Yesterday, geekpixie and I went to the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival (aka Rhinebeck). The Festival was completely wonderful, though the bus trip left something to be desired.


This is us, on the bus, at around 6 am. We look so happy, probably because we didn't know that the 3.5 hour trip was actually going to take 5 hours.


Thankfully, once we arrived at the festival, we had a perfect day to wander around and visit all the lovely, lovely fibers.


Mmmm...fiber.

And the animals. Can't forget the animals. :)






We had a lunch which included deep fried garlic cloves.


And I came home with all of this:


But I didn't buy a bunny, so I think I exercised a remarkable amount of self control. Go me!

All in all, it was a good day, though we have decided that next year, we should just drive ourselves down and stay in a hotel. It will probably cost the same, and we won't spend 2/3 of the day on a bus where we didn't even have lights so we could knit on the way home.

Received my adorable little cat fairy stuffie from my partner. Check her out:


She's so cute, I love the hair, and the dress, and her huge eyes.

More Halloween-y Goodness

My partner for the latest Little Stuffie Swap received her bitty stuffies today. I ended up making 3 of them because I kept not being happy with how they turned out.

So, my first idea, because my partner said her favorite thing about Halloween was the costumes, was to make a stuffie with several different costumes that she could wear.

She could be a kitty:


a wizard:


or the headless horseman:


Although I am happy with the way the bunny herself came out, I wasn't fully satisfied by the costumes. So I decided to make another little stuffie. Something I was convinced I'd be able to do well. So I made a little black cat.


Although I think he's cute, it didn't feel like my best effort.

So, as a last ditch effort, I made a tiny mummy:

I kinda love him.

Finally, as the extra gift, I painted this domino pendant (a medium I am very into right now for some reason):

Received an awesome package from my Halloween swap partner. Check out all the loot:


2 cat toys w/ catnip, hand painted wooden skull box, "monster" wreath, stenciled pillow, pumpkin carving kit, Friday the 13th shot glasses, candy.


Closeup of the felt cat toys and stenciled pillow. Absolutely am in love with the pillow, and the squidjees are enjoying the toys very much.


Inside the skull box, with extra eyeballs!


Best. Wreath. EVER.

My partner for the fall themed swap received her package as well.

First I made this little embroidered pillow:


The fabric is some random fleece I had left over from some other project, and the embroidery was done with wool-ease left over from the second scarf I ever made (I knew there was a reason I never throw stuff out!)

Next is some autumn-colored yarn:

The fiber was a romney blend, but I had lost the tag for it, so I don't remember exactly. This single was pretty well balanced, a first for me.

And last, a wreath:

I originally resisted the idea of buying the wreath base, and gathered a bunch of twigs and branches from my yard and spent most of a day entwining them and binding together with floral wire, only to discover that the base I had made was too big to fit in any of the boxes I had, and I tried to get a larger box, but couldn't find one. So, I ended up buying a wreath base. But it was still fun to hot glue stuff all over it, and I will just end up using the base I made for a wreath for me. :)

My Halloween swap partner received her goodies, so I thought I'd post some pics.

This is the graveyard jewelry box:


and inside:


A foam skull mobile:


Spiderweb candle holder (purchased from a thrift store and painted to look all pretty and stuff):


Crocheted slippers (these actually ended up fitting the recipient, which I was worried about, because they seemed so small, but she wears a size 5):


The "zombie attack" hoodie:


And a stenciled Jack tote bag:


Have I mentioned lately that I love Halloween?

I received my frame and roll of film from the Disposable Camera/Roll of Film swap. My partner made me this cute frame:



And here are a few of my favorite pics:

I am currently signed up for 4 different swaps, so have been keeping very busy with the crafting. There's the "Halloween" swap, the "Fall" swap, the "Day of the Dead" swap, and a Halloween themed "little stuffie" swap. What can I say? I love this time of year.

Once again, I am asking for your input on one of my current projects.

This is the "Zombie Attack Hoodie"

Front:



Back:



Am I done with this project?

1. Needs more blood
2. Has just the right amount of blood
3. Too much blood!

Last night, I started work on a project for the Halloween swap I am doing. I had forgotten how much fun it is to make drippy blood stains all over stuff. Muhuhwahahahahaha!

Went to the "Evening with Norah Gaughan" event at Webs yesterday with . Bought book full of pretty, pretty sweater patterns. Need yarn. Specifically, I need yarn to make this sweater. And this one.


Also, how awesome is this:



It's a free pattern on the Lion Brand website. Yeah. Need one.

Continuing on my trend of actually finishing things. Here are a couple of my recent knitted items.

First up we have some fingerless mittens for jadefu.


(I hope you like them, and I will try to remember to bring them with me the next time I am going to see you)

And next up, we have my long suffering Clapotis. This is a very easy pattern that somehow became the neverending project for me. I started it in Mar 2006, and shortly thereafter, it was stolen from my car, along with a bunch of other stuff in my knitting bag. Thankfully, the bag, the yarn, and most of the other contents were recovered a week or so later. Sadly, I had kind of lost my drive for working on it, and it sat, neglected, for many months. Occasionally, I would pick it up, knit a few rows, get distracted by something and neglect it again. Poor thing.

Anyway, it's done now, and it looks darned pretty. And it's starting to be autumnal outside, so I will get to use it. Yay!

I recently took part in a "disposable camera/roll of film" swap. The idea was that you would shoot a roll of film and send it, undeveloped to your partner, along with a picture frame that you made or decorated. My partner has received the package, and though I don't yet know how any of the pictures came out, the frame looks like this:



It's a wooden frame, painted with brown and metallic gold acrylic paint, and then decorated with skeletonized leaves, gold paper leaves, and a silvery wire tree. Although I am pleased with the results, I would never do this again, as it was a real pain in the you-know-what. The coloring in the leaves bled everywhere when I was trying to glue them to the frame, and the wire tree did not want to stick to anything and kept unbending and pulling away from the frame. The back ended up being a huge glue-y mess. Thankfully, people shouldn't be looking at the back that often. :)

I received an adorable crocheted sheep from my swap partner in exchange for Ernest the Bunny.

She doesn't have a name yet, but I think she's darned cute.

Ernest, my crocheted bunny reached his new owner yesterday, and she likes him a lot.

Work on some of my long oustanding knitting projects is nearing completion. I am about halfway through the decrease section on my Clapotis. Exchequered is about 6 rows from being complete, so I should finish that today at work. And I completed one of jadefu's fingerless mittens and started its mate. Hooray for finishing things.

Finally, I have some handspun yarn to show you. I decided to make an attempt at spinning bamboo. I had a lot of trouble with it, actually. It didn't want to wind onto the bobbin and ended up being severely overspun and full of kinks, as well as being inflexible. Though it was very shiny. I had intended to leave it as a single, but to try and make it a little more pleasing to work with, I plied it with some sewing thread and got this:



I ran out of thread, and had some excess yarn, and with that I found that by reskeining it a couple of times, I was able to work out most of the gnarly bits, and it actually looks and feels pretty good:


Well, that's all the crafting I have right now. Hopefully today at work will be a little slow so I can get some stuff done. I don't understand why our customers don't realize that I have knitting to do, they keep calling in and wanting to talk about their problems. Geez.

And still...more stuffies:
Clearly, I have been on a stuffed animal kick, but this may be the last of them for a while, as I have other things I need to work on.

The deer is for me, and has joined my other animals at work:


I recently received 2 books of patterns for crocheted animals, so of course, I needed to test it out. And someone on craftster saw a pic of the bunny which I received and asked if I could make her one. So here is my first amigurumi bunny...though probably not my last.


He is stylin' in his hat and scarf, huh? He needs a name before I send him off to his new home, and suggestions are welcome.

And a side view, so you can see his little tail:

And, in case you weren't sick of seeing my tiny stuffies yet, here are a few more:

Ana and Misha are the stuffies I made for the most recent little stuffie swap:


I also made my partner a little blank journal, which I was very pleased with.

(the kittens helped a little)

This is another critter made just for fun. I had to make his little head twice because the first one looked really bad, but I am happy with the way the second attempt came out.

These are all 2" high or less. I'm very into the tiny animals right now, and this new style for the eyes has worked well.

This is yet another addition to my wee stuffie collection. Got a new mascot book a couple of weeks ago and couldn't wait to try out some of the patterns, so I made this for myself.



Tee hee hee. Yes, he does fit in the palm of my hand. He's about 3" x 1.5".

I also received a box full of crafting supplies for the "fill a flat rate box swap"

This is everything: ribbons, yarn, scissors, paper punches, fabric markers, paper, ephemera, fabric, some little boxes, plastic bags (which have already proven useful for storing beads and other odds and ends), and a ton of stickers. All in all, about 7 pounds worth of crafting supplies. Cool, huh? Don't ask me how she got all this stuff in the box, because I couldn't get it to go back in again, once it was all out.


And here are a few of my favorite stickers. I especially like the beer ones for some reason. They make me giggle.

I've received some cute things in the mail recently and thought I would share.

First off, I received a ton of fun stuff from my Knit/Crochet Goodie Bag partner:




Fun fabrics!


Yarn and kool-aid!


Crochet books and an amigurumi bunny.

And now, here is the bunny in his new home at my desk at work: