Projects Update

I think it's time to update my post from 9 Days Ago...

Projects:
Fish
Fuzzy Hats
Bear
Lace Scarf
Teased Wool


Planned Projects - (may be on the needles, or under needle for sewing, soon)
Felted Fish (for child 1, and maybe one for husband also?)
4 more bears and 2 more baby blankets
Another furry fuzzy hat (due by feb 28th - mailed before then of course)
A felted bunny rabbit
A project with my new yarn from yarn swap (maybe dyeing and spinning wool to go with it?)
Spinning more yarn to send off to my pal in February
6 more skirts
some handkerchiefs

The fish are done
The fuzzy hat (one in progress, and one planned) are both done





The bear is also done


The lace scarf - I haven't touched... maybe soon?

and the teasing of wool, well, I got enough teased to do this:


Yay! more wiltons dyeing. This, depending on how it spins up, will be used with my yarn swap yarn.


I also got to some sewing:




I currently am working on or still have to do:
finish spinning yarn for yarn swap (pictures sometime in February)
work on that lace scarf
maybe some more fuzzy hats if I find more fur yarn
2 more baby blankets and 4 more bears
my felted rabbit
Spin up that dyed yarn to use with my yarn swap yarn
4 more skirts
and some handkerchiefs

Felted Fish

The fish are now done... well, kindof, almost.. not technically, but...

Fish for child 2 before felting:




Same fish after felting:







And the fish for child 1 (Knit and Felted, but not stuffed or Eye-d):

Current Projects

I decided to check what's in the basket currently....



Felted Fish (for child 2)




Fuzzy hat for Boston Children's Hospital




Bear for green sweater



Lace Scarf




Teasing wool - [This list does not include the fibers I have been casually spinning as I am going to be teasing and dyeing - not spinning, except for my swap stuff which I can't show anyway right now.]




Planned Projects - (may be on the needles, or under needle for sewing, soon)
Felted Fish (for child 1, and maybe one for husband also?)
4 more bears and 2 more baby blankets
Another furry fuzzy hat (due by feb 28th - mailed before then of course)
A felted bunny rabbit
A project with my new yarn from yarn swap (maybe dyeing and spinning wool to go with it?)
Spinning more yarn to send off to my pal in February
6 more skirts
some handkerchiefs

Thank you!!

Like I said, I got the package from my spinning swap pal:



I'm, of course, excited about this - thank you!! I'm thinking maybe of a small purse? I'd mix in some of my own dyed and spun probably, I'm going to try to match the wpi of this yarn with maybe some yellow/orange/brown/white wool? I've got to think this through while I finish some of my current projects and get the wool teased and dyed.

Some Finished Objects

Here are a couple things that I have finished the past week:


The other green blanket



Home-Dyed and Spun Hat



New wool Dyed



(will insert picture after February)
...and a skien I am sending off for a spin swap.

Another Teddy Bear

It's that time again.. I think I will have a baby gift (some of which will be delivered at baby showers, some by the postal service) per month for the next 5 months.

Here is the bear that will go with the green cable blanket.




I also finished a very similar green cable blanket with the rest of that yarn, so I made two sweaters (before finishing the second blanket). Obviously I have some more bears to make soon...

Some Skirt Sewing

Last week I sewed a couple of skirts for the girls...





I sew skirts for them because they are both tall (like their father) and so by the time I buy a skirt and alter it, I might as well have spent some time (instead of money) and made them their own unique skirt (and matching scrunchy for their hair of course!)

Of course, my girls have decided that any day I let them wear a skirt is a GREAT DAY!!! So I have some material I was *given* (I just had to buy elastic) set aside. Now I just need to find some time to make... oh, three more each at least.

Swap time

I got my yarn from my swap buddy! Pictures of that... Works in progress.... and of finished objects.... tomorrow? or maybe monday! LOTS of things to show and I'm already mentally playing around with different patterns for my new yarn!

Another Excuse

I was about to blog. Really. And then just as I was snapping the last picture and about to move them to the computer, the batteries in the camera ran out of juice. And we have no more AA in the house. At least not any that are charged. So the charger is running, and maybe you can see a couple of things I've finished soon. Really.

Olive, Rosemary, and Rust

I've been experimenting with dyeing different colors - I didn't take pictures of the seperate colors, they were pretty much what I wanted. Now that it's being spun and balled up it looks a bit different - I'm waiting to see how it looks knit up.



The natural color is dyed with rosemary - just curious how that would work, since I have that in my garden. It did come out nicely - just a bit darker than pre-dyed. The olive and rust were dyed with wiltons and citric acid - all in the microwave, dyed and then carded.

A Different Baby Blanket

I think the baby boom is done - I just need to make some more bears to go with these last few blankets... This is yarn I pick up for it's washability while still being soft. One of those red heart or caron ones... and it's one of the patterns from knitting over the edge (or one of those books, i now have all three :) so it could be any of them) I think I have enough yarn to finish another one with a similar pattern.

Fun with I-cord

Here are the original I cord rugs. These were made for my two children to sit on and then kneel on each night when we have our family scripture and prayer time.



Then I made one for me, and one for my husband, as we discovered they made great places for everyone to sit in the (wood floor) living room when we want to play board or card games. Just as a note, the two adult ones are bigger, used much more i-cord, etc. I just didn't get a sense of scale in my pictures.




That last one that I made -- I just finished it recently. The fun thing is that I learned how to use a big home made nosepinne to wrap up a pretty center pull ball.



and then about 1/3 of the way done i had to rewrap it...

Why Stashes Exist

I personally have a small stash.

(For anyone who is actually reading this that is not a yarn person, a stash is your pile of yarn that is not currently being worked on)

There have been many posts lately in the blogs I read that have talked about stash reduction. My stash, small as I said, fills two plastic containers: one under the bed, and another larger one next to it. (This does not include my husband's personal stash - part of another under the bed container). However, when I wanted to do a bunch of test projects and some I-cord rugs, I had to borrow large amounts of ack yarn from my mother (who has a much larger stash than mine). I "borrowed" a big trash bag full of 100% ack - after all my fun it is down to a small grocery bag. Without a stash I would not have done these projects, it would just not have been worth buying *new* yarn....

I have also been trying over the past year or two to only buy blended yarns or 100% wool (except for specific projects), and to use up the rest of the ack in my stash. I am becoming a yarn snob. I think a lot of that has to do with me spinning more and really putting more thought and effort into each project (not that i didn't before.... but...)

With all the stash reduction posts and my own stash evaluation I have been really pondering the purposes and uses of the stash....

Good points about having a big stash:
- Inspiration

- Quick projects

Bad points about having a big stash:
- Storage

obviously the good out weighs the bad... the only problem is when it gets so big that you don't remember what you have, but i guess then you can just get excited about shopping in your stash again.