Mutant Stuffies! Yay!

I don't think I posted this yet, but I received the most awesome little stuffie for the swap I was doing on Craftster.


This is Muutos and Morot. Aren't they cool?


Playing at my desk. Cute, right?

And a picture of my desk at work:

I am getting quite the collection, huh?

And here is the stuffie I made for my partner:

Yep, it's a griffin, named Alastair, from a pattern of my own design.

I have to say that the little stuffie swaps are just about my favorite swaps to do....though I really need to get cracking on my Firefly/Serenity swap items, as I only have 1 thing complete and sendouts are in a week. Eek!

Plied yarn:



2 colorways of merino roving from handpaintedyarn.com: paris night and polar morning.
Approx 250 yards. Probably a little under 7 oz (as I had 3.5 oz of each yarn, but I still have a lot of the Paris night single left).

Hope to spend part of tomorrow working on my stuffie for the little stuffie swap. I have it all planned out in my head, so it's just a question of whether my sewing skills are up to it.

Shopping is fun! ....or something like that

I had a very successful trip to Michael's last night. Not only did I get a ton of much needed storage things, there were also some very cool scapbooking papers on clearance. I got 2 12-packs, one with a skull theme, and one with a kind of old school tattoo theme, and I also got a giant fairy tale themed pack. Although I don't do much scrapbooking, I anticipate these will come in handy for decoupage and other paper projects. And they were on sale! And, since I had found a gift card that my parents gave me for Christmas hiding among some papers, so I only had to spend $8 of my own money. Woo-hoo!

I have a fun evening of sorting craft supplies planned for tonight. Don't you wish you had my life?

Swap Anxiety:

Eek. My partner for the little stuffie swap just posted a pic of a stuffed animal she made for the dragon swap. clicky (hers is the second one).

I have to say it's a bit daunting to be making a stuffed animal for her. :/

Started working on firefly swap stuff today at work, at least until my wrist gave out. Stupid hands! So far, it looks cute, and I am pleased. But I have a lot of work to do.

Also, I got my partner for Round 4 of the little stuffies swap. My partner, in one of her emails to me said "When I make what I want creatures tend to look like they live near nuclear reactors. " I have one word in response to that. Excellent! I think we were matched up really well, so I am looking forward to getting crafting on that. I have an idea rolling around in this crazy brain of mine, so if I can get it to work, I think it will be good.

Last night, I also sat down to some spinning, using some roving I got from handpaintedyarns.com a while ago. So far, it is the most evenly spun of the yarns I have done, and coming in at about a fingering or sock weight. It's in the Paris Night colorway, which is one of my fave Malabrigo colors, so I am quite pleased with the way it is turning out. There may be pictures later.

Muhuhwahahahaha! Got assigned partners for the Firefly/Serenity swap. I'm so excited. Sadly, I was hoping that my partner would list Jayne as one of her favorite characters, because I wanted to make a Jayne stuffie, complete with a little bitty Jayne hat. Sadly, this is not to be.....but I am still going to make one for me! On a plus note, my partner said she loves my crafting, especially the buffy puppets I made. Tee hee hee. Complimenting me is totally the way to make me work my butt off for you.

My swapping is moving into another upswing, so you should start seeing some more posts from me soon.

My first experiment with using beads in my spinning:




I received the roving for this in the Handdyed Roving swap a few months back. It's plied with a strand of machine embroidery thread, which was strung with seed beads. This was my first experiment with using beads in my spinning. I think the next time, I need more beads, and they need to be a bit bigger...or else the yarn needs to be finer, because they kind of get lost. But at least I got the technique more or less down.

Have been trying to organize the disaster area that is the craft room. As a result, I have a bag of yarn that is going to be looking for a new home. Now normally, I would just give stuff away to whoever claimed it first...but I am broke, so I will be asking for some compensation. There's 20 or so different kinds, ranging from 1 to 5 hanks/skeins/balls of each. If there's interest, I'll post them here first, otherwise I will be off trying to sell them somewhere. If you are all too broke and don't want to be tempted by yarn, then that is cool, too. Input please?

Okay. This is just too weird.

This month's craftster challenge is : Felt Inanimate Objects.

And someone made chocolate fondue. I'm like Hey! That was my idea!

But it is cute, you should check it out.

Had a crafty weekend with ladygwyn and heathertea. Heathertea made fondue! Mmmmm....cheese. Actually got some stuff done on my long suffering Clapotis (you may remember that a year or so ago it had an adventure, and it has been sadly neglected for much of the time since then). I'm about halfway done now, I think. I also started on a baby blanket, as heathertea was getting rid of some baby yarn, and I have several family members who are having babies in the next few months.

And now for your viewing pleasure, some pictures:

I was realizing, as I was going through my photos, that I never uploaded and shared the pictures of what I received for the Fairy Tale Swap. Some of you may remember that I ran into a bit of trouble with this swap. The pictures of what I made are in this post, along with some other stuff. The swap items were 2 of the handspun yarns, the knit bag with a swan on it, and the little Robin Hood and Maid Marian figures. I also included in the package a couple of Robin Hood retellings that I had and was getting rid of, a nerf crossbow, and some glow in the dark stars. I mailed it off, and the confirmation information indicated that it had been delivered, but my partner insisted that she hadn't received it.

Then, when she sent, she didn't get a delivery confirmation number (at least not that she told me). But she had been really active in the community, and in communicating with me via e-mail, on my journal, and through messaging in Craftster. I never received the package. She offered to remake the stuff for me, and I was going to make her a new package as well. And then she fell off the face of the planet. I went to contact her to say that I wasn't going to have time to make another package (this was when I was starting my new job, and doing all that commuting, and I was stressed out). I sent a request to the mods to get her an angel. She didn't respond. And then I went to her journal one day, and it had been deleted. I was seriously heartbroken. Not only was I sad that all of my hard work had maybe gotten lost in the mail, or at the very least was not appreciated, but I had been so excited about this swap, and it had gone bad so quickly.

Thankfully, the mods were very understanding and they got me the best swap angel I could have asked for (RowdyVampRaquel). I know, I know....on to the pictures!


Tote bag - The Goose Girl. Handmade tote, with a quote from the story and geese and goose girls stenciled/painted on it.




A swap journal - East of the Moon, West of the Sun themed, has a satin bookmark with a bell on it attached.


Slippers - The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Sadly these don't quite fit me (literally just a fraction of an inch too small), but they are adorable, and I think I will hang them in the new apartment somewhere...probably in the craft room.


Falada stuffie - The Goose Girl - yes, she made me a decapitated horse's head as a present. What can I say? I inspire weirdness in others. I absolutely love this present.

And last, but not least:

This is a card made for me by my partner's 8 year old sister - with a Barbie Twelve Dancing Princesses theme. Isn't that just about the cutest thing ever?

She told me later that she had never read any of my chosen stories before, but that the Goose Girl became one of her favorites, too. I am so very pleased with all of her hard work, and grateful that I got such an awesome swap angel.

I received my felt food for the swap today as well. Yay for little foods made of felt! My partner made me a steak dinner. Pretty cool, huh?



And here are the pics I took of the chinese food I made:

My partner for Round 3 of the little stuffies swap received today. I am super impressed by the postal service, as I mailed on Monday - and she's in the UK.

So, I decided to make her a chinese food dinner. Here are a couple of pics (these are ones she took, mine are still on my computer at home).

Once again, the Berroco KnitBits newsletter actually contained a pattern that I like. Its the Badia tank top. I think the style may even be flattering for me, so I may add this to my list of tanks I want to knit. Speaking of which, I should really get to work on the tank I started last year. Maybe I can finish it in time to wear it THIS year. And wouldn't that be neat?

I signed up for a craft swap, my first one in several months. It's round 3 of the Felt Mascot and Little Stuffies Swap (I made Sid the dragon for Round 1 of this swap). This time, there is a food theme. How cool is that. I am thinking about making fondue. I have had fondue on the brain for several months now, and think that a felt fondue set would be amusing. I wonder how much I can get done in the next week and a half.

Dude! I totally made a pair of socks!

Ha! Success with posting pictures from my phone!

Sorry for the crappy quality, but I wanted to share the cuteness that I received from my swap partner. This is Suki:


I actually have patterns for these type of animals, and I think they are silly and cute, but haven't made any yet.

I also received a pair of earrings shaped like pie. Mmm...pie.

I recently made another little stuffie dragon for a personal swap. His name is Malcolm, and I think he came out pretty cute. What do you think?



An added feature for version 2 of the dragon is that, unlike Sid, Malcolm has wire inside of his wings, so they are more poseable, and he has claws. 'Cause he kind of needed them.

I found my sock! Yay! And, there is more done on it than I remembered. I only have about 1.5" left of the cuff to do, and they will be done.

Haven't posted a lot lately, so I thought I would share some pics to show that I haven't entirely been slacking.

So, here's some yarn I've spun:






Some stuff I've knitted:









And other crafty things: