Great idea....

Every now & then the hubby comes up with a really good idea. LOL
He told me tonight that my markers would make cute ornaments for a mini-Christmas tree. Well.... I just happened to have one mini-tree in the attic.... I dug it out, put some white lights on it & hung my little markers on there. And dang if he wasn't right! It is cute. :)

And in honor of his brilliant idea, I've made a Mix & Match or Single Marker listing in my store. For anyone who wants to buy just one marker for a gift, or make their own custom mix.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Christmas Pickle

I joined in an ornament swap that one of my Ravelry groups put together this year.... I got my package today! And what a great package Hope sent! Christmas came early that's for sure.
I opened my little, but hefty box to find this lovely little bag....

And here is what I found inside! A cute little note card telling me about my gifties, some beautiful blue handspun by Hope yarn, gummy bears, 2 great smelling soaps with hand-knit sweaters (that are wool & will felt with use, & knit in my colors of pink & purple), mango hand cream..... and a Christmas Pickle!

I love everything Hope! You really put together a lovely & very personalized "just for me" package.

Isn't the little Christmas Pickle ornament great?! And she knit it with more of her handspun yarn. That makes it extra special. :)

Of course it went right on the tree where I can see it from my spot on the sofa. He he, I just love it! It's the perfect ornament for my quirky sense of humor.

Of course this sent me on a search of just where the tradition of the Christmas Pickle came from. Most people think it originates from Germany, but that isn't confirmed. It is a pickle-shaped ornament that is the last one hung on the tree on Christmas Eve. The first child to find the Christmas pickle gets an extra gift from Saint Nicholas. Or so the so-called legend goes. It is also believed that it's a tradition of Christmas born of a total fabrication. There are a couple more versions of the story that I found. I think it makes it even more funny that the whole thing is nonsense.

I do know one thing, this pickle will be on my tree every year till it just falls apart! LOL

In other news... I have another finished project! It started out with this lovely wool fiber that Chan gave me.

I spun it into this yarn...

And now I've knitted this hat with it...

My coat is looking a little too blue in these photos but trust me, it's eggplant purple. My hat looks great with the eggplant color. The hat pattern is the Afternoon Pink Hat by Connie Peng. I love this hat pattern! It's fun & quick & makes a cute hat. :)

I have enough of this yarn left to make some fingerless gloves, I cast on for those last night. At least I hope I have enough yarn.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I plan on staying home with Jazzy, knitting, spinning & decorating my Chritstmas tree.... after all, while the pickle is cute & tickles me, I think the tree needs more than one ornament on it!

Fiber Stash enhancement

Check out these beauties. I picked them up the other day at Spinning The Web on etsy. She has some lovely yarn & fiber. Super fast shipping & the fiber is just gorgeous.

This one is called "Fruit Fondue", 100% falkland wool.

This one is called "Tidepool Reflections", 100% falkland wool. I'm looking forward to trying the falkland, it's nice & squishy soft in fiber form. :)

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!! I'm off to make potato salad....

Lesson learned

I definately learned something.... I don't like spinning 100% bamboo! It is very slippery, therefore you have to pinch it off fairly hard to keep it from getting away from you, made my fingers hurt. And it got away from me quite often, which meant a lot of wheel rethreading. I finally got the 4 oz of singles spun up last night. I thought about Navajo plying it, then decided to try a center pull ball again. I knew I shouldn't do it when I did, but live & learn... I ended up with a huge tangled mess, frustrated & mad. My beautiful bamboo ended up in the trash. All I have to show for a week's worth of spinning effort is this one lonly little ball of yarn.....

It was a painful lesson, but I won't forget it any time soon. And I won't be purchasing any more 100% bamboo any time soon either.

Poor Jazzy had to make her yearly trip to the vet's office on Friday. There was no way I could get her in the carrier & take photos at the same time. It was quite the fur flying fight. And to add insult to injury I snapped this photo of her pittiful pouty face in the carrier after it was all over.

After much pittiful crying in the car we arrived at the vet office, where she behaved so sweetly. Making the frazzled, fur covered woman who brought her in look like a total nut case. The vet gave her a clean bill of health & said that if he hadn't looked at her chart first he would have never guessed that she was 9.5 years old. We saw a new vet working in our vet's office now, I really liked him. I don't think Jazzy was real impressed though. LOL

When we got home she had to inspect every inch of the house to make sure nothing had changed. And she fussed at me the whole time. I guess she was telling me that she wasn't happy about our little trip. :)

She is back to her normal self now & doesn't seem to be holding a grudge against me for the whole episode.

In other news.... with Thanksgiving coming up, I treated myself to a little Thanksgiving present. We are having a big sale at work where we use the points we accumulated through the year to get 50% off gift items, I got this:

Those of you who know me, know how much I love to cook. NOT! So, I thought maybe, just maybe wearing this cute apron would make it more fun when I do have to cook. And since I'll be cooking quite a bit on Wednesday & Thursday it made sense to buy my little treat now. I got the last one of the "Queen of Fabulousness" aprons, because hey - I am Fabulous right? LOL, but we have more HERE if you are interested in checking them out.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

Progress?

I feel as if I've made no progress on anything here lately. Just spinning my wheels & running from this project to that one & nothing is getting completed. Frustrating isn't it when you feel that way?

I have completed a few things... My Cherry Sorbet merino handspun yarn for one. Love this yarn, it's soft & squishy. WPI suggest fingering weight but I would say it's more Sport weight. I did get 490 yards out of 4 oz. of fiber as a 2-ply. I'm really pleased about that!

It started as this yummy fiber.

I also completed a few ornaments for my Ornament Swap on Ravelry. And my partner has no idea who I am so they will have no idea that these are for them... I think it's fairly safe to post photos. LOL

I chose to do some Seashell Angel ornaments. I've made these before & I've always loved having them on my tree. Not to worry, I bought extra seashells so I could make myself some too. :)

And I have decided not to put any pressure on myself to do any holiday knitting. I waited way too long to get started on that & I'm not even gonna try now. Oh well...
Sooooo, I decided to cast on for another hat for me. This one I am knitting out of some of my handspun, I'm hoping to get a hat & maybe some mittens out of it. the ball of yarn doesn't look so big in this photo, but it is huge! Plenty of yardage. And it has enough purple in it to match my eggplant "winter" coat. I say "winter" cause for me a winter coat is really lightweight. Not what most of you consider a winter garment.

That's about it for now. I'm currently spinning some bamboo fiber, not real crazy about that. It's super slippery & gets away from me too easily. I might try some bamboo blend fiber but I don't think I'll be buying anymore 100% bamboo.... And I'm working on some custom marker orders.... and my day job.... and my house needs cleaning REALLY bad.... I have plenty to keep me busy.

I hope everyone has a good week!

Ellen with her Hawaii Chair

I don't care who you are, this is just dang funny!

Veteran's Day

I hope everyone had a good Veteran's Day. I'm a little late posting.... this veteran had to work today. Oh well, same ole thing right? Anyhoo, I snagged this photo from G's blog, I thought her post was really nice.

While I am a veteran myself, most of my time served was in peace time. A few months before I got out is when Desert Storm had started up. Even so, serving a little over 4 years  in the United States Coast Guard is one of the things I've done in my life that I'm most proud of. One of the other things I'm most proud of is having a hand in rasing one of the most wonderful & brave young men that I know. :) Our Marine might be fairly new at being a Marine, but I can tell you that I have a much better understanding of what families feel when their loved ones go away to serve now. Things I didn't realize when I was young & enlisted myself. What courage these young men & women must have to volunteer in these days....

May God bless all of our Service members, past & present. We owe our freedom & way of life to them. Thank you for all you have done & still do to protect me & mine.

Mmmm.... Tasty

I have one small finished project.... That's it.... I feel as if I should have 10 finished projects but I only have one lonley little cloth. Oh well, it's something. And it came out pretty I think. This is the Mint Leaves cloth by Sue Schaefer at Harvest Moon Designs.

I have some tasty new items in my Etsy Shop. Check out these cute little apples.

I even made some little Apple Earrings!

It has been a while since I messed with my beads, so I added these pretty colbalt blue markers to the shop too. It was fun to wire wrap some beads & not have to go through all the molding & baking & glazing process. LOL

Now I'm off to fix tacos for dinner & hopefully get some spinning time before bed. Hope everyone has a great week!