Where the hell did my time go?

So, I missed a few days of posting... and suddenly it's the middle of December, how in the world did that happen? Must be all those full time hours I'm putting in at my supposedly part time job, I guess. And now Christmas is just around the corner, so any time I'm not working I'm crafting for everyone else. Doing scarves for the family, other than Eric and Katie (my cousin and his wife). I'm going to try my hand at colorwork. Grandma had drawn a stork and a quail holding a heart that they used on their wedding programs, I'm going to make that into a pillow. Had been planning a blanket, but no way would I get that done in time, so pillow this year, blanket next. Same with Mum, though I'll probably wrap a swatch for her and get it to her by Valentine's day. School friends won't be getting their gifts till they come back for winter term on the second, I'm planning on having a late Yule party at my place.
WIP List
On the hooks:
Orange and red tunisian scarf for myself (on hold for hols)
Rainbow scarf for ??? (on hold for hols)
crochet socks for the hell of it (on hold for lack of interest...)
Luna Lovegood thestral cardigan for myself (my first attempt at altering a crochet pattern to fit me) (on hold for hols)
dishcloths for Mom
matching scarves for John and Paula
scarf for Julie
scarf for Michael
scarf for Amy (well... just need to weave in ends)
scarf for my brother's Amy
pillow for Eric and Katie
blanket for Mum
scarf for Brian? (might do something different for him, not sure yet)
scarf for Nicholas
*** for Dani (who reads this blog so I can't list it)
*** for Cait
*** for Cat
*** for Sara
*** for Sable
*** for Megan
*** for Alice
*** for Alice
Currently on the sewing table:
Strawberry Shortcake quilt
Blackmage costume for Cat
Spike Spiegel coat for Domi
Natsume for Sara
skirts for Megan
needle roll for me
bag for Piper
cloth pads for me

... it just keeps getting longer and longer

A little bit of a catch up

Well, the IUD insertion was successful - though a bit painful. Never really thought about feeling pain in my cervix before, could have lived without that, but the pain has pretty much recemented in my mind that I never ever want to go through the experience of giving birth. Not that it really needed recementing. It wasn't even that the pain was terrible, it wasn't that bad, it was more that the pain extended for days on end with only short breaks starting on the second day and growing steadily longer from there on out. I still feel a few twinges now, but most of the pain has gone. The first time that the painkillers kicked in and I wasn't feeling near as much pain I got so paranoid worrying that it had come out, but thankfully that fear is slowly easing away.

On the job front, I had an interview at Motherhood Maternity on Friday and it went really well. Between the interviewer speaking as though I already had the job (as well as seeming to almost be training me more than giving the interview) and the fact that they just had 3 women go out on maternity leave, I have a very good feeling about this. I won't definitively state that I have it until I've put through all that lovely paperwork that proves I'm allowed to work in the United States, but I feel more hopeful than I have about any of the places I've applied to so far.

On Saturday I went to my future cousin-in-law's bridal shower... well, one of them, at least. Apparently this was her third since she has such a large family. It was a lot of fun, lot of great food, and I even came home with presents (which I was not expecting). Speaking of showers, I was considering having an un-baby shower to celebrate my new (if technically temporary) infertility. I have no idea how to go about planning such a thing though. The only thing I have come up with yet are ideas that seem in poor taste - such as a baby shaped cake and pin the coathanger on the fetus. As amusing as such thoughts are in the abstract (when there are no actual children involved) I think that would go a bit too far in playing into the stereotype of babyhating cf. I may ocassionally indulge in a dead baby joke, but there's that and then there's that step beyond that, and I don't think I want to go there. I know that at traditional baby showers there are usually a number of games, sometimes trying to guess how big the expectant mother in or other sorts of things like that, but I can't think of any sort of opposites for those. I suppose that I'll have to search the internet a bit and see if I can dig anything up, but I have a feeling that it will be on the rare side.

On craft related notes, I tried my hand at handpainting yarn and the results are gorgeous. If we get some sun today I'll take some pictures, but it looks very cloudy at the moment and I can't seem to get any good shots in the house. I'm so very very close to finishing my star blanket, just one more row to go, but by this point the rows are so long it seems to move so slowly. I feel like I have a bundle of UFO's all just that tiny bit away from being finished, so there will probably be a FO post up and coming really soon.

Awesome News of the Day

So, I found out today at the yearly Lawrence University Activities Fair (which tech crew did not have to set up, thank the gods, sooooo many tables) that we had a Crafting Club. How awesome is that? How did I not know that this existed before now? I'm so excited.

Also exciting - Today while we were doing our 'beginning of the school year' shopping trip, I got a call from "Motherhood Maternity" asking me to come in for an interview. I only picked up an application there for the sheer irony of the idea of me working in a maternity clothing store, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, particularly if that horse is the only store that has actually called me back for an interview. The store manager is a real sweet lady and she seems to like me, so I'm crossing my fingers on this one. I don't think it would be too bad a job. Wish me luck.

In further good news, my IUD insertion is scheduled for Thursday. I'm sort of worried about the possible pain, but I've set aside a day to do nothing but veg just in case I don't feel well after and the excitement is definitely winning out over the nervousness. I'm gonna be as good as sterile with a chance of no period. It's like a dream come true.

I've got a job!

Sorry for not being around the last couple of days. I got a surprise visit from a friend of mine who had returned to school earlier than I was expecting. Wonderful to see her, embarassing to realize just how messy my apartment has gotten since I haven't had anyone here all summer. I also started a new job which has been taking up a lot of my time now. I'm working setting up and taking down sound equipment for various goings on on campus. It's great to finally have some money coming in after I spent all summer getting rejection after rejection while watching my savings slowly dwindle. In between set ups I get plenty of time to work on whatever project I've brought along with me. I've found that I have a tendency to have about 20 different projects going on at once, all in different stages of being finished. I just finished a swap on crafster, so the list got a little bit shorter (and I'll be sure to post pics of those items once I know that the package is safe in my partner's hands and I won't spoile the surprise) ... and then I realized that the winter holidays are fast approaching and so the list of things that need to be finished got larger again.
Currently on the needles:
Pink star blanket for etsy
Yellow star blanket for etsy
Orange and red tunisian scarf for myself
Rainbow scarf for ???
crochet socks for the hell of it
Luna Lovegood thestral cardigan for myself (my first attempt at altering a crochet pattern to fit me)
dishcloths for Mom
Currently on the sewing table:
Strawberry Shortcake quilt
Blackmage costume for Cat
Spike Spiegel coat for Domi
Natsume for Sara
skirts for Megan
needle roll for me
bag for Piper
cloth pads for me

I should probably finish some of those before I think about starting new projects... and yet yesterday I went and bought yarn to try my hand at dyeing. There is no help for my crafting ADD.

I've been playing with the idea of starting my own blog for a while now, but it just seemed like there were already so many craft blogs out there that little old me would get lost in the shuffle. And then, I took a closer look at all of those craft blogs that I had only skimmed before and slowly I began to notice a pattern. While there were a few that were brimming with great information, there were also untold numbers of those that had page after page after page all about crafting for children and babies with only intermittent posts of any value to someone as myself whose life does not revolve around having kids. The more I looked, the more the child based blogs seemed to outweigh the helpful. And then I went to Hobby Lobby to pick up a few supplies to finish some projects and the woman checking me out asked me if I was going to be doing these projects with my kids. I'm twenty-two... in order for me to have a kid old enough to be working with the perler beads I was getting I would have had to pop one out in high school. And so my mind was finally made up. I'm not expecting to become a bastion of childfree crafting by any means, but the opportunity to reach out and meet other people on the internet who enjoy crafting without having to take into consideration little hands and interuptions for "Mommy, come play with us" seemed like a good enough reason as any for me to start writing this blog.

Hi, my name is Anne and I'm a childfree crafter.