Happier notes

I promised a happier post yesterday, so here it is.

Let's start with last weekend.  RHINEBECK!!!

Last weekend, I went to Rhinebeck for the first time ever.  I went with one of my very good friends from the knitting group.  We drove there and back and stayed at a pretty decent hotel while there.  One of the best parts of the hotel?  The fact that it was FULL of knitters.  Gotta love that!  I loved coming down for breakfast and seeing all the knitters hanging out in the dining room with their assorted projects.  

Rhinebeck itself was prett much amazing.  There were some very amazing deals, not to mention a beautiful assortment of hand knits everywhere you looked, from sweaters to shawls to socks... All the knitters had something to show off.

So what next?

It is almost Halloween.  I have never really gotten into the festivities of Halloween before.  I mean, we take Mouselette out trick or treating, and last year she painted a wooden pumpkin, but that is usually it.  This year, we went to a Pumpkinfest at the park.  They had pony rides (Mouselette totally squealed with excitement), a bouncy castle, free pumpkins, food, and so much fun.

Mouselette and I carved a pumpkin this afternoon.  Or, more accurately, Mouselette drew the picture, then Mousehusband kept her entertained while I did the sharp knife part.

This is the result.  The pumpkin seeds are roasting now.

Oh, and Christmas knitting has begun.  A super secret project for the knit night Christmas exchange, a super secret project for Mousehusband, socks for Mouselette (at her request... She is a fan of handknit socks), and a pair of socks for my brother in law, whose name I drew for the family Christmas exchange.

Hey, look, it's a blog entry... (With profanity, so... Be warned)

I am terrible at blogging.  I used to be decent at it and would update a few times a week on old blogs. Part of me realized last night that half the reason this blog fell down on the job was because I just focus so narrowly on knitting and don't give myself space to talk about other shit.

Oh, and I don't give myself permission to type words like shit in my blog.  But I say shit all the time. So, hey.... Shiiiiiiiit!

And guess what... Shit has been going down lately.  Too much.

Sometimes shit is too much to handle.  Sometimes there is too much of it.  Sometimes shit happens and it leaves you cold inside.  Numb. Confused. Sad. Scared.  And just when you start moving on, more shit happens.

It becomes about more than questioning the world, but about questioning your place in it.

Then, just to stick a shit cherry on a shit sundae, more shit happens. And it leaves you cold and numb and sad and scared all over.

I am tired of adulting.

Some of the above is obvious stuff, like the tragic deaths in Ottawa this week.  And then there is other stuff.  Personal stuff.  Stuff I cannot blog about.  Stuff that leaves me hugging my kid tighter, crying a little, and wondering how you get through it all.

Sometimes the bigger stuff makes my little stuff seem so insignificant.  Then sometimes the personal stuff becomes overwhelmingly big and makes the world seem insignificant.

Sometimes my coping mechanisms fail me completely and I retreat into my cloud of insecurities, ADD, and introversion.  I pick up my knitting and close out the feeling.  I knit because I can't think anymore. Because there is too much to think about. Because the world has become too loud, the tragedies too many, and the personal too hard.

So if you need me, you'll find me in the corner over there, crying softly for the ones I love, and knitting.  Because there is nothing else I can do.

Ps... I will be back tomorrow with a happier entry, because there is good stuff happening, too.  And I need to blog more often.  So, I will!  :)

Pretty fingers and knitting fun

Why does every post have to start with "gee, I'm sorry I forgot about my blog for the last year"?  ;)  It goes without saying, I think, that life has been busy.  That happens with a toddler.  I keep trying to promise myself that I'll post more, and then I completely forget that this blog even exists. 

What have I been up to? 

Well, for starters, the Unofficial Harry Potter Knits magazine came out.  That was pretty awesome.  I have an amazing pattern in it.  Bluebell Flames.  It's a entrelac and lace wrap.  It was fun to design and fun to knit. 

I'm pretty proud of it.

What else have I been up to?

Mouselette turned 2, which was awesome. Though, it did leave me slightly wondering... what the heck happened?  I have those moments more often now as she gets bigger and more independent.  Right now, she has a sheet of alphabet stickers, which she has declared is her "keyboard".  She's sitting at her little desk beside me "typing" on her sticker keyboard.

I have been designing other patterns, but so far nothing else is in the works for publication.

As for the "pretty fingers" part of the title.  After much determination, I finally quit biting my nails (again) and my nails are long enough to play with fun manicures.
It's not very fancy, because I'm still learning, but I like the look of this one.  Mouselette has been bugging me to paint her nails all the time, too.  So I think I'll have to get some kid-safe polish for her. 

I've got a whole board on pinterest devoted to fun nail art ideas. 
Check it out.  And let me know in the comments if you have any other fun and easy nail ideas.  :)

Happy Father's Day

Sometimes being crafty comes in handy... like when you've run out of ideas for what to get the man who has everything and doesn't need anything, and prefers you not buy anything anyway because sales are better.

This is Mouselette's father's day gift for her "baba" (daddy).  It was super easy.

So if you're looking for father's day ideas that you can do with your little ones, here you go.  If they can hold a crayon or put stickers on paper, they can handle this one!

Tweaking nature

I've posted before about how I have recently taken up whittling.  I just have to show off this beautiful before and after shot of how a bit of carving can transform a piece of wood.

This is the before shot.  It is oak.

It's a branch.  It fell from a tree and laid on the ground until I found it.  It doesn't look like anything special, but I picked it up because in spite of how much it doesn't look like much, it does have some potential.  I liked the pieces that stuck out, because those always look interesing when you trim and sand them.

This is the after shot.  This is after I whittled away the bark and trimmed the pieces that stuck out.  This is after I carved the 1" section for a WPI tool.  This is after hours of very gently pulling the best out of what had been nothing more than a branch.

It was sanded and sanded and sanded again, with an increasingly fine paper from 100 to 600 grit.  It was rubbed and polished with a homemade beeswax polish.  Yes, it really is that shiny!!

I drilled a small hole in the top to put a little eyelet in so that a wrist strap could be added if desired.  What it is is a nostepinne - a tool for wrapping yarn into neat little center-pull balls.  With a wrist strap, it can also be used as a wrist distaff.  The stone is a wire-wrapped rose quartz.

I'm at a loss for how to price this.  It takes a lot of care to bring out the best in a piece of wood like this.

50 Fans and a Necklace!

Mousewife Designs hit 50 fans on facebook the other day.  As promised, I am hosting a giveaway to celebrate!  Click here to enter!!

Up for grabs is this beautiful Green Aventurine pendant on a leather cord.  The cord is an adjustable 18-20". 

Whittling away

Because I need another hobby like I need another hole in my head, I've started whittling a little bit.  It's not really a new thing.  Like, I already knew how to do it and have done it before.  But now I am seeing the potential for this new thing to complement my other hobbies and create things that complement what is already in my etsy shop.

Below you will see my most recent creation, a 3-in-1 spinning tool.  It is a nostepinne, wrist distaff, and WPI tool in one, carved from an oak branch I found lying on the sidewalk in the rain.

This tool has a fun story.  I was on my way out the other day when I looked out the window and spotted this little branch on the sidewalk.  All the way to my destination, I thought about that branch and decided that if it was still there on the way home, I'd snag it and carve it up into a wrist distaff.

It was there as I drove home, so I pulled over, hopped out of the car (in the rain) and rescued that branch.  I put it in the oven to dry it out, curing it for about an hour and a bit at 175F.  This dried out the wood and also killed any little bugs that may have been making their home inside.  Then I set myself down at the kitchen sink (I don't have a dedicated workspace and the sink with some papertowels in it caught all the woodchips and dust) with my little knife and began to whittle.

I removed most of the bark, but not all.  I deliberately left the bark on around the top.  I removed the knots down the length of the twig, but again left them on the top.  I smoothed out the tip where it had been broken.  As I worked it over, I decided that it should also have a WPI notch at the top, so I measured and carved it out.  Then I began to sand it.  I worked it over with progressively finer paper from 120 to 600 grit.  The areas where I hadn't removed all the bark worked out darker than the other areas.  The WPI area was worked over with a nailfile as well as sandpaper (I needed a nice, well-defined edge).  I drilled a hole and sanded it through with a round metal file.

I wiped it down and finished it by rubbing it with a thin coat of mineral oil.  I worked the oil in with a cotton ball first, then a paper towel, then my hands until it was absorbed all the way through.  The final coat was beeswax to protect the wood.

I wrapped a piece of smokey quartz in goldtone wire and used the same sort of wire to create a bail for a leather wriststrap.

I love the final product.  It's so smooth and soft to touch.  The mineral oil brought out the colour of the wood so very beautifully.

So now I'm on the hunt for more twigs like this one.  Unwanted, discarded, destined for the mulch pile or the fireplace.  This piece is spoken for, but I can't wait to create more for the shop.