introducing me!

i suppose if you're going to read my blog, you should know a little about me.

my name is angie. i'm 30, i live in a small town in PA called hamburg, about an hour and a half northwest of philly. our claim to fame is cabela's. i work part time at joann fabric, after having been "laid off" (and i use that term very loosely) in february from my job at a battery manufacturer. i've been at joann for a year now, having started there part time when the new store opened close to where i was working for a flag company. joann is a blessing and a curse, the blessing being they were able to help me out after i was laid off, the curse being the 20% discount is hazardous to my wallet. i'm sure joann will come up frequently in my ramblings.

other things i'm likely to talk about:

my cat.

she's 15, i've had her for half my life, go figure that one. she's fat, crotchety, and old but she's my baby and i love her. the past few years i've been trying to brace myself for the day i know will come eventually, morbid as that may sound. but if you have pets, you know what i mean.

my boyfriend.

he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. he's cute, bald and bearded. and a nerd. but so sweet and nice. he got me a kindle fire for valentine's day. he treats me like a princess. and i could just keep going and going and going and going......

my 'stang.

i have a blue 92 mustang that i've been driving around in for the past nine years. it breaks, i get mad, i fix it and the cycle repeats. but i love my stang, i've always wanted a mustang, and i'll probably never be able to get one again. so i'm going to hold on to old blue as long as i can. the goal is 300k miles.

the beatles.

i love the beatles. how much? enough to get them tattooed on my back last summer. it's an awesome tattoo. it's the beatles without obviously being the beatles. funny story about the beatles. i discovered them late in life (when i was in college), having found a stash of beatles records at goodwill one day. i only bought two, and i still kick myself to this day for not buying them all. anyway, my intent was to sell them. however, after i got them home, i looked at the songs, and was hey, i know these. this was back when napster was still around, so i would spend hours finding beatles songs to download over dial up no less, and my love affair was born. it was the first band i ever really connected to. i was also lucky enough to go to liverpool. that was an awesome experience, which i'm sure will come up again.

and most importantly, my crafts.

i am a crocheter. i love it. i tried knitting, but the two sticks just didn't work out. ambidextrous i am not. i'm self taught. i taught myself via dvd in 2008 after a bad break-up with my ex boyfriend. he broke my car window on my birthday. i was depressed and needed something to get my mind off it. not that that was the only reason. i had attempted to teach myself several times before, the results were not good. this was the time it finally clicked. i love making amigurumi. i'm trying to work out my own patterns, but this is part of the add where i get distracted by other things. i also like making afghans, simple patterns though, where i can turn on the tv, and just go. i have no patience for doilies, or anything with really fine yarn. i've tried. they end up in my ufo pile.

i am a sewer. again, mostly self taught, except for the basics i learned in 7th grade home ec. i sometimes wonder what path i would have taken had the sewing really stuck in 7th grade. maybe my life would be different. who knows. anyway, i make mostly clothes and bags. i've tried my hand at stuffed animals too. i get frustrated with clothes because the vision i have in my head and the finished product don't always mesh. case in point: i bought this really pretty cotton gauze fabric to make a tunic for myself. i finish, try it on, hate it. in my head, it looked different. after trying  it on, it just seemed frumpy. so i got annoyed, i folded it, added it to my unfinished going to goodwill pile, and moved on.  enter my mom. she loved it. and she tried it on. granted, it was too big, but it still looked really nice on her. much better than it looked on me. so i took it in, took three inches off the hem, and gave it to her. at least is wasn't wasted. i got this awesome avengers fabric and i really want to make a dress from it. my fear is that i will hate it and have wasted all that awesome fabric. or that i'm not brave enough to wear it. we shall see.

other crafts i do include cross stitch, embroidery, i make rosaries (beaded and knotted twine) and sometimes i paint. not like portrait painting, but i do freezer paper stencils on fabric and one thing i'm working on is a wooden crate. i also painted a wooden bookcase my grandfather made a bright blue and green. this was about three years ago, and to this day, the green paint is still not totally dry. it sticks to my stuff and peels off. makes me mad. i showed the finished product to my grandfather. he smiled at me and shook his head.

i will also try anything once. more that once if i like it. i really want to try pottery, like on a wheel. i suspect it would be rather disastrous, but it sure would be fun to try. the goggleworks, a  local art gallery in reading, offered a date night around valentine's day for couples to try. but since i wasn't working, it didn't pan out. one day i will get my hands on some clay. i tried weaving once. the concept was neat, but my add kicked in, and i never finished my project. and i just sold my loom because it had been sitting unused for the past two years. now i just need to unload my weaving books.

and that was a lot longer than i intended. i am a writer at heart, so once i get going, it's hard to stop. my goal is once a week, depending on what i'm doing and what projects i have going.

let the games begin!

so i have a blog now.......

well.

this is an interesting development.

i have started a blog.

i need a way to get my crafty-ness out there, so maybe i can write about stuff i do (and don't do) and maybe people will find me interesting.

who knows?