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3 Squares -- Weaving on hand looms

During Earth Hour (Okay, we had EH on Sunday because we were at a birthday party on Saturday and it was more like Earth Half-Hour, but in my defense, the power was out earlier this week so I already had my EH and then some!) I sat out in the sun room to catch the last of the late afternoon sun and did some weaving on my three different sized hand looms -- the 6in. Weavette, the 4 in. vintage Weave-It and the 2 in. vintage Weave-It. The 2 in. Weave-It was a hoot because you can literally make a square in minutes. Of course, that square is pretty tiny, but it is loads of fun. The 4 in. is pretty quick too -- especially compared to the 6 in. which is what I've been using to make the squares for my blanket.

The more squares I make on these little looms, the better I like them. Now I just have to find more uses for the squares so that I have more reasons to make them!

Baby Weave-It

The weaving obsession continues. I've been stalking the 2 in. Weavette looms on eBay for ages and I finally broke down and got one. It came as a set, so now I have another 4 in. too! Lots of woven squares in my future.

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure

Can't post, playing Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure. It is so awesome -- like Super Mario and Tetris all rolled into one.

New Black Sheep Bags pattern available!

The Bigger (& Biggest) Booga Bag pattern is now available as a pdf download in my shop!

Twilight Saga -- done.

When you have the flu (the real, actual flu -- not the stomach flu) there isn't much you can do except lay in bed and wait it out. Since I was down for the count for the better part of a week, I was able to finish off the entire Twilight Saga -- not a bad thing to read when you are sick.

Overall I enjoyed them -- at least well enough to keep reading them -- and would recommend them to anyone looking for some light reading --- think beach read. I did however, have a problem with the role of the main character and her influence on young (teenage) women women who are the target audience for these books. If your teen reads them, I would suggest that you read them too and create a dialog about Bella.

While reading these I developed an unhealthy love for my Kindle. I'm completely and utterly hooked and won't look back. In fact, I'm now reading Little Brother by Cory Doctorow on it and loving it.

Flu

ugh.

Bathroom Remodel Complete!

First a little "before" so you all know what we were dealing with:

You get the idea -- classic 50's.

Now for the after:

A view into the bathroom -- the vanity is black and the top is carrera marble.  The marble top was so much less expensive because they have them in stock at Lowes, but it took us four tries to get one that wasn't cracked.  I have to say that Lowe's had really excellent customer service through it all.

You know you wanted to see the fancy new toilet  :)

This is the marble floor and I'm so glad we went with marble.  We got it at Lowe's and it was just as cheap (cheaper actually) than a lot of the ceramic tile we saw.  If you get marble tiles though, make sure you buy extra!  Our remodeling guy said that 3 of them crumbled in his hands as he went to cut them.  Just the nature of natural stone, I guess.

Here's the tub that we had painted -- yes, painted.  It's non standard at 5 1/2 feet so painting it was out best option.  The professional tub painter used a super durable epoxy finish that took 7 days to dry but looks so nice and is really durable.  I have to say that going without a tub/shower for 7 days was a challenge -- thank goodness my Mom only lives a few blocks away!

Here I was trying to get a better photo of the tile in the tub area.  We went with the subway tile look and used 3" X 6" tiles in a staggered pattern.  I love how it turned out.  (And these are stock tiles that are really cheap!)

The only thing left to complete in the bathroom is the built-in linen closet.  The doors are on order and are due to arrive in about a week. 

Tom, who did the work for us, was great.  He's a perfectionist like me, so it worked out perfectly.  I have to say though, I'm really glad it's over.  Living with only a tiny powder room (and our powder room is tiny!) for about 5 weeks was a challenge.  I'm very glad that it is done.

Maddie has an etsy shop!

Maddie decided that she wanted to start her own business, so I helped her set up an etsy shop -- Maddie's Weaving Workshop.

She is *so* excited about this and she is keeping a journal documenting all the details. This is one fun part of homeschooling -- we are turning this into a school project and I think it will teach her a lot about working and finance as well as how to use Photoshop and other computer tools. And she is having so much fun. I remember when I was a kid and I had a big plan of some sort -- it's fun to see her grow up and get involved in a project.

So, if you are in need of a potholder, please visit her etsy shop! I'm sure she will be ridiculously ecstatic when she makes her first sale.

Family of Booga Bags

Aren't they cute all lined up in a row :) More info on the Black Sheep Bags Blog.

Red Mars -- A free Kindle book I love!

Now here's a free book I can recommend with no reservations at all -- Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. I've read the entire martian trilogy, and while I was lucky to find an oversize used copy of Green Mars, I had to read Red Mars in Mass Market Paperback form which was very hard on my eyes.  (I think I checked Blue Mars out from the library.) I'm so glad to have this for the Kindle because I can see myself reading it again.

Don't have a Kindle? Well, if you have and iPod you can read it using the Kindle app. I've loaded the Kindle app on my iPod touch and it seems to work quite nicely.  (Although it doesn't really compare to the ease of reading on a Kindle in my opinion.)

You can read about free books and more on the Kindle Blog.

Go Watch Sita Sings the Blues

I'm sure you don't need me to tell you about Sita Sings the Blues.  Heck, you've probably already watched it. It's amazing, wonderful and different from pretty much anything I've seen before.  So If you haven't seen it yet -- check it out!

In the small world category -- turns out my husband knows Nina Paley's brother and had Cubs season tickets with him years ago. 6 degrees and all that.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Well, that was a quick read despite its length.

I'm sure you've heard of Twilight, or read it already or know someone who has read it already. I, myself, was quite unaware of the whole phenomenon until the 3rd or 4th book came out and I started seeing huge displays in bookstores. Teenage vampire story, though. Really? I couldn't bring myself to look at it. Then the movie came out and all the hysteria that came with it -- really, I thought? Then my sisters started reading the books. And truth be told, I couldn't let my sisters read them without reading them myself.

Well, I've read the first book and started the second -- New Moon -- and I guess I'm hooked like everyone else. Don't get me wrong -- this is not really very good writing and the characters fall a bit flat for my taste. Their motivations are also suspect and don't ring true in many places throughout the book.

But does all that really matter when you want a trash novel to read? Sometimes you want something easy, fun, intriguing. The storyline is engaging and she does a good enough job of moving the plot forward so you simply can't put it down. I'm sure I'll read the rest of the books -- why not?  They are a fun diversion from the usual stuff I read and you can really fly through them.

Free Books for the Kindle 2

So, you have a Kindle and you want some free books. Where do you go? Well, I suppose you could go straight to Project Gutenberg and download a book, then convert it and then load it onto your reader, but luckily the hard work has been done for you already. Thanks to a tip from Jenny I am using Feedbooks.

This was so much easier than I thought it would be. First you download the Kindle guide from the website. Then just put it in the "document" folder on your Kindle -- same thing as yesterday with the converted knitting pattern. Then you can click on the guide from your Kindle's homepage and you'll be taken to a website where you can easily download books.

I hope someone will find this helpful! I'll be doing some more file conversion and such in the coming weeks and I'll post tips as I come across them.

More on the Kindle -- How to View & Store Knitting Patterns

Since a lot of you either have the Kindle or are interested in learning more about it, I thought I would share my experiences. I've only had it since Friday afternoon and already I've downloaded books -- free and $$ -- and learned to convert .pdf files for viewing -- including knitting patterns!!

First let me talk a little about viewing knitting patterns. Since I have some patterns of my own, I decided to try converting and viewing one of them to see what would happen. I took the Booga Bag pattern and sent the .pdf off to Amazon. There are 2 options -- one that costs 10 cents and allows you to have it sent directly to your Kindle, and one that is free, but you have to copy the converted file onto the Kindle. I choose the free method.

All you need to do is send an email with an attachment that includes the file you want to covert. The email you send it to is YOUR_KINDLE_EMAIL@free.kindle.com where YOUR_KINDLE_EMAIL is the email you set up when you register your Kindle. If you ever forget it, you just log into your Amazon account, go to your Kindle page and it's right there for you. After this -- in about 5 minutes -- you get an email back with a link to your file. Download it, plug in your kindle to your computer using the USB cable and move the file from your computer into your "documents" folder on the Kindle. Super easy!

Tomorrow I'll tell you about downloading free books -- also super easy and there are tons to choose from -- classics as well as some great CC licensed books.

Black Sheep Bags Blog!

Black Sheep Bags finally has a blog! I've been meaning to do this for ages. I think it's about time I got my act together and got a few new patterns out. I'm hoping this will be motivation.

Slam & Twilight

I've been a fan of Nick Hornby for ages, reading pretty much all of his novels, and if you've been checking out my book posts here over the last year or so, you will know that I am all about the YA genre, so it should be no surprise that Slam would be on my short list of must read books.

Slam by Nick Hornby is the story of a teenage boy who knocks up his girlfriend, but doesn't find this out until they have broken up. His parents -- now divorced -- had him at a very young age so there is another dynamic at play. In addition, the boy is an avid skateboarder and idolized Tony Hawk -- going so far as to "talk" to him when trying to work though his problems.

I felt that the voice here was authentic -- not sure if that's entirely a good thing  -- as an adult reader, I found it to be a bit too easy to read and wanted a little more. However, it was authentic to my ears, so I have to give him credit for that. All in all, I think it's a fresh look at the whole teen pregnancy issue and am guessing it would be greatly enjoyed by any teenager.

Continuing the YA theme, I've taken the plunge and started reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I simply could no longer resist as just about everyone around me is reading it -- including 2 of my sisters who are not big readers. My sister who says she reads one book a year has breezed through the first two books recently and is ready to read the third. So I have to stay in the loop! I bought the first book for my Kindle and I'm flying through it. It's certainly not high literature, but it's quite entertaining and is better than I thought it would be.

Kindle Unboxed

What could be a better gift for a girl who loves to read and loves electronic gadgets than a Kindle ? 

It arrived safe and sound a few days after my birthday and I wasted no time opening it up.  I have to hand it to Amazon, the packaging was slick, protective and mostly recyclable.

I seriously felt like a kid at Christmas opening this package up!  Isn't she gorgeous?

I charged it right up, purchased my first book (only $6.04) and am already 25% through it.  I just keep saying "I love my Kindle!" over and over.  Seriously -- this is like a reading revolution.
More on Kindle soon!  And a big thank you to Pete & my Mom for bringing me and my Kindle together!