One of the many things that I love about the fiber arts is that they are sooooooooooo forgiving.
You can make a right proper
hodgepodge of most things
‘fiber artery’,
and mostly,
not booger the blazes out of the yarn.
And the best part is…
with most of the fiber arts
(except for tatting, which
is lametably un-rip it rip it rip it-able)
you can ‘frog’ that
messed up project
right back down to it’s yarnie little zero state, and start all over again, no harm done, kiss and make up and better luck next time!
I did some
serious ‘frogging’
today…..
‘rip it rip it rip it’
(ribbit ribbit=frog it).
Several years ago,
I wove a couple of
boring, …read more

I’ve been posting about flower looms lately, because a dear friend sent me a box of flower and magic looms.
The flowers from
flower looms work
beautifully  in combination
with crochet.
I quite like using
unusual yarns with
the flower looms.
This is slubbly quite
hefty silk handspun
in a shawl.
Here are a
bunch of flower loom
flowers in another
shawl- also all
made in handspun yarns.
The rainbow  flower
was made with
spool knitted cord
on a flower loom.
The white flower
was made with chained
yarn…..
so you can really play with
your yarn before you use it
with a flower loom.
What are those flowers part of?
Well…
a wild and wonderful
freeform crocheted, spool knitted,
tatted, woven, sewn, sculpted
doll made with all manner of
found objects.
Yes…. …read more

Now that November is here, the gift making season has begun.
Well, okay,
for me,
the gift making
has already started.
I’ve been having
a lovely time
working on
Sunbonnet Sue Needlebooks.
I just love making them, and I hope that the friends and family that are receiving them will love them, too!
Here’s the link: Sunbonnet Sue
If  needle books
aren’t your cup of tea,
maybe making
a bracelet or two
might appeal?
Here’s a tutorial
for how to spool
knit with wire.
Spool knitted wire bracelet
Spool knitting wire
is a great way to
showcase a favorite bead,
button, stone or found object and turn it into a one of a kind bracelet.
One of my favorite
tiny gifts to make
and to receive
is …read more

A couple of days ago, I showed a quick and easy way to use spool knitting to embellish a handmade mask.
There are also tutorials
on the web
for spectacular
masks for
crocheters and
tatters.
Here are links for some dazzlers:
Have you seen the tutorial for the exquisite Tatted Mask on Instructables? Awe inspiring!
And, here’s a link for a gorgeous Hairpin Lace  Mask from Stitch Diva.
If you are looking for something a little more whimsical, then Melissa Mall’s crocheted critter  1/2 masks on Crochet Me might be just perfect: Critter masks
If you would like to be inspired  by the sculptural potential of crochet, then definitely check out …read more

Yesterday, I posted about how I spun paper streamers from a Blue Man show into yarn.
I promised to show what I have been doing with the upcycled paper yarn.
Well…
I’ve been working on a couple of things.
I knitted a little pocket doll with the yarn.
Myeh.  It wasn’t magical.
So I frogged it.
And, then, I followed my intuition. One of the b5 bloggers wrote recently that her little girl was saddened by being told that Unicorns are not real.
I thought…. hmmm…. why not show her that the realm of imagination is alive and well?
So, I got out my potholder loom, and started weaving …read more

Yesterday, I blogged about card weaving after having not done it for yonks.
I finished a little sampler,
which you see to the left.
There are all manner
of wonderful sites
about card  and tablet weaving
on the web.
I need you to know
that I don’t profit
in any way, shape or
form by listing them.
There’s a new law being
enacted that is making
sure that bloggers
are totally upfront
about getting paid and given products and all that. So,  now, that’s taken care of.
Just a heap of nifty and interesting links that aren’t related to me in any way:
:Here’s the link to end all links: The Twist (Tablet Weaver’s International Studies and …read more

Years ago, I tried card weaving. I bought a book, and some tablet weaving cards and wove a few bands.
I wasn’t in love with it,
so I gave the book and cards away.
Last year, my best friend, who is also a weaver,
offered me a little pile of
tablet weaving cards
that she wasn’t using anymore.
I thought…. hmmmm…. why not?
I brought them home
and hung them on a ring
on one of the carts in the studio.
They’ve been calling out to me, but I have been resisting them.
Then, last week, when I was noodling through Ruth MacGregor’s website, I saw that she had written a booklet …read more

True confessions- I don’t like spiders.
Give me a butterfly, a bee, a ladybug, a dragonfly any day, but spiders…. eep… the closest I like to get to spiders is at the end of the  ‘pick up the spider and take it outside‘ tool  in the photo.
It’s even better if it’s my husband who is the one picking up the spider and marching it outside. erg.
Have you heard about the spider silk tapestry that is on display at the  American Museum of Natural History?
Two artists, Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley, have worked out a way to put spiders (special big honkin’ …read more

Yarn can be very good medicine.
We use yarn as a blessing.
Is there a baby on the way?
Get out the knitting needles
and crochet hooks to
celebrate!
Is someone ill?
Knit or crochet or weave
them a prayer or blessing
shawl.
Is there a rite of passage or significant spiritual event? Chances are good that textiles will enter into it, somehow, somewhere.
We swaddle our babies and wrap them in soft cloths. And, when the time comes, and we leave this life and are born into the next, someone will wrap our bodies in cloth again.
Cloth, and the ways we create it, whether we knit, crochet, weave or make …read more

We have a new entry on our ’search list’ for when we are noodling through thrift shops and garage sales: Old wooden rulers.
I have fallen madly in love with netting style shuttles and am having a wonderful time upcycling old rulers into shuttles.
Today, I needed to take a little break.
So, I grabbed a couple of the
old wooden rulers that we have
found in our recent travels.
As I was working on carving
the old rulers into shuttles,
I noticed something…
The 2 lower shuttles in the
photo at the left
came from a ruler that
just has inches.
The 2 shuttles at the top of the pic came from …read more