Christmas

Christmas is a bit delayed here at our house this year. We usually do a big Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve but it snowed half the day here at our house and weather was iffy for the evening - possibly more snow & ice so we postponed that until Saturday. It's just fine, no reason for unnecessary worry about family driving.

I thought I'd post some of the gifts I made for family & friends this year. First off are our Christmas cards this year - I have pictures of two of them since the trees vary a bit since the warps were handpainted (dyed) and then woven. And yes, I hand cut all the tree shapes out of cardstock.

Here's another knitted felted tea cozy, this one decorated with needlefelted leaves & vines

I covered journals (these are just a few) with all sorts of papers for friends & family to keep their thoughts, dreams or ideas in. My spinning group got glass magnets - one with our logo and then others with various pictures of fibers. And for another gift I filled glass balls with spinning fibers, these the signature fiber from a past NWRSA conference, I added some glitzy fibers to it for more sparkle.











A friend who moved up to Corvallis earlier this fall got a special gift. Two of us were over helping her pack one day and while packing the kitchen I opened a drawer and found it full of twist ties, bread closures and rubberbands. I got hysterical because there were so many of them, more than a person could ever use - recycling taken to the max. The night before she and her husband took off she gave me a gift - a box of twist ties, bread closures & rubberbands! Well, I knew I couldn't let that go so I really took recycling to the max and made her a necklace and earrings - all I added were some jump rings and a few beads. I'm hoping she got a big laugh when she opened the box yesterday morning.
I made two quilted afghans this year both in golf themes. Hubby Sam's is the one in the grey/black colorway, my cousin Jim (whose name I had in the family gift exchange this year) is the forest/deep red colorway. Jim won't get his until tomorrow since we delayed Christmas Eve dinner - hope he loves it as much as Sam loves his.






And finally some of the fingerless mitts I knit and a new knit hat for Sam

Soysilk

The latest project on the loom - an advancing twill scarf in soy silk. The warp is a space dyed soy silk, the weft a solid brown. If I had more of this on the shelf in the studio I would have liked to have had more contrast in the weft, like a rich dark chocolate brown but I don't. This project is actually part of a guild program for March and I only bought enough soy silk for two projects, the other dark pink. It's very expensive, as in way more expensive than real silk.

Traditional Italian Christmas Eve dinner has been postponed due to nasty weather..........was snowing the first half of the day, has now changed to rain but will be changing back to snow this evening. Not good traveling for family to get up to our house or to get home traveling over a mountain pass.

Another bummer for the afternoon is that my server connection to msn is down so no email - horror of all horrors! I do have the yahoo account but only use it in emergencies..........this may be one if the server connection doesn't come up soon.

Banana Silk

Oh my, this banana silk yarn is an experience. I'm finally starting to work on a guild program for March that will be on some of the newer fibers out there to use.......some I've used for years but other weavers in my guild haven't so those will be covered too. The banana silk yarn is new to me, it's similar to recycled sari silk yarn only not as nice. I wove two skinny scarves out of it using 10/2 perle cotton for the warp, the banana silk would not be suitable for warp even with big eyed heddles. The scarves are still drying so I'm not sure what the end result will be, hoping for soft. This yarn is very weak, nubby, overtwisted and sheds while weaving...........and it took forever to get the fugitive dye out of it in the washing process. Oh, and it had sharp little prickers and sticks spun in - hopefully I got most of those out. Not something I'll buy again but it was good to try it for the program.

Yum cookies

Just finished what small amount of cookie baking I'll be doing for Christmas and they're not the traditional ones the family makes. Some almond coconut macaroons and some chocolate cookies rolled in Oregon hazelnuts (thank you Shirley) with a bit of frosting and a hersheys kiss in the center - all I have to say is yum! Perfect snowy day activity.

Morning Snowfall

This is the 4th significant snowfall in 6 days - still snow on the ground from previous days. Looks to be 5-6" this morning and still snowing hard. The temps have stayed below freezing for a few days now. Need to bring that hummingbird feeder in to thaw - always a few stay for the winter, also heard the birds chirping so need to clean off the birdfeeders and make sure they have some yummies too, maybe put out the suet. Nice to know we don't have to get anywhere today other than figuring out how to get the trashcan down the steep hill to the road for pickup tomorrow morning - driveway is 1/3 mile all downhill curves with steep drop-offs. Going to get a beef stew going in the crockpot, fire is warming up the house, might even bake some Christmas cookies today..........would love to get to the spinning wheel or loom room. As long as we don't lose power I'll be a happy camper.

More Snow!

This is our third morning waking up to a substantial amount of snow. It's so still out this morning.............well, it was until Bailey decided to start barking at a big buck meandering through the property. I decided to take pix out the front door this time. That's the wood shed - it's completely full, hopefully it will last the winter. We've already used a cord of wood that was under tarps in front of the shed. This morning the snow is very heavy, yesterday morning it was sparkly and light. Hoping the 4wd Tundra can navigate the steep 1/3 mile driveway later today as we need to ship something. All this snow keeping me home has helped with getting Christmas gifts finished up.

Gecko tea cozy

I thought I wouldn't be able to post any pictures of Christmas gifts I've made until after the holidays but s-i-l and b-i-l couldn't wait and opened their gift. Part of it was this tea cozy that I knit, felted and then needlefelted the gecko on. They live in Florida and they're decor is margaritaville - thought it would fit in just perfectly.

Snow

Woke up to snow this morning - weather forecasters hit it on the head this time. Predicted to snow through the weekend. Even with 4wd Sam can't get down the drive - all ice underneath it. It had let up a bit when I took this picture but now the flakes are gigantic again, snowing hard. Good day to stay inside by the fire with a cuppa tea and sew or knit - still working on Christmas gifts.

Pacifica Winter Arts Festival

Well, it's over for another year - very fun time yesterday in my booth at the Pacifica Winter Arts Festival. I got to visit with many old friends and new when I wasn't busy writing up sales. I wasn't sure what to expect with the economy but it ended up being a great sale. Higher priced shawls and scarves didn't sell as well but medium priced items sold very well. Some items are back up in my etsy shop for sale, more here in the studio in stock............and hopefully at some point this week photo taking to get more items up in etsy to replace those that sold yesterday. But first it's back to gift making - Christmas is sneaking up on me way too quickly.

Fiber Update

Yes, I'm still here, I just haven't had anything much fiber related to post to the blog lately, I'm working on Christmas gifts so I can't post pictures of those until after they've been opened on Christmas Day.

Yesterday my spinning group met here at the house - very fun day. For our entertainment I had saved a dvr'd of the show Dirty Jobs (Discovery Channel) of Mike Rowe out working on a sheep ranch in Colorado shearing, docking tails and castrating. It was a little barbaric but watching his reaction to performing these normal ranch duties was a kick.

A reminder to everyone that I'll be at the Pacifica Winter Arts & Crafts Festival this Saturday, Dec 6th from 10-5, if you're local please come by to visit, it's a very fun event. I'll have handwoven shawls, scarves and towels.......felted bags, belt bags and soap...........knitted items, handmade jewelry...........and for those of you that are fiber minded I'll have my hand-dyed roving and sock yarn.

As for my Etsy shop - from December 1st -25th every box of purchases that leaves the studio will include a small thank you gift as a holiday gift.

Fingerless Gloves

Just finished the second glove this evening so I thought I'd

edit this post and put up another picture.I started a pair of fingerless gloves last night - this is the first one finished, second one is half finished. This is the first time I've knit any - what fun, and so fast using worsted weight yarn. Will definitely be knitting more of these.

Heart 2 Heart Benefit

One of the local banks - Evergreen Federal introduced a community art project to help save lives through raising money to purchase automated defibrillator devices for the public schools. The project is called Heart 2 Heart. For every heart picked up, decorated and brought back to the bank for display they will donate $1 to the fund (over 5000 hearts are available for pickup). By Valentine's Day the hearts will be available for sale raising even more money, any not sold will be donated to local nursing homes and soldiers serving in Iraq. This project was just calling my name to needlefelt another sheep in the series started with my felted tea cozy earlier in the year. Here's a picture of the finished heart - below are pictures of it in progress. Hopefully I'll get this dropped off at the bank in the next two days.

Here is the wood heart I picked up at the bank - I painted the sides not knowing what I'd be doing as far as finishing them.

For the background for the heart I decided I wanted to felt some pink wool. I started out with wet felting some wool I had dyed but wasn't happy with that so I then moved on to knitting a blank which I then felted in the washing machine. It turned out great although it was touch and go on if it was big enough - just made it with a quarter inch to spare on the sides.

These are the flat pieces in black and natural I'm needlefelting to make the sheep's body. In needlefelting I use a needle with barbs that as it gets punched through the wool it felts it together.

Here I'm starting to felt the sheep body to the pink felted background. I cut out the shapes from the flat pieces of natural and black felt that I made.

Here is the piece after I've needlefelted the stems on using green wool. I've started felting the leaves on - I made them the same way I made the body felting 2 colors of green into a flat piece and then cutting the leaves out of it.

The heart is almost finished here - I just finished putting the needlefelted flowers on, last step was to glue it to the board and trim it up.

Silk Scarves

Yes, I'm still here - just bogged down working on gifts (which can't be posted lest I spill the beans), our Christmas cards, making special order scrabble pins, a fiber heart for a cause (will post pictures once finished) and getting ready for the Pacifica Winter Arts & Crafts Festival. Finally this morning I've posted a handful of my hand-dyed silk scarves and a shawl. I have many more in the studio but just put a sampling up in the etsy shop.

New Items in Online Shop

Hi all, still trying to play catchup here. I finally got more items up in my etsy shop: knit hats, felted bags, felted soaps (only a sampling of these up, have many more in stock), TEA scrabble pins and various other personalized scrabble pins. Please check them out for holiday gifts. I still have to work on more picture taking of hand-dyed silk scarves, I'll get a sampling of them up soon. http://eweniquelyewe.etsy.com

Scrabble Tack Pins

These are my scrabble tack pins - I've made numerous ones for gifts and for sale here locally. I've decided I'll try them in the etsy shop using a limited choice of charms. They will be made to order when someone buys one with the initial of their choosing, charm and bead color. These are $12 each. There is a tack, similar to a tie tack on the back for pinning it on a sweater, blouse or jacket......or even a tote bag. Right now I'm offering in the way of charms the celtic heart, female yogi, I love to knit, I love to crochet, heart in hand, knitting sweater and pine cone. I have many other charms but only a small number of each so I won't be posting those but if anyone is interested in knowing what else I have drop me a line - as an example I have frogs, flowers, roosters, cats, golden retriever, and sheep, of course.

Scrabble "Tea" Pins

These are my Scrabble "Tea" pins. I haven't sold any of these yet - had only made myself one this last year, decided to go ahead and make some for sale. The charms are a tea bag, a teapot and a teacup. There is a pin back glued on the back. When I wore mine over on the coast recently on our tea luncheon day I had several comments as walking around town on it. These sell for $28.00 each. A handful of them will be up on etsy this week once I get to taking individual pictures.

Felted Soaps

I've been working on items for sale and Christmas gifts the past few days. Obviously the gifts I can't post on the blog until after the holidays - don't want to spill the beans. I finished up the felted soaps. There are lavendar or aloe soaps wrapped in wool and felted so it's a soap and washcloth in one. These are for sale for $6 each - once I get individual pictures taken I'll put some of them in my etsy shop. I'll have them at the Pacifica sale on December 6th and as always they're available from me directly.

Handwoven Scarves

Yesterday I listed a number of scarves on my etsy shop - here are a sampling of what's there. I'm waiting for felted soaps to dry so I can post pictures of them, am working on scrabble pins.......will get pictures of those up as soon as they're finished.