Rainy Day Projects - Part Two

[Prologue: We are trapped inside for a weekend by the weather gods and I decide to go all crafty]

Ok, so this project stinks!

I made this little guy from a needle-felting kit I got from superbuzzy.com. I have been ogling the site for months now and finally made a purchase (offline - haha) when I saw her at the Renegade Craft Fair in San Francisco.

His name is Scherzo and he now lives atop my piano where he actively listens to all my students and judges them more harshly than I ever would.

As with other needle felt projects, the quest for perfection can lead to hours of work. Thankfully I have a good movie to watch in the background, so I didn't mind the three tries it took to get the legs to work. The eyes are blue seed beads.

Kiri, oh Kiri... This bunny seemed a good idea at the time - two years ago when I bought "The Cute Book" and began the cute work, cutting out the pieces, only to let them sit around unfinished until now!

She's made out of simple craft felt and embroidery floss. Kiri sits among my tea cup collection, away from the cats (a recent knit project - a mouse no less - got dragged to the edge of the litter box for safe keeping, grrr.)

Rainy Day Projects - Part One

It's raining, it's pouring (and yes, Andrew snores).

The weatherman told me to stay inside this weekend, so I took it upon myself to get through a few craft projects.

Because of my teaching schedule, I rarely get the whole day to devote to crafty goodness.

So with the un-welcomed help of the cats, I tried to get through as many as I could.

Here are the results. I am pleased:

I used some scrap yarn for this Poppy project on the right - I can never find a good project to get ride of small bits of yarn and was pleased to find this one by Lesley Stanfield.

I like the richness of the Paton’s Classic Wool red. I think the green was Vanna’s Choice, and then the black I’m not sure. I fastened it onto a hair clip for a pre-Spring pick me up!

The purple Anemone was also a great use of some leftover yarn. I didn’t have any DK yarn, as the pattern suggested, but went ahead with worsted weight yarn and size 6 needles.

This made it pretty tight a few times, but everything turned out the way I wanted it. I plan on using it for a brooch/pin for a belt made out of a piece of velvet I found.

Both of these took almost no time. I made them while watching the animated film Spirited Away that I had never seen before. I'm planning my trip to Japan and I am super excited!


I wasn't the only one stuck inside all day and so Andrew tried his hand at needle felting again. He had done it before and told me he enjoyed it -- but darn it if he isn't rather good at it too!

He made these two hearts above and got them to stick together (just by needle felting them) and then I attached a pin backing to the whole thing. Super cute!

My Twinkle Knits Experience

Well, now that I'm on Ravelry I have found a lot more knitting patterns to inspire me. I fell in love with the "Incredible Skirt" pattern from "Twinkle's Big City Knits". I then checked the book out of the library, perused, and decided to start with something a little easier - the "Evening Shell". I was disappointed to find so much errata (and vague instructions - not fun when you're not an experienced knitter). However, thanks to the advice of some other Ravelry members, this went smoothly overall. This was my first cabled project - not hard, just some getting used to. I used two skeins of Lion Brand Thick and Quick, making this quite affordable. I LOVED being able to finish something so quickly (I have way too many incomplete projects lying around), and I think the end result is pretty cute!

Here's to getting more projects done in 2010!