Needle Felted Skulls

Over the past few months I've continued to sculpt various pieces with needle felting. I really like this medium and it's possible to achieve great results and effects without much mess (unless you consider being knee deep in wool a mess)...

Here are a few basic skull beads that I made a while back. They were needled quite firmly to the point that they feel like high density polystyrene. They weigh practically nothing and are great fun to embellish with embroidery if you fancy a 'dia de los muertos' look.

I'm still waiting on the perfect project to add these to and an excuse to make even more. But for now, enjoy this sneaky peek at my geekery!

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Knitting: Icarus Shawl washed & blocked

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since I last posted. Eek! Well, I have been busy.... busy riding the knitting mojo wave and making the most of it while it lasts. Seriously, you will not believe how much I have knit in the past few weeks. Oodles!

Here's the first of a long line of FOs and I'll post piccies of the rest as and when I get a moment.

I'm so pleased with this shawl and will definitely knit one for myself in 4ply or sockyarn. I have to admit that I'm a little less than thrilled with the yarn. There wasn't much give when blocking this shawl, unlike the FCS. Perhaps it's because the yarn was a laceweight single ply as opposed to the 4ply sockyarn that I used for FCS. Well, whatever. I think it looks great, even though the points are not as pointy!

I blocked it as hard as I could and hopefully my ISE6 pal will like it. For more information and details about this pattern, check out my Flickr photostream.

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With Wool Winder I Wound Wool!!!

It's the little things in life that make me happy. Grape Hyacinths in Spring; Little Miss CB's sleeping face; yarncakes. YARNCAKES??? Yup. Yarncakes! I love yarncakes. They're just so darn pretty!

Anyway, I got off to a shaky start due to a slight technical hitch with the winder. See the photo? The grey and white cogs aren't meshing at all and they should be. I bent the metal bar with my pliers so that the grey cog tipped forward to touch the white one and this fixed the problem.....

.....and as you can see from the pretty yarncake, it's working fine now. Sigh! Isn't she lovely. :)

So big thanks to some extremely helpful online friends with the same model. They took the time to take photos and post them online so that I could compare their model to mine. Thanks ladies!

Time to wind me some wool. I think Katie and I shall be fighting over who gets to crank the handle! ;)

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ISE6 - Yarn Purchased

The yarn I ordered before Easter arrived yesterday, all beautifully wrapped and packed. Two yarn cakes of 4ply merino sock yarn from Sarah (Gemini Knits) in various shades of blue, blue and blue!

Sarah is lovely and extremely helpful, even winding the skeins into lovely center pull balls for me (I really don't enjoy winding skeins of 4ply yarn by hand off the back of a chair!)


Blue seems to be the dominant colour on the ISE6 blog so far and I'm amazed at the progress some people have already made!


Now, as per usual, I will be 'umming' and 'awing' for the next few days trying to decide which colourway to use for my pal's scarf. Time to knit me some swatches!

TTFN

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Spinning: More questions than answers..

I really want to progress from spinning plain old merino and introducing other fibers and textures into my spinning. I do love you merino but where to start? Perhaps an inspirational bag of fibers and threads (which ones)? Or maybe even a spinner's swap? But how do you swap with somebody when all you have is plain old merino? Any ideas, anybody?

In search of inspiration, I started bloghopping through the Fiber Artists Bloggers ring which lead me to the Totally Tubular spinning kit. Now this is what I'm talking about. A medley of colours and textures, a veritable banquet of colourful fibery goodness to tickle your senses. Perfect!

I love the presentation of this kit and while it really isn't for me as I don't need another spindle right now, it sure is pretty to look at. The contents are close to what I'm looking for.

Do feel free to drop by with any comments and recommendations for this spinning noob. Maybe you could point me in the direction of a spinning swap due to take place, maybe??

EDITED: 30-01-08

How trendy am I! Check out the Bellwether's blog and their link to the Totally Tubular spinning kits in their shop. I am so 'a la mode' I'll allow myself just a second to gloat... there, all better.

BTW, a big thank you to my ISE5 Angel for the link to the Exotic Fiber kit in the Bellwether's shop. I've put it on my supplies wish list. xx

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My Etsy Shop: update - Needle Felted Goodies!

I'm listing these two little critters this evening in my Etsy shop.

The purple bugeyed bird is a petite 2" small. Needle felted in lovely merino wool, the colour is more of a mauve than the bluey purple pictured.


If you're feeling a little grumpy or know somebody who does, how about a teeny Grinch to bring a tiny grin to their chops! At only 2.5" small, this little Grinch is not going to spoil your Christmas spirit!

UPDATE: Mr Grinch has gone bye-byes!

Both of these are sold as seen. I can add either a brooch pin, keychain or hanging thread. I think the Grinch would make a fun addition to your Christmas tree or even to the car rear view mirror!!!

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ISE4 - New yarn, new pattern

I was going to write some intelligent post questioning why buying yarn is so darn easy yet choosing what it's meant to be is just sooooo difficult. And why with the best willpower I can deny my 10 yr old sweets and the like as I know they're bad for her, but I can't deny my urge to buy yarn to start yet another scarf for ISE!

Instead I'm just going to keep it short and sweet. I bought this lovely olive green Merino DK from Jannette's Rare Yarns on Ebay and I am going to attempt the Backyard Leaves scarf for my pal.

Backyard Leaves is one scarf I had thought to make right from the start. But then I saw the laceweight yarn, fell in love with it and got distracted! Perhaps my pal would like some of it to make some socks or something for herself???

And there you have it. Loads to say but there's knitting to be done with them there needles!

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