Some finished Stash Bags

The one in the back didn't photograph well, but it is the black "felted" bag from the post below. The tan one is my fav and I'm still working on the rasta one.

We'll see if this is lucrative.

Zombies!

My husband purchased me the book Creepy Cute Crochet, by Christen Haden for Christmas and so far I had only made the Grim Reaper for my brother:

Apparently my husband actually only bought me the book because he wanted an army of creepy cute zombies in our house, not because he thought I would really like it. Which I do, so it worked out for both of us. he has been begging for more creepy cute monsters, since the only one I made, I gave away. I finished the "Corporate Zombie" two days ago, with a few modifications. This is what the real corporate zombie looks like:

This was made by Ravelry user RSPS (you will need a Ravely account to view link).

I left off the hair, per my husband's request and changed the skin color to green. I used Lion Brand's cotton yarn and the colorway for the face is Avocado:

The pattern calls for the tie and blood to be cut from store bought felt, but I decided to needle felt the tie and blood instead, since I had the stuff at my house to do it that way. the eye is made from white and black polymer clay and the eye and mouth are in embroidery floss.

After I made that one, my husband was full of ideas for more zombies. His next request was a priest zombie. I think he wants me to make all the main zombies from the Dawn of the Dead or Day of the Dead. I'd have to watch the movies again to see what accessories would be required to distinguish the different zombies. I finished most of the priest zombie in a few hours last night.

I had to improvise on the jacket and collar, but I like how it's coming out so far:

I can see I've crocheted some cat hair in too...oh well. I made the eyes and the white "priest collar" thing, too:

But I was blogging while they were in the oven and I forgot about them, so now they're burned garbage. I might use the eyes anyway, since a zombie might wave torn up eyes, assuming he's been through a lot that day. I will either remake the "priest collar" thing out of clay or needle felt it.

If it stays in one piece that long:

Felted Friday

I apologize in advance if my posts have been "cat heavy" lately. However, I thought I'd post some pictures of a few needle felted "thingies" I've made recently, because Bubsy (the cat) tends to destroy all felted items quickly. At least this way I'll have a record of them.

Exhibit "A". You may remember a post showing a wet felted pineapple.

Here it is today:

Sucks, right? The piece didn't come out perfect, but it was the first felted thing I ever made, which made it special. While, I'm sure Bubsy did this, perhaps Penelope was trying to frame him. This next photo is Penelope while I was trying to photograph the damage.

Exhibit "B":

The felted pineapple thing above was on a high shelf, which Bubsy actually ripped off the wall to get to it. Sigh...wool is irresistible.

Because these following items will surely be destroyed soon, here they are now for your viewing pleasure. When I first learned how to needle felt, I made a little pineapple. A wee pineapple. It has since been eaten. The fruit thing became somewhat of an obsession for a while.

Here's a few:

This is them on a sewing machine table, so you can get a better idea of the size. (The table is dusty! Where's my house husband?!)

Finally here's a cat toy I made to discourage eating of my other felted stuff:

Giving this to the cats is probably just making me an enabler. Oh well.

There's more where that came from!

I thought I'd take a minute and add some follow up pictures to the crochet stuff I put up last week. I gave most of this stuff away, so I'm happy to have photographed my first baby steps in crochet.

Mr. Fight was super bummed that his Christmas present didn't show up before Christmas, even though I was a good girl and ordered it on December 4, so I made him a little gift. (He wanted a custom made football scarf from Germany. I guess 3 weeks to make and ship the scarf wasn't cutting it.) He requested a small bag, a "stash bag" one could say. These were totally easy to make. I found the pattern on Ravelry and it comes from Priscilla's Crochet. They are actually eyeglass cases:

This is the One Skein Scarf I made for my momma. The pattern is by Denise Cozzitorto and was published in Stitch'n Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker:

This is what I made for my little brother. The pattern was a challenge, especially since I wasn't paying close enough attention to counting my stitches. I was watching TV with Mr. Fight and he kept talking and I wanted to say, "Can't you see I'm counting!!!!! I am crocheting on a deadline! I just learned how to do this! I am not a machine!" but I didn't. Instead the reaper is a little wonky. So be it.

It is from the book Creepy Cute Crochet, by Christen Haden:

And lastly, my work in progress. I am making a bag that is big enough to carry files in, a book, a crochet project, whatever. I found this "Easy Peasy Crocheted Bag" on Laughing Purple Goldfish's blog.

Cheers!

I'm here!

I know I haven't posted anything in a short while, but I've been knee deep in craftiness! I'm not equipped to post photos or anything now, but I've been busy trust me. The loom is warped, and after I wove about 3 inches, I broke a warp end. Believe it or not, it's the first one I've ever had break on me. In 3 years of weaving at school, it never happened! So I need to get a t-pin today so I can fix that puppy up. I tried a biggish sewing pin, but it was not strong enough.

My 10 year old niece Breanna came over and made needle felted Christmas ornament with me yesterday, which was fun. Within a few minutes she had broken all but one needle, so after that, I just watched. I can't blame her, though because they are easy to break, especially if you are new to the wonders of "stab art". And I only had 4 to begin with. (I had more but my cats helped me loose them. Yes, I will find them jammed in my foot someday.) When I gave her the last one, I said, "Be careful with that one, or we're going for a ride to the store." And lo and behold, the needle lasted. We used cookie cutters to make the shapes and that worked really well. I've heard that that was an easy way to make flat stuff, but I've never actually done it myself. It works like a charm.

I'm also teaching myself how to crochet, to expand my crafty repertoire! I've heard people say that if you try to do too much (as in different kinds of fiber art), you wind up never finishing anything. But I suppose the same could be said about life in general. I think it would be fun tobe able to use all these different crafty techniques together to make a colossal craft super-item. (Not like I'm the first person to think of that.) So more on crochet 101 later. Stay tuned!

Farmland Adventure! (or Washing Wool, part Un)

Okay fiber lovers, get excited! As promised, here is photo documentation of my woolly weekend with Amy! First things first, Amy's house is beautiful! So cute. Here's a view from the backyard:

While I was there Amy showed me the great assortment of naturally dyed wool roving she just received from Wool Farm Crafts.

She was making some really nice Christmas ornaments and I liked them a lot. I've been thinking about felting a nativity scene and seeing the ornaments convinced me to make my Christmas gifts this year.

After I admired Amy's digs and took the grand tour, we got down to business. Here's one of the two bags of wool that Chris and Amy sheared:


So we have plenty of raw material to work with! As you can see there is some sticks and leaves and junk in the wool. Luckily Amy had the good sense to not save the wool from around the butt. There was honestly tons of wool, so it would seem cruel to have to use the poopy stuff. Next we got started picking the big stuff out.

After we picked the wool sort of clean, we put it in lingerie bags, which we got 3 for a dollar at the dollar store. You can see the bag on the ground. After we filled our 9 bags, which in retrospect, we should have bought more bags, we were off to the laundry room. (As we were doing this I was reminded of the John Waters movie "Pecker" with Eddie Furlong and Christina Ricci. Christina Ricci works at a laundromat and at one point she catches a lady trying to use Rit dye in the machine. Ricci goes OFF on the lady and I was imagining the same scenario, but with dirty wool! Ha!)

After we filled the washer and added the soap, we poked at the bags with wooden spoons to help jostle some of the dirt and debris free. We took the bags out, emptied the washer to get rid of the filthy farm water, then refilled with new clean water and did this until the water ran fairly clear. We probably filled the washer 3 or 4 times.

Next we took our clean bags out to the garage to sort out the clean wool. You can see we each have a little funky pile next to us and then a bigger pile of wool that's been picked further of sticks, et cetera.

The next step is carding the wool, getting all the fibers lined up in the same direction, getting the knots out and any final stubborn sticks and leaves. Amy and I do not own carders, but we are looking into buying some, maybe off EBay. Here's what it looks like:

That nice lady from Oaxaca, Mexico is carding wool. The things in her hands are the carders. You can see they look a little like dog brushes. So Amy and I tried, you guessed it-dog brushes! It worked okay, but they were smaller so it would just take longer. You can see the lady has the basket of nasty-ish (but clean) wool and she is making nice fluffy organized wool!

Now by this time my husband was calling, wondering if I was ever coming home, so the photos end here. We plan on making a regular thing of this, so when Amy and I have nice bats of wool roving, I'll post the pictures. Here's a little nugget of cleaned wool, so you can see how far it came from the first picture of the wool straight off the sheep!

So there you have it. Washing Wool, part Un. It was a lot of work, but not too much, especially if you have good company to share the work with. Once we get it all carded, I'll post Washing Wool, part Deux.


Full directions on how to wash fleece are available at Gleason's Fine Woolies. Please consider making them a donation for this service.

Sweet!

As you know, I like felting, weaving and wooly things in general. I tried wet felting for the first time this summer and here's the result:

The brown parts on the pineapple looked better before the wet felting, as they were more spread out into little diamond shapes, but all in all I'm pretty happy with it. I ended up with a pretty good square, which as a beginner was something I had to pay careful attention to, so as not to end up with a wonky rhombus.

Pineapples are one of my "things". I'm fixated. I don't know why. Yes, they are delicious, but it's more than that. Anyway, I tend to collect all things Pinapple. I even got a pineapple tattoo! (Thanks to Casey Corklic.)

That's my arm.

You win some...

Alright, bad news. We lost the game! It's not a big deal, the other team was really good. They had less players than us, but all the girls they had were pretty amazing. Hard hitters, big girls that were hard to take down, endurance and good offense. It's not so bad to get beaten by a strong team. Makes me want to work harder. It was a close game, we lost by about 12 points I think. (Derby is kind of like basketball, in how high the scores can go. If we lost by 12 points in say, soccer, I might feel worse right now.) Anyway, enough of that. There's always next time.





On another note, some people asked me to put up some pictures of the things I have made out of felt. I left my camera battery charger on my desk at work, so could only turn on my camera and take one picture before it died. So here's a little lady I made. It's not suposed to be offensive, so don't take it that way. It actually started out of my love for the Ancient Fern brown color. I made the body out of a toothpaste green, then covered it with the nice colors. I haven't finished the arms yet, so you can see the light green coming through. The picture is a little blurry because I was trying to take it quick before the battery went.






Want to hear a sad story? Cats like to eat felted stuff. Something about the sheepy smell drives them wild. After my abbreviated photo shoot-disaster struck! I forgot the god damn little lady on the couch and Bubsy mauled her overnight. (Pardon my french.) I was able to get the camera to turn on for one more photo.
The aftermath:






Can you see how she's all fuzzy now? She used to be smooth and firmly packed. Now she's all nubby! She had a rough night. She's fixable though. She did, however, have two felting needles stuck in back last night, which are not there now. I can't wait to find a 3" barbed needle (or two) jammed in my foot.

The culprit:



Penelope does not approve:




Here's us in happier times:



We were on a derby trip to play a bout out in Ohio and we stopped at this gross barbeque place on the way. All the food had names like "The Pittsburger" and there was no real indication of what any of the food was going to be. So I ordered the Pittsburger, which turned out to be a pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw and french fries on top. It was a disgusting mess. Later I saw a lady who worked there sweep out the oven with a broom. Like a broom that you clean the floor with. My friend Bonnie ordered some "Ragin' Cajun" sandwhich that turned out to be a two foot chicken hoagie. Ahhhh...good times.

Felt-tastic.

I love felting! I started with wet and dry felting over the summer and it reminds me of when I started weaving. It's a "where have you been all my life" feeling. This is going to sound weird, but I'm sure no one is reading this anyway, but I freaking love the wool roving. I want to eat it or roll around on it. It is so beautiful, the colors available are lovely and the way you can transform wool roving into "stuff" is amazing! Whether it's wet or dry felting, it's awesome how quickly the wool dreads together to make material or sculptural forms. This is a photo of the sampler pack from Peace Fleece. If you look closely, you can see that the colors aren't solid, but heathered with all kinds of beautiful colored nubbies. Ancient Fern is my favorite, favorite, favorite. Brown with purple and greens mixed throughout! Nice.