Deviant Dispatches

Hi! It's been a while. Consider this my attempt at getting back to it. Um. Again. I didn't post it here, but at the beginning of 2017, I made a list of 21 goals for myself. 1. Reread The Happiness Project 's chapter on clutter - done 2. Complete at least three home improvement tasks - done Replace front window with a bay window Get tools (jigsaw and sander, not that I used them) Get rid of stuff we don't use, including a lot of clothes Fix the driveway ... kind of. It still needs new asphalt. Paint house Get/make a file cabinet/bench 3. Do an activity with Tickle once a month over the year - done, including an awesome family vacation 4. Exercise more - nope 5. Play mandolin more - I broke one of the strings; does that count? 6. Create craft corner - done, and I love it! 7. Send Grandpa lefse - hand delivered, along with cookies made from his grandma's recipe 8. Make krumkake - nope 9. Start food/garden share with neighbors - sure, I'll ...

I'm quite pleased with the results of my latest knitting project: a pair of mittens, modeled after a scene from my novel. The waves are the only part that I used a pattern for; everything else (including the general mitten shape) were my creation. I'm especially pleased with the turtle and the mountain skyline. I nearly ran out of yellow, but found another ball of it in my stash. (Hooray stash!) There were so many ends to weave in when all was said and done, but it was worth it. As these are acrylic, they're not the warmest mittens ever, but they will do for now. I've decided that I love making mittens, so it won't be long before I make myself another pair in wool.

My sewing machine has been repaired (for the low, low price of $80, almost three times what I paid for it), and after a little practice, I've gotten it humming along quite well. I haven't sewn since early high school or so, and now that I'm back at it, it's something I've missed. I recently brought my old sewing kit back from my mom's basement, where most of my childhood is living, and found some great sun-and-moon cloth in it that I was saving for a pillow. I realized it would make a great knitting bag, replacing the old one, which I used for about four years and is now stained and has frayed handles. But I loved the style of that old bag, so I decided to model the new after the old: reversible, with long handles. (Meaning I had no pattern to follow, just an old bag.) It worked out pretty well. See where the bag is shiny? It's metallic! The handle fabric was snatched from between the pillow panels. Inside cloth came from Stitcher's Crossing...

Now that we've gotten a few snowfalls, I'm really gearing up for winter and Christmas. They're my favorite time of year, meaning that I love to pull out books like this and go nuts. Snowflakes for All Seasons by Cindy Higham But one thing at a time. I understand the myriad reasons that people like to set up their Christmas decorations early. Some feel like I do and want the season to last as long as their families will stomach it. Some have to do it early because December is just too busy, or have to take advantage of help while they have it. All that is fine, but I prefer to wait until after Thanksgiving, and I wish retailers did, too. But this list of retailers open on T-giving shows they're much more concerned about the shorter shopping period between holidays than people being thankful for what they already have, for even one measly day of the year. (Yes, most people are thankful on other days, too. But I think it's reasonable to set aside one day ...

A few weeks ago, I went to The Vinery  in Madison and took one of their classes.They do lots of glasswork, including stained glass. (One of my favorites at the shop is of a great blue heron. You can see some of their custom work here .) The class I took involved artfully layering glass, which would then be fired and melted into the shape of a sushi dish and two sauce dishes. I think mine turned out pretty well. I definitely like the sauce dishes better - the orange stood out more, while it falls a little dull on the black surface. Plus the designs on the white dishes are cooler. I'm also a fan of the corner striping. I wasn't expecting the interesting curve on the big dish - it rocks like a rocking horse, while most dishes I saw were bent up on each side - but it's pretty and unique. It also holds a lot of sushi! This is three rolls' worth, and I easily could have stacked a fourth. They're filled with teriyaki eggplant and yellow and orange peppers. I ma...

Well, I finally did it: I finished knitting The Sweater That the Universe Denied. It has a front, a back, and two far-longer-than-necessary sleeves. You may notice the look of terror on my face. I was afraid this was also possibly a pre-mortem shot.  The next step was to cut the sleeves, by crocheting stays into place. One tutorial suggested sewing by hand - but this yarn is so piece-y that I worried it wouldn't stay in place. I found another tutorial that suggested a crocheted steek, which sounded perfect. I added my steeks, and carefully snipped one stitch at a time. It went perfectly, and I'd begun to stitch the cuffs when the cat nabbed a loose strand of yarn: the one for the steek. It was almost entirely ripped out. "Did you expect finishing TSTUD to go smoothly?" Spousal Unit asked. (He has a point.) The evil little culprit.  I pulled out some heavy-duty quilting thread, doubled it over, and did a kind of paranoid back stitch/whip s...

Last weekend, I finally didn't have to go anywhere. It was glorious to not sit in the car for hours, waiting to arrive at some distant destination. It meant I got to clean the house a little and have time for fun things like art. I discovered a pile of old fortunes that I'd kept in my wallet. There were nine that were clearly happy and positive, so I decided to arrange and frame them. I have an old dictionary for art purposes, so I tore out the page with the definition for fortune and applied a layer of green watercolor paint. After it dried, I used double-sided tape to attach the fortunes, drew on it with marker, and mounted the whole thing on a piece of cardstock. I love how it turned out. (Click to enlarge and read the fortunes!) Continuing that trend, I painted several more dictionary pages with watercolors and cut them into squares after drying. I folded each to look like this little guy, again using double-sided tape to hold it all together. After t...

Yesterday, I painted a bookshelf I found for $7. And the paint was free, too. The shelf used to be a dark brown shade, kind of sickly, and splattered with white paint in some places for no good reason. I decided it was my job to make this thing presentable and hella cool. The paint was from a coworker who had trouble finding the right shade for her kitchen - I chose two of the nicest-looking tans and went to work. I think it turned out pretty well... Or I did until I brought it inside. To my dismay, without natural lighting, this shade looks exactly like the ugly old radiators at my former high school. High School Radiator is a terrible bookshelf color. I do have a few other paint colors that I can splash around, though in much smaller quantities. Maybe it would help to paint the front of each shelf green. My big hope, though, is that it will be salvaged once I write book quotes all over it. So far I'm planning on quotes from Lord of the Rings , the Dark Tower ...

I made bread from my new Pillsbury Healthy Baking Book . This particular recipe was for refrigerated yeast dough that can be used in four different recipes. I made herb biscuits. One set, I shaped with my own personal method: roll till they're round.  The other, I shaped using Julia Child's method: pull extra dough to the bottom, so that the bottom looks a little weird and lumpy, but the top has extra tension. (She explains it better, of course.) Skip to 51:50 for the segment on creating surface tension for dough. Among other things, I recently discovered awesome tree roots. I started a crochet project. I photographed some flowers. I photographed some sister. And I made a card for my niece's birthday. The swan decal comes from an old book poster that I cut up and saved, knowing Sophia would love a pink swan card when she got older. The "love" bit at the bottom is from a set of stamps. She is now five, which makes me...

Dear Internets: I have made a hat. Is it not sweet? I was slightly bored one night just after Christmas, but still feeling the spirit of the season. I spliced this skull-and-crossbones hat together from two patterns: the skull flap hat by So Much Yarn, So Little Time and the Kim's Hats pattern from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. I've mentioned this book to you many times, because it is awesome, of course - I love every pattern in it. This hat is further proof that you can do anything with the pattern. Even the skulls are wearing little skullcaps! Knitted on size 8 needles (just like all the other hats I've made) with Caron yarn. It has wee pom at the end of each flap-string, too. In other knitting news, here is one of my Christmas gifts, from my mama-in-law: three sets of needles in a gorgeous box. They are made of huaranguito wood, in sizes 8, 10 1/2, and 13. I've only used the size 8 so far, but they knit well, with a slightly...

Remember when I posted about making Beatles-themed crafts after seeing Cirque du Soleil's performance of Love? I've finished the first one. Here's a refresher of the original Help! scarf. Source And here's my version: a massive thing that I gave my sister for her birthday. In these shots, it's wrapped around her neck twice. I didn't measure the beast before I sent it to its new home, but it's probably about 8 feet long. Made with Caron yarn on size 8 needles, this tube scarf was 40 stitches in the round. Each block of color is 20 rows. The only tricky parts are getting a smooth transition between colors and what to do with the yarn ends inside the tube, but they are easy problems to solve. When you transitioning, knit a normal row with the new color, then pull tight the last stitch of the previous color. That last stitch shouldn't disappear entirely, but it will be close, and your problem will be solved. Then, because this scarf ...

The coming year will provide many things for me. The Mayan apocalypse may or may not be among them; personally, I'm rooting in favor of the four horsemen deciding they're just not up to destroying the world this year, and would rather stay in Valhalla and comb their ridiculous green-tentacled beards. I like where my life is going, and I'd like it to get there - wherever there  may happen to be. It's that time of year when I like to at least pretend I have some control over my life and make wise and ridiculous goals as I gallop off into the sunset of another anniversary. Here's what I'm hoping to accomplish in the next year. The first six are uncompleted items from last year - ones that I still hope to check off my list. 1. Take a creative class - painting, writing, etc. 2. Bake something extra-difficult. Then make other people eat it. Because I'm evil. 3. Get a bike - if not for myself, for Spousal Unit. 4. Volunteer somewhere - like a children's m...

It's the start of the most wonderful time of the year! No, not Christmas (not yet, anyway) - I'm talking autumn! That wonderful time when we get to pull out the sweaters, enjoy a cup of hot cider, and wear our favorite slippers. I love it. What I especially love are fall crafts. It's the perfect time to pull that wool close to you and watch the leaves fly outside, while ensconced in your favorite cozy chair. I always start too many projects at this time of year. Fall Breeze Shawl by Denise Twum  Imagine this one in an orange-red yarn - or even a variegated one with lots of fall colors ! Fall coasters  by Melissa Hill These little crocheted coasters are adorable, plus they're a quick, easy gift! If it was me, I'd make the leaves all different shades of fall - light green, red, orange, and yellow, all in one set. Tibetan Clouds Beaded Stole by Sivia Harding I've wanted to make this one for ages now. Maybe this is the year! Look at all...

Yesterday, a huge jug of apple juice in the fridge ran dry, and I was going to recycle it. But then Spousal Unit said, "You could use it for watering plants. Maybe you could even poke some holes in the lid." That boy has a lot of smart. I'd been casually keeping an eye out for a cheap watering can at the secondhand stores - till now, I've just used a regular-sized water bottle, which I have to refill two or three times to satisfy all the plants. But even better than a secondhand watering device is a reused jug. It's not pretty, but it does the job, and that's all I need. The lid was pretty sturdy, so I used a nail and hammer to pound holes in the lid. They weren't big enough, so I got a bigger nail and cracked the lid. The test run showed it worked okay, and then I realized the jug needed to let air out, too. So I pounded some holes in the jug itself, just above the handle. (I had to be careful to choose a spot that wouldn't...

First, allow me to say that next week, I'll be taking Monday off instead of Wednesday. Then you get to hear all about the apartment I'm going to see on Tuesday pretty much as soon as it happens. I know - it can't possibly get more exciting than that. Wrong. More beautiful steampunk art   Driveable sculpture motorcycle , made from recycled parts! Miniature cities - this one's made of soap! Have an excellent holiday weekend!

After seeing Love by Cirque du Soleil a couple of weeks ago (I promise, this might be the last time I mention it here), I felt really inspired. That's my favorite thing about the good art of others, no matter the medium: really good art inspires others to do good art, too. (Sometimes bad art does that too, but I'm focusing on the good stuff right now.) I have a couple of specific future projects in mind. One is a Help! scarf. Source I've been trying to think of a way to distinguish it from a Where's Waldo scarf, and the best I can come up with is adding Beatles silhouettes on the white part of the scarf. Available on Etsy I also want to make some cross stitches, featuring Beatles lyrics and psychedelic patterns. While I haven't found anything like my particular vision out there, I have found some amazing Beatles-related artwork. Available on Etsy Look at the detail! And look at Ringo's afro! Source This Beatles cross sti...