Handworks Crochet and then Some!

It seems that no matter what or how many projects I have going one is always Tunisian and one is always a tapestry or fair isle type with color changes or pictures.  I love this tapestry handbag. It’s going to be The perfect bag for October!! The pattern was included in a booklet that cane with a Simply Crochet magazine from the UK. It’s eating a lot of yarn so Caron one pound yarn is perfect! Cause there’s a lot of it and it’s an easy care for acrylic. Handbags tend to get thrown around a lot so washable with all this white is super important when I was choosing a yarn.  I’ll be adding a liner too. And pockets .. I can not have a bag without inside pockets!  For oh so long I’ve wanted to try the double hook Tunisian technique. I have Lily Chins dvd on it but she’s way over my head at this point! This simple pattern is in Interweave crochet magazine fall 2018. Great pattern to get started with!  The Bavarian blanket is still on a hook and will be a long time because ...

A new soap coming soon! This is Rosemary Lavender Donkey milk soap! Made with therapeutic essential oils, and premium ingredients like grape seed and sunflower oil! Purifying Clay and minerals give added benefits and pretty colors! I’ve been making homemade soap for several years now. I’ve always used the cold process method but after much research decided to try the hot process method. Mostly because with it I don’t add my milk until the end after the soap is cooling, the ph is balanced and the chemical lye is gone. Leaving behind correct ph pure soap.. which I then add my precious and highly skin beneficial donkey milk too. Looking forward to trying it and seeing it there is a significant difference!!  On the crochet front.. I’m pretty much crocheting everyday again now that I’ve decluttered all that fiber!!  So now I’m trying to get a handle on my supplies and organize.  I love being organized!! I’m not one of those people who can stash yarn in plastic tubs or under th...

It’s been to long!!!  But check out the lovely lace cardigan I’ve been working on! And the Bavarian stitch Afghan below... I’ve not been posting but I’ve been working!  Making tons of changes to our home, farm and life in general. Horses have taken over the farm and a good part of my heart.  I’ve decided to let go of ALL my hobbies but my number one favorite all time ... creating crochet fashion!! I want to be amazing at crochet. Which means more focus on it alone. I started this last year .. the focus to get better. And I did!! Much better!! Then spinning and sheep and other things got in the way so I had to stop and clear my space for good!  It’s all I care to do these days.. doing any other hobby only made me wish I was crocheting instead .. or with my horses! I no longer want to spin yarn.. been there done that. My favorite yarns are made with plant fibers or silk anyways which is hard to find, hard to spin and often more expensive than just buying the yarn itsel...

Wow! Is all I can say about this roving I just got back from the mill! Solid black can be a bit boring for a spinning who doesn’t want to blend her own fiber so I thought I’d add some color to Blackberrys fall wool. I got the inspiration from this picture taken in the fall. The mauve wildflower above her and the yellow/greens of the front flowers just looked so striking against her jet black color. After seeing the picture I immediately contacted my favorite dyer to get her to do some bamboo in mauve and yellow/green. I worked up a sample and loved it!  Despite wanting to hoard it all I will be selling some in my Etsy shop 😁  I also received some gorgeous, fluffy Jacobs and alpaca.. what a fun blend to spin!!!  The color is mostly brown but touches of black and white peek out! It would make the most lovely hat and gloves. Or a rustic style cardigan!!!  I love fiber... it’s filled with possibilities 💕🐑🐑

I'm so happy how this turned out! I was unsure about the color combination but it worked beautifully! This is the second sweater I have made from this pattern. Unfortunately the first sweater I made was in colors that were less than flattering for my skin tone 😔 But this one is all my colors!!  This pattern works up super fast and fairly easy. The only adjustments I have to ever make is on the yoke. Even making the smallest size I still have to make the yoke smaller than the pattern reads.  This pattern is in an oop Crochet Today magazine. What a great magazine... I can't believe it's no longer published... Oh well I have so many back issues and patterns to work through!  Now.... to finish the alpaca mohair cardigan 💕💕 Happy New Year y'all hope your keeping warm and keeping creative 😁 I'm garden planning and dreaming of summer myself! 

A wonderful year.. filled with creative learning , farm fun , city coffee shops and people I love ❤️  A very blessed year.  Some favorite pictures .. favorite projects... And because they make my husband happy ... our Meishan herd and a happy new year recipe!  Praying this year is as blessed 💕💕 thanks to God 

2017 has been a wonderfully blessed year here. My husband fully got the Meishan registry off the ground and the Livestock conservancy was at our farm to look at them!! He was in Out Here magazine with them! And will be in the spring issue of Country side magazine also !  We got horses and started riding together for some much needed farm fun. I did a national seminar on milking donkeys! I found a sheep breed who's fleece I love and can also be milked that does well on my hilly rough lands! Score! All that is so wonderful!! But I had personal goals this year ! That was to get better at my favorite ever fiber art... Crochet!! When I really get my mind on accomplishing something I give it 100%. And well, expanding my crochet skills has been a lot more fun than my last 2 major goals.. which 7 years ago was to grow all our own food ( except coffee, chocolate and salt) mission accomplished!  I'm not kidding And I hope I never have to do it again!! absolutely the hardest most stressf...

I can't believe I haven't blogged in so long.. I was on a roll too! But the holidays started rolling in.. I took on some online classes .. breeding season is upon us...I've been making Christmas presents and trying to keep my Etsy store half way stocked up! And today my xtra wonderful husband is bringing me home 4 new Icelandic sheep with dairy genetics as well as gorgeous wool genetics to add to my flock. I feel blessed, and excited and very grateful. God is so good . Hopefully I'll get back on track blogging soon! I love looking back at my own posts to see what I was up to and how and if I've improved my skills! Until then! Be blessed! 

Buying a whole fleece to process is huge! Even just an average 5 pounds of fleece can yield a lot of yarn! And because you hold the key to how and what it's processed into you can get many different yarns and projects from that one fleece. I would have never bought a whole fleece as a beginner. It's just to much!  But I bought sheep ... so there I was with a couple of whole fleeces!  My first fleece came from a dairy sheep I called Bo Peep. This was in 2013. She was a great milking sheep with an average mid grade type white fleece. And it, like my other dairy sheep fleece did not felt. Made it very unintimidating to wash as I had been told horror stories of washing wool wrong or to rough and ending up with a big felted ball of ruined wool! Low in lanolin and not being super fine it was an easy fleece to clean. Crimpy and strong , average length also made it a perfect for a beginner spinner like me!  It carded super easy too!  I hit the ground spinning with that fleec...

I am very much in to healthy whole food eating. But if I don't plan some meals.. Especially lunches I grab easy things like nuts or a green juice.. not enough to keep this body going! something I started a few weeks ago on Monday was what I call marathon cooking. I make up a couple of high protein desserts and snacks , a couple of easy things for a few lunches and dinner with enough leftovers for the next days dinner or more lunches. A couple hours in the kitchen and solid healthy food for days! While things are in baking/cooking mode I use that down time to organize patterns , work a simple project or promote/check social media. Don't let ok at it as, yuck 2 hours of cooking .. I look at it as 2 productive hours of multitasking.  Today's marathon cooking consisted of,, simple egg salad that we like put on a low carb wrap with spinach. Huge Baked sweet potatoes which I'll cut in half and eat for lunch or a snack with butter and goat cheese mashed up! Super yum!  A huge ...

Granny square project!! Who loves squares projects?? So easy so versatile for so many different items.  Recently in a Facebook group I saw they had started a square along project.. any kind of squares! Being primarily a crocheter I immediately think of the granny square but I don't feel like a granny square blanket...  so I disregard starting anything but then I see someone making granny squares for a tote!!! And well,, I always want  need  a new bag! Perfect! I remembered some cute bags in magazines I have ( I'm hopelessly addicted to magazines!) and here it is. From the magazine For the love of crochet , My squares project.. A hobo bag!! How stinking cute is this bag!? And so simple..Blue denim color yarn  with off white and brown tweed yarns! Perfect bag for fall or winter.. should it take me that long to get it done. The holidays tend to slow down 'all about me' projects!  I have 8 more white squares to make then I can start the flowers. Need to find th...

There are so so many WIP this week! And I've finished a lot too... but with Christmas right around the corner my WIP list lengthens greatly!  An ongoing WIP is my Etsy store. And dealing with over stock of fiber and fiber goods.  It's a lot to keep up with. Keeping a nice assortment of things I offer , filling orders quickly and organizing everything so it's easy to find. Also coupon codes, ads and updates need to be done regularly. With the vast amount of talented people on Etsy and the internet in general it's easy to get lost if you don't stay on top of it.  But fiber hoarding is the worst thing I face!! I absolutely love raw fleece and fluffy roving!  So I made a rule for myself.. for every item I sell I add two new items to help me keep stocked up and help keep me from hoarding. It's really helped keep my shop from getting to low on inventory. I hope to build up over 100 items by next year though. Slow and steady!!!  These two pics are from the fall shearin...

I've got so many projects going right now it's kinda crazy! Besides trying to remake the dining room into a fiber studio I'm turning a corner of the living room into a sewing nook. Everything is a mess! I'm in the process of making a Tunisian ribbed hat, entrelac cowl, a cute boho hobo bag and the Tunisian scarf CAL I talked about yesterday.  I want to work on them all at once!!  Little shorn angora goat😍  At least fall shearing is off the to do list! I'm really loving tweed yarns and the fur pompoms that are all the rage right now and looking for ways to incorporate them into what I'm making. Planning Christmas presents I want to make is high on list! Although custom orders need to be completed first. I've got some great presents planned though!! Specialty candies, unique canned goods, of course some handmade knit and crochet items. Handmade Soaps usually end up in people's bag of goodies too 😊 I'm also in the process of writing my first crochet p...

Tunisian crochet (aka. Afghan stitch , Scottish knitting ) is all the rage now it seems! It's in all my magazines.. even the ones I get from the U.K., There are so many books on it now too! I gotta say.. I love it!  It's the knitted look without dealing with the needles. Yes please!!!! Although it's not as fast as regular crochet , it's still faster than knitting. At least for me but I'm a very speedy crocheter! Yep, I'm just learning it but I'm loving it! That's my first attempt. A couple of washcloths that turned out pretty nice! Done in the Tunisian simple stitch and the Tunisian knit stitch. Crochet now from the U.K. Actually has a Tunisian sampler scarf crochet along! And the magazine even came with the hook. Love that magazine. Please ignore than my scarf colors do not coordinate and look super ugly. But my stitches look good! I didn't want to use good yarn in case it turned out that I was terrible at it. I'm prob...

Ok! Well I had so much fun posting yesterday's theme post I decided to do one today too! Organization is a big deal for me. I live in a small house but I have big crafty area needs!  I need areas to dye , to store fiber, yarn , to blend fibers and card, to spin, to occasionally sew, to make and store soaps .. and on and on!  Dyeing is done now on my back porch and green house.  I have a stove, stainless steel work table , shelving and screens. Picking and drying fleece also takes place there. Solar dyeing saves time and energy too! Only certain plants will successfully dye this way though. This works well! Gets the dyeing components out of my house kitchen! And gives me a large area to spread out and do several things at once. Organizing work in progress projects has been a challenge until now! No fiber person I know only has one project going at a time. It can get messy and confusing! I try to limit myself to 4 crochet ( or knitting) projects at once. I come up with this...

This summer I decided my crocheting was in a rut.  I'm a really fast crocheter if I'm using the basics and stitch patterns using the basics like sc, dc, tr. ... shells, star stitched, bubble stitch and so on. You can do a lot of different things with base crochet stitches!  In crochet there are many, many techniques though! I want to expand my knowledge and skill.  So I bought a booklet from Annie's on Love Knot technique, aka Solomon's knot. It took awhile to understand and get my hands used to the pattern but once I got it I flew through this breezy summer scarf made up in cotton/linen yarn!  There are other things you can make with this technique.. this will probably be my next love knot project.  Here is a good no nonsense video link if you need more than just a written description and pictures.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PVGNkl4Ecec Here is the book I learned from. Right now it's on sale for .99 cents!  https://www.anniescatalog.com/detail.htm...

Just a few pictures for this lazy beautiful Sunday that the Lord has made... Eating weeds and turning them into wonderful donkey milk for my soaps  and beautiful fiber for yarn...   Have a lovely Lords day! 

Gosh,, I've missed this blog... I posted and created so much before food farming! And my goodness I sewed a lot! Things have changed a bit on the farm this year.. different goals and priorities now! A big priority for me is to get creative again! Ah.... if you've been on this blog you will think I'm talking about sewing again... but no. Sewing served me well for many years. I made loads of cloths and costumes for myself and others for extra cash or presents.  Sewing will always be special but my creative passions lay in the fiber arts now.  Crocheting, spinning yarn, learning new techniques for those things and learning new fiber related arts like knitting and felting! And farming fiber producing livestock ... which is a whole other passion in itself! As a trained and licensed aesthetician I'll always have an interest in natural skin care products and soap making.. so that continues! Getting back to the creative side of life along with fiber farming is a great place for...

Alot going on as usual... and no, no sewing to be done with my sewing rooms still all packed up ready to move when everything is all done! But I have been doing some crocheting... a little bedside rug here... of thick chenille yarn. More and more dish cloths... seriously, if I could stop I would.... and a hat made from suede yarn... the little brim makes it look 'sporty'! And doing canning, when I have something that needs to be canned. Homemade chicken broth is a hundred times more flavorful than store bought! So is homemade mushroom broth!... and alittle Spiced blue berry jam made from some blueberries mom had in her freezer... I love having jars of mushrooms on hand for homemade pizzas! I waited for months for organic oranges to go on sale... finally! $4 a bag! I wanted to make my own Grand Mariner for Bald man for awhile and since you have to use the zest of the orange they had to be organic, since it took so many they had to be on sale!!! With the left over oranges I ma...