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I was feeling a little... pink. :D

Maybe make these little guys into a cell phone charm?

I'm Dyeing!

So the other day, I decided to try something I have never tried before. I decided to try dyeing wool yarn. With Kool-Aid. In my kitchen.

It was surprisingly easy and rather fun!

Now one of the tricks in dyeing wool is to not over agitate it, or it becomes very grumpy to downright wrathful with you and will felt itself in revenge. I did manage to slightly over work the yarn and I got some felting. When I unwound the skein, I had to pull it apart from itself. Some areas were only slightly felted, some places a little more so. Nothing too bad. The yarn is still soft and workable.

These colors were accomplished with Grape, Tropical Punch, and Berry Blue Kool-Aid. It didn't dye as evenly as I had hoped, and where I had tied the looped skein together didn't take as well either (tied a little too tightly), but I am calling this a success. I now know what this is all about, and I know what I shouldn't do next time.

These will be made into little fingerless glove/mitt things for the baby water dragon. Wrist warmers? Something of that nature, hence cutting the yarn length in half. I didn't find a proper pattern to follow, so I don't trust myself to leave enough yarn for a second glove once the first one is done.

Before I start, I need to go get myself some new knitting needles. Most of mine have mysteriously disappeared, and I have hunted desperately for them.

It's rather frustrating.

Next dye project will be for making a Mad Hat. I am leaning towards a drastically dark purple red that has a lot of black influence. I'll need about 350 yards of yarn for that. I can't wait to start dyeing some more.

Blood, A Little Sweat, And No Tears So Far

I have been a busy bee the past week. Some of it was spent poking through the wool and into my fingers. I bought some finger guards. I don't always wear them when I need to. :P

This little session back on Sunday was inspired by my planning my garden for this year. I have a plot in a community garden and I can hardly wait for the renewal e-mail to be sent out! :D

Patch got himself a little play area. I LOVE that mushroom. I need to take some more photos of it.

Wild 'N Wooly

I have really been enjoying needle felting. A lot. I love the fact that I can have multiple projects done in an evening. I love the fact I can do tiny little things. I love, I love, I love!

So here is what I intend to do with my new craft. I want to work on it to the point that between this, and my other arty things, I can have my own art business. I want to be able to sell these things. But more importantly than that, I want other people to be able to enjoy them too.

Patch is sad because the birdy got dibs on the cherry.

Cheer up Patch! You can call dibs on the frosting!

Little Mice

Santa Claus didn't bring me everything I wanted for Christmas. Some of what was not in my stocking was my very first needle felting supplies. So, I went and played Santa for myself.

Today I picked myself up some felting needles, wool roving, wool felting yarn, and some little black beads. And after arriving at home, relaxing for a few, and half an hour of only poking myself in the finger hard enough once to make myself bleed, we have this little guy.

His name is Patch.

I can has some cheez?

I need to sort out the whiskers thing. That would be so cute.

"I iz so small, it makes me cute!"

I should get the felting foam block, because that will make flatter things like ears a lot easier to make.

On The Twelfth Day Of Christmas...

My true love gave to me...

Twelve drummers drumming,

Eleven pipers piping,

Ten lords a leaping,

Nine ladies dancing,

Eight maids a milking,

Seven swans a swimming,

Six geese a laying,

FIIIIIIVE GOOOOLDEN RRRIIIIIINGS!!!!!!!!!

Four calling birds,

Three french hens,

Two turtle doves,

And a Partridge In A Pear Tree!

On The Eleventh Day Of Christmas...

My true love gave to me...

Eleven pipers piping!

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So Twelfth Night is coming up, and I thought it would be fun to give it a nod. I like finding reasons to celebrate for any day. I figured I would make a King Cake.

Now, King Cakes are common down south towards New Orleans. They seem to usually be some sort of yeast sweet bread (think similar to a cinnamon roll wreath) with an almond type filling decorated with icing in purple, green and yellow. While the coloring is a Louisiana thing, the type of cake is also found in some of the European traditions.

Braided sweet roll type cake decorated with icing and colored sugar.

Other European traditions have cakes made puff pastry and an almond filling of some sort. Almond seems to be the big thing. Some cakes end up more like a spice cake or a light fruit cake.

The one common thing for all the cakes is to insert a coin, a bean, a pea, porcelain or plastic figurines, or a little plastic baby. Depending on what you get, and what country you are in, it can mean different things. You can be King and queen of the party, responsible for bringing next years cake, lucky for the coming year, obligated (privileged) to throw a party, wealthy in the coming year, or the drudge who has to clean things up (usually the bean accompanied by another trinket that makes its finder the King for the day).

This is one of the puff pastry kinds filled with an almond cream, common in France.

A more rustic, raised, sweet bread fruit cake blend. Likely to be something common in medieval times.

A fruit cake type of King Cake. Very colorful and usually much lighter than a regular fruit cake.

First decision I need to make is what sort if King Cake I want and what/if I want to put in as trinkets. I am heavily leaning towards a cinnamon roll type of cake, since I can get those in cans from the grocery store, ready to bake. I'd be more adventurous if I had counter space.

Next is what day to have it on. Twelfth night is celebrated on either January 5th, or the 6th. There is no universal agreement as to what to do. Maybe I will just celebrate with it for Epiphany, since there is a feast on that day too. That makes it for the 6th.

Decisions decisions.

On The Tenth Day Of Christmas...

My true love gave to me...

Ten lords a leaping!

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So here it is, well after Christmas, and I am still working on a Christmas gift. Blah. It's my brothers scarf. At least I am about a third of the way done now. I just made it different than I normally do, so it's taking me longer than I am used to.

I wish this would go faster. It's nice and soft though.

On The Ninth Day Of Christmas...

My true love gave to me...

Nine ladies dancing!

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Baby Water Dragon and I are, here shortly, going to go see The Princess And The Frog, and honestly, I am feeling a little 'bleh' about this. When I first saw the teaser trailers, I was excited and happy to see another classic fairytale from Disney. However, the more bits of it I have seen and understood, the less enthusiastic I have become.

I suppose I shall just have to wait and see how this turns out. If nothing else, it will be a fun girl's movie morning.

On The Eighth Day Of Christmas

My true love gave to me...

Eight maids a milking!