ICADs on a Grid

Daisy Yellow showed a bunch of ICADs today and several of them were done on those index cards with the quarter inch grid instead of lines, so I thought I would show you the ones I've done on those same cards. Well, not the same cards, but, you know, ones like them.

My mom and I ate at a Chinese restaurant and I decided to put my fortune on the above card. Then I filled each square with a different image, though some of the "differences" are only because of the orientation of the design. Of course, there is an alien in there, too.
This one is from a technique I learned here, here and here. I used the grid to lay out the starting dots, then after I had drawn the knot, I used correction tape to sort of cover the grid lines. I kind of like that they aren't covered up completely.


These were all inspired by quilts. I like the way the blue lines work in these.

I Am Not So Much a Knitter

I am a crocheter, but many years ago I finally learned to knit because I saw an article on continental knitting and I was able to do that without it hurting my hands too much. Once I got used to the movements, it didn't hurt at all. Mostly what I knit are dishcloths and most of those are for Christmas presents and for a long time I only knit the classic, ubiquitous, garter stitch on the diagonal dishcloth.
Somewhere along the line I found a very similar pattern, but with only 3 stitches cast on and the yarn over increase done after just the first stitch in each row. It seemed to be a little more symmetrical for me and so I stuck with that.
Then just this last year I decided all on my own to just do a single decrease at the beginning of each row instead on the usual decrease, yarn over, decrease that I had been doing all along. It meant I didn't get that little eyelet edging on the second half, but for me it was worth it to avoid the distortion I would always get on the second, decreasing half of the dishcloth.
Well, didn't that just open a whole world of crazy, because this year I am knitting seed stitch dishcloths. Okay, it's not real-knitter-crazy, but for me this is a big step.



The two at the bottom are from a pattern by Chris Williamson, but I can't find a way to get to it on her website. I originally got it from a yahoo group I'm in called holidaymysterygifts, but the patterns there are only available for a short period of time. New ones every month, though.

Anyway, I was looking for the pattern and came across Devin's Dishcloth which is the one on the needles above. I really like the garter stitch banding around the seed stitch center, especially in the solid color I am using here. I did change the pattern a tiny bit by casting on an odd number of stitches and beginning and ending each row of the center seed stitch section with a purl stitch. I tried it as the pattern is written but ended up with the border being one stitch wider on one side.

I know this is probably the knitting equivalent of crossing the street by yourself, but to me it a big step forward.

ICAD

In July I stumbled on Daisy Yellow and her index card a day challenge. By that time I had already missed the sign-up deadline for her three month summer challenge, but I thought it was such a great idea that I wanted to participate anyway. So, I started on my own that very day.

Now she has a new month at a time challenge and I managed to get myself sign-up in a timely way. Since I am official now, it seemed like a good idea to show some of the cards I have done. Since I am terrible at posting things, it took me this long to do that.

Last night I was trimming some paper and thought these skinny little strips of paper would look interesting on an index card. I was going to add some bits of red to be flowers but I liked the way the "grass" looked so much I decided to stop.



These are some other scraps that I had, and I thought I would use them, too, on another card. Yes, the rules allow making more than one card a day. Since the first one was card 58, this one is 58.1.



The first card from yesterday reminded me of this one I did about a week earlier with still more thin little bits of paper trimmings. I had had the idea as I was going to bed the night before to wrap a string around an index card and this seemed to be the right card to do that with.

The Color Of. . .

Look at the beautiful things you can do here on The Color Of. . . (via daisy yellow):

These are only a few of the images I did there. Go try it yourself. Now.

Friday the 13th

So how was your day?

At 7:41 this morning we heard a horrific sound that even our 12 year old (who makes the most of every possible moment of sleep before it is time to go to school) couldn't sleep through.

As you look out our front door there is an elementary school right across the street and a hill to the left. Someone coming down that hill apparently had a seizure with her foot on the accelerator sideswiped our neighbor's car, probably totaling it, jumped the curb in front of our house, tore off our mailbox, flew through a planter with -- luckily for her, I think -- three large, heavy block and concrete posts, our trash can enclosure and a fence and into the neighbors' backyard stopping several yards short of the neighbors' pool.
It is how close she came to the pool that makes me think it was good she hit those block and concrete posts. If they had not slowed her down I hate to think of what might have happened.

That is not the most amazing thing though. At that time of day parents are dropping off their children and there are usually lots of children getting out of cars, on the sidewalk and running across the street. No cars were parked in front of our house. Usually there are 3-4. Wow. No one was hurt. Even the driver and her son were walking around after the accident thought I'm sure it will be awhile before they are actually all right. How terrifying it must have been, especially for the son who was not having a seizure and so was aware of what was happening.

Paradox Fun

You may have noticed that I do enjoy doing zentangles from time to time. When I first heard about them, I would try to find patterns that I could figure out how to do on my own. As I have learned more I have sometimes found that my idea of how to do a pattern was different and often harder than the correct way. There is a wonderful website, Tangle Patterns, that has links to how-to's for all sorts of patterns.
One of the things I learned from a link on that site is how to draw the pattern Paradox. It is one of my favorite patterns now that I know how to do it. It is almost ridiculously easy, but until I saw the directions I could not figure it out. Oh, I tried, but I made it much harder than it needed to be. And it didn't look anywhere as nice. It might have been possible for someone to figure out that I was trying to draw Paradox, but that is as close as I ever got on my own.
Armed with the knowledge of how to do the pattern, I came across a zentangled drawing that the artist alleged was from Paradox, but that was beyond me. I saw it or similar designs more than once and stared at it until I figured it out. They look something like this, which was my first attempt at it.I was very pleased with myself for figuring it out and thought I would show you how to do it, too.
The first step is to learn how to draw the basic Paradox. The same method can be used to fill in shapes other than triangles.
Next, divide the area you will be filling into smaller areas for the individual Paradox patterns. On the top of the first one I did (above) it happened to form an sort of star pattern that I wanted to try to duplicate so I drew this:
Then I started filling in the shapes with the Paradox pattern. Here it is with just the upper right area filled in:
Each space was then filled with the Paradox pattern working each time in a clockwise direction. That is what gives those S-column (for lack of a better word) shapes where two Paradoxes meet. If you look carefully you can see that I have kept the pictures of these three steps oriented the same way to make it easier to believe it is that simple.
Next, I tried dividing a space into six (an even-number) shapes radiating from a sort-of center point. Sorry there is no before picture. I wanted to see what would happen if I alternated the direction of the Paradoxes as I filled in the shaped. For instance, in this example the upper right shape is done clockwise while the upper left shape was done in a counter-clockwise direction.
It is the change of direction that gives the fans and points of this design.

Last, I wanted to show you this envelope I recycled using the same idea. This was done while I was watching TV with my daughter. After I had filled in a couple of shapes she looked over and asked me what had happened to the first two shapes I had drawn. The pattern overwhelms the initial shape it fills.
It is something you almost have to try to understand. Or at least that is how my brain works.

Courtney Milan

Smart Bitches Trashy Books just hosted an online chat about Courtney Milan's most recent book Unveiled. I finished reading the book about 15 minutes before the chat and it is, like all her books wonderful. She is an excellent writer.
But I am not telling you this so that you will go out and buy her book -- which you should do -- but because for the last half hour of the chat Courtney Milan herself joined us and I got to ask her a question and she answered it using my name. As I told my daughter, I am now considering myself part of her body of written work. Squee.
What do you mean, that isn't how it works? Are you saying that it will be possible for scholars of the future to get PhD's in the works of Courtney Milan, without any mention of my place in her writings in their dissertations? Sorry, that disappointment is not going to overcome my happiness.

Zentangled Valentine's Bookmarks

Here are two bookmarks I made for a swap on swapbot. The picture was taken before I covered the bookmarks with packing tape and strung some fibers through the hole in the top of each bookmark to fancy them up, because I didn't want to deal with glare on the bookmarks. If you click on the picture, a larger image of it should appear on your computer.

The pink bookmark is the one that actually fulfills the requirement of the swap which is for a zentangled bookmark. I adapted some patterns (unyun, finery, and paradox) to be valentine-y and then just filled in with puf, netting (bottom of the page, but check out that map of the USA just above the instructions for netting) and some tassels. On the netting I added some petals to the center to fill it in visually. The shading was done with a red colored pencil, instead of the standard no.2.

The white one is based on an ATC that I did a couple of years ago, that is based on a pattern I was trying to copy from something I saw on deviant art when I was looking for patterns to use in zentangles. I could not get the pattern right and hearts kept showing up in the pattern. Well, I gave up, outlined the hearts in red colored pencil and said I planned it that way. When I tried to do the same thing on the bookmark, I couldn't get a single heart to volunteer to show up, but had to go back and fit them in. Funny how things work out.

Nine Inchie Puzzle

Here is an abstract drawing to be cut into 9 inchies to make a puzzle for a swap on swap-bot.
And here it is cut.

Scraps ATC

I hate to throw something away when I think I can use it but sometimes there are just too many bits and pieces lying around. When I made the last ATC, the lazy daisy one two posts ago, I was bothered by the nest of leftover bits of thread from previous projects, so I took an ATC back that I had cut from the back of a Christmas card and started poking holes to make rectangle shapes, doing a few of the larger ones and then filling in with the smaller shapes. Then I just got to stitching and voila! the thread nest is gone.

By the way, I posted the ATC upside down. I'm sure that if you will just stand up, lean over and look at it in the correct orientation you will see what a difference it makes. Probably only because your brain will thank you for an extra little rush of blood and your body will enjoy a little stretch, but you never know.

Walking

Lazy Daisy ATC

This is an ATC for my partner in the Embroidery ATC Series #2 -- Lazy Daisy swap over on Swap-bot.
Oddly enough she was also my partner in the first swap of the series which was for the chain stitch.
The Lazy Daisy stitch is also known as the detached chain stitch and it is a great stitch to use for simple flowers. I also used it in this very small (2" including the tail) Dotee doll pin and in some bottle cap pincushions here and here.
If you would like to know how to do the stitch yourself you can take a look at Sharon B's stitch dictionary. While you are there you can take a look at her amazing I dropped the button box crazy quilt. Click on any of the thumbnails and see the beautiful work she does. Eye candy.

Hmmm

These are some of the things that have caught my eye.

Very clever idea for making faux wrought iron wall decor.

A few years ago my brother and his wife were talking about a contest they were having to see which of them could read the most books that year. That got me wondering how many books I read each year so I started keeping a list of the title and author and a quote from the book.
Then I thought it would be better to write down the main characters and a summary of the plot. This has turned out to be very helpful.
Combine that with a love of bookmarks and you can see why I really like this idea from the Making Books blog.
Another great place to keep track of the books you are reading, to write reviews and to read other people's reviews and to get ideas for new books to read is Goodreads.
By the way, I read 88 books last year, including the Bible. If I was doing the contest thing I would have counted the Bible as 66 books.

And then there's this. How do people think of these things?

Randomness

Every year I like to take all the letters and pictures that came with Christmas cards and put them in a special album just for that purpose. Well, if you can believe it, the people who send me pictures do not get together and coordinate their pictures so that they fit beautifully on the pages and I am left with blank spots to fill in with whatever. Luckily for them, that is one of my favorite parts.

The last few years I have tried to use what they actually sent (stickers on the envelopes, stamps,
parts of the cards) to fill in any blank spots. This is my favorite from this year -- well, last year, but I did it this year.
The image of the angels is from a return address label, and the background is from the back of a card. I thought it was a nice way to use something that might have been thrown away -- the address label -- and something that would have ended up in a pile of things I might use for something eventually -- the back of the card.





Then we have a picture of Rover guarding the vegetable patch or what is left of it after he ate most of the lettuces. He looks so serious, making sure the camera doesn't think it is going to get any of these vegetables.

Off to his right there are actually a lot of broccoli plants. My son loves broccoli, and we hope that it grows well. The leaves have gotten quite large and healthy looking, but we have not seen anything that looks like broccoli growing on them yet. This is our first year trying to grow it, so it is a learning experience for all of us. Except for our daughter who doesn't much care for vegetables and would probably prefer us to grow some nice meaty livestock.

Take the Quiz here!

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Valentine's Card

This is the card I made last night at our church's craft night. Most people made more than one, but I was having fun with a friend who was working on a garland that spells out L O V E.
It was so fun to see all the many styles of cards that were available to make and of course even people who were following the same sample ended up with cards that looked so different.
Kathryn Mullins is the woman who hosted this and she was so generous with her time and talent and supplies and so encouraging as we worked on our cards and as some went on to come up with their own ideas. What a talented lady.

Rover's 1st Haircut

Last Friday, my husband took Rover in for a haircut. When the groomer saw that he was only 6 months old she did not want to give him a haircut because it can be pretty scary for such a young dog, but my husband assured her that he would be fine so she gave it a try. He jumped once when he first heard the clippers, but after that he was fine.
He is just as handsome as can be and he knows it.

A Thought

"Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Just wanted to share a thought from Dr. King.

In a few minutes I will be going to a craft night at church. We will be making valentines and working on our own projects. After valentines I will be working on a zentangle pattern zine for a swap.

And As It Always Has: Rock Crushes Scissors

If you are a fan of Big Bang Theory you will enjoy this chart which explains Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock.

Walking

Angela Hunt on the Devil and Demons

This is part two to the article I mentioned last week that Angela Hunt wrote on angels.

A quote from the article:
Demons can do scary things, but they’re much more likely to do beautiful things in order to fool people into following false religions. Because Satan hates God, he wants to keep people from following God. So he uses every trick in his book, not to convince people to follow him, but to follow anything but God.

Very much worth reading the whole thing.

The Point

"The battle is not the point. Evil is not the point. The point is the love story. We live in a love story that is set in the midst of a war. When you understand those two things, you will suddenly understand Christianity, and you will understand your own life."
-- John Eldredge

When I was adding list of books I had read in 2010 to the archives of books read, I found the above quote from the book Adam by Ted Dekker which I read in 2009. It isn't in the book itself but in an interview included with the book.

Chain Stitch ATC

This is for a swap on Swap-bot for the first in a series of Embroidered ATC's. This one is for the chain stitch. My first thought when I saw this was to use some of the South African embroidery -- love the 2 Ndebele ladies pattern there -- techniques I had learned last year which often start off with a chain stitch and then embellish that stitch, but finally I decided to just go with a plain old chain stitch.
One thing I learned when I did the dragonfly ATC is that I did not want to draw on the card itself and then punch the holes, because there is always erasing to do and that doesn't always go so well on the darker background. So this time I drew on a piece of scrap paper cut to ATC size and once I was happy with that I used that as my template as I poked a pin through it and the actual card. The nice thing is I have the pattern for myself if I want to try it again with the more embellished chain stitches.
Next, I picked some shorter lengths of embroidery floss I had in my stash and that I thought looked good with the ATC card (which was cut from the back of a Christmas card) and got busy doing the chain stitch.
Hope my partner likes it.
The next swap in the series is for the lazy daisy stitch.

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Two Ads I Hate and One I Like

Twice today I saw the Bayer aspirin ad with the man on the plane who is suffering from back pain. He asks the stewardess for help by pointing to a page in some booklet that shows some Asian characters and the English words "back pain." She offers him Bayer aspirin.
"I'm not having a heart attack," he says.
The stewardess assures him that aspirin can also relieve pain. And it turns out she is right! Who knew stewardesses were up on the latest in medical research?
And that's right, I am saying stewardess instead of flight attendant because it reminds me of an earlier time when people knew that aspirin could relieve pain.
Here is the real question: Why is this man allowed to travel overseas all by himself? Where are his mommy and daddy?

The second ad I hate is the one that starts off saying, "Many men over 45 [insert random symptoms here]." It ends by saying, "don't blame it on aging."
Was this written as one of those party games where each person writes a different line without knowing what anyone else wrote and then hilarity ensues when you read all the lines together? Am I just missing the joke?

Then we have the Mayhem ads. I enjoy them so much. This might be my favorite:


It reminds me of this scene in Fried Green Tomatoes:

Folder Journal

The most recent issue of Cloth, Paper Scissors (Jan/Feb 2011) has an article called Folder Journal about making a journal from a manila folder.
When she came over for Thanksgiving my mom gave me an almost full box of surplus legal-size manila folders from her office.
So clearly this was meant to be:



Since this was my first attempt at this project I decided to use some paper I didn't like very much which is some of the orange papers. As the project came together I found myself liking the way the orange paper looked and adding other papers and bits & pieces that I thought fit in . Eventually I will be adding some of my favorite Bible verses and maybe some other inspirational things to the back of the journal cards. Once I get that done, I will have a better idea of just how to finish the fronts of the cards.

Angela Hunt on Angels

I think it has only been in the last year that I read my first Angela Hunt book, The Canopy which is about an American researcher who is dying of a particular type of brain disease and is looking for a cure in the Amazon jungle. It was fascinating to learn about the people of the Amazon and their spiritual beliefs, especially about Yai Pada (so impressed that I remembered that name).
Next I read The Debt. I had to force myself to get into that one since it is about the wife of a televangelist, but it turned out to be one of the most worthwhile books I read last year. The title is based on the story Jesus told of the the two men who each owed a debt to another man. One owed a large sum of money while the other man owed a small amount. Neither could pay so the man they owed the money to forgave both debts. Jesus asked the listeners which of the two men loved the one who forgave their debts more. I don't want to say anything else about the story because you should read it for yourself. Wonderful.
More recently I read The Novelist about a very successful author who is teaching a community college class about writing. The way Ms. Hunt tells that story is very interesting as she writes about the author/teacher and her family and students and then also shares the story she is writing as she teaches the class.
Of the three, The Debt is my favorite, but I have a few more of her books waiting in my to-be-read stack so that may change.

Anyway, the only reason I am sharing that with you is that I wanted to share the post she put up yesterday about angels. It debunks some of the popular myths about angels and I look forward to reading part two next week.

Christmas Wish

Normally our church raises money in October to be sent to our missionaries as a Christmas gift above and beyond their normal support. Last year they raised about $4,000 dollars. We support about 25 missionaries.
This year nothing was said until after Thanksgiving. The elders and staff had decided they wanted to buy new mattresses for the local homeless shelter. Including our missionaries' Christmas gift, which they had already sent out on faith, they would need to raise $15,000. Now we have a pretty giving church as it is and we haven't escaped the current economic situation so that was quite a step of faith. I forgot to mention that they did not tell the homeless shelter they would do what they could. No, they promised the mattresses.
The Sunday before Christmas was the big day when they would be taking a separate offering just for this "Christmas Wish." Of course, some money had also come in the previous two Sundays since they made their announcement.
At the Christmas Eve service they told us that they had met their goal and had enough money to send the missionaries a second Christmas gift. Then, with the money leftover after the two Christmas gifts to the missionaries and after buying the mattresses they gave the head of the homeless shelter a check for $10,000 for anything else they might need.
This Sunday they said that a little more money had come in for this same project and they had used it to pay medical bills for two missionaries who have had some serious health problems this year.
Wow.
**********
I have received full payment and have more than enough. I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:18-19

Happy New Year!

So clearly I have not been a faithful blogger, but I have been looking forward to making trying to be better at this one of my new year's resolutions. Let's see how long it takes me to break this one.
The sad part is that even though I have been looking forward to this and have been on the computer twice earlier today, it did not occur to me that I should actually post something until after my husband came back from the dog park and became involved in some British comedy series (curse you Netflix "watch now").
Now you may be asking yourself why my husband would be at the dog park. This is why:

This is Rover. Our son picked out the name since this is "his" dog. It is a classic dog name and yet I have never actually known a dog with that name, but I love it.
Anyway, Rover joined our family the week before Thanksgiving. He is a Miniature Schnauzer. Neither my husband nor I have had a Miniature Schnauzer before, but we think this one is wonderful. So far he has learned the commands sit, stand and come. If he thinks you have a treat for him he will go back and forth between sit and stand until you realize that you should have a treat for him.
He loves to go outside and being a terrier, I am sure that he would love to find a mouse or gopher in our yard, but so far he has had to content himself with pincher bugs and earthworms. My only hope is that the rabbit we had visiting last year decides to not come back again this year.

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