.

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Though this book had a lot of fun things to make, they were all wet-felted. Worst of all the pictures were not visible in any way. I read it on the PC because it makes the font and pictures bigger than on my Kindle Fires. But this one it didn’t help at all.

Still, the instructions didn’t seem impossible to understand so if you wanted to make the product reading could get you there. This is another one I will revisit next summer when I can handle getting wet. It is almost too cold to do the dishes in our house right now. Sure your hands are warm while in the water but the minute you put the last dish in the drainer your hands are cold. I’ll stick to the less painful, yet occasional prickly needle felting. Weird that I prefer blood to cold.

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