Yep, it’s cold.

Today was definitely the coldest day of the year so far and everyone at work was terrified of going outside. I work at the U of M in the Interpreting/ Captioning Unit ( I’m a captioner) so we are always going out to classes all around campus. Luckily my lovely boss Mari gave us a ride to our night class and my co-captioner Emily’s fiance gave us a ride back. I felt very lucky not to have had to walk out there.

But, alas, I’m home now in my pink fuzzy bathrobe watching The Biggest Loser and trying to motivate myself to go down in my dungeon basement workshop to make some things. I feel really poor right now and I have some craft stuff coming up so I should try my best to make as many things as I can for them. Trouble is, I know I should be doing vinyl bags but I’m hooked on felting right now too. And I can do that upstairs in my living room where the big TV is and also usually Caleb too. Not tonight though. He was going to go ice fishing but smartly decided that was a bad idea so he’s playing poker instead.

Anyway, my scrap booking weekend was rockin’. I got tons done and had some bonding time with my work friends. All in all I’d totally do it again. I think we probably freaked some of the older ladies out with our girly-talk but that’s what it’s all about isn’t it?

So what did I do? Felting of course. I think I have a problem.

I made some mittens for Emily and realized I made a purse that matched perfectly.

I started some other felted bags and finally finished them this weekend too.

I will probably make more of these to sell at the Handmaiden’s Sale on February 10. I will never sell mittens though, that’s better left to Holly of GroveCraft but they’re fun to do for friends.

So I guess I’ll trek downstairs and probably just bring some felty scraps up to work on. My sewing machine is probably iced over anyway.

I’ll leave you with a quote my boss (NOT the one that gave us a ride) e-mailed us today after listening to us all complain about the weather:

“Don’t knock the weather. If it didn’t change once in awhile, nine out of ten people couldn’t start a conversation.” — Kin Hubbard

Okay, that would have been fine but he had to add in after that…

Buck up.

Um…don’t tell me to buck up. Just because we don’t all ride our bikes to work in the winter and come into the office with snot frozen to our faces doesn’t mean we’re wimps. Right?

Felt-tastic!

So I recently discovered the joy that is felting and made my husband some mittens the other night. I’ve seen Holly from Grovecraft’s funky mittens she makes out of recycled sweaters and I thought I’d try it too since I had a plethora of ugly wool sweaters taking up space in my closet.

These lovely skull & crossbone mittens were made by felting a 100% wool sweater in the washing machine by filling it with hot water and letting it agitate for about 20 minutes. I cheated and dried it in the dryer and then cut out my mitten pattern and simply sewed them together. Caleb (the hubby) requested a ‘flippy part’ so he could get his hands out, presumably for smoking, and so I just cut off the top part of the mitten and stitched it back on leaving an overlap so they would close nicely.

I took some roving (that’s the wooly poofy stuff you can get at most yarn stores, or on Etsy of course) and started forming the design and then just poked away with my felting needle.

For those of you just starting Betz White has a great tutorial and her little cupcake pincushions are super schnazzy. I want to get one of the Clover tools but I can’t seem to find one around here. I’ll probably have to order one.

Here’s another felty project which was much more work.

I knitted up the bag from the first Stitch N’ Bitch book and felted it in the wash again. Then I just did the design like the mittens felting around and around to make it soft and furry. Just how I like it!

As you can see it also doubles as an awesome hat. Or not.

I’m going to a Scraptastic retreat this weekend with some girls from work & since I have kind of rebelled against that particular craft but still wanted to partake in the fun times I think I’ll be doing some knitting and felting. I hope they don’t shun me, I know those people can be a ’scrappy’ bunch. Ha! Get it? I’m hilarious.

Have a great hump day!

IT’S MY FIRST TIME…

Welcome to my blog y’all! I just finished listening to people on the radio making fun of Britney so I think I’m going to say “y’all” all day. Anway, I’ve been doing so many projects lately and I know I love to look for crafty fun on people’s blogs so I thought it was about time I started one. My friend Dave told me Word Press was the bestest and since I do everything he says as far as the internet goes, here I am.

I’ve been making vinyl bags for about 6 years now. It started when I saw a cute wallet in some fancy schmancy store in Chicago for like $90. I thought, I bet I can make that, and so I did and that’s a long story short. My mom is pretty crafty too, she also makes bags and other stuff; so I’m sure I got some of it from her. Now I make lots of bags for friends and sell them on the best website ever, Etsy.com.

I also have been doing some craft shows including the No Coast Craft-o-rama and the upcoming Craftstravaganza which will be April 26th this year at the MN State Fairgrounds. There’s also a new one that I’ve heard great things about and I’ve just been selected for. It’s partly put on by the girls at I Like You and it’s on February 10th at the VFW in Uptown. They had one in December too and I didn’t really hear too much about the turn out. It seems weird to me to do a show at the VFW because I’m so afraid it will be like the typical craft show; you know, doillies and crap like that. I’m sure it will be a blast. 

So what do I do you might ask? Here’s an example:

I get my vinyl from a supply company here in Minneapolis and I use my Viking sewing machine to sew ‘em up. These are messenger bags but I do lots of smaller things and custom work for people because it’s more fun.

I just made a diaper bag for Kristen who’s the proprietor of Violette Market. I met her at last year’s Craft-o-Rama and fell in love with her good smelling products. So we did a little trade and I made her a bag with an olive for her new baby Olive and she made me some delish sugar scrub and other goodies. I even got some shower gel for my husband with the ‘Sir’ fragrance. “It’s good. Smells like a guy.” That was his review of it which, in man-speak, means it’s the bomb-diggity. Here’s the bag:

 

And that’s all I got for today. Tomorrow – felting!