Oh the Cuteness!

Hello everyone! Today I have been blogging for five years, can you believe it? Gee whiz, aren't you sick of me and my shenanigans by now? (I sure hope not!) Anywho, in honor of my half-decade of chronicling my crafts, I want to give away a custom owl pincushion! (My first owl pincushions ever!) The owl pincushion was the thing that inspired me to start blogging, crafting more, and selling on etsy, so I thought it would be nice to give one all this time later. I have some on my unfinished projects list, so this will just have to be lumped in there with those. That doesn't count, right (shhh!)? If you win, we will work out what fabrics you like and I will make a special owl for you complete with custom pins. To enter, just leave a comment in this post any time between now and Monday, August 2nd at 8 p.m PST. Good luck everyone, and thank you all so much for reading this thing! *If you would like to sign up for the Finish It challenge, you can e-mail me at ohthecuteness@hotmail.co

Hey there! Crafting progress was interrupted this weekend because Dennis and I got to go on a lovely vacation to Yosemite with his dad and nieces. It was a great time, but I am still not done quilting but I will be very soon. But onto what I really wanted to talk about... So I was just thinking about something else that goes along with my Finish It challenge. The baby quilt that I have been working on has brought something to my attention: Since I did not make the quilt top myself, then technically I did not start that project yet, right? I mean, I bought the fabric and batting and had it laid out and ready to go, sitting in my pile of UFO's, but I did not technically "start" it yet, or did I? Here's the thing I am pondering: If I have fabric picked out of my stash and set in a little pile with every other supply I am going to need to make the item, does that count as starting it? It is a very interesting thing for me to think about, because I considered my unfinished

Lately I have been feeling myself revert to a decade long ago, when times were simpler and people seemed to care more about, well, everything. I love old things. I already told you about my record player . How I love her so. It is so much fun to grab a record here and there while I am out with Dennis, then come home and listen to its warm crackly sound. In an age of mp3 players that fit in the palm of your hand and can hold every song you own, something so big is only a novelty to most, but I really do prefer it to my ipod docking station when I am at home. I have added a couple new-old analogue technologies to the house recently, one of which being my new Brother Charger 11 typewriter. It is in great condition and works perfectly. I was lucky enough to find this little mustard-yellow beauty at a local antique store for twenty bucks! The man who sold it to me told me it belonged to a retired little old lady who was still doing some typist jobs on Sundays. Cute! They are around

Woot! I have finished a few projects from the list , namely a hat made from soy/wool yarn and a scarf made from acrylic with a bamboo fringe. I forgot to take pictures of these in the state they were found, but really it was pathetic. I think I started both of them around six months ago. The hat was completely finished except it needed to be sewn up the back seam. Took me, at most, 2 minutes. I think I stopped working on it because I was afraid it would be too small because I only used one skein of yarn. And it is indeed too small for me, but It is the perfect color and size for a 12 year old or so boy, so I will put it on my etsy shop soon in hopes that it will go to a little guy who will like it this winter. The scarf was also completely crocheted but it only had half the fringe on one end finished. I think I gave up on this one just because of the tedium of making the fringe, I dunno. At any rate I am absolutely in love with this scarf. The colors are not quite right in these pictur

Alrighty, I have been sticking to my plan of finishing old projects and this is the first one I did, my weird kitty/Yoda hat. I picked it back up in this state: It is knit from Lion Brand organic cotton on size 8 needles (yes, I know that is waaaay too small for this semi-chunky yarn but they were yellow and looked so pretty as I was knitting :P). I started a crocheted kitty had a while ago but crocheted hats never seem to turn out right for me, so I decided to abandon it (added it to the list), and finish this one instead. This started out as one of those "I love this yarn but have no idea what to do with it" kind of projects. I cast on a multiple of three stitches and set to work making a diagonal 3x3 rib stitch. I was hoping to get a short scarf but since my needles were too small and I cast on too many stitches I ended up with a longish rectangle. I did not want to go buy more yarn so I decided to add an inch of rib stitch in the white version of the same yarn to each end

Alrighty, I have finally been able to compile a list of all the finished projects. You can find it here at my listography. Items with check marks have already been completed, and items with strike-throughs have been abandoned. I will add links to the posts containing finished items. If I was working on a group of items that are the same idea them they will be counted as one. I think I found them all but I will be constantly updating the list so if I find any more lurking around the house I will add them. Seeing the list completed just rams home how many unfinished projects I really have. I blame it on too many good ideas. But not all were good ones, obviously, as I have already weeded out and abandoned 5 projects that I did not think were worth finishing. Some wasabi knucks like the ones for sale in my etsy shop for me to wear (I think I may just take them out of the shop instead). Some crocheted maryjane slippers which were far too pink and usurped by a cute sewn tie-on version I r

Well, hello there! Sorry it has been so long, but I have been very busy lately. Many big plans are in the works right now, but things are starting to come together and hopefully I can spend a little more time around here again. Anywho... I have quite a story for you... This past weekend I had a very successful yard sale in hopes of cleaning out the house and the garage. The garage is now as good as it is going to get, but today I was sitting in the house surveying my surroundings, and I realized that it didn't even look like I made a dent in the stuff in here. I got rid of everything I could bear to let go of that I thought people would buy, but there was still so much stuff. I suddenly felt the urge to figure out the source of the continuous clutter. Granted, a lot of what fills my house is craft supplies, obviously, but I do my best to keep them all neatly organized and put away so the cats to not thrash them. You have seen my bookshelf of fabric many times in the background of