Logo!!

Yay!  I created a logo that I actually like!

Now is the time.

Now is the time for inspiration.  I am a knitter knitting professional!  This is my time of year!  I should be belting things out left and right ... but I'm not.  Yea sure I'm busy with school, therapy, and trying to heal this damn hip!  (The hip is a whole ordeal that maybe I will blog about one day but today is not the day.)  I need to get my crap together get Milly  off of my favorite hat needles and start clicking away.  I also want to come up with some Fall designs for the hats but I don't want them to be ultra cheesy because if anyone can do cheesy, Sara can. sigh.

I just can't stand it when I hit the 7 foot inspirational wall!  

Help me ... someone. 

Newest art.

Here is the newest art that I have done this semester.  It really came out beautiful.  I wish I could flip it over to fiber art!

Getting back on track.

Well I finally went back to Art Club today.  I really missed everyone, it was good to be back.  How quickly I had to start working again!  There is a Bake Sale tomorrow and one of my pieces was chosen for the student Art show, YEAH ME!  I went to the grocery store right afterwards and started baking my heart out.

 While I was baking I got a phone call.  The evil parental figures found out about the student art show.  God knows how!  They asked what I had in there.  I told the female one that it was an image I painted in Photoshop, she said "I don't know what that means"  SIGH.  "It was just something that I did in Photoshop." I said.  "Well, I'd like to see it." she squealed.  "Yea sure mom." I replied.  Mind you she has never ever asked to "see" one of my drawings, paintings, knitting, or any sketches for that matter.  Maybe she got a sniff of success.  That I was being recognized and she wanted EVERYONE to know that I am her daughter.  Sometimes I wonder how I can be related to her, SIGH.  Well cookies are done.  Art Club Cookie Mania was awesome.  In celebration I am going to share my secret recipe for Oatmeal (insert dried fruit) Cookies and no it's not a recipe from my female parental unit or mother (whatever you want to call the woman)  I made it myself (raises shoulder's in adoration) and it's damn good!!

Oatmeal Raisin Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies.  YUM.

Ingredients:

2 sticks of unsalted butter (unsalted makes a world of difference)

1 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup of sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 tsp of baking soda
1 tsp of cinnamon  (eliminate if using Cranberry's)
1/2 tsp of salt
3 cups of oats (old fashioned works the best)
1 - 8oz pkg of cranberry's
1/2 a 12 oz bag of White Chocolate chips (for added yum)

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl, set aside.  Beat butter and sugar for 5 minutes.  Add eggs and vanilla, beat well.  Then add the flour mix in only folding it a few times, the more you blend it the dryer the cookies will be, and who likes dry rock hard cookies?  Then add oats and berries and white chocolate or whatever else is a good combo with oatmeal, fold this a few times until everything is blended, don't over blend!

- Get one of those awesome cookie droppers, you know the one's that look like ice cream scooper's, it will make your live so much easier.  Place the cookies onto a cookie sheet (I like to spray mine with no stick, once again making my life easier) and bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown.


- Enjoy!

Early morning inspiration.

The sun is shining in Chicago today, something that's hard to get used to after months of gray sky's.  I have a feel in my bones that today is going to be a good day.  There is no other way.

One more that I found this weekend, just to ensure a good day.

Live today like it's your last and love like it's your first, most importantly, be happy.  : )

Sara, the eco knitter.

I was sad and upset last night so I opted for some creating.  The soft hum of the TV and my scissors snapping away always makes me feel better.  I found an article on Etsy the other day and I really wanted to try it.  So I pulled out all my saved plastic bags (I save all of them, weird? maybe?) laid them out, folded them, snipped them, and strung them together in to some awesome "plarn" as the article calls it. Here is what I have so far.

It's really a lot of fun!  I am making a bag right now, but as I was making the yarn I was thinking that I need to get a bunch of colors!  I know most stores have white bags but I want colored bags!  HA HA!  I know that Best Buy has blue bags and that's about it for colors.  In the article they had yellow bags, awesome!  Does anyone have any suggestions?  

I also made some T-Shirt necklaces.  I know I was quite the adventurous crafter last night!  Here is one that I made.  

So all of this soulful crafting made me feel a little better about things.  I hope today is a great day.

When it rains it pours.

I am officially out of a car.  It sucks.  I have been shopping around for a new car but no such luck.  In the mean time I have been taking walks, lots of long walks, in hopes of clearing my conscious.  Also with no such luck.  Things will look up that is what I keep telling myself, they have to, there's no other way!  Right?  Well here's to anyone else who's been down and out maybe this will cheer you up.

             OH WAIT! It looks like the grass is raining.  Let's try this one.

                     Meh. One more .. this has GOT to cheer someone up. 

                                         A tree butt!




I hope your day is better than mine.  I am going to go knit now, maybe that will cheer me up. 

 

ok soo ....

OK so ... I was a total slacker and didn't post again.  Truth be told we went to a friends house for beer, pizza and good times.  It was a lot of fun, Lance played and sang.  I will have to be extra good today because pizza and wings is NOT good for the hips.

So my new photo project will be the progression of Spring.  I am going to take the same scene everyday at around or about the same time.  I think that it will come out great, it's going to be my portfolio for my Photo class.  This is what I have so far.

             This is pic one.                                             This is pic two.

I think that this project is going to turn out great!  Oh yea I also want to show my fortune.  : )

I didn't post yesterday!!!

So I will post two today.  This is my first ... this is what I did last night (why I didn't post).  It was worth it because this came out super cute!!

LOVE IT!!!!

Post again tonight with the ideas for my new photo project.  I think it's going to come out great!!

Inspiration.

Inspiration is something that every artist struggles with, if your trying to meet a deadline or just plain out of ideas, I'm sure all artists can share my pain.  There are many things that I do to get inspired, walk, read books and blogs, talk with friends, etc.  I really like to go outside and take pictures, many, many pictures.  Something about nature really calms me and opens the creative flood gates.  So today, being 80 degrees in Chicago (thank you global warming) while I was on my walk I came across two Mallard ducks, one male, one female.  The female is the brown one with the purple in her feathers and the male is the one with the green head.  I only knows those facts about the ducks because my mom would always say "Typical of nature making the male prettier."  I always wondered why would that be typical of nature?  But that was just one of my mother's infinite ramblings.  So back to the ducks, they were probably just spending some "quality time" together before the kids are born, talking about the world or maybe just enjoying each others company.  Well I think Mrs. Mallard got upset with my being there because she got up and waddled over to her man and sat right next to him. 

 That's her waddling over, I think she was swinging her neck a little bit but I can't be sure.

When she plopped down and I think I heard a little quacky sigh come out of her and a mumbling under her breath.  I'm sure she was saying something like "How dare SHE intrude on OUR time together, and did you see how close she was getting? Uh! The nerve of some people" and he probably replied "Uh Huh, yes dear."


Well I can tell when I'm not wanted, being ignored and getting the cold shoulder all at once.  I put the camera away and continued my walk.  I think I heard the up tight Mrs. Mallard yell "TOURIST!"  I turned around shocked, but just kept walking because she wasn't worth the fight. 


: )  Have a great day. 


P.S.  Isn't this beautiful!  This is the real reason why I get inspired.  Sooo beautiful!!!!

Trying to blog more.

I know I say this all the time that I am going to blog more but I am really going to do it this time, seriously, I hope.  Blogger finally updated their templates, so my blog won't look like it's from the 60's!  I must have been in the bathroom every time someone talked about their update.  I think that this will encourage me to blog more.  It's like when you get a really pretty journal and you want to write in it more because it's so pretty or it could be the fact that I watched Juile and Julia last night.  What a great movie!!  It was really inspiring.  It restated to me yet again to follow your heart and do what you love.

On to creative stuff.

I have been working my butt of with creating lately, it feels good!  To look back at your work and go ahh, I made that!  Here is one of my favorite creations.  You may ask yourself .. Sara why are you making hats with summer right around the corner? ... well my dear reader there is no rest for the wicked (knitter).  Today I am working on 4th of July beanies.  I found some super cute ribbon on the clearance for $.25 (woo hoo!) it inspired the hats.  I will post some pics as soon as their done.

Well I don't want to go over board so I have more to talk about tomorrow because (remember) I said I am going to blog more (see!  you forgot already!)

Spring is in the air.

This time of year always reminds me of my Grandma.  It's a bittersweet time of year.  I miss her more than ever in Spring.  My Grandma.  She signed all her cards Grandm<3m.  She was a wonderful children's story author.  She was an amazing Great-Grandma (GGM).  She had a contagious laugh.  She loved to read and sew.  She was awesome!  Most of all she loved tulips.  She grew the most colorful, monster tulips!  The Fall before she died, she was so determined to plant her tulip bulbs in my yard, little did I know that it was going to be her last time planting.  By the time Spring rolled around, she was gone and her tulips come up strong and bright all over my yard.  It made me happy to think of her and how important it was to her to plant the bulbs but it made me sad because I missed her so.  As I smell the sunshine and new growing plants in the air I can't help but whisper to the sky, "I miss you even more".

the latest happenings ..

*FIRST*

I am so EXCITED!!  I got a new camera a few weeks ago and I just got the negatives back yesterday.  So here are some pics of Lance's adorable cats.

 

 That's Jimi on the left and Janis on the right.  Cute, right?

*SECOND*
We went to see Alice in Wonderland last night!  It was really good, kinda dark but that's to be expected of Mr. Burton, right? 

This was the Alice that I remembered.

The new Alice, not bad but as my mom would say "different".

*THIRD*

I jumped into the holiday spirit and made some hats for St. Patrick's day.  Below is the first one, it sold in one day on Etsy (YAY! for me).

Today's Events ....

So we started out the day on a wonderful sunny yet cold morning in the city of wind.  I had a field trip for my printmaking class down to the Art Institute of Chicago.  Morello lead us down the unusually empty Lake Shore Drive.

This was the most bad ass field trip I have EVER been on EVER!!  OK so here is the run down ..

1. The traffic was amazing ... see above pic. 
2. The weather was awesome .. I think it was 30 which is actually a treat for February in the Midwest.
3. My wonderful professor Ms. Alex Chitty got us behind the scenes at the Museum, we got to look at REAL prints from artist like Durer, Litchenstein, PICASSO (my favorite) and many others!
4. I got to spend the day with my amazing boyfriend : )
5. I bought a kick ass camera from Blick that I hope to share with you very soon.
6. I also got to sport my newly knitted Calorimetry ... see pic below.

Well that pretty much sums up my amazing day.  I am still shell shocked that I was almost nose to print with a real life Picasso, I was really that close.  The man was a bit of a prick but I gotta love him.

 

Told ya I'm a goof. 

I found a super cute hat ....

I found a super cute hat that must be made!!  I am so in love with it and I will post pics when it is up and knitting (get it?) I know I'm super corny. I will have to knit it up and pass it along to a Hello Kitty fan. Here's the link if you'd like to knit one up yourself.

Hello Kitty Hat

With the recent Hallmark Holiday that just passed I must admit that I had a wonderful time!  We went for a horse and carriage ride along Lake Michigan.  I felt like a total princess.  I am glad to have a wonderful man like him in my life. 

 

Happy Late Valentine's Everyone!!

not your grandma's craft.

Today I had a new student, we went over the beginnings of crochet it was lots of fun and made me think about my grandmother and how crochet and knit are considered an "old lady" craft (see pic below)

Or this often pops in to people's (generally men) when you tell them you crochet (see pic below)

Well ladies and gentlemen welcome to 2010 (see pic below)

An ultra sexy CROCHET bikini!!  Take that GRANDMA!!!  With all that being said, I had a lot of fun and I was glad to share the craft of our ancestors. 

Women of 2010 I implore you to change!

Women of 2010 I implore you to become better women!  We are the future!!  Our daughters look up to us and our sons look to us for ideologies of what women are!!  Drop your sponges, brooms and curling irons!!  Become great do what you love and love what you do!  Please for the sake of humanity!

Well OK that's enough preaching, I will gracefully get off my soap box.  For real though have a great NEW year!  I am one step closer to making my dreams become a reality and I want you to join me!  Let's share success!