RememberME: Memory Mondays....Tis the season (almost)

Today's Memory Monday was inspired by yesterday. What was yesterday? Yesterday was CHRISTmas in July. And what does this have to do with Memory Mondays? Well, I would like all of my fellow crafters and general gift givers to just take a moment to remember all of the craziness that ensues come December. Everyone has the best intentions all year round. But then December hits and there is just nothing left. No time. No $$. No interest because you are just so over this overly commercialized holiday that no longer has any meaning.

So my friends, be ye crafters, be ye shoppers, be ye broke, or be ye slackers. I raise the call to you today, the day after CHRISTmas in July. Starting now we have 5 months. Pick up the tools of your craft and plunge in. Let's see if we can actually follow through this year. Select small projects. Hit up you local 5 and dime. Don't forget the thrift stores. Gift giving doesnt have to mean breaking the bank. With some well timed planning you can find something for everyone on your gift giving list. Do they have hobbies, favorite colors or things, tv shows etc? Heck grab some old magazines and a picture frame from IKEA. Think of the recepient and go crazy. BOOM insta-collage! Crap did I just give away a potential gift?


All I know is CraftyME's digging in my stash and hands don't fail me now. Cause unfortunately a sista's pockets dont reflect the amount of love I have for my family and friends. I may not get everybody. But I'm gonna try. And just because I can, here's a sneak peek of what's to come....

Merry Xmas in July friends.....

CraftyME: LIFELINES SAVE LIVES!

On to the next project guys. Next up learning to knit from a chart and to knit lace. WannaME has like 52billion wraps/shawls in the queue. But I have been hesitant to start any because those charts look SCARY. So this week I decided to bite the bullet. What better way to beat WoeISMe blues, than to tackle a challenge? So I cast on The Traveling Woman shawl.  Here goes something.

One thing that I learned, the easy way thank you Little Baby Jesus, is LIFELINES SAVE LIVES! Something told me to put one in before I started the chart. Yeah ME am so smart because I actually listened.
 

Two rows later, I missed a YO or something because I was short 2 stitches. I tried to fudge it, but by row 5 yeah it wasnt happening. I had to frog 5 rows. And had I not listened to that little voice, I would have had to pull out 5 days worth of knitting instead of just 5 rows.

 If you dont have those fancy needles w/ the little hole to thread your lifeline thread through, just take a piece of tape and wrap it around the tip of your needle. I used painter's tape because it doesnt leave the sticky residue on your needle. OK that may be a little bit of a fib, I used it cause I couldn't find the scotch tape and it was right there lol. But it didnt' leave the residue so score for being a lazy bum.

  Place one when you finish a section and know that it's right before you move on to another one. Place one after x# of rows just so that if you do make a mistake it's so much easier to fix it.

Trust me that extra 2-3mins will save you a bunch of cursing later. All you have to do is follow the little red thread to put your stitches back on the needle.

So remember friends LIFELINES SAVE LIVES! And this is coming from someone who doesnt even gauge swatch ever.

WoeIs ME: CraftyME to the rescue.....

So there maybe a slight theme to my life lately. WoeIsME has been running rampant. I may have a day or so of relief and then its back to the gloom.  But once again CraftyME to the rescue... by way of my old boss.  Now this is a man who was wowed by the fact that I made an apple cozy and who loves to tease me on all of my CraftyME expertise. After reading a couple of WoeIsME's Facebook statuses, he made the following comment... Why don't you make a banana cozy to cheer yourself up?

You know what..........

IT DID!! It did cheer me up! lol And all of the comments that ensued provided tons of hilarity. And even lead to this....

Yep it's a tampon cozy!  Dude you gotta get your kicks wherever you can get em! I do have to say though. Crocheted tampons changed my life. Wait Wait let me explain. Not like that.  A few years ago I used to only crochet. And I used to visit this one gossippy message board. Well one day someone posted a picture of some crocheted tampons that they found online. Well that led me to discover Craftster.org. Which in turn led me to discover OnlineCrackSpot aka Ravelry.com. So if it wasn't for reusable tampons I wouldn't be the CraftyME, blogging, onedaypodcasting ME that you all know and love.

RememberME: Memory Mondays....Birthday wishes from Heaven.....

Hello My Friends.  I am happy. Really happy today. Why? Because it's my birthday and I just got the best gift EVAH!!!!! No it wasn't the new Iphone or new shoes or cake.  Nope WannaME didn't get that. lol. It was even better. Yes, a rainy dreary Monday evening made my whole day wonderful.

I was sitting here randomly clicking around the net when something told me to look outside. And when I did, I saw the most beautiful, colorful, brightest rainbow I've ever seen. And not just 1 but 2.

And in that moment, all I could feel was that my Daddy and big brother Jamie were smiling down from HEAVEN and wishing me a Happy Birthday!



And it made me smile.

And it made me want to dance barefoot in the rain.

And I felt so much love.

And it was good.

I hope you all get a chance to feel the happiness of dancing in the rain on a hot summer day, watching rainbows.

CraftyME: Oh Baby I'm a RockStar....

Yeah so I may have Rihanna "Rockstar 101" playing on repeat right now. "To be what you is you gotta be what you are. The only thing I'm missing is a black guitar. I'm a RockStar!"  Why? you may wonder....I'll tell ya...

So like I have said or maybe not (don't know if I really posted about it) But I have been feeling very WoeIsME as of late. Without going into a bunch of whiny specifics WorkME(shh) had a couple of setbacks and the rest of life has been trying to drive me crazy as well.  That's mostly why I've been SlackerME and not posting. Hell I hadn't even really been on OCS believe it or not.

Now after feeling this way for a couple of weeks, CraftyME was like "Yo, so what if other people are being craptacular right now. Show 'em how awesome you are. You have talents you are CRAFTY." So CraftyME picked up hooks and needles and got to crafting. So here's a little sampling of what I've done in the past 2 wks.

First up is one that I can't really go into a whole lot of specifics about yet. Let's just say I'm helping an artist out on a project that involved me making a 6 ft long by 9 inches wide ruffle. Once He gives me the okay I'll post more pics. But for right now just know that yes on a day when temps were 107 degrees, in a house with no air conditioning, I did my part. lol.

Next my WorkME (shh) wonder twin commissioned a Walk of Fame inspired star blanket for a "star is born" baby shower. Not bad for a weeks worth of work.

I'm gonna skip to yesterday's rainy Saturday project. A couple of dishcloths and a scrubbie. Yeah so what I was supposed to be actually washing the dishes....It was more fun to lay on the couch and watch trashy movies & knit.

"I told ya, I told ya" Back to the reason I'm a Rockstar......



I made my first knit garment. My RockStar Coachella!!!

This is another Knitty pattern, Coachella. One that I had sitting in my queue forevah. Just before MDSW I heard an older episode of The Knitmore Girls and Jasmin mentioned she had made it in some kind of ribbon yarn. Well at MDSW I was browsing at the Tess's yarn booth while waiting for the podcastor meet&greet. I saw some pretty ribbon yarn and was like oh I've gotta ask Jasmin if this was the kind she used. Of course I got all fangirly and forgot to ask her. But after the M&G I went back to the booth to buy some sox yarn. So I get to the front of the line finally to check out and the girl working the register has on this beautiful gray top. So I'm admiring it when I had a light bulb moment. ME:" OMG is that the coachella?" Her: "why yes it is" ME: " is that made out of the ribbon yarn?" Her: "yep." I looked at the long ass line behind me and then back at her shirt and back at the line.... Her: " if you want to run and grab it I won't make you stand in the line again." ME: " thank you thank you!" Total impulse splurge. Totally worth it.

Fast forward to July4th weekend. WoeIsME running rampant. CraftyME feeling the crafting urge. I got up on whim and said I need something to make me feel better.  I'm gonna make that Coachella this week for my birthday. This yarn and this project were the perfect antidote. I so F'LUV em both. They flowed together seamlessly.

 And now I feel like such a RockStar because yeah...I'm kinda awesome. Rock on my friends, rock on!

HaterME: The Newfangled Golden Rule

I am a cliche lover of sorts. I try to live my life by certain creeds or mottos if you will. I post some on my desk at work others I spout off in any given moment. Mainly I use them as kind of affirmations.
"Consistency is Key"
"Anything is possible"
"Stop wishing...BE"
"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you CAN do."
But my #1 is and always has been The Golden Rule. You know "Do unto others as you would have done unto you." Basically try to treat people the way you want to be treated. Apparently not everyone subscribes to this philosophy. Either that or they subscribe to The NewFangled Golden Rule circa 2010, "SELF!" or it's cousin, "Do You!"
This conflict of rules has been the cause of alot of WoeIsME's issues as of late. Because I believe the first and many around ME subscribe to the later. Your natural instinct when you feel mistreated is to say "Fine, if you want to be like that then I will too!" HaterME says "OK I'll just Do ME". But this doesn't work, after the anger wears off I'm just left conflicted because I'll always default to TGR.
"You can't allow others to make you come out of your character"
"Don't stoop down to the level of others. Bring them up to your level."
"You cannot control someone else's actions. You can only control your reactions."
I struggle with those 3. I have to consistently remind myself of them. But I must find the balance between them all. I won't stop treating others the way I want to be treated just because they continuously just look out for self. I won't allow them to make me step out of my self. Am I always right? More than likely not. Will I continue to be overly sensitive and get hurt? Yeppers. Like they say, Do you. This is ME.

SlackerME: check-in

Ok. SlackerME checking in. It's been ages, I know. I'm sorry. I've had the best of intentions, they just got overshadowed by my extreme slackerness. I have started a couple of posts but just never got around to finishing them. And I've had ideas and themes for several others and just haven't sat down to write em up.
So now I have decided that I need to utilize my technology. Otherwise I'll never get back on track with my WannaME dreams of being a blogging podcastor extraordinaire. I am setting the new goal of sending posts from my beloved Iphone. Whenever an idea pops in my head I'm gonna just pick up my phone and type it on in. Please forgive in advance if these posts have limited pics or a few grammatical errors. I F'LUV my Iphone but it is a bit fickle from time to time. Like autocorrecting "me" to "mr". Seriously? Like I tell others, I am way more selfcentered than I am formal. :)
If I have any readers left, hell if I have any readers at all. I hope to be back up and blogging regularly really soon. If not blame it on SlackerME!!!!