Thursday, October 15, 2009

Vertigo

I've had some vertigo this week. Wow. I do not recommend it. So if you were thinking, gosh, maybe I should try that, I'm here to say, don't. But it did give me lots of time to lay around listening to the Chicago Public Radio fall pledge drive (superfun) and work on this (after the room quit spinning).

It's your basic ripple afghan. I'm making it for my honey using cheap-o yarn from Joann's so I can toss it in the washer and dryer when the kitty gets it all yucked up with hair and hairballs and the like. I've been working on it since spring off and on and I'm somewhere between a third and half done. I don't know about you all, but I think a crafty person has to have a background project--a project that requires zero thought to work on and therefore can be done when you're totally spent and possibly very dizzy.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Flowers In The Transom

We have a lovely transom in our kitchen. So far, I haven't taken advantage of it. When we moved in, I was 3 or 4 months pregnant--not the ideal time for decorating things that are up--and when I wasn't pregnant anymore, there was this baby. Babies make you busy. And slow. And I think I am not as smart as I used to be, but that's neither here nor there. The point is this week-end I finally decorated the transom.

As a side-note, I'm a big fan of transoms. Aren't you? So romantic, so vintagey. I feel like I'm a New York City tenement, but in a good way. Or I'm in a film noir playing the sexy girl Friday in the front office. We have just a normal plain window transom over our kitchen door that leads into the back room--a door that likely used to head outside before the back of the house was added on. But there are some cooler ones here.

Back on track, I've been planning what to put in our transom for two years. I've had many ideas, some better than others. I settled on hanging little crocheted flowers.
Cheap, colorful, and very much in keeping with our whole kitchen vibe, which is a blend of cheap, colorful, vintage, and useful with a healthy dollop of a bunch of crap that doesn't go anywhere so just sits on our kitchen table making us crazy.

I copied an old flower I had laying around that I know I used a pattern for but now have lost track of what it was. I used 100% cotton from Peaches and Cream and Lion Kitchen Cotton, my main kitchen crochet yarns, though I'm secretly longing to try some fancier cotton yarn. . .
I made a few flowers and went to hang them. I am a bit of a corner-cutter and I have a sprained wrist so I can't exactly hammer AND we have lost the nails, which is a scary thought in a house with a toddler. So I had decided to tape the flowers up there. And frankly, not enough people are taping hopelessly random crap in their transoms these days. So I got up on my chair with my Scotch tape. That's right, people. I wasn't even going to use good tape, tape likely to hold for more than a day. And what did I find but pushpins I'd nailed up there MacGyver-style last Christmas to hang lights from but then was too lazy to remove. Good for me and my lazy self. 5 pins for 5 flowers and I was good to go.




I tried to take worse pictures than this, but it just wasn't possible. I was losing the light and taking pictures of what was essentially a corner. And sadly, the light since then has been about as photo-worthy as light in, say, a basement hospital cafeteria.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Welcome!

Welcome to October and, also, my blog.  
The apples are ripe, the heat is on here in Chicago, and knitting season is in full swing.  That makes this the perfect day for the first post on my new blog. Introductions are always awkward, so I'll start.  I'm a thirty-something (36) stay-sort-of-at-home mama from Chicago. My house is a two-mom house and my son is 19 months old.  He's also a bit of a climber.  My personal mantra is becoming "Hey, get down from there."  I am a crafting fool.  I'll craft anything. Whatever it is, I always feel like "I can do that."  A quilt?  I'll try it.  A scarf?  Easy-peasey. Artisan bread?  In the oven.  A Buick?  I'll give it a shot.  My primary crafts are knitting, sewing and embroidery, but don't count out crochet, quilting, collage, and cooking. Crochet has taken the lead this week since I sprained my wrist on Tuesday.  Doing what, you ask?  Something dumb, I respond.  Let's just leave it at that.  I always figure I'll do everything right the first time.  Then there's a period of mourning when I realize maybe whatever it is takes practice.  On good days, this is followed by the euphoria of a finished object.  On bad days, this is followed by $25 in unused seed beads.

I fully admit that I'm quite the dilettante when it comes to crafts.  I want to do everything.  I try everything.  And since I'm also a competitive thrifter, my house is full.  Full of what, you ask? Mostly things I don't ever use.  Vintage finds to fix up, yarn, fabric, notions, hooks, needles, adhesives, Pyrex, textiles, and 800 baby toys.  I may never get to most of it, but it's about the possibility, my friends.


The numbness in my fingers tells me it's time to sign off for today.  I'll upload my photos and be done with it.  That'll probably take me an hour since my computer is also vintage.