Granny Squares are Great!

I'm still a noob when it comes to crochet.  I've been steadily working my way up to more complicated projects.  I had always looked at a granny square and thought "That looks hard!  I better wait to try that till I'm a little better at crochet in the round..."  But really it has been quite easy, and I regret postponing my attempts.

One day at the store, I was looking at acrylic yarns and thought "Screw it, I'm going to start a blanket."  I picked out a color palate I felt was pleasing to the eye and bought some yarn to start.  I went with Caron Simply Soft yarns, in Pagoda, Persimmon, and Heather Grey.  I can't seem to capture the true colors with my camera.  The pagoda is much more green than it looks, and the persimmon is much more orange/coral than it looks in the photos.  I need a better camera!

It's much easier to do a granny square than I previously assumed, especially when you get in a groove.  It takes me a little longer sometimes because I frequently attempt to watch a show while I'm crocheting.  There's lots of eye movement from my hands to the screen, and it slows me down quite a bit!  9 squares completed, only about 90 more to go!

I originally thought I would keep my first blanket attempt, since I knew there would be some measure of trial and error.  I've made some mistakes.  The first two squares were more difficult while trying to figure out the pattern and what worked best with tying off and changing colors, etc.  And in one spot, I have 4 double crochets instead of 3...I didn't catch it until I had tied everything off....oh well!  When I picked out the colors, I was thinking that my mother would love them...and sure enough, I asked her if she wanted this one and she was thrilled.  So my mom will get the first blanket ever made by her first daughter! 

Since I still haven't had any progress on getting a client started up again with my counseling, I continue to not be working at all.  I'm up to 2 months, where I'm technically employed but do not have a client to work with.  This has been stressful, but I'm trying to keep my mind off of it by crafting, cleaning my house, and cooking awesome dinners.  I don't have much space to craft, so the dining room table gets overrun.  This is what it has looked like for at least a month:

I'm finishing up quite a few video game related pieces.  During this last month, I lost some steam...I've been slacking on putting the final touches on some of the items, but hopefully I'll be finished up by the end of the week.  I also get sidetracked by crochet projects which are easier in a lot of ways...they are often less steps, less cleanup, and more instant gratification.  Completing one project before starting another, should really be a goal of mine!  

Enough chit chat, back to crafting!  Hope to have some more pictures up soon!

Polymer Clay Galore

I have spent much of this weekend working on polymer clay jewelry and trinkets.  This is in preparation of potentially selling them in a local video game store, so all of the items will be gaming related.  I'm excited to have a focus for my crafting, and it's good to get things done now, while I still have the free time available.  Things are picking up at work, and hopefully I will have a client to work with soon, which will be the end of my free time.

So far, I've been able to finish up a few World of Warcraft inspired Hearthstones. The swirls glow in the dark!  

This morning I finished up a tray of Pac-Man ghost earrings, which I've made before.  I have a pair for myself, and they have been in my Etsy shop for a while.  This is a new batch, with new colors I haven't made before.  Here's a shot before they went into the oven to bake.   Can't wait to get them painted! 

The purple & green thing at the top of the pan, is one of my clay tools that I use regularly.  The rubber grip was caked in clay and falling off, so I threw a quick handle on there out of clay to make it a little more comfortable.  

The downside to working with clay in heat and humidity is that it gets overly soft.  And having the oven warming up for baking items doesn't help at all.  Sometimes details you try to put in, won't stay if you try to move the piece.  Thankfully, the few items I've been working with have been simple, but I've still had some difficulty with excessive sticking to my work surface.  Instead of putting in the air conditioners, I'll put my clay chunks in the refrigerator to cool it off and harden it up a little between passes.  Far too hot and lazy to lug the air conditioners out of the attic today.

Right now, I'm taking a break to eat some chips and guacamole!   But then I'll be back to work later!  Hooray for productivity!  

Treasury Thursday (Etsy)

One fun feature of Etsy is the ability to create treasuries.  You search for items based on your unifying theme of choice, whether it's color, style, mood, season, etc.  I shared my Mother's Day treasuries in an earlier post.

I decided to create one that celebrated the great weather here in Richmond today.  It's one of the first days in a while that it hasn't been raining, or bumped the thermometer over 70 degrees.  This is the longest we've gone into spring with the heated mattress pad still on the bed.  But I've also been enjoying all of the geeky crafts that are on Etsy lately....I recently bought one of these shirts from Enlightened State, to wallow in my love of Walking Dead until the new season starts.

Combining geekery and spring greens was easy and actually produced a pretty cute treasury.  Enjoy!

Spring Green for Geeks