April 2024
S M T W T F S
« Mar    
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
282930  

TSS: Currently, 30.03.14

tssbadge1Time // Late Sunday afternoon, 17:15

Place // Same desk as always

Eating // We’ll be having a beef rogan josh for dinner – an experiment from Jamie Oliver’s 15 minute meals

Drinking // Just water at the moment

Reading // I’m not reading anything right now. I finished Panic by Lauren Oliver this afternoon and Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan yesterday. I’m pondering what to nominate for the Hugos and still not firm on what to choose. I’m going to have to pick something eventually, there’s just one day left. No idea what I’m going to read next. Kingmaker by Toby Clements is next up on the TBR pile, but I’m not sure I’m in the mood for the Wars of the Roses. I might keep my head in fantasy while I ride out the next couple of stressful weeks.

Watching // Still watching a crazy number of shows and mostly just seem interested in making it worse for myself! We seem to be sticking with Red Dwarf right now and Breaking Bad when there’s more time in the evenings. I started watching Call the Midwife for when my husband is too busy with his final university course to watch with me. He’s never a huge fan of historical dramas, but that doesn’t mean I have to miss out.

Cooking // I’ve been cooking a little bit. As mentioned above, I’m attempting a Jamie Oliver 15 minute meal later on tonight, and am trying to get back into it. Some, at least.

Learning // Back to the crocheting. I finished this interesting-looking frog just yesterday:

crochet frog

He’s not perfect, primarily because I ran out of the light green yarn before I could make his eyes, but it’s been a while since I actually finished a crochet project, so I’m just happy to have one done.

Gaming // I’m not sure I’ve even touched a game since the last time I played Halo 3 weeks ago. Oh, I tell a lie – I have played a little bit of Final Fantasy XIII, just to try and finish that game once and for all. With 2 sequels it can’t be that dreadful.

Loving/Hating // Loving the daffodils, the occasional nice days, the sunshine. I’ve been doing the 100 Happy Days challenge for the last week and making more of an effort to find things that make me happy. It’s working, a little, although at the same time I worry that it means I’m giving off this false message of perfect happiness to the social media world. Definitely not true. It’s reminding myself that happiness is a choice; that I can focus on the lovely things that make life wonderful and ignore everything that is getting me stressed and depressed. Ignore maybe isn’t the right word, but I have a bad habit of remaining worried and stressed about things that I either can’t help or can’t do anything about at a given time.

Anticipating // The end of the current round of stress at work. I had a moment two weeks ago when I thought things weren’t too bad and the universe seems to have decided to punish me for it. I want to go back to thinking things are not too bad. I’m hoping that time will come in a couple of weeks, but we’ll see.

Credit goes to Kim for the Currently format!

Share

Crochet Toys

Inspired by Trish’s post earlier today, I thought I would share a few of my recent crochet projects, little amigurumi dolls from the book Creepy Cute Crochet by Christen Haden.  I saw this book on Amazon and knew I had to try making these!

I’ve been crocheting for as long as I can remember.  It’s pretty much the only crafty talent I have.  I actually have no idea when I started; all I know is that my mom and my grandma taught me and I crochet righty even though I’m a lefty.  I tried to switch once I realized I was doing it wrong, figuring my stitches might be neater if I was using my dominant hand, with the help of a crochet book my future mother-in-law gave me, but it seemed crazy and difficult, so I’ve continued doing it backwards.  Mostly I’ve crocheted blankets, flowers, and pillow covers that adorn my parents’ house, so when I learned about amigurumi, I was really excited.  Something different!  Yay!

I needed a little help getting these projects started.  They use a magic circle rather than what I normally start out with to crochet in the round, but a video tutorial I found here really helped.

My first project was a little ninja for my fiance:

img_1062He was pretty easy to make!  He was also one of the beginner projects.  Apologies for the crappy flash, but you couldn’t see his sash without it.  The next guy I made was a businessman doll for my dad to take to work with him.

img_1060I also made a little trojan warrior and a vampire before I had to actually do schoolwork again.

img_1088I’m really looking forward to making more.  I don’t have the book with me anymore, but I have requested a couple from the local library.  I’m also thinking about getting back into knitting, which I have actually forgotten how to do.  It’s fun to devote time to something and have a tangible result at the end of it, so unlike the feel of all my grad school work these days!

Are you crafty?  What do you make?

Share