“Those Who Abandon Their Dreams Will Discourage Yours”

I saw this on a car last night and it seems to be appropriate right now.

The woman, Jen, who received the baby socks – LOVED them!! :) I knew she would. Hopefully, I’ll have a photo to post when her son, Sayer, grows into them. :)

Not a whole lot of knitting has been done in the last week. I am about 8 rows from the top edging for the Little Lambs blanket. Hopefully, the baby will have it before it’s five months old. :)

It was an action packed stamping weekend. Saturday, I spent all day at a training seminar for stamping. We heard a really great speaker named Belinda Ellsworth. I was so pumped after hearing her speak. The card swap was absolutely crazy, as I expected it to be. I got a ton of cards because I had 83 to swap. My swap card is on my cards page (scroll down to March 27).

At the seminar, there were some amazing demonstrations – I really loved the marbling, where they took a piece of paper, taped it to the top of the clear stamp set box that you get with Stampin’ Up! stamps with about five or six marbles in the box and a few drops of ink in the box. Then they turned it over and rolled the marbles around and voila! It was so cool. Another one that I loved was “soot” stamping, where they stamp glossy paper with the Versamark and then held it over the flame of a candle to get it good and black, then they wiped off the paper and the image looks burned on to the paper. It’s amazing. Another one was marbling with ink and rubbing alcohol. Several of the demonstrations were really cool too but I don’t know how to describe them.

Then Sunday, I helped Alisa with a workshop at a woman’s house. It was my first in-home workshop, which was good to observe since my own first workshop is Friday night! :) I’m so excited but a bit overwhelmed getting ready for the workshop.

I’m working on my calligraphy slowly, but I don’t expect to learn it all in a few weeks. It was hard to get myself to practice with all of the stamping excitement and getting ready for the card swap at the stamping seminar on Saturday. My next swap isn’t for a two weeks, but they are small 6″x6″ scrapbook pages and I only have to make 33 of them. It’s a technique book, which I’m still wracking my brain about how to do the technique that I’ve picked. You’ll hear all about it as I work on it. :)

I feel so bad that I didn’t mention this earlier. Another collage artist that Bryan knows, Shirin, mentioned him on her website and the hits on his website have multiplied several times! :) That’s so cool! Also he has his collages up at the library. I’m sure that because of the mention on Shirin’s site and the show at the library will help him get more shows! :) Congrats, Bryan! :)

Currently listening to: Death Cab for Cutie The Photo Album,
The Postal Service Give Up and whatever plays on Launch at work.

Currently reading: Nothing, but I’m going to start a book for Bryan’s book group in the next few nights.

All of my new cards are on my Cards page.

Bryan, Meredith and I went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on Friday. It was so excellent. I know Bryan and I will be seeing it again. It was very romantic in an interesting way that I can’t even really describe. If you are wondering if you should go see it, I’m telling you, “YOU MUST GO!” If you liked Being John Malkovich or Adaptation, this is an absolute MUST-SEE for you!!

A fair part of the weekend, I was working on cards for my card swap on March 27 at a Stampin’ Up! training. I have about 80 cards done, only 50 of them are completely put together. Some of them need to be colored in. I’ll post the card for my swap after March 27 on my Cards page.

Also when Bryan and I were home sick we watched quite a few movies:
Northfork, which was odd but good.
Capturing the Friedmans, a very interesting and puzzling documentary. On the box it says, “Who do you believe?” After watching it, I still don’t know who I believe. I’m not going to give anything away, you’ll just have to watch it to find out what I mean.
American Splendor. A very entertaining film.
Mona Lisa Smile. Bryan didn’t watch this with me, not that I blame it, it’s quite a “chick” flick.

Another new card. This one is for my friend’s birthday.

It’s from the “Watercolor Minis” set by Stampin’ Up!
Stamp artwork © Stampin’ Up! 1990-2004

Here’s one of my new cards! I think it’s really cute! It’s being sent with the little socks I made recently.

It’s with one of my new stamp sets called “Nice & Narrow” by Stampin’ Up!
I’m starting to get a good collection of stamps and my cards are starting to look really great! :)
If you want to see more of my cards, you can go here.

Stamp artwork © Stampin’ Up! 1990-2004

It’s amazing what being sick does to you. I decided to make a pair of baby socks just this past week, I started on Thursday afternoon and finished them on Saturday evening. :)

I used Regia sock yarn that I’ve had for a while. As all baby socks seem to be, they turned out very cute. I didn’t make them newborn size because I want the baby to be able to grow into them.

Today, I’ve decided that I’m going to make some major progress on the Little Lambs blanket. I’ve slightly succeeded, but it is only 1:30pm, so I have the rest of the day to make some headway. I’m 2/3 of the way through the 5th and final set of sheep! After I finish the set of sheep, it’s 18 rows of stockinette and 14 rows of seed stitch. So basically, it’s 37 more rows until I finish the blanket!! I can’t wait to finish this and send it off to the baby’s parents! Of course, I’ll take a photo of the blanket before I send it off.

I also updated the baby stuff page to add the socks. I need to add Claire’s dress and cardigan, but my connection last night was very slow and I was trying to help Bryan with his website at the same time, which was more of a priority than my own site. I hope to get the knitting stuff updated soon, although by the end of March looks like it would be a good deadline for that.

I’m completely finished, done, completed with Karla’s sweater! I knit the neck on Thursday night. I hope to get it to her soon so that I can get paid.

I’m actually making some progress on my projects right now. It feels great to be able to take the tape flags out of my knitting journal. (I use the tape flags to mark what projects I am working on. Two of the projects just need to have seams sewn. I hope to have it down to only four tape flags in my “June 2002-present” journal.)

Another week of knitting next to nothing. Let’s see, I’ve knit absolutely nothing all week. How sad is that?! I’ve been really busy making cards. I’m having a rubber stamping party on Saturday at my house and I’ve been getting ready for that since it’s the first party I’ll be hosting. I’ve also been preparing for my meeting with the senior center today.

I need to get the Little Lambs blanket done soon because the baby will be about two months when I finally finish it. The baby getting the Giraffe blanket will probably be about 5 years old at the rate I’m going by the time he gets it. I used to be able to whip out things so quickly, but then again, I don’t spend evenings in front of the tv like I used to. I’m sure once I actually start teaching instead of doing proposals that I’ll have more time to sit down and knit, although I shouldn’t guarantee myself anything.

It’s getting warmer outside!! Yeah! Spring is coming, the world is thawing out. :)