Howdy all, I'm moving this here blog to a new location. I'm tired of managing the extra identity and trying to keep it completely separate from the rest of my online goings ons, so come on over to ellie <3s crafts. I may or may not migrate some or all of the posts here over there depending oh how private I felt they were. So update your bookmarks and feed readers because this URL will be broken fairly soon. xoxo - Ellie
Belated holiday wrap up
So I was cleaning off my computer desktop and realized I didn't share any of my holiday photos. Time to remedy that. First up, mom's presents. She had decided she needed a traveling hobby for conferences and car rides. She tried cross stitch first, then decided she wanted to learn how to knit. So she got stitchmarkers and thimbles and some patterns and some little felted bowls. The blue one is from the yarn I spun at Maker Fair and the purple one is from Miss Hawklet (leftovers from the mittens). I tried to make one from the yellow I spun at Maker Fair too, but I guess it wasn't wool cause it didn't so much work. It's now a hat for one of my stuffed monkeys.
Next up, holiday meals! For Christmas my mom does a ham, so the veggies got fake Canadian bacon in the same brown sugar glaze. For New Years one must have pork (seitan) and sourkraut.
The big thing that I did over the trip was to tackle my bedroom. It had become a storage space and I needed to claim my belongings so it could transform into a guest bedroom. I have pretty bad dust and mold allergies and had been getting sick every time I went home so my parents have gotten some air purifiers and kept me down on the more used and cleaned ground floor. So a mission to the upstairs required special equipment:
The mission was a complete success however. I now have all of my books (filed in LC order thank you very much) and other knick nacks all settled in Austin and mom is well on her way to clearing out all the clutter that wasn't mine. Next up - convince my dad to put in wood floors instead of carpeting!
2 years!
Look what Shawn surprised me with at work for our anniversary! Birds of paradise (or as I like to call them "those crazy attack bird flowers" - usually followed by me making what I imagine to be an attacking bird noise and motion) are my favorite! Apparently they're super fancy. I had no idea since the first time I saw them was basically as shrubbery all over Los Angeles. Thanks love!
Another angle? Sure:
Nesting
Like most people I've been carrying my CDs around in one of those binder thingies since undergrad. I did hold out for a year though, lugging my CD tower back and forth to the dorms. But eventually I accepted how ridiculous that was. It was always my plan that ONE DAY I would have my CDs back in their cases and on display. Folks, today was that day! I got the last batch of cases in the mail from my mom and got to sorting. Mashti helped.
So they'll be tucked away rather than on display, but I love this little unit. I got one for Shawn's CDs a while ago. That was a project and a half! He tosses any CD into any available case. But I got them pretty well sorted and alphabetized. That was months ago though. We're talking about today and MY CDs. :)
And there was enough room left over to stash the DVDs too, so now my bouncy ball collection is on display. Shawn's not home to veto me, so hopefully they can stay. :)
One of our someday wishes is to get some nice big art for over the couch. Oh, and Shawn did the texture on that wall. Pretty nice, no?
Thanksgiving = Yum!
I went to visit the family for Thanksgiving. The trucks are in the neighborhood laying the cables for the high speed internet, so one of these days going home won't be stepping into a technology free vortex. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not...
Honestly though, I don't think it will change things much except that the addition of the Sci-Fi channel will expand our television options - not that we ever run out as it is. This time round it was Stargate SG1. Good times. I wonder if I can convince my dad to get TiVo...
Do you see how beautiful my parents' house is? The lovely fall colors... The owl on the windowsill to stop the birds from smashing in to the house! That's when you know you're in the real woods. Our Thanksgiving spread was phenomenal. We had all the regular trimmings plus pan seared seitan with flour and poultry seasoning. Sooooooo good.
I also finished the front of Drunken Argyle! Can you even believe it? I'm going to block it this weekend with the help of an expert. I'll take pictures then.
My other excitement is that I learned to shoot! (An air rifle...) I'm pretty much against guns and am constantly reminding Shawn that he's not allowed to get one, but at the same time I feel like being able to handle a gun is a skill I should learn. Mostly because I watch too many bad movies. You know, like if it turns out Shawn is really a secret agent and I get kidnapped and he rescues me and tosses me a gun as we try to escape... I want to be able to hold my own. Friends who want to see a million pictures of me and my family with our eyes to the scope - drop me a line, I'll hook you up. Yeah, there's a scope. My dad doesn't mess around.
Maker Faire = ZOMG Ponies!!111
Yup.
So this weekend I volunteered at Maker Faire in Austin with my weaving guild. So awesome. I walked around for a lot of Saturday, but I was having so much fun at our booth on Sunday that I forgot to go see the stuff I hadn't gotten to. We even got an editor's choice ribbon! I helped a lot of kids (and some adults) weave on tiles, showed people of all ages and genders how a floor loom worked, and even learned to spin and ply on a drop spindle and then turned around and taught that too! We were giving away the tiles, some cardboard looms, and cd drop spindles to anyone who wanted to learn.
There was a giant working version of Mouse Trap, an art car display along with a make your own art car activity, giant Tesla coils, people cutting open toy musical instruments and playing with the insides, amigarumi, exploding diet coke and mentos, screenprinting, dying, and so much more! It was such a fantastic celebration of ingenuity and experimentation. I was in heaven.
Thank you tea swap pal!
I've had house guests the last three weekends in a row*, been dealing with poor little Mashti's drops and pills 4 times a day**, found out I have eczema*** and have been dealing with creams and gloves and not getting my hands wet and not sweating, which is particularly difficult since Shawn and I just started Wing Tsun****. Oh, and I scraped a whole bunch of nasty popcorn texture off the guest room ceiling and plastered it and helped Shawn lay hardwood flooring in his studio. I am so sore in so many places. There's also some exciting and positive but stressful possibilities looming at work that I'm not sure how I'm going to handle yet.*****
So that's what I've been up to. Mostly I want to finish painting the guest room so I can reclaim my bedroom from all the detritus created by the wonderful hard work that Shawn and his dad started three weeks ago.******
So you can imagine what a perfect treat it was to come home to such a fabulous swap package.
A beautiful (yet impossible to photograph) handmade tea time cloth (it says Tea Time and has a little tea pot and it's incredibly well done!).
An adorable teacup themed pincushion, bumble bee tape measure, matching stitchmarkers (I'm assuming also handmade, but not sure), and Suss twisted cotton slub yarn. And let me tell you, I have ooed and ahhhed over Blue Sky Alpaca's cotton, but this stuff takes the cake! I'm thinking eventually a really classy scarf for myself. Not sure what else to do with two skeins that will allow me to touch it all the time.
Some super cool stationary: a notepad, note cards, and a note book that happens to be exactly the kind I use for grocery lists.
And of course, the tea! An incredibly hip tea set with filters and a little tea bag rest exactly like I wanted, only better, because I can't break this one. Shawn and I both thank you for making our kitchen counter much less tacky. I plan to take the tea filters, tea set and Irish breakfast tea to work. I'm planning to get a little hot water pot and having quite the cozy little morning ritual.
And last, but not least, a jungle gym for B! She loves it! Thank you!
* All wonderful people, but I'm still happy to have the place back to myself.
** The Dr. says she's doing great and won't have any vision loss!
*** It's pretty mild from what I hear for comparison. The weird thing is that mine hurts rather than itches.
**** I'm allowed to wear my silly cotton gloves in class. I cut off the finger tips to make myself feel less ridiculous.
***** Real life friends - feel free to email me for more details.
****** That's three weeks that I haven't been able to move comfortably through the bedroom because of extra bookshelves, TVs, couches, etc. The new floor, lack of mold, and finished trimming around the baseboards is definitely lovely and worth it. I'm just ready for it to be done!
Celebrate art - Howl Against Censorship
"Fifty years ago, on October 3, Judge Clayton Horn ruled that Allen Ginsberg's Howl Against Censorship great epic Beat-era poem HOWL was not obscene but instead, a work of literary and social merit." Listen. (Ginsberg starts at 3:50)
