Patricia Lee Macomber

So, the constant droning of hammers and saws on my roof finally got to me. In the middle of cleaning house and making dinner, I got bored. And when I get bored, I make things. I usually make tedious things.

Today, I made a font that I can use to create patterns out of crochet symbols. You can use it too, because I believe that (said in a Tommy Chong voice) creativity should be free, man! Click the link and save it to your fonts directory.

http://macabreink.com/t/crochetfontfix.ttf

Now, as if that weren’t enough, I also made a Paintshop Pro XI tube. You can click on this thumb, go to the large gif, then save it to your computer. Open it up in Paintshop, click EXPORT and then TUBE. It’s 4 across and 10 down. Go forth and be creative, babies.

Oh, and I did finally find the best textured stitch for my scarf. I’ll write more about that tomorrow, as well as the bracelet I intend to make to match it.

Love and stitches,

Trish

I’m going to make a new scarf.  I bought the yarn because the texture looked oh-so-cool and reminded me of a jacket my dad had when I was a kid.  But I need a new stitch, something I haven’t done a million times, something worthy of the yarn.  So, I went looking.  I haven’t found the stitch I crave, but I did find these:

I need to file this under “carnivorous clothing.”  Seriously. doesn’t it look like it’s eating that poor child?  Yea, your child really wants to wear crap like this.  Can you say, “kill Mama in her sleep?”

Then there’s this little gem:

Yea, the eighties called.  They want their fugly clothes back.  How much meth did they have to give that model just to get her into that thing?

And last but not least, what someone has dubbed the “muppet jacket.”

Kee-rist!  This is out and out birth control.  If you don’t think so, strap ten dead muppets to your back and see if you can get laid.  Eeeeeewwww!

On that note, I am off to find myself the perfect stitch for one totally organic, overly embellished, textured to the teeth scarf.

Love,

Trish

Earlier, I talked about redecorating my son, Billy’s, room.  Well, against all the odds, I finished within a week.  Now, I know there are multiple shows that can do it in one day, etc.  But they don’t have to deal with my son’s stuff and a division of efforts between that project and the daily tasks that make a house run.

I’ll put pictures here, before and after.  If there are small children, you might want to have them leave the room.  This is pretty shocking.

Before 1:

After 1:

Before 2:

After 2:

Before 3:

After 3:

After 4:

After 5:

So whaddya think?  Was it worth a week of our time and $300?  Btw, the kids helped a lot, hauling stuff, lifting, painting, cleaning.  Billy picked out everything that went into the room.  And it’s a good thing I asked.  I was going to do a Surprise by Design thing while he was away at basketball camp and redo his room in an ipod silhouette/guitar hero theme.  As it turns out….he wouldn’t have liked it.  Just when I think I have everything figured out….

They start on our roof tomorrow.  I’m so excited I could just shit.  Seriously.  We’ve worked and saved and searched for this for 7 years.  Believe you me, there WILL be a ton of pictures when that project is done.

Love and peace,

Trish

This falls under the category of YOU AIN’T GONNA BELIEVE THIS. This amazing artist actually crocheted a cozy for an entire tree. You can see more pictures here…

There are about a hundred things I’d like to do that I know I’ll never get around to.  I’d like to write a cookbook.  I have some great recipes passed down from my mom and grandmother.  And I have a few things of my own that I think would be awesome.  But even if my family could withstand the constant onslaught of new meals (some good, some bad) I’ll never find the time to get through it all.

I have a new novel idea.  I’ve had lots of those over the years and some of them have panned out.  Quite a few, though, never get past the first ten pages.  I write like the wind the first day, then trickle out a few pages the next.  By day three, I usually lose interest.  It’s some special form of ADD that only writers get, I think.

I finally finished painting my son’s room.  It’s a deep red, very nice, and the new comforter and drapes that he picked out will look great in there.  I’m forcing organization on him by getting him some shelves and storage baskets.  Previously, his pool table was used for laundry storage and there were as many dust tumble weeds on the floor as toys.  I don’t think the floor has been vacuumed since I put the last coat of varnish on it 7 years ago.

Our roof will finally be fixed in the next 2 weeks.  We’ve saved and labored for 7 years for that, too.  And once it’s done, I can start painting the porch ceiling…all 450 square feet of it.  Then I can start re-repairing the porch floor and paint it for the THIRD time.  Of course, there’s always the handrail on the carport that’s attached to the garage.  It’s 40 linear feet of handrail…all wood…and very much in need of paint.

Since moving here, I’ve painted the front, side and back porches three times.  I’ve sealed the deck three times.  I’ve painted the entire house over a period of years.  And every handrail on the place has had at least 2 coats of paint.  As soon as I get the entire place coated in paint, something sheds and I have to start over.

And THAT is why I’ll never get around to cook books and such.  I am starting a book on crochet.  I wasn’t sure if I was any good at making up patterns or not.  Then I managed to sell a pillow pattern to the Crochet-a-day calendar people.  Now, I’m inspired to write several crochet books, one themed for young people and one themed for men.  But to accomplish that, I have to make each and every afghan, scarf and shawl, then write out the pattern, photograph it, check it all.  Then I can put it all together and go looking for a publisher.

I have no idea how these crochet authors find the time to write as many books as they do.  They must not own old houses, that’s for sure.  Or teen-age boys.  *grin*

Tomorrow, the furniture goes back in the man cub’s room, so I’ll post some before and after pictures.  You’ll be stunned.  No really.  The difference is absolutely astonishing.

Blessings,

Trish

Okay, so summer is here.  The kids are home.  No school, no schedule.  Things slow down a little.  Except for the fact that I have to spend countless hours cleaning the pool now.  And with the kids home, we can work on some delayed projects like redoing Billy’s room (he’s a slob and his laundry lives on his pool table) and refinishing the downstairs floors.

But Spore has put a damper on all that.  I bought a copy of Creature Creator.  THEN I discovered that the silly software won’t work with my video card.  My puter is 3 years old, who knew?  So, the $10 program made us go get a new $80 video card.  Thankfully, David got it installed and everything up and working amazingly.  And I haven’t been able to pry myself away from it since.

It’s super easy to create the most amazing creatures.  You can test them out in animated dances.  Then you can share them on the Sporepedia.  Or you can upload them to YouTube.  I’ve been doing all of that.  Even Billy got into it and designed Fredd, the many-armed, hip-hop dancing alien with phlegm throwers and multiple spikes.  Fredd’s cool.

David and the boys all play Rock Band and guitar hero.  For all my music ability, I suck at Guitar Hero.  But I have Creature Creator and I’m jonesing for the Spore game proper.  I want to build universes and conquer other creatures and evolve, man.

Until Spore comes out, I will home my creature skills and hopefully come up with the ultimate beastie to take into the world of Spore.  In between painting Billy’s room deep red and sanding the crud out of the wood floors, of course.

I hate to sound like a paid advertisement, but if you haven’t checked out Creature Creator, you should hurry on over to www.spore.com and check it out.  It was tailor made for horror people.  You can make Cthulhu with it.  *grin*

Laters,

Trish

Nosferatu is cool. I like Cryptic better, though. When he glows in the dark, you can see his skeleton. Happily, his living in Katie’s room hasn’t been a problem. She likes the moo-ha-ha’s. *LOL*

I think Ebay will be my undoing, at least financially. Everything I ever saw in my childhood is for sale there, even things that I never thought I’d see again. Perhaps that’s what prompted my sudden re-immersion in Breyer horse collecting. I had a huge collection as a kid, nearly every single one they made. I own the first horse that ever rolled off the assembly line, given to me 40-some years ago by a friend. And now, I find all my beloved horses — plus a few new ones — right there on Ebay.

So, these are the newest ones….Holiday Hunt, the 2000 Christmas horse and Cream of Tartar.

I only have one other Christmas horse, Wintersong. But I have most of the Halloween horses: Cryptic, Nosferatu, Twilight Terror, Phantasma. I still need the more expensive ones, but I have lots of time.

As for the crochet, I’m working on a nifty little button cozy. I will post the pattern for it as soon as I perfect it.

Stay loopy!
Trish

Everybody who’s anybody has a blog, right? I guess I’m a little late coming to the party, but I’m here now. So, this is my first blog and every now and again I’ll bug you about my current crochet project, my newest Breyer horse, or my bi-weekly rant on Guiding Light. Yes, it’s my guilty pleasure. I’ve watched that soap since I was a little girl (back before the oceans receded) and I haven’t missed an episode since 1968. Even when Hurricane Isabelle hit, I listened to it on a small radio that got tv reception. That’s how desperate I was to see it.

I’m also a trekker from way back. Yea, I prefer original cast, but I also love TNG. Currently, I have an odd addiction to American Idol. I’ve watched for three seasons now. I’ve come to firmly believe that the judges push whichever person THEY want to stay. They slam that contestant on the show so that everyone, including votefortheworst.com, will vote for that person, thus making sure that they stay. Yea, sounds paranoid, right? Maybeeeee….

My husband and I are writers. He has a ton of books out and I’ve happily been published in a lot of magazines and anthologies. I do enjoy writing horror and scifi. For now, I want to turn to crochet books. I’ve written quite a few patterns and either offered them for free, had them published for free, or been paid in copies. That’s how you get known, no matter what you write. So, I’m off on a new adventure and my plan is simple. I will create a new pattern, make an item from that pattern to test it and make a photo. Then I will donate that item to charity, probably Warm Up America, or our local rest home. I crochet a lot. I have a ton of patterns in my head. This should be good for many years of pleasure.

And all that brings me to my biggest project ever. Seven years ago, we bought this HUGE old house in NC. It was right before the housing boom and we got it for a song. Seriously. But it needed a lot of work, which is why we got it so cheap. I mean, I can’t even count how many rooms are in this house, that’s how big it is. But it needed a new roof, two new a/c units, plus a bunch of new appliances. I refinished the second story floors BY HAND. That’s right, 1500 square feet of hand scraping, sanding, staining and varnishing. I did the staircase as well. Ceilings were painted, the entire upstairs bathroom overhauled and still not quite done. I painted the surround-porch twice now and it needs it again. In NC, paint doesn’t stick. I’ve painted the entire outside of the house as well. Climbed over it and hanged off it. It took me three years to finish scraping, sanding, priming and painting. I still haven’t done the dormers because I’m waiting for the last two parts of the roof to be finished. Until then, I’m afraid to put a ladder on it.

I’ll post lots of pictures here of the house, the crochet, the horses, and other interesting bits of stuff when I get the chance. I also like doodling with graphics programs, so you might get a Guiding Light wallpaper upside the head or a Star Trek web graphics set in the face.

Until next time, have fun and be good.

Trish

This is my first attempt at styling a WordPress site, and I’ve done it for the love of my life, Patricia Lee Macomber. I’m sure she’s going to come in here and make this her own, but I wanted to give something back after all the years she’s been styling and designing things for me on the web. She is the graphics goddess, not I, but I managed to get one of her favorite things - the collection of Breyer Horses that she and my daughter Katie are amassing, into the header.

I hope she’ll come here, enjoy this…and make it her own. She’s made my life complete, and I’d do anything for her…

Love’s like that…

-DNW