Crafting Chaos

Felting progress

Now that we’re back home I’ve started working on my felt art projects again. The deadline for the Beyond the Fringe show seems to be coming up soon.

This will be the Earth crescent for my An Arrangement Of Elements piece.

For my second art piece I’m making a Triple Moon triptych. Each moon will have three parts and there will be three of them. They will be a Maiden, Mother, Crone piece.

Add comment January 30th, 2009

A painful lesson

When we got home we found out a deer mouse had moved in. Argh! I was putting up clothes when some cat food fell out from the sweaters. I sucked in my breath and started pulling out the sweaters. Thebes cable sweater was ok. I felt light headed with relief.

I pulled out all the sweaters and all were intact. Then I checked my yarn. The mouse had made a nest in my yarn. What yarn? The Noro! And my felt art pieces!

Before I go on I should mention that cleaning up mouse turds and nests is not so simple in New Mexico. Hanta virus is serious in these parts and people do die from it. To properly clean it you have to air out the area, wear an air mask, wear gloves and spray disinfectant on the area, let it sit for awhile and then wipe it up. Vacuuming or sweeping is bad because it put the virus into the air.

So cleaning up my yarn was no quick process. Thankfully the mouse had just stashed cat food in the yarn and felt. There were no turds or holes from munching.

Then I checked my skirts. I cried when I found my Winter Freedom Skirt:

Damn it damn it damn it! I found it the day we got back but hesitated taking a picture because it still hurts to look at. With no people or animals in a house for almost three weeks of course a mouse would check it out! We left within two days of buying our last minute tickets. But next time I will protect my knitwear and yarn and set out mouse traps.

Close ups of the damage:

I think it can be repaired. I’ll have to cut off the fuzz and cut around the hole. Then I’ll knit a replacement patch and sew it in. Luckily I always keep a little bit of yarn from my projects for possible repairs. However, my repair ball for the skirt is in storage somewhere. When it’s not as cold I’ll head to storage and dig through bins to find my craft supplies.

This repair is not going to be fun but hopefully it will work. I love this skirt so much I have to try.

Prana cornered the mouse a couple of days later and Thebes shot it with the BB gun. And we’re finished sanitizing everything. What a headache.

3 comments January 29th, 2009

Big Island Yarn Basket

While in Hilo I visited the Yarn Basket. The two women working that day were very friendly and helpful. The store was an ok size-not huge but not too small. They had a lot of yarn. Interestingly most of if was packed in plastic bags. I’m assuming this was to protect it from the humidity.

Considering the climate I wasn’t surprised to see a large selection of cotton and acrylic yarn. Though they did have more wool than I expected a Hawaiian yarn store to have.

The prices were a bit higher compared to mainland yarn stores but not unreasonable. I thought about buying some yarn for myself but none of the yarn said “buy me”. I did buy some yarn for Abbey though:

Originally I had planned to buy her some spun in Hawaii yarn. But I couldn’t find any. This yarn reminded me of all the pretty flowers I’d been seeing so I bought it for her. She tells me she’s already cast on for socks and I’ll post pics when she finishes them.

Add comment January 28th, 2009

Noro sock progress

I finished one of the Noro socks in Hawaii.

While knitting I tweaked the sizing and this sock fits perfectly. I cast on for the second sock that day but didn’t finish the sock on vacation. That’s alright though, I’m enjoying knitting these and just turned the heel last night.

Add comment January 24th, 2009

Home Soon

It’s almost time to head home. This trip has been so much fun. We’ve taken a bunch of photos which I’ll post some of soon.

In knitting news I finished the Noro sock and started the second. And I’ve decided not to frog the entire kilt hose. I’m just going to frog back enough so it will fit Thebes’ foot and then slightly alter the pattern. That’s probably not going to happen until we’re back home.

2 comments January 14th, 2009

A knitting dilemna

I’ve made some progress on Thebes’ kilt hose. I knit on the plane ride which really helped pass the time.

The yarn is Brook’s Farm and is a joy to work with. The pattern was going along great until the heel. It started looking suspiciously too small for Thebes’ ankles. I tried it on him and the ankle and heel area was too tight.

Now I could rip back and take out some of the decreases. But that ruins the triangle/arrow pattern that runs down the back leg. Thebes says he doesn’t care about that but I just don’t think I could let that go. So what to do?

I tried to think of other ways to alter the decreases but can’t figure out a way to do it. The ribbing and decreases are designed to fit in with the back of the leg design. It’s looking more and more like I have to frog the whole sock. Argh! I hate toe down sock patterns! This is the second time I started a toe down sock only to have it not fit. That’s what happened with my Noro socks.

Speaking of Noro socks, while the kilt hose sit in time out I’m working on the Noro sock. I altered the pattern to go toe up and so far it’s fitting perfectly. I think I’m gong to stick with toe up patterns from now on.

4 comments January 3rd, 2009

New Year’s Eve on O’ahu

Thebes and I did something spontaneous-we bought tickets to Hawaii! We spent New Year’s Eve on O’ahu in Waikiki.

First up was some sushi and sake.

We were going to watch the fireworks from the beach but found a happening club that was on a second story. They had some torches lit.

Look it’s drunk hippies!

The fireworks were wonderful and the bar’s patio gave us a great view.

A peak at the crowd on the beach watching the fireworks.

Aloha!

4 comments January 2nd, 2009