Knitting Dragonflies

While sitting outside and doing a little knitting I spied this little guy. I first thought he was a bee, then when I got closer, I noticed he was acting like a hummingbird. A long nose, clear wings, and a hairy body? Could he be a moth?   Yep, after some investigating, I discovered he is a Hummingbird moth, see this great slowed down video. He is actually a Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth ! We have been enjoying watching him! While sitting outside I’ve been working on my Sock, the basic sock from the Socks that soar on two needles by Cat Bordhi. I love this method of knitting socks! Hoping to get these done soon, it is a fast method of knitting socks, and when carrying them, no worries about having a dpn drop out. May your knitting needles fly as fast as dragonflies..

I found this stop motion tutorial on flickr, The Making of Origami Koi by MABONA ORIGAMI, website here http://www.mabonaorigami.com/ , full of inspirational images! This will make you take a second look at the blank piece of paper. Need a Mid Century Birdhouse ? I grew up in a ranch style house, and now my birds can also. Chris at Curbly.com show us how to make one! Don’t let your birds be homeless! Need a cute Mini Terrarium ? Jenny Ryan on Craftzine shows us how to make one using a Mason jar. Put a little mushroom in and a fairy and what little (or big girl) wouldn’t enjoy having this on her desk? A Copper Ring Tutorial from Karen Makes Stuff, stop and look at her blog, she has plenty of ideas you will be interested in. And for all of you knitters and spinners, take a look at the Knitty fall 2010 , and the Knitty spin close look at Navajo Plying   Knit Fast, Dye Yarn "Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass... it's about learning how to dance in

I’ve been playing around more with my water colors. I’m trying different looks to skies, ground and water. Just the basic things. Easier said than done. We have not been able to get away during the summer, due to my injury and other factors. So I guess my summer getaway is painting. Images of places I would like to be. I’m reading watercolor books, and visiting watercolor blogs. I tend to forget that I need the white of the paper left, at least some of it! So that is what I’ve been concentrating on. This was painted with the wet on wet technique. I should have used thicker paper or taped it down to prevent the buckling when it dried. I was playing around with trees and everything else was an afterthought. A chickadee on thistles Again, I think less would have been more, the background was added. I should have left it out. I was going for a blurry background, but…… Oops, overworked, I just kept going, I knew it was trash, ha A water bird, working on shadow

Sqeeee! I got a package in the mail. Jodi at Eternal Arts and Crafts blog had a giveaway of some lovely potholders . After a failed swap, she decided to have a contest for them. And I was drawn! Yay!! What a package! Not only did I get two quilted, vibrant potholder, but two skeins of Debbie Stoller Stitch Nation Yarn, which I have been eyeing, but hadn’t purchased. I’m planning on making a felted purse with them, perfect colors for a fall bag! Also included was a notepad, (for all of my lists), yarn bobbins, (which I needed), and some chocolate! Yum The potholders are perfect on top of my new range! See how pretty they are! They are the perfect compliment to my remodeled kitchen of black and yellow! Thanks Jodi! Stop past her blog, she has lots of good ideas and links!

I had this pattern and wanted to make it for quite some time. After much dithering about the yarn to use. I choose some of my hand spun super wash merino.  And picked out some beads. At first I thought I was going to leave the beads out, then I thought, seriously, take a chance and I decided to use them! I had a hard time finding a color of bead to use that looked good. I  started the pattern, and frogged it once then went crazy and decided to use a variety of colors of beads to pick up with two predominate colors in my handspun. The method I chose to use for knitting with beads was the traditional way, string them all on and slip them down when needed. It worked ok, with this amount of beads (108 beads), but if I was using more, I would attempt the crochet method, (see links below) The pattern calls for the beads to be applied in 5 rows in a twisted rib pattern, I was pleased that it was easier than I anticipated. I found several good blog posts on knitting with beads.

I’ve always wanted to try some toe up socks. I found this wonderful, step by step tutorial from Silver on Toe up socks . You can knit a basic sock or design your own socks. What drew me to this tutorial was how in-depth it is.A video' and step by step diagrams, I thought “yes I can do this”. Each page is a separate step in the sock, broken down into little bits that make it clear and concise. Very detailed! So I’m off to find my sock yarn and needles. I had bought some Trekking XXL sock yarn a long time ago in color 135 Circus, it is a self patterning yarn. I took my instructions and yarn to work and actually cast on at lunch, while talking! It was that easy, I got several rows done, and was then off. Here I’m at home checking out the progress, Penny is not impressed with it. She would rather be running in the yard.   The tutorial recommends to watch a one sock on two circular video on You Tube, once I did that, I understood the concept, and didn’t have any problems. It

I have recently been captivated by watercolors. This is the last thing I thought I would ever try! But, upon reading Theresa’s blog Blueberries, Art and Life , I was sucked into the world of watercolors. (I’m getting a little looser with my brush) I’m amazed at how the colors blend and run, creating a  lightness that is theirs alone. For a reasonable price you can get a basic set of brushes, paint and paper, and get hooked. I found a website that has info on watercolors, Handprint.com by Bruce MacEvoy. Of course, like knitting, water color painting comes with a language all of it’s own. I like this site, lots of tutorials, there is a big learning curve in learning the strokes and how to be loose and free with them. I also tend to want to fill in every speck of the page with color. Unlike knitting there is no frogging! It is fun to search for watercolors on You Tube and watch some artists paint. Below is an example of “wet on wet” from Anders Andersson   So I p