project superstar – The Sick Chick's Constantly Crafty

Etsy Harlotry

So I finally bought something on Etsy! (Not for lack of drooling, mind you, just that money is kinda tight at the moment.) I read the Yarn Harlot who was singing the praises of Unwind Yarn Company‘s superwash merino sock yarn. Well, I’m looking to build my sock yarn stash (and thanks to those who have given suggestions so far, I shall seek those out!) and if the queen of sock knitting recommend a yarn, well of course I had to look. UYC was having a contest where the 175th person to favourite the shop would get a 50% discount so I just had to click and huzzah, I won! Alas, because of the Harlot it was sold out in a flash but the shop was updated last night (I stayed up til 2 am but didn’t get to see the whole range 🙁 ). When I woke up I snagged some sock yarn in the Wendy colourway which are the exact colours for my Project Superstar work!

So this beauty is mine:

Click here for more info about the yarn.

I don’t yet know what I will do with it, if I will make something for Project Superstar or just make something for myself as a memento of Project Superstar. It’s being sent to my US address so I’ll have to wait until I get there to see it and decide if I love it too much to give it away — a distinct possibility! 🙂 I’ll keep you posted about the yarn and my eventual project when it happens!

I strongly suspect that I will be ordering more from the Unwind Yarn Company (craftygirl83 on Etsy and Ravellry) — there are so many yummy colourways that I simply must have, like See Rock City, Riverwalk and more. I also love that she uses her local area (Chattanooga) as inspiration. I’ve been there many a time when I lived in Tennessee during my formulative years.

FO Friday: Project Superstar Bracelets

I mentioned these last week so here are the pix:

Bracelets

The upper bracelets are plastic beads on elastic cord, the lower (for their mom, Valerie) is glass beads mixing the girls’ favourite colours with a silver awareness ribbon charm, strung on 49-strand silver-plated Beadalon. The colours here aren’t great since I photographed them on my red flannel sheets but you get the idea.

And, because I thought it was amusing, I snapped a pic of how I have been storing them, on an empty dvd spindle (with my alarm-clock watch):

Blue shirt thanks

Thanks to everyone who wore blue shirts and wished the girls well. Their grandmother says that the transplant went smoothly, but now Marian has two weeks of feeling very rough while her bone marrow hopefully converts to be like Audrey’s.

I finished the bracelets (3 each for the girls in plastic beads on elastic cording, one for mom that is glass beads combining the girls’ favourite colours and a silver awareness ribbon charm on silver-plated Beadlon) but I’m still feeling a bit rough so I haven’t set up the lightbox to photograph them properly.

Now I just have three cards to make and can finally send off this package! I’ll be sure to get pictures of everything before they go out. The hats are already on my Flickr and havebeen for a while now but I will post about them properly when the package is sent. There’s also Playmobil, Hello Kitty, stickers, books and cutie (machine washable!) rat stuffies from IKEA and stuff for the mom. OK so I got a bit crazy! (Their dad got left out, as I had no idea what to get him…)

I’ve also been doing a bit of spinning with my uber-cheap spindle and the leftover drumcarded (but a bit mangled after carding) merino that was leftover from my felting class. It’s super ugly but hey it’s only for practice and the fiber was just going to be thrown out otherwise. I have two people who have offered me a little raw fleece from the UKKarma group on Ravelry so I am really looking forward to getting those packages! 🙂 Plus I mega-envy everyone at Wonderwool Wales this weekend.

Well, I have to go put away the beading supplies so that our guest tomorrow has somewhere to sit and eat!

Please wear a blue shirt tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the big day for Project Superstar: Audrey (age 9) is donating her bone marrow to her sister Marian (age 6). Please wear a blue shirt (light blue if possible, Marian’s favourite colour) to wish them success! Marian’s request is on her blog.

The official shirt (but wear whatever you like, just send prayers, vibes, good wishes their way!):

April in Paris, Part 2 (Project Superstar photos)

(Photo: Me in the Project Superstar shirt with the view from Sacre Coeur in Monmartre, Paris. April 12, 2008.)

The Project Superstar photo program is people taking pictures of themselves in the Superstar shirt and sending them to Marian (the very crafty little girl having a bone marrow transplant whom I have mentioned several times here before, see the link for “I’m a Craft Artist” in my blogroll) who is now in the hospital after her chemotherapy. I’m not the farthest away or the most exotic locations (a family in the Slovak Republic has sent in photos!) but maybe I can be the most posh locations 😉

More photos, click to see larger:

My crafty photos are edited and on Flickr, I just need to write up the post about everything. Which may be broken into several parts as there are a lot of photos! There are also many more photos of me that t is posting, these are not PS shots but are usually for the wheelchair travel groups or they involve a lot of wine and thus are not appropriate to send to six year olds ;0 If anyone really wants to see those, drop me a line.

Failure

I really hate letting people down. Especially when I know if I had just not procrastinated I wouldn’t have had this problem!

I failed to finish my afghan for Tricot du Coeur. I let other things (Thing-a-day and Project Superstar) take precedence and then in the three weeks I had left — which should have been enough — I was too poorly to do much knitting. Where I normally could do about 2 feet per day I was barely managing five inches. So that just sucks.

I really hate disappointing people. I also hate letting myself down and not being healthy enough to finish things in the amount of timethat normal people could do them in. t has made me promise not to craft to deadlines any more. I really exhausted myself trying to do this and now I’m really overstretched and our vacation is this week. 🙁

I’ve got to conserve what energy I have so that I will be alert and not a total drag for our week in Paris! I’m going to give the blanket to the girls of Project Superstar when I finish it. I think I will be able to finish it (except for sewing up) whilst away so I can just add it to whatever I buy for them there. SO it’s still going to a good cause, even if not the one I had intended.

I still feel crappy about it though 🙁

A very special Sick Chick who Crafts

Marian is six years old and has been blogging for over a year now (by dictating to her mum, Valerie). From what I’ve seen she so very enthusiastic about crafting which is so great to see in a girl her age.

But there’s something potentially getting in the way of her crafting this year: her bone marrow transplant. Because of the way this transplant will work, she will undergo chemotherapy in March and then go into the hospital for her transplant surgery. Her older sister is her donor, a perfect match, but that’s still a painful operation for both little girls 🙁 Anyway, after her transplant, Marian’s immune system will be so fragile that she will only be able to use brand-new craft supplies that can be easily cleaned. She will be in hospital for a long time until she is recovered enough to be able to take her new immune system out into the world so will need a lot of supplies!

Not taking this lying down, she’s raising money through the sales of craft kits and other artwork to fund her supplies with leftover money going to a charity called Caitlyn’s Smiles which provides craft kids for children in hospitals. The kits and things are for sale through her mom’s Etsy shop, Purple Petunia which is due to be restocked today.

I don’t know what else can be done for this amazing crafty family, but I’m going to try whatever they ask 🙂 I’ve written to get a t shirt (which features a drawing Marian did of a pop singer with the caption “Project Superstar” which is the codename for the fund raising and Marian-cheering efforts) but I don’t know if they are sold out already. If I get one though I shall take a photo of me in it in front of major landmarks in London and Paris and email them periodically while Marian is recovering.

So I encourage everyone to go over to the blog and post comments, to go to the shop and buy some of the snowglobe necklace kits made by the girls, and to watch this space as I’ll post if I hear of any other ways to help. Let’s do what we can to keep this sick chick crafting! 🙂