Sometimes, you just gotta take a break from life and lounge around! 

But no lazy day would be complete without some knitting and spinning! (and plenty of Blue's Clues on Netflix)

Izzie will be 1 year old on June 2nd! We can't believe our little bug has been here for almost a year! I'm working on a little redheaded Poppy doll for her birthday. I've been calling her Ruby. I'm considering knitting up a big stockinette swatch with the orange yarn for her hair and then frogging it out so she would have kinky, curly hair as a few others on Ravelry have done.

It means so much to me that I can give her gifts that were made by mom especially for her. I hope these things will be very special to her as she grows older.

I've finally been able to get back into dyeing wool. Some of it is up in my etsy shop, but of course a few braids always get sidetracked to my spinning wheel.

This one was dyed around Easter time. I was feeling the pastels, yo. I always love the novelty yarns plied with thread - it reminds me of Ramen noodles. Unfortunately thread is way more expensive than Ramen!

 And a bright two ply on some Polwarth wool. This one was dyed with the inspiration of Dorothy's slippers on the yellow brick road in the Wizard of Oz, but the red didn't turn out right, more of a coral color. Fire engine red was out of stock the last time I ordered dye, and boy is it hard to get a normal looking red from Fluorescent Fuchsia and Deep Magenta! (Duh! I didn't even realize that I didn't have the fire engine red until I started dyeing this. Oops.)

The next braid ready for my wheel. I just dyed this BFL up on Tuesday night, it was kind of a random application of a bunch of colors I had leftover from some other braids.

Time to get spinning while the wee one naps!

Handmade Christmas Gift Roundup

Phew! I am finally done with all my planned handmade Christmas gifts.

This year, I ended up doing as much sewing as knitting since I have a new machine and it tends to be much faster than knitting.

I had Christmas colored yo-yos made that were hanging out in a bag in my craft area, so I strung them together and hot glued some tiny clothespins on the back. Voila, a lovely garland for my mother-in-laws' mantle that she can hang christmas cards from. Excuse the 6 identical cards of my daughter that I used as an example. You'd think I'd have cards from some other people hanging around by now but I guess I was on top of mine this year!


I made 6 of these wonderful hot/cold therapy packs from the tutorial at Elm Street Life. These were quick and easy to make and in addition to being cute as heck they are very functional! I also ordered several bars of soap from Luxsoap on Etsy to include with some of these gifts.


Last time we visited South Dakota, my mom asked for a hat to match her winter coat. Whaddaya know....I had handspun yarn in my stash that matched her coat exactly. I used the super cute 'Big Bulky Bucket Hat' pattern from Leethal. I think she will love it!

My family often does gift exchanges at our Christmas get together. Rather than spending the money on a store bought gift, I made an extra therapy pack, threw in one of the bars of soap and crocheted a quick bath puff.

My sister-in-law is a professional photographer, so I was thrilled when I found this tutorial on Sew Mama Sew for this cute camera strap cover. My husband often helps her shoot wedding and large sessions so I know for a fact that she has trouble when having to go searching through her camera bag for extra cards for the camera. This strap cover is perfect because it has a little pocket on the bottom where she can keep her bits and pieces during a shoot.

My dad and his girlfriend are very outdoorsy, and they love the hats I make them. Nikki loves orange, so I made her a Calorimetry out of some orange handspun.

And a cabled, ear-flap style snowboarding hat for dad.

I've made these hats for my two Minnesotan nieces and my daughter, so I whipped two up for my niece and nephew in South Dakota. These are SO easy to make, and the square shape makes it look like kitty ears when worn.


And that is everything! Oofta! Time for baking day with my sister in law on Monday then I am totally ready to relax and enjoy the holiday.

Neglect and cormo

My poor blog has been quite neglected the past few years as I have gone through some big events in life; marriage, pregnancy, and this little lady!
Isabel Victoria (aka Izzie) is 5 months old now, and she's just the best baby ever. We are so thankful to have her in our lives.

She is starting to get better about amusing herself when I am home with her on my days off, so I'm finally back to getting some crafty things done! First up today, I worked on some box bags that I sell on my etsy store. I bought tons of Amy Butler fabric before I was pregnant and I'm slowly working my way through it all. I've been working on fine tuning my method for making these bags so they are a dimension I like. I'm hoping to put up a tutorial soon.

Then, wool!

I've had this big 'ol bag of gorgeous cormo wool for over a year now, so I decided it's at least time to make sure all the lanolin gets washed out of it. This is harder than it sounds, as cormo is chock full of the stuff and it does not want to leave! With the help of Ravelry, I think I've got it down now. The secret ingredient? Ammonia.

This is what I do to wash my cormo fleece:

I wash my wool in the sink in small batches and use one of the little plastic bins with holes in the side for washing. This allows water into the container, and enables you to drain the water out by just lifting the bin out of the water. You can also put a larger amount of wool in mesh laundry bags or tulle and use a top-loading washing machine. I use the washing machine method on less greasy wools, but it just wasn't cutting it for the cormo.

I pile 4-5 layers of locks inside my basket for washing. Then I fill my kitchen sink up with hot water and some dish soap. I use generic soap which is pretty basic. You just need to make sure that if you are using dawn or other brands that there are no 'enzymes' as these can affect the integrity of the wool.


When the sink is full, I slowly lower my basket into the water. I use a rubber glove or spatula to VERY GENTLY push the wool down into the water to ensure all the locks are soaked. I let the wool sit in the sink for a few minutes, then drain the water from the sink and lift the bin out to drain the water. Then I refill the sink again with soapy water for another wash cycle.

During this second wash cycle, I add just a splash of ammonia. It stinks to high heaven, be prepared :)

After draining the second wash cycle, I do two rinse cycles without the soap. During the first rinse cycle, I add another tiny splash of ammonia. During the second, a glug of vinegar. This balances the pH of the ammonia. I've never had any lingering odors left over from either the ammonia or vinegar, either.

Then I drain and dry the wool. Laying it on a towel on the floor near a fan works well, but I will often take my laundry drying rack and secure a mesh laundry bag to it as a drying surface. This allows air to reach under the wool too.

The ammonia really is the trick. Without it, I was left with wool that was clean, but still felt greasy from the lanolin and was kind of yucky to spin. Now my cormo is gorgeous, clean, soft, and grease-free! My favorite way to spin it is straight from the lock.

My batch for today is dry - I think I'll go spin some now while the baby is asleep!

5 months later...

I know, I know. 5 months without blogging? Shame on me. I've been really busy...I promise!
Well first, we obviously got married on May 2nd.
The wedding was in my hometown of Spearfish, SD. I'd really forgotten how gorgeous it is there. This pic was taken in Spearfish Canyon, in front of Bridal Veil Falls. We had two weeks at home after the wedding to get packed, and headed out on our honeymoon. We blogged about it here.

As a wedding gift, my grandma presented me with a vintage sewing machine which my grandpa had bought for her shortly after they were married. It's a 1963 Singer Slant-o-matic, aka 'Rockette' for the streamlined shape.
Since I've used a sewing machine once in my life (when I was 12 with help from mom!) I've mostly been playing with scrap fibers just to learn everything that the machine will do, and trying to sew straight lines! This machine is really a workhorse. My grandma really only used it for hemming and repairs, and had it serviced before giving it to me, so it's practically like brand new.

I've made a couple of really cute little drawstring bags to hold my projects. I love shoving my knitting into my purse, but I hate getting my keys or other things caught. I also wanted to make these because now that we're watching our nieces, it's hard to be knitting around them if I'm up chasing after them, getting snacks/bottles/bubbas, etc, so it's awesome to have my yarn in the bag with the cord around my wrist...I can knit when they're content, and run around with my knitting still with me, not having to worry about a 2-year old accidentally pulling it apart.
And of course, I've been doing my Christmas knitting like a good girl. I started in late August, and have a few things to show for it.
First is a shawl I knitted for Rick's grandma. She gave me this vintage baby yarn, saying she couldn't crochet with it because it was too thin for her to work with. So I dyed it her favorite color, and set about to knit her a shawl. (Pattern is Gail/Nightsongs) Grandpa is in the final stages of Alzheimers, so I thought gramma might like something special. Every time I completed a pattern repeat, I had Rick say some prayers for her. He'll write about it in her card, and I think it will be really special for her.

The second finished gift is for my mom. Last time she was here we were discussing knits, and she mentioned that she would really love a looong rectangular stole to wrap around her. I improvised an entrelac shawl in Paton's SWS and it turned out phenomenally. The colors are perfect for mom's skin tone, and I can just see her rockin this with a white shirt and some jeans. She'll probably receive this at Thanksgiving when we'll be in SD, since we'll be in MN for Xmas.
We finally got a Christmas tree, so I've also been stash-busting with some teeny tiny mitten ornaments...aren't they the cutest!?!
Another stash-buster, I had a skein of Misti Alpaca Laceweight in my stash, and this seemed like the perfect pattern for it. It's the Qiviuk Webs scarf from interweave knits. Of course it looks crappy right now since it's unblocked, but this yarn is so freakin soft you'd never care. I have no one specific in mind to give this too, but I'm sure I'll think of someone. (Or keep it if I'm feeling selfish.) So, there! I have been busy. And now I'm off to watch some awesome ghostly halloween TV and cast on for a new hat/scarf set to match hubby's new coat.

Surprising myself...

Ok, so I swear that I hardly ever sew, but I managed to surprise myself with how well I did sewing up the liner for my Brea bag. I started by tracing the individual knit pieces of the bag, leaving some space for seam allowances.

Here's all three of my fabric pieces, ready to sew. I started pinning them together at the bottom/center point.
Here it is all sewn up! Not too shabby, and most of my seams are even pretty straight.
I included a cell phone and regular sized pockets on the inside of one of the pieces. I think this is a touch that will make it much more usable like a store bought bag. I got half of the knitted parts themselves sewn up last night, and will finish sewing it up tonight, and will pin the liner in.

I also FINISHED SOMETHING! (cue triumphant music). This was the Mommes Lysedug doily pattern I've been working on as a wedding thank you gift for my Aunt Becky, made from my great grandmas (her grandmas) old crochet thread. I ended up leaving off the last patterned section from the doily, since I was running out of room for stitches on my circular, I wanted to get it done, and I couldn't quite get the pattern to work out just right after row 100 of the pattern, so I just stopped and bound off. I think it still looks great.

Taking a break from our previously scheduled program...

With...the AEOLIAN!
I really did want to start this shawl as soon as I saw it. But, there was a little problem. I had NO needles! They sell Addi lace needles at my LYS, but they make my hands smell like pennies and I don't prefer metal needles. I used this as a very good excuse to buy a few sets of fixed KnitPicks Harmony Circulars. They arrived last Friday, and here they are along with the lace weight I had already dyed for the shawl.

Incidentally, I don't know how I EVER knitted without these needles. (I keep petting them and enthusiastically wiggling the cable around, because I can. Normal? I think so.) An interchangeable set will be mine, SOON.
I'm through the first chart of the pattern, and am just starting the transition charts to the next pattern. (I've decided to opt OUT of the 'nupps', since it is apparently a nice word for "this one stitch will make you want to kill yourself") So far, I'm loving this shawl. It's a great pattern to turn to when I've been working on things for the wedding way too much and I need some quiet time to chill. I'm sure that it will also get shoved into my bag to keep me company on the long car ride to South Dakota, along with the February Lady Sweater I have begun. (Pictures of that later when it's a bit more interesting.)

I'm very pleased today, because I got to give someone new the spinning bug! Sarah came over to my place yesterday for lessons. I gave her my old Ashford student spindle that I never, ever use anymore, and a really nice spinning book since she's been hinting at wanting to learn for a while now. She picked it up like a natural, and her first yarn actually LOOKS like yarn! (My first yarn looked like a bag of fleece threw up.) Yay, Sarah!
Other than that, I'm just plugging along with wedding plans, and the required knitting for gifts. I'm headed to buy fabric to line my Brea Bag today, let the hilarity of me trying to sew ensue. (Really, it's pretty funny. I'm NOT a seamstress.)

Bellocq Stockings

The bellocq stockings are going really fast!! I had a bit of confusion once I got past the cuban heel, but Marnie and another raveler explained it very well and now I'm a few rows away from being done with the calf shaping!

After the calf shaping is finished, I'm going to put this stocking on a holder, and knit the second one to the same length. Then I'll know I at least will have a pair of knee-highs if I don't have time for more than that. If I do have time, thigh highs!


A new spinning project is on the bobbin as well. This is a 60% Merino, 30% Bamboo, 10% Nylon sock blend fiber. I needed a little yellow since we're so anxious for spring here but it just KEEPS SNOWING!
The plan for this is 3-ply fingering weight sock yarn. You should see it soon on the store.

I'm doing a bit of dyeing today as well. St. Patty's day is coming up fast, so I figured I'd best whip up some festive batts. In the pot now is 4 oz of BFL in all kinds of different colors...I have a fun idea for this batt, but I think you'll have to wait a day or two to see the outcome.

I'm also taking some undyed lace weight I've had sitting around, and dyeing it to start the Aeolian shawl from the new knitty. A friend from my knitting group started an Aeolian Knit A Long on Ravelry for it right away, and I had to join in. I'm going to have to order new needles for it though, I'm a little lacking in the lace weight sized circs around here.

For now, back to the dyepots!