The shop is back in action!

The holidays are coming, and the CactusHead Studio Etsy shop is getting back in action! Keep an eye out for new listings of aprons, bags, other sewn items, sculptures, some supplies as I destash the studio, and other surprises! The new items will start popping up in the next week, but there are some nice things in the shop already. Have your eye on something already in the shop? Use coupon code oldfriend15 at checkout to get 15% off now through Thanksgiving.

Its the crafty time of year!

For me at least. My regular school year classes are ending, my summer hours and classes don't start until July, and so I have some time on my hands! I have puppets to make for our next show, but I am going to spend some of my time at home making things just for fun.
I finally picked up my shrug again this week, and it was much easier to get started again than I feared. I am knitting away, finishing up the ribbed border, and should have finished pictures to show soon!I joined a sock knitting group on ravelry with the goal of knitting a pair of socks per month too. I am sure I won't be able to keep up with that pace, but hopefully it will encourage me anyway!
I am also going to several weddings this summer, so I need to make some gifts. I am not sure what those will be exactly, but I have a little time to figure it out. Any suggestions, what do you like to give/get as a handmade wedding gift?

Oh!!! The garden needs to be started too! I planted peas already, but haven't done anything else yet, so more on that to come.

Cactus News!

So, this is my last week of teaching for the school year and I am really excited because that means I am going to have a lot more time to devote to my big summer project- a puppet show! My husband and I are putting on a puppet production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin in August, and it is our first full scale we are doing all ourselves as CactusHead Puppets. I will finally be getting my puppet blog up and going soon, and I will share pictures of the puppet building process and anything else related to the show there.

In other cactus related news, I went to a good friend's bridal shower last weekend and made her this knit cactus as a gift. I have a few I made for myself, and they are a lot of fun to knit, and of course very low maintenance house plants.

Spring!

Happy Spring everyone! I have today off, and I am going to go out and finally get my garden planted and enjoy the weather, but first I wanted to catch up posting my projects here!

This is the knitting package I sent my penpal Mercy for March/April. (I forgot to take a picture before I mailed it, so I used the one she took.) The theme of the package was a place you want to visit, and I chose England and included some crumpets and lemon curd along with the things in the picture. The teapot towel is double knit, so it is reversible. It was my first time doing double knit, and I liked the finished product, but it took me awhile to really get a hang of the technique.



This is the package Mercy sent me. It is spring themed, and I love how it all coordinates. The little knit bag is great, and I have been using the project bag to carry my knitting around with me. The little bundle tied with the ribbon is stitch markers, and I am very excited to have real stitch markers! I have been using paper clips, which works fine, but these are much nicer.

Finally I wanted to share a great recipe I made today. It is for homemade ginger beer, and it is amazing! I love ginger, and highly recommend it if you do too. I found it on the blog Lottie and Doof, which I also recommend. Everything I have tried from there has been excellent, and the photography of the food is beautiful.

My ginger beer and some fresh spring flowers-


I hope to have garden pics to share soon!

March- the washcloth month

Hello,

March has been a busy, but good month around here. Spring is finally here, and while I miss the prospect of having the unexpected day off for snow, I am very excited to get out in my garden soon!

This month has been spent knitting washcloths for my soon to be sister in-law's wedding shower. It was actually the first time I have made washcloths, and I was surprised at how fun it was. It is a great quick project to try out new stitch patterns.

I made these pig washcloths (she likes pigs)-




and these three with a tweed stitch pattern.




I found both patterns on Ravelry, and am looking forward to trying out some other patterns washcloth patterns they have in the future. For April though, I think I am going to make it my goal to finally finish that shrug!

Felted Flowers for February

Ok, the title of this post is a little silly, but I love alliterations, and I couldn't resist! Sorry I missed posting last week, but I've been working on my first package for my Ravelry penpal and I didn't want to post pictures until she got it so it would be a surprise. I decided to knit flowers for her, and I used this pattern for the flowers, but I didn't like the leaves it made very much. So, I used this pattern for the leaves.


Here are the leaves all felted and ready to go. I did all the felting by hand rather than in the washing machine, because I just find it easier.



Here is the flower all knit, but not rolled up or felted yet.



The flowers are rolled and ready to felt here.

The flowers after felting.

Here is everything all ready to assemble. I knit I-cord to cover dowel rods for the stems, instead of using knitting needles like the pattern calls for.

Penguin supervised the assembly, as she does with any projects that involves yarn and thread.


Complete!


Not much else to report. The shrug is coming along well. I am almost done with the chevron and ready to move into the second ribbing section, but I won't get it done this month like I hoped. Oh well. The next project I have lined up is knitting fun washcloths to use as wedding shower gifts, and I will post those as soon as I get started.