A Lot of Glue

Above is one of my newest designs. Black and White Scrabble tile pendant.
Life has finally calmed down and I am back to the blog.
Lately it feels like I am constantly covered in ink and glue. I recently started making scrabble tile pendants (check them out here)and hand painted pendants (here). It is so much fun! I love coming up with cute designs to put on the pendants. The only drawback is that my hands don't want to get clean. I was scrubbing at ink on my thumb for about three days before it finally all came off.
If anyone has a tip for cleaning let me know in the comments!

This is one of the new scrabble tile pendants (adorable penguin) The circle pendant is one of the hand painted pendants (cute cupcake)

Feature on catldy99's shop

Catldy99's statement
I'm a glass bead artist and jewelry designer in Portland, OR. I am a member of the International Society of Glass Beadmakers. I am a member of the Portland Bead Society. My favorite TV show is House. I sell my work on the Oregon Coast at several galleries as well as on the internet and at numerous local in person shows.

Check out her shop, she makes beautiful beads and jewelry :D
link to her shop

These are some of my favorite items from catldy99's shop.
Turquoise Pearl Bracelet
Steampunk Dangle Earrings

Other links
Blog: http://www.catldy99.wordpress.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/catldy99
facebook: http://facebook.com/judy.richards

Alleriges and A Lot of Knitting

I have felt like I had a cold for the past week, my allergies have been horrible lately (itchy ears, sneezing...) I'm not sure what I am allergic to (I am going to make an appointment with an allergist soon), but this is the worst it's ever been for me. I started taking claritin about a week ago, I had been taking zyrtec before for about a year, but it doesn't seem to do anything anymore. I've also been taking sudafed almost every day. I hope this ends soon!



I will stop complaining now and talk about something i love, knitting! For the past week I have been going a bit yarn/knitting crazy. I went to my local yarn store twice in three days, and I have spent sooo many hours knitting. My main project was a cowl for my friend's birthday (visit her on etsy at http://ellysprout.etsy.com). I couldn't decide on a pattern for the longest time and I kept trying different things out. I ripped out my knitting for this project at least ten times, usually when I was practically done knitting the cowl. I am finally happy with it after a week of trying! It is made of beautiful soft super bulky purple yarn (50% wool, 50% acrylic Sundae by Berroco). I made the cowl in a simple garter stitch, and i knitted it as a scarf and then grafted the two ends together to make a twist (a mobius cowl). What do you guys think of it? Should I make one to sell on etsy?


I have also been going sock crazy! I love sock yarn, it is so much fun and comes in so many fun colors, self striping is really fun too! A few months ago I finished my first sock, and I just recently started on it's pair. I am aiming to knit at least 5 rows a day in the sock, if I do meet that goal I can finish it in about a month...hopefully I will be able to finish it before then. Here is a picture of my progress and my finished sock!

I am currently also working on a blanket for myself and a sweater for the charity warm woolies (http://www.warmwoolies.org/). I've knit a few small vests and sweaters for them in the past few months and once I finish the sweater I am going to send it all in. This is the first sweater I have ever knit so hopefully it will go well (i will post pictures and talk more about these projects in another blog post).

I just listed this super cute watermelon rose pink and green swarovski bracelet, what do you think of it? http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30941492

Star Wars Marathon, knitting socks, and balling yarn

Yesterday I hosted my fourth annual Star Wars marathon!
This all started the year I was going into 9th grade. Me and two or three of my friends decided we were going to watch all the Star Wars movies in chronological order one day. It was so much fun that we have done it again and again and again, and each year more people come, and more people bring food/baked goods (this year we had a full table, there were two huge plates of cookies, a pie, a carrot cake, fried dough, homemade applesauce, and other things that I am probably forgetting).
The marathon started out as it normally does, with eating bagels for breakfast while people show up between 9 and 10 and then we started the movies.

The thing that happened differently this year is that one of my friends brought her knitting! This actually inspired me to finally start knitting the second sock in my first pair, I finished the first one months ago. I actually was able to knit half the leg of the sock! (and today i ripped it out and started over, I wasn't happy with it D:)

I also discovered that my friends are obsessed with rolling yarn into balls. I have one friend who always seems to want to do this when he comes over to my house (don't know why) and he asked if I had any yarn for him, and then everyone started asking. I was able to get about half the yarn for a big blanket I'm knitting rolled into balls for me! And I didn't even have to ask them to do it, they volunteered!!!

I think I had an extremely productive and fun day. I knit (even if I did rip it out), got a lot of yarn rolled into balls for me, and I got to see all 6 star wars movies during a 15 hour party.