Free Shipping Today!

To celebrate 500 'likes' on my Facebook page, I am offering FREE shipping on all orders of patterns and kits today only, 9/21/2012. Place an order before midnight (Central Time) on my Etsy Shoppe. When ready for check out, it will prompt you 'to apply coupon', enter: MAYHEW500.

Let me know if you have troubles. I will make sure you receive the free shipping.

Thanks again for your interest and support of my woolly patterns!

Happy knitting & felting!

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!

favorite books of my trade

I have started using Pinterest for my pattern business in some new and interesting ways!

One such way is my Favorite Books of My Trade board above. I use this board for pinning all my favorite and resourceful books from my collection here at home. Books that continue to give me great tips and wonderful inspiration such as needle felting, embroidery and woolly design.

What I love about this board is that it contains lots of information in one quick and easy sight: the book information, the cover photo and a brief comment by me on how I use this particular book.

Check it out.

I am pinning new things on it every day!

my pinterest summer adventure!

Sorry to say I haven't written in here in a while. Two good reasons though.

One, I am working like crazy to finish writing several new patterns by the end of this summer. I am really excited about them. Preview photos to come soon.

Secondly, I've been having fun playing on my other blog: Been There. Done That. On the new blog I have daily entries regarding my new adventure. I am calling it: 'My Pinterest Summer Adventure'. My goal is to try a new pin each day, then report back what I think. Did I like it? If I do, then does it receive the 'red pin award'. A symbol that I would definitely try it again.

So far I've tried a new taco salad, an underarm stain remover, the best-ever oven fried, a Picmonkey collage tutorial and several others!

It has been stimulating experimenting with these new ideas. The goal is to hopefully push my level of creativity to new heights. Stay tuned . . .

Follow me on Pinterest:  woollysomething
Check out my other blog:  Been There. Done That.