Friday, September 20, 2013

And now it's gone

I had a long, elaborate post written with this title "And now it's gone" referring to summer being gone. Then, I did SOMETHING, and deleted the entire post.....and now it's gone. Which makes me very sad. I'll try to recreate the highlights...

So, summer is gone. I'm not sad about it. As much as I love the laid-back attitude surrounding summer, Fall is my favorite. Jeans and sweaters, cooler temps, apples and pumpkin pie, leaves turning gold and red and orange, and the soybean fields yellowing. That yellowing is usually the first sign that fall is really coming.

Those pictures were taken about a week ago, and now the green in the fields is almost completely gone. The only thing I love more than that yellowing-green is freshly fallen snow, but I'm not quite ready for that yet.

This time of year, I always look back and take stock of what I accomplished over the summer. This year, it wasn't much. Remember in my last post, when I talked about Animal Crossing: New Leaf? Yeah, it kind of ate my summer. I didn't do much knitting or sewing or any other kind of crafting. All of my free time was spent catching bugs, fishing, doing tours on the island, and building public works projects.
I'm still playing, but not as rabidly as I was before. I take time every day to accomplish the "required" tasks, and play some extra if I feel like it. But, I'm not as obsessed as I was, which means I'm back to knitting and crafting.

I'm currently working on River in Summer.  It's a wonderful cardigan/vest/shawl/wrap thing.
The yarn is Briar Rose Wistful in purples and greens. I love the yarn so much that I really can't wait to have the thing done so I can wrap myself in it. The pattern is wonderful--just mindless and rhythmic enough for watching TV or carrying on a conversation, but interesting enough to keep it fun. Love it.

Starting in October, I'm teaching a top-down sweater class. The class is geared toward knitters of all experience levels--beginners can use existing patterns, but more experienced knitters will get help designing their own. I'll be designing my own as well--top-down cardigan with set-in sleeves, a wide button band and collar, and done entirely in diagonal rib. Oh! And I'll be using Malabrigo Rios--I bought myself 10 skeins for my birthday in August, and I LOVE it!

In other non-knitting-but-still-sort-of-crafty news: My husband and kids got me a Nintendo 3DS XL for my birthday. I was super excited and surprised--when I purchased my 3DS in June, I really debated getting the XL, but decided I'd rather spend the extra $30 on another game. So, this was awesome. But, I needed a case for it. None of the ready-made cases appealed to me, so I set out to make my own. Then the kids each wanted one, and before I knew it, I had these: 
The two on the right are for the 3DS. The two on the left are for the XL. The one on the far left is for my friend Sam, who is one of the hosts of the podcast Not Your Mama's Gamer, which you should all listen to right now.

So, once the cases were made, I realized I wasn't thrilled with the boring color of my new toy: black and red. Snore. So, I looked for skins for it. Again, nothing really jumped out at me. I really wanted a Doctor Who skin, but none existed.....so I designed my own on DecalGirl. I'd never done it before, but it was so easy.  And, I couldn't be happier.



In other geeky/crafty news, we went to GenCon in Indianapolis in August. Talk about nerds! Holy cow!  (I mean that in the nicest way possible! My husband and daughter had found "their people." Aaron and I, however, felt a little left out because there wasn't much video gaming stuff.)  Anyway, there was a booth for Three Geeks and a Needle, and I couldn't resist purchasing a small bag and a key fob. But what really caught my eye was the fabric they used. It was sooooo geeky! So, I immediately went online to try to find the fabric. After much searching, I discovered Spoonflower. And the angels sang!  So much beautiful fabric! I ordered enough of this to make a bag. I also ordered several 8x8 swatches of Doctor Who fabrics to make another case for my XL, like this and this and this. I'm so excited and can't wait for the fabric to arrive!!! 

So, as you can see, I'm getting my crafting mojo back. What kinds of crafts are you doing this fall?

1 comment:

  1. OMG! I really want this skin! I've been looking for a DW 3ds xl skin today and no one sells them. I googled it and found yours. SO jealous..

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