Chicken Butt

Prove it

I've been crafty lately but have no photographic proof of it. I really need to take photos before I give this stuff away. Here some of things I've done lately (you'll just have to take my word for it):

• A Chan Luu style beaded ladder bracelet for my sister. I used brown leather, waxed linen and 10mm semiprecious round beads. I followed this two part tutorial (Part 1) from BeadShop.com. I made a three bracelets for myself before I attempted my sister's. She loves it and wears it every day. The knot in the leather already came undone, so I must have cut the ends too short and not gotten the cement in all the right spots. I'll try to take some pictures while I'm hanging out with sis.
• Assorted ornaments from felt, beads and embroidery thread. About 5 years ago I sewed a plush tree from muppet-like fun fur for middle nephew. They still love it, but all the fleece ornaments I made to button on the tree are missing. (Actually, one was given to me as a birthday gift last year and is hanging on the back of my front door. Middle nephew is a born re-gifter.) More ornaments were requested. I planned to go over and help them make some, but didn't get around to it before Christmas. I had a lot of my supplies out as I shared some of my stockpile with the boys in their Christmas craft boxes, so I played around a bit. It is so fun to fiddle with felt and floss while watching movies. I made about 7 in the end I think.
• Bags for wrapping Christmas gifts. This is the second year I've sewn bags for all the gifts I give Christmas morning. I spend way to much time doing this because I cannot stop myself from finishing most of the edges. I convince myself that it really won't take much longer to do french seams or learn how to use the snap tool I bought but haven't tried yet. At least this year I took them all home and will reuse them. FIrst year the boys claimed them and still use them to hold various toys. Last year my sister kept them, but she cannot use them as most of the gifts she wraps come from Santa.
• Last minute baby blanket. Used Tea Rose Home's Swaddle Blanket with Self Binding Method tutorial to make a last minute addition to a baby shower gift. This should have been really easy, except I decided to use minky fabric for the smaller center fabric. Minky sure does stretch. So I fiddled for hours trying to get the center to line up symmetrically with the flannel border. If I attempted again I would at least add an extra layer of flannel or maybe batting. It felt really thin. If I had just stuck with all flannel like the tutorial it would be perfect weight, but the plush minky needed so extra softness for those divets.
• Is it crafty to organize supplies? I wound all my embroidery floss onto plastic bobbins. I never really liked the Stitchbow system. This saves so much space, is easier to see all the colors and is easier to use the floss. I don't know anyone who embroiders, so I guess I'll bring the StitchBow organizer and empty bows to Goodwill. If I could improve organization that much for all my supplies I'd have room for everything and could buy more stuff.

Resolutions for 2012:

1. Take pictures of shit I make before giving it away.
2. Make more shit.

Half-assed crafting

I am so far behind on posting crafts I've finished or at least started. I took some pictures, but haven't uploaded off my camera yet. And really, pictures are required for it to be interesting. I made pattern weights with a yo-yo maker, a super quick bracelet with leather, ball-chain and waxed linen, and started a cross stitch kit.

Of course, before I made my first cross stitch I bought 3 books on the subject and read relevant sections in the emroidery books already in my possesion. I'm still too intimidated to start the Daisychain ABCs Crewelwork Kit I bought. It is so pretty, I'm afraid I'll mess it up.

I was going to upload a picture of the sculpture I bought with my birthday money from my dad, but I cannot remember the password for my flicker account, which is tied to my old yahoo account, that used to be my sbcglobal account, but is now my ATT Yahoo account. I'm so fucking sick of user IDs that are email addresses I haven't had for years. Not to mention that when I got my Mac Book Pro I ended up with second Apple ID that is separate from the Apple ID I already had for years for iTunes. Hm, uploaded via Camera+ app to Twitter. Not really liking the interface though: http://campl.us/eXmJ. Hate shortlinks too, never sure I trust source.

Ugh. More later. Probably.

Sleep tight...

Arhhh! Went to Bed Bath & Beyond this week and now I've got the willies. There were bed bug related products all over the store; sprays and mattress encasements and who knows what else. Then last night there was a beetle on my pillow when I went to bed. I panicked and crushed it in a tissue and flushed it. It was black, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't a bed bug, but maybe I'm wrong! Sure every internet description and picture shows as brown, but what if there is an Illinois sub-species that is black? And a slightly different shape? I should have captured and kept it. I had dreams of infestation all night. Shudder Shudder.

I think I have to go on a bed bug hunt tonight. It was really hard to crush in the tissue. Nothing I read talked about how crunchy they are. Maybe it was a tick? Gah! Sometimes it's hard to be a grown up.

Update September 16: It must have been a random beetle. I found no evidence of bed bugs anywhere. What a relief!

One of these things is not like the other

Don't you hate it when you buy a hanging basket of red geraniums and a fourth of it turns out to be pink? I do.

Pink mist

I watched Inglourious Basterds tonight. Even though I knew it was a Tarantino film, I didn't really think about what that meant until I saw the pink mist of gun shot wounds. I only ever read about that in novels, I rarely see it in the films I watch. Movies I watch often have a lot of explosions and high bodies counts, but not the graphic goriness that Tarantino indulges in. Then I sort of forgot again until the first scalping scene. Ick! Again, I never really dwell on how gory scalping can be. I also finished up with Jubal Sackett by Louis L'Amour, the fourth book in the Sackett series. There are scalps taken throughout and I never once pictured the actual act of a knife cutting through the skin and what that would look like. Totally gross.

So once I readjusted my reference frame to include graphic bloody bloodbaths I enjoyed it. It had sat for several weeks by my TV because I read on the Netflix description "spaghetti western" and just wasn't in the mood. I liked it better than I thought I would, but I don't see this ending up in my collection. Pulp Fiction is the only QT movie I own. I can't see that changing any time soon.

Fucking hell, it's almost 1am on Monday morning. WTF am I still doing online. I am such an asshole. Really. Shit.