Knitting Dragonflies

Here is an Etsy Seller that has a little bit of everything. Becky from the Fab Miss B blog. She has two Etsy Shops, The Fab Miss B , in which she highlights vintage, (yes you can buy vintage on Etsy!)  Chinoiserie Tea Tin $10.00 Mini Painted Koch Grandfather Clock $20.00 Her other shop is Becky Kazana in which she sells her hand made cards and garlands. Be Present Card $3.50 Waiting on You Card $3.50 Why buy from a store when you can send a one of a kind card for the same price! Enjoy shopping…

I hate to throw things away, I’m always looking for other uses for things, here are a few I like Altoids Tin Gardens from Gomi Style If you must cut a sock apart, this is a good reuse for it from Design Sponge, Argyle Sock Vases Monica at Crafty Nest shows how to make a craft tool station and wall organizer “from crap from the curb” I thought this was interesting (but would never do this), recycle leaves by folding them into roses from Craftgossip.com But I do love the tiny little cards made from treasured bits by Designing Moms Recycle your old tee shirt into a diaper/nappy , very cute! From Natural Violet. Bleach Stenciling from Craftbits.com Hey I clean with bleach I thought could be a great “save” for those accidents to my clothes. Carton Wallet from family fun, I would actually make this. How about this, cereal is expensive, get some more use out of the box, here are five things you can do with a cereal box (gift bag and magazine holder are the best) fro

In the attempt to get a different look to my dyed yarn, I tried to dip the yarn into separate dye pots. Wow, I love the look, clean colors, more definition.  I used this article from Knitty to guide me. Of course it is more work. My hats off to all of you who hand paint yarn! I started with some vibrant shades of violet and green. I couldn’t find what I wanted and ended up using this tutorial on food coloring. From Spindle and Wheel. I used the Neon food colors that I found at a baking shop. They came in a paste. The mixing was quite a bit of trial and error. To come up with the right color and salt/vinegar mixture, this resulted in lots of little bundles of dyed yarn, and several pages of notes. I wanted the colors fairly close together to get a nice repeat when knitted. Wheee…This really exercised my arm muscles, dipping into the green, I tried to make five different bands of color. Then the purple, also five bands. Then wrap it all up into saran wrap and microwave i

As you know I have been raising silkworms, or trying to. It started with the idea of raising them for their cocoons, and eggs and then dyeing them to spin. Along the way I became charmed by these little hairy babies. Lifting their heads up,every time I opened the container to feed or check on them. Little piggy fellows, peaceful and sweet. My tale is one of many mishaps. I was so excited when my 1000 little eggs hatched, right on schedule. I had my mulberry leaf supply and fed them, hungry little squiggles. I checked and fed them , removed old leaves and then……one evening a cold snap came, I didn’t have the heat light set up. In the morning I had 1000 dead silkworms. Damn.. Discouraged but determined I set out with 500 more eggs. I had a thermometer in the shoe box, and a heat lamp. The eggs hatched out in 3 days. But by this time the mulberry leaves are browning, so I bought the mulberry mush. I carefully cut and place little clumps around for the little cuties to eat. They qui

I read about Navajo plying recently and found a couple of videos on You tube. This on is good , and here is another from the Yarn Wench It was easy to start out and I got the hang of it. I had a small amount of roving left of a color way and decided to try it. Here are my results I love the look of it and will do more. It has a slightly braided/twisted look. Give it a try, it is fun. Here is some more spinning I have going Some orange that I am going to ply with a little teal blend added in. This is going to be blended into a yoke for a sweater. It was all orange with a solid teal for the rest of the body. But I decided that looked too harsh. I like the added color it looks a little softer. I also spun some reddish/pink singles that I am thinking of Navajo plying May your knitting needles (or spinning wheel) fly as fast as Dragonflies…. Technorati Tags: Spinning , navajo plying , knitting , knit , how to navajo ply

My girlfriend that I met on Ravelry and I went to the Southern Indiana Fiber Arts Festival , last weekend. The drive was pretty, the company good, weather cold, and the fiber great! I went with the plan that I was only buying one skein of sock yarn. Really, just one skein. Dena wanted to look at spinning wheels, or maybe I wanted her to look at spinning wheels. We walked, talked, looked, fondled a lot of fiber and yarn. She tried a few wheels, and didn’t buy that much. I was doing fine until I bought: Screaming Wild Monkey! A special house blend of 70% super wash merino/15% Banana/!5% Seacell (impregnated with silver) 4 oz. The photo doesn’t show the colors, they are vibrant. From the River’s Edge Weaving Studio at  weavingstudio.com Then I ran across: 50g each of Tussah Sea Sliver, 60% Seacell, 40% Tussah Silk from Fleece Artist at fleeceartist.com While my girlfriend looked at wheels I found these: Sweet bunnies, then I purchased…. A big ball of German angora bunny and

Featured Etsy Seller is Made by Melissa ! A  28 year old engineer by day – and she started crafting as a way to express her creativity. Good prices, and quality items! She crochets, Recycled Silk Breezy Scarf $35.00 USD Beads, Pink Crystal Dangle Earrings $10.00 USD and has many other items in her shop. Penny the Pink Elephant  $15.00 USD Stop past her shop and look around, and take a look at her blog here . Support Handmade! Technorati Tags: featured etsy seller , Made by melissa