St. Patrick's Day!

Ah, hello my distant friend. How long it has been since my typing has graced your "new post" screen? Too long. Too long.

I've done very little lately in the crafting world. Instead I've been slowly cleaning out my place and preparing for the move. Less than three months now!

To keep myself sane I've been going to yoga. Every single yoga class that my gym offers actually (which is only 5). I've been researching on where to go and earn my own certification so I may someday teach yoga. Aaaah yoga. I know there's all kinds of scandals lately, but my yoga practice is very personal and soothing, so I don't care what else is going on because in those moments I'm centered on myself and my body. It's wonderful!

Right, so long story short I needed a carrier for my yoga mat. I was using the mats at the gym, but they are too short! Instead I've whipped up a quick and simple yoga mat strap. My only problem? I needed bigger buttons!

Here's the pattern:

(Depending on the length of your yoga mat you may want to make each piece longer or shorter)

Ch 70
Turn. dc down the length
ch 3 turn, triple crochet down the length
ch 2 turn, dc down the length
 ...
ch 1 turn. sc 6 - repeat until barely long enough to wrap around your tightly rolled mat
ch 1 turn, sc 2, ch 2, sc 2
ch 1 turn, sc 6
ch 1 turn, sc 2, ch 2, sc 2
ch 1 turn, sc 6
ch 1 turn, sc 2, ch 2, sc 2
ch 1 turn, sc 6
tie off
...

Move to other end and repeat between the ellipses making sure both straps are the same length.
Sew on two medium to large buttons (mine are too small and almost slip out of the hole) one on each end at about the middle of the 3rd triple crochet. The slots in the strap should overlap and the button should line up! Taadaa!

Wasn't that just SOOOOO hard?

Upgrade!

So remember almost a year ago when I posted my Stay Puft Marshmallow Man? I don't know if any of you looked too closely, but I was really a bit disappointed in him! He needed to be bigger and, well... better!

I have this laundry list of about ten different crafts to work on, so what do I do? Ignore the list completely and decide to remake Mr. Stay Puft. Interestingly enough the original amigurumi had the most page views out of all my projects last year, reigning in at approximately 6,600 views! For those super professional bloggers who are laughing at such a small number just remember that this blog is supposed to be laid back (or so my excuse goes).

What am I rambling on for? We all know you just came here to see pictures.

Aww, it's like he has a little deformed brother or something.

And so the glory of my time wasting continues.

In other news my life has been turned a good 90 degrees so I'm trying to rebalance. This is why Mr. Stay Puft took me waaaaay longer than usual to complete. If you read MostlyNerdyNarrative as well then you know it has been a month since I posted chapter 8. Luckily chapter 9 is now up and ready so make sure and check it out.

My days have been littered with doctors appointments and my arm is still bruised from having my blood drawn a week ago. I've been working out at my new gym for 1-2 hours a day with the exception of Tuesdays which are my recovery and volunteer days. So see? I'm starting to find my new routine, it's just taking a little work. The hardest part is that I'm still not sleeping very well and my gym classes are exhausting. Naps have become a regular occurrence but they disrupt the flow of my afternoons so I'm less productive in the evenings. I'll figure that part out as well, but it will take a bit.

I'm going to concentrate on some of my writing for the next few weeks. Crochet will never by far from my reach but I really just want to FINISH my current work so I don't have to bounce back and forth in the plot between posting and writing. I'm up to chapter 13 which I estimate to be about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through the story.

As of Thursday I will find out if I passed the first round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. My writing critique group is always impressed with my work, but then again they are all quite a bit older and may simply be impressed with my work for my age. It's hard to tell.

Enough rambling. I feel a nap coming on. Mmmm.



Organizing

I'm back! After ten days of playing board games and hanging out with the in-laws I'm back in our sunny apartment... which is full of chores that I, for some reason, felt no need to do prior to our departure. So I wake up on Friday and surprise! Instead of cleaning I joined my super awesome friends for a four mile run with some climbing thrown in (we had to venture down a cliff face and play in the water...we just HAD to). Enter exhaustion.

Friday night, the blissful time for sleep finally came and of course my lovely medication decides to kick into insomnia mode. This has been going on for a while now and it doesn't make me a pleasant person to be around. Anyway Saturday I experimented with a capoeira class... I then spent the rest of the day sacked out on the couch...and then proceeded to sleep ten hours last night. This whole sleep issue has really been disrupting my life.

Luckily with a few extra hours I've had enough energy today to finally do the dishes, sweep, put stuff away, and enjoy a Hawaiian hula class. Naturally after all of that I'm back to being sleepy. Ugh.

Hopefully my wonderfully nerdy readers will understand that my focus has been a bit scattered lately. Between trying to up my fitness level, maintain the household, write, research, and constantly switching meds so I can sleep, I'm afraid crochet hasn't been quite as far up on my list as usual.

I do have a fun project going, it's just going to take me a while to finish it. To be honest I would really like to focus on my writing a bit more. The plan is to finish this crochet project, and then take the time to finish some other things as well, including the book that I'm writing for Mostly Nerdy Narrative.

In the mean time I played around with organizing my yarn this week! I had it in clear plastic totes under my desk (which is actually a kotatsu) which worked fine...until it started to overflow.

The fix? Make better use of the closet!

Just look at all that beautiful yarn waiting to be used. I don't have the color selection that I would like, but when you're buying it second hand you don't always get much of a choice. Still, this makes me happy.

On a super side note I finally got a hair cut. Of course my husband didn't take a very good pic, but whatever. We were waiting for iFly, which is an indoor skydiving place in Tukwila, WA. Most amazing experience ever!

Me=dork.

Time Keeps on Slippin'

Holy crap! It has been THREE WEEKS since my last post, and worse, I don't even have anything that spectacular to post about! Maybe I should invite others to join me in my crocheting of nerdy wonder here on MNC. I'm warning you though! I usually like to crochet things that cannot be found in stores, or if they are in stores their quality and look is generally awful. Of course I break my own rules on occasion, but in general that's what I strive for.

People like NerdJerk would fit in, though she is incredible on her own. Check out her Etsy shop. It makes me so happy.

Anywho, the last few weeks have been absolutely nutty for me. I'm not even sure where the time went. I'm pretty sure I went to sleep on January 10th and woke up this morning.

Went back to work at the Thrift Shop after a lovely three week holiday for Christmas/New Years. The place was packed, like, overflowing-got-in-trouble-with-the-fire-chief packed. And by "got in trouble" I mean we had a four page write up that could potentially shut us down. I don't think we will be, but it was still one of those "eeek!" moments.

Luckily my manager is really dedicated and spent a lot of time cleaning it all up. Potential melt down averted. I'll admit that I've been feeling a little distant from the store lately. It's like I'm just not as invested in it as I was when I first volunteered. Of course that was over a year ago and I honestly thought I would have a paying job by now, but I know the others depend on me.

So within the next two weeks of opening I had a slew of doctors appointments and writing critiques and a few other extras that I'll discuss shortly. The biggest issue was this stupid new medication that my doctor had me try out for a month. I started just before Christmas and went until about a week and a half ago before I was able to switch to something else. The stupid stuff caused insomnia, but not even the good kind where you get up and are productive in the odd hours of the night. I was still exhausted but I just couldn't sleep! It was infuriating. I wasn't a very happy person to be around for those few weeks. Now I'm on something else and this last week I took off from the Thrift Store and I've been sleeping... a lot...and it's fantastic.

As with everyone's life there are a multitude of other things going on. I've started running a couple times a week in the morning with a friend of mine. Then I joined her gym so we could go to fitness classes together earlier this week. Since Monday I've gone to ten hour long classes, go me!

The writing contest that I've been working towards opened late Sunday night. I sat in a quivering ball of anxiety while the minutes ticked down. I had my husband come and double check everything while I entered. He's surprisingly good at dealing with my eccentricities. Now my entry is in and I get to wait until Feb 23rd to find out if I passed the first round. I've never worked so hard on my writing as I have for this contest, so I hope I at LEAST pass the first round. Four out of five entries will be cut first thing, so keep your fingers crossed for me.



Alright, now that I've bored you with my life let's look at the one thing I've managed to crochet in the last three weeks.

My grandmother gave me a skein of pale yellow for Christmas...but I'm actually not too fond of pale colors so I made her a cowl with it.

I don't know why I've been on a cowl kick lately, but they're fun and require almost no thought.

I will give you some hints for the project I'm currently working on. If you can guess it I'll post a project you've recently completed for glory and prestige!

Hint One: I have already done one, but wasn't satisfied.

Hint Two: It was the project with the most page views in 2011.

Eventual Plans

This month is not going to be a good crafting month for me. My efforts have been focused on editing and preparing my book so I can submit it to a contest. I doubt I'll win, but I really hope to make it past the first round. Regardless of my expectations I fully intend to give my all. The contest entry period starts at the end of this month and goes until the first week of February, so don't expect to hear much from me between now and then. Sorry!

While I'm working please take the time to imagine me making each of these items into amigurumi.

Things I would really like to make. Eventually.

Robot Devil from Futurama. Duh.

Snowball (the third?) from The Simpsons. This has been a request from my sister.

 

Hedonism Bot from Futurama. He's just too fantastic.

 

A crochet bottle of True Blood. I love the Sookie Stackhouse book and the HBO series True Blood and I fully intend to make SOMETHING to show my love, and since crocheting an Eric would be too hard I'll stick with this. (Hard isn't the right word, but I've found that when trying to accurately turn a person into crochet you lose something in the process)

I'm sure I'll dream up more things, but for now this is a good start. Feel free to help me brainstorm. I think my mind has turned to some sort of grey mush at the moment.

FYI mindless ranting ahead.

 

I've been doing some good work on my sister blog, Mostly Nerdy Narrative. I'm up to chapter seven on my untitled book there and I have up to chapter twelve written, but not posted. It's been a lot of fun to have a place to write and have the occasional person read, though I do wish I got a little more traffic. Then again I used to think that about this blog as well, now I'm quite satisfied.

As far as my book that I've been working on since early 2010 I'm moving forward. I was trying to work with an editor friend, but she flaked out on me and I'm back to my own devices. I've been editing the book (which took me 5 weeks to write) for over a year and a half now. My ultimate dream is to be an author who can live comfortably off her published books. I don't really want to be the next JK Rowling or Stephanie Meyer. Too much pressure and fame.

I guess I just want to have a comfortable life in general, and as I sit here after a nice warm shower and laden with blankets, I guess I'm not too far off the mark. I'm extremely lucky to have the opportunity to pursue these projects, but one day I would like my husband to relax a bit as well. I just gotta make a little money so he doesn't have to work so much!

Well everyone, take care, have a wonderful weekend, and I'll be back soon!