Oh the Cuteness!

Last week we watched Johnny's two nieces for a few days in a row and instead of plopping them in front of the T.V. we did all kinds of arts and crafts! They had seen my craft room on a previous visit and thought it was the most magical place in the world, so I wasn't surprised when they asked to hang out in there when they arrived. They taught me how to finger knit and then asked me about my pile of roving, and I explained a bit about spinning yarn and felting. They seemed really interested in wet felting so we decided to make felt beads for necklaces. I only had purple/brown and blue/white but that worked out just fine. We tore off little pieces, got them wet and added a little soap, and rolled them in our hands until they became nice little beads. For the bigger ones we rolled them on a sushi mat for extra friction. We even made flat ones that looked a little like agate with the help of a felting needle.  They finished their beads the next day and did such a goo...

I wanted to talk a little bit more about the hat you saw in my Tahoe post ! I started this little beauty  in mid December and had it finished by the time new year's came around. Normally I'm not such a quick knitter, especially when I have to follow a pattern that has some substance, but I was on vacation and had little else but sit around in my parent's cozy house and knit. I found the pattern via Ravelry , and it's a free Debbie Stoller pattern called the All-Day Beret.  A very apt title as I have been wearing this thing all the time, I absolutely love it and I didn't even bother to block it! It's made from an aran-weight yarn Johnny picked up for me from his local yarn shop in Campbell, a hand-painted Lorna's Laces superwash merino . So heavenly soft and nice to knit with! The hat's pattern confused me a bit because I didn't realize you are working it with the wrong side facing you the whole time. It's technically reversible, but while ...

Hey everyone, I need your help with something! So, Dennis got laid off a couple weeks ago. Don't worry, we're fine. In fact, we're doing great. Having him home more is a pleasure and he's using this time to do some soul searching, plus he's been helping me with my business stuff more often. Anywho, we are designing a new little notebook to sell in the shop and we need your opinions on a couple things... It'll have this graphic he designed on the front: Inside it'll have a grid printed on the 20 or so pages with columns for "When", "What", "Where", "How Much", and "Notes", and it will be a stitched binding like the mini notebooks already up in the shop, with this design hand-stamped on the cover. I'm envisioning light-colored recycled kraft paper for the cover, and maybe white ink, or a deep red or blue, for the graphic. What do you think? Our main question is about size. I was thinking of making it...