a new kind of spider!

embellished harvest pumpkins

Notice the spider in the left-hand corner? I am not a huge spider-fan in my everyday life but I do LOVE beaded spiders like the one above.

This spider came from a kit I bought at my local bead store several years back. But I recently found a tutorial on how to make your own beaded spiders that looks easy to follow so I thought I would share the link with you. It comes from the blog, Shawkl Designs, and the author gives great step-by-step instructions with photos to help.

beaded spider tutorial

Once I get my son off to college, I will be attempting these eight-legged little guys myself. I have so many beads around here I probably don't need to even go out to buy more!

The spiders look so 'pretty' (if that is even possible) and natural on my harvest pumpkins as well as the woolly pumpkins too. They add dimension and texture to the wool which I just love! Hope you have fun making a spider or two yourself! Make them in Halloween colors (orange and black) to get you in the harvest mood. Enjoy!

Happy knitting!

Free Shipping Today

To celebrate the beginning of this year's holiday shopping, I am offering FREE shipping on all orders of patterns and kits today only, Friday, November 23rd, 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: MAYHEW23.

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!

Varying Yarn Weights & Needle Sizes

Woolly Bird pattern

I have been teaching several workshops this fall on creating various ornaments using my patterns, such as the above pattern, Woolly Birds. The pattern calls for worsted weight yarn and size 10.5 needles.

What gets fun is if you change out the yarn weights and use the appropriate size needles for that weight, you get a whole other size bird without any changes to the pattern, such as a smaller bird--perfect ornament size!

When felting, the rule of thumb with needle sizes is go up about 2-3 sizes from what the yarn brand suggests. Below is a chart with the yarn weights and the needle sizes. So if you don't like the original size that my pattern creates, try something new!

Just remember though, if you change the finished size it will effect the embellishing instructions with the pattern. That is, if you make a smaller bird, that new size will need a smaller beak and so forth. But those changes can be very minor.

Don't be afraid to experiment! Let me know if you have any further questions. I am here to help!

Happy knitting!

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!

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!