Fiber Fun

Fiber I played with last weekend, minus the fleece that I dyed and the picker which will be in a post tomorrow! Finally starting to feel better so I'm back to fiber fun today! I have to finish 4 swaps I'm doing as well, all fiber fun ones, so be on the look out for 25 hearts, 40 granny daughters, magic yarn ball, and spinning fiber swap.



Hook 'em Horns



Dyed by Caroline:


Dyed by Jase:


20 of 40 granny daughters

Vista Fiber Fiesta

Saturday we drove an hour up north to Vista, CA to go the fiber fiesta. I stupidly forgot my camera and hate myself for it! It was a wonderful event, lots of spinners sitting and spinning on gorgeous wheels, and people everywhere grabbing up yarn and fiber. There were only a few vendors but they were great! So I'm sure you all want to see the yummyness that I got, so here it is!

1.5 lbs of Alpaca for $20 seriously! Thats dirt cheap, and it is amazing fiber!



4 oz of Merino/Tussah Silk


Silk cocoons without the worms



Last but of course not least, a hand carved crochet hook


Also that day I got my wonderful twindle in the mail yay! I'm not a blue person but it spoke to me!

It's all about the homemade fiber tools

Introducing my homemade grand wheel, it soon will be painted yellow, but we wanted to test it and tweak things before we started painting.


Ever heared of knooking? It's knitting with a crochet hook, and so much faster than knitting! You can buy a Knook set (which I have) but I wanted more sizes. So I made my own :) Today I am knooking socks.


The set you can buy: (if you want one, go to Walmart, they are $5 there)
http://www.leisurearts.com/knook-beginner-set-for-medium-weight-yarn.html

And of course my bright orange babe wheel, isn't it awesome! I painted the flyer black too :)

Crochet Knee Highs

Yarn Ball Wreath AKA Knitting Wreath

I saw this idea back in Texas when we made a trip to wonderful Hobby Lobby. The one they had was huge though, probably about two feet across, seriously! I thought it was a great way to use up stash yarn, and lucky me had two colors that go great with my craft area. The display one also had knitting needles in it, but since mine was tiny I chose to destash two crochet hooks. I was smart though and just stuck them in the yarn, no glue at all, so if I need them I can get them out. For the bottom frame I actually took my fruit bowl, an ikea box, a box cutter, and cut around the fruit bowl. Done! I probably should have painted it grey though since you can see part of it, but I think I may just end up adding tiny yarn balls so you can't see it.

Total Cost: Free

Anyway here is the finished product! It's so dark where it is I messed with settings on my camera forever but never got the perfect up close. Till finally I just gave up!

My Grandmother's Afghans

My mom's mom crocheted for years, it was her favorite thing, and afghans were her all time favorite. Sadly I never got the true chance to meet her, or my grandfather. She left behind some great crochet things though for my mom, and I was able to grab some photos of them while we were in Texas. She also did doiles galore but my mom didn't find those till we had already left. Once Sloan is retired from the Marine Corps (well whatever branch he is, he is thinking about switching soon), they will go to me, but I was to afraid to have them now with the kids so small.

So I would like to share hr afghans with you. Real quick fun fact though, I am exactly like her, my mom says that everything I do is exactly like her mom. When you see this afghans it looks like something I would make.

P>S> Horrible photos! I had to stand on a chair, it was night and yeah horrible lighting. I tried to edit but then the colors werent true so I said screw it!

Done in the 1970's:












This one is done with Broomstick Lace, she did it with a real broomstick but now days people use a jumbo kitting needle. After I saw this I wanted to make it, and funny thing as soon as we got back I had a crochet today magazine waiting for me. Opened it up to find the new technique in it...broomstick lace :)

Tour de Fleece has begun! + FOs!

Yesterday was the first day of Tour de Fleece, wow almost 5,000 people are signed up for it! Last night I spent my first day of spinning plying like crazy to finish my yarn. I stayed up till almost 1 am (that is late for me!) but I finished!!!! 450 yards of lace BFL, yes lovely lace! I want to use it now! I already found a pattern on Ravelry for a lovely shawl that I would like to crochet. It would be lovely as a shawl because it's light and extremely soft!

I also finished my socks the other day! They are so comfy but I'm not wearing them around till I block them (hopefully my sock blockers will be here Tuesday!). They are my first so they are simple and not perfect, but they feel so awesome I don't even care!

Wool Yarn

I spun up some of the black/brown/white mill ends I got a few weeks ago on my new spinner. I thought it was going to be scratchy because as I was spinning it was a bit rough. But, once I set the twist it became this super soft squishy yarn that I can not wait to use! I ended up getting 200 yards 2 ply worsted weight, and already have a project in mind for it! A slouchy hat! I got the pattern and everything :) I'm going to either make it tonight or tomorrow, because tomorrow I am taking little miss Caroline to get my hair chopped off. Some how it got long again, and since hubby works non stop I'm just going to go when Jase is at school. I can't wait to get back to my super short hair, although it is nice to just throw it into a ponytail...but I digress...

Here is my super soft yarn :)


And once I was done with ply I somehow ended up with 100 yards of singles that I have no idea what to do with.

A Spider & A Bee

I am sort of a nerdy person when it comes to neat things in nature, I blame my mother for that! She is a science teacher and we always had odd animals living in our house for school. Did you know I have held a taranchula? Yep we had one of those as a pet for awhile, I really could go on and on about the creatures we had but I will spare you! So with that my childhood brought on an interest in nature and my fascination with it. Yesterday while watering out front I saw a giant web in our yard, and it was such a neat web I had to photograph it. While I was doing that the spider came out of his web to say hello, look closely in the hole and you will see him. He is a funnel web spider, which is sadly going to meet his death this weekend when hubby mows.





I also finished crocheting a giant Bumbleebee for a swap on Craftster, he turned out pretty cute :) That is our garden in the background by the way! Everything is growing insanely!



Wouldn't want to be stung by that stinger!!!

Finished Bag & Easter Dye Galore!

I finally finished the Bazaar Bag from Crochet Today! I ended up making it half the size of what the pattern says, because I am not a big bag person. I used it today and the ladies at Starbucks said they loved it :) It was fun to make even though it took me awhile with all the breaks I took with it. I was going to continue on through patterns in the magazine but I'm taking a break to make some things for a swap I am doing over on Craftster. I love swaps :)

I also went to Target this morning to get some mailers to send of orders when I thought I needed to go to the Easter clearance area. I am so glad I did! All their egg dye was on sale for 10 cents each! Some were even 5 cents! Originally these were $2 each so huge discount! I ended up with 18 boxes which gave me 30 packets of dye, 12 sheets of stickers, 3 packets of glitter & sequins, and 5 mini glue & glitter glue sticks. Why did I do this? To dye roving of course! I can dye like crazy now and get some interesting colors. The stickers I gave to the kids, and the rest I'm saving for our craft projects we do. I'm extremely tempted to go back and get more because come on 10 cents! But I'm being good! My fiber order is coming in either tomorrow or Wednesday and I can not wait to dye it up with all the pretty colors I got!

Poor Caroline has bad allergies :( She cheered up though once I let her tear into the boxes for stickers

Finished Poncho & Buttons

I finally finished Caroline's Easter poncho with the Easter yarn I dyed and spun. I could have finished it alot quicker than I did since it was such an easy pattern but for some reason I took my time with it. I finished today though, and she does look pretty cute in it if I do say so myself! She is going to wear it tomorrow to Jase to school and to show the ladies at Starbucks (yes the ladies at Starbucks know us by name and have our order for us when we get there, our "town" is super small though compared to surrounding ones so they know all the regulars). She loves wearing it so I'm sure it's going to be a daily thing for my girly girl, she even figured out how to put it on herself this afternoon. I still have about 100 yards left over in Easter, so I may crochet something for Jase, maybe a tie...cute! Yes a tie it is if I can find a pattern on Ravelry. I'm spinning his yarn right now, but no ideas yet on what to crochet with it.

Jase came over right when I snapped a picture, hence the funny look on Caroline's face

Sigh my kids move way to much! You have no idea how many photos i took of them trying to get one decent one!

Tonight I also randomly chose to make paper covered buttons. As you know I am a craftster addict, and while bored the other day I started watching their YouTube videos. I watched two that interested me, one of which is making fabric buttons and the other using Perler beads. I thought it would be a nice spice into my fabric crafting right now so I'm doing both except I bought cheap paper instead of fabric. The buttons turned out pretty cute, the butterfly one was a pain in the *** though so I only did one of those. My favorite is by far the black and white ones, which why there are so many of them!

Now the Perler beads I haven't started yet, but I did do them when I was alot younger. In fact my mom still has all of the ones I made (she kept everything of mine, seriously everything!) They are super easy, and I am probably going to let the kids do them as well, I let them do any craft so why not! If you don't know what they are or want to try them check them out (you can buy them anywhere) Perler Beads

Yarn Explosion

So I started working on Caroline's Easter thing the other day but stopped after one row to wind the skein into a ball. While doing that the home phone rang, and I came back to this:

Thank you Caroline...sigh So I have been spending the past few days trying to solve this horrible puzzle.

365: Day 55 - Finished Coat

Please forgive the horrible photo, migraine and no sleep equals bad photography and not caring.

Made it huge so I could cuddle into it, it's awesome!

365: Day 52

My Coat is all done! Just need to piece everything together!

365: Day 41 - Toddler Crochet

I finished Jase's beanie and scarf today, he wanted them even though it's never below 50 here! Oh well though he enjoys wearing them, in fact he hasn't taken them off since I finished them this morning!

I know photographing right in front of a window is big no-no but it's the only place I could get him to sit still!! I'm still in shock I got 4 photos out of him!

Poor Peanut

365: Day 39 & 40

Our new flower garden, it use to be ugly red brick and dirt

My 3 crochet projects