Monday, August 29, 2011

Can't Brain, Have Dumb

I really need a vacation.
I had planned to show y'all the pirate sashes I made for a crew that goes to Scarborough Faire, I hurried to finish them this week so that I would have something to show you besides the Spartans... aaaaand then I delivered them without taking pictures first.
In place of sashes I will give you weapons, Spartan weapons. These little guys are armed with a sword or spear (or the occasional outlandish weapon, such as a ball of yarn and knitting needles...) and making them, though not hard, is time consuming. I keep forgetting to make them before Sundays when I need to be able to attach them to the Spartans to complete them. I decided that since I was a little ahead, I'd make a few extra weapons and while I'm on the farm I plan on making a whole mess of weapons so I won't have to worry about it for a while.
soooo yea, weapons pre-detailing



Anywho, here are the Spartans for the week, only 1 of them has a home this time.
I give you numbers 19, 20, and 21
All pretty basic fellows, they need no special weapons, only their wit and adorableness to fight the good fight.

#19 is going to Johnny Bosse  
Here is Medicus!


#20 is named Solonius, poor little guy is homeless, somebody give him a home!



#21 is named Pietros, he is also homeless. Poor little homeless Spartan...





Group photo!

Well there you have it for this week and remember there is no post next week (I'm sure you'll all be out partying anyways) I'll see you the week after!

Stay crafty my friends.

P.S. My wonderful boyfriend proposed last Thursday and now I can call him my amazing fiance! *SQUEE*

Monday, August 22, 2011

Trying To Find Balance

Last week I decided that it would be a good idea to make 3 Spartans a week (how hard could it be? I mean, really?) in order to finish this project by my 27th birthday (instead of my 30th) but now I am realizing that it is taking up ALL of my time outside of work and sleep, though it's still imposing on both of those. So much so that all you get for a post today is the three Spartans I've made this week. I'm hoping that Labor Day weekend will give me a chance to get ahead and things will mellow out (no post September 4th, I'll be on a farm out in the middle of BFE where with no internet access or cell reception) because I have other projects in need of my attention besides this insanity (and those are paying gigs)
So without further (time consuming) adieu, here are this weeks Spartans!

#16 #17 and #18

#16, who's name shall be Thelonious, is going to my friend Megan Y.
(paint brush of DOOM)



#17, who's name is Nake (why? because I can) is going to my friend Blue



(I briefly considered doing everything blue, but thought it a bit excessive, so just the cape got to be blue)


and #18, Astinos, is yet unclaimed, but less dejected than poor Stelios the unloved


Group photo
One of these things is not like the other...

In other news I found out last Thursday that I have a Ganglion cyst (also known as a Bible cyst, because people used to "cure" them by whacking as hard as possible with a bible. For serious; google it if you don't believe me) in my left hand, attached to the tendon that allows me to bend my thumb. It is causing me great pain and to help with that (along with the hefty anti-inflammatory meds) I have gotten a crafters compression glove.
Isn't it stylish? (Note: I had to take the picture in my mirror because my camera didn't want to focus on it otherwise) Unfortunately it only comes in Electric Snot green, if it had been black or brown or anything else really, I could work with it, but the only thing I can do with this is possibly attack it with puffy paint and hope it doesn't kill me in my sleep. My other option is letting a doctor cut into my hand, which the very idea of makes me twitchy. I don't hurt that bad yet and until I do I will suffer with the ugly ass glove and when it gets cold outside I can wear both and look half as dumb but twice as ugly, hooray for me.

That's all today, I'm hoping for next week to have some crafty organizational magic for you, we'll see how that goes. I might actually get to have a bit of time to work on other things this week, but you never know.

Stay crafty kids

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The Rule of 3

Hi all, sorry for the late posting, but I was at home for a grand total of 5 waking hours collectively Sunday (or there abouts) and there just wasn't enough time in my day for finishing everything for the blog to get posted, especially with my new plan of "How the bloody hell am I going to finish this project in a decent amount of time?".
I've done more math (I know, scary) and if I can crank out 3 Spartans a week (that's right 3!) then I will finish this project in less than 2 years, which to me seems way better than 5 years. So I am going to set an end date for this project (dun dun DUUUUUUN) and see if I can not only be finished by then, but well before then!
The end date will be July 1st, 2013
That is my birthday in 2 years (minus a bit)
SO I have to finish 285 Spartans in 685 days (which is about 98 weeks and if you multiply that by 3 then you get a higher number than the number of Spartans I have left to finish. It totally works out) and while on the topic of math (it's not often I use it, but when I do I go all the way) I figured out roughly how many stitches are in each Spartan (crochet stitches, not assembly stitches) there are 998 in 1 guy, if you figure up I'm doing 3 a week that's 2994 stitches per week and when I finish my 300th Spartan I would have done 299,400 stitches... my hands, they cramp at just the thought.

I have also figured out that if I do certain pieces on certain days I can definitely get the 3 guys done per week, as long as I don't have a day completely filled up by other things (like last Sunday) but I will also have "catch up" (or ketchup) days where I will get to spend more than the normal amount of time crocheting. We'll see how this all plays out.


anywho

Today I have the first of the 3s for you. 13, 14, and 15

13 is going to my friend Aquino (though he's probably forgotten about it by now)

14 is going to Shelley, I hope you like his weapon of choice, heeheehee

15 is unclaimed so far

And here is #13 his name is Astinos




#14 his name is Daxos and he's the pride of Sparta. (and has deadly sock making skillz)


 Tiny ball of yarn is actually embroidery floss and the knitting needles are straight pins


and last but not least #15, named Stelios the sword less (the glue on his sword is not dry yet)


he is the unloved Spartan, he gets no sword, he gets no owner, won't someone find room in their heart for this poor dejected soldier???

My first batch of 3, this is going to be a lot of work unless I can get even faster at this



aaaaand that's all you get this week.
Til Next time!


P.S. You may have noticed I've made another addition to my blog page (other than the fishies) I now have a Donation button, because I am unable to technically sell these little guys (copyright issues) I can however accept donations for them (love the loopholes) So if you have a spare dollar please feel free to encourage me to crochet faster, the sooner I finish this project, the sooner you lot get your Spatans. It's a win win situation!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Whistle A Happy Tune

Once upon a long ago I was going to try to teach myself how to play the Irish Tin Whistle. This ended poorly because my family did not approve of the first stages of learning... because it was loud and sounded a bit like strangling a bird... I gave it up because I could not deal with the teasing. Well now I have a place of my own and can try again (I've also finally found my whistle) I've found some Youtube classes and I'm going to make a point of working on it almost daily (if not daily) because obviously I don't have enough on my plate as it is...
You may be wondering why I have brought this up (if you're not, then well, you're special...) well you see, the reason I have is because I bought touch up paint for my car, very high quality metal paint, it looked like the closest thing to match the paint color and yet it is too bright and doesn't match (dammit) so now I am left with this paint and nothing to use it on (this never lasts long) Matt has a tin whistle too, it is an ugly yellow color, he doesn't want it (possibly because it is ugly, but most likely because he doesn't play it, he plays the Bodhran, which is a drum) so I have sort of claimed it, it is the same key as mine (but uglier) and my thought process went something like this.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*looks at whistle* damn that's an icky color
*looks at paint* pretty sparkly blue
*looks at whistle* it's metal...
*looks at paint* it's metal paint!
I need something quick for the blog and it's something for me, which makes it even better! and then I'll have a practice whistle and a pretty whistle. How is this a bad thing???
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So there you have it. Perfectly logical if you ask me.
Anyway, I started painting before I thought to take pictures of the process but as you can see here it really is an awful yellow color

the first coat was streaky and you could see too much yellow through it, so after about an hour and a half I put on a second coat

 which covered up a lot of the streaky but not completely, so a third coat is in order and then a few touch ups
and now... hooray pretty blue whistle!


and of course, I have the next Spartan for you! I'm barely into the double digits and I'm already getting a bit silly with them. This #12 is going to my friend Mimi (of Meandering Mimi Creations go check her creations out!) and Mimi is a Hooper (hula hooper that is) so I thought it only fitting that her Spartan have a hoop as well and it was interesting figuring out how to make a crocheted hoop! So here he is Vortix the hooping Spartan!



TADA!

I've just done some math on how long this project will take at 1 Spartan a week from hence forth... it will be 5 and a half years before I'm finished O_O
I do believe I'm going to try and pick up the pace a bit, I'd rather not be doing this for the next 5 years, mkay? And I'm quite certain no one wants to wait that long for their Spartan.

I am getting faster at them, but I'm thinking I need to be even faster if this is going to get finished before I'm 30.

I shall leave you now, on that sobering thought, and wish you a good day.

I said good day!
;-)

P.S. be sure and check out the changes I've made to my page. You can now sign up for email updates when I update and you can share my blog via Facebook and Twitter (please feel free to share it all you like!) and there are fish, because well I wanted them and they amuse me.