Make Me

Becoming Me Collage

Becoming Me Collage
Originally uploaded by Hilari

I did a little, mini craft fair on Monday. I worked mostly on the weekends and it was a lot less stressful than the way I normally work - you know, at the last minute, all chaotic and crazy.

I did collages, mirror frames, and stretchy bracelets. I had a lot of fun doing the collages. Of course now my living room is in need of a very serious vacuuming. Bits of paper all over the place.

I went to an art garage sale hosted by Lisa Bebi of Pimp Your Spleen. It was awesome. I thought I was going for moral support, but, yeah... Well - she had stuff for a dime! Brand new stuff! It was great. I got a whole pack of really cool scrapbook paper for $2. One of my favorites is the background of this collage.

I'm really working on streamlining my art supplies. I cleaned out the supply closet and will list a lot of things this weekend on my supply shop, Stashed.

Koigu, My Love

I'm late, but I have jumped on the Koigu love train.  FoxyKnits was at Stitches West with beautiful Koigu yarns. I almost resisted, but then I fell in love with a linen stitch scarf that I swore was woven. Then I fell in love with the purple yarn. Me, the yarn, the scarf - a perfect menage a trois. Eep. That's gonna get me some unwanted visitors....

A lot of the yarns I bought at Stitches have the colors purple and green. What can I say - it's my favorite color combination. The Koigu is very, very soft. I can't wait to see how it knits up. I'm hoping the colors really pop.

I think I made something a few years back outta Koigu, now that I think about it...

Yep, I made the Dream Swatch Head Wrap in Koigu. Love the blog for keeping track of the past knits.

Stitches West

Well, I've been meaning to post about my trip to Stitches West in Santa Clara. It was truly a blast! I'm still reeling from all the yarnage available.  Honestly, it was just too much to wrap my little head around. Almost a month later, I very nearly fully recovered.

The button is misleading. There wasn't any wine. Could not afford to dull the senses one bit. Had to stay alert or I could come home with fun fur or Red Heart.

I met Jenn of Chicken Knits and she was wonderful enough to show me the ropes. We feuled up, did some stretches and headed in on Friday. Six hours later we finally sat down and I felt the dizzying revenge from all my limbs and muscles for punishing them on the concrete floor. Truly I thought I had seen it all that first day.

I bought some luscious Madeleine Tosh sock yarn and some truly beautiful yarn called Frog Princess from Miss Babs.  I petted the Quivit and some truly lovely buffalo yarns.  There were too many beads, buttons and shawl pins for me to even focus on. And the loverly, loverly yarns kept popping up in every booth. 

Saturday was a little more reserved. Mostly because I was so tired I couldn't think straight.  Here, just take my credit card and throw some yarn in a bag. No, it doesn't matter what. The best thing about Stitches were all the small, independent vendors. The ones I'd never heard about before. I'll be showing off more yarns here, but if you want to see them now, just check my stash on Ravelry. You can find me under the super-secret code name: "Hilari" if'n ya wanna be friends.

Here's Frog Princess for a teaser. Isn't it lush?!

I have to say spending on this trip was a load of fun. I paid for the entire three days off what I sold on eBay the month before. That is totally the only way to go for me from now on! It was so worry-free for me!

A couple of southern Californians were there  - it was fun to see Michelle from Fickle Knitter and Jessica of the sock knitting group on Flickr. I bought the Goody sweater pattern I wanted from Michelle and the yarn to make it. I've wanted that since the second I saw it on her blog. I'm going to make myself finish at least the backward pullover from Custom Knits first, though. I don't know why I can make it through the long, boring parts of the sweater only to stop at the sleeves or the finishing.

Speaking of knitting and not finishing things - I did not complete my Olympic knitting project. I was working on the Union Market Square Pullover from Interweave. There I was happily knitting along on row after row of stockinette only to discover that it was way too large! I fiddled around with the gauge and ended up with something that was going to be too small. I stuffed it in a Ziploc and called it a day.