Mission Update

Huh, it's been a bit more than a week since my first post about my mission to clean out my craft room.... like a week and a YEAR! But have no fear! I am still working on cleaning out my craft room, so don't worry, you didn't miss too much. I did spin up that fiber I had a picture of, I've even knit it into socks! More on that later though.

This week as part of my "Clean up the craft room" mission I have decided to designate 1 day for each craft.

Monday was weaving, so I warped up my loom with the same warp that I was working on last year! Yes, I actually did get that warp onto the loom last year just like I said I would, but I did it wrong! I was SO upset!! So, I wove 2 towels that were not what I wanted, cut them off and finished them, and waited a year to re-warp! Yes, I would surely do it correctly this time right? Um, not so much. I did it wrong again! But different! So, I will now finish weaving about 8 towels "wrong". They'll still be woven, and they'll still be towels, but they will not be the weave I was going for. I will try for waffle weave towels on another warp. At least this time I know what I did wrong, and what I should do instead. This warp will still make some cool looking' towels anyway, just not the ones I was going for. It will be fine.

Tuesday (today) was sewing day. I FINALLY cleaned off my sewing table!!!! And when I say "cleaned off" I don't mean that I just moved everything that was on it off of it. I mean, I finished all of the projects that were just sitting there waiting for me to finish them! There were a lot of them too! You can't see it in my previous post, but there was a largish pile of stuff just sitting on the sewing table waiting to be fixed or finished. Here's a not-too-great picture of my sewing corner b-4 I went to town on the pile in the middle of the sewing table.

So yeah, see that pile of stuff falling over in between the sewing machine and the serger? That's the pile I'm talking about. It's now all finished, functional, presentable stuff now. Here's a picture of the finished pile.

You can't see it all, but in this pile there are 3 finished outfits for a little girl, 3 scarves, a baby dress, a rag quilt, a table runner, 3 pair of PJs, 7 pair of pants/shorts, a vest, a cub scout shirt and a dress that were all in various forms of needing repairs, or finishing that are now done! :) Oh, and a few things came from the red bin under the sewing table. Yep, that's my next task, to empty that bin. Here, you can see it a little better in this picture of my table after finishing all this.

Hmmm, so the bin doesn't show all that well, but look at all that cleared off space! :) And now my kids will have plenty of shorts to wear this summer!

Wednesday I think I'll be working on some miscellaneous crafts that I don't work on very often, and don't have tons of things for. It should be interesting to see how much of those I get done. I'm almost certain most of them never got finished because I thought they were taking too long.

Thursday I will be making cards! I have over 100 cards to make from card kits I've bought over the last year or 2, and I can't use them because I haven't made them. I'm hoping to finish all the cards!

Friday I will either make hair accessories because they make such great gifts for my girls to give at birthday parties, or card up some fiber. Maybe I'll do both!

This should make a good sized dent in the mess in my craft room. And then I will resume my regular activities that generally consist of knitting a lot, cleaning and cooking a little, and conducting sock experiments!

And I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, or has ever read my blog, or seen the pictures of my craft room, but I have acquired more yarn! I knit up quite a bit too though! So it's all good.

Until next time... good night.

I want an iPad

Yeah, that's what this post is about. I would like an iPad, and I happen to have found a blogger giving one away. Here is a link http://buylikebuffett.com/giveaways/win-an-ipad-amazon-gift-cards-and-a-starbucks-gift-card/ and I want to win it. Wouldn't that be cool! Just think of all the knitting patterns I could cary around with me on it! Cross your fingers for me!

A woman on a mission!

Yes, it has be 7 1/2 months since I last updated my blog, but NOT because I have not been crafty. Just the opposite in fact. I have been busily crafting away. So far this year I have knit and crocheted 5 afghans for my kids for Christmas (bonus points for finishing Christmas gifts so soon!), 5 sweaters for me, 4 pair of socks, some slippers, a few bags, spun a bunch, sewn a little, scrapbooked a little, started warping my loom, and probably some other stuff I can't think of. I will have to share those things with you later though, because this blog is not about those projects.

This blog is about my mission. That's right! I'm on a mission to clean out my craft room!! Why? Because it's too full of stuff, and it's overwhelming me! I work better in a space that is less cluttered, more organized, and that doesn't have more stuff in it than I feel I can use in my life time. Some time ago I posted pics of my craft room. I have only acquired MORE stuff since then! Lately I have been spending a lot of time organizing my room, and trying to find the open space that I used to have and guess what I discovered? It's not there! It's gone! I filled it up with stuff! No, I really can move around in here, and get to things (I've been organizing it afterall), but there's only so much organizing that can be done to create space before you have to just start taking things out. That's the point I am at. The only way to have more space in here is to have less stuff. But I can't just throw it all out. I have to use it. Odd how it is so quick and easy to buy stuff, but using it up takes much longer. Anyhow, let me share with you what I'm attempting to do.

Here is a picture of most of my yarn and fiber. I know many people have more, but I want all my crafting supplies to fit into this closet, and they don't!

See! Here's the fabric (well most of it anyway). I have had much of this fabric since high school. I won't mention how long that has been, but it was well before I had kids, and I now have a 10 year old.
See, here's more stuff! Fiber, yarn, dyes, fabric, scrapbooking supplies (not even close to most of that!) This is what I'd like to use up in the more immediate future. Well, not the handspun yarn (upper right corner) it's welcome to hang around as long as it likes. So, what I have decided to do in order to accomplish this mission I am on is to spend less time online, and more time crafting. And hopefully I will rememeber to share with you each week or so what I've been able to do.

To begin with, this week I would like to finish warping my loom. I wound this warp in December! Started trying to get it onto my loom some time after that, and here it sits still waiting for me to finish getting it warped so I can actually weave! So, the weaving goal for this week is to get the loom warped!

Then there are my spinning and knitting goals. This week I would like to finish spinning this fiber, and knitting these socks, and maybe this shawl (the shawl is white, socks are purple).

Oh yeah, and I have some sewing goals this week too. I didn't take a b-4 pic of that, but I am working on some summer outfits, and I would like to finish sewing them up this week.

Wow! That sounds like a lot! But maybe if I'm not wasting time online I will get more done than usual.

See you next week to let you know how it goes!

La-la-la-la-la

Ok, so I didn't update anything in July when I was ever so busily crafting the month away, nor did I update in August when I had finished crafting away, not did I update in September when I also was not crafting the month away. So, I guess now's as good a time as any to show you what I have been up to since my last post.

July was the Tour De Fleece which corresponded with the Tour De France. It's a fun event for spinners to participate in on Ravelry :) The riders spin and we spin. I had a LOT of spinning planned out for this and I did a lot of spinning even though I did not get through all the fiber I had hoped for. First I finally finished this lovely alpaca/merino yarn that I'd been planning on for a LONG time! It's a 3-ply worsted weight for which I plan to knit a lovely and warm cabled sweater. I wish I had finished it already because it's getting cold and I could use it!
Then I spun this beaded black turquoise yarn. I don't know what to do with it yet, but I love beaded yarn!

Then I spun up this lovely purple merino yarn that I then plied with metallic thread. It's so soft and sparkly!

And on the challenge day (I know know what the riders in France do, but I guess they have some sort of challenge) my personal challenge was to spin a mile total for the day. Plying counted too! And I made it! It took me all day, especially with the interruptions from the kids, but here is a lovely soft mile of merino. I think this'll be a sweater too.

Then I spun this lovely superwash merino into a 2-ply sock yarn.

And here are the fruits of my labors. I think there is about a total of 2400 yards here, and about 40 ounces (2.25 pounds)! I'm pretty proud of this collection!

But wait, there's more! July was also the month for WIPs wrestling on Ravelry, and seeing as how I am just a glutton for punishment and always seem to have too many projects going I joined this too! Unfortunately I didn't finish very many WIPs (works in progress) because I was spinning a LOT! But one project that I did get knit up was this pair of socks. They're knit from my very first hand spun sock yarn, and I love how they turned out! You may recognize this yarn from a much earlier post if you've read my blog much. I really do love these socks!

Then I knit these socks for my oldest daughter. You see, during the summer my kids needed things to do, so I had a "craft day" every Monday, and for one of these craft sessions I let the kids hand-paint some sock yarn for me to knit socks for them with. This is her yarn and these are her socks which she loves to wear. The also make it through the washer quite nicely. Thank goodness because I don't' even hand wash my own socks, I'm not about to start hand washing kids' socks!

And then I finally finished this lovely camisole. :) This was so fun to knit because I just loved the yarn I made it with. It's the new Spa yarn by Caron. There's bamboo in it! I LOVE bamboo!

And then I was all out of month! July was over! How could that be? I was having such a great time, and just starting to feel productive! Um... so I kept on crafting anyway. I started this yarn b-4 the Tour De Fleece ended, but didn't finish, so I decided to finish it. This yarn is also a superwash merino (washable wool) sock yarn, but I spun this one into a 3-ply yarn because I hear that a 3-ply is more durable than a 2-ply, and I want to test this theory out. So I have several more sock yarns planned to spin in the future. I'll let you know how the testing goes when I have results to share.

And then I knit these socks. I did not spin or dye this yarn. I WON it! :) It was my prize for winning the drawing for the socks-from-the-toe-up knit-a-long that I'll be participating in on Ravelry for the next 2 years. I really love these socks!

Hmmm... Knit-a-long seems to be a running theme with me. This sweater was also part of a knit-a-long. I didn't spin or dye this yarn (well I did dye the top part, but not the stripey part), but I did knit this sweater. It's quite warm, which is a good thing because I don't like to be cold, and it's getting cold. I need more sweaters!

Then September held for me the Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair. :) A lovely little fair held in Utah. I got some lovely fiber (that I do not have pictures of), and a cute little spindle from Greensleeves.
And then I was also able to squeeze in this pair of socks (recognize the yarn?). I love pink/brown, and they're ever so cozy.

There you have it folks! This is what I've been up to in my craft studio in between feeding and cleaning up after the kids since my last post. Guess what's on the needles now? Yeah socks, how'd you guess? They're gonna be great! Just wait and see!

SO far behind!

Ok, I must apologize for being such a lazy blogger lately! Sorry! I didn't realize that I haven't posted anything since APRIL! That was a long time ago! So here's a real quick update on my craftyness of late. I have some exciting plans for July, so I'd better get caught up in hopes of not getting behind in July.



I finished this little bear. Isn't he cute? I'm not really sure what to do with him yet. I think I might just let him sit in my craft room and knit him some accessories once in a while.


I spun this family of yarns. Though the one 2nd in from the right has moved on to a new home. I'm thinking of spinning another one that is similar though. It is truly missed from the family.
Then I spun this yarn.
And knit this sweater (it now has real buttons). I pretty much love it.

I also knit this blanket for twin A. I finished twin B's baby blanket b-4 they were born, and started on this one (in a totally different pattern), but then they were born 5 weeks early and I ran out of time. So the poor little guy had to go on without a hand knit blankie from mom until he was 2! But luckily he LOVES it! :)
I also knit this little hat for my niece who has had to stay in the hospital for WAY too long. Poor girl. I think pink is certainly her color!

And in June so far I have knit these socks.

And these socks.

And I finally finished this shawl which will be a Christmas gift for my 4yo daughter to use as a fancy shmancy dress up. But it's made with leftover acrylic yarn from DS's blanket so it's machine washable! :) And I like it so much I'm posting 2 pictures!

Tune in again next time to see what crazyness I've gotten myself into!

Betcha didn't know...

What I've been up to lately huh?

Well, I spun this on a spindle. It's 2 ounces of nylon. I bet you didn't now there were people who spin nylon into yarn huh? Well I did. It was fun. I think that I will dye this up one day and knit something for the kids. Though I haven't decided what I'll make yet. So until then it'll sit in my handsup stash looking pretty.
And I knit this hat. It'll be a Christmas gift for one of my girls I think. Go me!! I've started on Christmas gifts early for what my be the first time ever! Ahhh... It feels good! ;)
And it being Easter last week and all I just had to dye up some Eastery yarn. I call this "Have your peeps call my peeps" :) hehe

And this one is called "Jelly beans"

And this one is "Smells like peeps spirit" hehehe

And I knit this felted bag which I finished while watching general conference the week b-4 Easter.

And I finished these felted slippers just b-4 that. They're knit with some of my own hand dyed yarn in the "Pink Lemonade" colorway. They make my feet happy!

And I spun this yarn. It's 100% tussah silk in the natural honey color. I just LOVE it!!!! Tussah is SO fabulous to spin and knit with!! It's SOOO very soft too! :) I like to look at this one and pet it as it sits in my stash.

And this morning I finished this hoodie for my older DD. Though now it's too warm for her to wear it, so I think I may save it and give it to her when school starts again in the fall. She doesn't really have a jacket with a hood right now. So I think it'll be perfect for her when it starts getting cold again.

On to the next project! I've got TONS of them in the works!! I have them all sitting out on a table in my craft room. It's overflowing! I've gotta clear it off one FO (finished object) at a time. Maybe I'll show you a pic of my table later. Maybe. Have a great day!

Bet you wish you had a pair just like 'em huh?

I have just finished a fabulous pair of socks!! I'm just sure it'll start a new sock trend. But not only are these socks fabulous, they are 8 years old already, and have only been worn once! Well ok, technically they have not even been a completed pair of socks for a full day, but I did start them at least 8 years ago! Yeah, I know it's crazy to let a project sit around like that for so long, but I have a good reason!



Ok, here's the story: When my oldest daughter (who is about to turn 9) was a baby I decided to start crocheting a pair of socks for my friend who I worked with because she loved socks! I bought a crochet sock pattern book, borrowed a hook from my mom, and started on them with some yarn that my mom said I could have. Well, I was not very good at crocheting at that point in my life, so it took me a long time to do the little bit that I did. I also was not any good at reading a crochet pattern. I got confused too easily. Then there is the fact that I had a baby! Babies take a lot of time and attention! So, when I put the project down it was almost immediatley forgotten. Luckily for me I have had the oportunity to rearrange my crafting supplies many times, and even move ALL of it around from apartment to apartment, from house to house, and even from room to room in my current house. Thus, no craft project of mine has had a chance to be forgotten for long. I have had the opportunity to run across many unfinished projects through all these moves and rememver them. This has helped me to finish several OLD projects (that butterfly quilt, the sweater that took 6 years, there are others). This time it was the socks turn! Though I have lost touch with my friend that I started them for, so I finished them for me, and just in time too because my slippers had fallen apart, and my feet were tired of being cold! So, anyway when I started these socks I had no idea how to figure out how much yarn would be needed for a project, I just looked at a skein of yarn and thought, "Socks are small, I'm sure this is enough." Um... well, I was wrong! LOL!!! So, I ended up with 1 1/2 socks before I ran out of yarn! But seeing as how these are for wearing around the house I decided to just finish them anyway with whatever partly used skein of yarn I could finc so I could just get them done! And as it just so happened, today I finished them! And so, without further delay I will show you all a picture of these lovely socks that I just know you are on the edge or your seat to see. I call them fraternal twin socks!


Aren't these fun?! I mean who else has a pair just like them? Certainly nobody I now. And they are currently keeping my feet happy and warm. Now, admit it. They're cute! And you know if you'd taken 8 years to make socks like this you'd love them to! :)

Look! A hat!

Ok, so in February I participated in this totally crazy knit-a-long on Ravelry where I attempted to cast on a new project each day in February. Crazy huh? I mean, I hardly ever have more than 2 or 3 WIPs (works in process) at a time. Well, I didn't actually cast on one each day, but some days I cast on 5! So, yes I now have 30 WIPs sitting in the middle of my craft room floor just waiting for me to get to them! Granted it's a pretty pile, but still, 30!? And I finished 3 of the things that I cast on! But it sure was fun even though it was totally crazy! And the benefits are that now when I want to knit something all I have to do is pick something up and work on it, there's also plenty to choose from, and when they're all done I'll have at least a year's supply of hand knit socks! Oh yeah, and I'll get a few gifts out of this as well. Wanna see what I finished?

The first FO (finished object) was a pair of mittens for my 6 yo (soon to be 7) son.

The next FO is a hat for me! :) Isn't it pretty? Won't it look nice on me next winter when it gets cold again? Well I like it!

And then there's this scarf. It'll be a gift for one of my girls for Christmas this year.


If I get brave enough, one day I'll take a picture of all these WIPs in the middle of my craft room floor, but right now I'm too afraid of them to pull them out of their bags all at once. I fear they will either attack me, or that they will get all mangled up with each other, and I'll never get them apart, and all my time spent casting them on, and picking out patterns will have been a waste. Um... I think we're all safer if they all stay where they're at for now.

I'll be back with some sort of FO from that scary pile hopefully one day soon. :)

What kind of 1930's spouse are you?

Ok, this was a funny quiz I found on a friend's blog. I was rather shocked to see my score at the end. Apparently as a 1930's wife I'm "Very Superior" hehehe. Ok, just had to share. Take the quiz it's fun!

94 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Superior Take the test!

Free hat pattern!

Well, I've had to improvise a hat pattern because I couldn't find just what I wanted. So I figured since I went to all the trouble of figuring it out I'd share it with you here! :) So here's a FREE pattern! I call it Sweet Pea Ear Flap Hat.

Notes:
This hat is worked flat, and then seamed closed on top.


Sweet Pea Ear Flap Hat

Gague: 32 sts x 33 rows=4" in 2x2 rib
Needles: US 6 / 4.0mm
Yarn: Bernat Baby Coordinates, Strawberry Stripes


CO 82sts
work in k2, p2 rib until hat is 8 1/2" long
slip 41 sts onto 2nd needle, fold hat in half, and using a 3rd needle of same or smaller size bind off hat using 3 needle bind off.


Ties:
cut 3 pieces of yarn 36" long, thread them all through the corner of the hat, fold in half, and braid using 2 strands held together. Tie a knot in the end.

Weave in ends and you're done!

It's DONE!

So WAY back in the middle of June I "met" a lovely person in a chat room who dared me to knit a shawl from laceweight handspun yarn. I thought she was a nut! I'd never spun laceweight yarn, and I'd never knit a shawl. Laceweight yarn is REALLY thin! I wasn't sure I could spin that thin without breaking my yarn constantly in the process. But it did sound like a great challenge. So, while I sure took my sweet time about getting it done (5 months!) I began the journey anyway. I pulled out some tussah silk (lovely stuff!), and merino wool (also VERY lovely stuff!) from my stash, and divided it out, and dyed it in varying shades of blue. I was going for a blue shawl that would get darker as it went down, so I started with a rather light blue, and gradually got darker.Then I carded it up into these batts. I had 5 batts to begin with, but the first yarn ended up too thick, so I didn't use the first skein. This had me worried about whether I'd have enough yardage for my shawl or not. But I figured it would be close, but that I should still have enough yarn with just the 4 batts, so I continued spinning, and spinning, and spinning.
And came up with these 4 lovely balls of laceweight handspun hand dyed yarn. These are pretty true to the actual color :) Then I cast on for a lovely shawl called "Laminaria" that I got from knitty.com. And I knit, and knit, and knit, and just when I thought I would never really have a shawl, I would just be knitting with this yarn forever...
I finished! Yay! I know it looks kinda funny, and not real lacey at all, but this is when I got to have a lesson in blocking. I don't really knit a lot of things that actually NEED to be blocked, but this lace shawl definately needed it! So, I went on a rustproof pin hunt, and found them at JoAnn's. Came home, and blocked my shawl. So now not only am I much less afraid of blocking my knitting, but...
I have this lovely lace shawl! And I had PLENTY of yarn!! I suspect I may have enough left over for another shawl, maybe a much smaller one, but still, that's a lot of leftover yarn considering the fact that I was worried about running out b-4 I finished. Though I'm also thinking maybe the rest will be a scarf, or some sort of other item. Anyhow, I'm so happy with this shawl! And I plan on wearing it out to dinner this Friday for my 10Th wedding anniversary.
If I had to estimate how long this took me to dye, blend, spin and knit I'd have to guess it was somewhere around 102 hours! With 85 of those all being knitting! And I'm not kidding! There are about a zillion stitches in this thing, and some of them are far more complicated than just knitting. But that's why I like knitting it! Never a dull moment! I should've weighed it b-4 posting this. I wonder how much it actually weighs? I'll have to check on that and get back to you. Have a great day! :)