At least they kept my legs warm...

Dear Shayne,

As you know, I recently spent 10 days in the frozen tundra known as "Michigan." Since I only wear skirts, this icy chill makes for very cold legs.

Sooo... I knit myself some kinda weird legwarmers. This photo doesn't really do their weirdness justice, because you can't really tell that they're over 30" long -- they go from my ankle all the way up to my thigh. Full leg casing, really.

Also, after wearing them for 10 days, they're pretty beat up. I knit them out of yarn that I had on hand and it's more soft than durable (they feel nice, though).

Oh, and they really turned out to be more like hockey socks than traditional legwarmers. And I probably should have tapered them at the ankle. And, yeah... they're different colors... I ran out of that cream color. But I never wear matching socks anyway, sooo... sure. Yup. Weird.



But at least they kept my legs warm.

love,
kelly

PS - This photo is not meant to shock anyone who knows me in person -- I am not wearing a short skirt here... I am just holding up the hem of my long skirt. So rest easy... all is right with the world.

Care package

Dear Shayne,

February is short, but our lack of posts this month makes it look even shorter. I think we broke our record for lack of updates. Whoops.

Here's a little something that I made a few weeks back. A care package (Hee hee. I said, "package") for Bill and his family. Bill liked that journal I made for the journal ring, so I made him a smaller version, using the same construction as before. I had a good time finding "key" words in an old dictionary:



The skull in the lower right corner is very grin-y. He's a 3D little grommet-y dude. Pretty cool.

I really need to take a side view of one of these things -- they're very cool and sturdy. Here's the first page:


I found that skull stencil on a free stencil site, but I can't seem to find it again right now. I'll do a more thorough search later and update this post. The inside back cover has the same skull, looking in.

Note Bill's name in spoooky letters. So everyone knows it's his. Hee hee.

I also made a hat for Bill's dad. A little shorter this time, for when he doesn't want to cover his ears. For spice, I added a stripe. I'm a wild one.

I am noting once again that this looks like a ghost from Pac Man and I need to get some sort of model head:


And for Bill's mom, I made a tote bag. She likes apples and I loved this batik print when I bought it, but as I made the bag, I kept thinking, "These are apples, right?" I sure hope they are:


While in the Frozen North (aka "Michigan"), I also made some extra-long, extra-weird legwarmers. I need to get a photo of those, although they're already super beat-up from wearing them for 10 days. Oops.

What have you been up to, missy?

love,
kelly

Incredibly Dorky Post

Dear Kelly,
Today is the 7th birthday of my greatest creation.














Yeah, I'm a dork.
Love,
Shayne

Goodness gracious!

Dear Shayne,

For some reason, this is one of the more pun-inducing little projects I've managed to put together. The title of this post references what is possibly my dorkiest one: Great Jars of Yarn!



Yup. Jars of yarn.

How did this happen, you ask? Well... I have all of this yarn, see... and I have to keep it stashed away (or else our darling resident psycho kitty [Biscuit] will eat it). And I thought about how it's nice to see the yarn sometimes, soo... I got some jars.

What you see here is the Valentine's presentation of yarn -- pinks (also known as "Shayne-style"). Next month, I'll dig out some greens. This is a little sick, but I'm pretty sure I can cover every holiday.

On a semi-related note, I've been on a combine-two-words-to- make-one-new-word kick lately (snack sized tupperware = snupperware!) Soooo... yarn jars... Jarns? Yars? Hrm.

And in other news, I've been hooked on Mod Podge as of late, so there will certainly be some photos of that coming up. Whee! Sticky!

love,
kelly

The Journal Ring begins

Dear Shayne,

I've signed up for a Journal ring on craftster -- basically, 6 of us pass around a journal and doodle inside of it, then send it on. It's inspired by the book Alphabetica so I think we're all doing a "Letters and Numbers" theme (although someone else might have picked another -- I won't know until I get their journal) (Oh, and then I'll be screwed, because I'm pretty much only prepared for letters and numbers... watch someone pick Stringed Instruments of Indonesia -- I'll be crying then.)

At any rate, I won't be able to post the rest of my pages until the ring is over (in May) so as not to spoil the surprise for the journal owners, but I can post what I've done on my own book (although I'll probably still be surprised when it comes back to me -- "I made this? Oh, yeah...")

I knew from the start that I wanted to use torn out pages of an old book to decoupage the front (Get it? Letters?) so I went to the thrift store (couldn't destroy any of my own books, now could I?) looking for just the right title. And I found... The Scarlet Letter! Tee hee! Letter! Get it? (Oh, yeah... of course you do...)


(The finished book actually has binder rings but I put the journal in the scanner for these photos, so I wanted the pages to be flat.)

Now, Shayne, I need to tell you about the awesome product I used to install those grommets you see there. It's the dorkily named Crop-A-Dile and, if you've ever struggled to hammer or [shudder] squeeze grommets into place before, this thing is the answer for you. In a word, it rocks. Is our blog PG-13? Cause I really want to say here... it fucking rocks. Really.

You just squeeze and... presto! Grommet! Furthermore, it also punches the holes for the grommets -- what you see here is chipboard with several layers of paper decoupaged over it. And it punched through all of that like butter! I swear! And I'm a total wuss!

Okay... this is turning into an infomercial for the Crop-A-Dile. I didn't intend that. Just wanted to tell you -- this thing is cool.

All right. I'm not the biggest fan of numbers, but I do like measuring tapes n' stuff, so I used this cool paper for the first end paper:


The back end paper is something different, with a bit of the measuring tape paper. That's also where the "sign in" card goes -- for everyone to sign the thing before sending it on. (Due to scanning, the forefront is clear and the background is blurry. I apologize, but... I'm lazy):


On the back page, I put a little "Thank you" note to everyone working on the book. It's in this envelope:


I used "2U" to address it because of the number/letter thing, but just in case they wondered if it was to them, I put an extra note under the flap:


(Hee hee -- I crack myself up!)

The back of the book is constructed like the front, but with a Z to finish it off:


Unfortunately, I did not notice that the Z was upside down until after I painted it. Oh, well -- artistic license, right?

Then I had to kick off the thing by doing the first page myself. I was kind of burned out by the time it came to this point, but I like what I ended up with:

(I have a lot of letter stencils!)

How stoked was I when I realized the letters in the word BEGIN were all in alphabetical order? Answer: Totally!

I sent it off this week and should be getting someone else's journal in the next few days. Let the anxiety begin!

love,
kelly