Friday, July 29, 2011

A lifeline would have been nice...

As was pointed out to me last night at my knitting group, a "lifeline" really could have saved me a huge headache. For those of you who don't live, eat, sleep, and breathe knitting, a "lifeline" is a piece of yarn threaded into live stitches of knitting (stitches that are currently on knitting needles) that can be easily removed. If you make a mistake and you've given yourself a lifeline, you can rip out the stitches up to the lifeline, and the lifeline will keep the stitches in place so you can just put the needles back, instead of painstakingly unknitting for hours, as I have been doing for the past few weeks. I always remember to use lifelines when it's too late. That's how most of my lace projects have ended or been indefinitely postponed. I'm determined not to let all this unknitting stand in the way of my current project, Double V Cardigan, but it sure is making the process a whole lot slower!

Thursday, July 28, 2011

my life in the blogosphere

As I think I may have made clear on this blog recently, during the summer, I have a lot more time for my "other" life. Don't get me wrong, I'm interning (at a place I LOVE) and doing other law-related things, but I do have some time to work on crafts and my blog.

So I've been really diligent about Entrecard recently. For those of you who don't know what Entrecard is, it's a site where people find other people's blogs, read them, and then drop an entrecard, which is the new-aged version of an old fashioned calling card (or a business card, perhaps), on the blog's entrecard widget. You get one entrecard credit ("ec") each time you drop on someone else's widget. Then, when you accumulate enough ec's, you can "purchase" an ad on a blog of your choice. The "price" of the ad depends on how popular the blog is with advertisers. So that pretty much sums up Entrecard, right?

I'm really loving "my" Entrecard blogs - I love that I'm keeping up with people all over the world in their various pursuits - art, life, politics, nature...the list goes on! It really is a community! A chapter of my college thesis was about online communities (online knitting communities, to be exact), and since then, I've always been fascinated with online communities.

Facebook is another matter. I may be fascinated with the anthropological aspects of online communities, but I'm still 27! I was in college when Facebook was invented, so it has definitely become a part of my everyday life. It's made me so lazy, because when I like a post on Facebook, I just click "like." But you can't really do that on people's blogs. Sometimes I just want to write "I like this," but then I don't have anything specific to say, other than a general affirmation of the post, so I don't say anything at all. I've got to work on that!

And speaking of blogs, Sam is going to start a new blog! It's going to be a movie review blog, but the movies are going to be movies that are hard to find. (I thought he should call it "Not on Netflix," but he has a different name for it - which now escapes me.) He formed this whole idea months ago. He made a list of movies that are not on Netflix and gave it to his whole family, including me. Then his mom found a movie rental place that is able to order in a lot of the movies on his list, so he took everything that the place carries off of the list for the family. All he wants for his birthday, etc. are movies from the list. So that's what I got him for his birthday on Tuesday! I selected movies from the O-R section of the list, and bought VHS tapes and DVDs from EBay. Now, Sam has watched so many of these movies, he only has to start the blog! (If he had actually started it, I would totally have linked to it, but for now, this post just has to be a teaser.)

Friday, July 22, 2011

the good news and the bad news

I'll start with the bad news.

I called Olympus today. Their tech support has been very helpful (I've also emailed them a couple of times), and apparently, my brand new camera that I've never even used needs repairs and it will cost up to half as much as I paid for the camera to repair it. So I think this is a sunk cost. I have to buy a new camera - my shop can't exist without one.

The good news is that TWO Etsy purchases arrived today. (Maybe if I laid off the Etsy purchases, I could actually afford a new camera!) But these two were well worth it. They're BOTH more beautiful in person than in their photos, but unfortunately, I have no camera with which to take their pictures. But here are the pictures from their Etsy listings.

The first is this pair of earrings by TotusMel. These earrings are my perfect shape, size, and color! And they're so fun/funky and delicate looking at the same time!
The second is this amazing top by iheartfink. I can just tell, it's one of those articles of clothing I will wear every day and only take off (a) to wash, or (b) so that I don't look weird for wearing the same thing every single day - which I have been known to do (just ask my mom!)
Oh, and they look amazing together too!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

My new bracelet

Yes, MINE! I made it for me! Ok, well I didn't actually make it for me, but it turned out slightly unperfect, so I gave it to myself as a present. I'd like it to be a little longer, and I accidentally made the ends uneven. You can't tell about the ends, but I still couldn't sell something like that. Also, I have very narrow wrists, so the length is actually perfect for me, but since my bracelets are adjustable, I prefer to make my own wrists the smallest possible size for the bracelets that I sell so that they look good on people with normal sized wrists too.

BUT Sam is home from Chile, I have downloaded the program and I have the cord...and my computer isn't recognizing the cord! I think the store gave me the wrong one! This is the LAST time I buy a camera equipment somewhere other than online! To make matters worse, my old camera, which was already on the fritz, completely died while Sam was in Chile. So here are some really terrible photos that I took of a really beautiful bracelet on my computer's "photobooth."

Saturday, July 16, 2011

A Bowl of Jewelry

Whenever I get all wrapped up in the world of crafts (i.e. when I'm not insanely busy with law school), I tend to visit Etsy a lot more. I'm listing new items and looking for love (i.e. checking to see which pieces are getting "views" and "hearts.") And then I always end up heating (favoriting) and buying other things that are up there. Here is one of my latest finds:
I bought this awesome piece from Red Hot Pottery about a month ago and it really just screams Adina. It's one of my favorite colors (you see, green is my favorite color, and this is one of my favorite greens), the flowers are so pretty and fun, and it holds my jewelry! It makes me so happy when I look at it in the morning when I'm putting on or taking off my jewelry!

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Camera Saga Continued (and other news)

So I wrote to the camera company (Olympus), and they sent me a program to download. So now I will be able to take pictures AND upload them to my computer/blog/website. The problem? Sam accidentally took the cord that hooks the camera to the computer to Chile (along with the old camera). I have to wait a few more days to get it back.

I did finish another bracelet, but until I am able to get my camera back, I'll just have to leave this as a cliff hanger.

In other news, I seem to have been ignoring my knitting. The reason for this is that a few rows back, I made a couple of mistakes on the sweater I'm knitting. Because it is lace, I'm not going to chance frogging it - I'll have to unknit. That will probably take a couple of hours, and I'm not looking forward to it. So I'm kind of procrastinating.

Saturday, July 09, 2011

And the Voting Begins!

To vote for your favorite Entry for the July EBW challenge, Sizzling Sunshine and Soothing Water, click on the link on the right hand side of the EBW blog between July 9 and July 15.

Happy voting!

Monday, July 04, 2011

More Beady Things

These two pieces had been on the back burner forever, but I finally finished and photographed them and listed them in my Etsy shop. It's so nice to have some new, sparkly, shiny things when I look at it :-)

Sunday, July 03, 2011

Sizzling Sunshine and Soothing Water

My Etsy Beadweavers July Challenge piece is done!

Most of my beadweaving incorporates the peyote stitch to some extent. But this was my first crack at designing a peyote pattern and I must say, I'm pretty proud of it. It was inspired by a picture that Sam took from a helicopter when we visited Australia in 2009.

The only thing disappointing is that I just can't get this new camera to work. First I had to buy a new battery, and now I can't get the software to upload to my computer. So I feel like the colors in these pics aren't quite as pretty as they are in real life.