Rayen

Admitting up front: today starts my deadline week for my fourth day job work project of the year, so I have written and scheduled some additional posts to publish while I'm off completing my work. This is just so I can focus on my job this week. Here's a 10.25 lbs. fabrics & crafts lot that was offered as a $19.90 buy-it-now with one penny shipping at the thrift auction. I spotted a few things of interest, including one that prompted me to invest. There are some interesting fabrics, including the white and black striped bolt that is probably knit fabric (and a lot of it.) What caught my eye was the hand written note on the package on the far right. It reads "Just needs to be quilted and bound ~ cute wall hanging" and I can see something folded up in the package behind the label that might be what's illustrated. For twenty bucks I was willing to gamble, so we'll see what I get when it arrives. Image credit: all the images in this ...

When I started my abalone and pearl crocheted throw on September 27th I wanted to work through some physical issues with my hands. My fingers were very stiff, and I had an arthritis flare that nearly kept me from finishing my last quilt. After a week of working on the throw I'd gotten a lot accomplished. My hands improved so much I had gotten rid of nearly all the pain. I also had no problem with dexterity, limited as mine is. It made me very happy. This project also gave me plenty of time to reflect and clear my head, which was also something I needed to do after dealing with some recent incidents that had me feeling pretty low. I'm not going to get into details, but there were a bunch all clustered together that were really disheartening. I finally worked it all out so that I could return to my happy place and take back my calm, thanks to being able to crochet. Having something I can do that is physical and mental therapy is wonderful. In the process I...

If you like superheroes, fight scenes and dealing with school bullies, then the K-drama Study Group is a series you should watch, because it's just as fun and improbable as any superhero flick but it has a wonderful difference: it's not about superpowers or weird costumes, but what it means to be a true hero. Yoon Ga-min (amazingly portrayed by Hwang Min-hyun) wans to study and go to college, but his only real talent is fighting. He's deceptively mild looking but incredibly strong and highly skilled at martial arts. While trying to study hard to achieve his goal of going to university, he starts a study group of misfits in the notoriously violent Yusung Technical High School. King of the school and instigator of the violence, Pi Han-wool (well played by Cha Woo-min), manipulates others to achieve his goals so he can get rid of Ga-min, but finds for once things don't go his way. Problems: just one, the murder mystery involving a teacher, which was kept very much...

To be more open to western superhero productions (because I've slept through every one I've tried to watch) I decided to give the 2009 film Watchmen a chance. I did not fall asleep this time, but watched in ever-increasing disgusted boredom what was likely meant to be a hatchet job of western superhero productions. The premise is set in an alternate history earth, and begins with the murder of a Joker-clone character -- who is one of the superheroes, apparently. As the murder mystery is investigated we meet several versions of the title characters over a span of decades. There's a Batman clone, a Wonder Woman clone, and others that are just too silly to mention. The superheroes are just people with fancy equipment who mostly behave like thugs (the Joker-clone guy assassinates President Kennedy from the grassy knoll.) The one character with actual superpowers is a nuclear accident victim turned demi-god called Dr. Manhattan, who wins the Vietnam War for Nixon an...

I'm hunting around for palettes for my 2026 annual project, and the way I do this is to first find a photo I like with the colors I want in it. I then upload the picture to a palette generator to get the colors in blocks. Despite my long dislike of the color pink, this is pretty close to one of my favorite palettes of all time, it just needs some snow white and green in it. This palette's photo is one I took myself while I was walking the dogs. I like browns, too, and I'm tempted to do an all-brown blanket because it would go well in our master bedroom. I'd just have to make it king-size, and that's a bit ambitious even for a long-time crocheter like me. Long time ago to keep a promise I later deeply regretted making, I gave away probably the most beautiful Victorian crazy-quilted tote I've ever stitched (long story, vindictive person involved.) Although I did the right thing in keeping my promise, the whole mess was very unpleasant for me. I...

I needed a couple more colors of yarn for future projects, but bidding on yarn lots at the thrift auction has been fierce lately. So I looked around for a lot that I was pretty sure none of the other bidders wanted, and found this one: "Large Lot Of Unsorted Yarn + - Tote Not Included ~ Condition: Good - shows some sign of wear- Has surface dirt, a musty smell and other possible imperfections. Unsorted, tote not included." It was over eight pounds of yarn, and the opening bid was $7.99, which is quite cheap. I counted at least fourteen skeins, with possibly more buried under the front yarns. Of course dirt and smell are never desirable qualities when it comes to yarn, and some of the yarn was obviously in a tangle, so no one had bid on it since it had been listed. Because I know how to launder skeins of yarn before I use them, and untangling yarn is something I like to do as physical therapy, and it had the colors I wanted, I put in a max bid of $8.00. As you ca...

Self-care always sounded selfish to me when I was younger. I was raised to believe that you worked hard and took care of those you loved (even when you didn't realize until much later that they never really did the same for you.) I had no time for such a ridiculous practice; I had responsibilities. Even my dream -- writing -- was something I did in what little spare time I had, and the people around me thought it was ridiculous. Eventually I proved them wrong. Here's a little wisdom from someone who has been used and abused by others because of her success: if you're extremely good at making money while working your dream job, don't let anyone know. When I first drafted this post I wrote a lot about those people who didn't believe in or support me. It's good to get those feelings out. However, one of my lifelong goals is to avoid being vindictive, which for me is toxic behavior. Instead I try to find joy in myself and what I'm able to do. I...

Because I go through a lot of yarn I keep a pretty healthy stash of it. This was the state of my stash the last time I cleaned out and organized it back in 2024. Every time I work on whittling down my stash I donate what I don't think I'll use to the local thrift store. Because I've since acquired a bunch of new yarns via thrifting I'll have to do that again soon. So what yarn do I pass along? My least favorite varieties, of course. This can be due to the type of yarn and/or the color. Life is too short to work with materials I dislike from the get go. Baby and boucle yarn (this skein is both.) The colors are always insipid pastels, usually spun with some kind of vicose white strand, the texture of boucle is unpleasant to me, and I dislike how it looks after crocheting it. Also due to the light weight it takes forever for me to work it up into something. Yarn with a lot of halo. Not only is it almost impossible to frog miscounted stitches due to the ...

Going through my photo archives made me realize for the first time how often I'm crocheting throws; I will likely end up making five or six this year. Crochet work is great physical therapy for my hands, and because I've been doing it for 59 years I'm fairly skilled (I will never be an expert, and I still have problems reading some patterns, so take that as a disclaimer.) I'm also able to thrift all my yarn now so the materials are extremely cheap. Working on a crochet project reminds me very much of my grandmother, who taught me the art when I was five years old. She made hats and baby blankets, and thought it was something useful for a woman to know how to do. I fell in love with it because I admired her so much, and because it was fun. Crochet also makes me happy now because it is something I can still do without a problem, which is something I can't say about any other skill in my repertoire. This year working on my annual art project by makin...

While cleaning out the back bedroom to remodel it I came across an old wicker hamper in which I stored some small quilted pieces as well as what I kept of an old year-long art project. Fourteen years ago I didn't have much time for art, but I was so stressed out from work that I decided to make time to do a little every week if not every day. I began my calendar annual projects quest on my old photoblog by taking a picture every day and posting it (that also helped me learn how to use a digitial camera.) My second annual project was to make 1000 artist trading cards in a single year (which I did!) I gave away about half of them during my last public appearance as an author, but I kept the ones that were personal or special, like these quilted ATCs. There are 100 in the hamper, and I'm so glad now that I kept them. I can't do this fine stitching anymore, and there are many good memories in this bunch. Maybe someday I'll make a wall hanging out of them.

After finding an easy one-row repeat pattern that I already know how to make I decided on crocheting a throw from this abalone color yarn I thrifted, and added for the project some skeins of pearl-colored soft white. I did tweak the pattern to make it larger by adding half again as many foundation chain stitchs (222 versus 148) and continuing on with V-stitches to the end of my chain. This pattern works up very fast; this is how much I got done in two days. Considering how stiff my fingers are after finishing up the Halloween quilt I'm really happy I can still crochet fairly easily, and it works out a lot of the pain I have from arthritis flares, too.

Now that our nephew will be moving in and living upstairs in our guest room, I need to make another guest room. At the moment this is the other room I have, a back bedroom which mostly serves as a catch-all for our old/unwanted furniture, big creative projects, seasonal decor we aren't using, etc. I'm going to completely empty it out, paint the walls a very light green and the trim white, put in a new bed (the one you see here is 20 years old and uncomfortable) and nightstand, and using my vintage white desk and a white dresser my favorite person left behind. This room from IKEA is my favorite of their showcased bedrooms, and close to what I hope to do. There won't be any black polka dots on a white wall, or this kind of furniture (I want a daybed so the room will serve for single or couple guests), but I want to have the same kind of ambience, which will fit the general look of the rest of our home, too. While I'm gathering ideas and pricing day beds...

After finishing the Halloween quilt last week I really needed to switch to crochet to work out some stiffness in my hands. I had printed out four free patterns that I liked, but I couldn't decide on which to make as my next crochet project. So I decided to test all four by making a twenty-stitch swatch (working the pattern but using only 20 chain stitches in the foundation row.) This rectangle granny square blanket pattern is one I've tried before, and I had the same problem with it this time: I can't figure out the pattern the way it's written (and that's on me, not the pattern maker.) I improvised to finish the swatch, but I really need to watch someone make this one to see what I'm doing wrong. Since I want my next project strictly for hand therapy, my inability to interpret the pattern made me decide against it. I found this moss stitch mood blanket pattern while looking for one-row patterns, and swatched it out of curiosity to see if it wa...

The Asian scarf I thrifted for $4.99 arrived, and it's much nicer than I thought. There are a couple of popped threads but otherwise it's in very good condition. The brocade patchwork wasn't made from cheap synthentic swatches as I guessed, but quite nice quality fabric. On the back of the brocade patchwork is a very decent quality heavy black satin. I don't wear scarfs very often, and on a very cold day when I do I use one of those that I've crocheted or knitted over the years. I'm not much of a fancy dresser, either, so I'll be repurposing the fabric in this scarf. Stay tuned to the blog to see what I do with it. The Let It Snow embroidered wall hanging quilt I thrifted for $9.99 also landed on my doorstep, and I'm completely delighted with it. The quilt is very clean and has no storage smell, and the embroidery work is especially nice. The original maker did almost everything by hand like I do, so I got quite a bargain. ...