Cross Postage – Ondoy Donation Info

I realize this has absolutely nothing to do with crafting, but it is something close to my heart, and something I think is important.

I made a post about the Philippine typhoon flood on my other blog, if you’re interested in donating here’s some info

  Typhoon Ketsana, aka Ondoy, swept over the Philippines and dropped over 455 millimeter into the Manila area, 341 millimeters of that rainfall fell in only 6 hours, to put that in perspective Katrina had 350 millimeters fall in a 24 hour period.  The flooding as of today has left over 240 dead and thousands other homeless.

 

…

 

Donation info outside of Philippines:

• BayanUSA
• Philippine Aid
• Pnoy Apparel – buy a any Sammy t-shirt and they’ll donate another to a child, plus $5 of your purchase

• Men’s – Eggplant & Black; Women’s – Teal & Purple

Donation info within Philippines (you can use this if you live outside of the country as well)

• Philippine National Red Cross
• Kabataan Partylist
• Ondoy, You Fucking Asshole
• ABS-CBN Foundation more info here

If you live in the Philippines and can’t donate money you can still donate other goods, the Philippine National Red Cross is still in need of these:

Most urgent needs

Food items: Rice, noodles, canned goods, sugar, iodized salt, cooking oil, monggo beans and portable water

Medicines: Paracetamol, antibiotics, analgesic, oral rehydration salts, multivitamins and medications to treat diarrheal diseases

Non-food items: Bath soaps, face towels, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, plastic mats, blankets, mosquito nets, jerry cans, water containers, water purification tablets, plastic sheeting's, and Laundry soap

Rehabilitation Programs: Shelter materials for house repair

If you live in the US and can’t donate there’s always people in need here in our own country.  You can donate blood to the American Red Cross, volunteer at your local shelter (women's, animal, homeless, etc…), donate home goods to your local shelter (women's, animal, homeless, etc…), donate or volunteer with The Salvation Army, help out the old lady who lives down the street from you, or just do something good today.

Plushies: The Cute

Technorati Tags: Plushies,softie,marshmallow,candy corn,pickle,crafty

I hate marshmallows, but I adore plushies 8D  These are tasty plushies by an artist I found via Plush You!  You can find some of her other work on her Flickr photo stream, she goes by Scrumptious Delight.
I love the fact that they’re actually in a marshmallow bag, plus they’re just uber adorable!  The nutrition facts and ingredients in the back are such a plus too :D  I think each marshmallow comes with a little loop in the back so you can use them as cellphone charms or maybe hanging them on your rear window would be cute.
I actually hate candy corn as much as I hate marshmallow but I love snacking on pickles :D furry pickles though, I’m not sure I’d like so much lol.  The plush variety though, super cuteness in all their snarly glory.

1. bag of marshmallows, 2. bag of marshmallows, 3. bag of marshmallows (back), 4. bag of marshmallows (back), 5. candy corn line up, 6. big jar of plush pickle preserve

If you think these are so cute you need to huggle one right now, you can order one of her creations at her Scrumptious Delight Etsy store.

Picked a Pattern!

Technically my mom did :p  And the winner(‘s) is(are):

Falling Leaves Wrap by Dory Brown for my Godmother, because it’s a large lace pattern and because I fear teh lace D: I have a backup pattern, which is the Eva’s Shawl by milobo.  Judging from some of the comments and looking at the time it takes for people to complete, I don’t think I’ll have a problem.  I also really want to do the lace one, just to get the “OMG LACE!!!  I made it!!! and I LIVED!!!” moment out of the way.

Mom picked out her own pattern, which relieves me because she’s such a picky person to please :p  I don’t really mind making her things, but I don’t really want to spend a couple months making something when she probably won’t want to wear it.  Long Open Shawl by Bernat Design Studio is the winner for the Mommeh, and since she picked out her own shawl I think pick out a nice color for it all by myself :D

I still love Doris Chan's Chrysanthemum Tea Shawl, I might just make it to lay on the back of my reading chair, or a kind of table cloth for the kitchen table :3

Shawl Pattern

So I found the address and phone number of my Godmother from this post.  I was thinking of sending her something for Christmas and thought making something would be a perfect gift since she used to make me things.  Mom has been fishing for a shawl ever since I started picking up crochet again, and especially since I learned to knit, so I decided why not make two, one for her, one for Godmother.  I’m trying to look for something light enough for Hawaiian weather and substantial enough for visiting Kids and Grandkids.

I’m leaning a bit towered crochet shawls since the lace knit ones intimidate me a bit :p maybe if I had started a couple months ago I’d feel more secure.  And since I’m just starting now I thought it would be best to do my Godmother’s shawl first, and make a camera cozy for Mom, making her shawl either a late Christmas gift or saving till next year :3

I’ve go the patterns narrowed down to 12 (half crochet, half knit)

Crochet:

1. Blue Curacao by Doris Chan – Mom, maybe Godmother
2. Chrysanthemum Tea Shawl by Doris Chan -  Godmother
3. Eva’s Shawl by milobo - Godmother
4. Greengold by Minchanka.by/julia – has Mom all over it
5. Long Open Shawl by Bernat Design Studio – Mom
6. Mermaid Wings Shawl by Josette McWilliams – Godmother

Knitting:

1. The "Dummy Clap" Shawl, Scarf & Shrug by Anna Peck – Mom and Godmother
2. Falling Leaves Wrap by Dory Brown – Mom and Godmother
3. Nuolitanssi by Elina Urmass - Mom and Godmother
4. Leaf-Patterned Convertible Shawl by Jennifer Meyer – Mom
5. Leaf Lace Stole by Cynthia Robinson – Mom, maybe Godmother
6. Flying Geese Shawl by Betty Balcomb – Mom, maybe Godmother

I’ve just ordered Doris Chan’s Amazing Crochet Lace book on Amazon, mainly because of the two shawl pattern, but especially because of the skirt overlay one, being the selfish knitter that I am :D  It brought to mind Even Howard’s Jolly Rancher skirt overlay.

Donna Downey Fabric Giveaway!

I love me a good giveaway :D one of the best reasons to scan crafty tweets, and this one  was tweeted by Craft Critique.

Pickled Pear Lane is giving away a stack of 16 fabric quarter’s (from a yard) from Patty Young’s beautiful new fabric line.  Thanks Marianne Johnson!  I’ve also found another Etsy store to bookmark :D

If you want to join in the giveaway frenzy check out Donna Downey’s giveaway blog post and comment, you can also blog it (there's no room for shame when you love fabric), tweet it, or Facebook it.

Butterfly’s

I saw this post from Craft Critique encouraging crafters to send butterfly’s to the Holocaust Museum of Houston for their Butterfly Project.

I have two photographs of a Monarch I took a couple of years ago, and although it isn’t technically Handmade I think I’ll send a print anyway.

Of course the one I’m going to send won’t have the watermark, and I’m thinking of taking off the text at the bottom.  Both are on gloss photo paper (no matte :<) and un-mounted.  I might sell on Etsy :o

I’m contemplating doing a mini art quilt, since I’ve always been intrigued by art quilts, and the desired size for the Butterfly Project is 8”x10” so the small size might be perfect for a first art quilt.  My vision:  this butterfly fabric as the background with a silhouette of either a child, a butterfly, or a child holding a butterfly (if I can do that nicely).

The Butterfly

The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun’s tears would sing against a white stone.… 

Such, such a yellow Is carried lightly ’way up high.
It went away I’m sure because it wished to kiss the world good-bye.

For seven weeks I’ve lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto.
But I have found what I love here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut branches in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.

That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don’t live in here, in the ghetto.

Pavel Friedman, June 4, 1942
Born in Prague on January 7, 1921.
Deported to the Terezin Concentration Camp on April 26, 1942.
Died in Aushchwitz on September 29, 1944

Additional info on the Butterfly Project:

• Inspired by the book “I Never Saw Another Butterfly”
  • Collection of art and poetry by the Jewish children held in the Theresienstadta (Terezín) Concentration Camp
    • 12,000 children held at Terezín, 90% perished
• Museum will try to collect 1.5 million handmade butterflies
  • One butterfly for each of the 1,500,00 children who died in the Holocaust
  • The butterflies will be displayed in an exhibition scheduled for Spring, 2012
  • If you’d like to participate send your butterfly to:

    Holocaust Museum Houston
    Butterfly Project
    Education Department
    5401 Caroline St.
    Houston, TX 77004
    USA

    • Include Name, Organization/School, Your Address, e-mail, and total number of butterflies sent
  • butterflyproject@hmh.org
• Or send through Craft Critique (click link for more info)

Technorati Tags: art,quilt,Etsy,photography,butterflies,photograph,Butterfly Project,Holocaust,concentration camp,handmade,craft

Evangeline Review

The Pattern:

Just in case you forgot, I used Evangeline (fingerless gloves) by designer Michelle Szeghalmi-Shirley.

I actually really liked the way this written.  Considering the fact that my knitting skills are near to none, that I’ve only been reading actual patterns since August of last year, and that these are my first freakin’ cables (yey!), these were pretty clear.  I do have to admit that if there were a mistake, I probably wouldn’t have caught it anyway :p.

The one thing I got kind of caught up in was the pages, I would have liked the cast-on instructions to be on page two, then the stitch instructions, but that’s about it.  It just got a little confusing for me when I had to look at the cable pattern after casting on, which I admittedly had to do a number of times with all the frogging I did on this project.

For someone well versed in reading patterns, and in knowing their own knitting, this pattern will be beyond easy.  For someone just starting out with cables, its a great pattern to learn how cables work out.

Other linky-pooh’s:  The Sweet Sheep Ravelry Downloads (more patterns), The Sweet Sheep (website, yummeh yarns!), and The Sweet Sheep Blog (its a blog genius!)

The Yarn:

Again, just in case you weren’t paying attention I used Naturally Caron Country in Deep Taupe.

I love the color of this yarn, its a little weird, like its going through an identity crisis.  I actually first bought it to make fingerless gloves for a friend, she said she wanted something with green yarn.

When I bought it (@ JoAnn’s) I could have sworn it was a muted mossy green color, so I thought “Oooh, purty green for some gloves”, paid for it and took it out and they had a grayish color, at the time I thought it was just the light, so went on home with my yarn, looked at them again and thought it had a purplish color.

When I started knitting it I swore it had a mossy green color again, I worked my gloves for the next couple of weeks not really noticing the color, eventually I IM’ed my friend and by this point I forgot what color she wanted (okay, so it was more then a few weeks xD), she told me green.  I took another look at the yarn and I swear to the Almighty Bob it was a purple color!  Through the course of the day it turned from purple to gray to a green again, which put me in a moment of awe at the weirdness that is this yarn.

I’m pretty sure its the light that gives my yarn its identity crisis because the color changed throughout the day, and its gray in full sunlight.  But since it wasn’t green I was glad I had another ball of green in my basket =D, so the gloves I was making went from being for a friend to being for a Chango (that would be me o_o).

The actually knitting part was a bit of a trial.  It’s a splitty yarn and my repeated frogging’s didn’t seem to help matters.  There were a couple times when I caught the lower loop on the working needle by accident, which made my stitches unnecessarily tight, which made me tense, and I knit tighter when I’m tense, so yeah, hassle.

I really liked the yarn though, and maybe someone who knits at a looser tension will have a better time of it.  Would I knit with this yarn again?  Yes, but probably in a larger needle size, and I definitely want to try crocheting with it (I used my hook a lot, ribbit).

Other linky-pooh’s:  Free Naturally Caron Crochet Projects, Free Naturally Caron Knitting Projects, and the Naturally Caron Blog(geh).

Technorati Tags: knitting,review,patterns,crochet,yarn,joann's,ravelry,knit,needles

Finished Evangeline!

Granted it took me way longer then it should have, but they’re done lol.  It think I started in like March or April, frogged, frogged, frogged, knit, frogged, forgot about=, buried it in under yarn, took out in August, knit, frogged, knit, frogged, frogged, knit, knit, knit, went “oooh, that's not as hard as I’ve been making it!”, knit, frogged, knit, knit, knit, finished, and posted 8D

1. Gloves and Hand, 2. Cabled Fingerless Gloves, 3. Fingerless Gloves, 4. Evangeline Gloves III

Aren’t they purty~  A little fuzzy but that's because I haven’t washed them yet lol, but there they are :3  My first gloves (although fingerless), my first knitted gusset, and my first cables, the one thing that caused me the most problems.  Actually the cables weren't really that bad.  I think I might have overcomplicated things, and they got in the way of the double pointed needles, so Evangeline might not have been the most ideal project for first cables, but they’re cute~

Project Info:

• Yarn Name:  Naturally Caron Country
  • Weight:  Worsted / 10 ply (9 wpi)
  • Fiber:  25% Merino Wool and 75% Microdenier Acrylic
  • Color:  Deep Taupe
• Needles:  Size 6US / 4 meter DPN’s
  • Pattern actually calls for 7’s but I didn’t have any when I started
• Pattern:  Evangeline (off of Ravelry)
  • Designer:  Michelle Szeghalmi-Shirley

Now that I know my way around fingerless gloves the next time should go just a little smoother (just a teeny tiny bit).  And I’ve actually picked out another pattern for my Naturally Caron Spa in Green Sheen (bamboo blend), these will be for a friend, so my first project I’m not going to keep, unless I decide I hate said friend between now and when I finish :D.  Considering how yummy the color is, I might decide to do that lol.

 

I will eventually (next day?  two?  week???) post a review of the Evangeline pattern and the Naturally Caron Country yarn :3.