Weekend Review

Hello and Happy Monday!



This weekend was extremely busy and productive for me. Friday night I taught myself how to knit with a little guidance from Youtube and some friends in the freshstitches chat. I set to work just working on knits and purls in a little sample piece and soon progressed on to a washcloth pattern that Meredith said would be a good test of doing yarn over increases and decreases. It was super fun although the end turned out a bit wonky and I ended up frogging it because I wanted it to be a little more perfect =p

Don't be to disapointed though because I immediately set to work on another! This time instead of following a pattern I decided to just cast on what I thought was an appropriate number of stitches and worked knit and purl rows for a bit and then switched to just knit stitches. I like the texture that the knit stitches give and thought they would be good for scrubbing. I haven't quite finished it yet but I will show you my progress on Wednesday!

As for the rest of my weekend I still managed to keep true to my main interest which is crocheting. I managed to make all the green body pieces for the large nel order I'm trying to complete! I now have 12 blue pieces, and 14 green all thats left is the 14 pink and then of course all the tiny body parts like wings,face and eye circles, etc. But those should take no time at all. I've got it down so one little body part takes about 14 minutes so hopefully the pink ones will be done in no time!

Outside of all this crafty time I also tended to my garden a bit this weekend and we found we have our first little pepper growing! It's a cayenne pepper that Rowan insisted that we grow and what do you know its actually doing quite well! Sorry for the poor picture quality I took this late last night and had to resort to using the flash.

That's about it for my exciting weekend update, I hope you had an exciting weekend as well and managed to get some things accomplished...or not.. depending on how you like to spend your weekends! Check back on Wednesday to see my owl progress and my knitted washcloth!

Fun Friday

Finished Object Friday #2

I have been hard at work crocheting, unfortunately nothing I'm working on this week is actually finished! I have a custom order of 6 blue,7 green and 7 pink Nel the Owls for someone i work with and so far i have all the blue head/bodies done. I've moved on to green now but haven't gotten very far!  I do however have a quite a few projects I finished awhile back and never shared!

This little Brontosaurus above and the triceratops below were made for one of

 my fellow teachers, their class did a lesson on dinosaurs, 

and what better way to learn then with a cuddly animal?

Close up of my cows from the craft fair!

Girly caterpillar closeup!

Boy caterpillar closeup!

Neutral Owl Closeup

Girly Owl Closeup

Ducklings!

All the craft fair animals together

This was my test of the Nel pattern,

I like to do a run through of patterns for large orders

and make sure i get all the kinks worked out ahead of time

In this case I hate the way I attached the ears.

This is probably my favorite thing that i've made so far.

A custom doll for a little girl at my work. 

Her mom asked me to give her long curly hair 

and a pink sparkly tutu so that is what she got! I absolutely love how

she turned out and can't wait to make more custom dolls =)

This kangaroo and baby joey were made for a coworker

who's classroom name was the Wallaby's she moved to

a new position within in our company so I made her this as

a goodbye present and a reminder of her old classroom.

This Elephant was custom ordered at the craft fair. The 

customer specifically requested it have these colors and long skinny tusks.

It was definitely interesting making something so different then the normal pattern.

I made this sheep as a pattern test for a budding designer from Ravelry

Alyssa (Monsterstoybox) Does some really awesome animals and I was thrilled

to get to try this pattern out! A coworker of Rowan's purchased it as a mothers day gift.

I finally conquered Stacey's John Deere Tractor

 pattern for a little boy at my work

It wasn't easy but I'm proud i saw it through!

So...That was quite the wall of pictures! I hope you enjoyed seeing my back log of finished objects! What projects did you finish this week?

 Check back next week to see how my collection of tiny owls is coming along!

Michaela

Meh Monday

So..I finally had my much anticipated craft fair this weekend. It was definitely a learning experience. If i do another one anytime soon i'm going to focus on making smaller cuties and save the big ones for custom orders. It was nice to be out in the beautiful weather surrounded by people of all different talents though! Hopefully I can jump back on the horse and try again soon.

Until next time!

Michaela

Secrets Galore

Work in Progress Wednesday #2

I can't actually share any pictures of what I'm working on this Wednesday which is a little weird! But I am participating in the freshstitches Ravelry group Buddy Bee Swap and my current project is for my Buddy! It's supposed to be kept a secret until they receive it! I can't even post teaser photos because It would make be very obvious to fellow freshstitches fans what i was making =p. I will tell you I am having a lot of fun with it though!

Yesterday I finished up the last of my animals for the fair/market this weekend and put business tags on all of them! I took a vacation day from work Friday so i'm going to place them all in clear bags except for the ones I will have on the main table and pack my car up so I can get on the road bright and early Saturday Morning!

I am also going to crochet club tonight. We meet once a month at a local fabric store and usually people just work on whatever they want...but tonight we are learning Tunisian Crochet! I have wanted to learn for awhile and the pattern we are using is one i've had pinned on Pinterest for quite some time!

This blanket has all sorts of different tunisian methods and I'm super stoked to make my own blanket, something just for me and learn all sorts of new stuff along the way! 

Check back on Friday to see what I finish! 

Michaela

Wonderful Weekend

Hello and Happy Monday!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, because I certainly did! I spent Friday night with my family for my birthday dinner and I got some seriously awesome presents!

I received  a crochet kit for miniature animals that includes little alley cats in trashcans. Too cute for words right?? I also received a crochet food kit which I used to make Two Peas in a pod for my best friend at work.

I also received some of what could be considered one of the best presents to get....CASH. I used the money I got to buy things related to crocheting...OF COURSE! I'm a little obsessed lately with everything I can get my hands on related to Crocheting. I think starting up/attempting to start a business has sent me into crochet over drive!  

Rowan and I went to a second hand book store and I picked up both of these books for under 10 bucks! The yarn book is a hard back that is listed on the back as being 30.00 and I got it for 5!! The finger puppet book was originally 15.00 and I got it for 3! I have been reading about Kool Aid dying and the like for months but still haven't had the guts to try it...After showing the pictures in the book to Rowan he agreed its a project I should definitely dive into! He also said he would help which makes it even more exciting! The finger puppet book is just adding to my pile of small animals to make. I also teach toddlers so i feel that I could make quite a few little cuties for my kiddos at work to play with.

I also spent alot of time at the dog park this weekend with my puppy and I got to try out a new pattern for a wonderful fellow Raveler. I will share that finished cutie on Friday though! Tomorrow is my day off from work which means more time to devote to finishing up my animals for Craft Fair. I guess I also might have to put a new project on my hook because currently I dont have anything....Maybe a monkey finger puppet? We will see! Check back in on Wednesday to see what I decided on!

Michaela

My first Finished Object Friday!

Finished Object Friday #1

This week was super productive for me! I took a vacation day from work to relax a bit and work on my craft fair animals and I only have two left to assemble, I will wait until next Friday to show you all of the cuties though as I want one HUGE family picture! Don't worry though I still have someone to show off for this Finished Friday, My sister commissioned me to make her a Moose for her mother in law for mothers day.

I started attaching my business cards to my animals that are given as gifts, in case the receiver would like to order more items from me! I think its a smart advertising plan =) 

Today is my birthday so since I finished up this guy earlier than expected I will probably just go to dinner with my family tonight and not work on any other projects today...although I never do well with having idle hands so who knows what could jump on my hook when I get home...maybe that buddy bee gift i should be working on ;D

Thanks for reading, come back and check in on Monday for a new post!

Michaela

My first Work in Progress Wednesday!

Work in Progress Wednesday #1

When I was considering starting this blog my plan for each Wednesday is to show you my Works in Progress for the week. This week is a little crazy because I have been preparing for a craft fair the past month or so and it is finally almost here!

So let me give you a little back story first... I am in a crochet club that meets at a fabric store one night of every month, back in March one of my fellow group members shared that her church would be putting on a craft fair/artisan market type deal in May. There are no booth fees, the church just asks you to donate 10 percent of your profit to a group who is going on a mission trip to Haiti. I felt like this was the perfect opportunity to try my hand at a little mass production and showing off. I immediately started making notes of what I should make and how long I had to make them!

My final decision since the craft fair is going on at the same time as a 5k/half marathon event called running with the cows was to make the majority of my animals cows. I figured I could even make up some tags to attach if they were for a runner that said "I ran with the cows 2013" or something of the like to commemorate the event. So I chose to make a handful of normal black and white cows, and then since the event is the day before mothers day I chose to also include some pink/purple cows. After making the decisions on cows I used my facebook business page to ask my former customers to vote on their favorite freshstitches designs since those are the ones I love to make!

My customers voted on Nelson the Owl, and Alastair the caterpillar, and after much discussion with my boyfriend he told me I should include some Mal the Ducks as well since they are tiny and adorable! So for about a month I cranked out pieces of animals left and right and finally I am done and ready to put them all together! I have about 3/4 all sewn up and ready to show off and this WIP Wednesday is showcasing the last 10 or so that aren't all put together.

Thanks for reading and I hope you come back on Friday to see my Finished Cuties!

Michaela