Sunday, June 07, 2009
Warhammer Movement Trays
I’m helping my husband create movement trays for his warhammer games. He’s cut the styrene sheets (we had to order them online, could not find them at Walmart, Michael’s, Lowes, Home Depot) It’s just real thin plastic, you know how those “for sale by owner” type signs are? It’s kind of like that stuff. So I think actually we could make them from that rather than buying the stuff online. Especially if you’re gonna paint them anyway.
So there’s also these thin strips to make the sides, and boy are they small. I painted those side bits up today with a mix of brown, yellow, and green acrylic. Then the flat base part of the movement tray I painted with magnetic paint on one side. It’s by Rustoleum, and you can get it at Lowes or Home Depot. It comes in a small box with a can of paint inside. You’ll need to look up probably, it was with the glow in the dark and chalk board paints at ours.
The stuff smells a bit, btw.
Then I guess he’s going to super glue them together. To be honest I don’t know how that’s gonna work since we painted them completely. I think maybe he should have glued, then had me paint. We’ll see though. First trays we’re making so it’s a learning experience.
If you have a Michael’s around, you know the craft store.. and you’re not a usual visitor to the place. Check the newspapers or ask a neighbor if they get the ad. There’s a 40% off one item coupon floating around all the time. With that you can get your acrylic paints at a real nice discount. We picked up the student acrylics by Grumbacher (sp?) and they’re so nice. Way better, smoother, and drying so much nicer than the standard “craft” acrylics. It’s beautiful stuff. I can’t believe I’ve never thought to look back there and buy some decent acrylics for craft projects.
It’s seriously nice. I’m hooked. It cleans up real nice with soap and water too, and so does the magnetic paint. Just clean your brushes properly and gently.
I can’t wait to get started on the figurines! He got a book on how to paint his elves. It’s not wood elves, it’s the other one.. but I forget. The book shows them in white and blue, looks real nice. Hopefully we can get results at least half as nice!
I don’t actually play, I’ve not even seen them play yet. They do play, just I don’t go hehe. Well you know the ones that are the rats dressed up, there’s an assassin rat. Not sure what the actual group of that type is called, but it’s so cute! It has little ninja stars, and dagger, and a cloak.. eek. I’m gonna get one if I actually enjoy painting the figurines and paint me up one just for my desk. Then there’s a second one that’s also cute, I forget what it’s job title was but it’s another I want to paint up if I can actually manage to paint them up. I saw a picture of a set of little teeny rats that were separated, not the rat swarm that’s on the rectangular pieces all piled together. These were teensy little single rats. One was larger than the rest, but I can’t seem to find that set for sale. Maybe it isn’t part of Warhammer, it maybe was just some guy’s painted pewter rat figurines I dunno. They weren’t wearing armor, it was just little ratties.
So I’ll update later this week after we try to glue them together, I may have some advice for you if it doesn’t work haha
I’m hoping this magnetic paint works. I really want to create myself a magnet board for the kitchen and one for in here so I can hang notes and things. I think it’d be a fun project for Christmas too. I think everyone definitely needs a magnetic board to hang stuff on!
On another note, I quit crapping around and actually did my full cardio. I am worn out, but feeling much better that I got the whole hour in. I counted 10 for gardening, cutting rose buds, raking, and tending to a few plants. Then 48 for actual cardio. I’m finding lately I don’t feel like I can eat much, and the less cardio I do of course the less calories I should be bringing in. I stay at at least 1200 though, but doing the cardio means I can eat more, feel better, and it’s pretty stinking obvious if you exercise you lose.. if you don’t.. well.. you don’t lose weight. Easy peasy, right? Sounds like it should be but getting past the pain some days is tough.
The house is starting to reek of that paint. Ugh. Maybe we should have done that in the garage.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Dice bag
I’m going to make this dice bag. There’s a png image to click.
My husband has more dice now and the other bag is too small to hold all these various 6 sided. So he picked some fabric out and tomorrow I’ll have at sewing one up. I’ll make some draw string with twisted cotton I think.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Workbaskets
Oh
my
gosh
I love this magazine! I have a whole bunch that Judi sent me that were her momma’s. I love them! It is fun to see where she lived at various points in her life too. There’s some even still with the embroidery patterns in. Wheeeeeeeee! I found a few patterns to make, and I’ve only looked through a very small amount of the stack she sent me. One of the booklets (I don’t think it was a Workbasket) has a cute framed crochet basket design. Like a flat basket in white, with some flowery bits. In a frame. It’s cute! I think I will try that this week, if I can make it then it will be a cute gift!
If I can’t, then it will be good practice for some other project.
But the embroidery designs, in the few I’ve looked at they’re so.. dorky! But the kind of dorky and campy that is totally cool. I’ve got to get some scanned in so I can print them out and use them. I don’t want to use them straight from the magazine, some of these designs are pretty old and I don’t want to be taping the whole thing up into the window you know.
My tulips are blooming, bought a little pot with some tulips in it at the grocery store. They smell nice.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
24 pounds of craft booklet happiness
My friend Judi sent me a box. 24 pounds full of Workbasket, Annie’s crochet magazines, some other leaflets by other companies. There’s crochet, miniatures, plastic canvas, some crafty magazines, I saw one knitting at least, and a ton of Workbaskets! I saw at least two booklets that date to the 50’s! Ohmygosh yay!
I have a huge mess in the livingroom of booklets here. There. There. Some there too.
So I started looking at covers and making a stack of the ones that had images that I wanted to make. I found that they almost all went on the “make it” pile. That’s just the cover images, I haven’t even read through to pick out projects from that stack! I am seriously besides myself with glee. I believe that most of them belonged to her momma, and now she is passing them on to me. I feel honored to have these in my possession. It might sound silly to a non crafter, but this is something so very special to me. I didn’t know her mom, but I wish I had a chance to. Now I can see on the magazines places she had them mailed to over the years, I get to see what notes she wrote, what magazines she liked. In a way, I do get to know her momma just a little bit.
I have sooooooooooooooooo many projects I want to make now. Just from the covers alone! I could just pee my self I’m so excited!
I’ll get a photo once I sort them out by whatever they are and get some pictures of my very favorite covers. Woooohooo… got me some readin’ to do!
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
march filet practice week 2
Friday, March 27, 2009
10 cent thrift shop books
(See flickr for details on each book)
Thursday, March 26, 2009
filet crochet samples 1 and 2
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Filet crochet sampler 1
So far so good! The increases for open mesh went well, I’m almost to the decreases in open mesh now. Trying to get woke up fully so I can go work on it some more.
Today I do not feel good. I am hoping it’s just allergies, we’re supposed to go hang out with friends later. I don’t want to pass the germs if I’m sick though.
Well to go get woke up, I’ll go unload the dishwasher and make sure the bento boxes are ready to load up in a little while. Debating what to put in, but I think pbj, grapes, half an orange sounds good. Then the later one I actually don’t know.. I’m not even sure what I’ll fix for dinner tonight. Might make pizza, it’s getting tough to fend him off the pepperoni in the fridge, so i better use it before it gets eaten.
oh I know what I can make too, couple of boiled eggs and practice trying to get the yolks centered. I still have the second quiche recipe and applesauce muffins to make too. Gotta bake something.
Friday, March 20, 2009
It’s time for class!
Hot diggity dog diggity! It’s time for the advanced filet crochet class 
Lesson 1 was just posted over at CrochetVille. It’s a class that required a sign up, not sure if it’s still open though. Yay! I’m reading over the instructions and then off to bed. Tomorrow I’ll get started on it all. I was worried the class examples would be really huge, but they aren’t at all. I crochet kind of slow, wasn’t sure if I could keep up but it looks like if I get started tomorrow I’ll be just fine.
Was a bit afraid that maybe it’d be too advanced, but I think I can do it. I can do basic mesh and blocks, and when I read over her instructions I totally get it. I just didn’t know they had abbreviations for those stitches. Neat! Can’t wait, wish I was more awake. I want to crochet now! Wheeeee....
Thursday, March 19, 2009
carrots in water
Flickr
This is a test post from 
, a fancy photo sharing thing.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Update bookmarks please
Right now it looks like things work except for a few images, I’m about to go fix my CSS now.
The main blog called “meowy’s Got Stuff to Say” where I crab on about stuff, health, books, movies.. basically everything is no longer at the old URL. There’s a 404 page there to redirect.
The crafty blog, originally called “Knitting a Rat’s Nest” and I’m still working on a new name, it’s.. well.. about crafty stuff. Also a 404 at the old URL to redirect.
NEW: http://strayalleycat.com/index.php/knit
There will be more changes once I’m sure my transfer to a new directory actually worked. I still feel a bit ill from the stress of it all. Ugh, I am so not sure of what I’m doing. Just going step by step on the “how do I move EE” wiki page. Talk about some vague info there, man. I think it’s okay though. I hope. I’m nervous. I renamed the old directory, so everything relying on that folder should be broken. Hopefully the only thing left to fix is those image links in CSS. Woo! I hope.
So my plan has always been to make better use of EE. I didn’t know how and didn’t know where to start. My skill in converting WP themes to EE is zilch. There’s the Train-EE site that shows how to do a church site, some of the elements are exactly what I’ve been wanting. So I’m looking over it, and the first step was to get my files in the right spot! After this, I’ll be sure the whole site works of course.. then I’ll begin setting up the rest of the site the way I’d like it.
The end result will be the craft blog stays at the new URL. I’ll add in a few other blogs to help me feel more organized when I write. The front of the page (currently pointing to the “meowy’s Got Stuff to Say” blog) will turn into more of a portal to the other areas, and the catch-all blog will be redirected just a bit to another URL.
So basically all you need is the main link, right now it has all the entries showing. It also has a link to the craft blog too. It always has
Whewwwwww… have to go pee again, the stress is tough haha.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Fabric hoop cover
Today I did a test sewing and I like the results. I found for my 3/4” 160 PSI hoop that a 4” wide strip of fabric allows for a 1/2 inch fold in for hand stitching it to the existing hoop. The current one I’ve been using is about 42.5” diameter. It won’t come apart so I’ll have to hand stitch the fabric on. I guess I can use this as applique practice. zzz. The next one, I think I’ll have to decide which is better/easier.. to either hand stitch the long strip on or sew a tube with a 1/2 seam and turn it out with a broom stick, slide it on before adding the connector pieces, then hand stitch the ends together. What to do.. what to do…
I did a few minutes of hooping, I like how the fabric kind of gave it a bit of grab rather than it constantly feeling like it slides down when it’s just a plain black tubing.
Cutting fabric to seam together in a long bias tape format. I don’t know if cutting on the bias will make a difference, but since that’s what works good for around pot holders and all, I figured it’d be good to go around a hoop too.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Taking a class
Yay! I am real excited about taking the advanced filet crochet class. At CrochetVille they offer classes on various topics. There are different ones scheduled for the year, and I think more are being added as teachers sign up. In January I think was a beginner’s filet crochet but I knew those stitches already so I’ve been waiting for the advanced one. oooo how fancy am I, needing an advanced course? I keep debating whether to take it or not, and today I officially signed up. YAY!
I thought I could figure it out on my own, but the increase/decrease to make the stair step type edges is tough. My attempts by using a book and internet just weren’t working, and I really want to have those skills so I can complete a few projects this year.
Class doesn’t begin until the 20th of March, I can’t wait!
sewing
Getting some of the scraps sewn up into larger pieces. Going better than I expected it would!
