Month: September 2019

September Beauty Balance Finale

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I just recently posted about what entered my collection this month. Today I get to tell you the rest of what left my collection this month. In the previous beauty balance post, I had one item leaving my collection over what came in.

This month was a very good one for empties in general. I finished a lot of items, and many of them rather large items.

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This is 15 more items leaving my collection. So, total for the month is 16 items leaving over what entered it. Let’s do a little overview of the items. Left to right, top to bottom.

I use the Dr. Bronner’s soap to wash my brushes and sponges. I will need to repurchase this at some point, but it is not an immediate need.

The Coola setting spray is something I used up because I largely believe it’s an unnecessary item. I don’t think anyone is going to get particularly good sunscreen coverage out of a spray that goes on over makeup. But I used it.

The next three items have all been in my collection since April. I know this because I opened them all the month of my wedding. It’s the Lancome cils booster lash primer which I loved loved loved, the too faced better than sex mascara which I loved after the 3-month mark and the clinique waterproof mascara which I prefer over any other waterproof mascaras. It’s time to let them go, I’ve extended their life past what I should have for the guaranteed health of the eyes. And the cils booster and the waterproof mascara really are used up.

I have a milk makeup liner, the color was nude and I used it in my waterline very consistently. I am sad to see it go, it’s a very creamy liner and works so well! But I am replacing with a less expensive product.

Sol de Janero bum bum cream-to be honest, the scent of this is wonderful but also overpowering. On the plus side, it doesn’t feel like a scented product. It’s luscious. But I can’t tolerate the scent anywhere near my face. I used this on my legs after shaving, and that’s probably how I am going to have to use the other I have in my collection.

I have a clinique eye moisturizer that I liked but didn’t love. I probably won’t repurchase.

I have a belif aqua bomb, the gel kind. I love this moisturizer and was happy to use. Below that I also had the eye moisturizer which I love with all my heart and may very well repurchase in the future.

I also have a belif face cleanser which I liked fine but I have a million other cleansers so I won’t repurchase.

Then there’s my two fragrance samples, one is YSL black opium. I want to take a second to reflect on why this is probably such an iconic scent. Even when I didn’t know anything about makeup and fragrances, I knew at least the name of this one. Now that I’ve worn it a few times, I can see why it is iconic. It’s sweet and spicy all at once. It’s not overpowering, but it sticks around all day. It’s really a nice one to catch a scent of on my clothing or skin. I have a larger sample size and I am eager to use that too. But, I don’t think I’d purchase it despite how much I like it. It’s not overly heavy, but it can feel a bit heavy after a while. If nothing else, it kind of needs to be interspersed with other lighter scents, at least for me.

The other was a Dolce and Gabanna. Whatever it was, it was completely unremarkable to me. I think it didn’t really stick around long enough on me to form a good opinion of it.

I’ve got a sample of two becca primers. They count as one because they came together and I counted them as one entering my collection. Both of these I really like, and both of these I have actual travel sizes of. I would purchase full sizes, particularly of the purple one which I prefer, but I’ve got so many other primers to work through right now it’s just not necessary. Someday!

And finally a sachet of a retinol product. No opinions can be made of a retinol product I only get two uses out of.

So, that’s my September balance and it’s a good one! I think next month should be reasonably good as well. We shall see!

TeamProjectPan 3rd quarter finale

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That’s it, we are at the end of the summer quarter! I can’t believe I’ve been consistently panning all year now. But, the quarterly refreshes really do keep me interested, and so I really am able to keep after it. I am already looking forward to mining my team project pan posts to see how much I was able to use up at the end of this year.

Since this is a refresh month, I will just post my progress for the end of September. The next post will be my beauty balance finale for September. And then I’ll do my quarterly refresh post. This means I’ll have 3 days of posts in a row that are not at all crafting related, sorry crafty folks! After that, I do have some spinning and a new knitting project to show off. And who knows what else!

First up, last month and this month in perfume samples. Last month I was slightly frustrated because I’d received a number of samples in the month and my project numbers went up instead of down. No new perfume samples entered this month which is a great relief.

I went from 9 to 7 this month. That’s been about average. I’ve been able to use up about 2 of the really tiny samples each month when working on them consistently. The larger ones will definitely take a bit more time. So, I will absolutely not finish with my perfume samples this year.

This is the palette I’ve been working on, it’s Too Faced Natural Face. I really enjoy this palette, but can’t wear it unless I’ve gotten a good amount of sun. I have used it very consistently this month, but it doesn’t seem like much progress has been made. I would say that I actually have the largest dips in the highlighters, which is quite a surprise! I think they must be a little powdery compared to the other products.

I finished up the PTR exfoliant, it was an easy finish. I am 5 or 6 uses away from being done with the verb texture cream. I will not repurchase, and I won’t add it to my project next month either. You’ll just see it in next month’s empties. I didn’t use the IT cosmetics matte cc cream at all, I’ve solely concentrated on the Mac pro longwear foundation. Since it’s a perfect color for my more tanned skin, I just keep using it. The Becca ever matte primer got a tiny bit of use, but not much. I found that as the weather was cooling, it was starting to look bad. I can’t explain it. But, it made my foundation extra powdery and made it look strange on my pores. I actually thought it was the newer AOA studios powder, but I was wrong. It was the primer. So, I ended up using some samples instead. And finally, really good progress was made on my AOA studios powder. My reality is that I do need to use quite a lot of powder, especially this time of year, so it’s not very difficult for me to use up powders in stash. I am always amazed at how people say it takes forever to use! On the other hand, I tend to be using travel sizes lately, so that could have something to do with the speed at which I go through it.

OK, up next, my benefit dandelion twinkle highlighter. I used it maybe twice, so not much progress. Spoiler-it’s going to make it through the refresh. It’s so close to being done! The matte cream shadow I use to set my eye primer has been used consistently. The mac paint pot also has been used consistently, these last forever! Same with the IT cosmetics universal brow pencil. I thought about removing it in the refresh because I’ve used it ALL YEAR and it’s not gone yet. But, I want to be done so I am going to power through. The Coola setting spray was very very easy to use up with consistent use. And, while I didn’t get a photo of it last month, my nudestix matte lip and cheek crayon got a lot of use but I wasn’t able to finish.

So, ultimately, good progress. Not a lot of finishes from the project this month, but progress. And tomorrow, you will see there were a lot of other finishes in general during the month.

 

September Beauty Balance

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21 days of beauty is over now until Spring. I don’t know what it is about that sale, but it’s so much fun. I really enjoy looking through daily sales, seeing what surprises they might offer, and planning what I might purchase. However, I always end up purchasing far less than what is on my wishlist. And that’s exactly how it should be. Miss Butterfly and I both enjoy it, we both kind of pour over the catalog in anticipation. Now that Miss Butterfly is being required to purchase her own beauty products, she doesn’t purchase much either.

In my last September Beauty Balance post, I had picked up two items from the sale. At the end of that post, I had 7 items leaving my collection over what came in. Here’s what has entered my collection since then:

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6 items, so I remain one item leaving above what came in at the end of this post.

Let’s have a quick chat about the items. Only one of them actually is something I “need.”

I’ve never had a mac fix+ and since this one was half price, I figured I’d give it a try. I have other finishing sprays so I need to get some use out of them. Prior to recently, I never really bothered with setting sprays. My skin is fairly normal leaning toward oily especially in the Tzone now that it’s regularly taken care of and not completely dehydrated from years of no skin care or makeup whatsoever. So, I have tended to get used to a rather liberal application of powder, as that really seems to be the thing that gets my makeup to stick to my face the best. When messing around with makeup recently, I tried not setting my face with powder as I really was enjoying the dewy glow I had going on. It looked so pretty! Except-it looked pretty for 3 hours and then looked completely messy. My skin just can’t keep makeup on and looking good with that technique. As I got back to powdering appropriate for my face, I thought about it a little more and realized that THIS-this is why everyone talks about finishing sprays. I have the tools to fix this, I have sprays that will work to settle in the powder look. And while everything is still pretty powdery, it does take that edge off. So, despite having two finishing sprays I can use already in my collection, I was swayed by the original at half price and picked it up.

That was a very long explanation justifying why I purchased the last product. I have far less of a justification for the next one. I just like it. It was half off, and it’s a moisturizer I really like. That’s it!

The Purity cleanser came as a freebie, and I am not mad about it. I had a sachet sample of this once and really enjoyed it.

Now we get to the item I actually “need.” I ran out of my milk makeup nude eyeliner that I used almost every day in my waterline. It’ll be in my September beauty balance finale. I very much wanted to replace it, but then during the month, I was watching a tutorial in which the person I was watching used this wet n wild brow highlighter as a waterline brightener. I decided that it was worth trying since the price point is so much less. Turns out, it works beautifully and I’ve just saved myself a nice chunk of money. I also think that sharpen style pencils have more product in them than twist up ones, so it’s probably a bigger money save than I can even comprehend.

And finally-I added to my UD 24/7 pencil liner collection. These are two colors I do not have, a brown and a light green. I used the light green in yesterdays look but have not yet used the brown. But, in the past month or so I’ve regularly wanted to use a brown liner and didn’t have one. So, I do believe I’ll get a nice amount of use from it.

I am waiting until after my project pan update to post my September beauty balance finale, but I truly believe it’s going to be a good one!

 

When the Stars Align

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Yesterday, while watching youtube, I’d noticed someone with a plain matte coral eyeshadow that I really liked. It looked like it was JUST one shadow all over the lid and then called done, though there could have been more depth than that. I wasn’t paying much attention. I just knew I liked the look.

So, I got to thinking about that look. I was thinking I could easily recreate it with the coral color in my ABH Sultry palette. But then I thought that I had a number of other coral and peach tones, and I could probably give it more depth than that.

Then I thought about how it might be fun to amp up the look a little with a different color under the eye or on the inner corner. So, I thought about an eyeliner I very recently bought. So recent that it hasn’t even made it into a beauty balance post. The liner is a light shimmery green, and I thought it might be perfect.

So, I sat down and spent a little time with my collection, swatching different peach and coral tones. Turns out, that’s a color I really enjoy and I have quite a few of them. I planned the look in my head and decided I’d create it if I had time the next morning.

This morning I woke up quite early. So, it turned out that I had more than enough time to try the look I’d created in my head. And, I liked it so much that I took photos this morning.

I started off with a light peach shade. I used Candied Peach out of the Too Faced Sweet Peach palette. I used this as a transition color. Then, I used Bloom from ABH Sultry palette as a transition color. I wanted a bit more shimmer on the lid, so I pulled out the viseart pro 5 soliel palette and used watermelon on the lid itself. Under my eye, I just usd a light dusting of Candied Peach, and then lined my under eye and inner corner with UD 24/7 eye pencil in freak. I wanted the inner corner to shimmer a bit more than it did, or rather, I wanted to lighten up the green a little bit more, so I went over the green with an icy white loose highlighter I have in my stash.

For the rest of my face, I used my Too Faced Natural Face palette and for my lips I used the Nudestix matte lip and cheek pencil I am trying to pan this month. It’s an orangey tone that leans somewhere toward a pink or a coral rather than a red, so it works quite well with the look.

It was fun to have a flash of creativity and then need to work out of 3 different palettes for one look. I will probably recreate this again in the future, I really like it! There’s something about Fridays that make me want to wear more creative or bold eye looks. To be honest, I don’t really shy away from them, to begin with, but on Fridays, they are a must. Like a tiny celebration of the upcoming weekend just for me.

This weekend I will be gathering and taking photos of my project pan items. We are moving into the final quarter of the year, so it’s time for a product refresh and I am seriously looking forward to getting those posts up. I’ll also get to do my final beauty balance post of this month, and while I did bring some items into my collection, I really have so many empties this month! I also have a number of them that are looking like they’ll finish up next month.

 

Spiders

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If you’ve been reading for a long time, or know me at all, you will know that I love spiders. Orb weavers in particular, but really I find spiders ridiculously fascinating. Really it shouldn’t come as any surprise, they are beneficial and they do a ton of spinning and creating. It’s all so interesting.

A few years ago, my cousin’s wife pointed me in the direction of a fantastic pair of earrings. They were spiders where one of the legs goes through the earring hole. But at the time I didn’t have pierced ears anymore, I’d let the holes close. So I drooled over them but passed them by.

But, since I recently got my ears pierced again for the wedding, and since I’ve now gotten my hair cut quite short, dramatic earrings are absolutely my thing. So, when the post from my cousin’s wife popped up in my memories on FB recently, I decided to investigate. I found the shop and I ordered myself a pair for “spooky season.”

Let’s be honest, I plan to wear these all the time, these will not be reserved for spooky season, just like my little raven skull earrings are not reserved for spooky season.

It’s hard to get a shot of them in my ears, but they do deserve a close-up shot in my hands for sure! They do rather look like they are crawling up my face and ear, I absolutely love it!

3 Socks Knit, Only 2 Remain

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My green socks are done! It was nice to have another completion only one day after the Christmas stocking.

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The second sock no longer fits Mr. Ink, it fits normal sized feet slightly larger than mine. Which is fine, because I have enough handknit socks to last me a lifetime. This brings me to 78% of my goal of 40 projects this year. I really think this will be the year I make this happen!

Last evening, after finishing these well within the daylight hours, I worked on getting my next warp onto the warping board. It’s ready to go on the loom now, and I am hoping I have some time for that tonight.

We did skip our planned bike ride. There were a couple of lines of storms coming and we were under a tornado watch. Between the dogs and my teen and us, I just figured it would be better to stay in. Likely because of that, all the storms broke up right before hitting our city except for the last one, which hit after we would have been home from our ride.

The good news is we have our lights issue worked out. We know which ones need new battery packs and which ones are good for more than four hours of nighttime riding. I still don’t know what is up with my gravel bike tire, but since I really only ever want to ride my fat bike, it’s not that big of a deal to me. I do have a Saturday afternoon ride planned, and maybe I can catch another between now and then.

That’s about it from here! Have a great rest of your week!

Number 28

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Well, after I posted about the 28th stocking being something I just didn’t want to knit on, I ended up powering through a little more quickly than expected. Here’s the thing, often if I get to the point I am so irritated with a project that I post my disgust, that’s also the point where I consider myself ridiculous and keep after it.

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During my lunch break yesterday I got to the toe. At that point, I realized that it was silly to keep prolonging it, so I brought it home and finished it up. I am so pleased to have it completed! This one actually goes in my own collection as often I give away our own collection so that those receiving the stockings get their stockings more quickly. This is a replacement.

Thing is, I found out Sunday evening that my brother and his wife will be adding another to their family, so I already know there will be another stocking to knit next year. Hopefully, I’ll have improved my attitude about this knit somewhat before then!

This brings us to 75% of my goal of 40 projects this year, and I am thrilled with that part of this completion!

With the news for my brother’s family, this means I get to add a project to my list this year, I have to admit I am really excited to knit a baby sweater. I already have the yarn, from stash, picked out. I will cast that on as soon as I am done with the green socks I was working on!

An Evening for Biking

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On Saturday it was intergalactic surly day. As such, Mr. Ink and I decided to go to an organized ride out of our local surly shop, both of us on our custom painted pugsleys. We decided we’d ride to the ride as well, meeting up with our friend and best man at our wedding.

Now, I haven’t ridden nearly as often as I should lately. So, trying to ride to a ride, ride the ride, and ride home from the ride on a fat bike probably wasn’t the wisest and most logical choice. But I had to ride my surly! I was feeling pretty good for the ride to the ride and half of the ride itself. I mean, if you haven’t ridden regularly but are able to be a solid middle of the pack rider on 4 inch wide tires while the majority of the other riders are on skinny tires, that’s a pretty good deal!

I really knew almost no one on this ride as I’ve kind of been on the sidelines with the majority of our local community lately. I sometimes forget, when out on a ride with very few people I know, just how uncomfortable it can feel to be a female on a ride very predominately male. I tend to forget that when on a ride with a group of males I know well, but it feels pronounced somehow when I don’t know them.

Our ride could best be described as urban all-terrain. It was a combination of paved trails, paved roads, roads chewed up from road construction, gravel, muddy gravel, really big chunks of gravel, and a whole lot of brick. Quite frankly, this is the best type of ride to bring a fat bike on, there’s just nothing the bike won’t handle beautifully.

There were about 40 riders I’d say, so a nice big group. The shop owner brought along two coolers of beer and sparkling water. We rode all the way down to the river along a levee. We had planned to go closer to the river, but we are STILL under flood conditions (since March) so that wasn’t possible. We had a nice beer stop, attempting to empty those two coolers.

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I grabbed a shot of some of the bikes. Mine is the hot pink one. Mr. Ink’s bike is the ochre one 2 bikes behind. This was taken up on the levee. After this, we headed back into town to hit up a taco truck. This was the point where I felt much less awesome. After 20 hilly miles on the fat bike, really trying to push myself, I was feeling pretty tapped out. I had hoped the can of beer I’d consumed would give me a little energy boost, but it just didn’t happen. I need to get back to adding something to consume in my bag, I am out of practice for longer rides.

Next stop was the taco truck where we realized that Mr. Ink and I had both not bothered to bring cash. This was unfortunate, as I’d REALLY been counting on those tacos. Mr. Ink found a drugstore nearby and went to grab cash while my tapped out bum sat on the pavement. The poor taco truck wasn’t dealing very well with the influx of 40 riders on top of their regular saturday night business.

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It took a rather long while to get food. While we were waiting, Mr. Ink said “Look at those pretty clouds!” They were pretty, but knowing that we have been skirting the edges of storms, I decided to take a look at the radar. Bearing down on us was a pretty significant storm.

The tacos, once we got them, were fantastic. But we barely had an opportunity to enjoy them, we more consumed them so we could get back on our bikes as fast as possible. We rode with the group most of the way back, but then split to head home with Best Man who lives in our direction. This was the point at which I realized that the bike light which I charged did not actually work. I had a rear light, but no headlight. And it was dark. No matter, I figured I’d stick in between Mr. Ink and Best Man and it would be fine.

And then, Mr. Ink’s front light crapped out. I think it’s been so long since we have ridden regularly at night that our batteries just aren’t up to the task and we are going to have to consider new battery packs.

We had to split from Best Man about 20 minutes from home, so it was 20 minutes of really dark riding. Thankfully we had the lightning to help light our way. Mr. Ink said “It’s a pretty fantastic show, but we can’t hear thunder, so it’s not actually that close.”  5 minutes later we definitely heard thunder.

Now, we live off a bike trail but at the top of a significant hill. It’s the cyclist curse I think. When we lived separately, both our houses were at the top of a hill. When we were looking for our current home, every home we liked was at the top of a hill. I say it’s a curse, but actually, it might be a blessing, as no matter what, we end on a hill, and this really does help to keep us in shape all winter long. There is absolutely no option for riding out from our house that doesn’t involve a hill climb to get home, and as such, no matter how cold or miserable out, we are climbing that hill.

But my legs were pretty well shot and I knew that I was going to be slow. I also know that Mr. Ink tends to wait for me at certain spots. But, I was also worried that we’d get home too late for Little Rose to go outdoors. She’s terrified of storms and she’d been in her kennel all evening and if we couldn’t get her to go outside, it would mean that Mr. Ink would be stuck waiting up late at night for the storm to pass so he could take her out. I told Mr. Ink to ride ahead of me, to just book it on home and I’d get home when I got home. Time was of the essence and there was no moment to spare. He could get home, drop his bike, and get the dogs out before it was too late.

I rode in while he was getting the dogs out. This terrified Rose, because she hates bikes and strangers. She was convinced I was an intruder and she was going to die. I dropped my bike and walked over, thankfully once she realized it was me, she calmed down.

Mr. Ink took care of the bikes while I fed the dogs and tried to take them out once more. Rose wasn’t having it by that point, so it’s a good thing I told Mr. Ink to ride on ahead. We got rained on a little but nothing significant, which was really nice. After dinner, Rose headed back to her kennel to hide, but Lizzie was not perturbed by the storm whatsoever. She was just really happy her people were home.

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I’ve probably said it many times before, but I really am going to try to get back on the bike more often. In fact, I’ve got a ride planned on Tuesday evening. Step one, charge a different bike light to see if it works. Step two, take a look at my gravel bike and see what needs to be done to get it up and running. I know I saw at least one flat tire, so I need to add air and see if the flat was just from sitting too long or if I need to actually change out a tube or get a patch on there. Thankfully I’ve got enough time to do both, so it can get done. I definitely want to ride my gravel bike on the upcoming ride, as I know that group and I KNOW that I can’t even remotely keep up if I take a bike with fat tires, despite the fact that I ride my pugsley more than any other bike I own.

Socks

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If you think you are looking at a completed pair of socks, look a little closer. Can you spot the gauge problem? The sock on the bottom is at least an inch wider than the one on top.

I decided to complete the second more appropriately tensioned sock before picking the first sock back out, just for comparison purposes. These have the same number of stitches on the needles and I am using the same needle size. It’s simply a difference in tension and I have no clue how that happened. Yet here we are. I guess I’ll blame being way out of practice when it comes to sock knitting.

Right after I shot this photo I picked out the afterthought heel and then started knitting my third sock working straight from the first entirely too large sock.

I cleaned up my craft room quite a bit during the week. I still had a bunch of wedding-related stuff in there that really needed to be put away. There’s still a lot of wedding-related stuff in there because I don’t seem capable of putting away my dress. That’s neither here nor there. I found another in progress sock project, so I created the toe on that one and then started on the second sock. I am appreciating that I am close to finishing yet another project.

Then, this weekend, I pulled all my yarns off their shelves and reorganized. I did some dividing things up, I moved everything that would make great warp yarn into a new area so it would be easier to see what I have available and then pair it with basically anything in my stash for weft. I also did some general organization and it was time to toss the stash around for good measure anyhow. It’s wise to really dig in there and see what I have available rather than just trying to remember in my head. Sometimes great inspiration hits that way, like it did this weekend, with the idea of pairing two sock yarns together that I have just enough to create one full set of socks with both of those little skeins.

While there hasn’t been any weaving this weekend, there has been some solid crafting activities I’ve really appreciated!

Finished Weaving

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I finished another weaving project. As is typical, I learned a thing or two. First of all, calculate and then recalculate. On this one, I somehow managed to calculate my warp too short to accommodate the amount of weft I had available. I have about half the weft left over and I have a rather short scarf. It’s disappointing. Particularly disappointing because I had another ball of warp yarn available! So, instead of using up two stash yarns, I used half of two stash yarns. Ugh.

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The scarf itself is awfully pretty. No regrets there!

I don’t have anything on the loom right now. I don’t even have anything on the warping board right now. I need to either pick out a pattern to work on, or choose another interesting yarn to use with a regular weave, or wait for new warp cotton yarn I have arriving next week. Not sure which I’ll end up choosing.

With this finished project, I am now at 73% of my goal of 40 projects this year. I currently have two pairs of socks, a stocking, and a part of a stole on the needles. I also have it in my head to make a few fun items that should knit up pretty fast. I am currently feeling good about that goal.

About the goal of under 100 stashed yarns? Not as good. I have brought in a few weaving cotton yarns that I need to get listed in stash. I’ve made great progress, and I really don’t think I have purchased yarns that I haven’t used immediately this year, and the weaving tends to eat stash quickly. But, often I’ll use a yarn that I can’t completely remove from stash since I didn’t use it ALL. Plus, there’s the influx when I do get around to spinning.

I do need to do another serious stash shake out, it’s always good to remove and rearrange to make sure I am remembering the things I have. I did do a craft room clean up recently so I’d have more room to do that shake out. But haven’t done the shake out yet. Perhaps today, if it rains.

In any case, this is what my crafting looks like today. 🙂

September Beauty Balance

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When we last left off in August, I had two items leaving my collection over what entered it. It was a pretty tough month to balance overall.

This month has been an entirely different experience so far. It is solidly mid-September and I’ve had no reason to post a beauty balance post until today.

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Just 4 things. I picked up two things during the 21 days of beauty sale. A vamp stamp-I will get this winged liner thing down someday. I am counting this as one item since the other two things in the kit are tools. I also picked up another take the day off balm during the sale.

The other two items are a glycolic acid toner and a lip scrub. The lip scrub is from AOA studios, Miss Butterfly wanted to place an order and I figured I could use another lip scrub in my life.

So, that’s 2 items entering over what left to begin this month’s balance.

But, this month has been truly fantastic for empties. Quite frankly, this is going to be an extremely full empties month.

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The reason I picked up the take the day off balm and the toner was because I finished those up in my collection and needed to replace them.

The other stuff-The Amore Pacific exfoliating powder was fantastic, but it’s too pricey to purchase. The alpine water cream was nice. The small sample size that is unlabeled is Tatch silk canvas primer. I am glad I got a sample, it’s not the be all end all of primers for me. I finished up the PTR exfoliator and I finished an hourglass lipstick from my project pan. And finally, two items that are being decluttered to Miss Butterfly. One is a hand cream. I just do not like smelly hand creams. I always think I might, but I don’t like them. She can have it. And the lip gloss as well, I am happy with only one lipgloss in my collection, I’ve got a mac lipglass and that truly is all that I need.

So, at the end of this post, I am 7 items leaving above what entered. I know that there are a fair number of other items that are pretty close to being finished as well, so this won’t be the end of a really decent beauty balance month.

And that’s that! Stay tuned for the next one. I am really hoping I’ll have just one for the end of the month, I really haven’t got plans to bring in more items.

28th Stocking

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Here’s a stocking I’ve been working on. Or rather, haven’t been working on. This is taking me ages and ages. Why? because I’d rather be doing almost anything else during my lunch break than creating another stocking. So, it seems like I am just doing about a round and a half per day right now and then playing video games on my phone. I kind of need to get my butt in gear, as this is necessary to count toward my overall goal of 40 projects this year. It’s technically an easy finish. But not if I refuse to actually knit on it.

A List

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A short list of things that make me feel dumb. In no particular order.

  1. Gauge. I finished the sock I had been working on all weekend. I put it on, it was WAY too large. Decided that was fine, it would fit Mr. Ink. I asked him to try it on. I started the second sock. It is way smaller, a much more appropriate size for the needles I am using. It’ll fit me. Gauge makes me feel dumb. Or maybe, it’s tension that makes me feel dumb.
  2. Allergies. Spoiler alert-it was just allergies. I started to feel better by Saturday evening after spending all day indoors. Hung out with friends outside Saturday evening, sneezed all morning. I refuse to let allergies stop my life right now, so I am going to have to just accept that sneezy, snotty, itchy, and fog brained are part of my life right now.
  3. Work. There’s just so much going on and I am just desperately trying to remember eveything that needs to be done that I don’t have much space for anything else. I spent all week avoiding the issues with my loom because I didn’t have the brain power to figure it out because work was too busy.
  4. Learning something new. This morning I went downstairs to my loom trying to work out what the heck was wrong with it. Prior to doing so, I looked up types of looms trying to figure out what I have so I could figure out the issue at hand. Then I went downstairs, got under my loom, and pressed on the working treadles to teach myself how the darn thing worked in the first place. I still couldn’t figure out the bum treadle, so I pressed and lifted it while looking at the side of the loom. Turns out, the rope that needs to connect to the treadle to make the shafts move had come unhooked. Easy fix. I felt pretty dumb not having been able to work that out right from the start!

On the bright side, this means I finally got the opportunity to tie up the loom the way I wanted to. It’s still just a simple weave, but I’ve got each harness hooked up to the outside treadles, in hopes I’ll get used to using both feet. I had just been using my right foot for the last project.

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Details: The warp is cotton, it’s Rowan Cotton Glace I had in stash. Sadly, I couldn’t remove this yarn from stash since I still have one more ball left. But, I am glad that I was able to get some stash moved out of my cabinet even so. The weft is a chain ply handspun I spun quite a few years ago. I am loving how it is weaving up so far.

Things I am learning with this project. First of all, I need to be more careful about the selvage warp threads, I’ve got two always together on the edges now. This isn’t how things are supposed to be! But it’s how they are going to be as I am not going back. So, when figuring out where to begin, I need to take those warp threads into account.

Another thing, I need to not be afraid to add more waste weft to the start of the project, and I need to be ok with pulling those edges a little tighter when adding the waste weft. At the moment, I am getting some pretty ugly inches at the beginning before I get into a decent groove. Allowing myself more waste space would definitely help this.

Warp tension is another thing I need improvement on. Just because I feel like all the warp threads are tight doesn’t mean I don’t have to go back and check one more time. I can see where I didn’t, and it is a little too obvious for my own comfort level.

I am very happy to have had a little bit of time to weave today. We have dog park and a bike ride planned for later today so I’ll lose a lot of crafting time, but gain time with other hobbies. Stay tuned, I’ll go into more detail about the sock that has gauge issues in a different post.

Last Night

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This week has been busy. We’ve had quite a bit going on in the evenings in addition to a regular work week. Midweek we took Miss Butterfly to see Flogging Molly as well as a few other bands. It was a good time. But, it was an outdoor show and we were out in the wind for many hours. The next evening, since we’d had to leave the dogs at home while we were gone, we decided to go to the dog park. The dogs were so happy to be out, the weather was cooler and Rose did ALL the running. We were out there for a couple of hours in the wind.

Despite having taken allergy meds every single day this week, my allergies just got worse and worse. I blamed being out every evening, and that made sense. But man, they just wouldn’t quit. By Friday during the workday, I was truly miserable and nothing was touching the allergies.

By Friday night, even my voice was off, nose increasingly runny, and I got super cold. I bundled up under a comforter that I had Miss Butterfly bring me from the basement and I knit.

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I knit on this sock I started last weekend and just kept knitting on in spare moments. At this point, I realized that it was possible that I wasn’t just suffering from allergies but I might have an actual cold.

This morning I am still pretty miserable, but I went to bed early and that seems to have helped. This morning I wouldn’t necessarily say I have a cold, I am no longer certain. But I can tell you this, my plan for the weekend is to stay inside and rest. Hopefully, that’ll help kick the cold, or if it’s not a cold, it’ll help me stay out of the great outdoors so the allergies will improve. We’ll see!

In weaving news, since we had such a busy week, and since I didn’t feel well and my brain felt fried, I never did work out my tie up situation. I still need to do that, but it’s not a priority right now.

I did get the order I had placed. I purchased a new drive band for my bobbin winder, so I am extremely excited about that. And I got in some cotton linen yarn which I planned to use in weaving. But, weaving yarn weights are truly confusing, and the yarn turned out to be a pretty light laceweight which I am not positive I’ll be able to use on the loom, at least not at this time. I need a bunch more practice before I try that!

So, I placed another order for some weaving cotton, this time I purchased 4 different weights. Once they come in, I should have a much better ability to read a weaving yarn weight and translate that into something I understand.

That’s it from here, have a fantastic weekend my friends!

I did it!

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I actually finished the first scarf on the floor loom over the weekend. However, I was determined to refresh my memory of the weaver’s knot by knotting the new warp to the old and pulling it through. As such, I could not just yank the finished scarf off the loom, tie the fringe, and then wash and dry it.

114 tiny little weaver’s knots later, I had indeed refreshed my memory and also was able to remove my scarf.

The warp is a cotton yarn I had in stash. It was something which I bought from Rachel at Dyeabolical yarns way back when she was dyeing some cotton. The weft is handspun. It’s a 2 py yarn which I created little bumps out of one of the plies while plying the yarn. The fiber was also from Dyeabolical Yarns, colorway Thunderboom.

The little bumps I created in the handspun yarn show up charmingly in the scarf. But, the thing I didn’t account for when planning the project was that naturally, some of those bumps would show up right at an edge. So, this created edges that were even wonkier than they would have been simply because I am a newbie weaver. On the other hand, one might think that’s ok, as the edges were bound to be wonky and now I have an excuse.

It turned out really nice! I think keeping the warp tension on the floor loom is easier than the table loom I had used in the past. It’s also faster to weave, and much quieter.

My hope continues to be that I learn one or two new things each work in progress. I tied on the new warp last evening, working on it way into the evening. Then, I decided one of the things I needed to learn was how to do a different tie up of the harnesses. Unfortunately, I managed to completely confuse myself and the loom is not entirely functional at the moment.

I am sure this’ll be a Mr. Ink to the rescue moment. I told him I was going to need some help. And, I told him that I could explain to him how it should work so that his mechanical mind can figure out why what I did made it stop working. THEN, he can teach me HOW it works in the first place so I can figure out how to do new tie ups properly. Because I know he won’t want to help me figure out a tie up every time I want to do a new project.

That being said, the above project is just a simple weave. The next project is also going to be a simple weave, so I just wanted to change the tie ups because I wanted to get used using a different foot pattern. No matter, I’ll get it figured out, hopefully before the weekend, so that I can get back to it.

In the end, I learned a lot and I am quite pleased with my little scarf! I am quite eager to work on that new project very soon!

Repeat of Yesterday

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Yesterday I posted a finished handspun yarn, and today I will do the same.

The thing is, this one is laveweight 2 ply as compared to yesterday’s heavy worsted 3 ply. Even so, I didn’t feel like this one took any more time than the last one.

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This yarn was spun from batts I made myself.

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It was last year in the late spring where I decided I really needed to work through a lot of my fiber stash and get it organized. I made a ton of batts, spun up a bunch of wool that needed spinning, and basically really consolidated my stash. Since then, I really haven’t looked at my stash much. Meaning, it really could do with another serious airing and seeing what I am willing to spin up or make into batts or whatever. But, this year was mostly devoted to knitting down the yarn stash, and I didn’t want to add a bunch of yarn to a stash I was trying to knit down.

Here’s the thing though-eventually I get bored. Really, I think it was the two christmas stockings that did me in. (I have another started but boy is it a struggle to work on it.) So, working on a little spinning and a little weaving is providing a necessary break. Because of this, my stash is going up a bit again.

The current stash count is 105 stashed yarns. I know this number will go up again by one because I purchased a cotton weaving yarn since I have very little to weave with. But, ideally, I will weave enough and knit enough to get this stash under 100, the original goal this year. To be perfectly fair, I am not completely positive how accurate my stash count is. I feel like there may be more hanging out in the stash that isn’t on record on Ravelry. But, it’s close and close is good enough until I get a serious desire to look at it a little more closely.

In any case, the stats on this new handspun are that I have 730 yards of laceweight 2 ply and I do like it quite a bit! Now I am going to go put it, and the yarn finished yesterday, into the yarn stash cabinet.

Spinning and Stuff

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Not sure what the stuff is, but I did finish some spinning.

This ended up being a heavy worsted 3 ply yarn. It’s Falkland wool. I am thinking this may make a really lovely hat, the color combo is really fall-like.

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I am definitely in that mode of “fall is coming” and I am looking forward to cooler weather. So imagining knitting hats and then being able to wear them feels perfect right now. Not that I’ve been knitting lately.

As for the stuff. Let’s see. Took Miss Butterfly out to her camp so she could start volunteering again. Got to sleep in about an hour which is pretty good for me. Woke up to see that Lizzie’s ear seemed to be bothering her, so we had a surprise vet trip. Did some spinning, did some weaving, did some chores, basically it’s been a pretty normal weekend day so far. And I am definitely cool with that.

 

A Poor Picture

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The rather poor and underlit photo is a reflection of my week and what I’ve been up to:

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After the joy of spending time weaving this weekend, the week has not stacked up to be conducive for continuing. Work has been nutty, and that is going to be the situation indefinitely. We are having some massive changes going on, we are severely understaffed as a whole, and adding all that to an already full load makes for a bit of a rough work life.

Mr. Ink seems to be dealing with me by providing chocolate and margaritas on particularly bad days. Hah.

Two things about the weaving. First, I need a new drive band for my bobbin winder, which I ordered but it’s back-ordered and I don’t know when it will arrive. My bobbin winder makes an absolutely horrible noise without a properly sized drive band and I cannot deal with that simple frustration on top of everything else. Maybe I’ll be ok with it this weekend. I also needed some weights of some sort for the selvedge warp threads, but when I asked Mr. Ink if we had any nuts around to use as weights, he told me we did not. I wasn’t sure how this is possible! We have two garages and almost everything! But we don’t have random heavily weighted nuts. So, I did go to a hardware store for those yesterday. When I got home, Mr. Ink said: “Did you get the dowel you need for your loom as well?” Why no, no I did not, because I forgot I needed it. Argh!

I haven’t had the headspace to start a new knitting project. If I started one now, it would just be yet another holey square shawl because it’s easy knitting and a pattern I now know very well. So, I spun. In fact, I continued spinning on supported spindles until all the singles for that project were done. Then I needed the wheel for plying but I had a project on there I wasn’t done with, so I finished the singles to those, that’s the photo above, and now I am plying.

So, this week has been a week of spinning and going to bed early. I am hoping that the weekend shows me a little extra time. Unfortunately, this evening will be full of activities I don’t want to be doing and I am afraid Saturday evening is the same. My current favorite fantasy is time off in a cottage in the woods with nothing but my crafts surrounding me. No people. It’s a nice one, but not likely to happen any time soon.

 

Weaving Progress

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Yesterday I did indeed dedicate a good amount of time to getting a project onto the new to me floor loom so I could give it a spin. We took the dogs out to the dog park midday, but the remainder of the day I had for the loom. This was planned. I wanted to do the work, but I didn’t want to overdo it. I wanted to enjoy myself.

I had actually gotten my warp started on the warping board Saturday night. I finished up Sunday morning and took the entire thing to the basement. I just wanted a very plain weave, and to add interest, I figured I’d use handspun yarn. This is yarn I made with little bumps created from the plying process. I figured they would show up in an interesting manner.

The warp is cotton I’ve had in my stash for ages.

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I had to do a little troubleshooting as I don’t think the loom came with every single appropriate part. Mr. Ink and I will need to go to the hardware store later and see if we can figure that out. But I improvised something using a piece from my table loom, it’ll work for this project. As you can see, I screwed up the warp a bit as I was putting it through the reed. There were a large number of stray warp threads. It didn’t matter too much to me though, I just took them out.

I slowly worked through this process and thankfully did not make any mistakes other than the stray warp threads that ultimately didn’t matter. So then I get to start the fun part, actually weaving.

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It’s definitely not perfect! I am learning how far is appropriate to advance the loom when needed, I am learning tension, etc. But it’s looking pretty cool! We have quite a lot planned for today, so I won’t get a ton of time to devote to this. But I am hoping that after I finish this blog post I can go down and get a bit more done while enjoying my morning coffee.

It’s a good first start! I am pleased. It’s easy to be hypercritical over something I don’t really know how to do yet, but if I step back, I realize all of that is part of the learning process and I should be pleased I am giving it a try in the first place.

 

Team Project Pan August Update

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So here we are at the beginning of September with another team project pan update. There’s been some nice progress this month but I am at that point where I am glad there’s a refresh next month.

Let’s start with the sample fragrances. I can tell you that this category didn’t do well at all this month because more samples came in than left.

Instead of 8 or fewer samples, I now have 9. And honestly, the samples seem to have gotten larger. But I am still working at them and will continue to do so.

I think we’ll get my face palette out of the way. I am working on my Too Faced natural face palette. It’s perfect for this time of the year when I really have darker skin due to having been on vacation. For example, I am generally a mac nw13 but since vacation, I’ve been nw18. The Natural Face palette is one that works so nicely at an nw18. It’s finicky at nw13. I have to be very careful not to overdo it and the highlighters are right out.

I didn’t take a photo last month, so the photo on the left is from 2 months ago. (For the record, I haven’t used the sleek cream contour palette at all, which is why I didn’t take a photo. It’s been over 2 months since I’ve touched it.) I’ve worn away a good bit of the pattern on Sunny Honey. It may not be apparent, but I’ve also got a good dip going on Starlight and nice progress in the other highlighter as well. I’ve used both blushes quite a bit but naturally, those take a long time to see progress on. I’ve also used tropic like it’s hot every single day. This is one of those really wonderful face palettes with a ton of value for money. I think I may have gotten this one at quite a discount, and a little goes a really long way. I love this palette and I am so happy it is in my collection. I will use it one more month and then it’ll go away until next summer.

The rest of the items. Last month I posted progress on lip liners. I didn’t do so this month because I didn’t use either of them at all. Probably not even once. So, no point in taking a photo.

So, I added in a face exfoliator, and I made progress but not much. Putting this in my project pan actually made me want to use up a different one first, which is what I did. The becca primer had a lot of progress, though I think there really may have been an air bubble. I got a little of the IT cosmetics cc cream worked through, but the largest progress by far is on my mac prolongwear foundation. I am going to keep after that one as it’s too dark for me most of the year. Still looks great and it is by far my favorite foundation. Sticks to my face so nicely! The Verb texture cream I am using daily but only a little. So, progress is being made, but it’s not fast. And, since I finished my laura mercier setting powder, I am rolling in another, it’s AOA studios setting powder. I like it fine. The container is pretty small, but it’s a nice full container.

Let’s first talk about what I used up. The eyeshadow that I was using to set my primer is gone, the bite beauty lip mask is gone, and the hourglass lip crayon is gone. I am not rolling in a new lippie, I’ll concentrate on the two that remain this month. I am rolling in another setting eyeshadow. My paintpot is still being used almost daily, still haven’t hit pan but I am working on the sides now. The it cosmetics eyebrow pencil is the bane of my existence. Who would have known that one sample size product would last me an entire year of almost daily use? For real, it’ll be a surprise if it is gone at the end of the year. But I continue plugging away at it. The benefit highlighter I made extremely minimal progress on. I’ve been concentrating instead on my face palette. This highlighter will remain in the project until it is gone though, it’s so close. And, finally, I am adding something in. I am adding in my coola setting spray with sunscreen. I think this is a gimmicky product so I just want to use it right up and move it out of my collection. Thankfully it tends to disappear quickly so I don’t really think it’ll take too long.

I am already very much looking forward to next month when I get to roll out products I am bored with and roll in new things. We are also close enough to the end of the year where I am looking into what I’ll do for project pans next year. I really love this year-long one, but I think I will try something new next year to change it up. I am also looking forward to autumn and autumn colors and vampy lipsticks and so on. I love the change in seasons every season, and changing makeup colors to go right with that is so much fun. Cool-toned eyeshadow palettes and dark lips and shawls, I am so eager to enjoy all of that!