Alexia Jean Designs

I want to give a big shout out to my friend Lexi at Alexia Jean Designs - she and I had a dress swap for our two year olds - I made a Summerlin for her daughter, and she designed this chic pillowcase dress for my Lucy!

I'm happy that it's plenty big enough for Lucy to wear next year, since we're hitting fall and the end of cute sundresses here in Ohio!

Check out Lexi's site (linked above) - she has all sorts of gorgeous sewn items for babies and kids - the designs and quality are both fantastic :) I wish I had her eye for patterns - she can pair prints like nobody's business!

Thanks Lexi! You're awesome!

The Three Years Dress

I can't believe I'm getting 3 years out of this dress! I knit it when Lucy was 8 months old, and here she is, 3 months shy of 3 years old, and she's wearing it today! Woohoo!




Pretty exciting (to me, anyway). All too often, it feels like I spend as much time making the garment as they spend wearing it before it's outgrown.

Toby is begging for a sweater, and I'd love to oblige him, but I have Christmas knitting yet to do
as well as slippers for the family (our new house floors are COLD in the morning!). I hope I have time to add in a sweater for him, because, well, as long as he's asking, I want to do it for him! I know the day will come when he's no longer asking for these things, and the though alone makes me so sad.

I haven't been as busy on the wheel lately. For one, I want to use up some of my handmade yarn before spinning more - if I don't use it, I don't know what I need to adjust. And getting new things into the knitting queue is...interesting...as you can see from above! Next weekend is the wool festival at Young's Dairy (YUM!) and I will be looking for something new to try there. I love branching out! I bought some silk caps online last week and am looking forward to spinning them. The only problem is I have no idea how much yardage I will get out of them!

Cooler Weather is Crafting Weather!

So I have several projects going on of late. I finally made my Owls sweater, and it's beautiful, but I haven't taken pics yet - need the hubby to get the camera on me! I love it, and will probably make more :)

Since finishing it, I've started two hats as part of a Knit Along (KAL). Here are in progress pics for both Toby's and my hat...the finished version will have a bill on the front and buttons.


I stumbled across another find this week - a $25 wheel in Cincy!
Isn't she beautiful? She's from Germany, and from what I (and another tiny wheel owner) can tell, it's a working wheel marketed to tourists? She's awful tiny, but spins just fine and I think the two of us will get along splendidly.

Here are some of my recent handspuns -
(The dark one of the bottom is what I'm making my hat out of)

This is a doll I made for a 2 year old's birthday. I'm very taken with her!
A close up of a handspun -

What a Beautiful Mess, what a beautiful mess I've made!

In my kitchen, anyway! I've been busy today. We went to the orchard down the road this morning and I bought half a bushel of apples. I really had no idea how many I needed to make some applesauce to freeze, but that seems to be the right amount! It made 3 big batches of sauce...but I will get to that in a minute. First, the dramatic reveal of ...

The Man Sweater!

Ta Daaaaa! I want a picture of it on my hubby, but he is balking at modeling in this crazy heat. Crazy man. Anyway, it fits great, and I'm so pleased! It took almost exactly 2 months to knit...and at least a week of finishing.

Ok, back to the kitchen. So the first batch I sweetened with marshmallows. The second with sugar and cinnamon. And the third...well, why not try peaches? While I cooked the apples on the stove, I cooked the peaches in the microwave until soft, then put them in my Foley Food Mill.

Churn away, and when only the skins are left, look underneath and...
I stirred the peaches and apples...the concoction was sweet, but lacking something, so I added cinnamon -
Mmmmmm! Perfect! I have two half gallon containers full of applesauce, ready for the freezer!

And pumpkin bread is now in the oven - and I am DONE in the kitchen!

If only I could spin spin spin all day

Darn kids, just won't let me lose myself in craft for the day. Well, to be fair, the state of the household would be a slippery slope as well.

Yesterday I pulled out my $1 cards and started playing. It took me about 7 or 8 rolags (the name for the ball of fluff you end up with after carding) to get the hang of it, but in the course of 30 minutes of Food Network I had a whole basket of rolags. Still, I wasn't sure how long exactly a rolag would last - just seconds or minutes? So last night I did spin up one of them, and while I didn't time myself, I would guess it was about 10 minutes of my slow speed spinning to use one of them, so just a little time carding gets me a whole lot of wool ready for spinning.

The wool I've been using is left over stuffing from making Waldorf Dolls last fall. It comes as a batt - just like you would use in a quilt, but it's pretty dense stuff, so I had a feeling carding would open it up and make it better for drafting - and I was right. It's much easier now. And now that I have a feel for carding, I can card together different fibers and colors to make some very interesting spinning!

I spent only a little time spinning last night as I'm getting very close to finishing the Man Sweater, and I'm pushing myself to finish it. I'm to the last bit of knitting now - a band around the bottom.14 more rows and I'm DONE! Well, then there's the finishing - lots of sewing, and weaving in ends, and then the dreaded zipper (which I have never tried and am more than a little nervous about).

And as much as I'd love to spend every free moment with my wheel, Christmas is coming and I'll be darned if I'm sweating it out to the last minute trying to finish everything. I'm not going to make a lot this year - unless I get some very cool ideas - but I always like to make some things for the kids and am now scouting out some ideas.

Also on my short list - I'd love to make the Owls Sweater for myself. I love it, and have yet to make myself a sweater, but I have a feeling that will be once the Christmas things are done.

Not to mention, I know 2 more people having babies now, and I'll want to make something for them.

The list is never-ending, but I love it!

A Fiber-y Weekend

First, this is my merino I have been spindling for-ever. Finally finished it, plied it, and all washed up!

Here are the first two bobbins worth off my wheel, in my homemade lazy kate.
The make shift scotch tension on my wheel.
All shined up! Thank you boiled linseed oil!

I've had lots of fun this weekend with the wheel - we've repaired broken leather and one of the bolts (not an original one, something that's been replaced) has been giving me some issues, so the hubby and I are working on getting it smoothed out. I've been having so much fun though!

I plied up my first skein last night, then kool-aid dyed it. The dye didn't take great, but the skin isn't so great either, so it was more just play. I have no idea what I'm going to do with that loosely plied 65 yards of mysterious wool, but I'll find something!

Meet Grace!

Thanks to an ad in CraigsList, I am the proud new owner of a spinning wheel!


I picked this little beauty up in Cincy this morning for ...wait for it...$20!!! Holy Canoodle, can't beat that! Now I'm off to do some web research on cleaning her up and using her!