{*Learning*}

I seriously can't believe its Thursday. How did this happen? Like, 4 minutes ago it was only Tuesday!!!

Today was quilting! It was a blast as usual. I quilted my clutch. I'm not 100% in love with it, my Pfaffs tension is real wonky and I couldn't adjust it right >:( I really *really* need quilting Thursdays, they just are such a great release! Everyone is so nice, so positive, it's GREAT. I wish I could get to purl n' hurl Humboldt on Thursday nights...sheesh. I start to get all anxious and nervous in public situations, clearly, I need to get out of the house more.

Liz taught me how to english paper piece! omg. ADDICTING!!!! I've made about 6 little pieces so far. Liz was talking about being unable to jut *sit* and thats TOTALLY me. I need to be working on something at all times. Watching tv? Knitting or embroidering. Reading a book? Sketching and writing down things that inspire me. Journal writing? Daily. Literally every second of my day is spent doing *something* creative and work related. I was going to make more and sit on the couch building and handsewing but we had unexpected guests of Aric & Ashleigh! WOOT! I <3 them so much.

We ended up going to Michaels where they had yudu supplies! YES!!! We got a ton of stuff and I bought a porcelian marker. Why do you ask?

Because I bought a neti pot!!!!

I ended up going to the co-op and they had a coupon so I got a cute ceramic neti pot for around $15. Score! I'm planning on drawing all over my little white pot. I want to put silly sayings on it, like "blow me", because you know, blowing my nose! Haha. I won't go into the details about it, but if anyone has any suggestions, please share! I could literally sit there for an hour and stuff would still be draining. Ick.

I'm about thisclose to a full blown sinus infection but I've been rinsing my nose every few hours to release the pressure and it's been helping. I don't want to get sick right now. I have too much fun stuff going on!!!

I'm almost done with my current batch of custom orders and they should be shipping tomorrow and Saturday! Yay!!!! I'm most likely going to extend the 72 hours to a week, just because I don't want to rush, a custom order means I take special time, ya know?! I also ordered new colors of cotton for the backings of pads, I found an amazing site with low shipping costs and it was within my budget, that always makes me so so so happy!! I've been getting SO many requests for cotton backed pads and I'm hoping people really really like them.

Tomorrow I'm getting up early to finish orders and list some liners. I'm not sure what time I'll update, as I have to go to the bank and run several business related errands in the morning (need more envelopes!!)

Yesterday I took an hour to work on a painting. I haven't painted in months. I reallllllly needed to pick up the brush again. Mr. McPorkchop & I have been collecting lots of beach trinkets lately and I want to paint them. They just make me so happy. Especially the broken shells. The little edges just make me so very happy!

I did try a watercolor block that I've never used before and I have to be honest in saying that I most likely won't finish this painting because the paper was driving me BATTY!!!! It kept buckling and wrinkling, which is odd to me because I'm a very dry watercolor painter. Go figure. But I did buy new watercolors from Daniel Smith last year for a painting class I was taking and wow. Just wow. Amazing pigmentation. Amazing colors. They just glide so evenly. They completely blow my sennelier paints out of the water. Which I *never* thought I'd ever say, considering that palette is 3 years old now and still going strong. Either way, it was really really nice to sit, listen to music and paint.

I attempted to sit down and knit last night. I was rummaging through some stuff and found an almost finished project. So I wanted to finish it and sheesh, it was rough knitting. I found a lot of mistakes I'd made and I just wasn't feeling it. Also, I'm pretty much obsessed with all of Yahaira's current triangle scarves. I super love the look of them, I've already attempted to copy her Ishbel and failed, springtime bandit is beyond my skill level, but frostberries might be perfect! Woot!!!! I might give it a gander!

This weekend we are having a very hilarious, very rowdy house guest. He canceled last weekend, so I'm not sure if he will again for this weekend, but yay for houseguests!

I have a small list of things I'd like to get done this weekend:

1. Finish custom orders
2. Update the shop
3. Make myself a pouch for my id and debit card. I'm torn on fabrics on this. VW buses? Japanese cactus fabric?
4. Finish my moms bag and apron
5. Work on Kelly's apron

A pretty modest list for me, but if we have a house guest, it'll be more like 1, 2 and 4. And maybe toss some knitting into it. I feel like everything hinges on if I can kill this sinus infection before it gets worse. One more meeting with neti before bed, plus some mushroom pills and vitamin C, I'm crossing my fingers that I wake up feeling better!!!!

What are you doing this weekend? Anything good?

{*New Stuff!*}

The shop is fully stocked with new cotton backed pads and pad bags!!!

Two of the pad bags ship priority for free! Woot!!! And if you purchase pads AND a bag, I'll refund your pad shipping! EXTRA WOOT!

I've gotten a lot of questions about the shop and I can't figure out how to reply to comments directly, it keeps saying email addresses are invalid...boo!!!

I know its lame to open the shop and have to click through each listing to see whats sold out or in stock. I *always* move the listings that have sold down to the bottom. I don't delete them until after they've been shipped and received. So when you visit the shop, the first listings are the in stock and ready to purchase items! Yay!!!

Speaking of GROWING pains, how about a LACK of growing thats causing me pain?! This is my dear Ishbel. It's growing and it's paused. I'm on the very first row of the lace, I have the correct amount of 173 sts going into it, but each time I get to "to 8 sts before centre stitch", I get messed up. You see, the last little bit, the sl1, k2tog, psso? Yes, well I only have TWO stitches before that 8 stitches when I clearly need THREE! I've frogged the same row 6 times!!! Thankfully this yarn is amazing and can handle it just fine, but I hate being lost on knitting.

Another pretty yarn photo to make the pain go away:

Tomorrow is quilting! WOOT! So excited!!! I'm not 100% sold on the color I chose for sashing, so I'm letting the quilt top just marinate for a bit. I'm going to bring my huge pile of scraps and work on cutting some coins, plus I'm going to see what my options are for accucutting and hopefully cut Momo Wonderland into a quilt! WOOTxten!

Also, some of you might know this, but you might not! I've struggled with my weight my whole entire life, I go from thin to heavy and back and forth. I gained 60+ lbs in 3 years of losing both my grandparents and my stepfather and basically eating my pain away. Eek. That's very hard to even type!!! Well, I joined Weight Watchers on the first of the year and I've almost lost 15 lbs!!! I'm really excited, but it sure is hard!!! I keep snapping photos of myself in my mirror, I *never* let my photo be taken, but today after working out, I'm noticing a difference in my face, so I'm being brave and admitting my food/self esteem issues!!!

It's so odd to look at photos of myself! So I'm working towards better self esteem and better health!!! It's hard to do for sure, my friend Danielle is a *huge* inspiration to me, she's an all around amazing person and has been so encouraging to me!!! She's doing an MS walk and her story and inspiration for doing it is awesome! Check it out here!

It's now April 1st and I'm working on more and more goals. I want to do Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred! Sheesh! I can only get like 8 minutes into it and I feel like my lungs are going to burst, so my goal this month is to get through the entire 20 minute work out. I need to be more active!!! Also, did anyone else go into wii fit today and notice its prank?!! How hilarious is that?!?!

Have you worked on any of your New Years Goals? Have they stuck? Or did some of them fall apart?

{Cozy & Carrots}

I want to start tonights blog post with a very huge, very sincere, thank you. Thank you all so so so much for helping my friend Christina. I got so many emails last night, facebook messages, twitter tweets, you guys made me cry. I love you guys to bits and pieces. Thank you all so so so much and as I hear more from Christina, I'll post it here. Seriously. Thank you so so so so much again. If I could give you all hugs, I would. xten.

This is going to be a ramble-y entry. Just giving you a heads up.

I've been having a super hard time sleeping. I think it's from the medicine I've been taking since I had my charming allergic reaction. But really, who knows! Daylight savings? Too much energy? Need to create until dawn?! Last night was a doozy, I wasn't asleep until around 5 am this morning. Nice right? Mr.McPorkchop has been teasing me saying that 12:30 am is the new 2:30 pm because I'm up building stuff!

What am I building? Not a quilt for the quilt a long because I'm lame and can't seem to pick fabrics.  I worked on a knitting bag for myself. It's no secret that I'm really social online, but not to much in real life. On ravelry I joined two local groups in attempts to meet new crafty local friends. I had plans to go to Purl 'n Hurl Humboldt last night, but they were cut out after I had to have a business meeting. Yup. A business meeting. Crazy right? It sounds so official!

ANYWAYS! I made myself a knitting bag. So I can take my knitting places without shoving it in my purse. And tangling it up. Because I've done that before. I'm really grumpy right now with yarn in general, you know how earlier in the week I mentioned a package going missing? Well I ordered yarn for Mr.McPorkchops Valentines gift, yarn for a swap for a pair of Maine Morning Mitts, yarn for a hat for Mr.McPorkchops dad and the package is missing, USPS shows the seller printed postage, but it never entered their system and the seller hasn't responded to any emails. I filed a paypal claim. I've *never* done that before and it made me very, very, very, grumpy. I hate being without yarn, without money and I can't work on a swap, Mr.McPorkchop is Valentines Day giftless and Mr.McPorkchops dad is hatless. BOO!!!

BUT! I decided to take a second chance with buying yarn online. Since Jan.1st I've lost a little over 12 lbs so I thought a treat was in order for myself and I ordered a skein of SweetGeorgia sock yarn from the twitter suggestion of Yahaira! See the scarf she's wearing oh so beautifully in that link? I'm knitting that! Holy smokes! I've never knit anything remotely lace-like before! So exciting! So scary! The pattern is called Ishbel and it's designed by Ysolda Teague. I'm knitting it in a hand painted green color way called lichen.

Pretty right? I think green is becoming my favorite color. Well I wanted a sturdy bag. Something fun. Something rad. I wanted something deep but not huge, something that could stand up on its own, something structured but soft and something quirky.

I cut my remaining pieces of three fabrics that go super cute together and are also limited print/out of print. Deep breath!!! I wish I'd brought the pink fabric down a little more. I'm also unsure how to keep it crinkle free, you can see some wrinkles in the photo from where I flipped it inside out and then right side too. But all in all, it came out neat! I'm jazzed about it!

I used two Heather Ross fabrics, one from lightning bugs and the other from west hill. The lining is from Erin Michaels Lush and its the prettiest wood grain print. I added a little typewritten tag on the inside that has a Harry Potter (big fan of the Potter) quote about knitting! Awesome! You can see the tag here.

I also used a metal zipper! How cool is that? It gives the bag a really sturdy feel. I got the idea from Heather Ross's book, Weekend Sewing. I ended up using 3 different types of interfacing on this bag. Fusible craft heavy weight fabric on the outer fabric to keep its shape. Soft fusible fleece on the lining to give it some body. And sewn in heavy weight pellon for the panels along the zipper so the zipper wouldn't fall in with the weight of its self.

The little pin I just had to do. I'm such a big fan of mockumenteries and the tv show The Office. I've been watching Best in Show and I decided I totally needed prize badge of some sort, plus the horse fabric is begging for it!!! And then the preppy pink and green combo? Totally inspired by Andy Bernard! Have you seen the things he wears? He looks like he's stepped out of a J.Crew catalog and just finished sailing for the day! I love it!!! I also love that Michael Scott turns EVERYTHING into a dramatic production or contest or holiday. So my knitting bag isn't just a knitting bag, it's a dream that I'm a champion knitting- horse back riding- bug catching- day dreaming extraordinaire! Hilarious!!!! I have plans for some Heather Ross jodhpur fabric and wall paper fabric as well. The more preppy the better. I'm bringing out my East Coast roots...kinda.

I made this bag while twittering with my friend Kristen about bikes and bike bags. Who knew I'd find something new to be completely obsessed with?! I finished the bag and several custom orders around 3 am. Awesome!!!

I woke up this morning afternoon, worked on more orders, took a shower and was grumpy. Actually, I laid in bed and cried my eyes out for a good 45 minutes. Crazy right? For the past 6 months I've been allergic to shampoo. So I've been switching. And switching. And trying new things. And spending wayyy too much money on shampoo.  And over time, the allergy has gotten worse. Enter this morning, me in the shower and my hair coming out in clumps. I've never ever had hair this long in my entire life, its only a little past my shoulders and I'm not emotionally attached to it, I just want to be able cut it and donate it hopefully this fall and be able to help someone. I'll spare you the details but lets just say that it was an extremely painful shower. Mr.McPorkchop brought me to Target, I had a list of things to avoid from my doctor and we found yes to carrots! Mr.McPorkchop very kindly bought me the hair mask! I put it on and it felt really cool and nice. I'm stuffed up, but Mr.McPorkchop said that it had a very light and clean smell. I left it on for 20 minutes, it says 15, but I was in the middle of prepping veggies to be baked. I rinsed it off and no burning, no pain, nothing. No new hives which was *amazing*. I let my hair air dry then I gently combed it. Success!!! My hair is super shiny and soft. I was able to part it differently and loosely braid it to hide the damage. Awesome!!! I'm totally going to head to Target tomorrow and buy the shampoo and conditioner. I even joined their carrot club and facebook group, lol! No animal testing! Ecofriendly! Affordable! Available in lots of places! That is so so so awesome to me! Clearly as the small owner of a small ecofriendly business, I love and want to support other ecofriendly businesses!

Can I vent for a moment? I hate having allergies. Most people think its something as simple as avoiding something, but it's totally not that easy. Allergies come and go. I get allergy tests once a year and each year, crazy differences. Lately they've been through the roof insane, so I'm hoping going to Redding this summer will help, a very dry climate might be amazing for my asthma. This post pretty much sums up allergies. I have had sinus infections ever since I was a kid. I get them once or twice every 2-3 months, these are the kind of sinus infections that knock you on your butt! I had tubes in my ears in elementary school to help with chronic ear infections. I tried allergy shots. I've taken (am taking) steroid regimens that have made me gain weight. Allergies, in short, are horribly lame and I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy. So when I can find something that doesn't make me itch or sneeze, I sing it from the roof tops!

See! I told you this post would be ramble-y! I did get a few liners done today for the shop, I'm going to work on more through out the weekend and will update the shop either Sunday or Monday night. I got some new fabric in the mail today and it's going to make the *cutest* liners ever!

Have a great weekend everyone!!! Thank you so so so much again!!!

xo