Book loot!

So Jason and I went to the ISU surplus warehouse today and I found some amazing stuff. Mainly there was all this scientific experimental stuff that I would like to just have around for still lives and photo references, but that is not a good enough reason to buy any of it. Jason might actually be able to use it for what it was made for or for parts, but that is his department not mine. They did have a range of affordable dining service stuff that I wanted a ton of, like these little saucers... But I have enough dishes. Jason did decide that I needed a insulated pitcher to put my hot water in for tea so it won't go cold, or coffee for the same reason and it was only $3! What a deal. I also scored 5 books at 25 cents each, amazing price, and that is what I have pictured here.

This is a German book that I found, why the library decided to get rid of a book printed in the 1920's I will never know, but I don't mind adding it too my library. The font look pretty old and I love the illustration on the front. I think I might photocopy it and make a monotype print from it. Jason's old roommate just got back from being in Germany for a year and has become fairly proficient in speaking/reading it, so I'm going to ask him to translate at least the title for me.

This is an old book on drawing outdoor (which for the record I already know how to do), but I do have a fondness of old "how-to draw/paint/make art" books. This one has some pretty nice illustrations.
This is a French book I found called Image de l'homme (image of man or man's image). It is actually a student version so there is vocab in the back and footnotes for complex parts of the text, even if it is dry reading, it would be helpful to my studies so I picked it up too.


I also found a book on historical images of Pakistan... It has amazing illustrations and old looking maps in it... A whole mass of visual references and inspirations. I can't wait to have time to read some of the text.
I also found this book about Leo, who is a late bloomer and his parents are waiting for him to bloom and than he finally does. It reminded me a lot of when I was a kid, not the drawing part, but the reading and writing and messy eating (I am still a messy eater). My mom used to call me here little mum (the flower), because she said it just takes me a little longer to bloom, but I'm just as beautiful (mum's are one of her favorite autumn flowers). I wasn't able to read more than a word or two together until I was about 10 year old, but by age 12 I was reading complex books by adult standards and even now I hold reading very dear to me and read everything I can, fiction and non-fiction alike.


I also want to show you a picture of Jason and I's lovely little lady.... She has no feet! Oh no!
She's actually been pretty sick lately with an ear infection, but after being on some meds for 2 days she is doing a lot better. The infection was causing a lot of waxy build up, sneezing, and coughing. She also got her shots, but she was about the best cat I've ever seen at the vet, Jason didn't even realize that they had stuck her because she stood so still. What a good little kitty!

Bookmarks on sale!

Well I was a little late with posting the bookmarks on etsy, but they are up today. You can go to my store to check it out. They are laminated, which I wasn't sure about doing at first, but it actually looks really nice and will help them to hold up over the long run. Here are pictures of them

Marking up some bookmarks

So I print my first set of bookmarks up. They will be up for sale at my Etsy.com store (Kristin.Roach.Originals) for $1.50 plus 50 cents shipping and handling. I will be posting them tomorrow (they need to finish drying). Here is a picture of the unlaminated set and a test print.
I also swung by a quilt store here in Ames, it was huge! There were so many cute fabrics and books and things and things and things... I had a hard time not spending all my money there, but I managed to escape with only a half of a yard, I think it's the fabric I'm going to focus my quilt on, green and cat's playing music! Here's a picture!

Crewel Beginnings

So, I'm not sure what the officially name of this stitch technique is, but it reminds me of the crewel work I've been doing. I found it at my parents' house this past week. I vaguely remember making it for my mom for mother's day from a kit that my grandma gave me. On the back it says "to: mom from: Kristin 1993" geese that was a long time ago, I was only 10 years old. It was about this time that I tried making my first dress too! It's strange that 13 years later I am finishing my first sweater (only the ribbing on a sleeve and the cowl to go!). I will post pictures of the sweater later today.

Vacational Bliss

Ah, the three week break, how wonderful. I've been enjoying my jobless/schooless vacation in Ames, IA thus far. It's been really productive. I've posted my pattern for sale, started a quilt block swap, made two book holder proto types, cooked, cleaned stuff, played with power tools, I'm almost finished with my first sweater (the somewhat cowl from knit and tonic), almost finished with my second water bottle sling, and tomorrow I'm going to go exploring on my bike in ames. It should be fun. It's been nice having a cat around and jason for that matter. Here is a picture I took this afternoon of him and our funny little lady (she actually likes laying like this i swear!).












I have also learned how to purl correctly, which is good and I also learned how to knit backwards. Now why would knitting backwards be useful? When making a 8 stitch strap for my water bottle sling and being to lazy to turn my work.



I also made a trip to Hobby Lobby for two things and happened upon the clarance section... and oh what a section it is. This is what I ended up taking home. I personally felt that I had great restraint. I was really excited about finding the megentia block print ink for 2.40! I think I will have to experiment with that tomorrow (after my ride of course). The square buttons were really great to find too, I think they will be perfect for the blouse I'm going to make when I get back to my apartment (no sewing mechine here this time).

Oh, I almost forgot! After stressing out about grades this semester and disliking my professors and thinking that I am bad at French... I earned straight A's! After all my hard work in school, at work, and at home I was able to do it! How exciting right? I guess I really do well under pressure. I was going to school full time this semester and working 20-30 hours a week, sometimes more, plus reading and knitting and other things that have occupied me that have nothing to do with school. What a relief! I thought that this semester would kill my gpa and instead it helped it.

Well, I'm off to bed... and to listen to the rain, I do love that sound. It's one I can never get sick of, it just better not rain tomorrow, I want to ride my bike!

Goodnight

Pattern on sale!

So I finally finished up the pattern for the water bottle sling. It is available at http://kristinr.etsy.com for $5. It's really easy to knit up, there is no finishing, and only takes about one skien of yarn to make! I put a link to the store in the side bar and a button at the top of the sidebar that says "kristin.roach.originals".

Banner is up

So thanks to the html savy of my half asleep boyfriend who is resting his head on my shoulder I was able to get the banner up on my site. I'm a little annoyed because there is a little white line around it, but I will try to fix that later, I think it has to do with flickr more than me so I might just have to live with it until I get different hosting. Off to work on my other projects!

Grand Opening tomorrow!

So I'm gearing up for the grand opening of my online store tomorrow. I have only two things to sell right now, but that's the plan. Why? Because I'm going to introduce a new one of a kind items or replenish stock every Wednesday and I will introduce a new type of item once a month, I will decide the premire date later, most likely the second wednesday of every month, that way it will not interfere with getting the quilt block swap members info sent out the first of every month (which I will be sorting out for a few days i'm sure, those things always take more time than you expect them to).

I also made a new banner for my blog, but have yet to figure out how to actually make it my banner, I'm just figuring out how to use html, but that is a night time after dark activity. Right now, I'm going to go outside and play.... with power tools!

Painting time!

Well, so I know that I haven't had any pictures to post in a long time, so I had my friend Jill take some pictures. There are two assignments that I was working on. The first is to create a collage and than paint it to scale as exactly as possible. The second, which I am shown working on in the second picture (I will post a finished picture of that later). I have another painting which I will post later as well. I figure that I mention from time to time that I am a painting major, so I figured that I would show to you that I am not making things up.

Button Time!

I made up a button for the the swap, I think I will make a better one when I have more time. Here she be, feel free to add to your side bar when you sign up for the swap!

Rain.... today!

Well, I was supposed to be heading off to a vegan bbq this afternoon, but even though it's been nice all week, the clouds decided to spew out some rain today. So it goes, it will most likely clear up around 4pm, after the bbq is due to be over. So what to do instead... hmmm... I think I will get that package ready for my secret swap knitting, tea loving pal... long name right.. hmm that will give me a good excuse to go look at all the teas in the bins at the co-op here in town and possibly take a trip to the yarn shop (my stash is kind of small and all the yarn that isn't heading for a project is not heading for a project because it's kind of cheap crappy yarn). I'm not going to send her yarn that I got for 25 cents at the county thrift market... it's some kind of wierd acrylic/nylon, 1960's yarn from rochelle, il... oddly enough that is the next town over, hmm.... it is kind of soft actually... no, she deserves better!

Oh and I made a new banner for my quilt block swap, but i'm unfortunately without photoshop right now so I can't make it the right size, how lame. maybe I could post it here.... nope, totally didn't work, the file is just too big. I guess it will have to wait. I do have a picture of one of the squares that I made for my first ever! How exciting! The whole quilt was made from scrap fabric and old clothes, I made it for my boyfriend who lives far away in the tundra of Iowa. This is his favorite square, he took the picture and sent it to me. This square was made from some old pj's, some boxers from when I was in junior high, fabric I found at the thrift store, and the purple is fabric that was left over from a dress my grandma made for one of her porcline dolls (she made victorian style dolls and all of their clothes, so when she died I recieved all of her sewing things, fabric, and tons of lace.... I really miss her). Along the bottom of the picture you can see some green and red. The red is left overs from a baby blanket my mom made for a neighbor and the green was from the first dress that I ever tried to make. Tried and didn't finish... hehe... I made a moch up of it and spent so much time on that that I never got to the material I was supposed to be using. I should have just jumped into, but I was only 10 or so and didn't know any better. Excuse the poor quilting stitches, it was my first quilt after all.

Hmmm... so I'm leaving on vaction in a day, but you will not notice the differnce except fewer posts over the weekend, but on Monday I'm going to try to start whipping my blog into shape. I will have update pictures of my projects and by Wednesday I will have my KristinR.etsy.com up and running. There is a link to that on the side bar. There is also a link the the quilt block swap. I'm getting a little better at html, it's taking me awhile to remember it, I haven't really tried too hard since highschool! (6 years ago!).

I have a few different things in the works for my store, but it's a suprise, so check it out on Wednesday!

Quilt Block Swap

So I've opted to just start this thing rolling. You can find the Quilt Block Swap blogsite at http://quiltblockswap.blogspot.com! Come check it out and sign up. I have so many ideas for 12"x 12" squares it's rediculous. I am looking for some links to resources that would be good for fiber arts in general and quilting how to's. If you know of any leave me a comment. Thanks! (Go sign up to swap now!)

Idea #11!

So, I've been on this kick of ways to get use all of my scrap material and yarn. I'm trying not to buy more supplies or at least a very limited amount for the rest of the summer. So idea #11! Now this idea involves people getting involved, and i'm not sure if anyone even reads my blog except my family, but if you do and if you are out there and if you like to quilt this post is for you!

Back on track now, so idea #11, basically what I would like to do is get together a group of quilters who are not obsessive complusive and arrange a quilt block swap!

Basically this would entail signing up, making 2 quilt blocks, and send them to another quilter. You will also recieve 2 quilt blocks from another secret swap pal. At the end of the month I will redistribute the names and you will make and recieve another 2 quilt blocks. They will all be the same size, but you can use any pattern you want or no pattern at all.

Let me know what you think.... I just need a little feedback before I take a leap of faith like this.

Until next time!

My Store is Open!.... Kind of...

Well, what has been in the works for awhile now is finally being realized! I am opening a store at esty.com which you can find at kristinr.etsy.com. I do not have any items list yet. But that's basically because I'm just waiting to take some pictures of the items that I have and I am going though and knitting a pattern that I wrote to get all the bugs out. If anyone would like to do a test knit just let me know, I will send you the pattern and you can let me know how it works out. It's for the water bottle sling that I created about a month ago. I have had so many people ask me where I got it and when I tell them that I made it they ask me to make them one, which I refuse because they would expect it to be about $5 when I would want to charge like $25! So I decided to make a pattern up for it and people can just make it themselves. I'm also wondering how much I should sell the pattern for. I'm debating between $4 or $5. So to sum up:

1. I am looking for test knitters to knit a pattern that uses k2tog, kfb, three needle bind-off, picking up stitches, and working in the round on a set of 5 dpn size 4 or 2, please leave a comment to let me know if you are up to the challenge!
2. My shop can be found at http://kristinr.etsy.com and will be openned officially with items posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2006!

Little people... what an idea!

When I was in highschool and in my first years of college I used to draw these little people all the time. I don't really draw them much anymore, but when my mom went to a baby shower yesterday, an old friend of mine named rose asked what i had been up to and somehow it was mentioned that i knit a whole lot. Rose said, you know she should make little dolls of those people that she used to draw, I bet they would translate well to fiber. You know what Rose, that's a brilliant idea. I like it! So this afternoon I wipped together a proto-type pattern, filled with errors, and I should have one little guy done by the end of the week. I think I will make him a little friend and they can hang out together. I'm thinking about also doing a embroidered version too, an idea I'm borrowing from wee wonderfuls, which you can check out here: http://weewonderfuls.typepad.com/wee_wonderfuls/2006/04/red_head.html

And that is all for now, I'm going to con my friend with some dinner and see if she will take some pictures for me.

Tea Swap!

Hmmm... so! There is a woman who decided that knitting and tea is the best combination, and that other people most likely think so too... she was right! I think so! So she is going to host a tea swap for knitters. In a package you send your swap pal three things:
1. a package of your favorite tea
2. a treat to eat with the tea (cookies/scones)
3. 2 skiens of yarn from your stash... unfortunately I do not have a huge stash, but I'm sure I
can save up enough to buy two skiens for my soon to be swap pal!
I also said that I would be fine with an international buddy, so maybe I will be sending my package overseas, how exciting! Today is the last day to sign up, you should do it too! Just go to knittersteaswap.blogspot.com and send her an email with your info.

Pita Power!

So today has been the day of great procrastination. But that is okay. I found one more thing to do to procrastinate writing my term paper... and now I am blogging about it to procrastinate some more... man I'm good at this! So basically I went to the library because I just had to get some vegetarian cook books... had to! Sure I did. Anyway I ended up finding a book called "Pita the Great" and they are right, Pitas are great. But what is not so great is that some one tore the main recipe... you know the one... the one where almost every other recipe in the whole book says something like "follow steps one through five on page 22." I think that person, is 1. selfish 2. not book lover 3. not a library lover 4. doesn't respect other people 5 . doesn't think about how their actions effect other people.... basically an all around selfish, nasty, hateful, not knowing how to use a copy mechine person that should be eradicated from the earth! Anyway there was one recipe for whole wheat honey pitas, so I used that recipe instead, but I don't have any honey! what is a girl to do? I dumped in some canola oil and black strap molasses and some sugar... don't ask me how that equals honey in my mind but it turned out great! Not quite the same as sweet honey, but that's okay. It was so much fun to see them puff up in the oven. I've never made them before, but I think it's going to be a weekly ritual to bake pitas on sunday.

Sorry this blog is turning into a text only format, but hopefully by the end of the year I will get a digital camera and be able to put up picutures.

Updates

So, I successfully finished my ride and am proud to say that I went the full 20 miles. I think next year I'm going to try to do the 55 mile ride, but we will see.

I successfully finished my term paper and prepared for my art history and french exams.
Only one more paper and 2 exams and 2 paintings and 2 weeks to go.

I made a canvas shopping bag that perfectly fits into my new wire handlebar basket! It will be good for many things other than shopping:
1. trips to the library
2. holding yarn and needles and a book
3. picnicing
4. art stuff
5. whatever else comes to mind

I'm trying to reduce waste in my life... I am a stong believer that every choice I make has an impact, whether I can see it or not.

Trails for Tails

The day of the big ride! So in about 2 and a half hours I will be on my way to ride 20 miles in 3 hours. I have great news too! I just decided to do this ride last week, so I figured that a target goal of $100 in pledges would be kind of ambicious. So, with my last pledges coming in yesterday, I doubled my target goal and have $205 in pledges! My sister really helped by setting the standard of $2 a mile. Before that I was getting pledges of about $5 per person, which is good, I couldn't have made my goal without them! But after she made that pledge 2 other people followed suit in the next two days! Thanks so much to my big sis! Thanks so much to those who pledged! Seriously, every little bit does help.

I did a trial run yesterday and I am glad to say that everything went smoothly and me and my neighbors had a good time. We road from Bush street in dekalb to the far end of downtown Sycamore. I think it was about a 18 mile ride all in all, because we road back and forth quite a bit in Sycamore. Also we stopped at a ritzy hotel restaurant in Sycamore and split a portabella blue cheese burger and some clam chowder.... the waitress must have thought we were crazy to split a burger 3 ways, we did tell here though that we were riding to dekalb afterwards so we couldn't eat much or we would get sick, I think she just thought it was funny and of course that we were crazy. It was such a good time.

It was supposed to rain today, but now they say it is not, in fact it's supposed to be partly cloudy and 65 degrees! perfect weather!

Wish me luck and thanks again for the pledges!

Horay! It's my birthday!

So, I have not posted in awhile because mainly I work too much and I have a lot of school work to get done before the end of the semester, but as it is, today is my birthday, which desearves a little post at least.

I was gifted a lot of cool stuff... what was the best gift? I would have to say a really neat bookcase from pier 1 that my sister got for me. It is the perfect size and there was no assembly required. The sides fold out on hinges and the shelves fold down on the same. It is great! I was able to get all the books off the floor and onto it. In fact, with just the books on the floor I filled up 3 shelves! I didn't realize that I was reading so many books.

Top shelf: library books and books i'm reading for fun and craft books that I am working out of
Second shelf: school books that I am reading and books for my research paper
Third shelf: books that I have recently bought that are in que to read, or books that have been given to me that are in que to read
Bottom shelf: half full of articles in folders that I need to read for school.

In other news:
I am going to ride 20 miles for the Tails bike-a-thon.... basically, people make pledges per the mile that i ride or a flat donation, and then once I ride a rediculous amount that I have not tried to ever ride all at once before people say well good job, here's the money and then i turn in the money to the VEG society at NIU and then they turn it into Tails (the local no kill shelter). After the ride we are having a bocca burger bbq! what fun! and it's all for the cats and dogs and other little critters that end up at the shelter. If you would like to donate, post a comment saying so, I will then contact you and give you my info (so you can send a check to me) and i can get your info so I can write down your name and stuff to turn into VEG.

I cut down my hours at work so hopefully I will write a decent paper and do okay on the exams I have coming up.

I love my bike!

Oh yeah, i finished some projects!
1. baby booties
2. water bottle sling of my own design! woot!

That's it for today