WIP Wednesday

So, not much to report. Finished off my biggest project, Brooklin's dress.

Right now I am mainly working on spinning the fiber I picked up last week, also, putting together a spindle, just need a rubber grommet and we will have a second spindle to use. 1 spindle is full, at least as full as I am comfortable with, so we will have to pull the yarn off and save it for plying.

This is 'Magic"



when it is finished, I think it might make a great stole, or maybe a fancy beret.

I could see using "Magic" in this:


Or maybe this?


What do you think?

Early Weekend Finish Offs!

In an effort to not be late for class tomorrow, I am going to do the update post tonight, before I go to bed.



Previously blogged, but I am too tired to link, so fee free to look through my archives. The little mass of red color on the collar is a bow that it laced through the eyelets in the first row of increases. it is a crochet chain in the same tone as the main color of the dress, the bottom edge is a band that has red dots in it, but I have not ironed it flat yet. Thanks for checking it out!

OOOH Pretties!

I have been spinning away like crazy.

Here is my work so far!


This is Turquoise Sea on my hand-made spindle Serenity, this is Merino and Firestar

This is Mother earth, my 3rd ever spun yarn, in mixed fibers from a mini/sample batt from March's Phat Fiber Box. It is a 2 ply, single spun with a recycled cashmere for the ply. I can not (right now) recall who sent in the roving, but the plying cashmere is salvaged from a sweater by Jags of Jags Funky Fibers

This is Cloudy, my second spun, also from the phat fiber box. Mixed fibers, from Cozy Cove Farm. It is plied on itself, and I have about
And my first spun yarn (ever) is called Phoenix, also from the sample box, but I can't think what it is or who sent it in...I know, bad artist...need to write these things down.
Here she is again.


Maybe next months I'll try my hand at hand painting and other dyeing techniques. I have found myself a great resource out at Pam's place, Baabaara's Wild & Wooly.


More later in the week, back to spinning!

Fun Finds Friday

I have been on a bit of a hat kick lately. It is spring here in Central Oregon, and is the perfect weather for a nice cute hat. Also, I am seeing a ton of new shops opening up that cater to all things baby!

I just finished Brooklin's Berry hat, and want to make many more of these hats for other babies I know...and even some that I don't know.

Here is some inspiration, no, these are not my creation, and the links to find them are at the bottom of the pictures.

Found here

Found here

Found here

And last but not least...

Found here

WIP Wednesday!

So, not much to show you, only have 2 projects going right now.

The first project is the dress for my baby sister's baby girl. Her birthday falls on Easter, and so I am making her a super cute Easter outfit. I already showed you the hat here, and now I am working on a Maxi Dress. This is a top down sweater dress, so no seaming, which is cool. I took the pattern and used the top have, the shoulders then too some 'advice' from the mom, and tweaked it a little bit to make the dress more "twirly and swirly". Instead of doing an increase on either side of the markers, I am doing a YO before each marker, creating a visible "Swirl" down the shirt section of the dress. (Raveled Here)


Brooklin liked one of my tank tops last summer, so it will flow and fall like that one, tight around the bust to keep it in place, then flowy from the tummy down. She will love it (I hope)!
Need to go by the "dollar Tree" today, they have this yarn in stick, only a buck a piece, and in more than just these 2 colors, I need to pick more up for this dress and some for a few hats too.

***

Secondly, the scarf I showed you last week is well on its way and just over 1/3 done...



Again, this is done on the Knifty Knitter long blue loom, with 1 strand black acrylic (not sure the brand, but it is very soft) and 1 strand of the Sensations Rainbow Boucle in Red/black. the 2 strands are used as 1 throughout, wrapping around every-other peg zig-zagging down the board. I will be knitting this out to 300 rows, I am just past 100. That will make this scarf roughly 6.5 ft long. (Raveled Here) There is no official pattern, but if you would like to use this reference, please feel free.

Weekend Finish Offs

I was working diligently on my Lavender Dreams handbag from Angela's Blog, but I miscalculated the amount of yarn I would need, and am debating frogging it for a different, self created design, so I don't have that to show you. But with this decision, I did have the chance to work on some other projects with the needles that the bag were on.

I bring to you Brooklin, my baby niece, here she is shown at 14 months at my wedding.

Now, she is almost 2, and Easter falls on her birthday. So I have made her a cute birthday and Easter hat.

This adorable hat was my first needle hat, ever. It called for dpns, but not having any, I opted for the magic loop method, worked out great, a little frustrating at the part where the leaves start and the berry ends, but overall, a fun little hat. I am making her a dress to match, but I can't show you that until Wednesday...I this was so much fun, I may have to make her some others, maybe in eggplant, and a brighter red for strawberry, and a blue for blueberry, the possibilities are endless, and it doesn't just have to be a berry, I am going to try carrots, and maybe even do some Easter eggs, and leave off the stem. But before I move on to those, I only have 1 set of needles for this, so I need to do one project at ta time. Here is the blog with the pattern: Randomstitches
Raveled here

In the world of Crochet, I used up some of the wonderful yarns from the Phat Fiber Sampler Box to make a couple of flower pins. Only 1 of them was satisfactory, so I frogged the other one.

This was crocheted with a size 7 hook, using "Ore" colorway from the Light Brown Hair.

I am now working on spinning some fibers, and making up some felt beads to make light weight stitch markers for lace work. Join me again on Wednesday for all of those projects in motion!

Chao!

It is still the same blog, I just felt like a change!

Title says it all.

Fun Findings Friday

So before I get into the fun finds, I suppose I should show you my fun makes! It is in fact the reason for the finds!

Just before Christmas, I bought myself a simple little top whorl drop spindle from Ford4Him over at Etsy.com

Apparently puppies think that a stick is a stick even when it is not a stick, and they chewed up my spindle while I was out grocery shopping with hubby. Needless to say, I was a bit more than upset. However, even though I really did like that spindle, it was not what I really wanted.

So I scoured the internet, and found a few that I liked and decided that I needed to make my own, so that it would be MINE. Not someone else's.

This is what I got:




I haven't figured out a name for her yet, and wouldn't mind some help on naming her.

I spun up some sample merino, bamboo, and alpaca from my Phat Fiber box last night, hubby thinks I am crazy, and addicted!

Also, last night, I discovered that kittens like spindles as much as puppies do. Though, they didn't destroy the spindle, they just batted at it.

here are a couple pics of them not being freaks!

This is Jack and Mocha lazing across one another. They are wonderful little ones.
This is Jack and Daniel lazing about on top of my printer...solidly asleep, even while hubby was printing things for school. Jack is the one sitting up, and Dani is the one laying down.

Now for the inspiration of the weekend!

Check out these yarns! The links are below the pictures to find out where to get them.

Found here

Found here!

And lastly!

Found here!

Hope you have as good of a weekend as I plan to!

Here I come spring break!

WIP Wednesday! and Happy St. Patty's Day!

Here are my WIPs for this week!


This is my elegant spring wrap, it stays chilly here in Central Oregon until about mid May, and even then, the evenings can get down to around 40* f in the middle of the summer. So I have decided to pull out my looms again, and make up this shawl. It is knit with 1 strand of Red Heart in black, and 1 strand of Tonal Rainbow Boucle in Red Pattern by Sensations. It is knit zigzaging between every other peg on the KK 22 in long loom. Raveled here.


This is another of Angela's Fab Felted bags. The pattern is on Half-Assed Housewife, and also on Ravlery. You can find the information on my previous post about my Cherry Garcia Bag here. Knit on size 7 needles, with tan and lavender in Deluxe Chunky 100% Wool (found at Enchanted Yarns in Redmond, OR) Raveled here.

AS for St Patty's Day, we made a great homemade Guinness beef stew (my recipe, message me if you want the recipe) and Irish Boxty (potato pancakes) and some beer. It was a great, though we made enough for about 10 people, and had invited just as many (I hate it when people don't RSVP) and no one, I mean NO ONE showed up. Guess hubby and I have plenty of leftovers for the week.

Here was dinner!
MMM Good hearty Irish food. Probably not the most healthy, but still damn good.

Also, proud to announce the passing of all my classes this term with a B+ or higher. On to next term with momentum.

I know, inpirations aren't supposed to be here until friday...

but I just couldn't help it! This is gorgeous! and I want so badly to spin it into a thread ply yarn and make a scarf!


Found here at The Critter Ranch on Etsy

Also, check out the givaway over at Phat Fiber! The Sand and Sea batt is BEAUTIFUL!

Weekend Finish Offs

SO, I have been busy this weekend, both in the knitting and the crochet aspect, but as it is final week at school, it makes working on my yarn addictions a bit hard.

Here is what I got done:

Angelina's Fab Felted Bag
WIPed here

Original pattern found HERE

Found here!

Fun Findings Friday

I have been on a big Felting kick lately. Ans so I bring you....da da tada...fun and funky felted bags! Keep in mind none of these are mine, and have infact been made by others. The links to their origin site can be found at the bottom of each image.

Here are few bucket style bags with flowers,

These can be found here.

Then there are these:

Pattern here!

Not everything felted needs to be a bag, pot holders, mittens and hats are great too!

Found here!

And last but not least, I give you a stylish messenger bag, all felted.

Found here with tutorial!

Have a good weekend, see you Monday!

WIP Wednesday!

A good start to my new goal of organization, it is time to show you what I am working on!

Here is my main project:

This is my progress on March 7:

Here is it when I got home from my knitting group tonight, March 10:

By the way, that JM cigar box was inside the bag both times to show comparison and shape.





After I hand felted the whole thing after casting it off. Tomorrow, after it has blocked out a bit, I may do another felting job, to tighten up the fabric. I plan on threading the i-cord pictured through the front of each long side, and tying it on the short sides.

Original pattern is found on Angela's blog, The Half-Assed Housewife, and is called Felt Me Up, or Angela's Fabulous Felted Bag! This pattern is also Raveled. I was working on it in a solid Rosewood colorway, from Patons Classic Wool, but ran out of the yarn, my Michaels is really low on wool right now, something about "Felting coming back into style faster than they figured it would"...or something to that effect. Anyways, I decided that the top half of that bag would look nice with a rich brown tone to match the brown woven through the pinks of the rosewood. I decided to go with Chestnut brown in Patons Classic Wool. The colors blend seamlessly... they are such a great match. I saved out enough of the rosewood to do about 2 ft of icord, I will felt the icords and do tied in handles instead of the purl bind off handles in the pattern.


My other WIP of the week is a scarf that I have designed, blogged, and raveled. Crooked Little Paths - A Scarf of Dreams is crafted using a granny square style cluster stitch, and it made up of several pentagonal shapes. I do not have enough of this done to warrant pictures, but it will be done in Caron Simply Soft in jade and silver, and Caron Rhapsody in Cranberry Mist. I will put up pics later in the week, when I post the pattern.

Blog neglegence should be a punishable crime.

I am starting out my new years resolutions a little late, at least where my blog is concerned.

In an effort to be a better, more organized blogger, and to give myself some initiative to work on my posts, I have decided to take some steps towards a more regular blogging style.

Many blog I have seen work very well with their updates coming at regular intervals with themes, and so I find the need to follow suit.

Monday's will be Weekend Off Show and Tell, I know, not very creative, if you ahve any suggestions on the names of these, please let me know.

Tuesday, I have classes and will not be able to do much more than work on school stuff.

Wednesdays will be WIP Wednesday, where I will introduce my Works in Progress

Thursdays will be another class day.

Fridays will be weekend inspiration finds. This will be where I will compile a few images that fuel my inspiration for whatever I am making at the time. This will also be your chance to see many other blogs that I pull my own creativity from.

If you have any suggestions or ideas to add to the , please please please let me know!

Crooked little paths

Have you ever dreamed a dream and woke up with artistic inspiration?
I have been reading abook by Yasmine Galenorn about fairies, and their kin and friends (warning, she is a great author, just not kid appropriate.)

Anywho... Last night I dreamed I was wandering down a path in the middle of Smokey's land (Smokey is a dragon, but in this book, dragons can walk amongst the FBH-full blooded humans- as a humanoid form) it was dark, and the Moon Mother shone brightly. I noticed a shimmer on the path, and came to the conclusion that the path was being lit by the glow of moonstone pavers that lined their way down the middle of the path and into an open meadow, a meadow that housed the Moon Mothers coven. Preparing to battle for the safety of the FBHs, the Earthside supes, and the Earthside fae as well.

Anyways, this all brings me to my point.

I woke up wanting to crochet the path. Make a scarf out of that green earthly meandering set of pavers.

And so I will, and I will put the pattern up as soon as I figure out the logistics. I know it will be done in crochet, with a 'J' hook, and most likely a mix of pink and green boucle, but I will do a few sample blocks in acrylic for the blog.

First Finish of March!

Hunter's blanket is finally done, just some finishing touches on the bib, baby bottle cover, and hat, and it'll all be ready to give to the person who commissioned me to make it.

Tiff will be giving this as a baby shower gift in May, to the mother-to-be of her baby nephew.



Only took 2 weeks, and a lot of motivation. But I think it will be well received, it is so comfy!