sunshine, lovely sunshine

My second marathon-spinning project (ok, it was only 1,2km of yarn running through my fingers but it definitely FELT like a marathon).
The fiber is bamboo, silk, merino and alpaca. 2-ply, 400m, 130g

I'm planning to knit a lace scarf with it.

floss bobbins

I recently picked up embroidery again and found a nice design idea for floss bobbins on craftster. For the people who don't know why you need such things:
Newly bought embroidery floss is wrapped up nicely but when you start using it, sooner or later it will tangle, produce knots... Wrapping it around a piece of cardboard prevents this. This design is especially nice because you can put them on a string so you'll can grab all colours that you need at once when leaving the house in a hurry. And of course they look cute...

Handspun socks

For my mothers birthday I've knitted my first socks made from handspun yarn. I couldn't understand why people spin kilometers of yarn and then knit socks when handspun 2-ply yarn is much weaker than commercial sock yarn. I just knit these socks because I had some handspun yarn left over from a lace scarf.
But now that I've tried them on for the photos, I think I might need some handspun socks...



The pattern I used is:
http://www.exartstudent.net/?p=60
It's a great pattern and fun to knit!

And another photo:

Tissue Holders

I've recieved fabric tissue holders in a craft swap and I think they are really useful. Yes, I know, you have to transfer the tissues from their plastic packaging to the tissue holder. BUT: you can refill them the next day even if they are not completely empty, which prevents having ten plastic packages in your handbag each with one or two tissues left.
So I decided to sew a few more for myself and some additional ones as Christmas presents (remember: only a bit more than 6 month left until Christmas! ;-) ).
I've used this tutorial as a guideline and bought the fabric from various sellers on etsy. Here is another design using plain fabric and cute ribbons:

Unicorn Earhangers

This is the result of my first try with Shrinky Dinks:
After cutting and baking I painted them using metallic acrylic paint.
I love how they turned out, even though they are huge, ostentatious and sometimes poke you in the neck when wearing them...

painted mugs

I love painting mugs with porcellain paint or porcellain markers! It is really easy and a customised mug is a great gift.
This is my last mug creation based on a button of my favourite band:

first lace scarf finished

Over a year ago I started my first lace project. Unfortunately I decided on using mohair and knitting with blunt knitting needles with bad joints...
For the non-knitters: this is similar to running a marathon in Flip-Flops... possible but you could have it much easier.
Well, I finished this beast!
To be correct it is my first started lace project, but I've finished others because this was such a pain to knit.
But here it is in all its fluffy glory:

Knitted with one skein Vivaldi from Garnstudio. The pattern is this but I decided to make the scarf one repeat wider.