ishkabibble

2016 Recap: Craftiness

Hello there. Thank you to the lovely ladies who messaged me over my long absence, and especially those who ferreted out my email after my last post. Your kindness and concern was really, really appreciated though I couldn't bring myself to reply to you. Things are starting to fall back into place again. Routines are a good thing for me even if a bit "boring."

Though 2016 didn't end on a particularly high note, I still wanted to do a crafty recap post for it because it wound up being one of my most productive crafting years to date. Rather than a large assortment of pictures, I will put the list from my finishes pages here and a collage of each craft.

February - Uno - knit fingerless mitts, pattern found here (ravelry)
February - June Wild Roses - 14-count ecru huck towel, freebie pattern found here
February - Lemon-Lime Potholder - thermal crochet, freebie pattern found here
March - Speaker Cozy #2 - crochet, pattern from Star Book No. 78: Television and Radio Scarfs
March - Shamrock Dishcloth - knit, freebie pattern found here (ravelry)
June - Dolphin Washcloth - knit, freebie pattern found here (ravelry)
July - Rathian - 20-count light tan jobelan, pattern by me
August - KitKat Hat - knit, freebie pattern found here (ravelry)
August - House Slippers - crochet, freebie pattern found here (ravelry)
August - July Delphinium - 14-count ecru huck towel, freebie pattern found here
September - Brachydios - 20-count light tan jobelan, pattern by me
September - Mittens - knit, freebie pattern found here (ravelry)
October - Kitty Prints Scarf - knit, freebie pattern found here (ravelry), modified by me
October - Fan Bookmarks - crochet, freebie pattern found here (ravelry)
October - Jack-o-Lantern Bookmark - crochet, freebie pattern found here (ravelry)
October - Haunted House Dishcloth - knit, freebie pattern found here (ravelry)
November - Yellow Potholder - thermal crochet, freebie pattern found here
November - Green Potholder - thermal crochet, freebie pattern found here

Totals: 7 knit items, 7 crochet items, 4 cross-stitch

the knits

I'm glad I completed the "kitty set". They came in handy this winter and the hat especially got a lot of smiles and comments. The fingerless mitts taught me how to do cables which, at the time, was very exciting. And then never again for the remainder of the year. And the washcloths are plain ol' fun. I like themed items obviously.

the hooks

Lots of thread crochet this year, which is good, I am very fond of it. After finishing the two thermal crochet potholders in November, I started a third, very large potholder (think 9x13 casserole dish) in a combination of the yellow and green and a couple skeins of white. This is the only project I had out as all my yarn/floss/notions/life/sanity was packed away. I finished it February 3rd (though as it's 2017 it's not a 2016 recap but more of a catch-up). Of course, I still had a small bit of yarn left over so I made one more smaller potholder, again with the white/yellow/green combo. I finished it February 10th. It felt nice to have some new things to unpack for the kitchen and it made me feel good to ~~make space for new yarn~~ use up stash. The collection is the (small, I know) picture on the far right.

the stitches

A fairly dismal year for cross stitch though. I finished two of the lovely huck towels and two more sides to the husband cube. I still love how Brachydios turned out. I have yet to fish out my cross stitch stuff. The mojo just hasn't been there.

I also managed a lot of progress on FFIII but it wasn't a finish like I had hoped. It went from here...

before

...to here.

after

So it's getting there, slowly but surely.

📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚

Also, I read a few books. I had originally intended this to be its own separate post but for reasons, it's getting tacked on here. I like to read but am not a very avid reader (gee, I wonder if all the other hobbies take up too much time). I tend to stick with old favorites, rereading them as many times as I please. I did not include any manga I have read although several series were sprinkled in throughout the year.

Italicized is a book I have never read before.
Italicized and bolded is never read and a new-to-me author.

The Diamond Throne (David Eddings)
The Ruby Knight (Eddings)
The Sapphire Rose (Eddings)
Domes of Fire (Eddings)
The Shining Ones (Eddings)
The Hidden City (Eddings)
The Redemption of Althalus (Eddings)
Hyperion (Dan Simmons)
The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)
The Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
The Two Towers (Tolkien)
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (Terry Pratchett)
The 5 Love Languages (Gary Chapman)
The Return of the King (Tolkien)
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Rowling et al.)
Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)
Anne of Avonlea (Montgomery)
Anne of the Island (Montgomery)
Anne of Windy Poplars (Montgomery)
Anne's House of Dreams (Montgomery)
Anne of Ingleside (Montgomery)
Rainbow Valley (Montgomery)
Rilla of Ingleside (Montgomery)

I received both the Elenium and the Tamuli series by Eddings for Christmas 2015, and then just felt like rereading Althalus because he's fun. Yes, I had never read a Terry Pratchett book before! It was in our library's book sale for 25¢ and I took a liking to the ridiculous title. 5 Love Languages was interesting. I found both my husband and I "speak" the same language: Acts of Service. I hated Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It was like a horrible fanfic with none of the magic of the original books. I put it in bold because surely Rowling did not write such a jaded view of the adult magical world. I was fully intending to purchase this book but after reading it through the library it will never find a home with me! strong feelings One cannot just read one Anne book. I can never pick a favorite of the series. Maybe 1-3 and 5.

And then all my books were packed away for the move that felt like it was never-ending.

Okay, I think that is enough for this recap / catch-up post. All of those items seem so far away, from a different life. I'm not even going to do goals this year and just take things as they come and enjoy life outside of boxes. Eventually. The boxes are never-ending as well.

An Update

Hello, friends. It has been a while. Since my last post, a lot has happened, and most of it has not been that great. This is hard post for me to write but I hope writing it will help, somehow.

It took us four months to move due to so many things happening at once. My anxiety reached a new level and I basically stopped eating and sleeping until my husband and friends strongly encouraged me to seek therapy. I was recovering. The blows have not stopped raining down and I am exhausted but I am eating and sleeping again. We skipped all the major winter holidays.

We are now moved... mostly.

February 28th was to be the last day in our old rental. My mother came up to help me with a few last items and to clean the house. Because it was so breezy that day, it took longer than expected to strap items to our trucks. We decided to just spend one more night in the rental and let the landlord know in the morning.

That night, I was using the carpet cleaner on the living room floor. I paused to refill the water when we heard the sirens faintly going off in town. We went to the basement. Twitter reports from the National Weather Service made me realize we were directly in the path. We retreated to steel beams in the center of the basement.

So much wind. I do not understand the train reference. It just sounded like wind. A lot of wind. Breaking glass. We thought it was hail. After, neighbors came to help us get out of the house and find our purses.

My beautiful, beautiful farmhouse. Gone. We were unhurt. We are alive. Everything was out of the house and in our new one. Our kitties were safely in the new one, too. I cannot explain my grief. I was already having a very hard time leaving this house because I loved it so much. It is gone. I was scared the next renters would be awful and neglect the house, or not appreciate it, or let the beautiful daffodils I coaxed back to life die back again. It is gone forever. I planted a grapevine. A rosebush. Peonies. Hostas. Lilies. Gone, all of them.

This is so so much worse.

My mother's truck was flipped and deemed totaled. Our truck was in the garage which basically exploded. $11,000 of damage which I am grateful to say my insurance will fully cover.

We are alive.

My heart is broken.

I can't look at the stuff in our new house without remembering how well it fit in the old house. The shower curtain matched the beautiful blue tiles in the bathroom. The polished flooring upstairs and the glass knobs on every single door. There isn't a single daffodil planted at our new house, and all the ones at the old place were crushed by the debris.

It was our landlords childhood home. I think the brother is the only one who can fully comprehend my grief. They will not rebuild it. They thanked us for being such good tenants; I knew they were sorry to see us go. We took care of the place, made sure it was clean. Kept the yard and flowers tidy. They joked that they were going to hold back the deposit because we obviously didn't do a good job cleaning.

So many people here lost everything. Houses gone. All their stuff, gone. People lost their lives, their loved ones. Gone, gone, gone. We were lucky. I know we were. But it hurts so much now. I feel selfish for having this much pain when I lost nothing. Nothing!

I just... can't anymore. These past four months have been torture for me. I have to keep smiling and pushing on. This is not what I wanted my next post to be.

home

End of the Month: Winners and Stuff

Hello again! October has slipped on by with more excitement than I can really take, more on that in a bit! I hope you had a sufficiently wonderful Halloween and are not in too-terrible of a sugar coma.

e'e

Hello to all my new followers! I do hope I don't talk you to death. :) I have followed those who have linked up via Blogger in my feed reader but have run into a snag with using the actual blogger widget to follow you back! Blogger has evidently changed something in their system and it will no longer allow me to link my blog profile. Instead, it is trying to use my "real name" profile and I. Do. Not. Want. I'm starting to get fed up with Google trying to push having one's real name everywhere, even if I "lied" so my real name wouldn't be on the internet! Bah, humbug. I'll keep searching for a workaround.

Next, you want winners, right?! :D I was curious to see if one design would be more popular than the others but I wound up with six entries for each! I used the random number generator to pick the winners drum rolls

GGG #1

GGG #2

The winner of GGG#1: Garden Samplers is... Christine!

The winner of GGG#2: St. Nicholas is... Bea!

Yaaaay! Please contact me with your addresses and I will have them out ASAP and they will be one less thing I have to pack because... we're moving! O_O!

yikes!

So, I am going to be rather silent on the blog front for a while. My husband has accepted a new position which means things have really been up in the air and throwing everything they have at my anxiety. There is just too much going on with packing, finding a place, NOT finding a place, actually finding a place, planning for a trip that has been known about for a year that just had to be at the same time as all this, leaving the house and community I love, the new job, the new life, the new aaaaaaaaa seriously, I am so ready for 2016 to just be over! I am a creature of comfort and stability. There is a silver lining though; the place we're moving to has a Jo-Ann Fabrics and a Michael's and a yarn store. Priorities!

Haunted House

I did manage to squeak in a little something for Halloween. I'm not sure if this yarn was a good choice for this but it is what it is! The haunted house is most visible but the tree and bat were kinda ehhhh.... I did not block it as these cotton cloths take a bit longer to dry and it needed packed right away.

Technical Details

"October Mystery Cloth" pattern by Kris Knits, found here on ravelry (free).
#3 needles for cloth, #4 DPNs for i-cord loop
Yarn: I Love This Cotton, amethyst
Started August 17, finished October 31, unknown hours.

Hasta la vista, baby! panic panic panic...........

Gifted Gorgeousness: For Your Reading Pleasure

Hello again! It's time again for Gifted Gorgeousness, a lovely SAL where we work on/with gifted items or items to gift. It's fun and you can click this little button for more info:

click me!

I have nothing stitchy to show, gasp! I do have the next pattern made for the husband cube, and I have what I think are the right colors. It's being another of those ornery ones. :)

bookmarks galore

Instead, I have these little things to show. Michelle at Ozark sew n' sews had a lovely bookmark crocheted back in early February. She could not provide the original pattern but she did locate a similar freebie one for me! As you can see, I've had fun making them. I thought up a way to attach them to a bit of card stock for display and shipping purposes though they can be cut off!

I did not care for the original tassel; to me it seemed like such a big knot would bulge in a book, plus the ends would fray. So, I made a simple braid about the same "thickness" as the bookmark crocheted up. I didn't starch any of them as I don't like the idea of starch in a book. They are plenty stiff as is, probably helped along by the smaller hook and the deep-seated need I have to strangle all my crafts by making them as tight as possible. :B

Technical Details

"Fan Bookmark" pattern by Crochetroo, found here on ravelry (free).
1.15mm hook.
#20-#30 crochet thread, various colors.
Started ?, finished October 2016, approximately 1.5 hours each.

a field of pumpkins

I liked the cute Halloween bookmark pattern too although I think it might have benefited from a good blocking! Some of the little pumpkins (yes, they are supposed to be jack-o-lanterns) have three (or four) eyes! It is also an easy pattern though I did have to brush up on how to make a treble crochet (double treble for you Brits); I rarely use that stitch. It's just an extra wrap at the beginning!

If anyone wants to make this pattern, please be aware there is an error in row 4. It should read: ch1, sc in tr, *(dc, ch2, dc) in next 2 sc, sc in 4th chain of ch7 loop*. repeat from * to * once. I found this out after trying to make sense of the original and running to the project page on ravelry for clues. Thankfully there were some!

Technical Details

"Jack-o-Lantern Bookmark" pattern by Jackie Tyler, found here on ravelry (free).
1.15 mm hook.
#20? crochet thread, J&P Coats.
Started ?, finished October 2016, approximately 1.5 hours.

These were all made as a THANK YOU! for the lovely gifts I have received this year (and previous years cough). I have a few more to ship off but need to confirm the addresses first. I hope the recipients liked them and will enjoy using them! Everyone likes books, right?! I tried to be sneaky and find out favorite colors but that didn't work out so well so I tried to match blog colors as best I could with what I had. A few creative liberties had to be taken haha. :)

blocking - attempt #1

Not a part of GG, but here is my latest knit finish: the Kitty Prints Scarf! I started this back in November of 2015 and snacked on it ever since. I am soooo pleased it's finally done! Unblocked it measured ~7.5" x 58" (~19cm x 147cm) which is a decent length for a scarf though I usually like mine much longer so I can really wrap up. I didn't want to buy another skein though! I did get lucky with my second skein... It was a different dye lot, yikes! It did not show (much of) a difference when worked up though, thank goodness.

Unfortunately, this blocking did not fix the curl it has. :( This was wet blocking though. Steam blocking is supposed to be better for acrylics but I am still not hopeful. Luckily it is just a scarf for me and I can still wrap up just as well in a curly scarf as a flat one! It's the same yarn I used for the mittens and kitty hat and they were quite possibly made to match the scarf.

Technical Details

"Kitty Prints Dishcloth" pattern by Louise Sarrazin, found here on ravelry (free).
#6 (4.0 mm) needle.
Yarn: Yarn Bee Soft Secrets, aqua.
Started November 2015, finished October 3, 2016, unknown hours.

These also put me at finishes 12, 13, and 14 which may not sound like a lot to most of you speedy needles but it is the most finishes I've ever had in a year! This makes me so happy. :)

Lastly (finally)! Because Gifted Gorgeousness is a perfect time for this: I HAVE A GIVEAWAY, YAAAAAAAAY! And I suspect this might be a popular one.

Gifted Gorgeousness Giveaway #1 - The Prairie Schooler Book no. 45 Garden Samplers

book no. 45 - garden samplers

Gifted Gorgeousness Giveaway #2 - The Prairie Schooler Book no. 20 St. Nicholas and bonus 1988 Santa

book no. 20 - st nicholas and bonus

Gifted Gorgeousness Giveaway Guidelines

Be a follower (upper right corner of my blog)! Feedly, bloglovin', etc. do not count as there is no way to show it! I am sorry; blame blogger for this one.
Comment and tell me which number you would like to win! Choices are hard, I know!
Open worldwide!
Closing date: October 29, 2016, 23:59 CST.

I hope you can contain your excitement! I found these charts in a thrift store (charity shop) and immediately thought my blog readers would like an opportunity to stitch these. They are all in great condition. Garden Samplers contains three charts, each 182H x 81W. St. Nicholas contains eight small charts at 54H x 45W. The bonus is slightly larger at 75H x 57W and has an edit on one of the colors -- I have not checked this to see if the edit is a fix or just someone being creative!

These will be just the charts to cut down on shipping charges so I'm sorry there will be no extra goodies in with them! I'm sure you can find something in your stash to work with. :)

I will announce the winners on my next blog post which will occur at the end of October/beginning of November assuming life cooperates. It sometimes does! :D

Whew! runs away

I have set this post to appear in the wee hours of the morning since people on the other side of the Great Puddle are in the future.

End of a Month: FotM and a Beautiful Surprise!

I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. -- Anne Shirley

But I seriously can't believe it's October and it's less than two months to Christmas and panic eek.

half glad

In a delightful display of ignoring all thought of Christmas, I started the next flower of the month, August's gladiolus. Sorry there is no "before" picture. I got the pattern printed and immediately started on it without any thought at all of pictures. This one was so bizarre to stitch! I was doing one color at a time and every bit of it looked so wrong... until the last of the reds started. It was really amazing (and relieving) how it is coming together.

they fit

I also managed to knit up some (plain) mittens! Mittens are not scary at all, although I did have some practice with the fingerless ones from earlier this year. These were done entirely on DPNs and I'm not sure how I feel about that haha. My joins are not good when doing K1 P1 ribbing but much better when doing stockinette. I like that this pattern was the rounded tip. I am getting good at M1 stitches. I should've used a smaller needle for the ribbing but I do not have any size between a #4 and #8 in DPNs. They are done in the same yarn as the kitty hat and kitty scarf because I like sets.

Technical Details

"Paw Mittens" pattern by BEL designs, found here on ravelry (free).
#4 for body, #8 for ribbing.
Yarn: Yarn Bee Soft Secrets, aqua.
Started August 31, finished September 13, unknown hours.

This was a well-written pattern. I was a little confused by the M1 at the beginning of the thumb gusset... I did not know which way to go. Was it a M1R or M1L?! But a quick Google taught me a nice way to remember: If the M1 is after the stitch marker, it is a M1L. If it is before, it is a M1R. I suppose the starting one is not all that important (it could be either R or L) but it was after the marker so L it became.

all the goodies

Lastly, I received a lovely surprise in the mail. Sheryl at Sewing After Seven had a lovely display of pincushions for a pincushion parade (isn't that the most charming thing ever?) and it made me think that I needed to make one of my own whenever my sewing machine is done. She offered me this lovely little Rosey pincushion for my very own! She also sent some matching floss and a truly adorable piece of Christmas fabric! I already thought of a few things I could stitch that would match the cute feeling (FPS anyone?). Thank you so much, Sheryl! I love everything! ♥

love the button!

That is all from me this time. I will strive to get up the next GG post in a timely manner. We're entering the lovely busy time of year and there are some possible changes on the horizon that are doing their very best to freak me out! But let's not count chickens before they're hatched, right~? runs away