No more sewing for me!
February 8, 2009 
Well, not really. But I’m not sewing or knitting to sell anymore. I will however start selling my dyed fiber/yarn starting in March.
Sewing just really is not in my heart. I have been cleaning/destashing/organizing my crafts room and I packed up 9 boxes of fabric that I know I’ll never use. Alot of it I still like, but they’re not favorites and don’t have plans, so off they go.
I think I may change the title of this blog to Cajun Crafts — if I can anyway. May have to start a new blog and just blog everything there. I do not like posting different things in different places – I’d much rather post everythng in one space – life, business, crafts.
New blog it is! http://cajuncrafts.wordpress.com is my new home
Happy New Year
December 31, 2008 
The boy doesn’t like fireworks. He buried his face into my neck and when one went off, he would shake. When we were finished, we came in and he told me with a mean face ‘I don’t like it’ lol! Abby enjoyed watching, but didn’t like the loud noises they made.
Miserable sinuses
December 26, 2008 
I hate head colds. HATE. The pressure is horrid and only getting worse despite using Sinus Rinse. I’ve rinsed out my sinuses twice already today and will probably do so again after writing this. I’m getting some pain too and starting to wonder if I might have a sinus infection. I can only seem to take Dayquill or I can’t sleep, but I took the Equate version of Psuedafed tonight out of desperation. I’m also almost tempted to go and get some Zicam decongestant spray but I get easily addicted to that and when I try to go off of it the congestion is worse. Add to all that a sore throat and dizziness from some happy pills and it makes for one miserable mama.
Yet, thanks to said happy pills I am indeed, much happier. Calmer, more patient and more loving to the kids. I won’t go into details but things were pretty bad for awhile. I went to a temporary doctor to get a one month supply, and after New Year or even this Monday possibly, I’ll be making a call to the Mental Health Clinic.
I bound off on my Star Struck wristwarmers from the previous post, but I still need to get the thumb done and weave in the tails. However, I made myself a cute little hat and it didn’t match the wristwarmers so I needed to make some matchy matchy, so I started a new pair of wristwarmers. After these are done I will make a hat to match the Star Struck gloves.
Christmas was good, the kids had a blast. Matthew’s Santa gift is a hit, he walked around the corner of the sofa, saw it (it wasn’t wrapped) stopped, stared, pointed and went WOW! So cute. Abby tore through all her presents and was just looking for the next one – while Matthew had to be cajoled into opening more since he was happy playing with what he had. Abby got a nice big dollhouse and she loves it, she wants to play Barbies all the time now. Her other big hit was a Go Fish game and we’ve been playing it at least twice a day.
I recieved a necklace from the kids (who didn’t even know they got me anything lol) that says mom we heart you. Very nice — but the chain is too short for my fat neck so we have to exchange it.
What’s new
In a few words – books: Twilight seris (have not been able to see the movie yet); Eragon (Inheritance Cycle) Seris; spinning; knitting.
Right now I’m spinning angora, like literally, right now. Well right before posting this anyway. I’m not liking 100% pure angora so much – it falls apart way easily. This is raw angora as well as far as I know, not processed, straight from the bunnies at Handspun Harvest after having the fiber carded for me. I love it, it is sooo soft but really a pita to spin. I can not get a good consistency at all. I’ve tried drafting inchworm, from the fold, and my usual worsted. I”m afraid to try long-draw that it will just fall apart! It’s only 2 oz – I think next time I want to buy some I will see if Jenni can blend it with something else for me to make it easier to spin.
The spinning is actually a break from cutting out fabric. I really am not that into sewing and would much rather spin or knit. Cutting out is the worst though. I have 4 skirts to cut (1 down) and 3 shirts. Then I have to get it all sewn before Saturday. Way to go waiting on the last minute, eh? My back kills when I cut out.
Oh yes, one other thing is new, I started seeing a chiropracter. My neck is always bothering me, he says it’s basically bad posture. It has helped so far, but not 100% yet. He wants me to get to 50% better and then wear this strange contraption on my head to correct my posture – the bones in my neck are actually forward and no amount of trying to correct it myself will work, or so he says. All I know is I do feel better so I’m pretty sure I will keep it up. It got so bad, esp when I knit, I thought I was going to have to give it up.
I leave you with my current WIP:
And my most recent FO
Tshirt & Diaper swap
The sewing on this set is not up to par but there were firsts and it’s been awhile since I’ve sewn anything. I’m a bit rusty apparantly.
Let’s see, the dress is Olivia by Farbenmix, just the underdress and without the pocket. I thought the pocket would take away from the print on the dress. The hood is velour. I ended up needing to rip the hood off once, as I used a straight stitch to attach it and to topstitch it … it wouldn’t go over Matthew’s head (this is going to a little girl about Matthew’s size) so I serged it with some wooly nylon and added the decorative topstitching instead. Works much better. I’m just glad that I tried it on him first!
The diaper, is a Little Comet Tails AIO in size medium. I’ve only serged a couple of diapers ever, but I see improvement on this one. I’m still not putting my elastic in far enough though. There are a couple of spots I had to go over as well.
The shorts are also LCT, but the Crescent Moon Yoga Pants pattern. I lettuced the edges of the dress and the shorts, but I’m not very good at that yet — somehow the thread keeps missing the fabric every now and then, so I go over it and there you have the wonkiness.
Now that I’ve finished up this swap, I can start on the Magic Yarn Ball swap on DSD. I already have mine mostly done, but I’m waiting on something to come in before I can finish it completly. This is so much fun!
Keeping up
Well I’m still doing the walking thing 
I bought a resistance band yesterday for my resistance training on Tuesdays & Thursdays. I’ve still only lost a pound, but it’s possible I am losing inches and not weight, since I am building muscle. I always preferred weights to cardio, but I am enjoying my walks. I’ve been going to my mom’s, as I’m not entirely comfy walking in my neighborhood (bad experience with a dog bite a year or so ago). So my mom comes with, and Abby started riding her trike, which she LOVES. I also haven’t changed my eating habits, but I’m going to work on cutting back on soda for now. Baby steps, baby.
I bought a spinning wheel yesterday! I can’t wait for it. I also have a batt and a roving from The Good Sheep coming to me .. she has a couple others that I want but must.resist. (If ya wanna gift me though it’s Cherry Coke and Surf Storm 
)
I’m almost done (finally) with my t-shirt and diaper swap. I just went ahead and serged the diaper since Im late — it was due for mailing the last day of June. As soon as Richard gets up today I will work on a little extra something for her
In which I embark on fitness…
2 days ago I started exercising. I am hopeful this time will be different .. why? Well I joined a pact with 3 other women that if we fail to exercise for our alloted time on our chosen days, we have to send 1 yard of our own fabric to the other 3 women. Richard does NOT like this idea. I said well, if you support me and make sure I do it, I won’t ever have to send anyone anything!
So far, so good. A small loss, but it’s a start. The first day the kids and I did jumping jacks, girly push-ups, crunches, and other resistance type stuff. For 15 minutes. The next day (yesterday) I pushed the lawn mower for about 20 minutes. Baby steps is my plan, I hope it will work.
In which I crawl out from under my rock…
Apparantly, I have forgotten how to blog.
Well, not really, I just haven’t really wanted to. Besides, my life is so boring I figure no one reads here anyway.
So what have I been up to since January? Well, Matthew went into the hospital in February for what we think is MRSA, but will never know b/c some doof messed up the lab orders and canceled them. I’d like to meet whoever did that. Then I took up spinning a couple of months ago. Spinning what you ask?
Why, yarn of course!
I haven’t really had time to get into it very much though. I’ve probably only spun a total of less than 8 oz. Right now, I’m working on some pink/red/purple/blue roving that Abby dyed for me! I am calling it ‘Abby Cadabby’ since, she dyed it and it also came out the colors of the new fairy godchild on Seasme Street. I am very slow so don’t expect an update on this one anytime soon. Although I did just learn the joy of pre-drafting, and I am going back to the basic drop spindle from my Little Meggie pictured above.
I also have a new camera, a Kodak Z series — I don’t have the camera here by me so I couldn’t tell you the number, but I can tell you I LOVE it for a P&S camera. It takes very nice pics and with a little editing, almost looks like it came from a DSLR ( I actually did not do the final editing of this pic, but a friend of mine on DSD)
I also started selling again, although I am not so sure that was so smart of me. I am unknown, and really don’t have the time to devote to promoting myself/keeping stock. It only costs me $5 a month though so I will keep it for now. Here. My next stocking (on the 23rd, I will try to keep it the 23rd) I have not had time this month to get anything made. Abby’s party was last weekend and her birthday is this weekend, so I think what I will do is just list the medium diaper that is in stock already, as a FFS lotto (as a ploy to get myself better known/more feedback). Possibly a Your Yarn, My Needles (YYMN) slot, some organic sherpa yardage I have, and possibly a lotto for a 25% off coupon code for anything instock at anytime. That last one was just a brainstorm of mine just now
Oh, also! I bought a new sewing machine and serger as well. The serger is a Brother 1040D and the machine is a Innovis 1200.
Well, ta-ta for now, it is getting late and I want to get some more spinning in tonight!
Queen of Procrastinating
So tonight I’m supposed to be working on testing Krista’s diaper pattern. Well, Abby wanted to come in with me, and wanted to ‘help’. So I set her up with the crafts scissors my mom got her for Christmas, and a marker. Then it escalated to me getting my star & moon punches. Well then, she tells me ‘Zoe’s gonna like this!’ Zoe’s birthday was a couple of days ago, and her party is this Saturday. So it then turned into a birthday card. I got her the birthday stickers, and the candle stamp (6), and then had her pick out a scrap of fabric to embroider Zoe’s name onto. I’m really proud of the effort she put into it, but I’m not much further on Krista’s pattern. Whoops.
My new binder for my overflow of PDF knitting patterns:
Options
One of my Christmas presents was the Knit Picks Options set (nikel-plated). While I love the set, I’ve had several problems with it.
The tips are wonderfully smooth and pointy, the cables are nice and flexible and have a very smooth join. BUT. There’s always a but. First, I was knitting with one of my 24″ cables. I was doing a gauge swatch, and when I pulled it off of my needles (I normally don’t bind off my swatches so that I can re-use the yarn on my project) the metal pieces on the ends of the cables (that you screw into the tips) had come off. I thought I could just push them back in, but no such luck. Then, I tried to use my size 4 tip. I tried to screw them in, but one of the tips wouldn’t go on. I looked and there was something stuck in there. When I finally got it out, I tried to screw it back onto the cable. I couldn’t. And the final problem, my other 24″ cable had the same problem the first one did.
Now, with all of these problems I’m pretty pissed. So of course I called customer service about it, and I’ve got to say it’s excellent. I told them the problems, they apologized and sent replacements immediatly. I haven’t recieved them yet. Hopefully the replacements will be ok and I won’t have anymore problems.
Even with all the problems, I would still reccomend the set. It’s a really great interchangeable set, and their customer service is stellar. I’m very frustrated at this point, but I still am happy that I have it.
