Sorry For the Delay

Wow! The things that happen when you're away from a computer for a while!

Actually, for me, not all that much.There's been some family drama that I'll go into at a later date, and very little writing, because the Muses hate me lately. I have gotten a couple of dolls done, though, which is something.

This is my take on a modern Merrill from Dragon Age 2. It's not often I do dolls wit legs, preferring a stump-style doll, but she just screamed painted toenails. There are even little dragonflies on her skirt. :)

And then there's my Miss Haversham. Unfortunately this picture doesn't really do her justice. Tell you one thing, though, the beading on the lace shawl was a bitch!!

Once Again, a Need to Complain

     I really hate complaining about things. I know it may not seem that way if you read my blog posts but I do. I always feel like people won't like me if I complain too much, or that someone will scoff at my complain and proceed to tell me how they have it so much worse and I should be grateful. So I end up holding it all in, all my issues, all my complaints, until I just sort of explode.

     And then there are the times when I complain about something, like the issue we just had with Disability and how hard it was with our son's teeth, getting the money we needed, and the Universe steps is and says 'what are you bitching about? Don't like what you're given? Then we'll take it away.'

     I'm listed as my husband's caregiver for his Disability payments, which means that I'm not supposed to fill out paperwork every month as far as work searches and things like that. Well, we received a letter from Community services yesterday that our account is on hold because I didn't fill out their papers. And, of course, our worker is on holiday, isn't she? And no one can fix anything until I talk to her.

     So, as of right now, we have absolutely no money coming in. None. All because I complained. Stupid Universe.

Incommunicado

     I don't know how much any of you know about living on Ontario's Disability Support Program but let me tell you, it blows. My husband had what most would consider a short fall down a flight of six steps on a back deck. Nothing big, right? Except that he goes and wrenches out his shoulder causing severe nerve damage and slams his head hard enough that he now has chronic migraines, and has for the last five years. The first two years we went from doctor to doctor trying to fix what was wrong, the next three we added going to lawyers and court to that mess.

     Two failed attempts to get on Disability and he was finally approved, although now we have to fight to get funding for a care taker to sit with him during the day when he gets dizzy spells. In the meantime I can't work, as he needs someone to be with him at all times. Our only income into the house is his Disability cheque which, let me tell you, does not go nearly far enough.

     Anyway, I was going somewhere with this, I swear. After our son's dental issues money was tighter than usual this month. We tried the local Salvation Army Foodbank and they were wonderful but it still just wasn't enough. There were absolutely no sales from my Etsy shop this month and so few good online surveys. There was just nothing. So I ended up taking my poor old laptop into the pawn shop...

     It's not something I would normally advise, mostly because it costs you just a little more than what you borrowed to get your things back, but I just didn't have a choice. But it meant no updates, no checking my shop, no chatting with Tumblr followers or getting any writing done. My fingers are crossed that I won't ever have to do this again.

     On lighter news...

This is Tink, one of our cats. She got out this morning and felt that sitting on top of a horse trailer was the absolute best use of her time.

Dental Day and All it Entails

     Today was the day. The day that my sons dreaded Wisdom teeth came out. There was crying, there was blood, then they told me to go sit down in the lounge so that they could get to work.
 
     I kid. Actually, everything went smoothly for him. It's me that had the issues today. I took my laptop so that I could get some writing done while I waited, only for the battery to fail and nowhere to plug in. I brought my phone to be able to call a cab to pick us up afterward, only for all my phone time to have mysteriously been used up (I know where it went but I refuse to admit it). I also brought my current cross stitch project, Happy Apostate listed in my shop, to work on, only to stab myself multiple times to the point of requiring a bandaid.

     Thankfully, we made it home by lunch and the boy is now resting comfortable in his bed, dreaming of the food he`s not allowed to eat for a couple of days.

I Forgot to Take the Damned Picture

     I know I was promising to take a picture of the turquoise before plying it with the yellow but I forgot... *sigh* It's just been so busy this whole week that it completely slipped my mind. Kevin had his appointment to prepare for dental extractions on Tuesday, I had commissions to finish up and, of course, yarn to ply. I'm also working on cross stitching one of the patterns I have up for sale, to put up in the shop as a finished piece.

     Anyway, here's the plied yarn in all its glory!

Can't wait to knit it up! Maybe mittens... a hat? I'll figure it out.

Our GoFundMe took only one day to reach our goal...YAY!!!!! A big thank you to @penthesilea1623 and @daintymageflower over on Tumblr for making it possible. I love you both sooooo much!

In crafting news I am almost done spinning the turquoise wool. With luck I'll begin plying tomorrow or Friday, althout tomorrow being a dentist day that might be a pipe dream.

Basically I'm Down to Begging Now

So my youngest son, Kevin, is in desperate need of emergency dental work. And because we live in Ontario and are on Disability, most of it is covered.

Most.

Two hundred dollars of it is not, unfortunately, and when you're on Disability, every penny counts. And that's on a regular month. Two hundred dollars just isn't feasible, but he's in agony and desperately needs his Wisdoms as well as one other tooth removed ASAP. That's where you guys come in.

I've started a GoFundMe campaign to help cover the cost of the dental work. I'm also begun begging on other social media for new commissions to help out. Lastly, I'm going to be putting out some new cross stitch patterns to maybe drum up new business.

100 Follower Giveaway!

     A few weeks aga I reached 100 followers over on Tumblr (Yay me!) and to celebrate I decided to do a giveaway. Now, being the financially poor woman that I am I gave my winner a choice of a short fic, a photo board or a character sketch and she picked a fic. 1500 words revolving around Anders, Fenris and Hawke from the Dragon Age series of video games. Congrats to @therealmnemo !!!

     In crafting news I've found a wool roving to spin and ply with my yellow monstrosity and it's nowhere near the colours I was originally thinking about. Turquoise blue! (I'll put up pics later) Found at the farmer's market here in Lindsay, sold by Lanesend Farm & Fiber. I also scooped up 100g of dyes wool that looks like candy sprinkles and 100g of undyed merino to play with.

     And then, just because I don't have nearly enough WIP on the go, I decided to work up one of the cross stitch patterns I have up for sale on Etsy. 'The Happy Apostate' is now underway with threads I had on hand (again, pics will be posted later. My camera and I are not talking to each other at the moment).

Lookit What I did!!

I spun up the yellow/red roving from the other day. Now I just need something to ply it with... Orange? Red? I want something to contrast with the majority of yellow. Sound like a plan?

And yes, I made my own drop spindle with a pencil, plastic jar lid and a paper clip bent into a hook.

I absolutely HAVE to share this! I found it on Tumblr from thereluctantinquisitor

It's a perfect reference for how Fenris looks in my Third Times a Charm storyline

     Over the past few weeks I've been letting things slide for the most part. Cleaning gets done when I have the gumption, writing gets done even less. I haven't knit more than ten rows on my current project (a ten stitch blanket in DC's Joker colours) and I just can't seem to get invested in any kind of gaming at all.

     I've gotten my commissions done, they just need to be mailed out, and I've done a couple of other doodles but that's it. It's like my get and go has got up and went without me. All I want to do is curl up in a corner, reading a book, and wait for the world to go away.

     I'm going to chalk it up to the heat and hope I get over it while I still have time to get things done.

     So in the spirit of starting over I thought I'd share some of my character sketches. As soon as certain people receive their commissions I'll be posting pictures of those too. Please excuse the crappy pics, I don't have a scanner to show them properly nor a drawing tablet to draw them on. Old fashioned paper and pencil for me.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY VIVI!

     This is Vivi, youngest girl of five kids (she's got two older sisters, an older brother and a younger brother) and as of today, she is nineteen years old. All of a sudden my baby girl can order a beer, get cigarettes, receive tax rebates. But my baby being my baby, she's not going to do any of that (okay, she'll get the tax rebate. She's not stupid, just a teenager). Nope, my Vivi will eat cake with her very young cousins then go out to the movies with a couple of friends, only to go home early, go to bed and get back to normal the next morning.

     Vivi has been my knitting model for years, my giggle factory, My rock. She's lifted me up on high and broken my heart into little pieces. I love her to death and I hope that she has the absolute best day.

LOVE YOU BABY!!!  

Starting All Over Again

     Once upon a time I had a blog here. It was crap, to tell the truth and I didn't touch it for three years. Well, over the last year I've been using Tumblr as my space to bitch about the world and figured 'what about my other blog? Is it still up and running? Who the hell knows.' And so I went out, found it, and am now completely revamping the whole thing.
   
     There will be a lot of crafting stuff here, some Dragon Age fanfic, reference pics and character sketches. There will be links to my Etsy shop, where I currently have a selection of cross stitch PDF patterns for sale, as well as links to where you can commission character sketches for rpg gaming, writing, etc. For the next little while I'll also be talking about my adventures in learning who to use a drop spindle.

     It's this great wool roving in yellow with splotches of red. Not sure what colour I'll end up plying it with though.