Handspun Yarn for My Mom!

My mom is one of my very best friends, and she's also the one who taught me to sew and crochet! Ever since I started learning to spin, I have had an idea in my head to make beautiful yarn for her. Of course, it took me a few test skeins to get to gift-worthy yarn, but I think I finally did it. My mom's birthday was yesterday, November 22nd, and this is what I gave her:

I even made my own custom label, but I must give credit to Blarney Yarn for her super-soft wool blend and gorgeous hand-painted autumn colors.

You may recognize this wool from my past post on the Vista Fiber Fiesta!

I spun and plied the yarn on my trusty Ashford spindle.

Stretching the yarn out on my noddy-noddy showed the colors to their best advantage and got it ready to soak. 

Yarn soup! Soaking the yarn helped clean it and set it.

Last, I hung it to dry on a hook that was left in front of what will soon be my craft room. (I can't wait to repaint or replace that door, though!)

What do you think? I want to try dyeing my own yarn next!

-Assunta

PS- I had a great time at Hearts & Hands on Saturday. I brought a friend and we each made a few spool knit hats for refugees. Making the hats was fun, but the best part was being around people from different backgrounds all working together and using their creativity to help others! It was wonderful to see!

Hearts & Hands 2016

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I last posted! My husband, kitty, and I are all successfully moved into our new house. We are still renting for the time being, but as soon as the home repair projects begin, you'll see them here.

In the meantime, some of the goings-on in the world have made me feel a little extra motivated to have a positive impact. This weekend I plan to participate in Hearts & Hands 2016, and event where volunteers complete craft projects to help refugees and victims of human trafficking. If anyone is reading this in Orange County, you should join me! If not, I'll let you know how it is.

Please see the flyer below for those who are interested:

As we move into the holiday season, I hope it's full of love and laughter for all of you!

Assunta

Moving

Sorry, there is no blog post this week as I prepare to ...

...to a new house.

I will hopefully see you all next week assuming I can find my craft projects among all the moving boxes. The house will be an art project all on its own, as you will soon see. Until then! 

Assunta

Return of the Fat Baby Challenge!

About two years ago my mom and I found two adorable baby dolls at a sale. We decided to challenge ourselves to make cute outfits for them without showing each other the outfits until they were done. And so the Fat Baby Challenge began! If you want to see the original blog posts, they start here.

After the original challenge was over, we found more "fat babies" at Toys R' Us and discovered that they are actually called Lil' Cutesies. We bought a couple more, and this week I finally had an idea for an outfit for mine.

I've recently had a few requests from friends and coworkers for mermaid-tail blankets. I even promised myself one awhile back! I decided to test my pattern idea on my fat baby and here is the result!

I made the whole thing out of Red Heart Boutique: Unforgettable yarn in the color Candied and I love the way the rainbow of colors came through! I like this even better than my previous fat baby outfit, what do you think?

This doll will be available for sale at the annual St. Agatha Holiday Bazaar in a couple weeks (details to follow) and some day I will get around to writing the pattern and posting it on Etsy. I hope you like it!

Happy swimming!

-Assunta

Gem Faire and the Vista Fiber Fiesta

A few weeks ago a friend and I went to Gem Faire to look at pretty sparkly things! I got lots of nice green beads to make my beautiful mom-in-law this bracelet for her birthday. I had to wait a couple weeks to post it so I wouldn't spoil the surprise:

Then last week I went with a group of friends to the Vista Fiber Fiesta. There was so much beautiful yarn and fiber that it was hard not to buy way too much! I managed to keep my purchases down to three things.

The first is this hand-painted wool by Blarney Yarn. I bought some purple and gold wool from her last year and I just love her colors, don't you?

I also got this sock yarn by Laser Sheep. I have been looking for some rainbow yarn that isn't too loud and I think this is just perfect. The color is called Sheepicorn and it's made of wool and nylon. Laser Sheep also has lots of yarn inspired superheros and nerd culture. Very cool! 

I saved this purchase for last because it's the least brightly colored...for the moment. It's acala cotton from Brookmoore Creations and I'm going to try dyeing it with plant-based dyes like I saw in Guatemala. I don't know what colors I'm going to use yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it!

Well, that's probably all the new stuff I should buy for awhile, but at least it will keep me happy with spinning, knitting, and dyeing!

-Assunta

More Projects!

I finished a couple more little projects this week. My friend who ordered the blue owl from me last week ordered another one, so here it is! This time she wanted an all-white one:

And here is the cross-stitch pattern I told you about last week. Over the weekend I got a frame for it at Michael's. Now it's ready to go on the wall! 

And last but not least, I made this little one-skein shrug from my handspun "Starlight Princess" yarn. It's a little shorter than I wanted, but I still love how it turned out, especially the colors! It's just perfect for sitting on your roof and shining starlight on a chilly evening. And the great thing about a one-skein project is that it was very quick to make.

Have a great week!

Assunta

Finishing Projects Like a Boss!

I've been on a roll this week finishing up little projects. Some of them are ones I have been working on for a long time, and it feels good to have them done!

One project I finished is my "Starlight Princess" inspired yarn. I started it during Tour de Fleece for my fairytale themed spinning team, Tale Spinners. In the story, the princess shines like a star and sits on her roof every evening to share her light with the world. The colors of the yarn are meant to evoke silver beams of starlight running through the night sky. 

My next project was this adorable amigurumi owl that I made as a special request from a friend at work. The pattern is by Kristi Tullus and you can find it on her blog here. I absolutely love this design, and the little owl was so quick to make!

The last project that I finished is a cross stitch project I started when I was still in high school! I'm not going to post a picture of it this week because I need to buy a frame for it first. Hopefully next week it will be fit for viewing.

Do you have any projects that have been sitting around for awhile that you just want to finish? This cross-stitch pattern was that way for me!

-Assunta

A Giant Sprinkled Doughnut

This weekend I finished crocheting my newest piece of furniture, an ottoman shaped like a giant sprinkled doughnut! It's made mostly from Hometown USA yarn, which is wonderfully soft and chunky. The 22 sprinkles are made from various different worsted weight yarns.

The pattern is from Twinkie Chan's Crocheted Abode A La Mode, which is full of all sorts of cute and fun crocheted treats!

Here is Chester with the doughnut for scale:

It's such a fun addition to our decor, I wish I had room for a half dozen of them!

Have a sweet week!

Assunta

A Knit Top Fit For a Mermaid

 I'm gradually working through my Vogue Knitting Live purchases. If you remember from a few months ago, I fell in love with this yarn (Bubblegum Blues by Oink Pigments) for it's bubblegum yumminess...

And all of the beautiful White Lies Designs patterns, but especially the one on the bottom right (the Kate Bustier), because it looks like something Ariel might wear in the The Little Mermaid!

Mix them together, along with some fancy blue buttons from Joann's and some magical, floaty, cobweb-weight Kid Seta for the top part, and you have...

A bubblegum-colored top fit for a mermaid!

I love the way it turned out! What do you think?

Just keep swimming,

Assunta

Surprise! A Light Box!

This is the surprise I was hinting at a couple of weeks ago. I finally bought a light box!

With light box

It's just the most simple, tent-style version you can get, but look how much better the colors and details of this yarn look! I'm very excited for how this little investment will help my projects shine in my blog and my Etsy shop.

Without light box

And yes, I'm still working on plying my blue alpaca yarn from Tour de Fleece. I'll admit my motivation has gone down since the Tour ended, but I am happy with how it's turning out. I decided to ply two strands of the blue with one strand of silver thread. It's one of my favorite color combinations, as some of you may know.

Have a great week!

-Assunta

Teaser

I've been adding a lot to my crafting tool box lately. This week I ordered a cool new thing to help me with my Etsy shop, and I can't wait to show you what it is!

Other than that, I don't have much news. I still have a few projects going, but I think I'm going to wait until next week to share my progress. Hopefully you'll see why!

Have a great week,

Assunta

Tour de Fleece Finish Line

The Tour de Fleece officially ended on Sunday,  and I finished spinning all my blue Alpaca wool just in time! I still have to ply and wash it, so I wouldn't call it yarn quite yet, but I'm still happy with the progress I made during the Tour.

I've got a couple of other craft projects going as well. Hopefully I wil have one of them done to show you next week. Happy crafting!

-Assunta

OC Fair Results!

This past Sunday, the husband and I decided to brave the opening-weekend crowds at the Orange County Fair. We shared a funnel cake, said "hi" to all the animals, and of course stopped by the fiber arts building to see how my entries did. What I didn't do was take any pictures, so I will make sure to do that next time we go.

I was pleased to see that my crocheted rose got 2nd Place and my crocheted cactuse got 3rd! The dress I sewed got Honorable Mention, which still isn't bad, but my knit lace shawl didn't place. I was surprised because I thought it was the best thing I entered, but there were a lot of knit shawls so the competition was pretty tough.

So that I don't sign off without showing you something pretty this week, here is my latest Tour de Fleece progress:

The Tour officially concludes on the 24th, but spinning updates will continue until this yarn is done. There's still a lot of fiber left in the bag!

-Assunta

Tour de Fleece Day 10 and a Cactus Pattern

Yesterday was Day 10 of Tour de Fleece and my yarn has come quite a long way since you saw it last week! In fact, I now have 126 yards of 2-ply purple goodness soaking and almost ready to knit!

This is after spinning all of the wool into a single strand of yarn.

And this is after plying it all.

Here it is stretched out on the niddy-noddy my friend Jill made for me out of PVC. That's right, I have a noddy-noddy now!

Now it's soaking to help set the color and the twist. I can't wait to see the finished product!

Also, for anyone interested in crocheting their own potted cactus, my pattern is now available on Etsy and Ravelry for $5.

Just keep spinning!

-Assunta

Tour de Fleece

Did you know even crafters have sporting events? I just found out myself. This year, a couple of my friends told me about the Tour de Fleece. It's a spinning event that takes place during the Tour de France, only instead of spinning on a bicycle, you work toward yarn spinning goals.

I have already made some progress spinning the beautiful wool that I recieved for Christmas. My goal is to have it all spun, plied, washed, and ready to knit by July 24th, when the Tour ends. The challenge for me will be plying, because so far the only two skeins I have spun have been single-ply. It will be fun to learn a new spinning skill as part of this experience.

Besides the joy of making my own yarn, part of the fun is joining a team. This is mostly because it's nice to have people with whom to share your work while you also admire theirs and you all support each other. In addition to my regular craft group, which fits all these categories, I have joined Team Tale Spinners on Ravelry. They have a fairy tale and fable theme, which is right up my alley!

The tour started on July 2nd, and I actually missed the first day. Here is my progress from the next two:

Ready to spin! Counterclockwise we have: the yarn I have spun from this batt so far, the wool I have left to spin, and my Ashford spindle, all ready to go!

Day 2: I spun for about 1 hour. It doesn't look like I did that much, but I'm hoping that's because I'm getting better at keeping my yarn from getting too bulky.

Day 3: 2 hours of spinning on top of  the one from the previous day. It's looking a little more impressive.

Stay tuned to see my progress, I'll need all your support when I get to plying!

-Assunta

Making a "Paper" Dress

A couple months ago a friend asked me to help teach her how to sew a dress. Of course, the first step was a shopping trip to pick out the best patterns and fabric for both of our projects! After several trips walking back and forth across the store to compare different fabrics, I finally settled on this one. I love it because it reminds me of printed paper but, being cotton, makes a much better dress material than real paper would.

I used the same pattern as for my black dress (see previous blog post) but this time chose a different option for the neckline. I also opted for a simple tie belt, instead of one with a buckle. I finally finished it a couple weeks ago, just a bit too late to enter it in the fair this year. I blame the fact that my sewing machine needed an emergency room visit the weekend before fair entries were due.

This summer has been off to such a busy start already, but my friend is still working on her dress and we both have more projects in mind for the future. It's likely we will both be sewing more very soon!

Stay cool!

-Assunta

Orange County Fair 2016

The Orange County Fair has is coming to town! This year is a little different from previous years. They've been getting so many entries they've had to add a whole extra round of judging just to decide which stuff will be shown at the fair.

 I got my results back and here is what I will be showing:

 My crocheted rose and cactus made it into the fair...

So did the dress I made back in December...

And my knit lace shawl...

Lastly, you may remember these two little guys from the Newport Beach Art Exhibition last year. I decided to give them another shot by entering them in the fair, but alas, they didn't make it. I tried entering them in the Visual Arts category, which had over 6,000 entries. I'm not too disappointed, given how tough the competition is this year.

I'll let you all know what the final results of the fair are. Happy summer!

-Assunta

Chewie Amigurumi

A new fuzzy friend has joinged the party of Star Wars characters that I've crocheted. I made this adorable Chewbacca from my Star Wars crochet book in exchange for a drawing I purchased from my brother. Trading art for art is a good deal!

Have a great week!

-Assunta

Crochet by any other name...

I'm really enjoying coming up with ideas for cute crocheted plants. Most recently I decided to try making a rose. Here is what I came up with! 

I'm thinking of making another version with more petals and smaller stitches. What do you think?

-Assunta

The Ultimate Drought-Proof Plant

Months ago, a good friend spotted some crochet succulent plants in a fair booth and requested that I write her a pattern for something similar. Her requests were: realistic and cute, but leaning more toward realistic, and 6-8'' (not miniature). I eventually came up with this little cactus:

Living in southern California with our ongoing drought, it's nice to have pretty landscaping and houseplants that don't require a lot of water. Well, this one doesn't require water at all. (In fact, watering it would probably be a bad idea.

The pattern is very simple, but the fun part was picking out a container and planting material to complement it. I picked up this glass dish and gravel and Joann's, along with some floral foam and wire to secure the cactus in the dish. I sent my friend a picture and she likes it, now all that's left is to write up the pattern! Typing and editing a pattern is the boring part, but I suppose I have to do it or there's no point in writing a pattern to share.

What's your favorite plant to grow in your home or garden?

-Assunta