My First Sock!

I am pleased to announce that after a few months of starting, getting frustrated, and putting it a away for a couple weeks, I have successfully started knitting my first sock. Tada!


It is a great project to have right now since classes have started up again and I no longer have free day. It is so small I can easily take it with me and just work on it when I have a few free minutes.
In other exciting news, I am going to have a vegetable garden at my husband's parents' house this year (we have a great apartment, but no yard). I am going to start some seedlings inside soon, and hopefully the weather will be good this weekend so I can start getting the land ready. I can't wait for fresh vegetables!

Friday Favorites

Oops! I am a little late this week with my Friday Favorites post, sorry about that. This week's theme is picnicking. It is a beautiful day here today, and even if I can't spend the day outside, I can live vicariously through these lovely picnic items.



Very fun, and perfect for a picnic for one.
Harold the Lunch Monster- Green by OnesandZerosFashions



A great set- I especially love the thermos!
Picnic Set- Strawberries and Plaid by homespunheart



Every picnic needs these nice utensils.
Eco Friendly Flatware Set for Two by ponyup




Custom Oilcloth Picnic Set by chalkydoodles



and this wonderful print,
rabbit sandwiches with fancy mustard print by missbrigette

Friday Favorites

Hi all! Sorry I missed my usual Monday post, but I was sick with the flu and stuck in bed the first half of the week. I am feeling much better now though, and very excited about this week's Friday Favorites theme: Sasquatch!

I am fascinated by all sorts of myths, folktales and urban legends, and I am currently in the very early planning stages of a silly puppet show about Sasquatch and other cryptids. I have been doing a lot of reading about Sasquatch lately to get ideas, and while I am not quite a believer I do think it is the most likely of the crytpids, and is definitely my favorite. I was also very pleased to find a bunch of great Sasquatch inspired items on Etsy.


A sweet and kinda dopey stuffed Sasquatch by katiekylie.



Bigfoot in Space Pin by PearsonMaron, which is a great shop full of cryptids!
Pillows by brokesy.





I actually own and love this shirt by timberps, and love the rest of the shop too.



Very cute pin by LowmanJLL.

Friday Favorites

This is the first post in my new series: Friday Favorites. Every Friday I am going to share five of my favorite items on Etsy that fit a certain theme I pick for the day.

This week it feels like spring is finally coming, and I have spent a lot of time day dreaming of warmer weather and light airy dresses- my favorite spring wardrobe choice. These five dresses are from some of my favorite Etsy shops, and are exactly what I want to be wearing this spring.



I love the neckline and pleated skirt on this dress from Omtagning. Too bad it is not my size.

I have had my eye on this one from niceface for a loooooong time. It looks like the perfect everyday dress, and it comes in lots of colors too!

I love pretty much everything in her shop, but this dress by missbrache is the one that feels most like spring to me.

I admit it, I love tutus. They are so much fun to wear. This dress by ouma is my new dream tutu.


This dress by janebonbon might be my favorite of all. The craftsmanship looks amazing, and I love that she makes such a wide range of sizes.

Snowy Monday 2

Ugh. This Monday was pretty much the opposite of last Monday in every way. Unlike last week, yesterday's snow was mostly slushy sleet and freezing rain. I also didn't actually have the day off, because I had to go into work for First Aid training. The instructor was confusing, intimidating, and gave lot of extraneous information, which made the whole experience pretty awful. Luckily it was just a refresher course, because I don't think I would have gotten anything if I didn't have some prior knowledge. Then I also had to run errands in the slush after work. Grumble. Grumble. Grumble.

Anyway, even though yesterday was a let down, I do have some stuff to share that I have been working on through out the week. I have been experimenting with different kid safe ways to dye wool for my felting class, and I made a couple of natural food based dyes to test. Basically I boiled the food or spice to get the color, added vinegar and a little salt, and then let the wool sit over night in the dye.

Red Cabbage


Beets


Paprika


Tea


I have tea dyed before, and liked the way it worked with the wool. I also got good results with the beet dye and paprika, but couldn't get the red cabbage dye to penetrate the wool. It just kept washing out when I rinsed it. Not sure what I did wrong, or if maybe red cabbage just doesn't work well without a mordant to set it. Oh well.

I brought the dyes I made (minus the cabbage) into class, and had the kids make some kool-aid and vinegar dyes. The kool-aid dyes were nice because they were something that could be totally made in class even though we don't have a stove, and you can make nice vibrant colors. Here is all the dyed wool drying.




And here are my dryed felt bowls from last week, all ready to be decorated with the new colored wool!

A Snowy Monday

So yesterday I woke up to about 8 inches of snow on the ground, which caused quite a bit of shifting around of travel and work schedules and such. So, to make a long story short I stayed home yesterday instead of going to my studio to make things simpler. I did get lots of great creative stuff done at home though, and thoroughly enjoyed my snowy day off.

First of all, I made nice leisurely breakfast, which I think is truly the best part of a day off. I made scrambled eggs with onion and spinach, and then mixed it together with some rice for a sort of breakfast, faux fried rice thing. It was very tasty.


My big project of the day was to make my first ever wet felted bowl. One of the new classes I am teaching is a felting class, and while I have done lots of needle felting I have only done small wet felting projects and wanted to try a few things out to use in my class. I have looked at several books about wet felting, and also watched this tutorial for making felted slippers online yesterday before I started. The tutorial is a little long, but it was great to actually see the process in action. I used basically the same technique as in the tutorial, but made this round template instead of the slipper shape.


Here is my felt covered template after rubbing it between the bubble wrap.


And this is the hole I cut to make the opening of the bowl and allow the template to be removed.


I then took it over to the sink and felted it to the fulling stage. I didn't have a wash board or anything, so I just rubbed in my hands with some textured rubber gloves. It did come out a little lumpy as you can see, I think my layers of wool were not as even as they could have been, but not bad for a first try. Let me know if you have any other tips on making my next one smoother.


I then stuffed it with plastic bags to hold its shape while it drys.


I think I will decorate it with needle felting too, to show how the two techniques can be used together. I am really enjoying that teaching this class gives me a reason to try some new things that I wouldn't always have time for otherwise.

I also got a chance yesterday to give my orchid a nice soak (which is how I learned they like to be watered). My husband got it for me for Valentines Day, and it is beautiful. I love plants, but I can be a forgetful waterer, so I pretty proud it is still alive and doing so well.