2015 Advent Ornament

This is an annual challenge from the Laughing Purple Goldfish group on ravelry.com . I had fun participating last year and wanted to give it another go.

The idea is to create a unique ornament using re-purposed materials, i.e., stuff laying around your house.

Mine is not really quite an ornament as it's going to be a tree topper, but it's still something that has to do with going on a tree for the Winter Holidays, right !!??

Kitty Angel Tree Topper

My Cutie Pomanders are showing up nicely !!!

KITTEN HELPER

I've laid out what I'm going to work with: roving, locks, soap bottle, origami paper, felted wool dryer ball.

Not pictured; felting supplies - tulle, bubble wrap, soap, plastic bag - glue stick for origami paper, scissors, needle and thread.
 
My idea was sparked by the shape of the dish soap bottle.  I've been wanting to do some more resist felting, after working with Abi a couple weeks ago and this popped into my head.

Here is Comet, my crafty kitty !!  She's always ready to help me with anything that involves fiber, yarn or fiddly bits !

Get Set !

Go !!

I think that's enough.  Roving all around the bottle

Didn't think this was any better for felting than regular dish soap

Someone gave me this bottle of Power Scour. It's for cleaning wool fleece and supposedly just the thing for felting.  I'm no expert, but I didn't think it did any better job felting than the dish soap I usually use. Plus the Power Scour has some type of fragrance in it, so it's not going to work for me.

Bundled up in tulle - ready to be felted

Using a plastic bag to get the wool wet and soapy !

Finished with the first stage of felting. The wool is starting to form around the bottle and I will take the tulle off

Worked it some more. Now to start hot and cold to harden it up

Was a trick to get it OFF the form !!! More shaping

Have had enough of working this. Stuffed with a plastic bag...

and ready to dry

Getting ready to wet felt the head

The felting around the Dryer Ball went on so smooth !! Lovely

Then I spaced out taking pictures every step. Sorry !!!  I've needle felted on the ears, face and hair. Plus I needle felted the head to the body. Looking good so far ! I just need the wings and I'm going to use some of the felting tulle for an over-skirt and I'll be done.

Hair and face on. The felting around the dryer ball is so smooth !!

Love the Locks for hair

Done ! I added the crocheted bracelet as a belt

The hair is the best !!

The Kitten Angel blessing our tree !

Cutie Pommanders

I've been wanting to make orange pomanders for AGES !!

They are cute !!

We have a small Holiday Tree so I got the idea of using those little mandarin oranges you see in mesh
bags at the grocery store. Plus I figured it would be faster than trying to make pomander oranges !

The Cuties seem to be pretty juicy, so don't know if they will dry out properly like oranges will.

I'll try to remember to post a follow up on the drying business.

Easy

It doesn't take much for ingredients - oranges (or mandarins), whole cloves and some kind of ribbon or yarn to tie them up.  I used  cotton yarn.

You can use rubber bands around the Cuties to keep your lines of cloves straight. (I didn't do that)

In with the table decorations

 Then you just push the cloves into the mandarins in clever designs. Pinterest has loads of pictures for ideas of how to arrange the cloves. There are even these pyramid shaped forms you can buy to make a tower centerpiece out of them. That's impressive, but I'm not sure I want to make that many of them !!







I got a very sore thumb pushing in cloves. I found out later that you can use a toothpick to make a hole and then push the clove in. Save your thumbs !!

They smell heavenly !!

So Google or Pinterest around to find all kinds of ideas of what to do with this simple craft.

Caught Sleeping Together !!!

Inquiring minds want to know !!!

We have 2 kitties, Comet, a gray tabby with one white toe and Bitty Squeak, a lovely orange marmalade color or maybe like vanilla and orange sherbet mixed together!

They don't exactly hate each other....... but they certainly don't get along. They have a sort of running "Ding ! I got you !" relationship. Comet really likes to make Bitty Squeak yowl in surprise ! To be fair, anyone can make Bitty Squeak yowl in surprise. She is the quintessential "Scaredy Cat". Look at her funny and she yowls and dashes away. Comet finds this entertaining and doesn't miss a chance to bop Bitty Squeak.

So what do we have here ???? Sleeping together on a comforter on the floor. Hmmm.... side by side. How did this come about ??

BUSTED !!!

Resist Felted bowls

I now have resist felting in my bag of tricks !!

My friend Rebecca (and owner of R. Rabbit's Fiber Studio) and I took a drive today down to Letts, IA to hobnob and fiber play with Abi Hutchinson of High Prairie Fibers.

While we were there, Abi graciously led us through the steps of resist felting. It's always fun to spend time in the old farm house with Abi and work with fiber.

This is the left overs

First she dumped a bag of mixed roving on the floor and we sorted out what we wanted to felt with. 

We've just taken the resists out

Working on cookie sheets we felted on the table

We cut up plastic feed bags for our resists (this is me !!)

I'm supposed to be looking like I'm working !

This one I started around a nerf ball. I've pulled the ball out and am using a jar to work on the shape of the felted bowl





















Here is what we came up with !!

Mine looks like a Bluebird's nest

 

These turned out pretty nice ! (mine is the blue inside and pink outside)

Abi worked on this beaded felted rope thing !

All in a days work

Neighborhood Christmas Crawl

Our neighborhood is the best !! Last night was the annual Christmas Crawl with 3 houses hosting  snacks.

It was so much fun to get to meet more of our neighbors and to get to know a little better the ones we've already met.

I've scribbled up a map of the neighborhood and have some of the houses marked down with owners. (I'm terrible with remembering names) and now I have several more houses with names. Great !

One thing we found out is the people who we bought our house from went ALL OUT for Christmas lights around their house. They had stuff in the yard and on the roof. Someone said a lighted spinning Ferris Wheel  !!!!???  (maybe they were pulling our legs there !!)  They said our place looks pretty forlorn with no lights. (we aren't the only people on the block with no outside lights so it was nothing personal)  So I guess we are going to be a disappointment to the neighborhood there. Although I suppose I will make the effort to get a few lights hung up around the porch this year !

Couldn't have been a nicer evening. Not too cold or windy. Perfect for walking around the neighborhood.  After it was over Pete and I decided to take a longer walk and look at all the Holiday lights. Romantic !!

Thanks to the families who organized it and invited us to participate ! Can't wait for the next neighborhood event !!

Crocheted Heart Doily

I've crocheted up a super cute doily pattern for my upcoming Valentine crochet class in Jan 2016.

The pattern is called "February's Valentine" created by Denise (Augustine) Owens. 

Denise has lots of other lovely doily patterns that you can also find on Ravelry, so take a look at them.

I really liked this Valentine's doily for teaching as it is simple and will work up quickly. Also, it turns out nicely every time.

The doily I crocheted with #3 Lizbeth thread in Victorian Red measures about 13 inches (33cm) across,

and the doily I crocheted in #10 English Rose Med measures about 8 inches (20cm) across.

Check out my Ravelry page for this project !

What's in the works - Dec 2015

My yarn projects are not getting done as fast as I would like them to, so thought I'd do a little Sneak Peek so you can see what I've got on the hook, needles, pin loom, and on the spindle.

One I'm really excited about is a shoulder strap bag worked up in pieces on a Zoom pin loom. It will have a felted handle and flap.

I tried it on and I look like Genghis Khan's Mother

Another is what I'm calling a Funky Vest (although I feel it has gone beyond funky to monster !!) It's the first crochet that I've done with my beginning handspun yarn.

This will be super warm for when I'm working on my fiber crafts or under my coat when I walk the dog ! 

Purple socks for Rose - using some sock yarn that is Bamboo, silk and cotton (no wool for Rose !!)

The pattern is my Fusion Sock pattern. A fusion of crochet and knitting !! Pretty cool !!

Mosaic Knit Cowl - (almost done !)
Where has all this knitting come from ?? Blame it on Chris Thomson who teaches knitting at R. Rabbit Fiber Studio. Chris has been hosting  fun knitting classes !!!

The pink is some of my handspun yarn. 2nd project using my handspun !! this yarn turned out much better !

A Big Spinning project for my Double Dutch Shetland Cardi ! I have all the black yarn spun up and hopefully have enough to start the cardigan.  I need to get the last batch of plyed yarn off the bobbin !    I wanted to get the sweater done to wear this winter, we'll see how it goes.

This is spun on my Babe Wheel

And some fun bits of yarn that I'm spinning on a drop spindle. Some gray wool mixed with sari silk. Pretty cool !! and the other is Mauch Chunky roving Licorice Whip. It's a great dark black color with bright colors mixed in.

Stitch Together - An Urban Needle and Fiber Arts Studio

This morning, my friend Viktorja and I stopped by the Stitch Together - An Urban Needle and Fiber Arts Studio  in Marion, IA.

It's a cute little yarn shop on 10th St right off the City Square Park.

The shop is a mother-daughter business run by Reba Winter and Kayanna Nelson.

Reba was in the shop today and was very friendly and helpful.

I had never been there so everything was new to me.  The shop has a good selection of yarns, roving for spinning, other craft projects like embroidery and coloring books. Lots of knitting notions, buttons, etc. They offer  knitting, crochet, embroidery and cross-stitch classes and will be adding spinning, weaving and dyeing classes too.

This shop is a terrific addition to the Cedar Rapids/Marion/Hiawatha area.

Love that this will be mostly white with pops of tie-dye color !!

I bought some fun yarn by Lemondade Shop called Rainbows and Clouds sparkle sock yarn !! Can't wait to work with it !

Here is a link to a Gazette Article with photos !

Laundry Adventures !!

I am SO Excited about my New Laundry sorter set up !!

Yep ! You can rightly guess the quality of my life that I'm excited about sorting laundry !!!

When you're young, you think you're going to hire someone to do the laundry, housework, cooking, etc.  Well, life doesn't work out that way for most of us !!

I've seen these laundry sorters around. You know, tucked into basements in the dark and mumbling to themselves ! I wasn't moved.

Pretty nifty down there with it's laundry buddies

THEN, the epiphany moment 3 months ago when I realized just exactly how handy a laundry sorter is.

I'm a big fan of doing a load of laundry every day. (sometimes 2 or more) After almost 25 years of family laundry and I just now realized how many times I've RESORTED laundry when I've washed a load of clothes.

You know, the hamper is stuffed and you sort out a load of whites. Next day sort out a load of darks. Next day someone has dumped more laundery into the hamper so you sort through all of that, some of it resorted for the 3rd time.

Sometimes I am that slow on the uptake. I know ! It's embarrassing !!!

Now, I have my very own laundry sorting system !!  I try not to think about the years of constantly resorting laundry..... it's too depressing and I work on finding the up.

With posted instructions for the sorting impaired !

So let go of old laundry disappointments and bring in a new order of organization and efficiency !!

Alexander Hamilton -The Musical

Thanks to my dear daughter Rose, I have been introduced to the musical Alexander Hamilton.  

My very first thought about a musical about a "founding father" was BORING !!! However my daughter kept telling me how exciting this musical is.  

She sent me a link to an interview.....

I finally got around to watching it and was instantly, completely and totally hooked !!

Alexander Hamilton

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Two men with a vision. 

Lin-Manuel Miranda says hip-hop music is the music of the revolution and he's right !

Here is the YouTube link to the music for those of us who are not lucky enough to see this in person.

Or buy the Original Broadway Cast Recording

I've been listening to this music every day ! 

Here is another great YouTube interview 

And a very good write up by NPR

Bottom line, I'm waiting for Alexander Hamilton to go on tour  !!

Cast - photo by npr.com

Cast - photo by npr.com