Café Crochet

My fabulous sister, Nancy Queen, has just launched her fabulous new book, The Chicks with Sticks Guide to Crochet.Go get it. Now. It's worth it. If you're a seasoned crocheter it's a great addition to your collection. With over 30 patterns the book has everything from pullovers to tote bags and cardigans, vests and hats. If you're just a beginner the Guide to Crochet has great, no fear instructions that are straight to the point while having a sense of humor. You'll never get bored with The Chicks with Sticks!

Of the 30 fun to work patterns, three are mine. I designed, as the resident California girl, the Surfer Chick Quick Cap, a fun fan-stitch hat. It really does work up fast and, of course looks adorable.

The Chicks' Felted Zebra Slippers are a creation of mine too. These soft and fuzzy slip-ons are all single crochet so that makes them perfect for beginners.

And my personal favorite, Heather's Cafe Cardigan. This top-down raglan cardi totally fun to make, especially while you're sipping coffee at the corner cafe. If you're anything like me that caffeine buzz will have you finishing this in no time!

Online portfolio

Being a strong print designer requires me to be fairly, OK, completely useless at web design. My time is consumed by pouring over paper samples and printing methods rather than learning Dreamweaver and typing code. Because of this my portfolio has always been a large Spink & Gabor case that I tote from client to client. I am good at keeping my print case up to date because who doesn't love any excuse to haul out the spray mount? I wrote a tutorial about mounting portfolio boards here. Aside from that I've never had an easily viewed portfolio. I put some items up on Coroflot last summer but I've never been happy with their site. It's hard to use, the navigation is weak and it doesn't display the pieces as nicely as I would like.

Thanks to Estetica Design Forum I think I've found what I've been looking for, a website to display my work beautifully. FinalCrit.com lets you upload your images and then Presto-Change-O! they're in a fantastic Flash based website! Click here to see my new online portfolio!

Whether you're a young designer just out of college without enough experience to get things just the way you want them or a seasoned specialist like me FinalCrit can help you display your goods just the way you want. For free!

A simple home office idea

Emily sent over this fabulous idea for a workspace in my home office. I love how it has book storage, cutting space and a computer area all rolled into one.

The unfortunate fact is we only have a three bedroom house and all rooms are already allocated as one for sleeping, one as an office for Thomas and one as a studio for me. The "studio for me" must also double as a "bedroom for guests," an idea I tried to adjust by suggesting the pull-out sofa moves to Thomas' office, thus leaving me space to have this work island. Sadly even guests have balked at the idea of catching shuteye in his room, insisting my things "are just prettier to look at" (a kind way of saying, "No way am I sleeping in that computer salvage yard!").

Thomas' solution? Pave the front yard, turn the offices into a second two car garage and build a second story that would have a studio, office space and a spare bedroom.

My solution? Don't marry an engineer.

Interior decorating has never been a big hobby of mine

On paper I need things to be organized. I need my lists to be straight, my letters to be evenly spaced and my lines to be horizontal. I have similar stipulations for my kitchen cabinets and drawers. Plates must go back to the same place they originated from, spoons perfectly stacked, glasses all in a row. My bedroom closet is no different; shirts are stacked by color, skirts are hung from short to long.

But the same rules do not apply to the rest of my house. We like our home to be clean but we share a unique and keen ability to live in adversity among the many piles of life. We will scale mile-high clothes mountains before doing the laundry. We can cook dinner in one square inch if necessary, which it often is.

We're tidy-challenged and we always have been much to the chagrin of our respective families. One infamous time Thomas's Aunt Penni, over from England for a family visit, set her unwavering sights on his room. On his way out for the day Thomas knowingly and specifically instructed her, "Whatever you do, DO NOT CLEAN MY ROOM." Needless to say that is the first thing Penni did, but she made sure to photograph it before she started.

When things are organized I am calmer and happier, but finding the perfect home for things is hard for me. Where do I start? What if it takes too long? Where can I put things so their functional? All these questions swirl around and around in my head, I get stressed out and then nothing gets put away. I do though have a desperate need to break the cycle. The room I spend all day in really needs some attention. In a huge way...

The room has to be multi-functional. I knit, I sew, I paint, I have books, magazines and drawing paper. Now to top it all off I use the room everyday as a home office/design studio. Add in a computer, portfolio and office supplies. Oh, and did I mention this room also doubles as our guest bedroom? Help! My goal is to have it clean by Thursday as a birthday gift to myself. Do you have any pointers, besides renting a dumpster?

Iconic day

Today was one of those days where I woke up and was excited to spend the day with my husband. Fortunately, he felt the same about me today. We had a big day planned with running errands all over town, and right from the start everything meshed into place. We were chatting back and forth while we drank our tea. The topic changed from the dogs to news to the iPhone.

Yesterday, Thomas installed the 1.1.3 firmware to my iPhone and so this morning he was showing me the new things I could do. The most useful of which is being able to put Safari web shortcuts on the home screen. He went along adding a few of my favorite sites. CNN.com has an icon, dooce.com has an icon... "Do you have an icon for Heather Ink?", he queries knowing full well I did not. "Let's make one, it won't be hard!"

We head off to my office and start clicking away. All we had to make was a 57x57 pixel image and edit some HTML. Now my blog has an iPhone icon! Right there! See it?

Install it on your phone. Right now!

And! In the process I talked him into helping me add a favicon to my blog too. (This is something I had tried to do unsuccessfully about six months ago, but it turns out it was an easy fix and of course the mastermind figured it out while I was showering.)

So now when you add my website to your browser favorites it has this pretty little icon next to it! I'm so excited!

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How to add a favicon to your Blogger blog: Digital Knowledge Center article

Creating an iPhone icon for your website: FOREM article