woolly beehive skep

The third newest pattern! They are all at the printers and will be available September 1st, 2012. I am excited to share them all with you.

This little beehive has so many possibilities. I will be showing more samples in the next few weeks after the patterns are released. Stay tuned!

The beehive pattern comes in two sizes: small and large. The small felted beehive measures about 3-1/2 inches tall and the large, about 5-inches tall.

In the olden days, beehive skeps were baskets made of grass or straw. They were used for housing a colony of bees as they produced their honeycomb. Now you can knit and felt a whimsical small or large beehive as a tribute to the hardest - the honey bee!

Speaking of honey bees, I am going to be selling the bee pins and buttons, as shown above, on my Etsy shoppe. I love these bee pins! They come from Just Another Button Company. Each pin and button is made from polymer clay with whimsical detailing. Stay tuned!

Happy knitting & felting!

a 'before' & 'after' bunny

I got this great idea to show the 'before' and 'after' photos of my little brushed bunny. Yes, that little nap riser brush makes all the difference. Who would know such a small brush can create such hairiness?

The brush fits nicely on your finger and gives you lots of control while brushing, to get into those delicate spots like around the face. The nap riser brush works great on alpaca or mohair yarns, pulling out the fibers especially after felting.

The bunny screams "touch me" again and again. And if you do and the fibers become flattened, simply brush again! That simple.

The yarn used on this little Woolly Bunny was Frog Tree's alpaca sport grey, two strands carried together. I love Frog Tree yarns! A great yarn for knitting and felting with. 

Happy knitting!

woolly matroyshka dolls

This is another new pattern still in the works. All I need to do is photograph them and they are off to the printers.

There are three sizes of dolls: large, medium and small, but I call them: Mother, Teen and Child. They appear as if to nest, but they do not. I made a decision early on to not make them nesting. That way I would have more flexibility in embellishing them if they had a solid inside.

For the cover photo I have kept the dolls fairly simple. I have felted a set of all-red dolls and plan on more elaborate needle felting scenes and motifs to go across their dresses. I will take photos of them once I have finished them.

I am shooting for the first of September as their birth date. Stay tuned.

Happy knitting!

hand-winding a center-pull ball of yarn

Click on photo to enlarge.

I found myself in a predicament a while back, needing to hand-wind a skein of yarn but definitely needing both ends for double stranding the yarn in my project. I found this link from the blog, Damp City Knits, on How to Hand-Wind a Center-Pull Ball of Yarn. It gives a great tutorial on how to hand-wind a loose hank of yarn into a ball with two available ends.

The tutorial is straight forward and easy to follow with lots of photos. Just remember to wind the ball loosely to not 'stress' the yarn and don't lose track of the inside end. The blog's author cautions that when using "some delicate or 'sticky' yarns, such as mohair or lace-weight silk yarn, it can be difficult to pull from the center, as their strands tend to stick together and tangle. In these cases, it is best to knit from the outside of the ball." Good to know!

I then tested out my new ball of yarn by knitting double stranded, pulling from both the center and the outside. It worked slick! A great reference.

Happy knitting!