Relaxing in Door County

Sorry for the week long hiatus, I've been in Door County for the last few days with Nate and his family. It has been very relaxing, and slightly gluttonous. We couldn't have asked for any better weather.
Here we are at one of the many wonderful places where we dined. Don't you admire my ability to take a picture of myself?
I think this was the only time Nate didn't order a beer....

This is the view from sunset beach at sunset! Imagine that! I'm sad to be leaving tomorrow, but there is always next year to look forward to. The rest of this week we will be going back home, and then to our parent's houses, and then to Dekalb to look for a place to live.

In non-vacation related news, I've been working on a pattern for a cute and simple shrug for my Etsy site, but I haven't found the "perfect" yarn for it yet. I would love something widely available, but not really low quality. I was thinking along the lines of wool-ease, or a cotton/wool blend, but I'm not really sure yet. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Summertime Thunderstorms

I think this yarn represents the weather today. It was a rainy day with a heavy humid sky. This skien is fairly bulky and is made from a wool single plied with a 50%cotton/50%acrylic dark gray yarn that I recycled from a sweater. I think it is about 8 wpi putting it at a super bulky weight.

This weekend I also worked on assembling some of my necklaces. I think I have a pretty good system going so far. I'm using copper jump rings with silver toned endings and lobster claws for the suede cords. I can't do too many at a time though, or my hands start to cramp up!

Look Ma, Sushi!

So I had this pipe dream on Friday night that I was going to make sushi, and usually these kinds of things end badly, but it actually turned out. Believe me, I am still in awe, and lucky for you guys I took pictures.

These are some of the ingredients:
Here is the filling of the rolls all ready to be rolled up and packed together:
This is the roll before it is cut:
And last but not least, here is the finished product:
They were pretty good if I say so myself! Even Nate enjoyed them, which is a task hard won when it comes to "out of the box" foods. Right now I'm trying to find a new recipe to try for the annual Door County trip that we take with Nate's family every year. Any suggestions?

More Pics!

As promised, here is a picture of the wedding invite! The flowers on the top are all hand painted watercolored stamps that are raised up on foam stickies. I was glad to have a bunch of helping hands with these as well on Sunday. They are about 80% finished, and my goal is to get them done by the end of the weekend.
I also whipped up this pretty skien today. It is 100% domestic wool plied with an orange thread. I really like the texture of it, it is sport to worsted weight.

On the Road Again

Nate and I are back home this weekend for his brother's graduation party, and to do some condensed wedding planning sessions. I haven't been very productive for the last two days as a direct result of this, but I did get a mock up wedding invite done (picture to come soon!) I am also making good progress on the pattern for my dress (no pictures until it is done!) I will at least show you my handy dandy dress form that I made to aid in the pattern drafting process: Nate helped me wrap my upper body in clear packing tape to make this possible. It is stuffed with grocery store bags and packing peanuts. I then finished off the bottom and the sleeves with mat board scraps and tape.

I also painted some pendants yesterday. There were about 20 in all, and I was going to try to finish them this weekend, but alas, I forgot my hammer and my jump ring tools at home, and they will have to wait until Monday.

Fun with Colors

I've been playing around with some different dye combinations this week, and I've had some success so far. I hope to play around with some different techniques so none of them are too big. I got this drying rack this week, and it is nice to have for my roving -- no more moving everything out of the shower when I need to use it!

This yarn reminds me of old farmhouses, It is about 105 yards of worsted weight, and is a very strong yarn. I made two skeins of this yarn. I was playing around with making a marled yarn, and I think I was pretty successful. Both skeins are around 100yds and are a heavy worsted/bulky weight.

I am heading to the craft store tomorrow with intentions of buying supplies for my wedding invites, I've got a good idea of what I'm doing, I just need to get going on them. I am also making good progress on my dress. I am making a mock dress in plaid, and have it mostly done. I just need to finalize a few things, and then I am set to start working with the real fabric. I am scared to use the nice fabric, I almost always use thrift store fabric or clearance fabric, so it is weird for me to be using such beautiful fabric. I will try to post some progress pictures later this week. :) Also, my good friend Tony is coming back from studying in England soon, and I am getting excited for that as well!

Rainy Days

This is what it looked like from our balcony this morning:It seemed fitting that today was such a dismal rainy day. That's kind of the mood I've been in since coming back home after my four day excursion.

I have had a very busy week for someone without a real job, and am enjoying a little bit of time off today with the man in my life. In the span of four days, I've traveled close to 800 miles by car, went to visit both grandparents, my parents, attended a funeral for a friend's sister, did the 5k at the Race for the Cure, and went to the monthly art walk at the very end. I am drained both physically and mentally.

I did manage to get around to taking pictures of some of the yarns I've been making for my Etsy shop. Here are a few of them:I should have a little bit more to show you this week, I will hopefully be finishing a big batch of necklaces fairly soon. Wish me luck!