Here's Gnomy!

I promised I would post a finished pic of him and here he is! So happy with how he turned out.

Quotes

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.

~Eleanor Roosevelt

It's better to have failed trying than to have failed to try.

Having tried and failed leaves things to fix that could lead to success next time. Doing nothing leaves nothing to build on. 

Failure is nothing more than an opportunity to begin again more knowledgeably.

~Henry Ford

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

 ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Gnome Sweet Gnome

Last weekend I went home to visit my mom for her birthday. I hadn't been home in almost a year so I figured I was way over due. Home for me is Moses Lake, Washington, a small rural town in eastern WA or as I like to refer to as the pit stop between Seattle and Spokane. A lot has changed since I moved away from there almost 14 years ago. Bunch of new housing developments, home improvement chain stores are coming in, and sadly the only real place to go for anything anymore is Walmart for your basic everyday needs. Don't worry though, I believe there are 3 Starbucks locations in a town of less than 20,000 so lack of caffeine is not a problem in this rural farm town.

Despite all these changes that make Moses Lake home for me it is fun to see the new mom and pop shops that open up from time to time in the downtown area. Usually I don't venture in to town too often while I'm there because I'm hanging out with mom or catching up with old friends, but this time mom thought it would be fun to do something for her birthday. We went to Art Garden Pottery, looked around their cute gift shop and did some ceramic painting. Mom chose a plate and I a gnome.

Here he is all fresh and white. You can see mom's plate in the background.

Started him off with a nice red coat. Mom was using a stencil on her plate.

Gave him some blue pants, black belt and some detail to his beard.

Painted his hands and face a flesh color, green hat and yellow boots.

 

 

 

 

Then finished him off with some polka dots on his hat and boots and a bit of rouge on his cheeks.

Once he gets fired all of the colors will be vibrant. She had samples there of all the colors and what they looked like after firing so you knew how they were going to look. I was glad she had the samples otherwise I would have been really disappointed.

Don't have him back yet as she said it would take a week or so. I told my mom when she went to go pick them up she needed to take a picture of him and send it to me so I could see how he turned out. I'm very excited to see the colors come to life! My plan is to stick him outside on my patio to keep watch of those slimy slugs and snails that keep eating my plants! Grumble, grumble, grumble. I will post the finished product as soon as I can.

If you are in the area I encourage you to stop by and check them  out. Have a girls day painting some pottery or buy one of their cute little garden creatures. They also have various art classes available. You can find them online at http://www.artgardenpottery.com/.

Pandora's scarf is done!

Ok so it's been done for awhile I just finally got it photographed and listed on Etsy. Turned out beautifully like I expected it would. Super soft and elegant alpaca yarn has been a joy to work with. Fortunately for me a Christmas gift I received this year from a friend was some more alpaca yarn! Haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet, but I see something amazing for its future.

Crochet vs. Knitting for Dummies

“Oooh what is that you’re knitting?”
“I’m not knitting anything, but I am crocheting something.”

I’ve had the above conversation more times than I can count. I’m sure fellow crocheters can relate. People who are not familiar with either craft immediately assume that because you are holding a utensil in your hand and doing something with yarn you must be knitting. Granted before I knew how to crochet I didn’t know the difference myself. Knitted products are highly commercialized so it’s no surprise that people are more familiar with knitting.

Now would be a good time to preface that I am not claiming to be an expert in crocheting or to know much of anything about knitting. My intent is simply to give you the quick and dirty down-low on crocheting versus knitting to avoid those annoyed looks from your friends or grandma when you ask what she’s up to. Don’t worry I’m not going to get all technical on you, I mean I did title this “for Dummies”, not that you’re a dummy or anything, you ARE reading this blog after all.  ;)

Crochet hooks

Whether your friend or grandma is crocheting or knitting, whatever she is holding in her hand(s) is going to tell you right away what she is doing. She’s actually going to tell you what she’s doing without you ever asking. Crochet uses a single needle or hook that is used to pull the yarn through a previously made stitch or loop. If you look at the end of the needle you will see an actual hook. Knitting uses two needles that are held in each hand. The yarn is simply wrapped around each needle and worked in and out of the previously made loops. Knitting needles have tapered ends that allow the needles to easily form new stitches. You may also notice that knitting needles have a cap at the other end, that’s to keep the newly created fabric from unraveling. Crocheted fabric can only unravel if you pull on the yarn opposite the direction you are working. Both knitting needles and crochet hooks come in a variety of sizes, measured in millimeters, and made from various materials such as bamboo, aluminum, acrylic, wood and probably other things I’m not aware of.  

All types of yarn are used for both knitting and crocheting; I might even dare to say if you can crochet it, you can knit it and vice versa. There are specific patterns for crochet and knit and for the really industrious there are ways to convert patterns from one to the other, but I go cross-eyed trying to figure it out. Crochet has a number of different stitches starting with the chain stitch, single crochet, double crochet and it goes on from there. With knitting there is knit and purl. This is where my knowledge of knitting ends because I’m not familiar with any other stitches. I did try to look some up but as I mentioned earlier I am not a knitter and had no real understanding of what I saw. Besides, I said I was going to keep this simple and I think I’ve trailed a bit. Lucky for you I think we are about done!

Knitting needles

I did want to mention that knitting doesn’t take as much yarn as crocheting. I realize that knowing about stitches and patterns and how much yarn each uses probably isn’t very helpful to recognizing what grandma is working on. However I think it will help you have a better understanding and an appreciation for that sweater Aunt Bertha knitted and gave you for Christmas, no matter how ugly it is. Or maybe you will be inspired to look in to this topic more and who knows, take up a new hobby!

Current project

So i've made a mess of this beautiful alpaca yarn. Trying to untangle it and make it into a scarf. Should be really nice when I'm done. Now if I can only free myself from the mess...

Welcome to The String Lady blog. The picture above has been my signature photo since I've started my online business a few months ago. I took the picture in my back yard when the whether was still nice. Then used a filter to turn the image blue. I like it obviously, I think it represents what The String Lady is about...playing with string. I have tossed around the idea about something a little more graphic but that's not really my forte and I don't have the budget to fork out any dough to make it happen professionally. One day hopefully I can do that because I think it would be fun to work on and help my business grow.