Oh yeah!

A couple weeks ago or so I had posted about a cute little crocheted hoodie sweater I made and at the time of the post had it in the washer being fulled. Well, here's a picture of the now very tiny sweater. Gosh that green looks pukish in the picture. It's really a nice funky olive green color in person. However, it turned out much smaller than I had anticipated. I wanted it to end up fitting say a 6 - 9 month old, or even a wee bit bigger, which the little green mary janes would fit, but it's come out more 0 - 3 month, and maybe even bordering preemie size. Know anyone with a cabbage patch kid that's in need of a hoodie? I don't even want to bother putting a zipper in this one now, because I think it's kind of pointless. Just goes to show you though, there really is no rule of thumb when it comes to fulling or felting wool. The mary janes shrank much more minimally than the sweater, and they're crocheted with the same brand, type and dye lot even of wool as the sweater. I can only assume it's because there was more body to the sweater to allow for more agitation in the wash, hence more friction to the fibres resulting in more shrinkage. Well that's my theory anyway, and I'm going to stick with it! I really do love this sweater pattern though, and I think I might make another, but not in a wool yarn to felt -- this time I'll try a nice cotton or bamboo yarn instead and make a lighter weight springier looking hoodie, since Spring is going to be early this year, according to our beloved Wiarton Willie the groundhog that pokes his head out of his hole every Groundhog day here in Ontario to give his prediction!

Olivia

arrgh! this non-working spell checker is making me crazy!

Productive

pro·duc·tive: \prə-ˈdək-tiv, prō-\
adjective
1: having the quality or power of producing especially in abundance
2:
effective in bringing about
3 a: yielding results, benefits, or profits b: yielding or
devoted to the satisfaction of wants or the creation of utilities
4: continuing to be used in
the formation of new words or constructions
5: raising mucus or sputum (as from the
bronchi)

Oh yuck on number 5! The kind of productive I'm referring to here today is more of a number 3 I guess. What I'm getting at, is that today is turning out to be a productive day for me. I'm multi-tasking here, and getting a good amount of tasks accomplished. In other words, I've managed to keep my ass out of the Pogo website so I can get some stuff done! Yes, I've ended up reviving my addiction to playing online games at Pogo again. It's fun, but it doesn't get stuff done!

So today, as most Sundays are around here is laundry day, and I started out with a nice mountain of it today! But while I've been doing the laundry chores, I've been getting other things done as well. Had the oven on cleaning cycle, the dishwasher going, and pre-sprayed my bathroom down with Tilex, wiped down the kitchen then swept and mopped the floors throughout the main part of the house. That's like what... five or six different tasks going all at once?! Cool! Work smarter, not harder! Once I was done with the floors I went and finished off the bathroom, then unloaded the clean dishes from the dishwasher. Still switching laundry loads, I did some dusting and then I decided to sit on my butt and finish off the last sleeve on a sweater that I have been crocheting. But even though I was sitting on my butt, I was still multitasking. While crocheting, I sat at the computer, and watched an episode of Celebrity Apprentice online that I had missed on TV. After that, I went on the hunt for the first episode of Moment of Truth, which is a new reality TV game show that aired this past Wednesday on Fox. My sister was telling me about it last night on the phone, and I wanted to see if I could find any video coverage of it online. I managed to find an 8 minute condensed clip of the first show at YouTube, so I watched that, and decided it will be part of my Wednesday night line up! You can view the entire episode at Fox on demand, but I didn't bother attempting to download the player you need there, because it never worked for me on my old computer, and I don't want to clutter this one up with a bunch of useless crap!

Anyway, now I've got my sweater in the wash, being felted. I should have taken a before picture of it, but apparently I wasn't thinking at the time! It's green though -- I used the same green wool that I made the little felted Mary Jane slippers out of, that I posted previously. I hope it looks good after the felting process, because it sure was cute before! It's a little hoodie sweater. Aww, simply adorable! Anyway, I'll post a pic here when it's done... if it turns out okay! ;-)

Olivia

Nice Booty!

I don't really know why I'm doing this, but lately I've been crocheting up some little booties. You know, the ones for babies?! Okay, I do have two little twin great nephews that I could make things for, but did I? No! I did little girl booties! So I don't know what I'm going to do with them exactly when they're done, but they're going to be cute, from the looks of them so far.

I've really got into felting, and I had a vision that some felted baby booties would be just to gosh darned cute, so I had to make that vision come to life. I've started with three pairs of booties that I crocheted from 100% wool. I then water felted them, and they're cute on their own like this...

They're stuffed right now while they finish drying by the way. So anyway, I want to embellish them still. You know, jazz them up a bit! I'm going to needle felt some sort of decoration on them, to give them a little oomph.

I had received some money for Christmas this year, so I decided to buy some felting needles and some wool roving to try my hand at needle felting. I've been intrigued by it, and what all you can with it. I want to try some sculptures with this medium. So far I've just made a ball, with a another ball felted to it, and this serves as a pin cushion kind of thingy to stick these wicked needles into so I don't have some sort of accident with a stray needle. They're really sharp, and they have barbs on them as well. I tried to get a close up of the needles with my camera, but I couldn't manage to get those little barbs to show clearly, but here's a picture -- a kind of blurry one at that -- of the needle felted pin cushion ball I made, and it's holding my needles...

So what I'll do with these booties when they're done, I haven't quite decided yet. Maybe my niece will get pregnant again and have a little girl for the twins to protect when they get older! Or maybe I'll try selling them on Etsy or something. I've never sold anything there before, but it may be worth checking it out. I don't know... we'll see.

Olivia

Hunting for a crochet pattern

I ordered a couple balls of yarn from an eBay seller last week, and I've been looking for a pattern to make a sleeveless top from it. The yarn is actually made from bamboo! Pretty cool huh? It's supposed to be cool to wear in the heat, as it wicks away moisture from your body, and around here, things get pretty humid by July for a month or two, like uncomfortably humid. So I thought I'd give this yarn a whirl, and make up a little top.

I checked my favorites I had under crochet links and went to a site I obviously hadn't been to in ages. Yowza! I'm glad I bookmarked it, because it is the jackpot for crochet patterns! It's called Crochet Pattern Central, and there are like 1000's of patterns there, and they're FREE! Check it out if you're looking for something to hook!

Olivia