Best of 2012

I know I've been quiet lately and I'm hoping to break through the craziness of the holidays this week. In honor of New Years, I thought I would do a "Best of" post so that I can look back on my accomplishments. I just started writing this blog and I have so many plans for the future but it's nice to look back on what I've already done. Here are the most popular posts of 2012:

"Durga" the Wool Scarf Pattern

"Janet" the Lace Hat Pattern

Plant Hanger Tutorial

Green Gift Giving Wedding Edition: Personalized Recipe Book

Stay tuned this week, I've got a fun new project in the works!!! Happy New Year

Hand Felting Tutorial

Recently, I made a new friend that just happened to know how to knit too. He had plenty of family members that knit and had been gifted these really awesome felted clogs that I must say I am jealous of. You see, years ago, I attempted knitting and felting a pair of mary jane slippers that turned out to be just a little bit too short for my feet and provided very little warmth because the majority of my foot was still exposed to the air. 

Instead of pining for said slippers, I decided to try some for myself and see what happens. The particular pattern that I used was Fuzzy Feet and it took me three days to knit and felt these slipper socks. I decided to hand felt them because I didn't want to use any machinery for the entire process. Also, the purple yarn in the socks was an experimental yarn that I dyed with purple juice years ago and I wasn't sure whether or not it would bleed. Since the process worked out so well, I thought I'd make a little tutorial of how to hand felt knitted items. 

First, you start out by filling a sink full of hot water and soap. Soak your giant items ready to be felted in the water bath and prepare yourself for the work ahead. NOTE: If your fabric isn't 100% wool, start over and make whatever you want to felt with 100% wool because it will never work. 

Once your fabric is nice and wet, you'll need to start massaging the fabric together. Most people know that hot water, soap and agitation are the key ways to accidentally shrink (AKA felt) wool garments. Because I wanted to intentionally felt, I used these three methods to my advantage. I made these two gif files to demonstrate to you the kinds of motions that will help in the felting process. The felting process is sped up by rubbing the fabric against itself in small but fast "massaging" motions. I like to think of it as rubbing a little bit of happy into the fabric so that the slippers will be nice and warm, essentially keeping my feet happy!

I felted the slippers one at a time so here is a size comparison for you. Felted garments shrink to about 1/3 of their original size so you'll want to make sure your garment is about 3 times bigger than your finished dimensions. 

These slippers turned out pretty cute and very warm! The pattern was great and the slippers made a good addition to the holiday gifts I was giving. I wish I had more time before the holidays to make a few more pairs but I'm also a fan of giving gifts at random so I might still make some anyway. 

PS, these were a great way to use up some stash scraps of yarn. I want to make a few that have thicker stripes in the near future so keep an eye out in the near future :)

Foraging and an Update

Look what I found! It's an amanita muscaria mushroom (you know, the Alice in Wonderland looking mushrooms that are such a popular icon nowadays). Amanitas have a red cap with white spots and I found this one growing a few blocks from my house. I'm no mycologist but these babies are pretty rare and I was so happy to see one!

I did pluck it out of the ground to photograph it but there were several more in the ground so don't worry. If you end up in Bellingham anytime soon, send me a message and I'll tell you where I found them.

And, since I am in the process of reading a super cool book that I want to get back to, I just wanted to post an updated picture of my brown pullover that I sewed an applique to. Eventually, I'd like to embroider something over the top, but I don't want to reveal what just in case I decide not to. Be sure to check back in within a couple of days because I've got a few projects up my sleeves I'll be writing about soon. Have a great day!

The Best Intentions

So, I mentioned in my last post how I wanted to blog more, right? Well, I have a really cool project that I'm working on that I wanted to share the progress photos but then I was attacked by a wine bottle opener. Yes, I seem to be unable to function sometimes and while trying to open a bottle of wine yesterday, I tore about a half inch chunk out of the finger on my right hand (probably my most used finger too!) and it bled for about twenty to 25 minutes. That puts a bit of a damper on all my plans!

Anyway, I'll just introduce you to the project for now and when my finger heals up to the point that I can actually finish it, I'll have a tutorial for you :)

This is a pretty boring sweatshirt right? I made the mistake of taking the tie out once to use for a headband and now I can no longer find it. So basically, I've got a basic brown pullover without ties and without interest.

I put the sweater on and used a washable pen to make dots so that I could determine how big I wanted the applique to be on my chest.

Then, I drew half of a heart on a folded piece of felt so that I could have a symmetrical patch to sew on. It has since been sewn on but I want to embroider something over the top of it (actually, I'll be using the crewel method but I'll talk about that more later).

And, since I can't seem to stop thinking about these puppies, I wanted to share with you another project I am going to start soon. I want to make some felted slippers out of scrap wool yarn that I have lying around. I  didn't make this particular pair but you get the idea. Mine will probably be purple since I have a whole skein of purple yarn that I dyed with koolaid years ago that never turned into anything permanent.

I hope everyone is having a good week :)

Graduation

So, it has been a very busy week (hence the silence) and for very good reason... I graduated on Saturday. 

There were about 600 people graduating and the ceremony lasted about 2 hours. 

My mom struggled for 5 years to make this photo album with all the photos from when I was in grade school. Best gift ever (even if she hated doing it... she is generally the opposite of crafty). 

I'll be around more in the next few days, I promise. Bring on the real world :)

Sustainable Goals for 2013

I haven't been very talkative lately because it has been a crazy week for me. I'm graduating from college on Saturday, I will work everyday this week, and I just started putting gifts together for the holidays. I'm also missing warmer weather like crazy, so I figured I'd add a photo of my tomato plants from this summer (okay, they weren't really mine. My parents grew them but I helped eat them... that counts as part ownership right?)

Because I'm looking ahead to next year and a change in the weather, I thought it would be fitting to come up with some sustainable goals that I have been thinking about.

1. Be More Pro-Active 
This one sounds sort of vague, but I have some ideas in mind about what this will look like. I lead a fairly sustainable lifestyle (although I'm no expert and I'm far from perfect!), I would like to help others, especially businesses and people make small changes that will benefit the planet. 

2. Showcase Sustainable Tutorials
I make things all the time. Literally, all the time! I want to make more tutorials because it is more my specialty and I want to be able to share my passion with others. I already have some projects lined up, if only the weather would cooperate. 

3. Blog More!
I know most bloggers probably put this one on their goals lists but I have a hard time staying consistent when I am busy. I have been volunteering more and working more lately, which means my free time has gone down. I need to plan ahead and make use out of the time that I have in order to be able to share all of my ideas and projects. 

4. Make More Recipes
I love cooking too, which is probably pretty apparent, but I usually just wing it when it comes to my recipes. I'd like to get better at putting together meals and keeping track of what I do in order to be able to share the yummy recipes I come up with. 

5. Learn How to Photograph Food 
I have a friend that will teach me how to do this so goal #5 is sort of a gimme. I would like to get better at photographing food because it definitely helps me want to cook when the photographs are beautiful. 

6. Create PDFs
I want to learn how to convert documents into PDF files so that they are easily downloadable. I'm toying with the idea of creating hand drawn tutorials and compiling them into a book. I love to draw and I don't do it enough so this could be a really fun project for me! 

Well, I'm sure I could go on all day about things I want to accomplish next year but these are the few goals I've come up with recently. Do you have any goals for next year yet?

Success?

I've been struggling this week to accomplish some of my projects because I'm fighting poor lighting, lack of internet, and failed projects. Well, not necessarily failed, just not 100% successful. On Thanksgiving, I decided to make some homemade lotion because my skin always gets dry in winter and I use lotion all the time. Store bought lotion has all kinds of chemicals in it that actually make your skin drier which is very counterproductive when you have patches that get so dry, they split and bleed. 

I did some research and found a bunch of recipes that would work well for my purposes. I decided to try making lotion with a bit of the aloe plant I've been growing since September. I gathered all of my ingredients and set to work. 

One of the challenges I faced was deciding how much of the aloe to use. I had never cut aloe fronds before but I experimented with different methods to get the pulp out. 

Cutting the edges off and sort of julienne-ing the plant worked mildly well. I discovered that you can't just slit one end open and massage the goo out, you just need to be patient and willing to get pretty sticky. 

So my hands ended up a sticky mess!

Then, since I could only find .8 oz bars of beeswax, I sort of fudged a little bit on the math and used two. I don't own a scale so getting the accurate amount of each of the ingredients was a challenge. 

After combining everything except the aloe and the essential oil, I melted everything down until it was all incorporated. 

Then, I mixed everything together in a separate bowl submerged in some cold water. The result was a mash that looks more like mashed potatoes, is very clumpy because I didn't have a useful blender, and the aloe chunks didn't really mix together that well so it's not the prettiest lotion that has ever been made.... 

But you know what? My hands have never been more soft! I'm going to keep experimenting and hoping that the days will get brighter so I can photograph all the projects I'm working on.