A bit from santa's workshop......

 Remember back on Nov 15th I had a bunch of a little felted squares to make into a secret something - well, here those simple somethings are - little wreaths. I felted a super scratchy Woolrich sweater that I wore only once in the past 10 years - cut it up into 1" squares and ran some buttonhole thread through them to make little wreaths. I've already got an idea for another felted ornament along these lines..........need to find another scratchy sweater to sacrifice...........

I sewed up some pattern weights for a dear friend in fabric I knew she'd love. These are basically yo-yo's with batting and 2 heavy washers inside, topped with fun buttons from my button stash. In the near future I'll be making myself a set of these..........which I guess means I should get to doing some sewing so I have a use for them..........

I sewed this tote for a friend - what a challenge. Both the outside fabric and the lining fabric have a 1/4" foam interfacing quilted to them, plus the lining fabric also has a heavy duty interfacing. The real challenge was working at the machine with all the bulk that didn't want to fold down out of the way. But I did it and I love the tote so much I've got all the supplies sitting in a pile in the sewing room to make myself one.........with sheep on it..........of course........

I have a few other things that have come out of Santa's workshop this year but they haven't been opened by the recipients yet so I can't post about them until after the holiday.

This was not a holiday gift but it recently came out of the pile of UFO's I'm working on - cross-stitched sunny sheep made into a cute little quilted wallhanging. This will be a future gift........unless I decide I can't give it up.

I'm still working on Sam's socks that go in his Christmas stocking this year - they won't be finished - he's around too much for me to get much knitting time on them. So, one goes in the stocking, the other stays on the needles until Christmas Day when I can finish it up out in the open.

A shawlette/scarf came off the needles this week but needs blocking so a photo will come after I get around to that. I love it.

Another small cross-stitch project is in the works - it was a gift, a kit for a bookmark - will share after it's done.

I've pulled out all my samples and references on boundweave as I've got to present a program on it to two different guilds, the first in March, second in April. I need to make a few more samples and hopefully there will be time for two new projects floating around in my little pea brain. My handout from the program I gave on boundweave in 1999 needs updating.....actually it needs to be totally re-done because somehow the file never made it from computer to computer (many computers) over the years.

Felted.........

I felted a wool sweater, on purpose, a couple years ago for an ornament project but I never got around to making them. So I took it with me over to the coast and cut all the little squares. I thought I'd get 3 ornaments out of this sweater that shrunk down to 10 year old size but I got 10!!!  Sorry, no posting of the finished ornaments until after they're gifted. Hmm, I wonder if anyone can figure out what they are...........

Futte, futte, do, do, do, do, oh futte, futte.........

Yep, that was me singing the futte futte maker song this morning while making felt balls for more wheel jewelry....or people jewelry. You can see it in my post of May 23rd of this year. It's addictive, I thought I'd make no more than 15 of them. The futte futte makes quick work of felting balls but don't ask me where to get it - no one can find it out there on the internet at the moment. I got it at superbuzzy.com back in the spring but after I showed it around and wore my jewelry this spring and summer there was a run on them. Now these balls will dry, then I'll add silver wire, beads and charms to them.

Great fun at NWRSA conference......

Early last Thursday morning my friend Pat and I set off for the NWRSA spinning conference up in Salem, OR - we met up with others from our area and many other fiber friends from elsewhere. We had a great time and came home totally exhausted last night. I took one great class with my bud Janis Thompson from Dyelots in Eugene, OR on spinning art yarn - what fun! Looking forward to spinning more yarn adding bit and pieces of ribbon, beads, or whatever to add in as accents in my woven scarves. Took a knitting class that was a bust, the teacher had a handout with typos in the pattern instructions, she left out pertinent parts of the pattern and couldn't/wouldn't answer questions - I had heard from someone who took another class from her in the morning that she wasn't a good teacher, she was right. And there were only 5 of us in the class, perfect for getting more one on one help......with any other teacher, what a disappointment and waste of my time and money.......oh well........that happens once in a while, thank goodness not very often.

Each year I try to find or make a goodie for my spinning friends to hang from their wheel. This year I made little felt balls, added beads and charms and made wheel jewelry. I think everyone liked hanging a special bauble on their wheel.....they can also hang it from a chain or cord later and wear it as jewelry. I made my self a necklace with matching earrings I wore one day in one of my favorite colors - lime green. I'm trying to decide if I should make some of these to sell.....I tend to get scattered selling too many different items but I'll give it thought, they were fun to make.

I don't have alot of treasures to share as far as shopping - I didn't need a thing - all I bought was one knitted beaded scarf pattern. I felt bad for the vendors, not enough shoppers since attendance was down and not many came in on public day. I would have liked to have supported them but when I've got hundreds of pounds of fiber here at home already that I sell I just couldn't justify buying more.

Knitting & Felting

These are the latest knit felted belt bags I've made. Two of them are special orders, one a birthday gift, the rest will hopefully be bought at some point. Above is a close up of the needlefelting I've done on the bags after they're felted. The grazing sheep bag was felted this morning - picture to come after it dries, not sure if I'll wait until I get the leather handles or not for the picture.

New Felting Bunz Kits

This is what I've been up to today - putting together two different felting bunz kits. The top one is using Colonial wool, the bottom one is using Merino wool. Some wetfelters prefer merino, some needlefelters prefer colonial - I've tried both ways with each fiber and they both work equally as well. I just put a couple up for sale in my newer etsy shop for the Ashland Bay fibers.

The stepping stone class yesterday was great fun - my stone needed to cure overnight and then a sealer was to be added today by my friend who lives close to where the workshop was held, saves me an hour plus trip out and back today for a 10 minute process, I'll post a picture when I pick it up.