No Flake Monday

I've been stressing about this for quite a while now. Things at home are so traumatic. Thread is expensive. Glue for stiffening is expensive. Photography storage space is expensive. Technology can be such a pain. My eyes are begging me to stop straining them. And I'm just tired.

I've designed more than 800 snowflake patterns, so there are plenty from which to choose.

And that darned snowflake directory... man, that thing is a bear to maintain. More than an hour of tedious manual coding every six weeks. It's just not something my life needs right now.

I've known for a few months now this day was looming, but that doesn't make it any less painful. Because I'm not quite in a position to retire from my real job yet, I've decided it's time to retire Snowcatcher. It's been a great journey! Thanks for all the years, memories, inspiration, friendship and positive feedback! Spread kindness like snowflakes!

Click the April Fool photo to be taken to today's Snowcatcher snowflake pattern!

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Free Time at Last

It's been so long since I've had time to do whatever I want, I was almost frightened to pick a project!

We are visiting my mother-in-law this week. I didn't bring my sewing machine this time, but I did bring my HST collection. I brought Lizard's rag quilt project, and the Christmas present I cut up for my mother-in-law is waiting to be assembled. I brought three crochet projects, and I've put about 16 hours so far into one.

My mother-in-law confessed she has not touched the Christmas present. She said she just doesn't feel up to cutting up the beautiful fabric. How often have I felt that very same way!

I offered to help her make the quilt or to make it for her if she would help design the project. I want it to be something she loves, so I think she should have a say in how it gets put together.

She was a bit side-tracked when she discovered the antique treadle machine a neighbor was discarding. It's now in my mother-in-law's garage, and her husband is planning to restore it as much as he is able. We, meanwhile, enjoyed sifting through the dusty, weathered drawers...

Meanwhile, I'm making progress on the Christmas skirt I did not get finished in time for last December. My goal was to wear it in December. Now my goal is to be able to wear it next November and December.

I put in the pockets, the zipper, finished the side seams, then hemmed the skirt before our trip, and I've worked on the crochet edging in great daylight this week. The first row was a bear, trying to catch the foundation stitching I put into the hem specifically for the crochet work. But now that I've reached the end of that first row, my hook is moving much, much faster. I can actually crochet without my glasses now if I have good daylight!

Linking up with Alycia Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

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WIP it Good

I vowed last month to participate in the Devoted Quilter's 100-day WIP challenge. I've been participating in a Ravelry quilt WIP challenge for years, and sometimes I've even successfully completed quilts on my list. Many summers, however, have passed without fnishing a single thing.

I also participated for several years in Ravelry's Starfleet Academy, which also had regular WIP challenges. I was much more successful in meeting those goals, possibly because the crafts I was trying to finish were smaller than quilts, and I typically had to finish just one each month. The real challenge was tying my finishes into the monthly outer space themes...

I still have stacks of projects hidden in every nook and cranny, crying out to be finished. I'm excited to start searching for them and to hopefully start whacking a few of them into the light of day and more appropriate lifestyles. Finished lifestyles. Giftable lifestyles. Useful lifestyles. Anything but hiding in a brown paper bag beneath the bed or in the corner of a closet!!!

I didn't have to hunt far and wide for one of my first finishes. This flimsy basket has been in my crochet project bag for at least three years. I'd set a goal back when I whipped up this "Flower Girl Basket", literally in about two train commutes, to use up some of my hand-dyed thread so I could justify dyeing more. It's funny to remember now that back then, I wanted to make similar baskets from each of the six colors of the rainbow. I'm not sure I've touched my hand-dyed thread since I finished the handle of this basket.

I also didn't have to look far to find the single-serving cereal cup I'd used to shape my previous baskets. It was in the basement, in a box of unfinished snowflakes I've wanted to bring upstairs for several years now. Gosh, since perhaps 2013!!! That's when I wrote the basket pattern!!!

The Honey Nut Cheerios container had a surprise for me, though. I did not remember that I had another unfinished another basket from the same pattern. This one is not my hand-dyed thread. It's Lizbeth, which I collected quite a stash of back before I became addicted to thread-dyeing.

If I finished the basket handle to go with the unexpected WIP, I didn't put it in the same box. I had to make another one. I searched my old Lizbeth stash to see if I even had any more of that pink and purple thread.

Turning to the stash was not a pleasant task. I've long avoided organizing my Lizbeth thread. Lizard has accidentally knocked down a ball or two from time to time, as have I, and the unraveled messes often got tossed back onto the pile. The stash literally was a tangled mess. A tangled mess I wasn't using anymore, so why bother, right???

I'm probably going to have to dive into that stash to finish more of the WIPs lurking in that crochet box from the basement. So I might as well clean it up before I get started.

The variegated threads look so much better now! I didn't organize the solid colors yet. I'll try to do that in conjuction with my next crochet WIP. Maybe. Thankfully, I did have a tiny bit of the Girly Girl thread left, so I set right to work making a handle for the Girly Girl basket.

Both handles had to be stiffened, and then I got side-tracked by work and by a Boss Day project I needed to finish in time to mail. Oh, and a couple of baby quilts... But that's another WIP story.

The blue basket had to be stiffened, too. I apparently crocheted tighter three years ago than I did back in 2013. The blue basket wouldn't fit over the Cheerios container. I ended up using a regular plastic drinking cup, which was square on the bottom. Before I set the school glue-covered basket aside to dry, I twisted it around on the cup, and that evented out the corners the cup formed. Now dry (and finished), the blue basket gives no clue it was dryed on a square-bottom form.

Finally, I got to sit down and finish my baskets. I wove a ribbon through each handle, then stitched the handle ends in place. I don't know yet what I will do with the baskets. But they are done, and that feels so blasted awesome!!!

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Snowflake Monday

This 30 March 2020 blog post initially was published as a No Flake Monday. Lizard had undergone total knee replacement in December of 2019 and then had to go through another related surgical procedure right after the whole world shut down for what we thought would be two weeks. I'm preserving what I published then (at the end of this addition) because what I wrote then is still important to me. I realize no one else in the world may care about some little two-paragraph blurb I wrote back when everything seemed so dark and hopeless, but my blah blah blagh has become a bit of a visual historical journal for me. It is NOT my official journal and never will be, but it is one of many places I can review what I was feeling and thinking during some of the best and worst times of the last decade and a half. Yes, it's really been that long!!! This blog started 15 years ago!!!

What began on 28 March 2024 as what I considered as preparation for a harmless April Fool's joke has now shown me how important it is to record our special moments in a manner in which they can be easily retrieved and reviewed. Our hard moments. Our trials. Our celebrations. Perhaps not all online, and definitely not always on a stage, but we need to preserve precious memories and lessons we learn so our experiences are available to us and to those we love and/or influence, whether it be our children and grandchildren, our friends, or, for me, my readers.

When I first wrote today's (April Fool's Day 2024) pattern in this once-short-little post, I changed the original title, I added some colorful text at the top to advise readers to keep scrolling past the original blog post to the pattern below, and then I composed at the bottom of the original post an entirely new blog post with rantings about AI (artificial intelligence) and links to great fiber-related April Fool pranks, illustrated with my own genuine snowflake photos and my own AI-generated "April Fool Snowflake" renderings. The blog post needed only photos of the today's snowflake, which snowflake was pinned and drying in the sunlight.

I didn't realize everything I had written would not be preserved if I didn't hit the orange "update" button on Blogger's composition page. I didn't hit that button Thursday night before April Fool's Day because the post still needed today's crocheted snowflake photos.

I thoughtlessly closed my browser and turned off my computer for the night, planning to snap photos of the crocheted flake first thing Friday morning, then insert the photos and publish. I didn't realize I was erasing everything. Early April Fool's joke on me!

I got up early Good Friday morning, unpinned my snowflake, shot a handful of photos of it, uploaded them, then got on the computer to add the crocheted snowflake photos to the blog post. But the editing field was blank. I mean, the old blog post was still there. Untouched. But the rest was gone. I was forced to completely rewrite my pattern. (In a new (Microsoft) Word document the second time around to make sure it would never be lost again!!!)

What have I learned??? At least one lesson I should have already known by heart. Always have a backup copy. Always. But also, this whole idea stemmed from my desire to pull what I thought would be a fun prank. To make everyday readers laugh. Perhaps my time could have been better spent. Some April Fool's jokes are not funny. I was horrified by some of the crochet fiber pranks I stumbled upon while writing the original blog post for today, so I didn't bother trying to look up my links again. Too many crochet creations I don't want lurking in my head.

I didn't try to duplicate anything I wrote the first time around but the pattern. I don't think anything I wrote the first time would have offended anyone; my April Fool's Day blog post may have caused a degree of concern for those who care about whether I continue blogging, but I'm hoping all my readers laughed when they reached the final image in that blog post. I hope whenever I try to be funny here, what I publish is smile-worthy.

Today's pattern was inspired by one of the first AI renderings I got when I wrote the simple prompt, "April Fool's Snowflake" in the AI generator. I was shocked this snowflake had six sides because I've known for more than a year AI cannot count. Now, after an entire series of AI renderings that, in my mind, had absolutely nothing to do with April Fool's Day, I know AI has no (intentional) sense of humor. (Some AI is just comical!) I do like a lot of the snowflake inspiration AI provides me, though. I've obtained many renderings I hope to re-create in real thread with a real hook, and by writing real (not AI-generated) patterns one day.

You may do whatever you'd like with snowflakes you make from this pattern, but you may not sell or republish the pattern. Thanks, and enjoy!

Finished Size: 4.75 inches from point to point
Materials: Size 10 crochet thread, size 7 crochet hook, empty pizza box, wax paper or plastic wrap, cellophane tape, water soluble school glue or desired stiffener, water, glitter, small container for glue/water mixture, paintbrush, stick pins that won't be used later for sewing, clear thread or fishing line

Shenanigan Snowflake Instructions

Make magic ring.

Round 1: 18 sc in ring; sl st in starting sc. Don't pull magic circle too tight.

Round 2: Ch 4 (counts as 1 sc and [ch 3), sk next 2 sc, 1 sc in next sc] 5 times; ch 1, 1 dc in 1st ch of starting ch 4 to form 6th ch 3 sp of Round.
If you're not reading this pattern on Snowcatcher, you're not reading the designer's blog. Please go here to see the original.

Round 3: Ch 7 (counts as 1 dc and [ch 5), in next ch 3 sp work (1 dc, ch 3, 1 dc)] 5 times; ch 5, 1 dc in next ch 3 sp, ch 1, 1 dc in 2nd ch of starting ch 7 to form 6th ch 3 sp of Round.

Round 4: [Ch 2, 2 tr over post of dc directly below (or in same ch 3 sp in repeats), ch 3, 1 dc* in 3rd ch from hook, ch 3, 1 sc in 3rd ch from hook, ch 2, sl st in same ch as dc*, ch 6, sl st in 2nd ch from hook and in each of next 2 ch, [ch 4, sl st in 2nd ch from hook and in each of next 2 ch] 2 times, ch 1, working back down spoke skip next ch, sl st in next ch, sl st in same ch as dc*, ch 5, 1 scin 3rd ch from hook, 1 dc in same ch as dc*, ch 2, sl st in same ch, 1 trtr in same ch 3 sp as previous tr, ch 2, sl st in same ch 3 sp, in next ch 5 sp work (1 sc, 1 hdc, 3 dc, 1 hdc, 1 sc), sl st in next ch 3 sp] 6 times; bind off. Weave in ends.

Finish: I've been stiffening my flakes with undiluted, full-strength water soluble school glue for quite a while now, and I've been squishing the glue onto and throughout each flake with my fingers (yucky mess!!!) instead of gingerly painting the flakes with glue. Yes, it's a mess. But it's faster. And stiffer.

Tape wax paper or plastic wrap to top of empty pizza box. Pin snowflake to box on top of wax paper or plastic wrap.

If using glue, mix a few drops of water with a teaspoon of glue in small washable container. Paint snowflake with glue mixture or desired stiffener. Sprinkle lightly with glitter. Wash paintbrush and container thoroughly. Allow snowflake to dry at least 24 hours. Remove pins. Gently peel snowflake from wax paper or plastic wrap. Attach 10-inch clear thread to one spoke, weaving in end. Wrap fishing line around tree branch (or tape to ceiling or any overhead surface) and watch snowflake twirl freely whenever you walk by! Snowflake also may be taped to window or tied to doorknob or cabinet handle.

And here's the post I originally published back in 2020...

Lizard and I took another emotional/mental hit late last week, and I have not even a fraction of an ounce of creativity brewing inside me as I try to write today's (30 March 2020) post. I hope you are staying safe and healthy, and I hope you are doing everything you need to do to maintain faith, a good attitude and hope.

Never give up. We will make it through this.

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