luxe

well, as you may have guessed, i had another bad week, although i did get a couple of okay days to enjoy the weather. i had migraine after migraine and realized way too late that these delicious garlic pretzels had msg in them, which is a huge no-no for me. i am actually lucky that i wasn’t sicker than i was, although i have had non-stop headaches. i couldn’t stop eating them and then asked jake if he knew, he had put them in a zipper bag, so i couldn’t see the ingredients. we always look at everything because msg and blue cheez can put me in the ER, but you don’t think pretzels have it, ya know? anyway, i didn’t sleep last night and felt sick and actually was lying here feeling like crap and decided to do a quicky blog post. i have a bunch of batts to show you, in addition to the other ones that STILL aren’t listed. i just have barely been online because my vision is funny and i feel so nauseated and crummy. i am a bit addicted to the electric carder. i get so pooped out so easily, it is so fun to just feed in the fiber. it does get hung up pretty easily, so i do have to manually kickstart the drum, and my hands are wrecked. jake was impressed. they look manly. mini-manly. here are some of em. if anyone wants something, let me know, i am hoping to get them listed on wednesday, or maybe to-morrow if i get all of my invoicing done and packages packed.

i also have dyed top that isn’t even photographed, plus more dyeing i need to do with some solidish colors for batts. we all know that it kills me to pay for dyed top that isn’t super nice…which means i would have to pay a lot to get decent stuff, even though i haven’t really seen such a thing. i hate colonial top. i like the superwash from brown sheep, but that only comes in a few colors.

here are a couple of creatures still in the works. i need to futz around with some arms and legs,etc and see where they want to go. i generally see what the piece wants to do, kinda like yarns. i may have a basic idea, but that will fly out the window if the piece doesn’t seem to want to be that way. ya know?

maryland sheep and wool…i don’t think we are going. i am broke, mainly because i have been too out of it/lazy to get stuff listed, and i have so so much of it. mixed media pieces, paintings, softies, crocheted jewelry, knits, yarn, fiber, batts, vintage stuff, plus stuff that i need to send out to a couple of stores. i frustrate myself. anyway, between being poor and the weather being horrible, i think it might be better not to go. i had talked to a friend about working sheep and wool but kind of blew it off, and now when i see people i know working it, or at least working with a yarn shop that is working it, i get mad at myself. it wasn’t expensive to work, it would have just been the time and energy. in the end, i get so scared to commit to things in advance because of the stupid health issues i have, that i end up not doing things that i want to do. in fact, i convince myself that i don’t want to do it anyway. i have been asked to work with some awesome people in their booths at whatever craft show, and if it is in the summer and is outdoors, i know that i can’t be in the sun for any length of time, even under a tent, i will get overheated and then if it is a multiple day show, i know that i just can’t do it. and i don’t want to let someone down. so i don’t do it, and i get pissed off at myself. sniff.

my head is pounding, so i think i will go and take a shower.
xo
n.

so. i set my phone to wake me up early, and well…yeah. um. didn’t get up early. i am so bad in the morning. i did get up and returned some phone calls before getting to work organizing the studio a bit more and mostly trying to figure out what fiber and yarns were listed already and what was just sitting there. lots. i didn’t even list all of it, but there is a lot of stuff there and more yarns to come. lots. sock yarns as well as some worsted and artyarns. really good. i got this pop up mesh laundry basket thingy that has 3 compartments, so i was able to put lots of things in there in a moderately organized manner, as much as yarn and fiber can be. i was glad. more of that to-morrow.

i was just checking emails and comments on the newest softie i posted (several more of those to come, too) and was thinking about how i do my work. with the softies, i start with a yarn. make a shape, see where it goes. stuff it. see who it wants to be and just build it up from there. when i made the pirate zombie thingy, it was more preconceived toy than i make and my heart wasn’t in it. i felt kind of boxed in. and as i like to say, i don’t like to be told what to do…even by myself. so there, me! you shut up! in art, i feel similarly, like the work sort of forms itself. i have a hard time accepting compliments because i feel like they are their own entity and kind of just…showed up. like it someone tells me that peeps is really pretty…yeah, she is, but it is more a compliment to her than to me. i didn’t make her.

so, i just discovered the plushteam.com blog and this posting by the toy designer flying star toys which is in australia(r) anyway, she made this comment

“The soul of a toy is the most important ingredient, my art is just this. The little beings should look gently at you as if they had always existed and you have just happened upon them.

okay, mine don’t always look gently at you, they often…snarl, but still, i tend to agree with her. her things are very sweet.

the thing that is so exciting to me about making and selling things is how they speak to people. and often, it has a meaning that you never intended, but it doesn’t matter. i made life sized and bigger ceramic busts with different themes in school and i had one that had a jagged hole cut into its stomach and branches for arms. the woman who bought it had survived uterine cancer. she believed it was made for her. in another direction, i made this dwarf abominable polar bear:

and the woman who is getting him called him the “po’d polar bear” and thought he looked like her. mainly, i thought that he was trying to act mean and scary because he is only 6 inches tall and usually polar bears are…bigger. so he is doing his best. and he is super soft. and fuzzy. and..cute. i said it. even his little purple nipples and belly button. cute! i haven’t interviewed him for his story yet, though.

when i still tattooed, i found that people were stupid. they didn’t take any time to look at anything or process it. i worried that it would be the same with the artsy and craftsy stuff. it isn’t. people really absorb it, think about it, touch it, remember it. how is it that you people are able to put so much consideration into such tiny details and comprehend them (armpit hair? knees?) but others are willing to get a tattoo on their skin and don’t realize it is misspelled. among other things. odd, no? we put more effort into adding embroidery than most people do in their whole day. now the snob comes out. well. in a way. in another way, it goes in a direction that many artsy/craftsy decidedly non-snobs would (joseph beuys and frida kahlo, to name a few) who believed that art is for everybody. you can make sure to notice those little things, to make sure you have beauty in your life, whether it be a flower in your hair, or a pretty piece of china or some soft and gorgeous hand knitted socks. all of it. that is what life is about really, isn’t it?

i wish i could absorb more. i wish i could notice every detail. i wish i could see the sun come up and go down. see flowers open for the day and close for the night. i want to remember to remember. and you know what? i want all of you to, as well.

when i was younger…i was miserable. life sucked. it did. i didn’t realize until i was in my late twenties that i was in control of my own life. seriously. i know. sad. when people say “i wish i knew then what i know now…” yeah. i know what they mean. i can only do my best to enjoy it all now. i let myself miss out on lots of life, and i can’t blame anyone but myself. i am a bit of a slow learner. okay, really really slow.

so, after a bout of being too exhausted to do…anything (and i mean that. i didn’t knit, spin, read, talk on the phone, nothing) i feel a bit overexcited about feeling okay and i imagine that as is normal for these phases, i will crank out some stuff as fast as possible. stand back. you might get pelted with something. no worries, it will likely be fuzzy or paint. hopefully.

my nose has been really off lately. everything smells like something else to me. i am usually the super snoot. i can smell something and tell you all of the spices in it. it can be a bad thing. anyway, everything smells different lately. right now, i swear i can smell pasta cooking. except that it is almost midnight and no one has cooked or is cooking. it is really odd. i have had a lot of headaches, so my brain might be a bid muddled.

also, the cats are still fighting. particularly, pavel is constantly growling in a really aggressive way at the other cats even when they are either nowhere near him or sleeping, or just walking by. this causes one sister to growl, the other to come and see and a huge fight because pavel is a total sissy. he is going to have to go to the vet. if he isn’t sick, then he is going crazy. i had a cat that became dangerously aggressive and had to be put to sleep. it was one of the most terrible things i have ever had to do. pavel has been a bit stand-offish even with jake, and that is unusual.

i ate the almond-like pit of a nectarine because i love almonds and thought maybe that was where almonds came from and then barbe told me they had cyanide in them. i looked it up and they do. i then realized that mostly all fruits seeds and pits have cyanide in them and thought about the jack lalane juicer that he puts all of the whole fruits in seeds and all. you could sue him! right? um. oh, and don’t eat that almond-looking thing inside the nectarine. it does taste like an almond…a bitter gross almond. blech. it gets grosser after you swallow too. who knew poison tasted so bad.

on a really depressing note, this story is from not so far away from me. this poor 13 year old girl finally shot her passed out drunk abusive piece of shite father. the house didn’t have running water and was infested with fleas and lice. one of the arresting officers said that the had been to crack houses that were nicer. um. they think that the dad had been raping her, as if the fact that her living conditions were like that wasn’t enough. her mom didn’t have custody of her, but jesus, how bad was her mom if she let the dad keep her and her brother and knew that little about the situation? they aren’t trying her as an adult, but she is going to be in juvey which is just not right. i feel so bad for the kid. i have thought a bit about being a foster parent, dismissing the idea because i am so tired all the time. this girl needs someone, so that she doesn’t just become the same as her mother who has kids and leaves them to fend for themselves. when i was in junior high, a kid killed his stepdad in a similar kind of thing. i don’t know what ever happened to that kid. i remember his face, though. i wonder if i could send her a care package or if that isn’t allowed in the detention center. hm.

okay. i need to try to read a bit and go to sleep.
i love you guys. i really do.
n.

reginald is a rare breed of dwarf lion that tends to suffer from pattern baldness. he attempts to comb his soft mane over to hide it. he has incredibly soft chest and armpit hair and nipples. not only is he incredibly handsome and manly, but he is very scary, as you can well see with your own eyes. he loves to hang out on his recliner and watch football. his team is manchester united and he is somewhat of a hooligan, truth be told. he made a small fortune as a professional bowler, and swears that the movie kingpin is based on him. he has a gambling problem and will bet on just about anything. he considers his bookie to be one of his closest friends, as well as his worst enemy. he adores sammy davis junior and considers himself to be just as good of a performer as sammy. he is afraid of spiders and lives on fluffernutter sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

he will be looking for a new home soon!

lovely swallow mobile and it is under 25 bucks! kondrads.com has tons and tons of different mobiles from teeny to huge and all prices between, although most or suprisingly affordable. look at this one…i love it.
anyway, i was looking for some ideas for the top part that it attaches to which appears to always be just functional and not attractive in any of the mobiles i looked at, art ones or just cheapo kids room ones alike. i found this tutorial that looks good. i already have put together most of those strange wire framed paper pieces. i really like how they look and i hand strung and twisted 28 gauge copper wire to connect them, i am not sure just yet how the top will work. i wired just about all of them in strands, so i just need to figure out the top connector, although it will likely be more than one mobile. they would look incredible in front of a window or light source. i will take photos tomorrow. i may be best off just wiring them onto a curtain rod or pole in front of a window, i reckon. hmmmm.

did i show you the lion so far? he has chest hair and armpit hair. he is balding, has sideburns and a bit of a comb-over in the front. he has little knees and nipples. he has no name yet and is naked so far. what do you think of him?

it is now sunday night. i was too tired to finish the post yesterday, we got up at 7:30a to go to one of the bigger outdoor flea markets this morning which was rather good. i scored a shopping bag full of vintage buttons still on the cards, a sewing box full of all sorts of things…here are some photos, but i seriously didn’t get photos of half the stuff…

that said, if you need any vintage buttons, let me know what color you are looking for because i have loads and i am happy to sell em for a couple of bucks. after getting home i washed and organised the loose buttons that were just tossed in the sewing kit. i took tons of photos and then realized that i had accidentally put it on the low light setting. gah. i was super exhausted from not sleeping last night, getting up early and spending a few hours in the sun being overexcited, and then called barbe to squeal about my score. no worries, i am sending her some nice stuff, it wasn’t just shear gloat. i wouldn’t do that. the booths at the fleamarket that have only a few items and they are just utter crap, like a plastic cup from a convenience store and a dirty george foreman grill and a hot wheels car with a half chewed cookie on it. those people baffle me the most. although, i remember when i was in san francisco for a convention and crackheads tried to sell us similar stuff. so maybe that is the issue.

and, i should have taken a photo, but there was a booth that had defibrillators and some other really really strange electronic equipment that looked new. i wish i would have asked what the price was. just to know.

we left there and went to a coffee shop that roasts their own coffee to have a bite. i also got some coffee beans from them. i hope it is good, because we all know what a snob i am. bigtime.

we then went to burlington coat factory. i got these shoes which i plan to either add beading to or embroider. i have to think about it, though. they came in khaki and camo, too! i will walk around in em for a while and i may get another pair. in the summer, i have such a hard time wearing anything other than flip-flops. it kills me. or open heels, but i try to have my feets showing as much as possible. i need to take a photo of them on. i initially imagined iridescent black seed beads on em, but a little embroidered thing would be really cool, too.

i guess that is about it. i had planned to do an update on fiber and softies, but i was too tired to do anything. i will be doing it to-morrow, though. i put photos up of a lot of the things that will be listed. lovely and soft loose kid mohair, merino, targhee, baby cotswald locks, border leicester locks (so cute and teeny little curls) and then superwash merino top and 80’s grade merino i dyed that is luscious. seriously. so so nice.

okay, enough for now.
xo
n.

so, let me start by saying that i put up one new batt on luxe.etsy.com and there will be more tomorrow. as the title suggests…i went nuts with the carder yesterday. i sat on the front porch with a bunch of loose fiber and sparkle, etc, and even though i sat on a pillow, my voluptuous ass manages to get bruised where the bones pole through. how is that fair? how? it should be one or the other! chubby ass, no cushion needed, skinny asses must have a pillow. right? not fair. okay, so the batts. i numbered them all on flickr, so if you see something you like, don’t waste time, let me know. they tend to sell pretty quickly. wanna see? this is not even half of em. i took tons of photos to attempt to get the inside and outside because these have lots of layers of different stuff. really fun ones. a few of them are maybe a bit too tempting…

here is a peek at what the porch looked like but you really had to see the complete coverage, stuff everywhere, batts and fiber and fuzz. i figured i would do it outside so that i wasn’t breathing it in quite so much and there wasn’t quite the amount that is thrown into the air of my studio, you know? it is an utter fiber cluster frakk anyway, but this worked. although, it was insanely hot and humid and i had fiber and dirt and dust stuck all over me. and a dirty bum even though i sat on a pillow. i was wrecked.

so let me tell you a story…at my favorite junk/antique shop i got a dressmarker’s form a while ago. it came with it’s original box that had been shipped to the owner one “dr.effie ireland”, it is postmarked 1956 i think. i was reading the pennysaver and came across a listing for an estate sale today for a “dr. effie dunlap” from the same area as my effie was from. i thought it had to be the same person so i tried to google her and research her. i don’t know if they were the same person, but the person whose estate sale i went to (more about that crap sale) graduated from medical school in 1911! not much earlier had it even been possible for women to go to medical school. i couldn’t find out much more other than where she had gone to school. there were newsletters from her school for those years saying that she had graduated and that she worked in ligonier, but i don’t know what kind of doctor she was or anything else about her. i would kill to see a photo of her. anyway, we went to the estate sale, i was super excited although i did think it might not be good because she died in 1982, so it was unlikely that her stuff was still in the house, although they used her name. jakie woke me up early and we went out and the house was the most disgusting thing you have ever seen. there was virtually nothing of value, clearly, when they had the auction 25 years ago, all of her stuff was removed and in the meantime, other people had lived in the house and wrecked it and filled it with cheap crap mostly from the 70’s i think. it was filthy and smelly and gross. and seriously nothing good. and everythign was insanely expensive. there was a really gorgeous giant colorized photograph from the turn of the century that could have been her…but it was in poor condition and they wanted more than 200 bucks for it. it was so gross you didn’t want to touch anything and literally it was the sort of thing that at a glance you can tell that it is just full of the garbage that no one wanted. anyway, there was stuff out back, so we went to look and there were tons of books, i had been searching for a photo album or yearbooks, to no avail, plus all of the books were rotten and mostly from the 70’s and more recent. there was a bike for two in okay condition at best that they wanted $225 bucks for. c’mon. i didn’t see a single person walk out of that place with anything. for anyone not from this area reading this, around here, we are cheap and can get lots of stuff for not that much usually. and seriously, an old bike in crap condition for that much? sheesh. there was a 1922 packard in poor condition that was really amazing, and then a strange guy looking for old comic books told me that some lady blew out her brains upstairs in the 70’s. so.

we stopped at the farmer’s market after that and then headed home. i did a bunch of new phtos (go see if you like) and got groceries and i think that is it. loaded photos.

oh, also, i have two softies that are not finished. the dark one is a…pirate zombie something…not sure. i spun a really dark not soft yarn up from some fiber (not my work)and put a ton of sparkle in it, not planning to make it a pirate, although they do have bling. i am not sure what to dress him in. i talked to barbe about it already. i imagine a loose blousy shirt and maybe striped pants and a bandana. andd i need to make a hook hand. i think. and the bird is crocheted from laine zinzin yarn i got in the french swap. it needs wings still. oh, and on the line of softies, i sold 3! collette (with the cute little hat), the owl and the amelia, one of the triplets that has no arms or legs. and snarky peeps said they were gross! so there! wanna see the new toys?

i am tired and a bit nauseous. ew. oh, i made a lightbox out of a big plastic container, a white sheet and a piece of posterboard and the photos where great. whenever i can, i will use this method again.

okay. super tired. let me know what you think about the new stuff.
mwah!
n.

hey guys, i am listing two of the crocheted toys momentarily…if you are interested in another, please contact me because i will be listing them everyday as they sell…
up for grabs…
each of their stories are on their pics in flickr…just clicky on em. so pop by luxe.etsy.com

happy 4th all!

i meant to post this yesterday and flaked out…hey guys, i have a couple of new ones for ya! i will be listing a few of these guys on luxe.etsy.co m in the next few days.
audrey is the middle of the triplets. missa is the pretty one, amelia is the smart one and unfortunately, audrey is known for her severe trashmouth. it is not advisable to allow small children around her because she will say inappropriate things and is known to pinch anyone she can. she is in duff’s business school to be in crime scene investigation. she loves cop shows and tivos all of them, even the old ones, like streets of san francisco. she loves the rat pack and will only watch movies with marilyn monroe in them. her favorite book is “in cold blood”. she eats nothing but pudding because she has an irrational fear of her teeth “wearing down” from eating crunchy or chewy foods.

i crocheted gael from some natural wool that was handspun on a spindle when i was first learning. needless to say, the yarn was not so good, but look! it worked really well for something, therefore proving yet again that there is no such thing as a bad yarn. gael is a miniature polar bear who is actually rather tall for the breed. originally from alaska, he had to relocate due to global warming (which i hear is just a myth), he decided it was safer to live in pennsylvania with access to my freezer. he loves salmon puffs, salmon sandwiches, salmon mousse and mint chip ice cream. he hopes one day to be a child advocate or professional rugby player. he hates the sight of blood and buys all of his food butchered and ready to eat. his favorite music is soft rock. especially journey, styx and loverboy. his favorite book is dead souls by gogol and his favorite movie is the unbearable lightness of being.

i posted them on one of the lj communities i am on. i got a bunch of snarky anon comments. go look….
here

off to do some work.
xo

gah. the word that defines me these days. i had nightmares about the beach (again) where i was staying with a group of people, all of them people i didn’t like and/or loathed. that part, confusing, although i didn’t have any clothes that fit me or were suitable for whatever we were doing. the clothes were all big baggy sweatpants and sweatshirts. the rest of the dream dealt with a sick little girl that everyone was trying to kill and i was running and hiding while i was holding her. i was glad to wake up. anyway, i woke up really tired and i took a pill to have a bit more energy. i never think it has worked until the end of the day when i realize that i:plied 2 biiiig bobbins of yarn, cut up all the novelty yarns for that and then some more yarns, skeined several bobbins of yarn, worked on a painting (to no avail. sigh.) for quite a while, shipped some orders, went to the post office and farmer’s market, took photos of the stuff i needed to update (LOTS) and uploaded them and tagged em. i think that is all. it doesn’t sound like much now that i say it outloud. wanna see?
who was that? well! my newest crocheted softie. she came from the handspun mohair. she isn’t finished. i am not sure exactly what i want to do to her, she is so cute as is. hm.

and some of my vintage plates that i hang up…

some really good links for you…here
and here and here

prepare to pee your pants! the coolest crafty and design and art blog evah!

off i go.
n.

so, my sales on etsy have been kinda bad in the last month or so. i was out of town for a week, my mom was here for a week and i assumed that slack 2 weeks were the cause…i looked on the forums to see what other people were saying, and from having other businesses in the past, i know that this is a bit of a slow time for any business except ice cream shops, but it said that…

RevolvingDork
Etsy Admin
RevolvingDork says:
Hi all,

On thursday night night we got caught up with all of the older listings that were not appearing in searches and the categories. After that, however, newly created listings were only appearing several hours after they were listed.

This is due to the system receiving far more listing updates than it can handle in a short period of time. We’re still working on optimizing this system so the delay between listing and appearing in searches is shortened, but it may take a few days. We hope to have it done sometime this week. Unfortunately, it’s a very complex problem, and as such is difficult to estimate a completion time.

In the meantime, listings will only appear in their categories several hours to several days after they are created. Please note that they will still appear in real time in your shop, the time machine, and listing tickers, and all other flash applications.

The site copy on the listing process has been updated to reflect this new delay.

Because the search cache is not being updated as quickly as it should be, you may see sold listings coming up in search and browser results. This is caused by the same problem, and will be fixed when the system is back up to speed.

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused, and we will post updates as we make progress towards shrinking the lag between listing time and “searchable” time.
Posted at 12:35 pm, June 20 2007 EST

i am annoyed. for example, difference between items listed one day apart is 353 views and 40 views. and it bums me out because usually i get tons of views and things sell. there are some gorgeous yarns just sitting there. anyway, i am going to contact some of the yarn stores that are interested and clear out some of the stuff i have listed, so if you see something you want, it may not be there for long. well, it might be somewhere else, anyway. i also have listed more spinning “kits”, including one to make some of the snowbride yarns, luscious creamy superfine merino (21 micron!) and your choice of colors sparkle and novelty yarns. plus some other kits, too. i am going to put up some flower ones that have soysilk, merino, loose sequions, sparkle and handbeaded handpainted felt poppies to add in for yourself after you spin it up. i did look at some of the other shops that are alway busy and/or sold out and they had lots of stuff still in their stores, so i know it isn’t me. i will take the time to work on some of the softies i have been making, and after doing a big flower skein and plying it, i worked on some collaged frames, boxes and mattes due to a bit of mental block on artsy things. i have tons of stuff that needs to be framed, plus all of the plates i have collected (i really need to take photos, including a jesus dinner plate that looks to have been used…a lot. odd? isn’t that sort of thing for display?) i am going to glue hangers on the back because the wire plate holder thingies are downright shady. i have had them pop off a plate just sitting on a table, so i don’t want to hang anything with one of those.

so that was my day. it went by fast, rather solitary, but in a nice way. so on to my newest addiction…when jake was in brooklyn, he stopped at a nice market and got some good chocolates. we are into the good stuff. hee. anyway, he got this stuff that is from modica, italy and area very famous for its chocolate and candies and pastries. the chocolatiers were influenced by the spaniards that came to sicily who had been influenced by the mayans who didn’t make chocolate with the milk and the heat and cocoa butter oil, etc. basically, the grind up the cocoa beans into a paste (think turkish coffee) and add pure sugar cane crystals which crunch in your teeth…ooh it is amazing. and hardcore. like the most amazing coffee/chocolate you have ever ever had. when i first ate it i didn’t know what i thought, but it really grows on you. incredible. and it seriously gives you a rush. if you are a big coffee snob, you will go nutso over this chocolate. it isn’t creamy or melt in your mouth, it is a whole different beast, but oh my! and! it is really hard to find it in the US, but it is available through amazon here it is 6 bucks for a bar, but it is a big bar and one piece of it will knock you on your ass. they are also made into squares that are ready to add to warm milk or water for the best hot chocolate ever. they have pistachio (good!), plain, cinnamon, vanilla, chili, and bergamot. needless to say, i am buying some. big time.

whilst serching for this stuff online, i cam across this cool website, 101cookbooks.com that has recipes from famous cookbooks reviewed. the one on the link is for sweet pistachio butter. are. you. kidding. me? ummmmm. um. um.

i am working on another fuzzy amiguri. he is just a head and arms and legs, i imagine it will reveal itself to me, as the others have. i don’t tend to have a clear idea of what i am doing. i tried to do some sketches last night, but i was uninspired, although i did come up with some that have a head at each end, or have a teeny upper body and big fat lower body. otherwise, dunno.

okay, “traveler” is on, so i am off to watch that. too sleepy to do more than one thing at once. other than crochet and tv. although the crochet will likely look like poopies.

xo
n.

hellllooooo…nothing much to report from here. i have been keeping really busy, making loads of stuff. wanna see? really really wanna see? well…okay…you are twisting my arm…firstly, the yarns, which will be listed a bit later today on www.luxe.etsy.com around 5ish methinks…

willy and nilly are similar crazy yarns, one plied, one a crazy overtwisted single. let me tell you it is HEAVY. crazy heavy. aloha lite is super soft merino, soy silk (the green shiny parts) lots of sparkle in bright green, hot pink and fuschia, a bit of fuzzy bright green novelty yarn and white, pale pink, brighter pink and pinky/white silk flowers plied in. loverly. and shine on is super soft merino, sparkle city in green and some hot pink with squares of silky fabric strung on the plying thread and plied in. i adore this one. i plan to do some more today. i need to dig through my scraps. i must say, now i know what i saved those scraps for. you know the wardrobe remix thingy? i am trying to do something similar with crafty, artsy and spinny stuff. i wanna attempt to use what i have and get rid of some of the stuff i am not fond of. i did that with the willy and nilly and other scrap yarns i have. if any of you seamstresses out there have sewing scraps you have saved for reasons unknown, send em to me if you fancy. one of my clients sent me her scraps that included really skinny strips and bits of yarn only a couple of inches long. i can use em. i use em fast though, i really pile em on.

okay…what else have i made? well, i got the plush-o-rama plushie making book and used a pattern from there to make this…i did it a bit different. mainly, i learned that you can make softies with scarcely any pattern and it will come out fine, and my lack of precision crafting abilities…okay, i am too slapshot really, still works out fine. so i can take an idea and do what i want. so, here he is…blinky palermo…and if you know who blinky was, leave a comment, i will be impressed for shizzle. i hand sewed him from the handpainted wool/rayon felt i did a while ago. i handsewed because we had butter and his lady over and i always need to keep my hands busy or i get fidgety. the back of him is reversed color scheme. cute?

i had some unfinished mixed media things i was working on that i keep messing with. this is the next version of them….oh, and a pic of my desk mess, too.

in cuteness news, yesterday jake was totally crashed out, i think it is an allergy issue. he gets the “allergic shiners” as they call em and is on allegra for it, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference and got up and then fell asleep for a while whilst i was spinning. his little son pavel was asleep next to him using the tivo controller as a pillow. ha. too cute.

in humiliation news, i went for groceries and i tend to use my paypal debit card because i can’t bounce anything accidentally. well, i didn’t have a lot in there, but i should have had enough for groceries and a bit. i forgot that i had bought some stuff at the bookstore with it. i took all of the credit cards out of my wallet (except for our prescription on, my bank card and my macy’s card) and when i checked out i didn’t have enough money. um. i gave her all my cash ($7) and it still wouldn’t go. i gave her my checkcard which had next to nothing in it and told her to take a bit out of there, plus the 7 bucks, plus my checkcard. it went. sigh. so so humiliating. this is why you should leave a credit card in the wallet. in case you need it, fool. sheesh. the worst part is that jake told me to take his card and i didn’t want to. i haven’t listed new stuff in ages, i have been totally out of the loop due to my mom being in town, being on vacation, being sick, so i am way more poor than usual. so humiliating. sigh. gah. good thing i didn’t go to joann’s or target first, eh? i would have been totally frakked.

lastly, my younger brother is still having lots of issues with his eyes and migraines. they actually don’t sound like migraines to me. i think the eyes and the migraines are totally connected, if you can imagine wearing a really crazy prescription eyeglass that isn’t yours all the time..bad things would happen. really really bad things. i hope that nothing bad is going on inside of his head and i hope he will go to a different doctor that will do more to figure out what is going on. so. it always surprises me how it drives me insane to see other people in pain. i never understand why people worry about me, yet when other people are miserable, it drives me crazy. i want to do something. give them something. tell them something. hm.

i am off to do some work. do pop by luxe at etsy.com and see what i have. it is mostly all art yarn and some lovely limited edition sock yarns. i will most likely dye some stuff this week to list soon.

mwah!
n.