Archive | July 2018

Sheep Thrills!

While I was in Ft. Lauderdale on business this week, I made a crazy long quick stop into a local yarn store.  A basic Google search showed a couple of them in the area, and while I might normally have had to do something like flip a coin to make the choice, there was absolutely no way I could resist a place called Sheep Thrills.  I mean, really, that name is just ridiculously awesome.  It turned out to be both a great choice, and a horrible choice.  Great, because the people were lovely and the yarn selection was spectacular.  Horrible, because the yarn selection was spectacular.  I spent more than I should have and could easily have walked out with twice as much.  I’ll have to go there again someday when my bank account isn’t quite so pitiful.  Although they do offer online shopping…

I ended up with three hanks of lace weight, 100% tencel Prism yarn (bottom row), in Raspberry, Jasper, and Periwinkle.  Jasper, the burnt orange, isn’t a color I would typically choose, but it is just so pretty.  The yarn feels yummy soft, too.  I can’t wait to work something up with it.  All right, all right.  I admit it.  Mostly I just want to pet the yarn.

The blue and white (top row), is Bolt, and the pink and white is Ski Bunny.  Both are fingering weight, alpaca/merino blends from Apple Fiber Studio in Washington state.

The multi-colored yarn is a locally dyed, fingering weight merino blend called Purple Sunset.  The colors are based on the view the show owner has from her back yard.  They had a swatch worked up, and it’s absolutely gorgeous.  Now I just have to find the right pattern to do justice to the colors.

Magic Potholder #1


I was looking for a quick and easy pattern for potholders that I could make and sell at craft shows.  I stumbled across several variations of the Magic Potholder, which is worked in rounds and provides a lovely double-thick potholder.  I played with the pattern for a bit and finally came up with a texture I like.  The other patterns I’ve found are very tight and, to me, a bit of a pain to work.  So, here is my version of the Magic Potholder.

As always, you may use the pattern below to make your own, or you can hop over to Hamlin Craftworks and buy a few!

I used a J hook and one ball of Lily Sugar ‘n Cream yarn.

Chain 36 (or however many you like – this just happens to be my preference)

Round 1:  SC in second ch from hook.  SC across each chain and along the backside of the chain.
Round 2-18:  SC around and around.  Generally speaking, you want to do half as many rounds as you do chains.  The corners will be a bit tight to start.

Fold the potholder in on itself to form a square.  At the top of the square, ch 10 to form a loop, and slip stitch to join it at the start of the chain.  Cut the yarn, leaving a tail roughly twice as long as the potholder.

Line it up stitch for stitch and whip stitch a seam, going through both loops.

Happy hooking!

Quick and Easy Dishcloth #1


I make a ton of cotton dishcloths.  Most of them I sell or give away, but I always keep a few for myself.  I love looking for new ideas, but I definitely have a couple of go-to patterns that are easy and work up fast.  In fact, I’ve been known to make some of these while passing time at a craft fair.  You may use the pattern below to make your own, or you can hop over to Hamlin Craftworks and buy a few!

For this pattern, I use Lily Sugar ‘n Cream cotton yarn and an H hook.

Chain 29

Row 1:  SC in second chain from hook and sc across.  Turn.  (28)
Row 2-12: Chain 2 (doesn’t count as a stitch), dc in first stitch and each stitch across.  Turn.  (28)
Row 13: Chain 1, sc in first stitch and across.  (28)

Finish off.

For me, this pattern works up to be roughly 9″ by 8″, which I think is a good size for a dishcloth.  The size is easily adjusted by adding or removing chains or rows to get the size you desire.

Happy hooking!

Progress!

It’s started!  I was just offered a freelance position with an agency!  Yes!  It’s good for as much time as I can put into it, which means I can work it evenings and weekends while I get better and faster.  It’s all working from home, so I don’t have to struggle with extra commuting or anything like that.  They do require their proofreaders start out doing transcription, which means I have to work on another new skill.  But that’s okay, because that will just make me even more marketable down the road, right?

I don’t even mind doing the transcription – it makes sense that it’s the best way to gain familiarity with the formatting that this agency uses, especially since they work with jurisdictions all over the country.  The downside is that I’m sloooooow at transcription, and they require a certain number of audio minutes before they let you transfer to proofreading.  That’s okay, though.  I’m a hard worker, and I’m determined to turn this into something that ultimately lets me live the life I want.  No two ways about it, this is a big step towards my goal.

This entry was posted on July 20, 2018, in Work.

Getting the New Business Off the Ground

Yeesh.  Starting this new business is hard.  Not that I’m actually shocked to discover that, really.  It’s even harder to do working full time.  Those 40+ hours feel more and more like wasted time as each day passes.  I spend the day unhappy and frustrated that I can’t be working on what I actually want to do, then it’s home to critters and chores, and then I finally get to put a couple of hours in on this before I have to crash.  Rinse, repeat.  But that’s okay, because I WILL get there.

Lucky for me, I have a couple of friends who are marketing folks and are willing to help out a bit.  I now have a fully operational website, Hamlin Proofreading, just in case you’re interested.  I have a logo, business cards, and a basic email that I can tweak for sending out to agencies and individuals.  I’m still working on updating the resume, but maybe I’ll get lucky and no one will ask for that.  I still can’t change my LinkedIn profile to reflect the type of work and connections I want, so I’m just putting that aside for now.

The focus now has to be marketing.  Getting my name and information out there, but not just willy-nilly.  It has to go to the right places, the right people.  Well, maybe a bit of the willy-nilly.  After all, you never know where you might stumble across that one person that helps everything take off…

This entry was posted on July 16, 2018, in Work.

Change is Good

When I moved here a couple of years ago, I was working for a large corporation.  I didn’t dislike working there, but I didn’t love it, either.  We’d re-org’d more times than I could count, and my last manager wasn’t someone I’d choose to work for.  I did get to work from home twice a week, which was great, and more often if Kodiak was having seizures, which wasn’t great.  The commute was 55 miles each way and I had to shift my work hours a bit to mitigate some of the delays caused by rush-hour traffic.  I wasn’t miserable, but I wasn’t happy, and I knew I needed a change.

One of my local friends told me about a great company in the area, so I applied for a position and ended up getting an offer.  No working from home at all, but the commute was significantly more pleasant, so I figured I’d give it a try.  While I still don’t regret leaving the previous job, going to this company was a horrible idea.  They present a fabulous face to the public, but if you’re unlucky enough to work in the office, it’s brutal.  My boss in particular is just…  I don’t even know how to describe it.  I might have thought it was just me, if so many other people weren’t so unhappy, too.  I won’t go into details, but l will say that it didn’t take me more than a few months to realize I needed to get out of there quick, fast, and in a hurry.

I started applying to other jobs, and was interviewed by a recruiter who found me on LinkedIn and reached out to me (that was a much needed confidence boost).  A big concern, though, is that I still live out in the country, so any job that is in my field and pays well is going to be a nasty commute.  I told the recruiter that working from home at least once or twice a week is a non-negotiable requirement.  At the end of the day, what I really want is work I enjoy that lets me stay home as much as possible.  I can’t tell you how much guilt I feel every time I walk out of this house, knowing Kodiak has recently had a seizure and is very likely going to have another while I’m gone, and I have no option but to go into the office or take a day without pay (even though I’m salaried – seriously).  I just can’t do it anymore.

A few months ago, I started poking around online, looking for options that might give me what I want.  You have to be careful; there are so many scams out there.  But I found something that really seems to be legit – proofreading.  I’ve always been one to spot the errors, but I freely admit that over the years, I’ve learned to just look past them unless they were utterly egregious.  I have enough stress without fretting over someone else’s bad grammar.  I took the courses, spending money I can’t really afford, and bought the necessary materials, spending more money I can’t really afford.  I pushed through, working evenings and weekends.  As of today, I have officially completed the course.  Now I have to do the little stuff, like build a website, make connections, and market, market, market.  I can’t really put the information on my LinkedIn profile, because there are people at work who stalk those things and if the wrong person sees it, it’s as likely as not that I’d get walked out the next day.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t market myself in other ways, right?   Here’s hoping that, with enough time, I can turn this into something that will let me leave that awful place.  I can handle poor – well, not too poor, since I do have bills to pay – but I can’t handle this constant beat-down feeling that I haven’t managed to shake in months.

Fingers crossed.

This entry was posted on July 2, 2018, in Work.