Catching Up

I haven't done much blogging lately, mainly because I have been so busy with so many other things I just haven't had time!

Update on our latest foster kittens - Mack and Mickey - Mack went to the vet for his neuter surgery last Thursday and was adopted on Friday! GO Mack! Mickey was schedule to go to the vet for his surgery on the same day but a few days before the surgery was scheduled he started vomiting at night, had loose stools, was sneezing and his left eye was watering. We made the decision to hold off on his surgery to allow him to get better first. On Monday the shelter called and asked if he was good to go and wanted a current weight on him. I weighed him and discovered he had lost 1.5 ounces in a week! I know that doesn't seem like much but when we're talking about a kitten under 3 pounds, that's a lot of weight - it worked out to over 3% of his body weight. I thought back to any changes we had made recently and remembered that I had started to add the kitten food that they feed at the shelter and thought that perhaps he was allergic to it. So, we removed that food from his diet and he hasn't vomited since then, his stool has firmed up and he is no longer sneezing. His eye is still runny but we're treating it now with eye drops. He also gained back all the weight he had lost and is far more active than he was when he wasn't feeling well.

I have been very busy crocheting new creations. I revised my Mermaid extreme fringe scarf and added additional tailspun yarn fringe on the ends to "beef" it up a bit. It then sold right away.

I also sold the Wild Flowers scarf that I recently created - this scarf was a variation of the basic extreme fringe scarf that I've been making. I was able to get two skeins of the tailspun yarn and was able to make a long (over 6 feet) scarf and put the fringe on all of both sides, creating a very full and very vibrant look! This scarf sold immediately.

I had yarn left over after making the Wild Flowers extreme fringe scarf so I decided to make a cowl out of these same yarns. Here is Wild Flowers Cowl - available in my ArtFire store.

And, I also finished a work in progress - Cottage Rose - a hand knitted triangle shawl/scarf made from hand painted wool yarns. Cottage Rose is also available in the ArtFire store.

So, you can see that I really haven't been slacking off, I truly have been extremely busy lately! Now it is time to take a break from creating and start working on getting all my paperwork organized to prepare our taxes. I always dread this time of year because I am usually so disorganized but this past year I did a much better job of sorting, logging and filing my paperwork so it shouldn't take me nearly as long to get it all done this year. I might even actually have our taxes prepared before April 15th for a change!

The Accidental Neckwarmer

If you remember my post last week about the skinny scarf I made for a friend's daughter, I mentioned in that post that I was also making fingerless mitts using the same yarns that I had used in the skinny scarf. While making the first mitt, I made a mistake in reading the pattern and kept adding a set of pattern stitches to each row so each successive row was a bit longer than the row before it. I wasn't paying any attention to it because I was crocheting while I was working on emails and IMing my daughter so I wasn't really focused on my project. When I realized what I had done, I didn't want to frog (rip out) the entire thing because I had used four different yarns in 6 sets of pattern rows and had already crocheted 5 inches of the mitt. When I laid it out on the desk though, I realized that if I added a border around the entire thing and made the bottom of it even longer with a couple of extra rows, I could then crochet a little loop and sew on a button to make a gorgeous little cowl/neckwarmer.

I was so excited when I realized that I had finally found a pattern for making a delicate looking cowl/neckwarmer that is easy to make. I'm going to make another one using a variegated yarn to see how that looks - it will be easier because I won't have all the different yarns to deal with, I can just keep on crocheting so it will work up really fast. Like I always say, there are no mistakes, just art you didn't plan on!

Another Custom Order Finished!

This started out as Galaxy - a Custom Fiber Blend batt consisting of superwash wool and cultivated mulberry silk. I love the colors against the black background and I am thrilled with the finished yarn!

 

And, the finished cloche hat!

Have a fabulous day!

Peace Rose - Crocheted and Felted Hat

Split Rock Ranch One-of-A-Kind Original

PEACE ROSE

Designer Hat Hand Crocheted and Felted from Wool Yarn with Novelty Needle Felted Wool Locks Hatband

This gorgeous designer hat was hand crocheted from 100% wool yarn in salmon, pink and coral colors then slightly fulled/felted, then hand finished and shaped. It has a needle felted hat band made from hand dyed border leicester locks and a rolled brim. The BL locks were dyed in yellow, pink and vermillion and those colors blended to create some beautiful deep orange colors, as well. I hand selected small batches of matching locks and needle felted them in layers around the entire brim of the hat. The inside of the hat measures approximately 25 inches and can stretch to accomodate a larger head. There is a hand crocheted band made from matching wool yarn woven through the hat just under the hatband to allow sizing of the hat.

The colors used on this hat remind me of the beautiful Peace Rose, hence the name Peace Rose!

Available for sale in my etsy store:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=20683600