Crafting Season

I've decided it's crafting season, officially. I work on my craft projects much more in fall and winter, once gardening season is over and it becomes less beautiful outside.  I made a To Do List for my crafting this morning.  Here it is.

A Decade In The Making Afghan Notes (Cue Zarathustra Music)

I'm on the second row of the edging on my decade long afghan effort.  It really is pretty.  I'm pleased that the edging turned out to be simple.  I'm doing the edging while I watch tv in the evening.  There are eleven rows of edge in the pattern!  We'll see how long my balls of black yarn hold out, it could be fewer rows if I run out as we go.

It's really nice and warm on my lap as I work, so I know it will be a nice light snuggly afghan as winter closes in.

Crafting Goals

Here's the sort of thing that is in my ever present notebook, that I'm going to mercilessly copy here to get to that goal of 100 posts.

Reorganize yarn and inventory it. 

The old inventory list I used is on a site which seems to be gone, so make a list like this for yourself, and away you go.

Hmm, maybe I should add Source.  You get the idea.


Do the Clothespin Thing

Sounds wierd, I know, but if you read the Attic 24 craft blog (on my sidebar) she wraps a little yarn around a clothespin then writes the type and color.  These she cleverly uses to decide color designs for her afghans.

Dept of Yarn Lust Is Real

My latest yarn desires are Red Heart Dreamy

And Red Heart Collage

As with Caron Cakes Yarns, they're hard to find, (and are often Sold Out on the Red Heart site, with no restock date ever offered) and they're expensive, for me.  Still, I can go to the site and click through the color variations if I'm stressed, and I think sooooo pretty...


Scrapbooking

We traveled Route 66 in September, and not only have I not posted on it, all my nice paper memorabilia has not been put in the lovely scrapbook I bought before we left.


Christmas Granny

Oops, what happened there? on like row 17 of 32 then la la la.

On the list.


Complete Willow Square

Remain frozen contemplating Row 4!  Weenie!

Make And Send A Few Halloween Cards


I only do the Christmas, and since I never got any feedback, I thought people didn't appreciate my childish efforts.  It turns out, they LIKE them.  So, I've got the materials up the yahoolie, and I'll make them for more occasions.

National Crafting Month

According to Craftsy it is National Crafting Month.

I thought I would work on ( but surely not complete --noooo that would be wrong) several of my works in long progress.  We shall see at months' end if I've advanced on any of them.

I only need 23 more squares for my Granny afghan.  It was my plan to make two squares per day but I keep messing up on the first two rows so pull pull pull out I go.

I need to rewrite and re-do some pages in my family history scrapbooks before I can advance given new information I have gained since beginning the project.

I have one for each of my siblings so each page is reproduced eight times.  The cover of each I personalized for everyone.   Mine has my two long time heroines and me as essentially the person I am inside.  Yes, I really am immature.  I like it.

There is something delicate and charming about Embroidery.  I love the little outlined drawings and the lovely colors.

I took an embroidery class and here are practice stitches which I will need to learn all over again.

Here is the project I will be working on this month, just barely begun so any progress will be welcome.

I used to go to a local ceramics place with mom and we had a great time picking out fun things to do.

I picked this bookend out as the ceramic project to work on because it hasn't much that needs to be done, plus, who needs bookends more than I do?

Tsk, shaky photos!

Throwback Thursday, Friday Edition

Facebook, where I mostly seem to post these days, (I have such a nice community of people I know and wish I knew) has an informal "Throwback Thursday" where you post some picture of yourself from another era and everyone goes, "ha ha weren't you always the bozo, though!"

I missed it yesterday so from the archives, and because my spouse mentioned once again he likes my posts but I never write any...

The old farm where my mother spent some of her very early years.  Taken from inside my car before the BIG DOG came running up to let us know we were interlopers.

My spouse and I are going to do a day trip this spring to the southern part of the state to walk the ground where my other side of the family lived.   I've been in the area twice I think and could not find the cemetery where my rellies rest, but nobody is better at Google maps than Mr. DOA so I think we've got a shot. 

I have zero pictures of that side of the family for my scrapbooks so maybe something snuggly like their gravestones will bring them to life, isn't that so silly.  You need visuals though, of some kind, to awaken the past.

The DOA Scrapbook: Ask Yourself the Questions You Wish You Could Ask

I had a conversation with a colleague one day who is a really avid family history researcher about making sure we let our children know some of the things about us that we wish we knew about our parents or grandparents. 

I've been thinking it can be easy enough to sketch in a life of someone else using facts, figures and mementos because we're just providing an overview. 

We assume somehow that our children know us well and that they won't have any questions about us they wish they could ask when we're gone.  Of course they will.  They don't ask for the same reason we never asked.  Because our parents were going to live forever and we could always talk to them any old time.  If only.

For your children's sake, make a list of questions you wish you could ask a parent, grandparent, or other ancestor no longer with you.  Just basic stuff that makes them a real knowable person.  Write down your own answers to those questions, and tuck them in a nice pocket page or on a journaling page in your family scrapbook.

That is why I like scrapbooks, they present a nice visual summary of people and events.  Each page can be a discovery or a fond memory.  You can see a whole person from photographs, memories, letters, notes.  Write your own page, because who knows you better than you?

The DOA Scrapbook: Storyboards

I'm working on Family History scrapbooks and have been for awhile.  I was actually moving right along, had a plan and was making them sort of assembly line fashion so I had one and each of my siblings could have one too.

I was incorporating pictures, letters, and other significant documents within the pages, while using fun background papers, stickers, ribbons, stamps, all those things scrapbookers can't resist. 

I started with the oldest relative I had pictures of and just gave each a brief page.  When I got to my mother's father, I realized I had a wealth of information on him and my grandmother.  Because my sisters don't remember these folks at all, I really wanted to bring them to life.  I wanted the book to be fun and interesting as well as informative.  I wanted it to tell a story visually.  I stopped cold.

I started instead looking at Ancestry.com (available at your library) and Find A Grave and other sites that would let me flesh out all of my folks.  So here I am, sitting on a ton of information.  I have miraculously time to devote to working on and finishing this project.

 

I lack somehow with my supposedly orderly librarian mind the ability to sort and make this information flow as a story which is what I want.  Lure them in, get them to ask questions while they can.  Add their own memories.

As often happens while surfing the net, I was looking for something else and I came across the concept of storyboards and thought this is exactly what I need.  A guide that will allow a combination of text and visuals in an orderly way.

Two things look very promising:

The Beyond Bullet Points Story Template

Another on how to storyboard with Microsoft Word, grr won't open on my pc though it displayed easily on my iPod.  Search for it and hope for better luck.  It has nice step by step pictures for creating a Word Table and inserting the story and pictures.  Really it does.

Edit;  I downloaded the newest version of Adobe Acrobat reader and successfully downloaded the PDF on Storyboarding with Word.  I'm printing it out so I don't have to fool with reading it digitally. 

Scrappy D.O.A.

Next weekend D.O.A. Sister #3 (of 5) and I are going on our second annual Scrapbook Retreat. I was rather new to scrapping then and had no idea what to expect or what to bring. I traveled really light, and had only one project (Disney trips) to work on, not many photos, and lots of blaringly brightly colored Mouse themed paper and stickers. Others there were hauling in huge black trunks and the large plastic drawers you can get, full of *stuff*. I was beyond intimidated. In the year since, I have found my scrapping feet, and accumulated mucho scrapping supplies. I will be bringing 4 projects worth of photos so I don't get burnt out (you scrap 12+ hours per day at these things) and paraphernalia that will make me right up there with my fellow scrap-ettes. Here is my helpful list of supplies for a weekend scrapbooking retreat:

o Photos
o Papers
o Stickers
o Embellishments
o Pages
o Page Protectors
o Scissors
o Adhesives (lots!)
o Scrapbooking pens
o Trimmers
o Corner Rounder
o Tickets, memorabilia
o Pencils
o Ruler
o Journaling paper
o Stencils
o Photo labeling Pencil
o Notepad
o Stamps (Rubber and otherwise)
o Ink Pads and re-inkers
o Colored pencils
o Chalks
o Scrapbook Magazines and books for inspiration
o Accordion file for the papers etc for each project
o Book of Quotes
o Small dictionary

Don't forget your jammies, the preferred evening wear of scrappers everywhere.