Who Is It?

I was supposed to announce the winners of the contest yesterday.
I have no excuse.
I had a brain fart.
Which is no excuse.

OK, I remember telling you there was a clear cut winner and there was

TURTLE!!!

I craft to stay sane
Without it, step back, watch out!
Scary girl I'd be!

Funny and true!
The bad thing is people voted via email or on my ravelry group so the votes are all over the place. So here's the big decision:

Everyone who entered will get a set of four of the stitchmarkers because there was no real second place winner! And because Turtle's was a clear vote getter, she will get six instead of four.

So, if you entered send me an email at beverly@beverlybochenek.com with your shipping info and with the word you want your personalized stitchmarker to say. (Remember, one of your stitchmarkers will say whatever you like up to five letters) the others will come from my stock.

So, YEAH EVERYONE WINS!!

Games People Play

Nothingbutsoap has an interesting offer - free soap for two blog posts. Pretty clever. Such ingenuity needs to be rewarded - thus this shout out!

It's Time for Another Contest
I'm feeling the need to read - haiku, that is, the little piece of poetry consisting of three lines; the 1st line is 5 syllables, the 2nd line 7 syllables, the 3rd line 5 syllables.

The subject is crafting - this can be your specific craft or crafting in general.
Post your haiku to the comments on this post.

You have until Friday, July 17 to get your work of art entered.

I will place all the entries into a posting and ask readers to vote for their favorites - the top two winners get the prize!

No, I'm not giving away yarn though I probably could and Mr. Honey would be thrilled by it - instead, I am giving away two sets (4 each) of my new Mr. Honey stitchmarkers. These eight stitchmarkers could come out of the regular or imperfect stash that are on sale in the shop.
In addition, I will personalize one of the stitchmarkers in each set for the winners. (Up to five letters)

How about that for fun? So, get that haiku mojo going and make your entries to win some fun and funky stitchmarkers - made by Mr. Honey and myself!

A Lot of Things Different

So yesterday I went on...and on...about trying some new things. I was going to do the yarn dyeing and I was going to try my hand again at making stitchmarkers this time making them with Mr. Honey because he likes that kind of thing.

Well, maybe he doesn't. I'll tell you all about it right after this photo of the end results:


It started out innocently enough. I made a very good dinner and asked him if he wanted to see the idea of the stitchmarkers I had and he came back with 'sure.' So, I showed him and showed him the part I needed his help on. He made one and looked as if he wasn't happy with it and then I asked him: "Would you like to see the written instructions?" Oh, the look.

What? I didn't mention there were written instructions?

I printed them out and he read them over and made some grunts and noises and we put together a couple of markers he announced it was frustrating and since this was 'my thing' it wasn't a frustration he needed.

How could I have been so wrong? Perhaps, I wasn't. Read on.

I certainly understood the frustration and so I asked him to just talk me through it and I would learn the part that was giving me fits.
He did that....after making about four more markers.

Huh?

Mr. Honey (and other Mr. Honeys around the globe, I suspect) has this habit of making noise about something being frustrating or hard or something other than the easiest thing in the world and when given the choice to leave it alone, will not leave it alone less their card and membership from the Testosterone Club for Real Men be revoked. When I reached for the tools he moved them away from me and gave the gruff order for me to 'start lining up words.'

Of course I did what I was told and it was maybe twenty minutes later he showed me his tricks and left me with the instructions to do ten more before I came to bed.

I did my before bed homework and when I came downstairs, he was at the table tidying up those that I left imperfect. He had split the pile in two: acceptable and not so much and declared when he went to the Testosterone Temple (Menards) on the morrow, he would get me a set of the proper tools I needed and one of those trays where I could keep my beads and supplies in order.

So what will happen with the completed stitchmarkers? The ones declared really good will go on sale in the shop. The ones that are flawed will go on sale in the shop as flawed with a price reduction - because Mr. Honey's definition of flaw means he didn't do it himself and he could tell mine from his. My definition is: None of them will snag yarn, they are fully functional, the wire is not as pretty. And they will be called Mr. Honey Stitchmarkers. He got a kick outta that. Get this, he thinks we should offer to personalize them.hu

Do I know my Mr. Honey or what?12804

In The Early Morning Rain

I am not disciplined about much. My discipline tends to come for exactly as long as it take to accomplish my goal and then leaves. Since my new goal is to not have to dip into the funds controlled by Mr. Honey and to rely on myself - I think I will have to be disciplined for quite some time. Part of that discipline is to spend the first hour of every day promoting Knitter's Restaurant and also designbcb on Etsy.

Now, I have to do this while remembering and staying true to the main purpose: whatever else this might be to someone else, it is a knitting blog to me. So, whatever else is going on in terms of ad space and sales and all that stuff - within these frames it's just you and me and that craft we love so well.

It is with that in mind that I make my confession:
I'm thinking I want to give dyeing yarn another shot.
I'm going to make some more stitch markers.

I know, these confessions will not stop the world except for the teeny-weenie little fact that I have no talent in these areas. My first hand at dyeing everything I dyed turned out to be orange - even if it was supposed to be pink.

And in the world of stitch marker, I can pull together some pretty ones, but I can't handle the little tools to make the wire part look pretty.
But, I have a plan to improve my skills:
I will stick with single colors and just hope for some natural variations - after all, not everything is supposed to be variegated.
Mr. Honey has agreed to do the little detailed stuff on the stitch markers. He loves doing that kind of detailed stuff so he gets to have some fun with me. Since this is part of the goal that will keep my hands out of the combined till, he's happy to help. (it's not that I'm high maintenance - I am so not - but he's much more...frugal...than I am. I'm only frugal about yarn. He's frugal about EVERYTHING!)

But I am going to give them both another shot. Who knows? It could be another bridge to the shop but it definitely is another pathway to fun - and if your business can't be fun, maybe it shouldn't be your business.
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