Pepperberry Crochet

Flying Squid

I had the kind of day at the Day Job that makes me ask questions like, "Did this really just happen? Am I still dreaming? Have I gone insane, thanks to my coworkers?"

Considering what I do for a living, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I think that

1) life is just not that hard and

2) I have it pretty good so

3) why make things more difficult?

Despite the best efforts of the Day Job to steal my sanity, I refuse to be conquered. When you break me, I come back stronger! Like a dandelion, or a noxious weed, or...well, perhaps we should move on from that metaphor. At any rate, several people made me regret bringing muffins for everyone on Monday, and glad that they weren't homemade. I've decided that current issues at the Day Job are the universe's way of making me be more assertive and better at standing up for myself. Onward and upward.

This has certainly cheered me up! Check out the flying squid in the window at Urban Fauna!

Best display ever, and not just because my squid are there *coughcoughcough*.

I'm continuing to work on the Neverending Restocks and Custom Orders, as well as the Turkey pattern. I know a few turkeys who need one!

When I'm Stressed, the Amigurumi Get Weird

Of course, that would imply that the animals I make aren't weird to begin with, which I suppose is up for debate.

In the interest of speeding up the homebuying process, I've added an Evening Job to the Day Job. It's only a couple of evenings a week. It's not a bad job, but it has messed up my schedule a little bit. See, I have this really strict schedule I follow (I know, this is about to sound insane) where I do different chores on different evenings when I get out of work. Since the new job takes out two of my evenings, it has thrown me into chaos.

That doesn't mean I haven't been making stuff, it just means that I haven't been posting it while I try to get the rest of my life back under control. I think I'm good now.

These guys were made with my new favorite yarn, Aslan Trends Glaciar del Cielo, which is a sport weight cotton. Love it, it's like crocheting with an old t-shirt. The colors are great, too.

 

I like the facial expressions, especially on the bunny here. I'm not terribly happy with the bodies-- I slacked on the limbs, and even a bit on the bodies. I'd rather put a little bit of extra work into it and wind up with something a little more special. This guy will probably end up with my small number of "keeper" amigurumi while I plot a new body design...

WIPs This Week

Sadly, I haven't been getting a heck of a lot of crocheting done this week, thanks to trying to get some items into the mail, work craziness. Oh, and the Mr. and I are looking at houses. Craaaaazy. I had no idea that it was this complicated or this insane! It's certainly not helping that we're on a strict budget and have a number of requirements. I have to have faith that we'll find something eventually.

At any rate, this week I was working on a starfish rattle that didn't turn out terribly well. Even though I'm certain that I counted stitches on the legs, the legs are still uneven, so it's back to the drawing board with that one.

I also started a brittle star, which is going a little bit better, you can see it in the lower left hand corner. I'm not exactly sure why I'm so fascinated with them. I find them rather repellent, to be honest, yet I have one as wallpaper on my phone and I keep working on making them. Part of it is that the kind I'm making is not quite as scary. The ones that have the little extra tentacles on all of their legs are strange and frighten me a little bit.

With regards to the soap thing that I mentioned last week, the team at work and I finally made the decision to go ahead with melt and pour soap, primarily due to the safety factors. Individuals in my group are going to work on prepping soap inclusions, staff and some individuals from another room will be doing the actual melting, my group will pick scents and add in the inclusions, and then another group will work on packaging. In the end, I'm thinking it's going to be a nice team effort.

Hopefully, once we manage to purchase a house, I'll have the space for more crafts, including the cold process soap that I'm so interested in.

Wee See World

wee see - collection one from Rolyn Barthelman on Vimeo. (you can watch a sample in full screen mode at the site)

This is a little off topic for me, but it's really cool. Via The Dieline, videos featuring lovely music and high contrast imagery. The target audience is infants, but I could imagine having a projector and one of these videos on the wall of my sensory room at work--how soothing! I've been sitting here watching the sample videos, utterly enchanted. I love the high contrast work.

Hardly Working

Uggh, I was hit with a really bad cold for a couple of days there, but I'm back.

Artwork above by the gang at work. I'm at a bit of a loss to explain the device they used to create this, but it's a crazy adaptive bingo stamp holder. I'll have to take a picture of it for it to make sense.

Crocheting soon, when I've done some more of it. :)

Why I Don't Want to Quit My Day Job

Lovely Crocheted Swimsuit from Rodel, who pointed out to me on Flickr that it has a similar aesthetic to my new bag.

A regular feature of etsy's on the Storque is the "Quit Your Day Job" section, where crafters explain how they managed to cast free their work lives and become full time crafters. This is presented as the ultimate dream of crafting and crafters everywhere.

Over the last few weeks, as we stare down the state budget crisis in Massachusetts, I've been thinking a lot about my Day Job. As I mention occasionally, I work with adults with developmental disabilities at a day habilitation service. We're funded by the state of Massachusetts, and our continued survival is still looking a little hairy (on a side note, if you're from Mass, write to your state senator!). It's certainly given me an opportunity to think about my Day Job as compared to my crocheting.

Facing the possibility of not having any continued employment, I realized something. I don't want to quit my day job.Yes, I do love to crochet, and maybe I would do it full time if forced to, but what I get out of my Day Job is more than medical insurance and a paycheck (although those are nice, and I would take more paychecks if they start giving them out).

My day job is challenging-- in fact, a little more than I would sometimes like. Designing activities that the group of individuals I am responsible for is incredibly challenging. These adults are faced with disability, age, vision issues, hearing loss, and in some cases years of living in institutional settings. It takes everything I have to come up with and adapt activities for them. I'm constantly picking the brains of anyone I come across for more ideas, and anyone who's met me for more than five minutes quickly learns all about my job as I pump them for ideas.

But when the ideas work, my job is rewarding. The triumphs are usually small by some standards, but they mean a lot to me. With the group of people I used to work with, I was pleased if they completed a craft activity start to finish by themselves. With my current group, I'm happy when people engage in activities. Today, for the first time, an individual that I've never been able to engage in an activity painted independently with a paintbrush taped to a 36" dowel (if you haven't tried this before, it's fun. Cover a wall with paper, then stand or sit 3 feet away and pain). We had a party. And I know I'm making a difference, if only a small one.

What can sometimes be just as important, though, is that I work with great people at my day job. As much as administration can drive us all insane, as much as we fight as though we're related, I work with an incredible bunch of people who are just as crazy as I am. I would miss them just as much as the individuals that I work with if we had to close down.

Someday, I may be at a different place in my life, and I may feel differently. I may burn out eventually, it's a tough field to stay in, and a lot of people do. But for right now, what I want most, career wise, is to see day habilitation keep being funded and to be able to get up and go to my Day Job every morning.

Field Trip

 

Some of the gang from work and I visited Extras for Creative Learning in Dorchester yesterday. It's a recycling center where companies donate all kinds of crazy stuff and artists and people from non profits can visit and pick up cool stuff. They sell memberships for $40 for 4 visits and $80 for 10 visits. I would think it would be totally worth it, since per visit you're only limited by what you can carry out. I picked up some truly excellent items for the sensory room, but sadly I am sick today & lying on the couch, miserable and bored. I'd rather be working.

Of course, the bunnies continue.

Clement the Bunny: Continued

Progress is, well, progressing on the bunny. The initial 8" tall C Hook bunny has been completed, and I'm satisfied with the look. I do still want to try out a sweater and maybe some other accessories on him. I'm also debating how to demonstrate the embroidery for the pattern. Normally I'm kind of a jerk and just say "refer to photo". I'll take some step-by-steps of it, but I'm wondering if I really need to include the actual pattern, maybe I can just write a description of the number of holes neccessary for counting. Hm.

In progress now is a larger G hook version. I was actually surprised that the scale up to a G hook really doesn't make that much of a difference in size, at least as far as the head is concerned. It's adding about an inch to the diameter of the head. The G hook bunny does appear that it's going to be quite a bit taller.

In other news, I'm currently baking chocolate chip cookies (Tollhouse, sub'd half the flour with whole wheat flour, this way I can feel sort of virtuous about eating them, kinda) working on totally awesome felt soaps with the guys at work (photos soon, I promise) and enjoying my weird burst of organization and structured work.

Creepy Wasn't What I was Going For

...It's just sort of where I ended up. I think the pink eyes have something to do with it. Back to the drawing board, I guess. I also think that if the pink eyes were on pink or green, they wouldn't be half as creepy, so that's where I'm going next. Obviously, the hair also looks better when I spend more time on it.

Not much else up. I'm headed over to MBCC tomorrow for advising, one step closer to actually starting class. The day job has been going well--we're still working on felted soaps and seed balls. I picked up the remaining supplies we need for the punch needle work tonight, so we should be able to start that tomorrow, along with repotting some portulacaria. Busy, busy!