wool people

I've been trying to add a few new items to my etsy shop per week but, most of the time I forget to mention it here. A hand knit baby/toddler scarf in 50% Corriedale Wool and 50% alpaca and a few felt bead necklaces went in today. I can make these in other colors as a custom order and also enjoy making garlands with the felt beads.

felted bowls, acorns

I've been doing quite a lot of knitting and felting bowls for the shop.
I plan to bring some to Mackey Blue pretty soon.
Right now that periwinkle blue is my favorite. It reminds me of the Septeber/October sky. That perfect blue...

Also needle felted some acorns.



I love Autumn!

plant dyed wool necklace

Mama made me a necklace and then my brother was playing peek-a-boo with me which I think is really funny and then he broke the string but, that is okay because Mama can just restring it. You know I'm probably going to pull on it and break it over and over again. It will be a fun game. I break it, Mama fixes it.

-Wool roving is all plant dyed wool from Sunbridge College Craft Studio. I purchased it at NY State Sheep and Wool and it took me over 2 years to use it because it looked so pretty in the box I didn't want to disturb it but, then recently I decided that it was the right day and I just played with a little of it and made some beads.

This had me thinking about the garden and what kinds of flowers I want to plant this year. Too many choices, right? The thing is you can always do it different from year to year.

rocks with sweaters

Let's face it. It's cold out there. Well in the northeastern US it is.

Dear friends of ours gave us rocks as a gift.

A whole beautiful bagful one day last summer. They were moving to London and had already carried them from England to NY and well one of them didn't want to cart them back to England.

They are from Cornwall near the ocean and there are so many stunning ones. I really should have photographed the 'naked' ones for you. Some of them have these great details like there will be a beautiful single white swirly stripe or multiple stripes amongst a shadowy gray or a perfectly shaped oval or the one with the eight on it which happens to be my favorite number.

Someday, I plan to mail some of them back to my friend, who was slightly distraught that her husband gave away their rocks, with a few other pleasant handmade surprises. I think perhaps for her birthday which happens to be 2 days before mine. I am pretty sure they don't read my blog so it should be a happy surprise.

So yesterday, I decided to give felted rocks a try. It's basically wrapping the rock with wool roving and then getting it warm and soapy with warm water and well, soap, smoothing it and then putting it in a stocking and the washing machine. Okay, here are directions

Here are the ones that came out. A few got tossed out of the stocking in the machine... not sure why.

So, there you have it...rocks with sweaters

felted bowls

some new felted bowls have landed in my etsy shop...perfect for gathering small treasures.
hope everyone has a lovely magical weekend.
we will be getting our christmas tree and doing some decorating.

birds nest

Handmade birds nests and eggs. These will appear in the shop sometime today.
I made 3 brown and 2 white.

I originally planned for them to be egg cozies but then decided I liked them better as nests.

You could really use them either way or even as a little bowl.

Can you tell I have spring fever?

cookie monster bowl

Me want cookies!
Doesn't this bowl make you think of Cookie Monster? I just had to go and get some chocolate chip cookies to photograph with it. Too funny. I've made 4 new ones and I'm going to post this one on Etsy and maybe one more but, I might gift it. Two others are going to go to Mackey Blue. They are still drying even though it's been a few days.

woodsy wall hanging

I finished up this felted project over the weekend and am very happy with the way it turned out. It is from the Japanese craft book pictured a few posts ago and is called Small articles made of wool felt. I decided to go with all natural wool roving colors like shown in the book so the lovely turquoise and yellow were scraped for this project. The bird 'eggs' are wet felted and the birds I needle felted. I strung them on cotton and tied to a branch.

It makes me want to go for a walk in the woods and take photographs of cute forest creatures and mushrooms... if only the woods were right outside my door.

sprinkles

We tried out the Sprinkles cupcake mix from William Sonoma this weekend. I think they were pretty good but, they don't get my highest rating. The cake was a bit too dense for me but, overall good reviews from the taste testers. I'm guessing the ones in the bakery are better than the mix.



Working on a project from this book that I am super excited about. I can even follow the directions which I can't say is always the case with the Japanese craft books.



Finished and handed off these wool felt beads (so sweet they look like you can eat them) for a family member. Also, finished and gifted some other handmade projects this weekend.

a few small things

A few things finished up this week. A handknit acorn hat. I made this up as I went along and it is sized for a small baby made with Rowan Tweed. I love the way this came out and I think I'll make more.
Some hand felted wool balls crafted with roving made into earrings.
All will be included in the update.

autumn

Autumn is here finally....my favorite season. The beautiful blue sky, amazing light, leaves changing and rustling underneath my feet, apple and pumpkin picking, cooler days, fall clothes, Halloween around the corner. Oh, I can't wait to decorate for Halloween but, I will hold off until October 1st. For now, some autumn decorations. (I also need to find my wool felt leaves I made last year).




A bowl of pom poms and spools of thread from sewing kits become garlands.
I alluded to these a while ago. I love the combination of knitting and sewing combined.



Acorn caps and wool roving made last year

felted

I knit and felted this bowl this past week using Brown Sheep wool in color Blue Blood Red. After felting, I used a metal bowl for shaping it. I could really get addicted to making these and already am itching to make some more. They knit up quickly and turn out beautifully. The felting process took about an hour in the washing machine.

woodland elf

I made the woodland elf hat from Amy's new book. It is constructed from one of Mick's old sweaters that he accidently shrunk and then I felted last winter. The material is quite heavy so I was nervous about sewing it on the machine and decided to do it by hand. It took longer but, I didn't mind. It's very cute and I think he will be able to wear it for several years.
Last year we wanted to dress up Little M as a garden gnome for Halloween but, went with a spider instead so, if we go with garden gnome this year I've now got the perfect hat. I think he will be more excited about wearing it once it's not 90 degrees...getting a picture was a bit tricky.

rainy day pouch

I finished up this rainy day pouch yesterday on a seriously rainy day. It was a longer process than usual because I had my Mom felt it and she didn't realize it can take a long time to felt and so she only worked on felting it once in a while over several months. Me...I would just do it in one day until it felted. She was funny though because she really doesn't get these sort of things and would keep bringing it to me to see if it was done. I would have felted it a little more but I didn't have the heart to tell her to do it again. It's pretty sturdy and I put a light blue flannel lining in after I embroidered. The embroidery which is done with my crewel embroidery yarn stash and wool felt was totally taken from this book.
I'm actually feeling really inspired by embroidering on top of yarn and currently have mittens on the mind and yes, I know it's Spring but, there were snow flurries this morning.
Lux - our overly needy boy cat decided he wanted in on the action with the above photo but here is a non-kitty cat photo for you too.

pretty storage & felt bead necklace

So, we 3 here have all been hit with the flu pretty bad.
I'm especially upset because I may have to cancel plans for this weekend. We are supposed to go see Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting with Srini and Anna and also get together with Alec, Gwynne and Mimi.
I'm praying for a speedy recovery. Being sick sucks.
I haven't had much time/energy for much other than this:




-a tape measure cover which rests on top of a velvet bag I made to store knitting patterns.

and this... an unfinished (no clasp yet) felt bead necklace.



Have a good weekend.
xoxo

mini - mini capelet

The capelet/shrug has revealed itself as a mini - mini capelet. It worked out great for a little one... 1-3 maybe 4 year old. I tested it out on Matty (almost 15 months) but I just couldn't take a picture of him in it. I think that might come back to haunt me when he is older. So, you need to imagine this on a little girl until I get a model. I'm telling you it is super cute. I added the little felted berries which I sewed to a wool branch and leaves I made and attached. The green ribbon tie finishes it off so nice but maybe I should cut it shorter? I'm already at work on another one in yellow right now.

Crewel Yarn

My ebay'd crewel embroidery yarn showed up last week. I didn't know what a lot of 51 would look like for some reason.
Sometimes you can't imagine these things. I am very pleased with the stash if only I had a good place to store it. My bedroom's hiding places are getting a little busty.
My first project with it was to embellish the second eyeglass case and so I did this.


A pretty simple design but, I like it.

I've another item to felt but, I'm not sure how to go about this in a stackable washer without water going everywhere. Any thoughts? I could go to the laundromat but, I think they might get mad at me checking the progress constantly. I've only done felting at my parents house so far.

In other news, on Saturday night I got really really sick and basically everything came up for about 2 hours straight. It was crazy and I'm still not feeling up to par so my usual energy is a bit slowed down at the moment. Boo hoo....

felted eyeglass case

This weekend I knitted up eyeglass cases in garter stitch and then felted them. I am really loving making up patterns these days.This one is made of a beautiful green/blue/yellow variegated 100% wool from the UK. It felts amazing and I had the wool on hand. I am really making efforts to use what I have. The applique is a ash leaf cut from a felted sweater. It is trimmed with a button and a ribbon to be used as the clasp and is lined with a burgandy cotton flannel (shown in the background) that matches the color of the leaf . I am going to list it on my Etsy shop today.

Sweaters Made Mini

Inspired by Emily
who was inspired by
Anthropologie


I made them too


but back in December. I admit mine do need some tweaking comparing them to the other 2. I'll have another go at this at some point. Some sweaters felted better. The dark green one never really took to the felting like the others. The wool was not as thick and that makes a difference I learned. Now that it feels like winter and I'm in a hibernating way it sort of showcases my mood of making tiny things while staying warm indoors. Little projects seem to be my thing these days although someday (hopefully this year) I will try my hand on a quilt. Currently. I have a few things in progress and I'm hoping to try crewel embroidery on two of them once I get the small stash I ebay'd in the mail.
Now off to work I go.

Winter Berries + Candy Gumballs

As, I was making these it occurred to me what my choice in color scheme had become...winter berries



and candy gumballs



I've been wanting to do these felted beads forever. It was one of those ideas that popped in my head, went away and just came back again. This happens a lot. It was a fun experience (ok my arms and shoulder are sore) and I see many more of these in my future. The possibilities for these are endless. It begins with wool roving and then you add warm water and dishwashing liquid and roll in your hand. Okay, it's not as easy as that but here is a tutorial if you are craving some of these in your life. I still need to scald and shock them. It sounds mean, right, but basically I need to put them in the colander, pour boiling water over them and then shock them with cold water...kind of like blanching vegetables. I have some good ideas for these up my sleeve.

xx

-It's snowing!