Finshed Project: Jayne Hat

I finished the Jayne hat. The last part of the top is done by the drawstring method, cinched up tight and then the pompom is added. By doing that, the hat was suddenly a lot smaller. Too small for either of us. Boo. So back to the drawing board. The crown wasn't deep enough and he thought the side bits that hang down weren't long enough. So I need to make another one and add about 6 more rows to the depth of the crown, and about 4 more rows to each side piece. I'll sell the other one on Etsy.  It will fit a person with a smaller head, maybe a woman or a teenager. Yep, yep. That's the way it goes sometimes. My stitches must be slightly smaller than the woman that designed the pattern. Either that or she likes hats that perch on your head more than ones that cover it a lot more.

In the meantime I'm still working on my wool shawl of many colors. I was unpacking today and found 4 or 5 new colors to add. I'm happy about that. My cat grabbed a skein of wool and ran off with it but I caught him in time. Little robber.

Knitting Right Along

I hope your holidays were happy ones.

I'm working on the ear flaps of the Jayne hat. I expect to have the whole hat finished tonight. I could have finished last night, but I wanted to work on my knitted shawl as well. I seem to be in knitting mode lately. But at night my fingers get so cold, unless I sit right in front of the wood stove. But then it's too dark to knit. I can't wait until our living room is unpacked and put together. Then the lighting will no doubt be better and we'll have furniture again. We do have an overhead living room light, but with just the two of us we rarely turn it on.

We've been pet sitting. We just aren't sure when the owners are coming home so I guess we'll just keep going until we see a truck in the driveway or they call and say they are home. It's fun though. It's like having a petting zoo.

Guy Feeding Dancer

Dinner Time

Three Red Chickens

A cottontail in our yard.

Missing Knitting Needles

I had a bit of a knitting crisis last night when the $30 worth of knitting needles weren't in the bag when I got home. Egads!  So we both looked in the truck. No luck. Michael's was already closed but I figured the checker had put them in a second bag that was stuck by the register. So I had to wait until morning to call them. Well, they couldn't find them either and they said there was nothing they could do.

So I looked in the truck again, this time in daylight. The bag was behind the driver's seat. So I leaned in and spotted a Michael's reciept on the other side of the seat by the passenger window. How did it get way over there? So I went to that side and poked around. I found 2 of the needles that had slid out of the bag, all the way under the passenger side seat. I still couldn't find the third set but I went ahead and called Michael's and told them they could stop looking for them.

Then I went back out and open the driver's side door and spotted the missing set tucked up against the right passenger seat between the seats. Whew! Strange drama.

So I'm making speedy progress on knitting the Jayne hat. I just finished the orange bit and I'm working on 12 gold rows.

Jayne Hat Beginning

I'm busy knitting the first Jayne hat. The pattern requires you to use two strands, one pulled from the end and one pulled from the middle of the skein. Right now I just have a big tangled mess. So in the future, I'm just going to wind two balls and hold the two strands together.

Starting a Shawl

I enjoyed a day with friends in my old neighborhood. We got home, fed some horses, picked up the poinsettia our cat had knocked off a high shelf and had a quick dinner of sliced ham and mac and cheese. Somewhere in all that I went to the Michael's in Victorville and raided their yarn sale. Unfortunately the yarn needles weren't on sale.  Seriously, $30 for knitting needles? I'm going to go through my crafts bin yet again and make sure I don't have those sizes, and if I do I'm taking the ones I bought back for a refund. But they are circular knitting needles and the only ones that were the size I needed were the expensive Clover brand.

I got more yarn for the Jayne hats and more yarn for the shawl I started last night. I got some white wool in the hopes that I can dye my own yarn for some of the shawl colors. The shawl will have over 30 colors, and I don't want to buy 30 skeins of yarn, so I'm going to try dyeing some of it. I rarely buy wool yarn so I can't raid my stash for all the colors I need. I worked on the shawl all the way to Fullerton and at my friend's house as well. I'd like to work on it some more tonight if I can get over the drowsies. It took Blogger so long to load on our dial-up connection, that I dozed off half a dozen times before it opened. If I'd stop buying craft supplies I could afford the $50 a month that getting a satellite connection would cost me. I must increase my income!

DIY Christmas Ornament and Knitting Projects

Hello my snowflakes,

Sometimes the motivating factor in finishing a knitting project is that I want to use the needles for another project. So here I am finishing a pair of seafoam green baby booties in Woolease yarn. In storage I found my Kaffee Fasset book.  I knew I owned that book!  But I've checked it out 2 or 3 times because I couldn't find my copy. I didn't know it had been in storage for 15 years.  So I want to make a shawl that's in it that I attempted before and never finished.

I also made a Christmas ornament since I haven't found my box of Christmas decorations.  So this is my token ornament. That and a neighbor gave us a beautiful poinsettia for taking care of her cats while she's on vacation.

When I took some stuff out of storage I found some glittery chenille stems and a styrofoam ball, so I made this ball today. It took about a hour. Things went a lot faster with a decent pair of wire cutters.
It always comes down to having the right tools for the job, doesn't it!

Happy holiday crafting.

Snowy Day

We went to Apple Valley today and I got to work on my knitted blue scarf. It's about five feet long now.

No sooner than we got the groceries into the house, it started to rain again.  An hour later the rain had turned to hail. Then right before dusk, it started to snow. My first snow at my new house! I watched it until it got dark out. I wonder if the ground will be white in the morning. We'll see.

I finally live somewhere that is cold enough to wear the sweater I knitted. It's the yellow one in the photo. It's mostly been in a drawer. My boyfriend didn't even remember me making it. Out of sight, out of mind I guess.


Hail in the yard.

Cold morning.



Yesterday morning was foggy and beautiful.

Purple star pin

This is the last thing I finished. They run about $25 plus tax and shipping if you'd like to request a custom order. This one will be a Christmas gift. Hope she doesn't read my blog.

Tadpole Knitting Loom

It stormed again last night and this morning the peak behind us had a lower snowline than yesterday. Just a matter of time before our yard has snow I bet! I did some beadwork outdoors until my fingers were popsicles, then I came in and built a fire. Once I thaw out I'm going to work on my new Tadpole knitting loom. I started a purple scarf on it. It was a good choice for the long car ride to Monrovia and back.

I'm almost done with the baby booties I made on the Tadpole as well. Time to throw another log on the fire. It's going to be a cold night.

Rainy Day and Snowy Night

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain against my window. The hills around us are dusted with snow. It was a wet day. Too cold to work in the studio so I brought my beads in the house. I finished a new freeform star beaded pin.

We had homemade chicken noodle soup last night and tonight. I'm going to need some warmer clothes. I hope I can whip some up as soon as I get my sewing machine area organized. But I have a feeling I'll just buy a couple of long sleeved flannel shirts before it gets much colder out. I'm not used to having to wear a sweatshirt indoors. Our little wood stove is doing the best it can but it's still cold in here. I need to dig my fingerless gloves out to wear when I'm typing.

On Tuesday we got to go to Anaheim. I visited M&L fabric and got some more stretchy fabric for the steampunk headbands I am working on. I also got to go to Micheal's and replenish my bead inventory. I just missed M&L's 20% off sale by one day. I didn't know I was even going to be near that store or I would have paid more attention.

I wanted to pre-wash all the fabric today that I got at M&L but we no longer have a dryer. And I can't hang the clothes on the clothesline in the rain and wind. Not having a dryer in our new place was my boyfriend's idea, not mine. Now I have to fit my laundry into a narrow window; early in the morning on a warm and sunny day. Rather hard to come by in the winter.



Misty Hills

If you want me to make a reserved listing for any pin or any of my artwork for that matter, let me know.



Bluebeaded felt pin.



Chilly out.

Almost done with this one.



Freeform Star Pin

Tiger eye pin

Misty hills

Beaders Need Pizza

Today was another day of beading, wrapping Christmas gifts and overall creativity.
But the most creative part was the pizza I made for dinner. I made the dough in my bread machine, and added dried oregano and parmesan cheese to the dough before it was turned on. I saved half the dough for tomorrow.

For toppings, my half had orange pear tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, red onions, garlic, and thinly sliced salami.

My boyfriend wanted anchovies on his on top of everything else.  For cheese I used cheddar and more parmesan. Bon apetite.

Crafting Insomnia

Yesterday I got to finish the 2nd baby bootie on the new knitting loom. I still have to sew all the parts together. Each booty is composed of 2 pieces; the foot part and the cuff.

My boyfriend was working on some air brushed arrow shafts that now look amazing. I can't wait to see what he does with the cresting.

I spent an hour on Friday organizing an old suitcase with beads in it. I'm glad to get those beads back into circulation. Even craft supplies have a shelf life. I feel like I'll never be done with organizing and unpacking. It's like the neverending story.

Anyways, it's 2 AM and it's cold in here so I think I'll crawl back into a nice warm bed.

Knitting Loom Baby Booties

Hello my little snowflakes,

Yesterday I finally got to go to Joann's for some much needed supplies.  I got some super soft stretchy fabric for headbands. When I saw the stretch velour I wanted was $12.99 a yard, it looked like I was only going to be able to get 1/4 yard. Then I saw some fancier stretch velour on sale for half price! So I went ahead and got 2 colors and was able to splurge for a yard.

And then I finally got the small wooden knitting loom I've wanted for about 3 years for 25% off. I already made one baby bootie on it. The last baby booties were too small for Darla so I'll make a new super stretchy double knitted set on the loom. It even came with a booklet with a pattern for baby booties.

Here are some projects from the past.


Fairy Pinecone and Turtle Diorama




Crocheted scarf I designed.




Pink elephant cloud.



Beaded Felt Heart Pins

I'm at the library trying to fit a week's worth of Internet work into the 3 hours a day the library allows per person. In other words, I get to come here 2 days a week (if I'm lucky) so I have 6 hours worth of computer time, which may seem like a lot to some people, but considering I usually use the Internet 8 hours a day; 6 hours a week isn't much at all. And if there are no computers available at the time, I won't even get that.

So I got two beaded felt hearts listed on Etsy. I got them both done in about 30 minutes at the library, unlike the hour and a half it took me to do one listing yesterday with my home dial-up connection. The library only allows computer time in one hour increments, then if no one is waiting it gives you 15 minutes more at a time. Ugh.  Right now every computer I can see if full. And this one kicks me off in 10 minutes. So I better stop typing and post photos.

Beaded heart with fresh water pearls and gray French knots.

I finished the top heart today and the bottom one a few weeks ago. Both are for sale in my Hypnotic Etsy shop.

Tiles I found in my yard that I'm saving for a mosaic project.

Knit Scarf in Checkerboard Texture

Busy day today. I got my knit scarf posted on Etsy. It only took an hour and a half to list it with my dial-up connection! Kill me now!

Then I went out and worked on some hair ornaments for belly dancing. They are so pretty. I'm going to sew the beaded part onto stretch velour to make them super easy to wear. Velour will hug onto you. I just love it for luxurious head bands.

Thanks to my commentors. Please forgive me for not responding. It's so hard to open  pages with my sucky connection.  Perhaps when I get to use the DSL at the library, I'll be able to find the comments and respond to each of you. Believe me I never would have agreed to live here if I knew I wouldn't have DSL.

Knitted scarf

Pink elephant cloud

Last night's sunset.