like I need a hole in my head!

I need a new hobby.....
I knit. I sew. I make all sorts of things. I love to hike and read. Let us also not forget gardening and composting. That really is enough to keep one person busy, at least is should be but.....
Long story short I have been on the fence about spinning my own yarn for some time, but I realized that I have enough to do until I saw Lisa's post about her new spinning wheel. Another battle of self control lost. Here is the photographic evidence. This can't lead to anything good.

Star Child

I have a three more gift photos to post from last month.

This is a cute little Waldorf doll that I made as a gift. I have made dolls before, but this time I needle felted the wool stuffing for the head before I made the head. It made for a very firm and sturdy doll head.
Here is a close up of his little face.

Last but not least is some actual gift knitting. The photo above is of a pair of chunky gloves that I made for my brother. I really like the green and orange combo. The photo below is of a pair of thick and woolly socks that I made in a simple toe-up fashion.

Pimp my pillows

Here are more pictures of gifts that I made last year. I only have a picture of this pear pillow. I somehow managed not to get a picture of his mate the apple pillow. I used my serger to make pillow covers then I appliqued felt on to the cover with embroidery floss. HMMM looks like hubby was playing Wii (Tiger Woods golf most likely) while I was trying to do my photo shoot.
This next set of pillows I have to give some design credit to my hubby. He said they should have birds sitting on branches. As you can see I ran with that design. In real life the fabric is really a deep purple corduroy.


In this picture you can see the backside of the pillow is a rather wild batik. Of course all the felt patterns were of my own devising.

new look

I decided to go for a new look on my blog. I just wanted to give credit where credit is due. I did not make that teapot, although I do use it on a regular basis (in fact I am using it as I type this). It was made by a very talented potter in Montara California named Nancy Quickert.

My handmade holidays

Since I took the handmade pledge I thought I should fess up about how well I did. With the exception of my kids all but two of the gifts that our family gave this year were homemade. It did get a little dicey at the end but I made it to the finish line and that is what counts. I did not post pictures of the gift as I was making them because I did not want to spoil the surprise in case any of my recipients happened to take a peek at my blog so over the next few days I will show you some of the things that I made.....Here is an Amy Butler Chelsea bag that I made. I was pretty pleased how it turned out although I am sure that I could do better now that I have one under my belt. I am still getting used to sewing with peltex.

This is a bag that I made from Lotta Jansdotter's book Simple Sewing. The inside is made from an Amy Butler Fabric and the outside is brown corduroy. I added peltex to the bag as an after thought even thought the pattern did not call for it. The bag just looked so lifeless that I sewed a box out of peltex and slipped it in then stay stitched around the top to secure the peltex to the bag.

Today is a good day

I don't know what it says about me, but the reason today is a good day is that my washing machine is fixed. Last week my lovely teenager tried to murder my hard working Kenmore washing machine. Her method was really quite simple: 1 throw all her clothes in the washing machine, 2 shut the door, 3 start the washer and 4 ignore all the horrible sound that the washer made. The one thing that she had neglected to do was make sure all the clothes were securely in the machine when she started it. I turns out that front-loaders (did you expect this tree-hugger to have any other kind of washer!) don't like it when you run them with bits of clothes stuck between the door and the gasket. It does bad things...... like say..... pull the gasket off the washer. Anyhow we have been with out a washer since then, but now we are back in action.

I am so happy that my washing machine is fix that I don't mind that I had to wait around the house for four hours waiting for the repair man.I thought about posting a picture of the load of clean laundry to celebrate, but in all honesty what I washed was dog towels (the towels that are so shabby that humans refuse to use, but that dogs don't seem to mind) and they are not very photogenic. I don't know what is worse that I had dirty dog towels in front of my washer for over a week or that they were the first thing that I chose to wash.

Slowing down

I have been away from my blog for too long. Why is it so hard to jump back into something after a long break.... Anyhow I am back and I have a long over due thank you to make to Homemade and Handspun. She sent me some wonderful soaps that she made along with a great wooden mold so that I can make my own soaps. Soap making is something I have not really attempted, but it would be great to try. I promise to document my attempt at soap making here on this blog no matter what the outcome maybe. Okay that's it for today, but now that I have stopped pretending that I don't have a blog I should be posting again real soon.