Crochet Hook Roll

I swap with Swap-bot!
Here's another one I'm sending out tonight. I made lots of slots for hooks. The pictures will be posted on my flickr later - maybe tomorrow.

Monster Mascot Swap

I swap with Swap-bot!
Here's a swap I'm in. I'm sending out today - except the due date was yesterday. Whenever it involves sewing, I spend forever and then decide I hate what I made. I had to make 3 monsters to get one I thought was good enough to send out. I took pictures of all three. They will be posted to my flickr later.
I think What I made is almost as cute as the example photo. I hope my partner likes it.

why you should swap

Sometimes it's fun to make pieces of art just to send to other people.
If you are excited about what you made, you still get to take a picture of it before you send.
If you can't bear to part with it, you can always make some more that you hope to be less attached to.
You don't always have a way of selling things you want to sew, but you can give them to people and get something in return.

I would never have made this little creature if I didn't have a person to send it to. I had nowhere to keep him.

red purple semi-carded batt

red purple semi-carded batt, originally uploaded by hairycarrot.

I've been doing a lot of spinning since I got my wheel. So far, I've noticed that I can control the fiber a lot better with all the compacted practice I've been getting in. I left this skein as a single, which I didn't used to do. Besides from that being a weird verb construction, I just wasn't satisfied with singles.
When you ply, the second twist returns the fibers to straight. You untwist the original twist from the singles around each other. I was able to balance my twist with the natural tendencies of the wool, so this was a satisfactory single.
The batt was not heavily carded in the first place, making the yarn more likely to have color clumps. This done has lots of red, purple, and black. It's the third lightly carded batt from bflo that I've spun.

pink elephants

Today I reopened my etsy shop with a new finger puppet: the pink elephant. It was nice to have a vacation and go over my stock. I'll be listing things occasionally as I finish them. I have a few other puppets that I have never listed before. I'd like to list one new puppet design a month. I have one ready for February. It's time to start planning for March.

I don't really have anything planned for Valentines items, but I might list the couple I have left from last year. I don't want to make any more conversation hearts unless I design a new pattern. I've had my fill of that one.

Yarn action

This is my box of art club fiber. I've been holding it until I could use a wheel. I was certain that I could spin it thinly and evenly. I was going to play at my friend's house, but I ended up getting my own wheel. Very exciting.


These singles are spun from the blue roving. I made one on the drop spindle, and then these two on the wheel. They match up pretty well even though I used two different tools to make them.


This single came from the brown, pink, and silver roving. I plied it after this. There is much more left, so I should end up with quite a bit of yarn.

This batt was a bonus in my box. I used it to spin up a thicker yarn.

Here is the batt spun up. I plied it. The size is probably about a 4.