Wlydhare's Hollow

Peg Dolls

Rose Red and Snow White, the newest residents in my craft room are settling in well and now supervising my work.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am working on several peg dolls. Here is my progress so far:

I am most happy with the blond one. Although, I like the one on the far right, but she is still missing her mouth, which I find the hardest part to get right. The middle definitely has a funny mouth that I think I will have to try to re-do to appease my little perfectionist brain. If you look at the enlarged version of the photo, you will see her mouth is rather thick on one side.

I am inspired and hoping to model one off this 1949 Snow White themed greeting card I found on Flickr at in pastel's site.

Hopefully the vision in my brain can be made real. We will see! I am hoping, if all goes well, to have some quality craft time tomorrow, now that our company from Sweden has returned home.

OMG! I'm Bi, Now What Do I Do?

No, not that way! I was diagnosed as having bi-polar disorder this week, by a doctor I have been seeing in my struggle with depression. Depression runs in the family: the curse. I have fought it all my life. I have tried so many ways of coping with it, and creating is one of my few tried and true ways of really fighting it and feeling "normal".

However, I can't help but feel embarrassed and a bit branded by this diagnosis. I realize I didn't do anything to "get" it, but there is such a rough social stigma associated with the whole thing. And then I wondered if this was even the forum to talk about it, since I intended this spot for my creative work and explorations. But I realized many creative people and artists are bi-polar.

I am working to learn what can indicate I am going into a bad time and things that can stress or make it more likely to happen. Not everything is avoidable; for instance, stress can trigger problems. How do you keep all stress out of your life?

One thing I am determined to do is find more time for creativity. I always struggle with the feeling that anything in that realm is frivolous and an indulgence, which can only be dipped into when EVERYTHING else is done. And I mean everything, down to dusting baseboards and organizing books by author. How anal is that? However, the more I think things over, the more I realize that crafting is as much or more therapy for me, than most anything else.

As to my knitting, it has been a bit on hold, while I got the house cleaned for company from Sweden. That company leaves on Tuesday, so I am hoping for more "my" time for the remainder of the week. I am also hoping to get some little embroidery projects to take on our trip to Hawaii in August. Something easy to do, which will be relaxing with minimal "stuff" to carry with me.

I hope to post some new pictures soon of peg dolls I have been working on.

Knitting

So, armed with Knitting for Dummies, online video demonstrations and a stubborn streak, I have started my knitting adventure.

I am too anal for my own good sometimes though. I think I casted on 4 or 5 times before I was happy with the spacing and tension!

And then I practiced knitting, purling and increasing for a few hours and did even more ripping out, but eventually I got the hang of that as well.

I then learned to increase and went to change to another color and things started to go "pear shaped" as my British husband likes to say. Loops slipped and I didn't get them back on the needles correctly and then I knitted when I should have pearled. *Blah!* But it was all good practice and I decided to start over with a different yarn I like the colors on better and will use the mistakes I made as a learning experience!

Meanwhile, when not working on knitting, I decided to finish up a miniature room box which I stated a few years back. There were only a few things I had left to do, but I kept putting them off. So I finally got to work and finished it and the doll to go inside (she has been sitting around hairless for like 5 years!) Here is the finished result:

 

 

 

And what is the rest of the house doing while I work?

 

Minux

 

Milkyway

Embroidery Finished!

Here is how my version of Follow the White Bunny's Bunny Stitch Along pattern turned out. I decided to make mine into a tea towel for fall. I have not sewn on the leaf buttons yet, but hopefully you get the idea on how it will look.

With this done, I guess I no longer have an excuse to not try to knit that hedgehog! Why am I such a chicken butt??

Summer Creativity

My office job is no longer, so suddenly I have a lot more time to focus on creative endeavors. This is both exciting and scary, because now I need to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak.

As I mentioned in my last post, I am going to try to knit Little Cotton Rabbits adorable hedgehog. I have the skein of yarn rolled into a ball, so I am ready to try. I am also finishing up an embroidery project which Follow the White Bunny is doing on Flickr. And finally, I have been painting clothespin pegs to try my hand at clothespins dolls such as Piccalillimakes. I do love all the inspiration and encouragement that is to found in craft blogs and Flickr!

In anticipation of a vacation in Hawaii in August, my daughters and I have been clothing fun accents so we can all make our own memory journals of the trip. We even found a fun, inexpensive underwater camera for when we try out snorkeling! I will definitely be taking needlework on that trip. What could be more lovely than sunshine, cooling trade winds, refreshing cool drinks and not a phone or television in sight?!

Happy Summer!

Uber Quest - Knitting!

I am pretty crafty and comfortable with most creative mediums, but knitting is not one of them. I have tried on and off a few times and can manage a basic knit perl thingie, which is great if you want very plain and boring scarfs, but that is about it!

Well now I am on a quest! Julie at Little Cotton Rabbits has designed the cutest knit hedgehog pattern and I really, really, really want to have one! But OMG, what does K2, (YFON, K2) 6 times (20 stitches) mean??

So I am now the proud owner of Knitting for Dummies, which I am hoping will break the Di Vince Code! My 12 year old Becca, had already announced that once I understand knitting, I can make her things to wear.

Meanwhile, I am also trying to self-teach myself the Java programming language. Now if I could just somehow combine the two, how efficient would that be?

I am also working on crafting up several things so I can open an Etsy shop. I am excited and nervous at the same time. It's a bit like throwing a party. What if you do all that work, and no one shows up?