Knitting Dragonflies

I’ve been amazed at blending and creating colors from just the basic three colors. It started as yarn dyeing, and took me to watercolors, which helped me understand color on a whole different level. I haven't painted in a bit. But I have been playing with yarn dyeing….. The inspiration, a photo from a spice market in Morocco! The spices, the colorful clothing, and the sky! I discovered if I do my yarn dyeing in multiple steps, laying the colors in one at a time, (wash, add another color, wash repeat as many times as you desire) that the colors come out cleaner! I’m loving the results. The above set is Morocco spice, especially dyed for someone! It is best to think of the color wheel and lay in your lightest colors first, do some planning. Think of what color the overlapping colors will make. Red is the strongest, so I always add that one last. Want to warm it up? Put the entire skein in a weak color bath of a warm color, red, orange, or yellow. Cool the color, try a weak...

The Etsy seller to be featured this month is Diana of Faerie Garden Fancies ! From her Bio: I am an artist & teacher. My favorite materials to work with include but are not limited to paper, paint, glue, scissors, polymer clay, pencils, watercolors, camera, and computer. I am sometimes disguised as a substitute teacher, as I attempt to figure out how to reconcile my passions with making a living. I live in the country with my partner and our four still-at-home, unschooled kids and one very spoiled cat. For more info about me, check out my blog at http://bunnykissd.blogspot.com ! I think one of my favorites is the Chocolate Candy Pendant I love her Magical Mermaid Doll Crazy Kitty Take a look at her shop for more goodies.

Fun ways to help mother earth, and economical also! Enjoy! - Embellish a tee shirt to fun and flirty tutorial with Positively Splendid -Sneezerville shows us how to recycle a sweater into stylish leg warmers -Craftbits always has great ideas! Here is one for a luminary from plastic drink containers that looks elegant! -Kaboose has a sweet little tin can pot tutorial for your Herb garden -Turn a boxy men's tee into a great fitting one for yourself with bekathwia and Instructables

Last year I bought some lovely fiber from a fiber festival. It was so soft, the kind of fiber you pick up and just want to rub and snuggle with. Then I had a day off, and some sunshine, I pulled my wheel out onto the deck, even with a cool breeze and my jacket on it was a pleasure to sit and spin. The Fiber is: Screaming Wild Monkey! A special house blend of 70% super wash merino/15% Banana/!5% Seacell (impregnated with silver) 4 oz. (what ever this means!!??) Did that stop me from buying it? Oh no. The photo doesn’t show the colors, they are vibrant. made by River’s Edge Weaving Studio at  weavingstudio.com It was a dream to spin! I spun it up fairly quickly. After some consideration I decided to try my hand at Navajo Plying. I used this You Tube video from Rexenne on Navajo Plying , she has quite a personality, and the video is very through, even including slow motion. After plying I was amazed at the difference in the color!! Plying in the Navajo style with multicolored si...

I’m still slogging along with my Iced sweater from Knitty . After an alarming number of frogs and ciphering, I am cautiously on a roll. Yes you would think with yarn this bulky, that this sweater would be done in a week. Me too! I started with this lovely yarn that I purchased for another pattern, sound familiar? How many times do I do this? It laid around and mocked me for some time. I just wasn’t happy with the pattern that I originally bought for it. Of course the yarn being rather super bulky, it was hard to find another pattern to fit my needs. Enter Knitty Fall 2010 Iced Sweater by Carol Feller . I feel in love with it and had to have it. Well,,,,,,I didn’t want to buy more yarn, so I decided I would “force” this yarn into behaving itself began and perilous journey. Getting Gauge: not going to happen, the knitting gods laughed at me…Frogged Getting Gauge second try: still laughing, and do I detect some snorting?….Frogged Begin knitting, I’m blindly knitting along, tightly ...

I’ve never been able to find some buttons that I thought looked good on this sweater! I’ve tried wood, metal with design, and various plastic. Finally I thought I would try to make some myself. Above is my Lion Neck Cardigan , with my buttons sewn on! I modified the pattern collar, see my rav link above. This was a fun top down pattern by Wendy Bernard. I decided to make some more buttons with engraved branches on them, and some larger buttons to paint on. Here are my buttons, ready to go into the oven. I roughly scratched some branches and leaves with a toothpick. And then made the button holes by sticking a cuticle stick into the back and front and smoothing the hole out. I made 5 buttons with branches on them for my sweater. Lion Neck Cardigan. (amazon book link) I rubbed in with my hands a acrylic green, using the paint brush to really make sure it got into all of the little cracks. Too green! So I added a burnt umber to my glaze and washed it over it. (I did this by us...

I have been enjoying making Polymer buttons for my sweaters. The below buttons are approx. 2 inches across. Big enough to paint an image on. I used acrylic paints and decided to try some bamboo stalks on them. Satisfied with the results, but then decided the back ground was too white. I Added some burnt umber to my gloss and painted this on after the image was dry. This made a more “weathered” look. You can use any “gloss” treatment for acrylic paints, the paint on or spray. Yay, now I need to find something to sew them on! Below are the 3 buttons from my last batch, Approx. 1.5 inch in diameter, (see engraved polymer button tutorial post) , these are my plain buttons that I tried my hand at painting on. I had already painted a gloss coat on these buttons and the paint didn’t go on as bright as I wanted it. Memo to self, paint first….before putting a glossy coat on. If you use the liquid gloss, you can add a little color to it and come up with more interesting looks. It was diff...

Enter a snowy day and some friends. We ate and drank, and walked around town. The above is a fountain that is frozen up. And when some of your company likes to knit and do needlework it turns into a perfect weekend. Notice the large bag my husband is holding. This is because my girlfriend “found” a knitting shop that was selling out of all of their spinning fiber. Can you say “visa”? Seriously now, I wasn’t going to even buy any, just “look”. Then maybe just one or two, by the end, I had everything in my bag that she had left. Clockwise from the top 1-Camel/Tussah Silk Top 8 oz., ooooo so silky and lovely, 2- Dark Blue Dyed Corridale 8 oz., 3- Light Blue Merino Silk Blend 8 oz., 4- Corridale, Turquoise 8 oz., 5-Baby Camel Top 8oz (this was the only one I was originally to buy, just made my knees weak) I need to get some seriously spinning done, and today is Super Bowl Sunday! Touchdown!! Get the wheel out! - Knit Fast, Dye Yarn "Life is not about waiting for the storm...

I have been looking for the “right” buttons for a sweater. I can’t find what I want so I decided I would play around and see if I could create some. I thought of trying polymer clay. I bought a neutral color because I wanted to embed the design into it, and then bring it out with paint. First I purchased some Polymer Clay I made 3 simple buttons by: Warming the clay up until it was pliable and made a flattened piece of clay, like you would a sugar cookie, approx. 1/4 inch thick. I think used a sharpie pen, (the fat kind) as a rolling pin to even it out and make the top portion smooth. I used a bottle cap (from some body lotion) to punch the button out. A cuticle stick to make the button holes. I also used the cuticle stick to try and scrape a design into the button. I wanted to make a bamboo like design. (I made the design first and then punched the holes), Go into both sides of the button with your stick for the holes. Now bake according to the instructions on your clay...