Etsy Store Open!

Just a reminder - this blog will no longer be updated. All new crafty goodness is at http://jenniemaccrafts.blogspot.com/.

The latest news is that my Etsy store - http://jenniemaccrafts.etsy.com/ - is now open! Please check out the blog and store and tell me what you think!

So Long, Farewell..

... Auf Wiedershen, Goodbye!

Well, not goodbye, per se....

I've decided to start a new blog, to set aside the memories that went into the making of this blog and to start fresh for 2009 with a new vision.

Thanks to all who have stuck with me so far. I'm excited about the new blog, my new approach, and the new Etsy store that will follow shortly on its heels. I'm also looking forward to the new year itself and to sharing with all of you some of the changes that have been percolating away over here.

I hope you'll join me at http://jenniemaccrafts.blogspot.com/. All the best - NTK, signing off.

Why You May Want to Move to Tucson

My facebook and twitter status last night was:

Jennie is sunburnt. In December. From writing and drinking chai. Really? A-yup. Really.

That it's beautiful enough here to sit outside is a blessing, though remind me how much I enjoyed this when I have skin cancer in ten years.

If anyone can recommend a good, light daily moisturizer with sunblock.... :) And a way to remember to use it.

Happy Holidays

I'll be candid - I'm sort of a grinch. Actually, that's an exaggeration, but I'm just not that big on the holidays. My husband and I don't really like spending time with my in-laws. I'm a vegetarian, so I don't eat a lot of our families' traditional foods. I don't even really like getting gifts, especially since most of what I get in recent years is stuff someone thinks I might like and actually don't. On a rational level, I know it's the thought that counts, but that doesn't make me appreciate the 36" dancing Jazz Santa or the solar-powered address light (when we lived in an apartment even) any more.

I also still resent how parts of our family fought over how much time we spent with who, etc. when we first married. What little is left that I like - good carols, baking - my husband is either sick of or shouldn't have. (Extra 50 lbs anyone?) So, despite how much I'd like to get excited tonight, I still feel like: holidays = hassle.

That said, I'm hoping all of you are having a great night - especially those with kids. And I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, this year will be different.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Weekend Wonder #19 - WIP Slinky Gray Sweater

Hello again! This Weekend Wonder is a sweater that's been on-again-off-again in my life and is now in its third iteration. Originally, I bought the yarn - a soy blend - on clearance to use to make the Five O'Clock Tank from Crochet Me. Alas, I have neither the right hooks nor the patience for that particular pattern right now, and after my problems with the Strapless Corset from Sensual Crochet (three completed tops, three of which didn't fit) I decided to free form the tops with stitches I knew I could do with my current hooks.

After I started it, though, I lost interest, but an idea for a different type of sleeveless sweater, a drapy thing, kept dancing through my brain, so I began this:


Okay, I know it doesn't look like much yet, but it's only the neckline and a few inches of the front and back! It's getting there. The idea is a balletneck yoke in half-double crochet with the body made of alternating double crochets and double crochet clusters. It's more complex than that - the front involves a mitering effect - but it's also free form, meaning I'm still making it up as I go, trying it on every couple rows and doing a two-steps-forward-one-step-back dance of experimentation. But I'm enjoying it, and it's making a fun fabric, I've got to say.


If it turns out really well, I'll have an excuse to go buy more similar yarn - I'm enjoying the feel of it! - and I'll write out and test a pattern, but that's still a long way off.

Before I go, one more little present. My favorite distraction, chomping away on his Kong. This is Luke. Luke, Blog. Blog, Luke.

D-O-N-E and WIP

Well, I'm writing this post in advance, but by the time you read it, I will be done with my first semester of my MFA. I imagine that it'll feel both like a big load off my mind and also a bit daunting. I have a lot I want to get done over break - a new writing project to start, books to read, family to see - but it'll still be nice to have a change of pace. And school doesn't resume until the week of January 12th(!). Still, that won't be enough time to read the 25+ books I just added to my goodreads wishlist. Yikes!

The WIP I want to share today is my circle rug, which is currently about 20% done (as of Saturday). The great thing about a project like this is you can take it anywhere - you just need a skein, a pair of crochet hooks, and a pair of scissors (unless you're better than me and can tear yarn). I'm making it out of a softer thinner yarn than called for, so I modified the circle pattern (added a repeat I think) and changed hook sizes. My goal is to finish this and make it a holiday present to myself and my roommate. It's going to be our bathroom rug.

Next time - the sweater!

Weekend Wonder #18 - WIPs

This Weekend Wonder is that I have, yes, actually been crafting. I've got a potluck to get ready for and a couple days of work on a take home exam ahead, but I wanted to take a quick break to share some of my current projects, even though these are all just WIP photos - progress, but not pretty.


First up, today, are two smaller projects I've been working on at bed time and will, with any luck, wrap up this week. One is a small bag based on the Tube Bag pattern from Uncommon Crochet, a book I really like and am going to take the time to finish reading, cover-to-cover, this holiday break, because it is that kind of book. Neat patterns, yes, very(!), but it also deserves attention to the design principles and ideas the author is putting forward.


Any blog followers may recognize this yarn as the lovely stuff I used to make the Boy Chicago Scarf earlier this year. I had a smaller-than-my-fist amount left over when I finished, so I decided to use it for this little experiment. As much as I love the stitch definition, I am planning to felt it and then play with strap or flap design from there.

The second is an even simpler project - a too-be-felted rectangle that will become a hook book, a la Lion Brand Yarn's pattern. I took a photo, but to be honest it didn't really say much. Look at me - I'm a variegated rectangle! I'll take a better shot before felting and share it with the FO.

Next update, my WIP Circle Rug, which you can see a preview of in the corner of a photo above, and after that, my sweater prototype.

So - very - close - to - done

I'm almost done with the semester and very, very excited. It's hard to believe I'm a quarter of the way done with my MFA already. I'm afraid crochet has been backburnered (Linguist? Is that a word?) in favor of papers and such, but I've brought some with me today and will be enjoying our wintery day by sitting outside and crocheting either circles for the rug or the top I'm doing freeform. I just finished my papers for my last class with two hours to spare and can't start on the last task of the year - a take home exam - until tonight. Sigh of lovely, lovely relief.

Last Friday I had a reading, did I mention that? I may post the piece here, but I may wait until I have a chance to workshop it. We'll see. In the meantime, hope all is going well for all of you...

The end of NaNovember and a return to our irregularly scheduled programming

Hello again! I apologize for the continuted radio silence in late November. For a little while there, I was behind on NaNoWriMo, and playing mad catch up, but then I just got caught up in the story. I ended up hitting something like 59K (for those who don't know, the challenge is to write 50K in a month), and I have three scenes remaining until the end. I'll admit I broke one of the primary NaNo rules this year. The idea is to start something from scratch, but I was already 53K into a novel, so I started from sort-of-scratch at the start of the second half. If you count the 1500 words I added to the first half during the course of the month, I'm over 114,000 words and expect I'll break 120,000.

Unfortunately, I've got papers and end of the year school work to knock out, as well as an essay to polish before my reading (eep!) this Friday. My goal will be to finish and give one good revision to the book before my husband arrives for the holidays. He's driving(!) from Buffalo here to Tucson, so his exact arrival isn't firm and won't be until he's on the road really.

In the meantime, I'll be continuing to work on (and trying to post about):

• The Circle Bathroom Rug (Book: Crochet Me)
• A felted hookbook (based on the Lion Brand Yarn website free pattern)
• A felted bag (based on the Uncommon Crochet book's tube bag foundation)
  
• Coasters I'm making... which will be for sale on Etsy, hopefully along with other items (more info soon I hope)
  
• and a top I'm designing.

If the last one works out, I plan to put the pattern up for sale on Etsy as well. My goal in the next few weeks is to strike a good balance between schoolwork and crochet, as well as celebrating my big 3-0 later this week.

Wish me luck!

I'm still here!

I've been caught up in NaNoWriMo goodness lately, as well as schoolwork, but I am still here.
I've been crocheting on four different projects in my bus/waiting/down-time so there will be something new to report soon, with pictures, but in the meantime, I'm caught up on Nano and about to break the 40K word mark! W00t!

Weekend Wonder #17 - Preview

These little lovelies and some of their cousins will be on sale here in the coming weeks, along with other surprises! More pictures of Blueberries and Cream (above) and Bumble Bee (below) available from my Flickr page.

Best Laid Plans

Hello, all.
Today is Monday, November tenth, and in less than 36 hours I will be happily visiting Mr. Man in New York. Woot!
Well, now that we got that out of the way...
I will not be blogging while I'm in Buffalo, but I will be crocheting and writing (NaNoWriMo time again!). I've scheduled a special short Weekend Wonder to give you a preview of some things percolating in my mind and growing from my crochet hook of late.
Hope all is well, and to any Marines reading this - Happy Brithday!
Remember to thank a vet tomorrow!

Weekend Wonder #16 - Let's Call it a Poncho

Blog Readers, let me introduce you to this week's FO and Weekend Wonder - the Desert Poncho [Ravelry] from Kim Werker's "It's a Shawl and a Poncho" pattern in Teach Yourself to Crochet Visually. First of all, let me say this is a lovely and easy pattern I picked for what could have been the wrong two reasons. (1) Because I was frustrated that the yarn wasn't working for the Strapless Corset pattern (I shall not belabor or link to why, but you can search the blog if you want to), and therefore I was desperate for something simple that would use about the same amount of cotton yarn, and (2) because the girl in the picture looks good wearing it, I mean damn good, never mind that she's a gorgeous busty thing and I'm... not. Fortunately, I think it worked out well in spite of my poor reasoning*.

There are more pictures on Flickr (some of the same on Ravelry), including WIP shots and stitch details.

One detail of note: I think that there’s an error in the pattern or the book’s description of the stitch. If you look closely at the pictures in the book, I think 2 dc should be 3 dc. I did it with 2 even though it didn’t look right; I was 75% done by the time I really looked closely at said picture. It still drapes well and I would have run out of yarn if I’d done it with 3 dc, I'm not complaining, but if I were to make another one... Take that for what it’s worth.

I used almost the full six skeins (Bernat's Organic Cotton), alternating four rows of the main color (Hemp) with two of the variegated (Oasis). The leftover yarn I used to lace the shoulder (lace, like you lace a shoe), which you can see in the details on my Flickr stream. I'm wearing it tonight to go to a reading, so if it wears badly, I'll post that right away.

* I say poor reasoning because (1) I normally advocate for thinking things through, especially when desperate(!), and (2) because choosing to do a pattern based on how good it looks with someone else's body type is normally a surefire recipe for disaster.

Weekend Wonder #15 - Even-more-petite Petite Bijoux Bag

You may remember that a while back I made a petite "Petite Bijoux Bag" (from Sensual Crochet) with the last of the mossy green Bernat bamboo blend yarn left over after my semi-successful moebius shrug. Well, I had an even smaller amount of the colorways of the same yarn that I used for the Girl Chicago scarf: Linen and (light blue?).

Meanwhile, the Petite Petite has been serving as an apple cozy - though it's a little taller than necessary for that purpose. It's perfectly cushy for it though! Well, my housemate saw its cushy greenness hanging in the kitchen and gushed about how soft the material was. So, while she was away this last weekend, I made her a bag of her own.


There are two more pictures on Flickr; they better show the stitch definition and colorwork.

I followed the pattern from memory, roughly gauging how much yarn I had left as I went. When I went about as far up as I thought I could go with the white, I switched to the blue (which was a ball smaller in diameter than a silver dollar) for the double crochet row and the tie - which became two ties because I had enough yarn. I then went around once doing a slip stitch in blue just for contrast (and to use the last of it).

I had to modify the last round - the ripple - because I didn't have enough yarn for the stitch called for (and wasn't ripping back!). But I think it turned out great. You can see above that it's a little smaller than my best-yard-sale-find mug (50 cents!). It just fits a medium organic Gala apple, and she loves it. (An easy gift - this took less than two hours.)

Why this isn't a cooking blog

I've always liked the PieKnits blog because Jennifer occasionally intersperses yummy-sounding recipes with hunger-inducing pictures. That's not me though. I like to cook in the sense that I enjoy making a meal for myself, but not the whole following (or modifying) a recipe shtick.


No fancy Halloween treats here. I bought that lovely pre-made cookie dough - the break (apart) and bake kind - in chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin to make for a potluck. Despite the fact that the cookies are identical little cubes of dough with identical instructions, the O.R. (on the right in the picture) turned out radically different than the C.C.

But my housemate "loves burnt cookies" and gobbled them right up!

Retro Femme in better light

Hello again. I'm afraid this is just a quick note to let you know that there are improved pictures up on Flickr of my FO - the Retro Femme top from Sensual Crochet.

For instance:

I also wanted to narrow down what I said last time about how I wouldn't add the extra rows to the top. My reason is that the stitch used on the upper portion really opens up when you block/wear it. Obviously where you want more or less fabric is going to depend on your body, but for me, more on the lower portion - the shells - would have been better than on the top.

That said, the more I wore it that night and when I took these shots, the more I like it, and the compliments have all been flattering. Now if the temps would fall out of the 90s here, I could wear it!

If you poke around Flickr, you'll also get a little preview of some other things I've been working on, including WIP shots of the shawl/poncho. I may very well run out of yarn before it gets long enough to circle my wide shoulders, so it may end up being a "variation" on the pattern. :) We'll have to see! It's gotten too big to bring in my bag with my books most class days, so today I'm carrying yarn for coasters - great bus stop projects.

Have a good week!

Weekend Wonder #14 - Retro Femme

The Retro Femme top? What's that you say? I thought it was in the "maybe frog" pile and now it's an FO and Weekend Wonder?

Indeed my friends, it's true. The Retro Femme top from Sensual Crochet was on my frownie list because it turned out snugger than I expected once I closed the front (is worked top-down), but I decided to let it sit and see if it fit better if I lost some weight by the end of the year. We recently had a cold snap here in Tucson and I had my husband send me some winter clothes, including this WIP. I tried it on again - being ten pounds lighter than I was when I finished in May/June-ish. Lo and behold, it fits much better. It's still more snug than intended, but I decided to cut the yarn, weave in the ends, and wear it anyway.

First, the pics! (There are stitch detail and rear shots on Flickr.)


Lesson #1 - Swatch all stitches and/or try on more often. I wasn't aware that this was too snug until I reached the bottom because I didn't try it on again after doing the empire waist. I could have backed up a couple rows and added a few stitches to a top round if I'd realized sooner.
Lesson #2 - If you're doing this pattern and you are a tall woman like me and you're concerned about the uppermost section being too short, don't be. If you're bustier than me, maybe it'll be a problem, but I added two rows to the top and wish I hadn't. It would look more balanced - more like the book's pretty pictures! :) - if I hadn't.

This is done with Bernat's alpaca blend, which I enjoyed working. I wore it dancing - just like you see here - last week and it was really well received.

If you win the lottery, sponsor an MFA student!

Sorry for the recent radio silence. It's been a busy-busy week for me. My workshop class had an extra meeting this week to make up for a previously canceled class, so I had double reading. I also had an essay due - one I really struggled with. This is the first day I've just been able to relax.

Add to all that a couple major financial snafus and you have my current state of mind. I knew - certainly - that going back to grad school would not be cheap, especially since we are operating two separate households. But when we made this decision in the spring, we expected the house to sell within six months. We didn't expect the collapse of the market, etc. It's been more than six months and we haven't even had someone come look in almost three months, despite dropping the price. Setting aside all of the other lovely costs of living, my husband and I are paying about $4000 a month for housing, which, as you can imagine, causes savings and loan moneys to evaporate. My mother said something encouraging to me, which is that things will hopefully turn around after the election, so we're thinking we'll give it another month and then drop the house price again.

So, what time I might spend composing blog posts, even just mentally, has been diverted to drafting essays and query letters to agents, editors, publishers - anyone who pays for words. I'm sending out two commercial pieces as well as a contest entry and half a dozen query letters about my novel in the next couple days. Think positive thoughts.

I'm crafting in the spare moments as I wait for the bus or for class to start. I'm about 65-70% done with the shawl, and I hope to finish it up in time to wear it to a friend's gig Sunday night. I just recently finished (for reals) the Retro Femme - post scheduled for Saturday! - and I'll try to take better pictures of the Retro Femme and the shawl when it's done. And then, I'll be picking up the Inspired-by-the-Five-O'clock-Tank-Dress-Tank again! I'm also hoping to get the supplies I need next week to crochet a bathroom rug for our house. It's getting to be that time of year.

Happy Crafting!

Blankie

Warning: Not at all a craft related post!

Yesterday was a cold day here in Tucson - meaning it was 43 when I woke up yesterday. Add to that the fact that my roommate and I hadn't turned the heater on, I had no blanket on my bed, and our hot water heater appears to have died, I was stiff and grumpy all day. I also have only two long sleeve shirts here, and both are lightweight, which wasn't enough for walking the dog in 40-degree weather.

Fortunately, my housemate is kind and took me on an eleventh hour trip to Target where I acquired a new blanket, shown here in cell-phone pictures because I was in a hurry to share. (Morning light above, artificial light below.) It's funny what buying something like this can do to change your mood and your space.

I've been enjoying having my own room in a way. More than nine years of marriage have meant nine years with no space of my own. Plus, despite what he says about it being cute, I know Mr. Man never would have chosen this blanket!

Unfortunately? Still no hot water. Think encouraging thoughts for our landlord.

Weekend Wonder #13 - Bag in My Bag

Bag in My Bag
Originally uploaded by notensionknits

After 5 p.m. on a Friday is the weekend, right?

I made this little bag because I just switched to a different school bag. It's larger than the one I was using before, which had become a must, but it doesn't have as many pockets. So, I used the last of this neat Landscape yarn to make a little bag for my emergency supplies, i.e. Tylenol, Tums, Aleve, a couple band-aids, a granola bar, eye drops, and a travel-sized deodorant! It fits in my bag neatly though I didn't have enough yarn to make the flap or tie as long as I would have liked.

The basic construction comes from the Tube Bag design in Uncommon Crochet. I love that book and recommend it highly. The "paper bag" style bottom is much neater than just crocheting a rectangle base. The stitch is linked doubles in the round - I used linked because I didn't want to have to felt it but I did want a tight fabric.

More pictures on Flickr.

And please, post comments or send emails about my blood donation question a couple posts ago! I'm curious still about why people do or don't donate.