Once the felt had been made, and was mostly dry, I cut out a large circle. Using my teapot, I carefully steamed the center of the circle until it was too hot to touch and then stretched it over the hat form, pulling it evenly on all sides. Then, since I did not purchase a […]
Read more "Mad Hatting Part II: The Hat"Some of you may remember that way back in March, I generated my first wool bats off of my drum carder (see “Never felt this way before”). At that time I was really excited about making felted hats, but I didn’t have a hat block, so I had to shelve the project. Turns out getting […]
Read more "Mad Hatting Part I: Making the Felt"I collect spoons…yes, the cheesy, old fashioned things that you find mostly in airports and schlock shops the world over. It’s an old fashioned hobby, but it is something of a tradition in my family, and I have kept it alive. The problem is, I have no way to display them. I admit that I […]
Read more "De-frumpifying the Frumpy"This week’s craft was silk painting. Unlike my previous post, this is most definitely not stupid simple, and I can safely say that I learned a great deal including several things in the “what not to do” category. Still, I think I can be said to have been moderately successful. This silk painting, unlike what […]
Read more "Sun-day"Every once in a while I run across a craft that is both stupid simple and very lovely. I am always torn when I have found such a craft. They are the perfect sort of thing to give as gifts, but if I brag about how easy they are, or worse, post a tutorial, then […]
Read more "Stupid Simple"A few weeks ago I mentioned that some of our friends had been very generous with the bamboo from their yard, and that even after making a large number of tomato frames I had quite a few pieces of bamboo left. Today’s Mother’s Day project is finished and I have several fewer. It’s a little […]
Read more "What to do with bamboo"The strawberry plants that were bearing flowers at the beginning of last month are now bearing fruit, quite a lot of fruit actually. We pay our tithe to the local critters, but we are certainly getting enough for our purposes. Last year I remember seeing these awesome pictures of raspberries suspended in soda. I thought […]
Read more "Summer Strawberries"I’m late getting my post up this week because I had a wonderful weekend. I have two food related items to post today. The first is a thank you to my cousin, Leah, for posting this recipe to Facebook. She was absolutely right. This recipe for biscuits is amazing! I have probably had better, but […]
Read more "Successful Culinary Weekend"As those of you who know me, or who read me on any kind of regular basis know, my professional training is in science. So when faced with a problem, in this case, my less than enthusiastic feeling for my last knitting project, my immediate approach to figuring out what went wrong, is to experiment. […]
Read more "Science of Knitting"The problem with knitting, for me anyway, is that it is a cold weather activity. I never think of starting a knitting project until after it begins to get cold (not cool, cold). And since, I start most knitting projects by spinning the wool, and I am not a particularly fast knitter, I never finish […]
Read more "The Problem with Knitting"