creature board, knitting ADD and vampires

Today is one of those days outside: overcast, grey, sleepy. Dooley is snoring like I slipped him a sleeping pill (I assure you I did not, its his little doggies instincts kicking in with the arrival of the autumn weather). In all honesty, I don't mind this weather. Cathy says its my inner vampire coming out, she could be right.

I was tempted to stay on the sofa and bury my nose in some books but seeing as how my back is feeling halfway decent today, I decided that I really needed to do something about this:

Mom doesn't understand how it keeps getting messed up. I told her Dooley did it. (I don't think she bought it.)

Its a combination of me starting about three thousand new projects, dropping them to concentrate on finishing up some things for deadlines and the Breaking Traditions exhibit. The room can only hold so much and when my back is bothering me, I often revert back to the dump-and-ignore method of cleaning. (Made much easier by the fact that the room has a door I can shut.)

As I was cleaning I came face to face with the pile of sock creatures that I've created over the past few months. I was kind of perplexed what to do with them and knew that if they were in reach of the stumpy westie, he would proceed to drag them out of my studio one by one every time he came up to visit me. So I got crafty and did this:


All but two of those guys are mine. The ones on the far right (the tall orange one with the drawn on face and the squat one with the light blue protruding eyeballs) are works by John Murphy, the author of Stupid Sock Creatures. He was teaching at expo this year and also had a small display of his work. I was signed up to take his workshop on sunday but had to bail out of it since my stupid iditotic uncooperative kill-joy party-pooper of a back wouldn't let up in the aching department. Jackie took my place so I was happy that it didn't go to waste. The angry orange one is one of his samples that he made during class, scored by Jackie during the course of the day (go Jackie!). John autographed his butt. It makes me giggle snort.

I purchased the one with the bulging blue eyes from his display. Here were all his minions that he put out for the expo:

He is a really down to earth guy, I got to talk to him a little bit. If you get a chance to meet him or take one of his classes, I highly recommend it. He's a great inspiration for all things weird.

While beating back the chaos in my studio, I also came across the stuff I bought at expo. (I didn't pick up much this year. There were a LOT of machines. Sewing, embroidery, long arm...I'm waiting for the one that will clean the house, do laundry and cook dinner while I make art. That one would be a best seller.) I was happy to find a very nice wool booth and picked up this:

Those, my friends, are future minions to be added to the creature board. The little bit next to them are eyeball buttons I scored at another booth. Couldn't beat that, the eyeballs on my guys need some work.

I also attempted to tame my yarn. (I never win, its more persistent then I am and I am weak.) I wound up two more skeins of sock yarn. I'm drooling intently over the one in the back. So much so that I am going to abandon (without guilt) the current pair of socks I am knitting. Much to my surprise, the current socks on the needles are from black yarn with little spots of color -- and they are boring the snot out of me. I want C O L O R. And I'm not sorry, no ma'am. No guilt here. (I'm trying to believe that, work with me, okay?)


See that there yarn with the circular needles sticking out of it and the index cards next to it? That's my lace scarf. (Couldn't you tell???) I'm taking a cue from Yarnhog and really getting serious about breaking down the pattern. This is my first attempt at lace and its not gone well. In all honesty, after I frogged it three times, I banished it to the corner and have been turning my nose up at it. Cleaning the studio unearthed it once again and now I'm ready to battle with it again. I'll win - oh yes, I'll win....

I began taking pictures of all the UFOs I had laying about but honestly? I don't think blogger would support that many pictures in one post. Just take my word for it, its not a pretty site.

I think part of the problem is this:


I have been reading until my eyeballs hurt since I've been off for my back. HBO came out with a new series called True Blood based on some books about vampires. To my surprise, I've totally fallen in love with it. So I popped onto amazon.com and started looking around for more stories. I decided to try Stephanie Meyer's series since there are over 2,400 reviews for it. Figured it stood a good chance of being a good story. (I'm quick, aren't I?)

I was surprised when I got the first one that they are a teen series but I don't care about that anymore. Each book averages about 500 pages and I am about a quarter through the third one. They are basically crack and I've not been doing much else but burying my face in them everyday. Won't last forever, I'm running out of book. **sob**

That's pretty much all I've got. Oh! I'm happy to announce that my friend Mary now has a blog. Go check it out, she's just getting started with it but its sure to be a riot!