Bliss Beyond Naptime

Mi Breve es Tu Breve

I believe the conversation went something like this (but Edie denies it):

Me: We going to make a springy sign for our front door based on this painting you did of the flowers L'il Red picked on her way to Grandma's. It's going to say "Welcome".

Edie: What does welcome mean?

Me: Welcome means 'Come on in! Take off your shoes first. Outside please. Want a triple shot breve? Sit down! Let's chat! Come check out Edie's playroom! Want to play with the doll house? Stay a while!'

Edie: Can the sign say "Welcome, TT"?

TT is Edie's former babysitter/soulmate sister from a different mother all together.

 

This is the field of flowers that Little Red got lost in while the Wolf tried to pull a fast one on her. We both loved our water colouring sessions on Tuesdays this homeschooling year.

Yowch! Hope I didn't hurt your eyes too with the Picnik fun. I just love color saturation.  Edie's little hands did a lot of massaging of the fibers together up there. She also placed the half felted bits in place for the flowers and pretty much helped with the whole process except was a bit leery during the needle felting bit. She gave the wool about two pokes with the needle then backed away saying 'done'. This is one kid you won't have to show those scary Industrial Arts safety videos to more than once. Sigh. I think she's growing to love the smell of wet sheep almost as much as I do. A list of Edie's favorite things so far in life; pink, soggy ruminants and TT!

Glutton for Publish-ment

A few years ago, my almost freakishly talented fiber guru wrote a series a books and I was honoured that she invited me to contribute to her felting one. This was pretty way back so it was pretty fun to see it displayed in our tiny though amazing little book store here in our village.

You see, this is how rumors get started in small towns. I quickly had to crack the book open to refresh my memory on what exactly I wrote and if things got any more double-entendred as to get me totally labeled as town crazy kinky lady. They did. But luckily it was pretty clean. It's soap balls and a soap box after all. This, of course, was during my Hempress of Clean reign.

On that note (the publishing one - not the kink), I just got notified I'm going to have a pattern in another craft book due out next year! I'm pretty stoked. This time it's a sewing book that is the follow up to One Yard Wonder - a kabillion things to do with only one yard of fabric. There was a call out for submissions and my pattern got accepted. Not sure if I'm allowed to tell you what exactly. I'll have to call my agent and then my publicist and then I'll get my assistant to get back to you on that.

Booty Fulls

The best part of wet felting baby booties? Singing the only words I know to 'Having my Baby' over and over again: I'm a woman in love and I love whatcha doing to me - having my baby- do doo. Love that song. My friend's having my baby, I mean a baby. She don't know the gender yet so yellow booties and a blue play silk echo the daffodils that were sitting pretty in my brand new vintage blue vase (scored at the thrift store frenzy that I blabbed about a couple of posts ago) busy inspiring me all week long.

Have I mentioned how play silks are probably the best toy investment you could make - ever? Before we had kids we went into Maplerose looking for a gift for a friend with a babe and the lady who owned the store at the time was highly pushing the play silks.

"See?", she said "The blue one could be a river one minute and the sky the next!".

Craig and I looked at each other with that telepathic lover looking saying "I know we're in Nelson but back away from the bong, lady, during store hours." But what she said is so true! Edie and Kale play with nothing but the silkies and blocks all day. It's really just too cute how much they love them and I think some of that spider energy leaks into their play (insert Twilight Zone music here). Speaking of love, I must go and knit or it won't be spring by the time Edie's spring beret is finished!

We Felt Balls-y

Our story leading up to Easter is The Frog Prince. The transformation aspect of the fairy tale reflects the intoxicating flavor of the change of season  - darkness to light, ying to yang, longjohns to sans longjohns. The Princess aspect of the story speaks to the Princess side of Edie. Plus, the role of the frog was pretty much written to be played by Kale. All that was missing was a golden ball for the Frog Prince to retrieve back to the Princess thus solidifying his VIP spot on her bed for three nights (ahhhhh...kind of makes me nostalgic for the nineties for some reason). So we felted a golden ball for the Princess and a blue, green, and yellow one for the Frog.

 

Et voila! The trick? Make the centre of the wool ball super super tight with light layers of corridale or some other less expensive feltable fiber before adding the coloured merino or what have you and don't make it too big. The Frog Prince ball has a jingle bell in it that is such a sweet feature. When I first started making these it was taught to me to put a jingle bell inside an empty film canister. We use to have tonnes of these kicking around. Now they're about as rare as the blue grass fed steaks I eat. So instead, it was suggested to me by Beautiful Brandi at Maplerose to put the bell inside one of those plastic globe like golf balls that has been cracked open enough to squeeze the little noise maker in. Look at the grabby, grabby Froggy (again, what's with the nineties?)!

After a quick poke with the needle felting needles, a rub a dub in hot soapy water for initial felting, we then stuck each ball in a leg of a pantyhose, threw it in the wash with hot, hot water, a load that needed to be washed anyway, a squirt of dishsoap along with our regular laundry detergent and when the laundry cycle was done - tada!

Tingle-ing, tingle-ing, spring is here!

Fairies, Flowers and Fungi

I hit a bit of glitch with the hooded poncho project. I was really hoping to have it completed for the end of the month for my friend's vacation plans but when the rest of the merino arrived it was the wrong colour. Half the poncho so far is bitter chocolate whilst the order came in as milk chocolate. Very subtle but I noticed (after I spun up half of it! While knitting!!) it's a different tone. I cried. So I have a lot of chocolate brown merino and my challenge is to use it all up. Luckily it looks good just wrapped around my neck as is so anything I do with it looks fabulous. Even adding a sprinkle of fungus I still want to wrap it around my neck!

 

And some felted flowers never hurt of skein of yarn in my experience...

 

And then I felt like working on something different. No chocolate here but I've been on a winter fairy kick and this one, and a couple of her sisters, will be floating their way into the shop too. Just for fairy fun.

Leave me a Gnome With My New Legwarmers

The little gnomes have finally showed up on the nature table. If you build them a lair, they will come. Or at least if you place decoy gnomes under a silk draped piece of bark then the really gnomes will sneak into your home at night and leave a crystal. It's a little crowded in there for Edie had to spruce up the bark some (pun intended) with old man's beard for bark to bark carpeting and some flower shaped shrubbery for the little guys to use as wall hangings to their lichen (ha, ha).

 

And our little Acorn Fairy is so sweet but sooooo last season. Took us a while to get her up high suspended over the autumn table in all her glory ; we acutally had to recruit Craig's engineering skills to figure out the mobile logistics, looks beautiful! But, alas I already replaced her with an advent themed mobile (Edie has yet to see it!). If Mr Sun ever decides to make an appearance again I'll be sure to snap a shot of it. Pretty cute!

And speaking of cute: check out my swap score from Artish! Remember her; she was featured a while back when I use to do Etsy Friday interviews? I still might again, we'll see. But anyway, can I tell you how much I love these? Craig and I are in this grove where we're able to finally get both kids conked out around 7:00, I throw on my nightie, legwarmers and castor oil pack and we curl up on the couch, I knit, watch the Tudors and call each other 'your Majesty'! Wedded, non-beheading, bliss...

And check out my stylist at work. God, I can eat her up in one bite sometimes!

Scarf Face

It's Christmas shopping incentive time. As in if I had money in my paypal that'll be inccentive for me to start thinking about Christmas shopping. Or at least incentive to buy more supplies to keep it a handmade holiday - ironic isn't it?

With each purchase of $20 or more from my Tangerine or Jupiter shop I'll toss into the package a nuno felted scarflette. It can look like the one above or something more old school like the one below. This will happen until December 31.

 

Awwww... Tina. Hi Tina, lovely girl. It'll be a surprise which colour you get too but all scarflettes will be made up of pure silk chiffon and hand dyed merino and fastened with one of those famous vintage 1940's buttons. So when you purchase you get a present for someone you dig, a little stocking stuffer for yourself, or vice versa, or any combination there of, or decide the morning after spooning with your scores all night.

Don't Have a Cowl - Make One!

Hey, hey, it's Etsy Friday! Yes, I know I started this intent a couple of years ago and it kind of petered out but let's breathe new life into this favourite day of the week for so many people. Fridays - Etsy and Pizza and a Movie night!

I'll be interviewing some artists I know in real life and perhaps it will morph into artists I wish I knew in real life. This week I'm unveiling my newest product idea - the Felt Cowl Kit. One gets to pick out the art fiber from my Tangerine Dream Batt collection (most of my batts have lots of sparklies)and a custom dyed silk ribbon. Kit includes instructions and tools needed to make a cozy slip over your head neck warmer. Perfect gift to someone who wants to be a little craftier and just needs a little hand holding and a paypal account.

Next week, some interesting answers to some interesting questions from some interesting people!

Home as School

The blogging Gods have not been smiling down on me. It's been dreary weather and my camera's on the fritz. Hopefully a shot of freshly charged batteries will do the trick. If not maybe it's high time Edie owned herself her very own camera. With this dreary weather, which I don't mind so much other than the melancholy haze that tends to surround me, the coolness in the air is giving me a fall preview, which incidently according to Chinese medicine, is my season (though definately not the case with that whole color swatches around your neck business - I'm soooo winter). As I mentioned, we're going to have a kindergarten attempt around here and the curriculum should be on its way any day now. Edie and I had a crafty moment that gave me a sense of what's to come with this more organized playtiming together. It's been a while since we actually sat down and did the same project at the same time side by side. She's usually blissed out drawing beside me while I'm blissed out spinning, knitting or up to some other no crafty good.

We attempted to make felted balls. One for a gift for a little girl who just had a birthday the other for our toy basket. It didn't work out though. The merino top layer felted much faster than the corridale core. But, that's okay. We'll try again next time using all corridale. No tears happened because we were left balless. It was apparrent the process was worth the lack of cajones - lots of laughs, coffee and pink were involved which equals the best time for us both. I think this homeschooling adventure's going to be a riot. A quiet riot of course - lest we wake up the sleeping giant.

Back to the Grind

Oi! Stink foot! Think I'm going to suck it! We're home now, safe and sound - back from a whirl windy family visiting trip. Though homesick, I got to sit back, knit and bask in the glory of my Mom's Peruvian cooking. Love being back to the day to day routines I love and thrive in though. Here we are back to starting the day with Kale adjusting Craig in a morning yoga practice while Mama finishes her coffee and online stuff - parenting's my yoga these days. Edie's up a few hours later (sleeper-inner!).

And of course, Barney. In case I forgot to mention, Kale and Barney have a special thing going on. They really missed each other so while we were away visiting family - many of whom got to meet Kale for the first time. The reunion between these two was bordering on making me jealous. Meanwhile, it's been hot here so we try to spend the remainder of the day eating, cleaning up after our eats, hanging out and creating in the coolness of the strawbale walls. Love!

And guess what this is. It's a felted pencil case coughing up a handspun fur ball! I call it Barney. Just kidding. This is Petunia; your friendly hand-spun in a felted bag gifty gift! Two more colourways are in the fiber pipes and will be listed in my shop over the next couple of days. Off to crank off some bloomers for sale too! Deets to follow in my newsletter due out next week. Stay coo.