Really kind of boring beading though, but it's for a tutorial on how to follow a graph for a friend so I'm doing basic peyote beads. Figure if the friend needs it, other beaders need it too right?

Other than that, trying to convince Mike to write me another guest blog, because the world needs more of his ranty, cursing honesty. Maybe this one can be on defensive drivers being a hazard on the road. He's busy taking notes for a stand up routine, when I laugh myself he writes himself a note. I think he should write a bit about the power of gravity and black holes and the total suckage of the galaxy, but he probably won't. He will probably write about Minty the Elf though.

Let's see.. nunchaku are half finished. I came up with 3 methods to fill them depending on usage and well.. how patient you are filling things. I'm not very. I used one of the 2 quick methods so I wouldn't have to deal with lumps from using too much stuffing at a time.

Considered a craft ninja costume with patchwork appliques, a knit shawl for a mask, carrying plastic canvas shuriken and of course, the crocheted nunchaku. Someone who could disappear in a cloud of glitter. The thought amused me entirely too much.

I got my swatches from Spoonflower, you can see them here.

Because I just read him my icon.

Today we went to the zoo since I was finally feeling well enough after a week of rotten weather that left me cranky hurty and overly emotional.
At the zoo, he was laughing at me, because I was taking pictures of mushrooms. I tried to explain it to him, but finally just settled for him pointing out those very pretty and poisonous mushrooms that are sort of orange and red so I could get pictures of them. Because mushrooms are cute. I did not take pictures of naked alpacas but I did tell them they were naked for a good cause.
I also got some good pictures of magpies, and we saw a blue jay teasing the snow leopards. See, the snow leopard enclosure is completely fenced in, and it kept bouncing on the top of the fence just over the leopards head, the leopard would get right under it, and the jay would scold and sound like it was laughing.
It was funny. We spent a good 10 minutes laughing at that jay's antics. Caw caw!
--
Recently Nova played the episode about black holes at the center of the galaxy, and the wonderment of scientists finding proof that there was evidence of black holes at the center of most galaxies. I was really exhausted with hurting that night so I went to bed in the middle of it rambling as Mike tucked me in about the silliness of the scientists being so surprised. I said "It makes sense, because of the orbits and stuff that the universe operates on gravity which isn't very well understood. It's the power of suck."
He kissed my forehead and said "Go to sleep Shala."
So I asked William. "William, why does the moon orbit earth?"
"Gravity."
"Why does the earth orbit the sun?"
"Gravity." (at this point he's giving that "Mom, you're crazy, but I'll humor you." look)
"Okay, galaxies rotate, the sun and other stars rotate, what's in the middle of the galaxy?"
"Probably a black hole."
See??? He's not a scientist! But given the givens, he thought it made sense that a black hole was in the middle of it all. And I was right. It's the power of suck. Or gravity.
---
I'm crocheting nunchaku. Which led to a very silly conversation. I mentioned that I was sizing them for myself. I looked up the standard dimensions for traditional nunchaku. The cord should cross the palm with just enough for the sticks to hang over the sides, and the stick parts should be long enough when held to protect the forearms. Mike said "They are crocheted, they will not protect your forearm." and I said "Yes, but I have to size them to someone and my hands and arms are the smallest, and I want them to be as accurate as possible."
"They are soft plushie nunchaku, not weapons."
"But they COULD be. I could fill them with steel shot."
"And practice the subtle art of chet (pronounced shay, like the end of crochet)"
"Mike, you're being silly."
"Oh, I'm SO sorry."

Working on- crocheted nunchaku (pattern will be available when I finish them)
Cupcake box sized for a standard cupcake (will be posted soon)
Tutorial for reading a peyote bead graph

On deck- Article on shaping peyote around objects with gorgeous examples by Miss Teri, and some sort of ogala butterfly project.

The so far going on 8 year kitchen re-model means that sometimes I can't find things. Like my cupcake pans. I know I have cupcake pans. Where they are? Not the slightest idea. So rather than buy more unless I can find some at a thrift store,I'm going to go ahead and buy some awful grocery store cupcakes tomorrow to take measurements off of. Of course, with 2 teenagers, sure, they prefer homemade, but they will eat store bought in nothing flat too. People keep asking me if some of my boxes will fit a standard size cupcake and I'm pretty sure that the only one that might is the 2.25 inch box, but I think a 3 inch box would be a better fit. But that will have to be printed out on 2 sheets. I'll include an insert to center the cupcake in the box.
The last couple of days, I've been having fun with making rosettes in graphics that I think look like wrought iron kind of. I'll pop one on a box in a bit.
Other things- Danna and I were talking about bead projects the other day, and we came up with an idea for a mini cupcake beaded pincushion I'll work on making later. I think it will make a nice gift for seamstresses on your Christmas list. We also talked about how much there needs to be a tutorial to show people how to follow a bead pattern. Those of us who've been doing it for years easily don't always understand how that every other row at a time on a peyote chart can be confusing for new beaders.
Well.. sort of like some of my crochet patterns. I assume that because a pouch is easy, people won't be interested in a pattern, but Becka talked me into posting some of my crochet pattern years ago and I'm always surprised by what it turns out people do use.

This month's Living magazine has a feature on needle felting, which is something E and I have talked about trying before, so this weekend we are going to hit our favorite surplus store and pick up some old wool blankets and make scarves with felted designs. I'm one of those unlucky people who is wool sensitive. With gloves or a good thick glove type lotion I can work with it, but wearing it.. not so much. However E and William can both do wool, in fact, I make their hats in it.
Second Chance also carries ammo cases, so we may get some of those as well. William uses them just plain to hold his cards and some of his miniatures. E and I were looking at them for knitting needles and knitting projects.

( fractal earrings )
x-posted to beadwork

While I was out having coffee with Miss Teri Friday night, I picked up the second issue of Stuffed Magazine by Stampington and Company, the same wonderful company that does Somerset Studio.
It's wonderful. The sort of high quality photography you expect from this company and the projects are lovely and artistic. There are a lot that are just pure inspiration and the techniques are varied. There are hand sewn dolls and a pattern for a Coraline type doll that just thrilled my daughter, and amigurumi that made me very happy. Sock dolls and furry monsters. It's a great magazine if you are into making stuffies, and really, who isn't? I think I must make myself a Coraline style mini-me.


In amigurumi news, I'm working on a pattern for a base for a Momiji style amigurumi. (you know, all the Japanese words I know are craft related?) Ideally, I'll take notes so I can post the pattern for a simple doll form that will have a channel in the bottom that you can put rolled notes into. I could do it for cards, but I think rolled notes will be easier. Momiji are secret message dolls, they are shaped a lot like kokeshi dolls and have a space in the bottom for a wee note.

Speaking of kokeshi dolls, blank kokeshi can be a little expensive, but Miss Teri found a dowel cap and doll form combination that's got great proportions for beading kokeshi style dolls.

I didn't get the packaging from her on Friday to find out what exactly she got that fit together that perfectly, but I will ask. The dowel caps make perfect really big cute heads don't they? You could paint them, or wood burn them, or use thread crochet to cover them, or do what I'm planning and bead them like my little ninja. First one I want to do will be a little green alien, but I look at them and see Guardians of Oa too.

*smiles evilly at rodeo addicted cowgirl*
I finished my ninja! Also just because, pictures of a cattail stand that I pass on the way to the gym.
( looky here! )
Today well.. I beaded. Lots, and about 2:45 E started pointedly getting ready to go to the gym because we agreed we were going swimming today. So we went and played in the pool for a couple hours. Then Mike picked us up to go get comics and I came home and finished up the little ninja.
E said it was the cutest beaded ninja she ever saw. I asked her if she ever saw any others. She said "No" so I said "Then it's the ugliest, the meanest, the biggest, the smallest and the silliest beaded ninja you've ever seen as well." and she sighed and said "No. Just the cutest."

Read and reviewed two YA novels last night. You can find those here if you're interested. My favorite was Ash. Just a lovely little fairy tale with an unconventional happily ever after.
Also did some beading, and posted an article up at Beadwork at BellaOnline. If you are all beady, you can find that here.
A couple days ago, made a new set of printable boxes with a ring design. You can find that here.
Umm.. what else?
Well.. the usual. Cooked. Cleaned. Finished a knitting project last night and taught E to knit on dpns.
Made mac and cheese for dinner last night, which is a recipe I'm constantly messing with, trying to adjust it to be just right for everyone's tastes. E is picky about mac and cheese, and I started with something that was very much a box mix type clone, the sort with the soft cheese, not the powdery stuff. That was about 8 years ago. Through the years, I've been changing it just a bit at a time to fit Mike's and my tastes and make it a little more grown up, plus balancing my love for super cheesy with his wanting super saucy and figuring out where it's too much milk and not enough cheese and vice versa. Last night's was just about spot on. Which figures, I didn't measure anything. Sometime in the last year, E started being okay with stir ins like chicken or carrots (as long as they don't get mushy, which means put them in right before I bake it, and bake it only long enough to get the crust crusty). Yum yum!

I keep feeling like there is something I should do. But.. I think I've been fairly productive today, and now I'm going to go have some sort of caloric splurge.

A tiny beaded rose made out of size 15/0 seed beads
( showing off behind the cut )

Solstice fair today. Yay!!

( an honest attempt at cherry pie slices )

People who knew me years ago keep asking for current pictures. It's like they've forgotten how much I hate having my picture taken. I prefer to be on the other side of the camera. Really truly.
I had ONE picture in one yearbook. Because I forgot that was day they were taking class pictures and actually showed up at school. A very few people have seen pictures of me other than the one I have up at BellaOnline.com or the ones I've retouched heavily to hide my scars.
So.. ( do you think this picture will do? )

( click here to see )
Other than that.. bread did not get accomplished today. I did make omelets with my perfect little omelet pan, and there was much rejoicing. Or at least not too many complaints about how perfectly round and cute it was. Like a little cake made of cheesy eggy goodness.
Just back from the gym now, and full of sore. I couldn't find my sports bra so wore the lightest regular bra I could find and stuck to resistance type exercise, and pushed as hard as I could on those. I'm thinking tomorrow is going to be a day full of sore muscles.

Using Jump Rings With Seed Beads
Plus there is a picture of my new fake diamond necklace there.

Note about the colors, a friend is beading these up for me in the right colors. Which I didn't have on hand. I used what I had and made them to test the shape. This is another set from my sweets set of patterns.
( over here )

Off one of the patterns I have posted here.
( Roger isn't really jolly. )

When I got in the car to go with Mike to get comics, he was listening to classical. He doesn't often, but I remembered how much I loved listening to classical while I bead.

Well.. now I'm taking a short break from all the projects I'm working on to go play a game or read a book or something.

A pair of rainbow earrings, and a pair of chocolate chip cookie earrings.
( come see! )

I'm in a lot of pain today so it's sort of hard to focus on what I meant to get done.
Updated Beadwork at BellaOnline with a sort of silly thing, instructions for converting a peyote pattern to a regular graph. It's a joke, since people keep asking how to like there is this quick and easy way to convert graphs.
School Needlework at Vintage Sewing Info, a ton of information on hand sewing and darning. (Darning socks, not the kind of darn that takes you straight to heck.)
Build a table top loom, which is very nifty, but fairly involved. (pdf)
More fun and something you can set up to do with younger kids, or have older kids help you build?
Thread Banger has this great weaving project.(youtube) It's a great use for scraps and such and the technique would work well with selvages.

Well.. more later. Time to go try to be productive.
I hope you all had a day with a lot of laughter.

And oh yeah.. me? Without coffee?? I think my family would start sneaking it into fruit juice or something.. too scary to contemplate.

I wound up going out to meet Miss Teri for coffee last night as planned, and as usual, seeing her was very calming and nice. She's just that way. We discussed a lot of things. The lack of good inexpensive earring collection books and if I should do one. Since you know.. I've got lots of earring patterns, I showed her my kindle 2 and all the niftiness of it. Of course, one of the drawing points for me seems to be a down point for everyone else. The screen is not backlit. I like that. It means for the way I read, no fatiguing eyeglare.
She gave me a little coffin shaped keyring flask to bead, which absolutely wants a little bat on it, and some new thread to try. *happiness*
We talked for a couple hours. About vampire books and tv shows, and sci-fi from the 70s. Emma Peel and Dollhouse. I took a flexeril shortly after getting there, and she was sufficiently distracting to help me forget how much I'd been hurting all day.

After we got home, I fixed cod for dinner with melon. It was a low fat way of doing the cod. I covered it with key lime juice and then mixed in some seasoned cornflake crumbs and baked it until nice and flaky, then we all had a lot of melon as a side dish which kept it nice and easy for me. Not a lot of standing time. Everyone liked it. Even E who thinks unless it's beer battered halibut, fish should be stick shaped.
Other then baking and spending time with Miss Teri, I didn't do anything yesterday. That's part of why I was so frustrated. I feel like I should get something accomplished each day, and it just wasn't happening yesterday. Today looks to be a bit better.
Part of what Mike, Teri and I talked about yesterday was the possibility of me doing print copies of the greyscale bead instruction book I'm working on and selling it with a cd with a collection of my patterns on it.

But my sleeping schedule is still all messed up from being sick. So instead of waking me, Mike asked what I had planned for dinner, he knew I had a plan, or I'd have told him to stop by the store. I said "Turkey burgers, mac and cheese, fresh fruit." and he said he'd take care of it. A couple hours later when I came out of the bedroom wiping sleep out of my eyes, E and Mike were discussing the fact she wasn't thrilled with dinner. Which was odd. She LOVES turkey burgers and mac and cheese, and we have apples! Mike said "She didn't like how I seasoned it."
See.. he tends to over season, and rather than make me something I couldn't eat for seasoning overload, he underseasoned it, and apparently didn't know I use Worcestershire on turkey burgers (a no anchovy kind, Krogers if your curious. It's easier to find a no anchovy sauce then to make it from scratch). E only ate one, she usually has two. So I said "So you like mine better?" and she said "OH yes." Then, because she hates to be mean.. she said "I mean.. no. Daddy's are good too. I just add lots of pepper." And I looked at her plate, and she wasn't kidding. There was no food, but still a ton of pepper around the edges of her plate. Like she POURED the pepper on to eat it. Mike of course was laughing at this point, and said "It's okay, I prefer your mom's too."
So I decided before I go to sleep, whenever I go to sleep, I'm going to try and stay up late enough to work on getting my schedule right by the weekend, I'm going to mix up some of my mom's sauce, and Mike can make sloppy joes for dinner.
I'm designing a new gift box in my head, so I'll probably work on that, I also need to write a book review, and try to figure out what I'm entering in Fur Rondy this year. I'm half tempted to make a new mermaid necklace and enter that. My last one turned out so amazing, but I'm also thinking of beading the incredibly sparkly 27 mm after market coated rivoli I've had sitting on my desk for a few months. Make something sparkly and formal looking.
Wm came over this weekend, and we finally did his birthday dinner. He picked China Lights as expected, and ate a lot of sushi. I ate a plateful of fruit and veggies, a couple pieces of fried shrimp, and a couple chicken skewers, and sort of regretted that I wasn't hungrier since they do have great food there. He was planning to learn to bake bread this weekend, but decided he'd rather read, so he did. I joked when he left that he came over for the food and books.
Sunday morning, I decided to make biscuits for everyone. E came over and saw what I was doing, and asked if I was going to add anything. I said "Well.. your grandma used to make cinnamon rolls with biscuit dough, I guess I could do that." and she said "I'm not sure daddy would like cinnamon and sugar." and as she kept giving me suggestions, I finally gave her half the dough to do what she wanted with. What she wanted turned out to be dried pesto seasoning and cayenne. I swear that child will put cayenne on ice cream someday. We popped them in the oven, and she was happy with how they turned out. I think she was inspired from the bread we baked last week.
Mike was less enthused. He told me next time to let her know that being creative for dinner breads is good, but in the morning, he LIKES cinnamon and sugar. He did manage to eat one of her biscuits and told her they were good. Wm was a lot more enthused, and ate a couple. One with nutella. I don't even want to know what that tasted like.
So.. that's a not brief at all run down of my food weekend. Other than that, we read, and avoided going out too much. It's slick outside, treacherous, but it's at least warming up. It's 20 degrees right now! So now that I'm not worried about drafts (it's a lot easier to keep the house warm at 20 then at -20) I started my sourdough. So this weekend, I'm going to make a nice happy loaf of sourdough bread. Yum yum!

Beading rivolis.
Also made meringues last night. Nice to feel halfway human again!

( simple wire copper necklace )
I tend to doodle in wire sometimes when I'm watching tv. A lot of the components are hammered for texture and to harden the pieces somewhat.

I was thinking of doing glitter stencils later. I need to find my foam brushes, but if I do, I'll post instructions and some stencils.

E and I are going to make meringues tomorrow. I remember making them for my favorite dance teacher when I was a kid. She liked them because they were non-fat.

Instructions for my record bracelets are now up at Beadwork at BellaOnline.com.

In some ways, we are tech junkies. I have 3 ipods, my kids each have one, and Mike has one. I carry a big purse to hold my sunglasses hard case, and all my toys, one lip balm, and the little notebook I keep notes in. We have 1000 watts of screaming Dolby sound in our sound system. But I've never bought a tv in my life, and I don't see the point of cable when the tv is off all day until Mike gets home from work, and even then, MOST of what we watch is on demand from itunes so we aren't chained to a tv schedule. So even when I suggest cable or dish network, he thinks it's a needless extra expense too.
But we live in a depression, and our reception gets a bit screwy sometimes. So far, he's bought 3 antennas to try and pick up all those digital signals, and the cheapest one worked best, but didn't let us get 2 networks consistently. The very expensive Quantum antenna went back the next day, with Mike saying he finally figured out why quantum mechanics is unprovable. Nobody wants to admit quantum means piece of $h**. Back to the cheap antenna.
So he searched youtube, and built an antenna last night, that works better then the very expensive quantum antenna. He wrote Quantum on it when it was done. Instructions are here.It's ugly, but it works better then even the expensive antennas he's bought in the past.