Around the House

This is what I found in my garage the other day:


He was a cute little guy. I'm afraid I may have scared him off permanently with all the moving around trying to take a decent picture I did. I hope not--I love snakes.

We planted a very small garden this year since it's our first year here and we have so many other things that need to be done. Everything was going quite well (even with our lack of proper care) until I discovered the tomato and cucumber plants were being eaten.


We figure it must be deer or groundhogs. I don't know if we'll get any cucumbers now since the entire plants are pretty much gone. Which is unfortunate.

We were also excited to discover that we have black raspberries and a kind of sad mulberry tree growing in our yard.




(We also have a pear and, I think, an apple tree, but since we had no idea what they were, they didn't get the care they needed in the spring. Hopefully we can do better next year.) Now I'm imagining all kinds of jam, but I have a feeling I won't get around to it. I guess there's always next year. (Or the year after that.)

New Blog Layout

If there is anyone still reading this, you may have noticed that I changed my blog layout. I now have three columns instead of two--yay! I also changed the colors and a few other little things. I have thinking about doing this for a while and finally decided to just go for it. I definitely like the three columns, but I'm not sure about the colors yet--maybe I just have to get used to it.

I also think I've decided to mix it up a little on the blog and not only post about crafty things. I may post about fixing up our house (which I suppose is crafty) and maybe once in a while about books or movies or other interests. Up until now I've kept it pretty strictly about the crafting because this is a business blog after all, but I'm beginning to feel like the whole blog is just a list of projects I've finished--which I think makes for a boring blog. I'm not going to start posting all of the details of my life so don't worry about that--maybe just a little more about me that isn't craft related. I guess we will see what happens.

Moving and Circular Flower Hairpins

So I guess I'm not doing very well with blogging. We moved into the new house in mid-May and it is taking up tons of my time right now. Which means all of my crafty endeavors are on the back burner to an extent. But it should get better. I hope.

Recently I started making a new flower hairpin design. They are made out of felt that is made by hand instead of being crocheted and then felted in the washing machine. I love making them and I think they are turning out pretty cute.


I made all of these before the move but I'm planning to make some more very shortly. Several of these are already available in my shop and more will be available soon.

An Adorable Baby (and Some Other Stuff)

My friends Sarah and Kim have a new daughter, Maia, who was born in November. So I got to make fun baby gifts. And since I haven't been around to show you anything, I need to catch up.


This is Maia's blanket. I crocheted it with Lion Brand Cotton Ease and it is just random stripes of single, half double or double crochet. Normally I don't like to make things that change color so often, but I thought that it would be fine because I didn't have to weave in the ends since I was just making fringe from them. I realized the stupidity of that as I was rushing to finish the fringe before the baby shower.


I also crocheted these booties from my hand dyed sock yarn (in Collective and Tomorrow Wendy). I used a pattern from Sylver Designs on Etsy called Little Button Loafers. Of course I didn't do a gauge swatch and the booties only fit Maia for about a second. They came out pretty cute, though.


And I saved the best for last. Not the best project, but clearly the best picture--what a doll. (And I can't take credit for the picture--Sarah and Kim sent it to me.) I crocheted the hat out of the same yarn as the booties, but I kinda winged the pattern. Which was obviously a mistake because it's still too big on Maia at three months. But she's so cute that it doesn't really matter.

Back Again

Well, I've been gone for a while. We've been looking for a house since last summer and it felt like I really had no time for much of anything else. I didn't intend to stop blogging, but when I stopped, it was so easy to continue not doing it. But we now have a closing date (which is the third one, I believe, so it may change again) of March 23rd. So I am going to attempt to start blogging again and we shall see how it goes.

I'm in love with the new house, but there's much we want to do to it (and the yard), so I'm sure I'll be posting plenty more about it over time.

A Gnome, a Cowl and a Necklace

I thought I'd share a few pictures of some of the things I've made recently.


I made this little gnome for my friend Emily's birthday because she's really into gnomes right now. I'm not really a gnome person but I almost kept it because I thought it came out so cute. I used a free pattern--Simply a Gnome--which is available here.


This is a cowl I made from another free pattern. I don't know exactly what I'm going to do with it yet--I just felt like making it. It's made from my yarn--Grasshopper Handmade Superwash Merino Sock--in the colorway Silflay.


I've also come up with a new necklace design for my Etsy shop. It's a felted cord with glass beads added in randomly before felting. You can wear it wrapped around your neck up to four times. I really like these--hopefully other people do as well.

New Semi-Solid Colorways

I've been working for what seems like forever on perfecting a technique for semi-solid colorways and I believe I have finally done it. I have three colorways so far and I'm working on several more. All of the yarns are dyed randomly so they should not pool.

This is Tangled Up in Blue:


This is Elphaba:


And this is Collective:


They are all available in Superwash Merino Sock yarn in my Etsy shop right now.