Back to it.

I thought I would try to "catch up" with all if the things I have done since the last time I blogged, but then I  realized l would never do it if I tried to climb that mountain. So hopefully I can just keeo up with current stuff from here on out.
Lately I have been knitting and spinning:

This one is a single lock of wool spun thread weight and knit into a tiny dress on tiny needles.

This is a second pairs of fingerless mitts I made out of scraps. The cuff is handspun and hand bit is store bought.

More than a year!

I can't believe I have been away from my blog for more than a year, but I guess I have been spending less time at the computer overall. That being said I am going to try to touch on a few of the highlights from this last year and then move forward from there. I think a month by month catch up would be the easiest.

November 2012
I left off with a post about needle felting and a grocery bag journal. Since then I don't think I've done any needle felting, but I have done a few things with the grocery bag journal. It has become an art journal.

These are all a mix of collage, drawing, stamping and general playfulness. There are more, but these are what I had handy to show.

I also got my haircut short in November. I wanted a big change and was going to do a boudoir photo shoot. I loved my short hair but now I am starting to grow it out. Here is one of the (appropriate) photo's from that session.  

The photo shoot did wonders for my self esteem. I highly recommend it!

Back in Action

I guess just have been neglecting my little corner of the internet but I have been busy with life and all that it entails. Halloween was fun, Abigail had a lovely birthday and I made it through giving a needle felting presentation at my guild. I think I got a decent picture of the felted fruit this time.

Here is a journal I made out of used grocery bags and some wrapping paper that I had lying around the house.

I Felt Pretty Well

By felt I mean the fiber craft, not the feeling of things. First are is a random blobby thing with 5 heads...here are a few of them:

And then something I am rather proud of...Here I have a cornucopia of fall foods. I had these all done for Thanksgiving last year but they got put away and forgotten about and now that I am doing more sculptural felting I remembered that I have not photographed them yet. I have included my measuring tape for scale because they are so itty bitty and that is part of their charm.

Small Things

In addition to the bear sweater I have knit a few other little things. First is a tiny pair of baby booties that I am not sure will fit a newborn they are so small.

I also made myself a felted bag to keep my spinning wheel tools close at hand while spinning (I used some yarn leftover from my hand spun sweater)

Last but not least I got a good amount of hand carding and spinning done. This purple Romney yarn is destined to be paired with some natural grey Romney on the loom (I still need to spin that). I am not sure what the end product will be yet, I just know I want to weave with it.

Like It Was Made For Him

Jacob asked me to make a sweater for his very best friend, Matt. I picked out the yarn a while ago but on Saturday I finally found the right pattern. I was unsure about the pattern when I first stumbled upon it I was expecting a smaller size but found a model of an adult. I read on and discovered the pattern is truly a custom fit sweater so it doesn't matter the size of the wearer as long as you get gauge. On Sunday I got Matt measured and cast on. Before it was even time for PJ's I had Jake going through the button bin to pick out the buttons he wanted to have me put on it. As luck would have it we found the perfect button in the bin AND  it was the right size for the button hole!

Another Addiction

I have been having lots of fibery fun lately. First I finished carding up the fiber I dyed with Easter egg dyes.

I also got around to taking a picture of the plyed yarn I made from the roving I bought at the spring fair.

My guild is also making some friendship hats in which we all spin up some yarn, cut into 30 yard skeins. Then we all take about 8 of these mini skeins from each other and make a hat using some of each yarn. Originally I spun this yarn:

to use but Jacob begged me to make him a hat out of it so I ended up using something else. My hat did not turn out like planned but in the end I think it will work. This is a shot of it before blocking. 

I hope it will look a bit better after I finish blocking it.

Finally, the new addiction is weaving mini squares. While looking for something else on YouTube I came across a video of  a woman with a little square loom that she was weaving WHILE warping so when you are done with one, you are done with the other. I followed the link to these little looms and figured I could make one for WAY cheeper than they were being sold for. Rather than spending 25 bucks plus shipping I spent 3 bucks at the craft store and invested 30 minutes of time and voila! A little lap loom!

Less than 24 hours later I have a tidy little stack of woven squares that will make a neat little blanket when they are all sewn together.

Now that I have finished knitting the hat and it is blocking I can go back to whipping out more squares - seriously these things only take minutes to make and they are tons of fun. I didn't even get bored doing plain white ones. While I am still working on the hexipuffs, I think I will be using my samples on these little squares as they are more suited to different grists of yarn and stick to sock yarn for the hexipuffs.
I think I will make a larger square loom to do bigger squares out of that I can then felt. These things are a great size for sample weaving and I may even make a few more in this size with different setts just for the purpose of sampling before weaving.