Knotty Mouse

Browsing around the internet the other day I found an article from LifeHack.Org called “10 simple ways to save yourself from messing up your life”. I usually don’t share websites here on the blog.. I don’t know why either because when other people do it I find it interesting.. but .. I’m rambling. Point is.. I thought it was really a great list.. and very appropriate for shit I’ve been going through lately. Check it out. I’m printing it up and putting it on the fridge.

I’ve spent a lot of time at my craft table lately working on new stitch markers for the shop.. and I came up with these while working on the set I promised to Sheepish Annie and her charity run. This photo was taken before I realized that there wasn’t a black edge on the toe portion of a pair of “Chucks” and went about removing that from all of them. The other white shoes are Adidas ‘toe shell’ sneakers.. one of my other favorite ‘old school’ shoes. Both sets found me sitting at the table with one of my ratty old shoes as inspiration.. These will be in the shop (on Etsy most likely) in the next few days.. I’m thinking Monday at the latest. I’ve got a bunch of other colors that will be going up as well.. because you know that you can’t JUST have one pair of chucks!

Since a bunch of people asked.. I worked up a pattern for the hairwrap/headband.. and gave it a few tweaks (like widening the center band from the original) before I went into “production” mode on them. I’ll have some skull/pirate type ones and some other designs by Monday for the shop. So far I have two of this style (mine aren’t in the photo..) and have been wearing them constantly. I’m very happy with the way they turned out and how you can wear them different ways. I also realized that they would be the perfect size for a belt on a child who is about 6 years old or younger.. because it fits perfectly around my sons waist with room to tie it.  He wants one as a “pirate sash” now…

So.. other than the decluttering of the house that I spoke of in my 7 things meme.. that’s about all I’m up to right now.  I’m dealing with Day1 of “Mommy… I’m so booooooooored” as well.. which I’m so not putting up with the entire summer. I never understood why people sent their children to summer camp.. until now.  Personally.. I don’t get being “bored”.. I never have. I’ve basically always been able to come up with something to keep myself entertained… which is probably why I have so many damn hobbies.  Anyway..  I have to go find something for my son to do because he’s already exhausted the “why don’t you make a necklace with all of these brightly colored plastic beads” idea and the “here’s a bucket of micro-machines” option.  Oy.  Does anyone want to borrow a slightly strange not-quite-six year old for a few hours so that I can get something done?

Surprisingly these socks took me less than 2 months to complete and I even finished another full pair of socks in between! I do believe that the combination of toe up and magic loop is the secret to making sock mojo work in my favor. This pair was technically the first toe-up sock I did and I’m pretty happy with the way they turned out. I did end up doing ’sock surgery’ on the toe of the first sock that was very pointy because I cast on too small of a number of stitches..

pattern: Universal Toe Up
yarn: 2 skeins gifted Koigu KPPPM (with quite a bit left over)
needles: size 1 Addi circs (magic loop)
Started: March 27,2007 finished:May 17,2007
Shoes: Keen Seattle maryjanes ( I love these shoes..)

I was a little unhappy with how splitty the yarn was in one of the skeins.. you’d think for how expensive the stuff is that there wouldn’t be as many issues with it. I was very concerned with the pooling on the socks when I started because I really like my socks to be ‘matchy matchy’ and these weren’t. Pooling usually makes me neurotic but I was able to just let go and accept that its what this yarn does. Other than the problems with the one skein, Koigu KPPM is a very nice yarn to knit with.

In between finishing these socks while watching CSI: Miami - I’ve been working on more stitch markers (polymer clay and beaded) for the shop and some hair scarves as well. Getting the pattern correct involved ‘the maths’ and I had to drag the hubby into the design process because the Mouse hates the maths. After explaining to the hubby that I really don’t give a crap HOW he came up with the numbers and that I just “wanted it to work so that I could go back to sewing” - we seem to have managed to make it all work out. I think. Honestly I’m not really sure right now considering I seem to have contracted a case of “Squirrel Pox” (aka. strep throat.. again) from the lovely children in Munchkin’s class.

I’ve promised to donate a set of polymer stitch markers to Sheepie because she’s running a charity race.. so I’ve got some “Run Sheepie, Run!” stitch markers on the trays ready to bake. There is a certain sneaker that I have a collection of that I managed to reproduce in miniature….. hee hee.

Its Mothers Day.. AND my husbands birthday so I was forced to see the in-laws and cook instead of spending my day vegetating on the sofa with a movie and some knitting. To kill some time this morning I decided that I needed a new headband and set about sewing one from a fat quarter I picked up at Joanns during their last 99 cent sale. In about an hour I banged out what seems to be a decently designed fabric headband that ties at the back. I’m planning on making a bunch more of these with fabric I’ve been hording for “something special”- they take so little fabric and hardly any thought.

Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers of human & furry children!

Not much knitting going on here at Chez Mousie lately- but a lot of designing. I’ve spent the last week and all weekend printing bags, making polymer clay & beaded stitch markers, and working on some fiber animal cellphone charms in preparation for a huge shop update tomorrow - March 26th. I’ll update this post when the shop update goes live.. which will be sometime between tonight before I go to bed (around 11pm EST) or tomorrow after my son gets on the bus (820AM EST) in the morning.

Now that I’m able to sit in an upright position without my head spinning round - I thought I’d catch up on some photos that needed posting here on the blog. After much complaining from the Munchkin about how unfair it is that he’s not allowed to wear skulls to school - I broke out the freezer paper and exacto knives and went to work creating a pirate shirt that was ’school safe’. Add a bright orange shirt on clearance from Target to some textile painted swords and you’ve got a happy Munchkin! The whole “freezer paper stencil” thing was way easier than I had anticipated - the hardest part was remembering what on earth I did with my iron and ancient ironing board. I used Jacquard brand textile paints and stencil brushes on cotton teeshirts and made sure they were dry (hit them with a hair dryer..) before removing the stencils for crisp edges.

Of course after seeing Munchkin’s shirt my husband decided that he HAD to have another pirate shirt as well. I had to do a bit of re-styling to the skull and swords because of the size and details but I think it really turned out well. I did heat set the designs as marked on the bottles of paint.. but am still worried about washing the designs at the moment. You can’t tell from the photo but this design goes across the entire chest of a mens medium teeshirt.

Since I clearly can’t leave well enough alone with the Llama,Llama, Duck thing.. and created a bag with the critters on it as well. You can’t tell from the photo because the flash went off.. but the critters are done with silver paint. I’m considering selling this bag in the yet unnamed Etsy shop but I’m not sure how many of these I want to cut out. I am rather happy with the results though and have many other ideas for bag and shirt designs.

Refusing to be beaten by a plastic toy..  I pulled the infernal machine out of its box and decided to go another round with the “Amazing Button Machine”.  After two cups of tea and a few Google searches- I figured out the problem and went about fixing it. I tightened every screw on the machine, tossed the instructions in the trash, and proceeded to make the buttons the way I remember doing it in grade school art class. The result was success!

Its dark & depressing outside today- thunderstorms, pouring down rain, and generally unpleasant. It was raining so hard earlier this morning that I actually drove Munchkin to his bus stop rather than risking him being soaked and getting sick. I’ve been trying to have another bus stop put in here in the neighborhood - but for some reason they don’t seem to care that 4 children have to walk twice as far as the others. The only working windshield wiper on the car sounded like it was trying to seize up and I’m praying that it decides to play nice until we can afford to get it fixed. The way the car was stalling this morning has really started to worry me.. but I’m hoping its just the rain and the change in weather.

I’ve been working on a few things here and there.. but none of it is bloggable right now for one reason or another. I’m gearing up to add more things to the shop in the middle of the month and I’ve been spending a lot of time figuring, thinking, planning, etc rather than blogging.