New sweater pics!

I started this sweater back in October 2013 (first post on the blog) thinking that I would be able to finish it quickly.  Due to other projects getting in the way, it took far longer than it should have.  But it is done, has been done for a few months, and I wear it all the time!  Unfortunately, I'm almost never happy with any pics of myself but I think one managed to turn out not so bad.

Halloween maybe?

I purchased a half yard of this wonderful orange silk taffeta and because of the way embroidering it works, I embroidered all of it at one time.  So now I have enough embroidered to make five bags.  Two are done and now I'm working through the others.  I'm hoping to mix it up a bit more in the future rather than having five bags of the same color but at the moment, embroidering more isn't top priority so I'm just working on what I have ready.

This one is purple embroidery on that orange shot taffeta.  It looks a bit Halloween to me but I still love it.  It's lined in a cosmic cotton print and has that inner bag.  I changed this up a bit since the last one so I think the bag will work better but I think construction is a bit better on the first one.  It's done in a different order that I thought would speed up the process a bit but it doesn't.

I think I will leave the orange for awhile after this one and embroider some new fabric.  I have a purple taffeta that I'm wanting to do something with as well as a bright blue dupioni.  But there is always black too...  So many options and not near enough time, as always.  =)

Finishing old projects...

Sometimes, I just get a crazy whim in my head.  Most of the time, I don't act on it and do the practical or sensible thing.  Recently though, I've been thinking how boring that is.  So when I all the sudden had this crazy whim to finish making a rug that I started in middle school, I dug it out and worked on it.

All of it had been braided together and there was a slightly larger circle than this stitched together but it wasn't flat.  I had been hand-stitching it and not doing a good job of it.  So I tore out all the hand-stitching and set up my machine to do a three step zigzag and got started.

The first part went really well and it was flat and going fast.  At the end of the day, I had more than half of it stitched together and I was crazy excited to keep going but I was tired.  The next day, still excited, I jumped right in.  And the day dragged.  I thought I was never going to finish.  I had to take breaks every half hour because it was hard wrangling the rug.  It was too big to lay flat so I had to fold it to get it to stay on the table and it was tiring.  It wasn't overly heavy but constantly moving it and shifting it was hard.  Toward the end I was just stubbornly trying to finish it.

Finished and I was so exited!  I had kept checking it to make sure that it was lying flat but because it was on a table that it couldn't all lay flat, I didn't realize that yes, this half looks great but all it laid out?  Not so much.  It definitely has ripples in it and one edge wants to curl up.

I steamed it and pressed it trying to get it flat and it mostly worked.  And then my dog decided to fluff it and it's not all that flat again.  Oh well.  It has it's issues and isn't the prettiest thing on the planet but it's done.  I learned quite a bit if I choose to make another at some point.  And it's one less project camped out in my room.

Baby Jayne hats

I made Jayne hats for the family last year, mostly as a joke but they were really well received.  We even got a pic of everyone wearing their hats and it was great!  This year, a new little nephew, Peanut, was expected and obviously he would need a hat too.  =)

I don't know much about babies and so I had no clue what size to make.  The pattern was written for adults and so I decided to knit it single stranded rather than double as the pattern called for and I used smaller needles.  This was the largest one in the pictures and was told it was way too big, toddler size rather than baby.

Next I reduced stitches and came up with a good baby size hat according to friends.  However, there was a good chance the little one was going to arrive early so I made an even smaller one.  On the plus side, Peanut now has Jayne hats set for a couple of years.  And as it turns out, he did arrive a touch early but by less than a week and he is perfect!

Joseph mitts

More holiday knitting!  These were a gift to go along with Joseph and the Amazing  Technicolor Dreamcoat.  I thought it would be funny to have crazy colored mitts to go along with the movie and Bryan thought it would be a great idea.  So with three days before it had to be sent out, we went shopping for yarn.  That ended up being more difficult than expected because the store I had been planning on going to had closed.  We found a new little shop, found very colorful yarn and I was set to start.

I didn't make the three days.  The first mitt was dull and lifeless compared to the second mitt so I re-did the first mitt.  Both turned out crazy colorful and was so much fun.  And while they didn't get sent out with the big box of presents, they were sent out shortly after and made it in time.

Joseph Mitts or Amazing Technicolor DreamMitts!

New prototype bag!

Bryan has been using my first small dice bag prototype and it hasn't held up very well at all.  I knew it wouldn't before I was done with it but I was just testing the size so I didn't bother reinforcing it since it was just a test.  I made changes and all the little bags are good and sturdy now.  However, the bags don't hold normal sized dice very well.  Bryan hasn't lost one yet but he's been careful.  So I came up with the idea of adding an interior bag and finished the prototype!  I was headed to the beach for another reason but why not take pics of the new bag too?  Because doesn't everyone play dice games at the beach?  =)


It holds a good amount of dice (the bag is a bit more than half full of dice) and the bag doesn't distort! However, the magnet isn't quite strong enough to always hold shut.  Just carrying it, I noticed that it popped open once or twice.  Part of that could be me trying to jump out of the way of waves coming in, but I would like to find stronger magnets.  The ones I use on my knitting bags are really strong but too large for these little bags.

The inner bag also needs just a bit of work.  It's too bulky and doesn't cinch closed as tightly as I would like.  I tipped the bag upside down and shook it trying to get dice to fall out and none did but the gap is big enough that I think it would be possible.  That's a pretty easy fix though so the next one should close tighter and then it won't even be a possibility.

GW2 Wintersday

Wintersday is one of my favorite events in GW2.  They decorate the main city - the past two years it's been Lion's Arch but since it was kinda destroyed this past year, Divinity's Reach was hosting it this year.  They also decorate wvw and possibly the pvp area but I don't go there very often so I'm not really sure.

My characters also get in the holiday spirit and I dye their armors all crazy.  I purchased the winter outfit the first year and my charr will wear it whenever because it is so much fun on her.  This was before the charr all used the male version of armor so she gets to wear a pretty dress and the skirt is hilarious as she runs.  Makes me laugh every time.

Normally I spend the entire time playing as much Wintersday content as possible and I will ignore everything else for the entire festival.  However, there really isn't anything new this year.  The jump puzzle, bells and Toypocalypse are all the same.  I went through things fairly quickly and haven't felt the need to play more.  I'll still be sad to see it end just because of how festive everything is but I'm excited for the next part of the Living Story to start!

Copic marker fun

This year for Christmas, we had a few gifts that weren't something you could wrap but I still wanted them to have something to open.  I decided to break out my markers that I've been collecting for the past year and a half and make gift certificates.  I've used the markers just to get an idea of color and to see how the color can be built up but I haven't used them to create anything before this.  And I can see how much I improved from the first to the last so I see a lot more practicing in my future.

Two gifts are for a Caravan Safari at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.  I've cropped the words and just left the giraffes.  The three giraffes was the first and the single giraffe was last.  The single one wasn't supposed to look so disappointed/disapproving but I went with it.


And the second one I did was for a Marvel Unlimited subscription.  We printed all the directions on another piece of paper but I still wanted to do something.  I chose Captain America's shield because Cap's my favorite.  =)  The scanner got this one in a bit crooked but I didn't notice until it was too late.