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:

I would just like to take a moment to let everyone know that today, I am basically being paid to knit. I have finished 30 rows of my double knitted scarf of doom (you know, the one I started like 8 months ago and then more or less abandoned). The end is definitely in sight, and it looks like it will actually be able to be given as a Christmas present this year. Go me.

Monkey!

Weird as it may seem, I actually made something for me. I know, I know, it's crazy, right?


This used to be a very tiny skirt that I bought at Goodwill for $1. I satin stitched the monkey on the pocket, from a Sublime Stitching pattern that I believe ladygwyn bought for me. Cut off part of the bottom to use for straps, sewed the bottom up, and lined with yellow monkey print fabric (also bought for me by ladygwyn). It has lots of useful pockets for carrying things in, and has got monkeys, which are always good for a smile.

Sadly, I should have used a different color thread on the bobbin, as the stitching is very obvious on the yellow now, but since it's for me, I don't really mind. I certainly wasn't going to take it out and redo it. Bad enough that I had to sew the lining in by hand because my sewing machine just would not go through the 8 or so layers of fabric where the belt loops are. Go figure.

Anyway, here's a closeup of the monkey, 'cause he's all cute and stuff.

Knit/Crochet Goodie Bag Swap

My partner received her swap package, so here's some pics of the stuff I made for her:


Knitting needle roll, made with skull/flame fabric in black/grey and black/red. I need to make myself one of these, I think.




The Koi bag. I am very happy with how this turned out, thanks for the words of encouragement, everyone. I really didn't want to give it up, actually. It's lined with a dark blue asian print satiny fabric.


Some handspun yarn, named it "vineyard" it's shades of purple, green and grey.


And some beaded stitch markers.

I also sent a bunch of various yarns, knitting needles and other things from my stash. This ended up being a good stashbusting swap, and now I get to look forward to receiving my goodies in the mail.

Thanks to all of you for your support. I feel much better about the project now. And because some of you asked, the design is made of iridescent dimensional paint on fabric, and in case you were wondering, the finished product is going to be a bag for a swap I am doing. :)

I am working on this project, and I have reached a point where I just don't know if it is working. So, tell me, what does this look like to you?



And it's okay to say, "a blob" because that's kind of what it looks like to me at this point.

If you have suggestions about what might help this look less blobby, I'd love to hear them.