Day: June 23, 2009

I finished a couple of crafty things this weekend. Herb being one of them:

This is Herb. Herb is a fire breathing dragon.

This bulletin board being another. I made it Sunday afternoon just for fun. It’s in my closet now

This is the bulletin board.

Martha-Stewart-rhinestone-enhanced pushpins

Right now I’m working on finishing a little amigurumi elephant (legs and tail), I’m starting another amigurumi pig (halfway through the head), and I NEED to finish the ears and the right arm on my amigurumi monkey. I’m also hoping to start an awesome tote bag knitting project soon. And I’ve just got to learn how to sew sometime. I should probably be learning how to drive instead but… 😀

I’ve also found some AMAZING crafting websites. I got to them off of Gourmet Amigurumi which is like…. crazy amazingly awesome. I need to look at some of the other sites, but I’ve been so engrossed in these three that I haven’t had the time

Inside a Black Apple
I really admire her work. It’s so artsy and unique and cute! Plus I think she’s from Oregon. She has a really cool fashion blog too.

Wee Wonderfuls
SO CUTE!!! And so talented!!!! It’s not fair how adorable everything here is! I adore all the little dolls. When I learn how to sew, that’s what I’m going to make.

Roxy Craft
This is also an amazing amigurumi blog. She has some really helpful ami tutorials on here too that I definitely could have used like 3 months ago. I mean, I could definitely use them NOW, but I could have used them way more a while ago because I was just starting. Also for inspiring and cute!

Oh and:
Threadbanger, the hipster website is also pretty cool. They have lots of videos and such about crafters and crafts and DIY stuff and all that. Thanks to Youngin for the site!

One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of the best crafters out there are tree-hugging, Obama-craft-making, Starbucks drinking hippies. Don’t get me wrong, I love nature as much as the next person, and Starbucks protein-chocolate-banana shakes are to die for, but FOR ONCE I’d like to see someone make a Sarah Palin t-shirt or amigurumi or tea cozy or something. I take it upon myself to be that person. Where do you find flesh colored yarn though?

*Amigurumi Dragon pattern by Ana Paula Rimoli as seen in the Knit1 Magazine Winter 2009 issue

Woo-hoo!  Troy took Christian into one of the Ag Engineering labs at NCSU to set up a server to which we plan to send images from a remote camera.  Incidentally, I STOLE the picture from Troy’s Water Blog, a very cool blog about all things water where he will be talking about this project as we move along.  He was able to get the computer installed and on the network so we can access it remotely from our home computers.  Next he needs to get the camera going so it sends it pictures to the server.  Even though Christian is currently studying C++ as part of his homeschool, we have pretty much decided that we want to do the file management for this project in Python.  For stuff like this, it is really hard to beat.  So I am going to continue working on the image processing parts of the project while Troy gets the mechanical system together and Christian works on learning Python so he can do the file management tasks.

P.S.  Lynn has requested, and I concur, that Kelly put up some pictures of her Amigurumi dragon and Martha Stewartesque push-pins.  It would be a shame not to share such craft geniusness with the world!