Throw Away 50 Things - Redux, Part Deux

So about today.

One would think I had done nothing at all, as I sat on the couch knitting on a sock and watching DVDs for most of the day. We finished up Alias, Season 1, watched MI-3, Elizabeth 2, now we're onto Battlestar Galactica, Season 1. I did read the Sunday paper and do 2 crosswords as well. The paper basket was full so out it went (item 1).

I did, however, get off my duff and made yam/acorn squash waffles with pecans to our breakfast. You can find the recipe for these in the Joy of Cooking. Including canned pumpkin, any squash, but for spaghetti works just great for these waffles. I also amended the recipe to use 3/4 to 1 cup of squash. I have also added 1 tsp. real vanilla and 1/2 cup of pecans pieces to the basic recipe (finely chopped candied ginger makes a great addition as well). These waffles are a staple in our house.

I also threw away a coffee mug that had a chipping design (2nd item), sorted out more clothes (3rd thru 10th items) for the charity shop and decided to get rid of even more books (11th thru 17th items today) to the 1/2 price store.

Books are my greatest pleasure and my greatest source of pain. I love to read and collect them but I hate to move them and I never have enough shelf space for them either... I really cannot see tho how a real book can ever be replaced by an e-book? Never mind, I can't find the right prescription for my glasses to read them from a screen.

One on One Journal Exchange

The package from my journal exchangee arrive yesterday afternoon. It was a tough choice whether to wait to open it 'til this morning or tear into yesterday. Well, I tore into it yesterday as I am not that grown up yet, LOL. Here's a fuzzy picture of the box's contents. CHOCOLATE, YARN, travel related bookmark and an Irish themed journal with Celtic Knot endpapers. Thank You! Susan in Ohio.
I am a huge fan of Celtic knot work. I have done knotwork appliqued quilts, loomed beads, needlepointed them, cross stitched them, appliqued an I-Cord knot on a felted bag, put designs on wearables, stamped them on papers and painted them on boxes and signs, and stitched them onto banners for Scottish and other Celtic related events.

Waited til the Glue Dried - Folio

I do apologize for the crappy photos.
I couldn't find my tripod this afternoon.


I decided that I would make my daughter, Erin a folio in an effort to corral her collection of recipes she has been gathering. I keep finding a recipe here, a recipe there and sometimes I pick up a stack of papers thinking they are mine and need to go into the knitting book and instead find a receipt for a Truffle Cake or some such. It's an adventure sometimes trying to find the piece of paper that I am in search of. However, I am as guilty as she is in printing off stuff for future use, so my solution for both of us is something to contain them in.
Folio: a case or folder for loose papers
I had a basic idea of what a folio should/could be. Two hard covers, generally hinged and held together somehow usually with ribbon ties or an elastic strap.

To get started I pulled out what supplies I thought I might need. For this project these supplies included: mat board(s), ribbons, fabrics, clear plastic, glue and general sewing supplies.

As I do papers crafts as well as quilt, I had my choice of what to cover the mat board with. If using papers to cover, gather paper crafting supplies.

I had a stack of mat board leftover from another project and use a piece of it cut in half for the covers. Since I was making black and white tote/storage/gift bags for Erin anyway, I just grabbed one of those prints to cover the outsides with.

First I cut the fabric to size and then wrapped it over each cover and glued down on the back side.
Waited til the glue dried.
I next took a piece of wide French gros-grain ribbon in black and cut in thirds to make hinges spaced evenly along a long edge and glued them down. I then cut picot edged ribbon in turquoise for two sets of ties and glue them down on the opposite long edges.
Waited til the glue dried.
I then covered the insides of the mats with a turquoise print fabric. Glued them in.
Waited til the glue dried.
Front of Cover: I made a card slot out out of a black and white Celtic creature ribbon stitched as a frame onto a clear plastic insert. Glued it to the front. (It's kinda wonky, as I didn't get one of the corners to cooperate, but the folio can have any label the DD would care to insert and I decided to add this after the covers were glue on, so I couldn't stitch it on.)
Waited for the glue to dry.

From start to finish, it took about 24 hours to make this silly thing, most of it was spent, you guessed it, waiting for the glue to dry. Maybe I should use a spray adhesive next time. For safety's sake, I would, of course have to spray outside. With our Colorado cold winter temps and the nearly constant wind, I would not try to make one with spray adhesive at this time. In all, it would have taken less time and energy to go to an art supply store and buy one, but now it's off my someday, maybe Bucket List. It's funky, kewl and I used stuff I had laying around to make it with... This project sorta of fell into my throw 50 things away drive, if using 5 things up can count?

Throw Away 50 Things - Redux

In an effort to continue on my quest to throw away at least fifty things this month. Here's a list of what has gone:
1. Useless Coffee Maker (got's me a French press, way better coffee)
2. Cat Scratch Post cat doesn't use (likes one of my wicker baskets much better)
3. 6" thick stack of papers after sorting
4. Plastic canister pretzels came in I thought I would do something with
5. 2 Yellow Pages books we never even opened as we Ask Dex
6. Another bag of clothes to the charity shop (2 skirts, five shirts, fleece jacket)
7. Another bag of books to the trade shop (30 or so)
8. Bag o' Yarn to charity knitters

Okay, This is Just Weird - Redux and Baby Chicklet Close Yer Eyes

Here below is a link to something that proves that some people have WAAAAAAAY too much time on their hands, but really think outside of the box. A Beef Jerky Purse modeled on Chanel, no less! Here's the link to the pix and if you are a vegan, vegi, or any iteration of non-meat eating, you might want to skip this....

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2008/12/beef_jerky_purse.html?CMP=OTC-5JF307375954

Ravelry Journal Swap and Moleskine Round Robin

So, I belong to Ravelry.com, which is an on-line knitting and crochet community. It's suppose to be about knitting and/or crocheting, right?


First off, Ravelry has a group or two or three for EVERYTHING. I saw that there was a one-on-one journal exchange happening. You first fill out a brief questionnaire, then you get matched up with someone else who signed up for the swap as well. Then after some exchanges to get further details about your swap partner, you then send a journal with, in this swap, a writing prompt and a wee giftie. Susan, my swappee is from the far reaches of the NorthCentral Mid-West and loves pink and blue. She is WAY younger than me, so I got her a bubblegum pink journal with book binding and lined pages, as that's her style of journals (being cack-handed, I prefer spiral bounds). Then I made a Superperson emblem with flowers and vines PINK bag with pink and black ribbon ties for it along with a matching pink project bag that I filled with two pinks and one blue ball of wool roving and the new Clover needle felting pen as her giftie. Well, apparently I chose wisely as she indeed loves pink, but she also loves Supergirl and liked the fabric I chose for her gift. She has also has never tried needle felting, but was interested in it and now she has the start of her supplies if she finds she likes it as much as I have discovered I do. As always, in haste, I left something out of Susan's package, so here is what I wrote to her about that. It might be of use to someone out there.


I wrote to Susan:
I do hope you enjoy the needle felting, I am a huge fan of it as I am sure you can tell from my blog. The only thing I didn’t send along, which I discovered too late was a large CHEAP sponge, like you get from the Dollar Store for a working surface. You can get the brush mats at JoAnn’s, Hancocks, Michael’s, etc., but if you’re not sure if you are going to like the process or only going to try it a few times, I would use a substitute and the cheapy sponge works nearly as well for a needling surface. Use a cutting mat under a sponge, tho, so you don’t mar your table and/or break your needles, ask me how I know, LOL… Above all, have fun and oh, by the way, cookie cutters make great templates for designs if you aren’t comfy with free-handing it… If you do get hooked or needled, as the case may be, many LYSs will sell dyed wool roving fiber by the oz. and some of the artier stores may have dyed silk tops and other kewl stuff that can be needle felted. The black bag with the oak leaves is needled from both wool and silk fibers. Have fun and if you do have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. (See post of 11/24/08 for picture.)


Then there is Group C of the International Moleskine Exchange Group aka the Fabulous Creative Collaborating Chicklets. Wherein, I have met an amazing group of women and they know who they are, who if anything, are funnier, smarter and more clever than me. There are 10 of us in the group, but 6 of us appear to either have the most time to waste or the smartest mouths so I can thank the Gods and Goddesses that most of my group share at least some of my warped sensibilities about the world and Martha Stewart and are willing to talk about free ranging chickens, vegan marshmallows, Moleskines, art and what ever else happens to strike our fancy. Oh, sometimes we even talk about fiber, Frewen is blogging about felting boots, Baby Chicklet about prezzies made of fibers and I just posted about my version of Jayne Cobb's hat from Firefly and what my daughter's getting for Christmas.

So, you might ask, what is a Moleskine? The Moleskine is a notebook that can be quadrille (graph), unlined, lined, watercolour, thick or thin paper filled generally black covered with an elastic band to hold it all together with an inside back cover pocket for stuff that was made famous by the likes of Hemingway, Picasso and various other creative people and a staple in my purse for 5 iterations or about 5 years. It comes in various sizes and now apparently in various colours. We are doing a round robin, which means that currently my Moleskine is in Essex, England UK, with Lini, the Happy Hooker. We each did intro pages wherein we let the women who were going to work on our Moleskine know if we wanted a theme, hated something, had no opinion, yadda, yadda, yadda, before sending them off and then we'll each do 2 or more pages in each of the 10 other books in the exchange before ours returns to home.

It's a Cunning Thing - Jayne's Hat

Here's my iteration of Jayne's Hat from the television show Firefly, Message from Home. It's done in cotton not wool as the DD has an issue with wool. Taking pix of yourself is really never a good idea, but a few folks have asked to see the hat. How cunning is that?

What I Did Today

I made this card for my friend Hunie and her family for Christmas. It's cardstock, fabric and a button. It's a green and brown tree appliqued to a starry blue background with a red sun face button for the topper. I also did some knitting on a prezzie for my DD. Can't show you the pix of it yet as she will look at my blog on the odd occasion...

Christmas At Sea Update

Here's the updated numbers for the Christmas at Sea Appeal. We CAN DO it!!!! Time is running out tho, so please do what you can to help get the seamen warm for the season. Thanks everyone for your efforts.




Mariners Scarves: 4506
We need: 494 more!
Mariners Caps: 3205
We need: 895 more!
Seafarer’s Sets: 5752
We need only 263 more!!!!
Socks, Vests & Helmets: 1774
We need 761 more!

Last Night's Incredible Full Moon

Last night, my friend, Rebecca reminded me to go out and look at the moon as it was at it fullest in years. Well, it was amazing! When Erin and I went out there was a coloured ring around the moon that shaded from yellow gold to rust to turquoise to indigo, to lemon yellow to cerise with a fat contrail trailing across it. It was incredible to say the least, and it was huge! This photo does it no justice but is more in the way of a aide de memoire for a Moonatic quilt I have in mind.Web Comic guy, Dave Lowe has a great pix of last night's moon on his blog as well... http://www.davelowe.blogspot.com/

Yarn Wars - another funny from the DD

Every time I read this one, it just make me laugh. Laughter is a good thing. Enjoy it... If you want to enjoy more of Dave's work, here's the link to his blog and then click on ParaAbnormal http://www.davelowe.blogspot.com/

Knitting Christmas at Sea

This is a plea for the Christmas at Sea Program thru the Seamen's Church. I have been knitting hats and scarves for this worthy program in hopes of getting the numbers that are needed. Can you/would you all help? I am part of the Ravelry.com group that supports this mission, as well as the Graceful Hands Charitable Knitting group at Grace and St. Stephan's Episcopal Church in the Springs which also knits for this group and local persons in need. Here's the link to the Seamen's Institute site if you want further information. http://www.seamenschurch.org/484.asp
These were the numbers needed as of 2 days ago...
Mariners Scarves: 4506
We need: 494 more!
Mariners Caps: 3205
We need: 895 more!
Seafarer’s Sets: 5752
We need only 263 more!!!!
Socks, Vests & Helmets: 1774
We need 761 more!

Knitting Cartoon that Erin Sent to Me

Throw Away 50 Things

I was cruising thru a friend's blog this morning and saw that she had signed the pledge to throw 50 things away this month. In an effort to declutter my chaotic homestead, I am taking the pledge. I am a few days late getting started, but I can say that I have thrown 4 things away already and taken a box of books to the trade store. Now to get that bag of clothes off to Goodwill or some such place. This is an early start on those suggestions for New Year's, maybe I'll actually have the habit when the new year gets here to throw instead of stow. More to come...

Well, I am thrilled and excited. I didn't realize that my peeps were actually going to my blog, reading it and commenting on it as well! Thank you all, it's so kewl that you care enough to look and to comment. I shall persevere on you all's behalf.

It's cold, snowy and yucky out, but I must go to the PO and send off my Ravelry Moleskine Round Robin and a Mail from Home Shower of Cards card for a friend's son who's missing his family and home whilst stationed in Ramadi.

Moon and Planets

Last night, the moon which looks like God's Thumbnail at the moment and two planets were close enough and bright enough to form a triangle in the sky. The daughter and I each took a peek at it and were glad that we had the chance. There were no clouds in the sky to obscure the view and there was enough pink to make a really gorgeous picture. Make ya glad to be alive.

I really was wishing for a SLR camera with which to take a photo as my little point and shoot just can't do it justice. Still, was glad to have experienced it non-the-less with our beautiful Colorado dusky sky and the mountains in the backdrop.

I am going to have to make a quilt of the view to go into my Moonatic Series, which is up to 5, but I haven't worked on it in a really long time. This might be the kick I need to get going on it again.

So, look up every night if the clouds let you.