More Makings for January – I made a new website for my husband! Website design has never been on my life list but he was hanging photos at our local Starbucks in Banff for an unofficial show and he needed a site, and FergusonPhotos.com was born.

So for one of my January “Makings”I spent two weeks on a website. Barry has now taken over and posting new photos once a week. Drop by the site and check out his PhotoBlog.

My other long term project has been a felted rug with Nicole at Festive Fibers. I blogged about her in my last post. I’m close to finishing my rug design and will do a nice long post on development and process. I have to be ready to go by Monday when I will finally be wet felting it.

Here’s where its at now:

Poppy Rug

I will be spreading the poppies out, adding in depth with vague flowers and greenery at the bottom third of the rug to make it look more like a field and playing with the design. Right now it looks like I have three vases of poppies and a stilted design. I do like how the flowers turned out. I have feedback from my instructor and I will be working on the petal layers to make sure they don’t disappear in the background.

For my January 1st week I chose Felted Rugs. I’m in the middle of a course on that. Working on my gauge swatch tonight so will post my design and thoughts as soon as that’s done.

This is an image grabbed from my instructor’s site – she just created Felted Tea Cups. Check out Nicole at Festive Fibers. You can buy her art at her etsy shop. Or sign up for an online course! She’ll tailor it to what you’d like to learn and she’s just wonderful.

Festive Fibers Felted Teacup

For the Second week of January, I made a bird’s nest pendant. Every couple of weeks Tiffany Teske and Sheena Miller host a Craft Cafe at the Wildflour Bakery in Banff. Everyone’s welcome and the cost is usually about $20 average for the craft supplies and instruction. My friend Anne-Marie and I use it as a dedicated time to get together and to see and meet other locals.

Here’s what I made. Mine is the one with the mermaids and sea charts.

The other was made by Tiffany and I won it! Every Craft Cafe there’s a draw – sometimes you win a book, a gift certificate, the item being made.

Bird House Necklaces

I added an “Evil Eye” deflecting charm too! Many people still wear them – I wear my collection on a regular basis. If you see the back of my pendant, I’ve added another evil eye image just to make sure I’m fully covered so no ill will can stick on me!

Next week my son and I are making our own Lego Belt Buckles!

I’m working hard to get back into the swing of normal life, but I’m finally rested enough to create some new art so I’d like another week off just to play. Which leads me to January’s resolutions.

If you read the newsletter you’ll have read about my reluctance to make New Year’s Resolutions as I break them as quickly as I make them. I do like to make monthly resolutions since I’m not locked in for a year and I can adjust them as life changes.

I explained resolutions to my 6 year old and used mine – to become a better listener in 2012 – as an example. He thought long and hard and announced that his resolution was to “Party More!”. (Capitals and exclamation intended!) I laughed and tried to explain about personal growth so he considered it longer and harder the second time around and said “no thanks mom, I’ll stick with partying more”. I love him!

I have always loved the idea of contemplation and consideration, even if I’ve been a doer more than a thinker, my entire life. When I saw a book called “The Crafter’s Devotional”by Barabara Call, I was immediately smitten. A book set up for the contemplation of ideas and suggestions for doing them, there are over 300 different things to make, do and mull over. For my January resolution I am going to thumb through “The Crafter’s Devotional” and make something every week of the month (or year or however long it lasts).

I’ve started my first project – not in the book but I think it counts – a wet felted small area rug. I’ll post more by the end of the week on this project, the instructor and my preliminary sketches.

Happy New Year!

My son is so excited about Christmas he’s already started tracking Santa on my iPhone. The “Naughty or Nice” fingerprint scanner kept coming up naughty and he actually started worrying about it.

He received an email from Santa this morning and was shocked to find out Santa knew that his manners had lapsed recently and he’d been asked to say please and thank you more. He kept asking me “how did he know that?!”

He put double-sided carpet tape on his stocking holder so it wouldn’t fall off the fireplace mantle from the weight of the anticipated presents.

There is so much joy in our house, its completely contagious. Downtown Banff is draped in lights, the trees in our neighbourhood glow with neon colour and it feels like everyone’s smiling.

I hope there are as many smiles and as much joy in your home. Thanks for reading my blog, even when I’m naughty and don’t update frequently, for kicking over to the website and supporting my work, and for generally hanging around and sharing.

Thanks for helping make mine a wonderful, wonderful world.

Happy New Year!

Hasmi

Hasmi and Josie Visit Santa, 1970's Style

(PS I’m the one on the right. My sister Josie is on the left. The odd looking Santa probably needed alcohol to deal with all the gift-crazy kids and consquently the glazed look in his eyes. Who can blame him?!)

Kristen is planning on releasing an e-book of new patterns in the new year and is working on a new version of Rosa, maybe a little larger, a bit frillier, a bit more of the excitement all her patterns generate. The photo that caught her colour imagination, for a new version of Rosa, is by Naturegrl164 (on Flckr). A mason jar full of “Teasing Georgia” roses.

Naturegrl64

Kristen sent me this photo and asked if there was anything I could dye that would capture these roses. I have to admit at first I was stumped. My gut reaction? “I can’t dye pastels. I always screw them up!” Followed by panic. I never admitted the panic to Kristen of course.

I had some large store orders to fill and I kept procrastinating. When I’d finally completed all my orders I had to face the pastel roses again. I plugged my ears with earbuds and put on a new audio book, primarily to distract me from the fear I couldn’t do it. It worked and while I was emotionally committed to the characters in the book, the colour magic happened and suddenly I knew exactly what dye brand, what yellow and what pink to use to dye a vase of yellow roses.

I started very light and once the first one looked promising (starting from right in photo) I became bolder. I dyed two skeins of the middle colour and then kept going darker until the yellow was intense and bright.

My final choice are the middle colours, “Beehive Gold”. I sent Kristen four of the skeins and I can’t wait to see what magic she creates in the new year.

Sent to me by an “old animator” my friend Larry. He and I worked on a number of animated series together. Larry is a fabulous animation director with a wicked sense of humour. We spent a lovely week every month for a year in New York, working hard on kiddie shows, and getting to know New York. I still have fond memories of the Big Apple. For those of you who only know me as a dyer, I used to be an animation producer. I still consult, but I no longer produce, now that I live in beautiful Banff.

Larry is a lover of craft as art and he shared these with me recently. I’d love to knit up a pair of these boxers for my hubby for Christmas for a laugh, but it will be hard to explain exactly why I need to measure certain parts (hey they need to fit nice and tight!) without giving it away.

To enter, please leave a blog comment letting them know what tickles your fancy from the Winter Issue; retweeting contest announcements and/or using the hashtag #knitcircuswinter counts, too! Make sure to include your email, Twitter or Ravelry handle so they can contact you if you win.

Here’s the CONTEST LINK.

If you scroll down partway down the post you will see “Now, for Giveaway #2″. There are a bunch of prizes shown, including some Bow Falls Fingering. The post says the contest goes until Friday November 25th so post your comments quickly.

RIPEN Shawl by Meghan Jackson in Rocky Mountain Dyeworks “Bow Falls Fingering” – Falling Leaves colourway

Meghan’s “Ripen” shawl is in the Knitcircus Winter Issue and you can purchase the one pattern, the entire collection or give yourself a gift of a subscription for a year. I think the subscription is the best price and the pattern collection comes as a PDF you download, save to your computer and print when you need. I keep mine handy on my iPad because you never know when a girl’s going to need to troll through hundreds of patterns while on the road.

Isn’t this just gorgeous? I love Knitcircus and the crew who lovingly keep this magazine an interesting read, with fabulous patterns and at least one recipe thrown in every issue. Check it out!

The first part of the year felt normal but I think Superman has been spinning the earth at twice normal speed for his own nefarious purposes (those glasses and his hairdo always creeped me out and I had a difficult time believing he was totally altruistic), and now the earth is spinning towards a year end and I find myself just shy of December.

So I’ve made a new resolution – more posting in December and the new year; shorter newsletters so I can get them out faster. I envy Santa his little elves!
I have lots of news, a couple of contests, Rocky Mountain Dyeworks yarns featured by fabulous designers.

If you’d like to sign up for the newsletter you can click this NEWSLETTER SIGN UP link, or email me and I’ll sign you up, with your permission.

I hope your knitting goals are all being met!

NEW YARNS

I’m posting new yarns today. I’ve taken a break from listing them (not live yet) to write this quick post).
Hoodoo Sock, Kasquade Lace, Sundance Sock, Bow Falls Fingering, Spirit River Worsted, Troll Falls Worsted, Red Earth Roving and there may be a few others I’ve forgotten about. They will all be posted by midnight tonight and as soon as they are, the newsletter, which is finally ready and waiting, will go out as well.

Here’s a peak at Hoodoo Sock! I love this stuff. I kinda think its wasted on socks. You can’t tell there’s any nylon in it – its soft enough to be a body-hugging garment.

Here’s one of the new Sundance Sock colourways.

Knitting Mochimochi by Anna Hrachovec

Here’s our current collection of mini mochimochi. They take very little yarn so great to make if you have sample skeins hanging around, or bits of leftover yarns. You can use weights heavier than fingering and you’ll end up with a larger toy since gauge isn’t important. Its a fantastic way to use up any left over yarns.

"Chickie" and his nest

We designed a nest for Chickie to sleep in using a long icord sewn in rounds. Whew! Now he has a proper bed.

Last Day of the Shuttle

In honour of a great shuttle program I knit up a little shuttle to commemorate 30 cool years of discovering space. This is the mini mochimochi design “rocket”. I just changed the placement of his fins to make him look more like the space shuttle.

This is our knitted version of the “Three Sisters” mountain range in Canmore.

Three Sisters in Canmore

A photo from Mt. Norquay, looking across the valley.

Our local 'hood

A knitted version of our 'hood

We knit up a goat for our mountain range. I wanted to make it a Big Horned Sheep but my son loved the little beard he saw on Anna’s goat so we have a hybrid Mountain Sheep Goat.

Our mini mochimochis live in my iPhone box when they aren’t off exploring with my son.

We are thrilled to be part of The Purple Purl’s stock. They are carrying Red Earth Roving Fibre, Bow Falls Fingering and Kicking Horse Sock. Hopefully the yarns will do well and we can entice them to carry more.

Visit Miko and Jennifer at The Purple Purl in Toronto. They are having a sale on Canadian talent in July. I have heard from one knitter that she snagged some green Bow Falls Fingering there so I think their order has finally made it through the Canada Post sludge. Go see them for great deals on Canadian Made until the end of July!

The Loop in Kensington, Calgary have been having so much fun with my yarn. I keep hearing from local knitters who’ve picked up colours I’m surprised to learn I dyed. Its amazing how different a yarn looks once its been given new life as a finished object and I’m proud to say I’ve seen gorgeous items in Rocky Mountain Dyeworks yarns.

The ladies at The Loop have a great together on Thursdays….I can’t say its a formal gathering but they are open late so drop by to say hello and knit a little….and of course to add to your stash!

New Yarns will be posted on the Rocky Mountain Dyeworks Website by end of the week. I hope to have the Paypal problems fixed by then. We did an update three months ago and have been having problems ever since throughout the site. I apologize to all for the frustration – email me if there’s yarn you want and I can get back to you right away.

Cascade Lace 50/50 Merino Silk Fingering Weight

Bow Falls Fingering 430 yards

Emerald Lake Lace 80/20 Merino/Tussah Silk Lace Weight