WIP (Work in Progress)

Since I kind of just went public with this blog by posting the link in my Ravelry profile, I decided I better warn everyone that this is a work in progress. I have not yet settled on the title for sure, nor have I posted much, and I still need to figure out more of this blogger stuff before I get it to really look like how I want. I also think I am on a computer that is too old to do some of the really cool stuff, so please bare with me as this blog morphs into something in the slow way a caterpillar turns into a butterfly.
Thanks!

Copyrights of Patterns

This has been really one of those things lately that has given me fits. I posted the information in one of my groups and I am sure it is going to cause a complete meltdown. Seems a lot of pattern designers just can't quite grasp the copyright info. So I am going to post the information here because no one will see it, but it will give me a peace of mind. Eventually someone might even see it.

http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/CopyrightLaw/Patterns.shtml Take a look at this link and hopefully it will be helpful to you. Here's a summary of the statement.

"Copyright in a work that portrays a useful article extends only to the artistic expression of the author of the pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work. It does not extend to the design of the article that is portrayed. For example, a drawing or photograph of an automobile or a dress design may be copyrighted, but that does not give the artist or photographer the exclusive right to make automobiles or dresses of the same design. "

So if you don't want anyone to sell what they make from your patterns, you have to *patent* the actual made item. You can't copyright a creation someone else made from your pattern, but you can copyright the pattern. No one has the right to sell the text of your pattern as their own without permission. Anyone has the right to sell what they make from your pattern. It's respectful to give credit to the designer.

'Nuf said.

Transformations

Spring and Autumn are always times for transitions in my life. These have included births of my children, moving, decision making, changing jobs, and starting or completing projects. This year, one of my transitions seems to be learning to focus. I feel bombarded with so many distractions and interruptions, that I never seem to be able to just sit and focus on one thing at a time. Part of this has to do with my younger daughter being 2, and my elder daughter being 10, trying to find time with my husband, trying to balance in general and trying as hard as I can to not get distracted by all the new crochet patterns I want to try or design.

And it's a time of transformation. I am going to be reaching a milestone age in March 2012, supposedly. So, I am trying to embrace that and discover the ways in which I want to be settled, but still open for change. For once, I am getting inklings of really feeling like I am in the right place in my life and while I maybe need to slow down a little because I am in general a slow moving sort, I don't mind the pace much.

Melancholy Monday

Happy Halloween for those who do that sort of thing. Happy Monday because I am striving to be positive today. I feel like a squirrel tried to make a nest in my nose last night and then do a scratchy little jig on my chest while adding a few bonus acorns to my ears.

Over all my allergy medication seems to work pretty well...and then there are days like today, usually after I have had to take extra antihistamine for whatever reason. But enough about that.

I have been working my crochet hook and plan on doing that some more today until my squirrelly fever goes away or my squirrelly girl toddler gets too antsy. I thought about going back to bed, but then the squirrels will just come back. Wish they had just stuck to my daughter's hair instead of doing their winter prep projects in my sinuses. ;)

I suppose I should go out and take care of the chickens too...but right now, I am thinking an extra dose of coffee...

Hope everyone has a nice Monday.

Blogging

I felt like I needed to put up a disclaimer of sorts as I notice that my blog seems to have a few hits on it that I wasn't expecting. I am not a professional blogger and while I will try to keep up on my tiny little blog thing here, I rarely have time right now with other various life aspects. So, hopefully I am not disappointing any readers. I'll keep you posted if I plan on getting more exciting.

Reflecting on Focus

I sit here while my two year old lays on the floor at my feet continuously "raspberrying" her tired frustration. I had to wake her up so we could get her older sister to school for Orchestra.

I am busily trying to focus on something other than getting frustrated with constant interruptions. How many things does a person have the capabilities to do at one time? Me? I am not a multi-tasking type person.

Now I sit here with the two year old on my lap. She's talking constantly about something involving a tiny screw that probably fell out of my computer or something. She's tired, crabby, and very clingy. I should get her outside, but I want to get some business stuff done.

I can't seem to get her to stay distracted for more than 3 seconds, but she's a professional at distracting me.

Would I trade this in for anything else in the world? Never.

I Feel Dirty

*sigh* I wasn't able to stay away from facebook for more than a week. How sad is that? Part of it is that none of the other social network thingies are even up to par with how populated facebook is, and I have been on facebook for forever! I can't believe how long I have been on that dumb thing. But I have a crochet group on there that I missed and I have family on there that I missed, and no one was moving or really following me to google +, so I went back. *sigh* I guess I will just really limit my time spent there and change my perspective that it's a world community and not just some weird place to spy on people. In any case, I hope I get some good crochet inspiration from the ordeal. ;)

Hiding Places

There's probably nowhere to really hide any more on the internet, but in an effort to stay in charge of the way *I* want to use the internet, I am leaving the conglomerate that is called facebook. I will stick to my blog and maybe try Diaspora (a facebook like thing that is how facebook *should* be...) but I am seriously going to par down my "social networks."

My fear is that I will lose touch with people. I shouldn't have to feel afraid of this. A thing on the internet should not have that much control to the point where it's become a household word like Kleenex.  Anyway. I am going to kick it mostly old school and go back to email. I am not trying to test people's level of friendship with me by asking them if they want my email address. I don't expect most people from facebook will be emailing me. Oh well.

It's been a tiring week and weekend. Maybe I am just exhausted and having a hard time seeing things through rose colored glasses right now. In any case, I will be leaving facebook and choosing my own hiding places.

Strings and Other Fine Things

Huzzah! My first post about crafts (mostly)! First of all, I will explain a little bit about the new title to my Blog. Sisu Strings is all about doing something despite adversity. It's about loving and using creativity to make things people will enjoy despite criticism, low funding, or any other obstacles. This is what Sisu means in Finnish - doing things with persistence, compassion, passion and determination. And being part Finnish, I hope to honor the Sisu in my family.

The strings part is because both my husband and I craft with string. I do so with yarn, he makes stringed instruments. We hope to have our own crofting booth. I love the word croft, so I will probably use it a lot. It's the old fashioned way of saying cottage, and means home/hand made.

I have piled myself with projects. Too many to list right now, but I have umpteen million Christmas projects and a couple of birthday projects and a few spontaneous demands from my little one. (Well, ok, so far she only demanded one spontaneous project from me.) So, by request I am making a dinosaur from the PBS show I abhor and all for the love of my little one. I hope she likes it. It's also my first animal type project I've done without a pattern...well, technically, maybe not my first, but in any case, it's my first advanced non-pattern animal type project.

I better keep "hookin'" while I still have quiet time. I am doing pretty well with setting goals for myself. Oh yeah and school started...that was interesting. I don't do well with transitions, so last week I was kind of grumpy. I think I might be getting over the stress now. Thank goodness for Labor Day weekend to sort of put a halt on the back to school frenzy and allow for a slower switching of gears.

Hope everyone enjoys the last long weekend off til Christmas! Happy Pre-Autumn!

Jeepers Creepers, Where'd You Get Those Peepers

Yeah, that's a misleading title. It's really about me getting glasses. Apparently my 30 something old eye balls don't want to try too much harder to see far away.  So, I am now getting glasses, and Mark also got glasses. A sign of the ages. Hannah *wanted* glasses so badly and she doesn't need them. She was a bit disappointed. We told her she could get fake ones at the mall or something.

In other news involving the other peepers, the darned chicks are blood thirsty little beasts. They are getting their feathers at record speed and are wilder than a bunch of hooligans. And since they are getting their feathers, they look like little vultures and they like to tear off each other's feathers. So we now have one in the infirmary box and I am trying to think of female barbarian names. :P

Anyway sorry this is so random, but I have another crazy wild child vying for my attention and I can't concentrate. Totally useless day. My groove has been thrown off and I fear it is not recoverable. I hope I get it back though, because the momentum I had going for getting things done was rather amazing.

We have big plans of redoing Hannah's room this weekend and building the crazy feathered ladies a coop. They need to get outside. They are so tiny still, but they are so wild! jeesh. I guess I better write more later when/if I can concentrate more. Don't be surprised if this entry gets edited at some later time. ;)  

Ok, I have a couple more gripes. I am really annoyed that some of my Christmas deals are going wacko. I have a whole lot of projects that I am trying to make, and some of the purchased gifts I wanted to buy are no longer available. :( I don't know if they will come back. Oh well, I better get to some of those projects and try and get my groove back so that I don't lose my momentum permanently. (I also have some market projects I am trying to get done because I was told I can sell some stuff...I hope I won't burn out.) Until next time...

Fluffy Butts!

After two + years sans chickens, we finally have some peeps again. We have 8 little ladies whom we hope will give us some delicious eggs and be fine family companions for several years to come. My daughters are delighted. The Big is happy to have chickens again, and The Little is very excited to have them for the first time. It's hard to keep both girls out of the brooder room for any length of time. Mark is pretty happy too, I think. It's been too hot to be able to really concentrate on each others' emotions.

Fortunately chicks like it hot. ;) because boy, it's been very warm and humid here lately. I am melting right now in fact...I don't think I have sweat this much for a few years now....so sticky, bleh... so not much more to say tonight. I just needed to post about our fluffy butt arrivals. I will try to post some pics soon.

Writer's Block

There are several types of Writer's Block. I have probably experienced the "holy crap there are too many distractions/interruptions for me to think" kind the most. The other common type is "my mind is completely blank and no ideas will ever enter it". That kind is particularly depressing. The type I am experiencing now is just as frustrating. It's the "holy crap I have a lot of ideas and I don't know what to do with them" type.

I also read something today that sort of threw me instantly into Writer's Block. Here's the quote: "I would like writers to remember they are akin to magicians -- please don't give away how you perform your illusions." from reddit user - Logic_Zero. So now I am in a tizzy about how I am supposed to keep my writing mysterious. Two days of finding things about writing that I didn't expect to find. And now all I want is a "room of my own" so that I can go and just sort of let my muse go crazy. Right now I have this restless muse who keeps thinking about what kind of furnishings it wants to put in our room of our own. *sigh*

Musings

I just had the physical sensation of my muse wanting to jump out of where ever it lives inside me (pretty sure it lives in the chest area like around my heart). It wanted to do this because it seriously wanted a certain album by a certain band that both my muse and I love. I suppose I love it because my muse does.

Here's a little background on my muse. I call it an it because it really is androgynous. I suppose I could call it S/he. But Muse (since it has never told me a name) varies from day to day and usually is more animal than human. My muse's food is music. It wants music more than anything else, more than even reading. In fact when I am writing, it doesn't want me to read anything at all. So, I crochet as a side thing to let my mind wander in the worlds that my muse and I create.

To make a long story short, Muse has some bands that are its favourites and one of the bands has a new CD since March. We just heard a song on Pandora from the album. I thought my chest was going to split open like in "Alien" and Muse was going to crawl out and dive into my computer just to get the song. It was a very strange sensation. Or maybe I just need to drink less coffee.

Introducing Peab the Jellyfish

Here's my mascot, Peab. A peanut butter and jelly themed jellyfish. Grape jelly, of course. Stay tuned for more yummy flavors! Many thanks to Ana Paula's Amigurumi Patterns and Random Cuteness for the original pattern for the jellyfish. I modified by making popcorn stitch eyes, because I was out of safety eyes and I added some curly tentacles. I also used two strands of yarn held together to get the peanut butter and jelly effect.

dilemma

Writing, Crochet and Reading are my three favorite hobbies (pretty much in that order,  though they are equal in importance, with Writing taking a definite lead.) So, I want to make all these neat little projects for my crochet shop that I want to start soon. I have all these ideas, but for crochet you need patterns. I am not quite good enough to do my own patterns yet. I have to at least have something to start with. My dilemma is this, if I am using someone's free pattern that they posted, is it ok if I eventually sell the stuff that I make using the pattern?

There are people who are very specific in posting that they do *not* want their stuff sold online or otherwise. For those it's obvious that you are limited to making the craft for gift and personal use only. But what about the people who do not specify and what if I make small adaptations to the pattern as I go along? I plan on doing my own patterns eventually, but as I said, I need a base to start with, and I don't want to step on anyone's toes. Most people won't read this yet, as I am not exactly public with my blog, but if anyone has any thoughts, and happen to find my blog on your reading list, I am open to suggestions.

Peanut Butter and Jellyfish

I am hoping to make this blog a place to advertise my projects soon. I have this plan. I have all these big plans, actually, and I decided I want to do something with them. I hope the ideas take off. For now I will leave things at being mysterious. All of my ideas are handmade and take time, so I have to have patience as well as anyone else who might be anticipating my creations. Here's hoping we can all stand the wait!

Under Construction

Inspired by my sister and a few other blogs that I have seen, I have decided to go Blog...perhaps it will actually allow me to leave the abhorred facebook, eventually. Please be patient while I figure out this whole Blog thing.  For now this space is under construction. If you want to follow the progress, feel free to "follow" from the side bar menu.