Girl on the Rocks

Socks for lunch? July 14, 2006

You know how sometimes late at night you find yourself reminiscing about your childhood…. Next thing you know you are on ebay looking at monchichi’s, atari 2600′s and ewok villages trying to figure out if you can afford to buy yourself everything you wanted as a kid. Next thing you know, this shows up on your doorstep.

Oh wait… I am I the only person that does stuff like that? Well, I did. And I have dragged this less-than-mint-condition lunch box around through several apartment moves. Many of the metal lunchboxes on ebay are pricey, but if you are willing to take one with a big honking dent, it’s a steal. When I saw this month’s whiplash challenge, i thought I might be able to dress ‘er up for the fancy category.

You see, I decided that i just can’t keep abusing my sock knitting projects by throwing them in my messenger bag. they have suffered interactions with unclean coffee travel mugs, gym socks, velcro and worse. i thought the lunch box was just the right size, so I decided to line it and add some accessories catered to sock knitting.

I put in a zippered pocket for securing little things like stitch markers, and loops in all of the corners for tying in scissors and tape measures and the like (If i don’t attach it to the bag, i will lose it). I made some shrinky-dink strawberries and glued them to some super-powerful rare earth magnets. They are decorative, and do a good job of holding up my sock pattern. since I didn’t like the way the lid opens all the way up, I added a fancy ribbon with handmade copper hooks and eye and adjuster slide for holding the lid up. I put in a divider to keep things from rattling around too much when the box isn’t full. The divider snaps in so i can remove it when I don’t need it.

Here it is in action with my in-progress chuck’s socks.

click through to flickr to see all of the notes i added to this photo

Lately I can’t figure out which I enjoy more – knitting the socks, or admiring my handiwork

Altoid tins are the perfect home for everything. June 12, 2006

edit: If you are interested in purchasing a felt covered altoids tin, check my shop

Even though most of what goes on here is knitting (and occasionally spinning), I have an interest in all kinds of crafty things. i often sew specialized knitting needle cases for sock knitters, and zippered bags (sometimes embroidered). i enjoy sewing because if you have a design idea, it takes much less time to try out the finished product than with knitting. Lately I have also been making buttons and stitch markers.

Proabably my most favorite crafts that i have worked on lately are my felt-covered altoid tins. I just traced around the edges of the tin to make a template for myself and i cut out a background piece. then I sew on the cuteness. Some more stitching and some E6000 later, Viola!

They are perfect for holding stitch markers and other knitting/sewing notions. And you don’t sound like a gypsy when you carry them around in you bag, because the felt lining keeps everything nice and quiet.

They are also the perfect size for a chapstick and maybe even a few bucks.

By far my favorite is the frozen dinner

but the cute little owl is a close second.

So I will say that the tv-dinner tin is my entry in the whiplash competition this month.

Whiplash entry – Poke me in the eye April 30, 2006

I recently discovered Whip up and decided to enter in this weekend’s competition. the idea is to make something crafty inspired by the theme “no fear.”

I recently had an inflamed pinguicula on my eyeball and since then i have been super-aware of my eyeball. I haven’t been wearing my contacts very often, and i keep looking at my eyes to make sure they don’t look too red. i really need my eyeballs, and i don’t want them to wear out. To alleve my hesitations about touching my eyeballs i made “Poke me in the eye.” I started with my cheap-o plastic tape measure, and covered it in felt to look like an eyeball. to retract the tape, i have to poke the eyeball. this eyeball is pinguicula
free.




I just threw this together and i am not totally happy with my stitching job around the outer edge… I’ll just have
to make another one!