Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Electronic making

Today, my making consisted of electronic endeavors.  I've been investigating online video editors for work, so I messed around with a site called WeVideo.  There may be a few more of these before I'm finished.

I've never attempted much with video, other than direct uploads from my phone to Facebook or Flickr or whatever.  Today, with very little learning curve I managed to cut a video clip and add some effects.  It was really pretty easy, and WeVideo has quite a lot of tutorial videos if I want to learn more.  I could have some fun with it - they've got  music and all sorts of sound effects.  How can you go wrong with a song called "Crime Disco?"  That's not the music in this video, but it could be next...

Here's my masterpiece!


Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Yarn, and making...

I've been happily plugging away at my "age before beauty" blanket project, and I'm happy to say I'm over halfway finished!  I've been using yarn that I had on hand for most of it, and it turned out I had less purple than I thought.  Fortunately I had some lovely green and gray yarn that fits into the color scheme well.  I did order some yarn to get a contrasting color for sewing the sections together - keeping that hidden for now!  I will say it's going to work great.

I did buy a couple of other yarn skeins to mess around with.  Not sure what I'll do with this one.  It's 50% bamboo and sooooo soft!




We'll see.  I'm sure I'll think of something, or maybe I'll just carry it around with me and rub it against my face when I'm stressed out.

Sure.  That seems like a good plan.

Monday, January 5, 2015

So busy!

I tell you what, this "year of making" is really keeping me out of trouble! Well, I may be staying up too late crocheting, but you.  That's how it goes.  Here's what I've been up to the last couple of days, working on my Age Before Beauty Blanket (I almost typed algae, can you believe it?).



Oooooooh, isn't it pretty?  I'm really enjoying working with this particular yarn.  So soft!

I managed to make a bonus item today - a blackout poem!



It's hard not to be too picky about the words on the page when trying to make one of these.  However, I was unable to pass up the words "cosmic casserole."  It had to be done!

The other item of business keeping me out of trouble is the 2015 Reading Challenge.  I ran across this challenge on Facebook, and enough people were interested that I started a Goodreads group.  Group moderating is tonnes of fun!  Actually, it's not that bad, but I've already had a snippy conversation between a couple of group member.

Be nice, people.

Be nice.


Friday, January 2, 2015

Hello 2015!

2015.  That number sure has a nice sound and look, doesn't it?  I feel like this is going to be a good year.  A year with great potential.

A short time ago, I was perusing the New Book shelves at the library.  I spied a slim volume in the craft section that caught my eye.



Kim Piper Werker?!  I know that name!   I've been aware of her for quite a while, for her work with Crochet magazine and other crochet related things.  I used to follow the crafty world much closer, but have gotten away from that in the last few years.  I snagged the book - I love reading about creativity and have been on a big Lynda Barry kick lately.  I LOVE her books.

Anyhow, I started re-stalking Kim, and she posted that she had a new ebook, A Year of Making.

Intrigued!

I bought it, and am not sorry.  I am INSPIRED.  It's been so long since I've done anything creative on a regular basis.  Yes, I've been doing a lot more with my beads, and that is a good thing.  But I used to do so much more!  I used to dabble in a lot of things, and make things for people for xmas.

So I have begun my "year of making."  I love that it is low pressure, fit to your own life.  Only have a few minutes?  Make a drawing, or crochet a row or two.  I plan on including my gardening work, once the weather gets better.

Day one - I cleaned off the table in my craft room so I will have space to work!  My beads are on the desk, and I don't really want to have to move them to do other things.  So I cleaned off the desk, and then I made a collage!  I printed out the book and worksheets, and am keeping them in an old 3-ring binder.  It needed a nice cover, so voila!



Some watercolors, cut up atlas and rubber stamp catalog pages, and a rubber stamp.  Easy peasy!

This morning I was poking around on the internet, and Kim posted a link on Twitter to an easy crochet blanket on the Meet Me At Mike's blog.  It's called the Age Before Beauty blanket - and I love the concept!  Mostly because I'm not very good at following patterns (yet).  Haha.  I have quite a bit of yarn collected over the years, so today before I started crocheting I organized it by type of yarn.    It will be so much easier to find what I want now!  I have some really nice yarn, a whole lot of strange unfinished projects, and some really manky yarn that somebody gave to me.  I might have to pass some of that on to the thrift store.

I crocheted five rows today!



Did I mention I also started a Goodreads group for a 2015 Reading Challenge and it already has almost 200 people in it?  No.  I'll post about that tomorrow, or the next day.

Until then - GO MAKE SOMETHING!