A New Career Has Come and Gone?

The craft show has come and gone, and so has the idea of making little knitty things like pouchy bags to sell, at least for the moment! Sold two cell phone covers to the same lady, which was nice! I had a lot of fun at the craft fair...it's always great talking to people and learning new things. But I just didn't get the reception I thought I might....of course, things like that are always fickle...you never know what people are going to like or feel in the mood to buy. And then, there's the matter of pricing...how to price your things you make.

At the Yuma, AZ rally, I sold seven sock yarn knitted Easter eggs, but not a one at this show! I did put out some Tastefully Simple beer bread and strawberry cheeseball and a lot of people took my business card and a few catalogs, so we'll see if anything comes out of that...

Met a nice lady at the craft show who is staying at Palm Creek and she offered to show me her felted mittens she makes....I went over yesterday to look at them...they were beautiful! I might head down the road of the felted stuff, as that is really fun to do.....I'm working on a turquoise crocheted small purse at the moment. It worked up quickly with a size J crochet hook and an online pattern from Red Heart. Unfortunately, I tried to hand felt it, and after 20 min., it had barely changed. This little purse was crocheted out of 100% wool, but I don't' know if crocheting it made it harder to felt or not. I'm going to try again in the machine, but now I have to wait to have some laundry to do at the laundromat! I did get a little better hand method of felting going today. I used two plastic drinking glasses in hot soapy water to mimic the agitation action of a washing machine so my hands didn't get so tired! Up and down, up and down, pumping those glasses on the crocheted purse, but to no avail! It sure looked like what a washing machine does, and man, did I get the soap suds!  Maybe I just didn't do it long enough.....

While sitting with the knitting group yesterday, I was winding a ball of yarn the way my mother had taught me, and a couple of gals asked what I was doing. I showed them how to wind a ball of yarn so that it pulls out from the center. They loved it and immediately wanted me to show them how I do it, so I did. I could buy a ball winder, but I LIKE winding my hanks of yarn by hand, and it reminds me of my mom, so it's comforting to me. Here's how I do it: I take the end and hold it in my palm. The end stays coiled up in my palm as I start winding around three of my fingers until I get a little cluster of yarn.

Then I slide out my fingers and just stick my thumb back into the center of the little cluster and start winding around the little cluster close to my thumb. I keep twisting my thumb around in the little hole so that the winding process keeps the yarn crossing close to my thumb and moving around in a diagonal pattern around the ball. I try to keep winding close to my thumb so the yarn doesn't fall off the ball.

I pulled my thumb out of the hole in this last photo above to show you how keeping your thumb in the center as you wind makes the hole for the yarn to come out from the center easily later.

And there you have it.....a ball of yarn with an easy center pull out. You don't want to wind too tightly or it will be harder to pull out the yarn.....

My sister has started with her loom! I'm excited for her!  She is experimenting on the same piece with different types of yarns and colors. So much can be done with texture and color, I can't wait to see her as she progesses with trying different materials! I'll have to get more information about what kind of loom it is and what size it is....

Until next time....we'll have to see what Millie's girls* are up to!

*That's Jeannie and Lyle

Pouchy Bags

I kinda like the idea of a "pouchy" bag with drawstrings...put whatever you want in it...this one will hold a compact camera and whatever else is about that rectangle size. I decided to line it...there's something peaceful and soothing about hand sewing to me. I kind of get in the Zen mode while stitching with a needle and thread. Then I had fun finding a piece of fabric to "POP" or peek from inside the pouch that was color coordinating with the pouch. This drawstring orange bag has an orange tie dye batik type print lining. I'm going to call this pouch my Arizona bag. It makes me think of Arizona sunsets. They are spectacular just about every night...

Time to move onto the cell phone pouches. After enjoying how my drawstring bag turned out, I thought why not line the cell phone cozies as well!?

Here is one ready to have the lining sewn...and then here they are finished. I think the more different the lining is from the outside, the more interesting it is, as long as the colors are complementing each other....I'm not sure I like the pointy flap, may try knitting some with simple fold over flaps...What do you think?

one of the cell phone lining cozies

Busy Little Beaver!

I've been knitting and knitting and knitting....since I sold seven eggs at the rally, I'm knitting some more of those. I sold them for $3.00 a piece or 2 for $5.00. The two for five seemed to really grab attention. I have a lot to learn about the "psychology" of selling things. Some of the vendors at the show were very helpful about what to do when running out of inventory or making other suggestions to buyers. I really appreciated that. I'm still learning how to sell to people with my Tastefully Simple line. My main purpose for selling my knitting is just to recover some of my yarn costs for right now, so I can continue to see what might interest people and practice knitting things. I might put some things up on Etsy and see what kind of response I get there. People seem very interested in my sock yarn cell phone covers. I've knitted two so far and then made one "pouchy" drawstring bag. I think I'm going to line the pouchy bag because it's larger..I still need to put a button closure/loop on the two cell phone covers.

Right now I am making my first knitted, felted purse. Felting is a process where after you have knitted something out of 100% wool, you wash it in hot water and it changes the fibers to a denser weave. In the normal felting process, usually using a washing machine, the agitation and hot water wash shrinks the fibers and "melds" them together, making a much tighter weave. But you CAN hand felt. That's what I did. THAT was an experience!  I read online that if you were going to handfelt, you could use a plunger in the kitchen sink. I could just see trying to explain to Eldy what I was doing in the kitchen sink with a plunger. He'd start worrying about clogged drains! I didn't go that far, just decided to use good old fashioned elbow grease and hand wash. We have to pay to use the laundromat here at the RV park, so that's why I handfelted the purse. My hands are tired from washing, wringing and squeezing the yarn! It took about a half an hour of trial and error as far as time to wash in hot water, rinse in cool, check the pieces and wash again. The pieces are now drying. I have to still stitch the flap on, stitch on the straps and insert the drawstrings. I think I'm going to put some sort of embroidery on the flap of the purse...I was thinking about doing the "Tree of Life" if I can find a simple straight stitch representation for that, because the purse is a beautiful heather tweedy dark grassy green..It was quick to knit out of Paton's 100% wool yarn line. I used size 11 needles to get the gauge right, but I think the stitches are too loose and should have used a smaller size...I say "quick", but it was a lot of hours over two days....I think it would have been faster on two circular needles and not so many seams to stitch. I found the pattern online, but can't remember where. The original photo was of a fuschia colored purse with an embroidered bird on the flap.....In the next day or so, I should have it finished and embroidered. I'm liking the felting idea!

Went to Mesa today to check out another RV park for the over 55 community...While we were in town, we went to Barnes and Nobles for some downloads...I bought a copy of the beautiful Artful Blogging magazine...that magazine is so inspiring. It highlights the most wonderful blogs and the photography is OUTSTANDING! It always makes me want to get back to digital scrapbooking.....until next week....

Busy Bee at the Rally

I haven't done much creating with my hands this week...we're at a rally in Yuma, AZ and I've been doing more cooking for my little business, Tastefully Simple. I did put out my knitted Easter eggs, and out of a dozen, I sold three. A lady bought two for her grandchildren and like them because they were so different. This was a lady with VERY interesting attire....a big brimmed red straw hat, red clogs, colorful large flowery beads and striped shirt. She said she liked to make a really different Easter basket every year and fill it with different, unusual things. I could see that from her personality and dress....guess my eggs were the right touch this year!

Another lady bought one for a cat toy....now, I'm not so sure that's going to last very long....hmmmm, a cat's claws and a knitted egg out of sport yarn...I see her every day during the rally, so I'll have to ask her how the egg is holding up....

I've decided to knit some camera cozies and some cell phone ones for the craft fair at the end of March at the Palm Creek RV resort which we are staying at till the second week of May...I did one over the last two days out of pretty blue sock yarn. I got all the way to the place in the pattern where you do the yarnover and ribbing for the eyelets for a drawstring, and somehow got the yarnover wrong. It ended up throwing the ribbing off in the row coming back off the yarnover row. I knew I had to rip out a row or two to get back on track...I did, but couldn't recover the stitches, and dropped quite a few. I got too frustrated and ripped the entire project down to the starting slip knot....patience is not one of my virtues! I put the blue ball of yarn away for another day and immediately started a Tequila Sunrise (that's the color) knit pouchy thing to ease my frustrations.....this time I'm not going to rib it....just straight stockinette stitch...I might put a little "bling" on it on the front when I am done....got some cool little beads at Michaels the other day...

I have to really watch going to craft stores like Hobby Lobby and Michaels. I'm too impulsive in my personality, and end up buying lots more stuff than I'll ever use. I seem to have a "stockpiling" mentality when it comes to craft supplies..I think, well, I should buy this and this and this, because I will need lots of colors and choices in my things I make, and then I have all these supplies sitting around collecting dust, instead of buying for one item that I am making. But beads were on sale, 40% off! So I just had to buy strings and strings of them, they were such a great deal! Then I look at all the "stuff" I've accumulated over the past year, and get disgusted with myself. I now have taken over most of the cupboards in the living room by the dining room table in the motor home. Eldy is such a sweetheart, he never says a word. If it makes me happy, he's happy. I'm happy when I have my little collection of fabric, punch needle, yarn and other things, but I'm not happy with myself about overspending to have these things....trying to work on that, but in 60 years, I haven't made much progress....but I've made some wonderful wonderful things! Sometimes I look back and say to myself, I can't believe I did that! Like the time I decided to make a paper pieced quilt for my mom. I had never done paper piecing but took on an advanced Easter lily paper pieced wall hanging. Paper piecing itself is easy, so I did it, but it was very difficult joining MANY mini-pieced sections together. Mom proudly hung that wall quilt for many years.....

I've really enjoyed the rally this week, and sold quite a bit of my Tastefully Simple inventory...not making much profit, but the response to the product has been wonderful! Not many people have heard of it out here in Arizona. They really like the food! And the free samples......that's all for now........

New Projects

Latest knitting projects while traveling down the road...Can you tell I love Floridian colors? Aqua, pinks, teals, salmon. Even my P.J's. are what I call Florida colors..You see these colors a lot in Florida, down in the keys, or on Pine Island. We saw them a lot in Galveston, TX as well, in beautiful Victorian style homes and mansions along the streets in Galveston near the harbor.

These are dishcloths. Simple patterns but it takes concentration!

I'm practicing different kinds of patterns on these dishcloths from a book just about dishcloths..great way to learn new stitches--increases, decreases,  yarnovers, etc. I'm hoping somebody might be interested in buying them when we go to our rally in Arizona the first week in March. These are made from 100% cotton yarn, and most of the yarn is Lily's Sugar and Cream, knit on size 7 knitting needles. Knitting helps me focus on something other than difficult traffic and construction while we are driving 200-400 miles a day when we pick up and move to a different location, traveling in our motor home...

Since we are staying in Arizona now for quite a while, I've signed up to do a craft show on March 27 in our RV park. This will give me a chance to see if I can make some knitted things that will sell. Going to get busy and make some unique cell phone covers and ipad covers. I've been "wool gathering" lately to try felting these covers as well...Etsy is a great place to see what people are doing in the knitting world. I saw the cutest tea cozies that had been felted and lined with print cotton on the inside...very inspiring!  I've been discovering more and more websites that have people's projects on them...love the knitting forum on Knitting Paradise....I'll have to watch myself, it would be so easy to be on the internet all day long!  Until next week.....