Crafting Gone Ugly

I should be ashamed to post something so godawful ugly but I am savoring the experience of making this, the first, in the pair of the world's ugliest socks. I will obviously never ever wear these outside of the house, I am using up all the tiniest balls of sock weight samples of handspun yarns I've made at classes and while just sampling. I can remember just when I made a lot of these little balls of yarn, turned into stripes. I remember the various classes I took, the spindles they were spun on, the name's of many of the sheep. There is wool, hemp, bamboo, even cotton blended in parts of these yarns, there is a yarn that is the product of an indigo pot gone very wrong but I am forging ahead! Of course, I could have saved these samples and eventually made something visually appealing out of them but I opted not to. Why?

The biggest reason is that Bay Area winters and the minimally insulated/heated houses here make for Freezing Cold feet. The second reason is that my current scrappy socks are wearing out. Also, I am really, really trying to de-stash my fiber/yarn/fabric supply this year and I like to save the gourmet yarn for gifts and such. And, hey, they are house socks that are going to wear out in a couple of seasons and it feels so thrifty and economical to use oddballs this way.

Knitting all these tiny samples really lets me feel the difference in each yarn and gives me a good feel for how my hand spun sock yarns ought to feel and what they ought to be made out of. That brownish grey spot under the dark blue is my favorite section. It is from of a sheep named Laura, who has possibly the most pleasureable fleece to card and spin the wide world.

When the Cat is away...

I will make a big mess on the dining room table. Mr. Partner has been working a whole bunch lately, leaving me plenty of opportunity to create huge piles of creative clutter all over. I didn't make this cute doll and baby doll set, I got it over at Craft Hope which is still open with awesome handmade goods for sale and charity. As of now there are still two waldorf dolls available, I'm restraining myself at this point. I initially visited absolutely determined to buy something there and felt rather lucky to check out with these. They even inspired me to make my own sweater dolls, rather than the whole involved doll body and wig/rug stitched hair, etc. of the other dolls I've made. But, its not going so well, I think partly due to my recycled sweater collection's lame colors. You've got to love the pink and black stripes on that dolls tights. I've got to find louder sweaters. (And that is my 2010 Slingshot Organizer behind my sweater doll, is it fixing anyone else's life this year besides mine? I'm finding it difficult for the planner to fix my life because I tend to ignore it. I need more of an android assistant who will just do it all for me. )

Always in style, felt strawberries and tiny wool dog kibble for J's new favorite dog stuffy.

And you've seen this yarn before (somewhere in that month of October). It was spun over such a long period of time and is so irregular I could never gift it to anyone or sell it. The garter stitch on the bias "pattern" is keeping me sane right now, for when I need to just be able to pick something up for a row at a time. I always need one project like that laying around, I really should put it on the kitchen counter to stop all my stress snacking, or possibly in front of that container of mint chocolate chip ice cream that I keep dipping into.

Also taking over the afternoon table is the beginning our Valentine's Day crafting. I've been in love with Martha's lollipop flowers and I feel like I need to get it out of my system. And now that M is in public school where V-Day is pretty much like a red and pink version of Halloween, I felt it was safe to give lollipops, although I detest them, and prefer to give (and get) chocolate myself. Just this once OK other parents?? They are bad tasting lollipops that the kids won't even really want to put in their mouthes, only look at them so cutely smooshed between all those millions of paper heart punch outs.

Of course, for preschool we're coming up with other ideas. I've not gotten the melted rainbow crayon heart idea out of my head yet but since I am at a school with someone who has already given that Valentine better that I could do it, (she used a drill!) I'm just going to wait until we are at different schools. And then I can pretend that whole thing was my great idea. Instead of coming up with a cute gifty type of Valentine I am just enjoying afternoons of gluey fingertips with my little one. I'm finding that we are only making a couple of each kind of valentine and many of J's ideas of a Valentine are quite abstract. I don't want to interfere with his 3 year old process too much but according to him some kids will be getting rectangular sheets of paper with watercolor paints or inky thumbprints on them. And I know you are excited about the possibility of getting something like that in the mail, probably about 3 months after the holiday has passed.