Mellowbeing

I created this desktop image yesterday. I have a love for blue and green color combinations and daffodils. I figured, why not make something that makes my desktop space happy? Here it is in all its glory for your viewing and downloading pleasure (resolution: 1680×1050). I hope you guys like it – let me know if you’re using it (I just wanna know if anyone likes it as much as I do :)

As you may have noticed, the site is currently heavily under construction. Currently, the existing sections are: About, Links, Blog(!), FAQs and Web Development. This was so at least you’d have something other than the blog to read as well as opening up the channel for freelance web work.

Since the shop is officially closed for the time being, it would make sense for the sections to be empty. When I do reopen, it shall be on this here site rather than on Etsy. I’m hoping to reveal a surprise by end of summer concerning the shop portion of the site.. but I don’t want to spoil it.

Oh and if you haven’t noticed already, the site is *not* IE6/IE7 compliant. If you’re having issues, please download the Firefox browser ASAP – you will be forever grateful.

I just read about an ongoing contest over at Life With…Sarah ’s blog. I figured if I don’t win, I’ll at least have an interesting photo of my button collection. I’ve been playing with masks in Photoshop lately. I made a “button” out of the many, many buttons I own. They are sorted by color mainly but some are by materials (silver, metal buttons) vs. mixed materials such as gold metal buttons with black plastic centers. These are obviously very different and are then sorted in their respective baggies. (yes, very obvious to.. me heh). All in all, a fun exercise.

I’ve completely last track of the Thing a Day challenge. It’s been one incredibly long month so I’m going to just cut my losses and say I did try. I have been knitting on an almost daily basis this month even if it is for 15 minutes or so. It doesn’t lend itself to showing off great daily projects.. just about a handful of them.
What I am hoping to accomplish within the month’s end is lining up the peach clutch and documenting that here. Otherwise, I’m hoping to be further along with the laptop bag but I won’t make any illusions of actually finishing it in a few days.

The only challenge I had with this was opening my great tote bag of yarns and deciding on colors. I just knew it had to be acrylic (since wool may affect the electronics) and I had to have enough of the main color. It’s hard to tell from this “in progress” photo but it will soon look *something* like the pillow case from yarnstorm’s post – the first photo is of her pillow. I’ve changed the colors, textures and diamond shapes to fit a laptop instead of a pillow… but it continues to be my inspiration since it is the original (and it looks so great!). Hopefully, the end product’s back will look something like this:
Here’s to hoping..

This’ll be a quick post. I decided to dive into Rusted Root and start swatching – this is the first using the circulars as flat needles. I’ll be swatching another piece that’s made in the circular fashion to compare stitch gauge.A crochet blanket I’ve been working on for some time. I’ve completed about two dozen squares and now I’m ’seaming’ them together. Since it’s all done in double crochet, I’ve decided to just crochet onto the existing squares. While creating the ‘new’ squares, I’m stitching onto the existing completed squares to seam it together. It’s very improvised.. so far.. not so bad.. these are the 4 colors I’ll be using – they’ll be put together at random.

At the beginning of this year, I joined the Stash Knit Down group on Ravelry. Major goal of this year: knit down half my current stash before buying any new yarn. Of course, this may have been defeated early on in January when I headed out to Argentina and stumbled upon some very cheap yarn which I couldn’t resist. And so I digress..
I had just finished a custom order early in January and had a half a skein left over from it. I figured, well, I should finish off the skein! Throughout the week, I decided to work on these wristwarmers. I got so excited that I didn’t realize I may not have enough for 2 whole pairs of wristwarmers out of just *one* skein. After nearly finishing the second warmer ( I only had 1″ left! ), did I realize that I wouldn’t have enough yarn for these. And so I decided to try to finish off another teensy skein of some bright fuschia bamboo yarn I had leftover from another project. I had to undo the first wristwarmer and add the fuschia trim but I do think they came out to be a pretty pair. I *still* have some bamboo yarn left over.. it’s as if the skein won’t come to an end…

… is it just me or do some skeins finish far too quickly and some just keep going and going even when you swear you have a few yards of it left?

It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated. This past week was just deadly – 14 hour days every day for 8 days straight. More than half of it was a combination of important things and then there were the days when I just went out to have some fun.

Some highlights from the “fun” stuff this week:
A friend and I went to see the SIGGRAPH 2007 Movies Screening at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology). It was alright – there were some amazing short films, behind the scenes footage of how ILM created scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean 3, several other short films and of course, a Pixar film. All in all, a decent way to spend 2 hours – 3D magic always makes me giddy.

Apparently Absinthe is now legal in the U.S. In order to commemorate this new knowledge, some friends and I headed down to the Lower East Side (L.E.S.) on Valentine’s Day to attend a free absinthe tasting (when’s a better time?). It’s very strong – I would recommend adding ice instead of trying to be cool and just have it with sugar like I opted to do.

And lastly, some friends and I went to see a Beatles cover band on Friday night. Out of the 3 sets, the last one was the best. The first two were mainly 60s Beatles – when they were just another boy band with catchy tunes. The last set was filled with the good stuff – Something, Revolution, Here Comes the Sun, Oh Darling! and it ended with Hey Jude. The best song they performed was While My Guitar Gently Sleeps – the synchronization of the guitars was incredible. The most fun part of evening was when an *original* Temptation was invited to sing “Mustang Sally”. The house went wild.. everyone was singing.. good times had by all.

This is starting to be a bit of a long post so I’ll get to the knitting and the Thing a Day challenge now! (before you daze out and fall asleep..)

Considering my long week, I only managed to complete the following 3 projects:
*Almost* complete: Finished crocheting the edges and sewed in the remaining yarn. Add the 2 silver buttons. All that it needs now is the lining.. but I’m almost convincing myself that the lining isn’t necessary. It isn’t, right? Yeah? Okay not really so I’ll add the lining this week.. I already have the piece of fabric picked out for it. A white cloth with cute little red flowers on it.

Complete! I sewed in all 30948234 hanging yarn ends.. (okay, there may have been only 28 total). Wore them out already and got a few compliments :D

Completed! Finally.. this has been in my stash for quite a while.. it may be almost a year actually. I worked so diligently on knitting this up (it’s a dream to knit with) but never got around to sewing in the buttons. Voila! I’m loving these buttons.. they’re so perfect and modern.

That is all. Til next time.