My friend Shannon is walking the Avon Breast Cancer Marathon on June 24th.  If you support breast cancer causes, I would encourage you to make a donation to her team, the “Denver Divas”.

To help her raise money and awareness, I made this PG-13 craft for her. Please click through to view it.  It is safe for work, but uses a slogan coined by my friend Jackson in his series of one-off car magnet ribbons may not be suitable for viewers under thirteen.

After all of NPR fundraising messages this week, I’m contemplating making one of these special crafts “as a thank you” to anyone who donates $100 or more to Shannon’s Team.  If anyone is interested in receiving this special craft offer, and if you would actually use it, please send me an email or reply with your email here.

Started last night on a recyled/creweling project. (Sorry I’ve been spelling CREWELING WRONG!) Can’t show any pictures yet, but I can complain about my transfer skills. Most embroidery patterns are transferred from the pattern to the medium (linen/cotton fabric) by a reusable iron-on pattern.

I was saddened to find that the pattern I wanted to incorporate did not come as an iron-on along with the kit. It is ok, I am trying to transfer it to a bulky dark red-orange silk/wool felted blend of fabric, so it wouldn’t have shown very well anyway!

Homemade gifts are always fun for me to receive, but I have to think twice about other people. I wouldn’t dream of giving crafts to some people because they don’t realize the amount of work or planning that goes into some particular gifts. Some people just think it is cheap. The intended recipient(s) have a very keen art sense and style, so I’m hoping it works out.

No pictures of that project yet, but here are some dome landscape pictures. I don’t know what these flowers are, but they are the first to come up after the crocuses:

aaaah, periwinkle! This is the mother patch for the transplants:

Finally, the redbud trees are about to explode:

Here is the first run of vinca minor transplanted to the bald corner of our back yard:

The periwinkle is dark green. Anything else in that picture that is green is either a planter or a weed. There is no grass there. I’ve got radishes in the half-barrel planter.

The fence in the background is either going to get treated or painted later this year. Not sure if stain works on dry gray wood.

Sorry I haven’t posted for a while.  Friday spent the night at Mahoney State Park, exit 426 (Nebraska I-80).   The cabins there are pretty much full-fledged houses, complete with heat, tv, and a full kitchen.

Went for a little hike Saturday, and didn’t get all of the way up the lookout tower because it was swaying pretty noticeably.

Sunday got a jump on spring lawn maintenance.   All of my pampass grass, blood grass, and zebra grass got a close hedgetrimming.  Evaluated how to deal with my rampant trumpet vines with my neighbor Barbara.  Transplanted some periwinkle from the front yard to the “bald patches” in the back yard.  I’ll have a picture or two of that later.

The one crafty thing I did: finish the “Birthday Wishes” crewel project by using the fusing to attach the linen to a birthday card.  The card is getting sent out tomorrow to a special lady with a birthday coming up!

There has been a request to post my new haircut too.  I’ll try to get this done tonight.

About 2 months ago, I started cutting up a felted sweater into a oblong purse shape. Since then many things have happened. My sewing machine needed a tune-up, I went on a plastics recycling craze, and considered 20 different embroidery ideas for this purse.

I took the sewing machine to the shop, and asked the kindly repair man for the “tune up” service, that they give for free to set up all of the machines they sell. What was wrong with it? It wasn’t sewing thick felt and jeans like I wanted it to. The man gave me the, “Well, DUH!” look. They suggested I had purchased a “toy” machine, and would have to purchase a $400 machine to get that sort of capability. I said, “just fix it”.

I came back a while later, and they had tested it on thick material (not felted sweaters, but two-ply denim and thin felt), and it had worked. I got my precious sewing machine home, and it cut through the thick felt like no other. Whipped out the rough construction for this purse:

After considering too many witty sayings, and after experimenting with the Birthday Wishes kit from woolandhoop.com, I decided to free-hand it. The pattern is a 1.5 x 3 inch rough eyeball of that design.

The handles are your-run-of-the-mill-craft-store-handles. I used embroidery floss to stitch in the handles. The purse is unlined because the sewing really turned out neat, and I like the pinked wrong-side edges. Finally for the finishing touch, the label:




Victory Garden 07 continues: The herbs are continuing to come up. Planted some lettuce and jalapeño peppers last night in planters (indoors). Called up my mother, and she says she has radishes ready to pick outside already. She also suggested just planting the lettuce directly into the ground now, or erm, tonight.

This is the time of year sweaters go on sale. My goal is to “harvest” natural fibers to recycle at $1/sweater at the most. I really want to work on some shibori techniques: tying/puckering/manipulating the wool so that it resists shrinking in parts. Here’s a before picture of a failed shibori attempt:





Tyrone has asked me to make some sort of arm-covers for his slowly disintegrating computer chair. Last night, I finally followed through. I took the arms off of the failed shibori sweater and eyeballed a pattern for the arms of the chair. Here is a top view:





The openings of the arms were hemmed together with a blanket stitch. There was a hole in one of the arms, so I used an eyelet hole stitch in orange to liven it up. Here is a writer-view:

Here is a side view:





Click on any of the thumbnails for a larger image.

Another knit from the past gets posted today! Are you noticing how much I really seem to enjoy green wool? I had no idea I was that predictable.

This entry takes us back to 2004, with the Debbie Bliss Noro Collection #1 Scoop Neck Cardigan (in Noro Silk Garden #71)

Found the keyboard biologist blog helpful while making this sweater. Yes, I went through quite a Noro obsession.

I found the pattern pretty easy, but interesting. The button band didn’t have any real instructions, so I ended up just finding tiny buttons that would fit through the holes in the crochet. They don’t hold very well sometimes, but this was my first experience with buttons. The neck sometimes gets a little wide and off of the shoulder, which is fine for me, but probably a little improper for someone from the east coast.

Holy ghost, Batman! I have no melanin in that picture.  The colors for the sweater and everything else are spot-on, so that must be my color.

Tonight: knitting with the girls at the dome.

Did so much this weekend, but not that much time to go over it all.

First a finished object:

This is the “Birthday Wishes” pattern from www.woolandhoop.com.

Started half of this pattern on the felted blue purse I’ve had in my reserves. Based on how that was going, felted 5-6 more sweaters. Working on a project for Tyrone; he needs the arm rests on his writing chair covered. I’m going to use some of those sweaters because the fabric is nice and thick.

Went to the peace rally on Saturday, and gave out every last Peace Cuff I made. It was such an overwhelming experience. I almost cried after hearing the speech made by vet mother, Susan Emanuel.

Wow, there is an entire summary up. Check it out!

After admiring Katherine Shaughenessy’s Crewling Kits at Wool & Hoop for years, I was inspired to order one after finding out she published a very cool looking how-to book.

I got mine in the mail a few days ago, and I’m right in the middle of the of the “Birthday Wish” project.  I’ve dabbled a bit with embroidery, but I’ve always been disapointed by how minute the detail was, and how slow-moving each project turned out.

With crewling,  the wool fiber stitching seems to be much more forgiving than any embroidery floss I have ever used.  The first project is done on linen, and with a special crewling needle. In this case, I think it really helped to have the proper tools.  The whole process seems to be moving along quickly.

Just to let you know, she’s having an awesome sale, where you can get her new book, the “Birthday Wishes” kit, everything you need to start your own project, and her wonderful 3-D crewling designs.   The book is a very interesting read, not only outlining technique, but history.  The second half of the book demonstrates multiple places to display your new crewling ability, including ides for lampshades, skirt/jeans embellishment, greeting cards, and other appliques.

Maybe I’ll post a picture of my progress this weekend.  Have a good green beer weekend, too!

More photos from the shoot this weekend so show off the backlog. Again, these aren’t my patterns. This is the Glampyre Mini-Sweater:

I didn’t do the triangle border. Still looking for a fun contrasting yarn.

So it is March Madness time. After years of coming close in the office pool, I’m not participating this year. When it comes to betting you’ve got to “feel” it to some extent. As with horse racing, I don’t bet every race just to bet a race. Already feeling the waves and waves of otherwise lost job productivity.

On that note, less than 2 months until live racing is back in Lincoln! Fifty days until the Kentucky Derby. It’s on Cinco de Mayo this year!