Websites

My website.

It is terrible.

The difficulty (well, the main one) is that I don't know how to make websites. I don't particularly want to learn either, I either want to just have it done or magically know how to do it. Artistic things I enjoy learning, computer-y things not so much. I don't mind it when it's a program I can click around in and figure everything out, but making a nice website requires a little more focus and effort than that. Plus I don't know what I want it to look like.

I have a slightly dodgey banner I made for my etsy store.

...which is basically all the work I've put into my website, aside from the slightly eyewatering text that's currently up. But I wrote all THAT html myself! (Mostly.)

I think the nicest site I've seen recently is loish.net, which is a site for an artist who draws wonderful things! My favourite is this one:

(Although this one comes a close second.)

But her website is nice too, pretty without being confusing or cluttered. So possibly I will try and make something similar (without copying of course, that just isn't classy. Plus it's kind of suspicious if you're promoting yourself as an artist/artisan and you have to copy your website design from someone else...).


On an entirely different note, I am on an extremely unsatisfying family vacation. I have not had anything resembling privacy for a week and it's starting to get to me. I'll be fine once I get home and have spent a couple hours in my room with the door shut, but right now I am a bundle of stress. I have a renewed appreciation for being allowed to turn the lights on when I need to pee in the middle of the night, and for not living in a house with dogs or cats.

Only two more days.

Vacation and Neat Things

I've been on vacation with my family for a little now, another two weeks to go. Spending extended amounts of time with my parents always makes me a little crazy, and having little to no internet access doesn't help. I've gotten some spinning done, which is nice, and a little bit of knitting. Here's a ball I'm going to ply; it's Lion's Brand Homespun (I can't remember the colourway).

I'm planning on chain-plying it, since I've only tried that for a very short length of yarn (and also so I don't have to break the ball up). Next: recycled sari ends! (below) Oh, and I've plied the green handspun skeins (that I mentioned in my last post) together without redying...I quite like the pale green, I have to say. No pictures till I'm back home though.

I've only been knitting intermittently, when I can't spin easily (like when I'm in the car, or reading in bed, etc). I'm using up those annoying little balls that are always left over when you finish a project - I have SO MANY of them, and have no idea where half of them come from. But they are going to good use, I suppose...I'll probably send the tags I'm making with them in the Yarn Bombs Away! swap Kadie is hosting on swapbot. My partner is my new roommate, so I can make them as big as I like without worrying about shipping. Heh. Anyway, here's what I've done so far, rumpled up a bit:

I'm using my treasured glow-in-the-dark needles! They are so wonderful, I can knit in the dark! I embarrassed my father because I was knitting at the grocery store and dropped my ball of yarn in the parking lot, and it rolled away without me noticing. But a nice lady told me I'd dropped it, so it's ok!

My website really needs some work, particularly since I label my yarn bombs. I almost went to a seminar about how to use photoshop to make webpages, and now I'm regretting that I didn't, because that is pretty much what I want to do now. I'd like to learn site design, I think, but I'm not passionate enough about it to teach myself. Probably the thing to do is to decide what I want it to look like, sketch it, then talk to people who know what they are doing. For the mean time I guess I will just put some info about yarn bombing up?

Tonight I have learned to not listen to this mix right before going to bed. I like it, but it keeps me awake!

Here are some cool things:

• Dewey Decimal Crafts - "Crocheted skulls for all occasions. No two skulls are the same, and no skulls rival these." I feel this is an accurate description.
  
• plastic bag mushrooms yarn bomb - hot damn this is awesome!
  
• insubordiknit handspun - I want to make yarn like this one day! Though I think a lot of it requires a wheel. Sigh.
  
• yarn-holding coffee can cubbies - These are neat, but a) I don't drink coffee and b) I have too much yarn!