Love Glove

My sister's wedding shower was today. All in all, I think it went off pretty well :) I am pleased and SUPER GLAD it's over. Now, I just have to make it through the wedding next weekend and then I can have my life back. This is the last "thing" looming over me.

Besides throwing the shower, I made her a gift. WARNING: It's TOTALLY cheezy and sappy, but I also think it's a wonderful and amazing concept and hell, when can you get away with being sappy EXCEPT at a Wedding Shower :P

It's called the Love Glove :D Basically, it's a two-person glove. One person puts their hand in one side (through the ribbed cuffs I knit), then the other person puts their hand in and then you can keep yer hands warm and toasty in the fleece heart (which I sewed up) while holding hands :D

My sister and her beau live in Virginia, so it makes sense for those long, romatic walks in the snow :P

I think it's adorable and I'm SUPER proud of how well it came out :D

love glove pride*

shower presents

My sister's bridal shower is in...4 DAYS!!!! Do I have her presents made yet?

NooOoOoOOooOooOOOoOo.

I have one dishcloth made but I need to fix the bind-off. I have another dishcloth made but the cotton yarn broke mid way through, so it's small now and I want to crochet around the edges to make it bigger.

I need to make one more dishcloth and a two-hand glove. :|

When, pray tell, am I going to make this shit?!

I see Target in my future.....

Glittery obligations

I'm part of a craft swap called Betty Crafter. Basically, the jist of it is that we had to make postcards depicting some craft that we do and sent them off to 10 folks with a recipe on the back.

I was planning all kinds of elaborate postcards, with knit flaps and beads and gosh, LOTS of work :) Then, I started getting some from the 10 folks that I'm on their list. They weren't that inspired. Just photocopies and stamps and the such. Maybe the ones I get next will be faaabulous, but after getting the first few, I thought, "Why the heck am I gonna stress myself out and do something so elaborate?!"

And this is what I did instead :P



I printed the recipe on the back, then printed a color picture of my spinning. I cut them into postcard sized things, then painted glitter over the yarn on the picture (the black dots on this scanned picture) and glued a piece of the yarn that I spun in the picture next to it.

Address, a few stamps and voila! Postcard obligation taken care of :)

One Skein Secret pal ROCKS!!!!

Okay, seriously here. I have participated in MANY MANY secret pal-type things. Secret Santas, secret recipe swaps, all sorts of stuff. And I always seem to get a lame secret pal, who either does very little for me or does nothing at all.

Well, all that is changing! I got my pacakge from my One Skein secret pal Friday afternoon and oh my gosh! It was the best, most fun and exciting package I think I've received all year!


She sent me a scrumptious skein of wool, as you can see above...the colors are so very gorgeous :) But she didn't stop there, nooOoOoOOo. She went above and beyond the call of duty and sent me some purse handles (the round things in the picture) and found 4 patterns for purses, 2 on the knifty knitte,r one crochet and one needle knit, printed them out and included them.

I got a whole dang knit a cool purse kit! Rock on, secret pal!

Oh, and the coolest card was enclosed, it's a man knitting from a giant ball of yarn, which is in the place of a globe on a stand :)

Knitting certainly makes the world go round :)

*happy glowy One Skein Secret Pal Recipient*

I hope my secret pal liked HER package half as much as I loved mine!

Show and Tell

I couldn't sleep last night. I don't know why, I had a pretty good day. I got my review at work and I got a 3 out of a 4 on the written review, a ton of gushing compliments about my work and my worth to the company AND more than double what my percentage raise should have been for a 3. I got a 10% raise, the biggest percent they were offering as a way to show me how much they have appreciated me and all I do. So, yay for me on the work front, lol.

But I still couldn't sleep. I was worrying and fretting about all the stuff I have coming up that I need to get done in the next few days. So, I got my ass up and did a photo shoot of a lot of projects I've been working on. Maybe y'all don't care, but I feel like a little show and tell :P

This is my finished (mostly) shrug I've been working on. It's a pain in the arse having long arms like I do, cause you're knitting forever it seems like :) I just got it off the loom last night and held it together with binder clips (cause I'm sexy that way) to try it on and take pictures. It will be better once I have the monkey claw knots to hold the arms together and I block it and weave in the ends...but I am just thrilled with it, so I had to share :D

This is my new Wonder Loom with the VERY beginning of a dishcloth for my sister on it. She's getting married this month and for her shower gift, I'm making her a lover's glove (I know, that sounds pervy, but it's really one fleece glove in a heart shape with two cuffs so you can wear a glove while holding hands with yer lover inside the glove. It's corny, I know, but when better to give corny gifts than at a shower?!) and I wanted to knit her some dishcloths with hearts, wedding cakes and rings on them to go with it. The shower is in two weeks...we'll see how many I get done, lol. This one is just gonna be a pattern, not have a picture on it. The colors are very "her," so I think she'll like it.

This is a travel spindle I made based loosely on this commercial one.Rather than spend $30-$40 bucks on one, I got out my jigsaw and cut the shape out of a scrap piece of oak I had after I made a loom recently, drilled a hole in the middle and stole one of my son's green tinker toys for the handle and voila! A fully-functioning spindle that cost me all of 50 cents :P It works well too, as you can see by the sample yarn I spun up on it once it was made :) It uses a park and draft method, so I can get singles quite thin and even...yay!

This is my possum fiber!!! Isn't it gorgeous?! It's part possum and part wool. I'm gonna spin it thin and then ply it with some dark brown wool and make my sweetie slippers out of it :) I'm a happy camper :)

These are some samples of what I was doing on Memorial day while the BBQ cooked dinner :) I was picking burrs and bits out of my wooly white fleece, carding it and making these rolags to spin it into fabulous yarn :) I only made about 10 rolags, because 1) it's a PAIN IN THE ASS to pick all the gunk out and 2) I wanted to see how I liked spinning from rolags before I made it all up into them. I haven't spun any yet, but it's super soft and wonderful. My son felt it on the cards and has decided that he wants me to make a layer under his sheets of the stuff so it will heep him warm and cozy and soft when he's sleeping :) Cute kid :P

This is the yarn I bought for my One Skein secret pal :D I am IN LOVE with this yarn and if were wealthy, I would buy a big pile of it and sleep in it every night :) It's the softest, most squishiest yarn in existance, 100% baby alpaca, and it is just...beyond words in amazing softness :) Of course, I have yet to buy any for myself, but I keep eyeing this rusty orange/red version and I may have to break down and splurge and buy me some one of these days....imagine a scarf or hat in this stuff.... *swoons with the luxury of it all* I hope my secret pal likes it, I'm mailing it off to her today! You can't see the color very well, but it's a dark teal/dark blue mixed color yarn. She likes greens and blues and is part goth chick and part hippy, so I think it fits her well.

Let me start by stating that I DID NOT SPIN THIS YARN! It's store-bounght, 50% llama and 50% wool. But, I hand-dyed it with indigo dye :D I'm pretty happy with how the color came out, and the yarn itself is very soft and plush. Perfect for something for my son, I just don't know what yet. Maybe slippers? Or, it might become part of a Birthday present for my mother, she loves the color...we'll have to see. Right now, it's just sitting in my Stash, waiting for me to get inspired :)

Not really crafty, but I'm just happy with this Memorial Day purchase :P I had been eyeing these placemats at Bed Bath and Beyond for oh, about a month now...and I couldn't bring myself to buy them for $4.99 each. Well, memorial day, I just happened to stop by BB&B and these were on a clearance rack for 99 cents each, plus 50% off!!!!!! Yes, I got 4 of them for $2 :D I'm a happy bargain shopper and I have my groovy orange and rusty red placemats now :)

That's all folks :D Cross your fingers for me that I sleep tonight, or you might be getting pictures of my different types of fiber tomorrow, lol!

A tisket, a tasket

A beautiful skein of red yarn hand-spun by moi!

This is actually the very first roving I got with my very first spindle, but it was a bit of a pain in the arse to spin, so it is actually my 3rd skein of yarn I've made. I'm getting up there in lenghth, though....84 or 85 yarns! Woohoo!

Now, what shall I make with it?!

Travel spindle, single treadle and end of the red wool

What a crafty weekend I had!

Saturday morning, I got up bright and early and used a spare piece of oak I had kept for just this purpose to create my own version of a Rakestraw spinner. INstead of $35, it cost me about 50 cents :) Sure, it's not as beautiful and it's a bit uneven, but it works just fine :) I used one of my son's tinker toys for the handle and voila! a sitting travel spinner :) I'm quite proud of myself for making what I want when I couldn't afford to buy a fancy one :)

Saturday night, I stayed up a bit late watching the series finale of Will & Grace that was on my TiVo and spun the last of my red wool that I got with my first spindle on eBay. I was trekkin, let me tell you! I have it off the spindle and on my PVC niddy noddy and I have around 85 yards of it...yay! I keep creeping up in yardage with each skein :P It's actually really pretty. I'm trying to decide what to make with it. Something for myself, definately, since it was on my first spindle and my first fiber, even if it wasn't the first skein I finished. The fiber was atually sort of slippery and very long, so it was difficult to work with. But it's done! mwahahaha.

I actually have NOTHING on any of my four spindles right now : It's shocking and mildly unsettling, let me tell you....but I decided that I needed to put in a good amount of time on my shrug so I can move onto one of the GAGILLION other things I have to knit. I also just want to wear it soon :P It's so perdy *swoony*

At my spinning guild meeting this weekend, we dyed yarn with indigo. It was really interesting and fun. I didn't have anything spun in a light color to dye, so I bought some lamma/wool yarn at a local yarn shop and dyed that. It's a really pretty medium blue, well saturated and I can't wait to rinse it tonight and see what the final color will be :)

I also got the chance to try a single treadle Ashford Joy spinning wheel and I FELL IN LOVE with it! The single treadle is so much easier to work than the double treadle and I love the look and shape of it, the easy portability, the way it folds up and just how it spun in general. A woman sitting next to me let me spin on hers for a bit to try it out. Now I want one. Of course, I have to fall in love with the most expensive spinning wheel, lol...$500. Oy.

A friend in the guild lent me some carders, so I am going to attempt to card up some of the bags and bags and bags of free fiber I got a few weeks ago. It's quite a process...but it's taught me a few things. The main one being that at this stage in my life, I am too busy to process my own fiber and I need to buy fiber so I can spend my time spinning it, instead of processing it :) The other is that I am going to enjoy being able to take the fleece cut directly off the sheep (I saw it sheared, even!), wash it, pick the stuff out, card it, spin it and then knit something with it. I heard they have competitions at state fairs called "sheep to Shawl" and stuff like that and I kind of feel like I'm doing my own competition. I know I will cherish that yarn so much more because I did ever step of making it along the way ;)

But yes, after that, buying the fiber is going to be my modus operandi :)

I got my possum fiber in last week. I need to wash it, because it's quite sticky, but then I am going to blend it with some dark wool and spin it up to make slippers for my sweetie. Possum is an in-joke with us, so what better to make for his birthday present, I say.

I lead a crafty life and I love it :)