Knitting Dragonflies

Need some fun delivered to your door! Drop past miesmama on Etsy! She has lots of cute items! From bags and hair bands to key chains and felted bowls. Lots of fun. Oak felted bowl, to put some goodies in $15.00 Sunflower Pin, that makes me feel happy $5.00 Some pony tail holders $3.50 perfect for your hair. Oak leaf key ring $10.00 She blogs at http://miesmama.blogspot.com/

This is the 2nd year I have participated in the Tour De Fleece, this year I have my first wheel, so it was especially exciting! For a warm up I started with some pink roving and finished it up, details here . Then on to the main spinning my purple Tennessee roving . Lovely, and lonely, it sat for about a year before I started on it. I was able to spin it very fine (for me) and ply it. I’m so excited. This is the first skein. Now I come to the question of how to figure out how much yardage I have spun?   Can anyone point me in the right direction to figure this out? Here are my finished skeins, I hope to have enough  to make a shawl. This is my Baktus scarf , made with my first TDF handspun, I didn’t expect to be able to wear it in July! It was 69 degrees this morning.   This gives you an idea of the total size. I think it will be very flexible to wear, as a scarf, I don’t think it is too long or bulky to tuck into your coat, yet warm.  As a wrap it is great for m

We took a much needed vacation into the woods, I found a great genuine log cabin to rent, we took a week and tried to regain some sanity. So with some hiking and some knitting, reading and relaxing in the plans, we start off. The cabin is located in a forrest of 23,000 hand planted pine trees planted over 50 years ago. Yes look very closely, that little speck is my husband. Truly magnificent, the pines that is, well maybe my husband also. Some knitting to be done   After a long day of hiking, and yes my feet are on a hot tub on our screen in back porch. What more could you need? A pond, yes we had that also. More hiking See my husband there?? and here? (at Ash cave ) Well you have to take some knitting when you hike. Knitting on my Sailor’s Delight socks. (at old man’s cave) And yes, my husband again, I see the back of him during all of our hiking adventures. ( at Cantwell Cliffs ) More hiking Great wilderness How many dragonflies do you see?

I got some plain yarn, it is beige Lion Brand 100% wool, kind of boring. 24 oz of it. I want to knit this , from Knitty. Imagine by Karen Alfke who blogs here Abakini, better living thorough knitting. Notice that there is green and blue Kool Aid, in the background. Because, yes, I am officially obsessed with Kool Aid dyeing. I wound it off into 4 oz hanks. And then cooked up some lemon-lime Kool aid, I used 5 pkgs. per 4 oz of yarn. I decided to solar dye the yarn, since it is 93 here and sunny, and I found some sun tea jars on sale at Wal-Mart. I let it “cook” until the water was clear, then let cool until room temp and  rinse and drained it well. This took about 6-8 hours in full sun. Let cool and then rinse in cool water. Hang to dry.   Very green, but I wanted a little variation in color. I used blue Kool Aid, and used 2 pkgs. per 4 oz hank of yarn. I had a brain storm of applying it with a salt shaker. . Make sure you yarn is just barely damp, not setting in

If you haven’t heard about her, Sophie is a great little 4 year old that is inspiring many people to pick up their sticks and string and make a cozie (a cuddle blankie) to donate to her. She is collecting them to give to children at their local hospital. She has a group on Ravelry called Sophie’s Cozies (of course). Sophie knits herself and is adorable. Please go to Ravelry and read her story. I caught wind of her on Plurk, and donated the rest of my baby blankets from my Etsy shop. Woo Hoo….this little girl can inspire. She reminds us of what is important in life, and to take time to do it. She wants to deliver her first batch of cozies in September, so get out your needles and get going. May your knitting needles fly as fast as Dragonflies Technorati Tags: Sophie cozies , ravelry , donate , knit , knitted cozie , comfort blanket

While trying to destash, I ran across some nice yarn, but the color way was outdated, or I was tired of them….So…..why not try overdyeing? (I know I’m really suppose to be destashing and decluttering my house, and I end up making a bigger mess) Over dyeing begins…why not…can it look worse? Yuck. Blue/yellow/red before.   Before and after, this is with 5 packages of grape Kool Aid, and microwave dyed . It took the harshness away. My husband doesn’t see much difference, but he IS a man. Here we are all dry and ready to go, now I would knit something with this yarn. Inspired by my success, I decided to try more yarn. I found this blue/orange/burgundy/green color way. ugh… More yarn…and this time I tried solar dyeing, I found out that WalMart had their sun tea jars (glass) on sale for $1 each. I used this method . This yarn reminds me of the 70’s, and then some grape and  cherry kool aid (sorry I know it’s generic, but that’s half the price) Sun tea jars + yarn +

I had planned on spinning my purple roving first, but decided to start on some pink roving that I got from Grinny Possum Fiber Arts . 8 oz of very pretty pink roving Just getting started on sat July 4th Watching some old movies and spinning, it’s raining outside so good time to get some spinning done. Done with the pink roving, so pretty What to make with it???? Ideas? Now on to the purple and NCIS…. I’m getting better at my spinning, I’m able to get it thinner, do we all dream of spinning lace weight yarn? Technorati Tags: Tour de Fleece 2009 , roving , spinning , spin , pink spinning , Grinny Possum Fiber Arts , Smoky mountain spinnery Mountain Spinnery

I saw this bag in Bags That Rock and fell in love with it. It is a nice across the body, slouchy bag, with an easy style. From the beginning I had trouble deciding if I needed to knit it one stranded, (this looked much too thin), or double stranded, (oops, not enough yarn). Like any bewildered knitter, I just put my head down and started over. All of the pieces done, I wasn’t happy with the thinness of the yarn knitted up, but I kept going. Single crochet around all of the pieces. Now we sc the pieces together. And add the bottom, oops, the bottom is much too small!! I sc several rows around to make it fit, and then sewed it in. All together and ready to felt!! Now the fun really begins… All fuzzy and drying. It did end up to be quit thick and ready to finish up. I plan to get some fabric to line it with and haven’t decided on how to finish the closure. (zip, snap?) Straps are long enough to be worn across the body, the straps are knotted at the top, so the length