edith_speaks

Interesting article from the Washington Post.

Enjoy!
Edith
 

The eldest daughter of good friends lost her first tooth yesterday, and made me remember my grandmother.

When my siblings and I each lost our first tooth, Grandmother gave us a Tooth Fairy doll with a pocket in the front to hold the tooth, so that when the Tooth Fairy came to claim the little pearly, she'd be able to find the it, and to leave our payment where WE could find it.

My doll was shaped like the fairy herself, plump and happy, with brown french knots for hair and a lovely embroidered face. I think she was made from a kit, but grandmother had done all the embroidery herself.

I haven't seen my tooth fairy doll for many years; after all, I haven't lost any teeth since elementary school. I cuddled her for years until the fabric had turned grey and dingy, and then somewhere along the way I set her aside and forgot all about her...until today, when Fiona's tooth came out.

I love remembering the things my mom and grandmothers made for me, and taught me to make. It inspires me to make things for and with kids; to pass old skills along to future generations.

Edith
 

I kind of wish I had a little kid in my life so I could make one of these wonderful toys for it. Good thing 5 of my friends are pregnant. Sea creatures rock!

Edith

 

Within the past years, I have begun to develop more severe allergies than I've had in the past. One of the most troublesome allergies I've developed is to several kinds of personal lubricants. Sometimes I'll use one for several weeks and everything will be fine, and then WHAMMO! The itching, bumps, redness and irritation start up. Grrr. There's another bottle of $10 to $25 goo that I have to pour down the sink.

What does this have to do with AntiCrafting, you ask? Well, I've been looking for a relatively inexpensive, creative solution to my problem, specifically for non-latex-activities such as self-love. Recently, I had the idea of turning to the kitchen. For me, olive oil is the perfect consistency and doesn't irritate my skin. Apparently for some women, its acidity can cause irritation, and it does break down latex, so using it with condoms is for the no. But Go Ask Alice says it's okay to use.

Olive oil does have its downsides. It is a fairly strong-smelling oil, and although I like the smell of it, it isn't a particularly sexy smell. It is messy, so putting a towel down to soak up any drips is helpful. I'm still looking for something I like better, but for now, this is way cheaper than shelling out for yet another product I end up having to dump out.

Edith

 

Just checked my email; according to the wellness committee at work, May is National Bike Month. If I ride my bike to work at least one day this month, I could win a three-sided highlighter or a band-aid dispenser.

I'll probably ride to work anyway, but I wish the prize were something like this awesome bag made by LauPre at craftster.org... or maybe a laptop bag along the same lines.

Edith

 

So this guy in Washington made Jimi Hendrix out of playing cards. The video is really pretty nifty, as is the finished project. Apparently he takes the image and zooms waaaaaay in using Photoshop so he can figure out where to put everything. Check it out!

Edith

 

Just a quick note to show you a few cool crafty things I found this week:

Anita Powell handbuilds dresses out of clay, and then paints them with feminist imagery. My personal favorites are the "Easy to Understand Illustrations" series - scroll down to the bottom to find them.

At Foldschool, you can make your own very sturdy, funky cardboard furniture. I can't wait to try it out.

Edith

 

In my day job as manager of a branch library, I occasionally have the pleasure of substituting for the children's librarian. This Tuesday night, I got to sub for Family Storytime and Crafts. It was great.

We started with several stories and fingerplays about springtime, since in spite of the fact that the temperature didn't climb over 32F all day, it IS Spring Break week for our public schools. Then I sang a song, badly since I'm no Anthony, but well enough that the six little girls didn't actually clap their hands over their ears.

After the stories and song, it was time for our CRAFT! We made flower crowns so we could be the kings and queens of spring. The children's librarian drew flowers across the bottom of a sheet of paper, then connected them with zig-zaggy lines that went up to the top of the stems of the flowers. She photocopied plenty of copies, so we each colored enough flowers to go around our heads, cut them out, and taped them together. It was a very simple craft but LOTS of fun.

Computers are the main draw at my library. All during Spring Break, the computers are full from 10am when we open until closing time, at 6 or 9pm, depending on the day. So it really tickled me when I overheard a conversation one of the girls, who was taking her time to carefully color her flowers, and her mother.

Mom: Do you want to use the computer?
Girl: No thanks.
Mom: Are you sure? I'm finished with my work.
Girl: No thanks. I want to finish this instead.
Mom: Okaaaaay...

I love it when people would rather finish making a craft than play dumb games. Also when girls know themselves well enough to tell their mom what they want instead of just doing what is expected.

Edith out.

 

Just in case you were wondering how I really feel about it, I'll tell you. Long distance relationships really suck.

I'm seeing a really great guy who lives about 8 hours away. Not only that, he doesn't own a car, which is great - he lives in a major city with good transportation and doesn't need one...but it means that he would have to rent a car to come visit me. And in the place where he lives, there are several types of licenses, and the kind he has is the basic kind. The kind he would need in order to rent a car is the next step up.

To put another wrinkle in things, I still share an apartment with my soon-to-be-ex-husband, until we manage to sell the building the apartment is in, at which time we will finalize the divorce which has been dragging on so he can stay on my health insurance and move on with our lives. Things are fairly amicable, but none of us would be particularly comfortable with me having my boyfriend over - not the ex, not me, and definitely not the boyfriend.

So the ex is out of town for most of this week, and the boyfriend was looking to fly down and spend some time with me...it's only a 7 hour drive, but it would cost $1300 for him to fly here, and take about 18-23 hours by bus or train. These are silly options.

But...it looks like, maybe, for about the same price as him coming here...if I can switch people at work...we could both fly to Florida for a couple days and spend the weekend together. It would cost around the same as him coming here, and we'd be together AND warm. And I'll get to fly, which means plenty of knitting time.

Here's hoping everything comes together in the next 12 hours!

--Edith

 

So on Saturday morning, I was thinking about or doing something and thought "That would be a good blog post" and sat down to open up the blog manager and type up an outline so I could blog it later. I have to go to the blog main page to log in, though, and I realized I hadn't read Carin's or Zabet's posts, and then I clicked links in Carin's post, and then I found myself emerging from the forums with glazed eyes around lunchtime.

Yeah, I'm a magpie. Easily distracted by shiny objects. And by forums, apparently.

I do remember that it was something pretty neat, and interesting, and informative. Something that I didn't already know about but that wanted to know more about. I was going to do research and everything.

Ah, well. Maybe it will come to me. If it does, I'll blog it right away.

E.

If you haven't ever taken a look at Mike Libby's work, you should head right over to his website and peruse through it. I find that I don't care for the butterflies as much as the other insects and arachnids, but some of the beetles are just insanely cool.

This man may not realize it, but he's an AntiCrafter.

 

Lookie what I got!



I am a big fan of pink and red icing, chocolate hearts, and love letters. Any holiday that lets me have those things is A-okay with me, even if it is a fakety-fake pseudo-holiday made up as a marketing ploy by greeting card companies and florists.

Although this, courtesy of Leathra over on the forums, gave me a big smile even before my flowers were delivered.

 

That's it.

That is IT. I am going to do two more rows on this !&%$# vest, and then I'm starting on the front. I am going to do two more rows because even though I can stretch it to fit the suggested dimensions, I want it to be big enough, dammit!

My dad's birthday is February 29th. He doesn't celebrate it on the off years; he barely does during Leap Year. But I <3 birthdays, and so I try to make sure that he gets at least one really nice thing for his once-every-four-years day.

This year, I wanted to make him a vest. I wanted to make him this vest. (click on the itty bitty picture and it should pop up a window you can actually see.) Sadly, I couldn't afford the yarn, even with the great sales they were having right before the end of the year. So I dug some yarn out from under my bed - a lovely cranberry-coloured wool/alpaca blend - and frogged the sweater I started from it a year ago, wound it all back up and started making a vest.

It is a bulky yarn, so I'm moving right along, but I keep thinking I MUST be far enough along to stop THIS time. So I pull out my tape measure, and check again...still not 27 inches from hem to top of shoulder.

He's worth it... He's worth it... He's worth it... He can be a sexist jerk sometimes but he helped me develop a sense of self-worth that lots of people don't have... And I've never knitted him anything, not even the guitar strap I promised him for Christmas 2005...

At least a friend said she'd be willing to put the zipper in for me, if I ever get that far. (sigh)

 

A casual friend of mine came by my work when she was running errands Wednesday morning - we used to be close but have drifted apart - and in the course of our conversation she asked if I had heard about their house fire. I had not. Her husband's leg got burned.

"Oh no!" I said. "Did his clothing melt to him, or was he wearing blue jeans?"

"He was wearing blue jeans. His whole foot would have burned, though, if he hadn't been wearing wool socks."

As it is, he may have to have surgery on his leg, but it could have been much much worse.

I may be a fiber snob, but it's because every time I put on an acrylic sweater I worry about what would happen to me if it caught fire.

 

Why, hello, AntiCraft readers! I'm Edith, one of the new tech editors, and one of my duties as such is to blog here on Thursdays.

A little about me: I currently knit a lot, but have been obsessed with involved in most other crafts at one time or another, since my parents enabled me encouraged my creativity from an early age. I first stumbled upon AntiCraft when a friend asked me if I could find a pattern for a knitted penis and I found the lovely crocheted Beanis pattern[NSFW!!]. It's a lovely and clever pattern, although one I doubt I'll make anytime soon. One pattern I can hardly wait to cast on for is the Charlotte A. Cavatica. I am very excited about the patterns I've tech edited for the upcoming issue, and I can't wait to show off my one thing that I can't tell you about yet, but that I made as part of the tech-editor selection process. It's sooooooooo adorable, in an undead sort of way.

So, more about me... By day I am a library branch manager at a public library in Indiana. I am a big ol' know-it-all, so I was lucky to find a career where people can ask me for answers, and I can look them up - it makes me feel smart, and they get what they need, so everybody wins! I have two sweet but troublesome kitties, one of whom was recently diagnosed with diabetes. She's nine, so it's not unusual, but I can't help but feel guilty about it, because she's very fluffy and had been losing weight for a while before I noticed that anything was wrong. Clearly I'd not been giving her enough snuggles!

Anyway, some things I like to do for leisure are to read books and webcomics (a few of my favorites are Questionable Content, Penny Arcade, and Unshelved), knit and crochet (I am currently in love with this yarn my brand new yarn store carries called Ella Rae Classic - it's a simple 100% wool worsted that comes in a fabulous variety of colorways and felts beautifully), cook nummy things (the boy and I made white pizzas last night, and they turned out fabulously although I ended up with heartburn - damn the aging process!) and watch far too much television.

That's it, really. I'm kind of boring. But it's so nice to meet all of you! Come on over to the forums and introduce yourselves, if you haven't already. We don't bite. At least, not very hard.