I bought Barbara Schoenoff’s In the Style of Queen Anne pattern as a birthday gift to myself (two birthdays ago, at least, maybe more) and although I’ve admired it greatly I haven’t gotten around to giving it a go until now. I don’t know why I have this freak-outedness that goes with doing someone else’s pattern but I’m fine drafting and sewing my own. The pattern and instructions are wonderful, it would take a concerted effort on my part to mess up.

This is my progress so far. I deviated by embiggening the nose, leaving the hair bun off (for now at least, I’m still contemplating hair) and needle sculpting the face. I couldn’t find the right sized wooden beads in my craft stash but I happened to have the right sized glass pearls on hand.

I think the glass pearls work well for the joints. There’s something very compelling about the way they peek out from the muslin.

Tomorrow there will be (in theory at least) gesso and paint and the making of clothes, but tonight I’m just going to revel a little in my progress.

That’s right, relax and revel.

I’m going to assume that breeding conditions are less than ideal in the craft room because it stopped reproducing.

The timing was great though, because I usually don’t think that much about stuffing, and there are tons of people that know far more about what to use and how to use it that were willing to point me in the right direction. And as it turns out there are a lot of stuffings available at Christmas time sold as snow decoration that really aren’t readily available during the rest of the year.

I was also pointed to an awesome video for learning how to properly stuff a doll using hemostats.

The bunnies above were filled with Silky Soft, produced by Fairfield (the very same makers of regular poly-fil) it’s super bouncy and feels baby fine in comparison to the normal stuff. It doesn’t pack tightly, so when I overstuffed a tiny head and left it on the table, I’d return to find white polyester brain matter oozing out the neck hole. I bought this stuff before I had the the sense to ask the experts, but fortunately it’s perfectly appropriate for my squishy little toys.

Then there’s poly-fil, it looks loftier but packs densely. Using the hemostat technique I attempted Mikey from Beautiful Animal Dolls by Miriam Gourley. My Mikey’s skin is just cotton flannel, since JoAnn’s is all I really have for a fabric store there’s no proper wool felt to be had offline, but the thinner skin made a great test for the stuffing and technique. The hemostats really did make all the difference in the world and he’s not nearly as lumpy I feared he would be.

And he stands!

I also picked up a 50/50 rayon (from extruded bamboo) and polyester fiber (Nature-fil by Fairfield) and I guess I’ll be grabbing some of the Eco(-fil? I can’t remember) made from Ingeo (extruded corn) fibers when it goes on sale after Christmas but I have yet to try those out.

Mod Podge is miracle stuff. Especially since I’m convinced that somewhere encoded in my dna is an imperative to never throw away a wooden box. I’m pretty sure that since this box had an ugly fish (now obscured by gesso) design on the top that it bore dried and horribly out of date smoked salmon from my mom (sometimes she gives Christmas gifts a little late, not good from a culinary point of view but makes for awesome funny food poisoning stories.) Before doing anything to it I removed the hinges and set them aside so they won’t get gummed up with my creative impulses.

Sanding only improves soft woods so far, so I took off the rough edges with a medium grit sanding sponge and primed with a few coats of gesso but I wasn’t especially concerned with perfection.

Decoupage isn’t necessarily a speedy process, especially when using tissue paper and especially when going for a deeper varigated finish. The first layer consists mostly of the light blue tissue paper and a few bits of the violet, the second and third layers are almost all violet paper cut into slightly smaller diamondish shapes.

Now I’m going to tattle on myself.

Here’s one of my first boxes from a few years back, although I still like the general idea of the box, I really keep it because I made so many mistakes with it. My first mistake was not putting down a base coat, so in some of the thinner spots the wood shows right through the tissue (which could be cool if done intentionally, but very uncool in this context. Also, dust was a serious issue, so while I started with a nice clear clean pink, you can see what went wrong on first glance right around the edges where the lid and box meet.

On the inside things went a little (but not much) better. That bit of gold haze is from the judicious application of Perfect Pearls dust when the final coat was slightly tacky. I did wise up and apply more layers of paper, but did not have enough wisdom to let the layers dry out between applications, so it looks okay, but not great and doesn’t reflect the effort I put into it.

Everything has a learning curve.

It’s a knitters freakin’ paradise, or it would be if I could find a proper LYS out here. I’m pretty much stuck to Micheal’s in Klamath Falls for yarnage. Let’s just take a moment to feel sorry for me.

Poor me.

pictured: hat, snow. not pictured: self pity

Moment over. I’ve been working on a hat, no pattern (no big surprise there) just a circle with cables on it. The uncabled bit at the beginning will be folded under and stitched down to make a nice band inside. The yarn is Caron “Country” and it’s a 75% Acrylic, 25% Merino. That cold breeze that blew through here was not the weather, just the bitter winter of my heart as I weep just a little, longing for proper handspun wool on my needles.

As soon as I get a place I’m going to grab at least one of my wheels and do some spinning.

We’re still waiting for the roof to dry out enough so that we can repair the leak above the bathroom, and get to work remodeling the bathroom. This weather needs to start cooperating with my plans– I find it totally unacceptable that it insists on drizzling right over our house.

One bright side is that this gives Matt and I more time to argue over materials, colors and fixtures. I am trying to convince him to let me clean up the old tub (which is quite good and usable) and shower doors and sell them, so that I can put the money towards a nice old clawfoot tub and hardware.

He doesn’t think that cleaning it up would be worth the effort because it’s so old and ordinary, and that in order to sell it we’d have to refinish it. I looked it over (yesterday, when I was taking a bath) and I can’t see any wear or scratches so I’m not quite sure what he means. I think he thinks that I am not going to have the patience to sell it.

Admittedly we have wildly different tastes when it comes to materials and colors.

We’re like that song; he’s a little bit country and I’m a little bit rock n’ roll punk rock.

And I’ve been knitting!

Possibly the ugliest socks I’ve made to date. The yarn is Lion Brand sock yarn, I forget the colorway (or I’ve successfully blocked it out of my memory because it’s so fugly.) The needles are sized 1 us (2.25 mm.) The first sock is finished except for that fussy bit of weaving in the toe and the second sock is underway.

I’m hoping that there will be just enough yarn to knit a teeny hand grenade out of it (the colors are appropriate.)

I have absolutely no clue why I would buy that yarn. None. What the heck was I thinking?

Now she’s a big girl, and at the end of this summer she’ll be a whopping 5 years old.

Now it takes a dedicated evening to come up with almost a pair of plain jane socks with short row heels and toes; almost but not quite a pair. Pictured is where last night tapered off.

For her part Lexi takes these delays for finished socks in stride. She’s very analytical about it, pointing out that it takes much longer to make Josey socks because his feet are “very very huge.” (Which indeed, Josey does have gigantic feet for an eleven year old.)

We also managed to work a new camera into the budget. R.I.P. old camera, you served us well right up unto the middle.

Buying a new camera that was within the budget was a difficult task. First I had to get the husband into the store. This might have been easier had I not divulged the fact that it was to purchase a new piece of electronics. (Note to self: next time hint that they may have a sale on Star Wars items and start a rumor that they are giving away free cookies.)

Then I had to actually get him to compare cameras, we’d chosen another camera awhile back, made comparisons on function and agreed that it was indeed the best one. So I’ll admit that choosing another model (as in a model that we could afford right at that very moment) was probably a bit of a shock to his system. He kept saying “If we wait we can get this one for only $110 more.” and I kept saying “How long will that wait be?” and he kept shrugging, so I’d answer his shrug with “We need one to get us through that wait.” and then he’d repeat “If we wait we can get this one for only $110 more.”

Lather, rinse and repeat for the next 40 minutes.

Let us not forget that while I only want a camera to document every second of my adventures in motherhood and knitterly activities, the husband actually needs a camera in the course of his professional life (as in if he doesn’t have a camera he can’t send very important photos to his clients in order to be paid.)

Eventually this all lead to buying the camera that we could afford: Canon PowerShot A470. Which, as it turns out Matt is absolutely delighted with, and I’m not going to turn my nose up at the macro setting. As my friend Opal points out “It’s all about the macro.”

Law of mohair #143 All mohair articles larger than 2 cubic inches knitted on metal circular needles will reject said needles when the article is in a resting state prior to completion.

Law of mohair #143 appendix a) articles larger than 2 cubic inches that have successfully rejected knitting needles in a resting state will spontaneously begin to unravel.

Further scientific study on the unique and often frustrating physical nature of mohair is required. The laws of mohair although baffling seem to be finite and immutable.

If you aren’t familiar with this style of truck, relax, close your eyes and envision a gun rack. Slowly let the truck form itself around the gun rack and a tattered John Deere baseball cap in your minds eye. This is one of those machines that if it gets in a serious wreck you just hose the old driver off the dashboard, fix the chrome, replace the radio antenna, and you’re good to go.

Ours is just that kind of truck, sans gunrack (we believe in keeping our firearms out of the reach of redneck teenager social deviants, thank-you-very-much.)

My darling husband is giving me driving lessons in this thing. I see the little white Kias and Toyotas with the “student driver” sign on the top of the car and I want one of those signs– except my sign should say something like “Caution: *You* are my crumple zone” or “WTF!?” or “How good *are* your airbags?”

It’s really nice to see that so many drivers on the road are completely at peace with their maker. Those of us that aren’t quite ready to hear the sweet song of the choir invisible would appreciate it if they’d mind not taking us along for the ride. I’m certain of my salvation and all, but I’ve still business in this life so I’d like to stick around for a while.

Speaking of which, is it a bad thing that instead of seeing my life flash before my eyes I see my unfinished knitting projects? Just curious.