Path of Stardust . net

How to Hand Roll a Center Pull Ball

noreply@blogger.com (Samantha Ledington) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 18:13:00 +0000

I have the hardest time keeping my yarn organized. For some reason, I always get the skeins that disintegrate the moment I start to unwind them, so I end up with a Pigpen-worthy mess of yarn all over my room. Because of this, I looked all over the place for the right way to roll a yarn ball, but came up with only more problems than I had before. So I decided to post a tutorial on how I do it in case there is someone out there like me that has major issues with yarn chaos.

Step One:

Grab your mess of yarn and find the end of it. Now look at your hand. See the middle three fingers? These are going to be your nostepinne AKA the thingy you wrap the yarn around. Slip your yarn through your pointer and middle fingers and pinch down to keep it in place. Make sure to leave out a decent length of the end of your yarn so it doesn't get lost in the winding process. That will be the center pull end of your ball of yarn!

Pinch that yarn!

Step Two:

Start to loosely wrap your yarn around your three fingers, making sure not to wind any over the end you want to be your center pull. Keep doing this until you have a decent little fluffy chunk of yarn.

I'd wrap just a little bit more than I did in the picture.

Step Three:

Gently take the wrapped yarn off of your fingers, making sure not to unwrap it. Place the wrapped yarn in between your pointer & middle fingers, making sure the wraps are perpendicular with your fingers.

Perpendicular? Why yes, I think it is.

Step Four:

Start wrapping around your three fingers like before. Keep doing so until you have an awkwardly adorable mini ball of yarn that could fall apart if someone looked at it wrong.

Innit cute? He needs a few more wraps though.

Step Five:

Gently pull the yarn ball off of your fingers so that you have your awkward mini ball of yarn. This is basically your base to wrap around.

I usually wrap better than this, I promise.

Step Six:

Now you can start to wrap your ball. I wrap about 6-7 times one way, shift the ball & then another 6-7 times another way. Pay attention to where your center pull end is coming out of your ball of yarn before you start wrapping. Try not to wrap over it or get it lost when you wrap the yarn around the ball.

Almost done.

Step Seven:

Keep wrapping until all your yarn is used up! Now stop and admire your work. Give yourself a pat on the back and let that sigh you've been holding in escape. All done! You can use either end to crochet or knit with or even both if you're wanting to make something super thick. But this way, at least you have the option and it wasn't that hard to do!

Much better.

Enjoy your less messy yarn collection! Next time, I'll teach you guys how I keep those pesky balls of yarn from unwinding all over the place.

Did this help you?

Easy Customizeable Headband/Ear Warmer

noreply@blogger.com (Samantha Ledington) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 04:01:00 +0000

Green with a cute heart!

And now, here's my very first pattern ever! It's super easy & very cute. If you'd rather just download a pdf version of it, one can be found here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?9790zbwkured27n

Now onto the pattern!

{ Materials: }

2 Balls of Yarn (each a different color. I used some leftovers from a skein I had lying around)
Size I (5.50mm) Crochet Hook
2 Buttons or Snap Fasteners
Yarn / Tapestry Needle

{ Headband: }

Ch 5

Row 1: dc in 3rd ch from hook, dc across. Turn.

Rows 2-7; ch 2 (counts as dc), dc to last st, 2 dc in last st. Turn.

Rows 8-27: ch 2 (dc), dc across. Turn. (Feel free to add or subtract however many rows you need to fit your head snugly)

Rows 28-34: ch 2 (dc), skip 1 dc, dc across.

Fasten off.

{ Border: }

Crochet 2 sc in each row all the way around.

Fasten off.

{ Finishing: }

So that you can actually attach the headband to your head, lol, you can choose to use buttons or sew fastenings on the end. I took two sets of snap fasteners & sewed them on the ends personally. But if you want to use a button instead, here's some simple instructions.

When adding your border, chain a few to make a buttonhole with the border yarn.

Fasten off.

Sew button on outside of opposite end.

{ Notes: }

You can add flowers or hearts off to the side like I did in the picture. I just crocheted a big heart & sewed it onto the headband. There's a lot that you can do with this pattern! Hope you enjoy.

The Stressors of a New Small Business Owner

noreply@blogger.com (Samantha Ledington) — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 05:40:00 +0000

Smam Crafts! business cards.

So. It's September now & that means Camp NaNoWriMo is over, unfortunately. I got to 17.5k I think? & I was hoping to hit 25k. But still, I got a decent amount written in the short amount of time I had! Unfortunately writer's block has crept up on me, so I haven't done a whole lot of writing lately. I think that's partly because of the Monrovia Festival being next weekend, so I'm nervously working on business cards one moment & crocheting furiously so I have enough of an inventory the next. Which I love, don't get me wrong. I love to plan and to get everything ready. It's just a little too much for me to focus on at once.

At least I'm much more motivated this time around! Last year, I barely had anything made. I sold $30 worth of stuff, but it still wasn't much. Just three hats. Spent that money in no time! haha. It was still a really fun experience and I can't wait to check it out this year. I just want to do good, sales-wise since I'm missing two days of work for it.

Lots on my mind! But I got five more items made! A cute lilac headband, striped cable slouch hat, a green & purple cowl, an awesome slouchy brimmed hat, & a silver & navy scarf. I'd like to get at least one more scarf made & a few more baby wash cloths. Then I'd be content.

I just realized today that I have a small business. Can you believe that? It really sunk in when I printed off my first business cards as I was getting everything ready. Since I was little, I have ALWAYS wanted to have my own business. It didn't have to be anything big or too exciting, just something I enjoyed to do.

Well here you go, tiny version of me! Smam Crafts! Awwww yeah!

Anybody else every thought of starting your own small business? Did it ever stress you out big time?

Some Awesome Resources for Fellow Writers

noreply@blogger.com (Samantha Ledington) — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 19:57:00 +0000


I'm surprised my face is pictured here.

I have this thing I do where I continuously research. This was my big issue with my lack of internet access. It wasn't the fact that I couldn't keep in contact with everyone (I know, I'm evil), it was because I couldn't google anything and research. My researching obsessions is no different when it comes to my writing. I like to read up on different tips to help with characterization or how to make your villains more interesting, etc. I can't get enough of it!

My all time favorite site to find articles for such is Fiction Factor. During the "Hopeless Time" of my fabled lack of internet access (that lasted 2 or so years), every time I actually got internet access, I saved a few articles off of the Fiction Factor site so I could go home and read up on it whenever I wanted. I still have a giant folder full of saved webpages from there. They have so many good tips. I would definitely recommend that site for any fellow writers that are like me and always like to read up on ways to improve or for inspiration of any kind.

Also, I found a fabulous post on tumblr with a ton of resources: 102 Resources for Fiction Writing. I haven't looked through all of them, but I see it as The Holy Grail right now. Especially for someone who article hoards as much as I do.

The NaNoWriMo forums are also amazing when it comes to any sort of information on writing. People are always posting new links to fiction writer resources.

Just thought I'd share~ Back to working on The Light Ahead. Let's see how much I can get done before the 31st! 20k words? 15k words? Bueller?

Monrovia Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Samantha Ledington) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 00:45:00 +0000

My aunt bought my sister & I a booth at the Monrovia Festival that's coming up this September (7th-9th). I've been digging through the stuff I've randomly crocheted/knit in the past year. I found around 10-15 items I already have made that are sellable & after marking down my ideal prices for each item... the total of my inventory is around $140! This contains 1 baby afghan, 1 cowl, 2 scarves, 2 bags, 1 baby headband, 1 baby hat, 1 pair of fingerless gloves, 2 baby wash cloths, & 3 hats.

Click the thumbnails to see full size image.

So that's what I have so far. I'm actually really excited to see if anybody is interested in my wares. I really like making them for sure. :] Can't wait until the 7th! Wish me luck!

Stardust Libraria; My Writing Site

noreply@blogger.com (Samantha Ledington) — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 18:15:00 +0000

Layout Screenshot!

Stardust Libraria is about 40% done now. I just need to add information on the stuff that I'm currently working on and all will be well. I would also like to mention, that I fucking love Google Fonts. It makes me absolutely giddy that I have a better choice in fonts for websites than I used to. Yay!

I've been working on Another World, which is a short story I've been trying to put together for a while now. I keep wondering whether I should save it and work on it during NaNoWriMo this year or start to plunk away at it. lol. Because I have another story that I thought about working on, but I'm not super excited about it. So... that's what I'm worried about. LOL. If I'm wishy washy about it now, odds are that I'm going to be the same come November. And that would seriously suck if I bombed another year of NaNoWriMo!! I'd be very upset.

So there is a very high chance that I'll work on Another World this November. I'll make sure to post here when I have information about it up on Libraria!

I decided to take a lesson from Berm (AKA Amanda) and get a nice cork board, memo notes, & push pins to set up my outline. I always thought that was very interesting whenever I saw it hanging up on her wall. I bought a HUGE cork board at work for $10, so I have lots of space to put up lots of scenes! Don't get me wrong, I love me some Liquid Story Binder XE, but it's nice to have something physical like that too to work with when I'm planning a story.

I discovered that the only way for me to be productive when writing is to plan out a bunch of scenes I would like to see in the novel & then figure out the order of them & boom! Novel outline. That was the only way I got to 50k words in 2008. I can admit to it, I am so ADD when it comes to writing & am so picky about what I put down, that I get frustrated with myself & stop writing! So I have to babysit myself to get anything done. But hey, at least I know how to get it done now!

Time to plot out that novel...

Horrible Truths - Game of Thrones Fanfiction

noreply@blogger.com (Samantha Ledington) — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 03:17:00 +0000

YES, I am posting my fanfiction to my blog. This is actually a fill for the Sansa-Sandor community's comment fic meme on livejournal. It's SanSan. Fear it. Here's the prompt:

Sansa and Sandor's daughter turns 12, and Sandor has a sudden horrifying realisation that that's how old Sansa was the night of the Blackwater Battle when he pinned her to the bed, thought about trying to fuck her, and put a dagger to her throat. Cue freak out :)

Basically, I would like Sandor to recognise the fact that twelve year olds are actually still very young and wee, despite how he remembers it (or how it might have seemed at the time). And I would like him to apologise to Sansa all over again... how he does that, I shall leave up to the author... ;) --the_moonmoth


See? Sansa likes that I'm posting fanfiction here.

Title: Horrible Truths
Rating: PG-13 (just mentions of adult situations. nothing horrific happens)
Word Count: 1981
Warnings: Mentions of rape & thoughts of sex with a minor (even though in medieval times, Sansa was already considered a woman, yuckies!)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story! They belong to George R.R. Martin.

Laughter echoed through the Godswood, warming his heart. This would not have happened 12 years ago, before his daughter was born. Sansa had smoothed most of the sharp edges within him, but there was still that darkness inside him that just wouldn’t go away. Until Minisa was born. The first time he saw her was terrifying. She was a tiny, pink, screaming ball of fury and no matter how much Sansa had tried to console the newborn, it just did not work. But then the midwife had plopped the child in his arms so his wife could rest and the tiny bundle had quieted immediately, her Tully blue eyes -- the same shade as her mother’s -- boring into his, full of curiosity. This child of his was the first to look upon his face without recoiling. His scars never scared her at all.

That was the day that the ice that encased his heart melted for good.

Minisa was a feisty little thing. And a tomboy to boot. Just like her aunt Arya. Her hair was long and wavy like her mother’s, but it was the same pitch black as her father’s. And it was always in tangles, much to her mother’s dismay. Arya would laugh at the disgruntled look on her sister’s face each time Minisa ran away when Sansa tried to brush her hair. It was an immense source of frustration for his wife and one of amusement for Arya. And himself, if he wanted to be completely honest.

But their little girl took after her father more than anything and that terrified him. Her fuse was short, her will made of steel and she was prone to bitterness, even at such a young age. But she had her mother’s kindness. None of her grace, but all of her heart. And it was that that Sandor hoped would save her from going down a dark path as she got older.

“Father!” Minisa yelled as she ran through the trees, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Sandor turned around and watched as she made her way toward him, her beautiful dress muddy and matted in places. Sansa would have a fit when she saw it. This only made him smile more.

“What is it, little pup?” he rasped as she ran toward him and hugged him tightly. His rough hands smoothing over her crazy mess of hair.

Minisa peeked up at her father with a huge smile, blue eyes shining, “Ed found a hound in the woods and took it to mother! It’s our sigil, Father! Can we keep him?”

He sighed. It was never good when Nisa and her brother teamed up on both their parents. Sandor was weak when it came to his children.

“We’ll have to see what your mother thinks,” he tried to keep the laughter out of his voice.

Nisa started to whine, her tiny hands gripping onto her father’s tunic. “Please!” she begged. “He’s such a lovely shade of brown with a white chest and white paws. And he’s terribly scrawny. We have to keep him, Father! He won’t survive in the Godswood.”

“Enough.” he tried to speak harshly, but it barely phased her. “Leave it be until we speak to your mother.”

Minisa pouted, her round, child-like face looking even more young when she did so. Twelve years old already… was it not just yesterday that he held that squalling babe in his arms?

There was soft chirping in the background, distracting his daughter from her anger, thankfully. The little girl looked up in the trees, trying to locate the sound. Fortunately she was easily distracted from said anger, unlike her mother. That woman remembered everything he said that upset her and never let it go.

“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered. “Such little birds singing in the trees. I wonder where they’re at.”

The nickname for his wife hit him like fist in the gut. The look on Minisa’s face reminded him so much of Sansa in that moment. Little birds singing… Before he could stop himself, his mind went somewhere dark. Wasn’t Sansa the same age when he stole that song from her? Bile rose up in the back of his throat at the thought and anger flooded him. His sweet daughter, barely old enough to think for herself. When her mother was the same age, he had held her at knife point and forced her to sing for him as he thought of how her soft teats would feel pressed against his bare chest.

“Father?” Nisa asked, worry on her face.

Sandor stalked off, too disgusted with himself to speak. If any man touched his daughter in that way, he would cleave them to pieces. Rip them apart bare handed even. If any man even thought of his Minisa that way… he growled in anger, before it quickly turned to horror. Minisa was too young. Too young.

Sansa was too young then. His beautiful bird with flaming hair and bright blue eyes. Battered and bruised, nearly raped by him and scared out of her wits. He had done that to her.

Guilt washed over him and only seemed to intensify with each beat of his heart.

“Father?” Minisa had caught up to him, her tiny hand gripping onto his arm, fear in her eyes when she saw the tears upon her father’s cheeks. This was a side of him that he never let her see.

Sandor turned away, ashamed. “No more talk. To the castle now. Go.” He swiped at his cheeks when she couldn’t see.

He noticed her out of the corner of his eye; hesitant at first, her own eyes filling with tears. This only managed to make his heart break more. But this is what he deserved. This realization at how fucked up he had been and still was.

As soon as Minisa was out of eyesight, he collapsed to the ground, his head in his hands as the tears came unchecked. His beautiful, loving wife. How had she forgiven him? How had she fallen in love with him and defied her name and title to spend her life with him in Winterfell? He felt like the lowest, most despicable of men. Which he had felt before, but somehow it was so much worse.

Sandor stayed like that for hours, wallowing in his own misery, too shocked to move. The sun had come and gone, leaving him to the emptiness that surrounded him.

The crunch of fallen leaves snapped him out of his misery, causing him to grip the hilt of his sword as he looked behind him with narrow eyes.

“Sandor?”

It was her. Her voice sweet as the lemon cakes she loved so. His fist immediately loosened.

He grunted in reply, still sitting cross-legged on the dirty ground like the dog he was.

She appeared from behind a great fir tree, her flaming hair still visible even in the dark. Sansa shivered visibly as she walked toward him, her hand outstretched to him in offering as if he was a scared animal. It was something she had done often, now that he thought about it.

“My love, what are you doing out here? You scared Minisa out of her wits and Eddard tried to escape from his room through the window so he could find you!” she huffed. Sandor assumed she was distressed by the sheer amount of energy their young son had. She kneeled next to him, smoothing his haggard hair back from his face revealing it scars and all before she laid a kiss upon his scarred brow. “What is it?”

The more she asked, the more he felt that darkness from his past creep up on him. Her sweet, tender kiss to his disgusting ruined flesh is what did him in. He jerked away from her, a growl ripped from his chest.

“Don’t,” he growled again between grit teeth. The hurt look on his Little Bird’s face made him beat himself up even more.

Didn’t she see? Didn’t she see what he was? Why he tried so hard to push her from him? He was nothing. Meaningless -- a lowly dog. He had hurt her so many times. Said horrible things to her and… he cringed at the thought of the battle of Blackwater. Flashes of feeling from that night: anger, fear, elation, lust.

Though she was hurt at first, anger flared in her eyes. “I thought we were past this, Sandor. I married you, bared your children, conceived the next…” her hand curled around her swollen belly. It made him want to reach out and do the same just so he could realize this was real. “I can’t lose you to yourself again.”

Tears pricked the back of his eyes as his fist curled. I can’t lose you to yourself again. He was so mad at himself.

“I‘m so sorry, little bird,” his voice was choked as he spoke her nickname. He looked toward her, his eyes boring into hers intensely before he pulled her down to his lap, as gently as he could so as not to hurt the babe in her belly.

Sansa immediately curled toward him, sitting comfortably in his large lap as she pulled his face down to hers for a kiss. Sandor tried to pull away, but she merely pressed her lips and body harder against him. He could have broken away from her being the stronger of the two, but the feel of her pressed up against him was his weakness. After she proved her point, she let him go and looked into his eyes. Her delicate fingers wove through his hair, stroking it soothingly. It calmed him as it always did. This time it managed to undo him though.

“You were so young,” he sobbed quietly, brokenly. “Minisa’s age when I did it.”

Sansa just looked at him in confusion, “Did what, love?”

“Blackwater,” he choked out.

That was the only word she needed to hear to understand. Recognition flitted across her face as her eyes went dark. She looked down at her hands and all he could focus on was the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed steadily, too steadily.

After a few seconds of silence, she merely sighed and looked up at him. He recognized that look on her face. He knew what she was trying to tell him… she already forgave him. Tears flowed down his cheeks as he buried his face in her hair, holding her close to him.

“I love you, Sandor,” she whispered softly. “You have been through so much and seen so much. But I always knew that somewhere within you… the man you are right now existed. Deep down, you had a goodness in you. And I fell in love with that part of you. I forgave you for what you did a very long time ago.” She smiled at him as she kissed his chin. He felt the wetness on her cheeks too.

“I’m sorry,” he managed to choke out.

“I know,” was all she said as she rubbed soothing circles over his wrist with her thumb. “I forgive you.”

They held each other like that for a good while, soothed by the quiet sounds of the Godswood as a part of Sandor finally began to heal. He had changed so much since his Little Bird came into his life. Since his dear pups came into his life.

“We should head back. The children are worried sick about you,” Sansa smiled at him.

It was those smiles that made him think that everything would be okay.

Sandor nodded and helped her up before he got up himself. They took the worn path through the Godswood back to the warm glow of their home.

And this time he didn’t pull away when Sansa put her hand in his. He merely squeezed it tighter.

Yarn Organizationgasm!

noreply@blogger.com (Samantha Ledington) — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 01:50:00 +0000

My cheap tubs bring all the yarn to the yard!

Sweet fucking jesus! I just finished organizing the yarn vomit in my room. I bought 3 motherfucking 7.1 gallon tubs on sale at for $2 each at work & now my yarn/spinning materials are stuffed into glorious tubs. No more yarn vomit! I seriously hate when my yarn starts tangling, so I usually just ignore it because I don't want to deal with it. LOL. But then the mass just gets bigger... & bigger... & bigger. So I had to slay yarnzilla. & I feel amazing now that I have that out of the way. See? So much better. (yes, no sheet right now. It's cleaning time, bitches.)

All my roving is put up in one of the bins too, so maybe the easy access will make me want to start spinning again. Though it's hard for me to use my drop spindle after Liz had me try out her mom's Ashford Joy. omfg. I need a spinning wheel. Her mom's gonna let me borrow one of her wheels & if I like it, I can buy it. lol. But phewies, the cost hurts my soul. Some people seriously spend over 1k on a spinning wheel. That makes me have a mini panic attack just thinking about it.

I'm still trying to edit pathofstardust.net & make it look somewhat presentable right now, but yeah. I'm so ADD. I get all distracted by tumblr & a softer world. Which is hilarious, btw. Proof:

Asofterworld. My website soulmate.

A friend of mine actually called me & told me how that comic strip applied to her completely. I feel that 3 out of 5 a softer world comics are lines pulled directly from my brain. Things Smam Does Not Say Out Loud = a softer world. Oh sweet jesus.

Time to go back to knitting this fucking whore of a shawl & listening to Nine Inch Nails because I love my music angry, tortured, & full of cursing.

Welcome to the Chaos

noreply@blogger.com (Samantha Ledington) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 23:40:00 +0000

Finally got my blog set up. I think I'm going to set my blog as my main page on pathofstardust.net. I've seen a few sites do that & I really like how it looks & how it's easy to just see what's going on in that person's life. They can type in updates about the site as well as just blab away about what's going on in their lives nowadays.

So I approve, pretty much. Obviously. Since I'm doing the same thing. Copycat away! *zooms off into the distance*

Spent the day attempting to organize the chaos that is my yarn stash. I seriously have 30+ skeins of yarn laying about in a tangle and it hurts my soul to leave it. I'm just so god damn tired after work! And on my days off, I just want to laze about, surf the internet... sleep, etc. It's what I love to do. I can admit to it. So yes, I'm pilfering through the mess of roving and skeins of yarn & stuffing the good stuff away into my zippable tote bag. I'll make it fit. I'm determined.

Oh & I finally watched The Big Lebowski all the way through. How the hell did it take me so long to do that? We'll cut off your chonson, Lebooski! WE BELIEVE IN NAHSING! NAHSING! Oh nihilists~! You so fuuuuuunny.

Back to cleaning. Or attempting to do so.