More Christmas stuff for the Christmas Market and Etsy Shop!

The pixie/Christmassy hat I knitted with an acrylic yarn so it can be tossed in the washing machine and the dryer.

The little owl I needle felted with sheep's fleece and Alpaca fleece. They are both in my Etsy Shop so check it out if you like to see more pictures of the hat and the Owl.

I'm bummed ... yesterday I cut one of my fingers at work with the exacto knife. It's pretty deep and hurts when I bump into things. We wrapped it up pretty good and used a butterfly tape on it so I didn't need to get stitches. It's so darn inconvenient especially since I'm trying to make all these things for the coming markets. At least it's on my left hand, it could have been worse if it had been my right one. I can still knit ... although a heck of a lot slower then normal and the fuzz of the yarn gets stuck on the tape! I can felt, halelujah! Only thing I totally can not do right now is crochet, maybe in a couple of days when I can put a regular bandage on it I can manage. Anyway, typing is alright except when I have to type certain letters since it's my pointing finger that's got the booboo. Alright enough feeling sorry for myself ... my finger is starting to hurt so I'll stop for now.

Christmas is coming soon!

So I had to get into the Merry Spirit and knitted a Child Christmas Tree Beanie! Then I decided it was time to try needle felting some little penguins, like 4 inches tall I mean by that. He looks awfully fuzzy in the pictures, he doesn't really look that fuzzy in real live I must say ... or maybe I need to get a pair of glasses to take a better look? I just put him in my Etsy store, as well as the Christmas Tree Beanie.

Busy, busy, busy ...

Ahhhhhh, my head is just buzzing with tons of ideas for new creations. I really really really need 100 hours in a day, but ... I can only work on 3 things at a time. I usually have my sitting down project going, which is either knitting or crocheting for TV and join the family time. While I'm making dinner I'm usually back and forth from the kitchen to my studio (which is just around the corner from the kitchen, really convenient) where I have sewing, needle felting, embroidery things going on. Then down to the basement for longer periods of time for wet felting. Some of the smaller wet felting projects I do on my kitchen counter. Anyway, I only have 28 days to get ready for our two Christmas markets in December. I need to felt a bunch of scarfs, some purses, knit and crochet a couple more hats and I made the mistake of starting to needle felt some snowman and various animal ornaments. I must say they are so darn cute I want to keep some for myself! I wasn't too sure how they were going to turn out, but they did turn out oh so pretty if I say so myself! Wade and Sofie both love them, and trust me if something doesn't look right or isn't something to get excited about, they are the first ones to let me know! When I was at Michaels the other day I found some tin cans to match the ornaments, perfect for putting them in and keeping them safe and selling them at the markets in December. Anyway, buy some special one of kind hand made presents this year! Come and visit our Christmas Market at the Archwood Green Barn in The Plains. Hope to see you there!

The pictures are of a beanie I made when I lived in Alice Springs. It's about my journey from Belgium, to the USA to Australia. I used merino sheep and camel fleece to make it. I made a special hat box to keep it in so I can pass it on to Sofie. I told myself to felt at least one hat for the Christmas market. I love making hats like that and by that I mean the shape (cloche like) and big soft bows and flowers.

Lovely fall!

Yes, fall has arrived, it's definitely cooling off. I realize how much I've missed having the four seasons when we lived in Australia. Fall in Virginia is a gorgeous time of the year. I can't wait to pull out all my warm fuzzy sweaters and jackets. Today, when I went outside to spray paint at my day job as the sign shop artist for the Wegmans store in Gainesville I realized, yep fall is definitely here ... I can't forget to bring my gloves tomorrow. We have to go outside to spray paint the boards we use to make our signs for the store since some of them are 4 by 8 feet it's impossible to do it inside. I don't mind doing it outside, it gives me a break from being indoors, only thing I don't like about it is that my hands get numb having to push the button of the spray can when the temperatures are down. Last year when I started this job I figured a way to keep my hands from freezing and my fingers from getting numb. I bought a cheap pair of wool gloves and over them I put a pair of latex gloves on ... that way I don't get the paint all over the wool gloves and it keeps my hands extra toasty! Come to think of it ... now that I'm typing this I better go and grab them out of the cabinet and stick them in my bag to take them to work tomorrow.

Pink Beauty and 2 Little Pumpkins

Been busy felting and knitting. I try to make at least 1 scarf, a pair of booties and a beanie. Not always that easy but hey sometimes I can even sneak in a pair of earrings, a pincushion or some other new items. Here a sneak peak of what I made this week. Taking them to the barn tomorrow, if they don't sell tomorrow they will be in my Etsy shop so come and visit my PurplePlatypus shop on Etsy and have a look!

Bonnets, spinning and some sassy booties

I've been making some bonnets lately, a bear one (which I sold on Etsy yesterday! Yeahhhh! Thank you to my customer.) and then I made this pink one but of course .... I had to change the pattern around ... turned out bigger ears and a ruffled edging compared to the bear one I had made. So now I don't think it looks like a bear, more like a cat I would say. Anyway, it still looks cute which is the important part. Hopefully somebody else thinks that way and will buy it.

My spinning adventure hasn't gotten much further then trying it out at the meeting the other day. I just haven't had the time to sit down, relax and try to spin some yarn. But ... I've promised myself during the coming winter months I will manage to spin some yarn, for now I just keep thinking about it, the doing part will have to wait a bit.

So how about those sassy baby booties! I again managed to change a pattern which means they turned out totally different looking then what the original pattern looked like. Good thing I remembered to write down what I changed on the pattern since I had to make a matching pair I figured I better do so.

I also finished felting another scarf. A pink one with some wild alpaca handspun yarns (not by me! ... yet!). I need to work on it some more before I take some pictures of it.

And ... I promised Sofie we'd start painting her room. I showed her how to patch up all the holes in the walls from where her posters used to be so she went to work earlier this evening and patched them up. We're waiting for it to dry so tomorrow I will show her how to sand it all down. She's already taped off the doors and windows in her reading nook which will be the first part that gets painted. She changed her colors from the original wanting to have Twilight colors (black and red!!!! Vampire style! Yikes!!!!!) to a totally different color scheme now purple, mint green and white .... sooooooo much prettier I must say.

Time to start felting some more so off I go.

Scarfs and more Felt Scarfs

Ok, I finally got some of my scarfs on Etsy. Everybody keeps asking me why I've never put any of my scarfs on Etsy so I finally did it. I think it's mostly because my Etsy shop is just ... well sitting there ... haven't sold but 1 thing that way. I have to keep adding things and taking them off a week later due to the fact I sold that item at the barn! But, I figured heck ... I'll give it a try since my scarfs are a bit more pricier then all the other stuff I make and sell (except for my figurines which I haven't had the chance to make more of lately), we'll see what happens having them in my Etsy shop. I guess I just need to get into gear and start advertising my Etsy shop especially with the barn closing down during the winter months I'll have more time to figure out how to get myself noticed more to the on-line world. Only problem is that everytime I find myself on-line I keep thinking of how much time goes into that and how much more felt I could create if I wasn't sitting in front of this darn computer!