From sheep to cloth

This is a great video showing the various steps from sheep to woven cloth, produced by the Historical Administration graduate students at Eastern Illinois University for the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site.  I especially like the fact that they’re all in period costume.  It makes me glad that my floor loom has pre-made wire heddles rather than the hand-tied string ones shown here.  Enjoy!

Pictures from the Fog

What crafting I had a chance to do today was spent working on the crocheted rag rug that will eventually grace my basement’s new laminate flooring (that I laid myself).  My 2-year-old says it’s the sun.  I’m crocheting it in various shades of yellow mostly because it’s fabric I’ll never use to sew something for myself since I *really* can’t wear yellow.

I certainly like bright colours, though, as you can tell from the pic.  The red velvet throw is something I got at The Black Market in Toronto 10 years ago.  The quilt I sewed myself from Moda’s Happy Camper’s line, backed in a vintage white sheeting.  I got lazy and decided to piece the jelly roll without cutting any of it, but I love how it’s turned out.  The bright yellow pillow-case I got for 94 cents (really!) and I’ve got 6 of them (I bought all they had).  There are also two vintage armchairs in the room, a rust orange recliner and a bright green velvet chair with button-tufting.

Here’s Eva, sleeping at the other end of the couch.  The pillow is something I whipped up back when I still used to crochet with acrylic.  I never the use it now, mostly because I can’t stand the feel of it on my hands (plus natural fibres are just *so* much better, for so many different reasons).

And finally, here are some pics I took the other day when we went to Lawrencetown beach, specifically the large hill just past the beach which overlooks the ocean.  It was incredibly misty with fog rolling in off the ocean, even though elsewhere it was a beautifully hot sunny day.  The wildflowers up the hill are just fantastic (and I’m kind of obsessed with the macro setting on my SLR)

Starting anew

Greetings (soon-to-be, I hope) Loyal Followers!

Every day I surf the net… more than I really like to admit… and every day I see all these fantastic blogs written by people who a) like to do the same things I like to do, and b) are in a similar situation to myself. By this I mean arts and crafts, more specifically crocheting and other fibre arts, and that they are stay-at-home parents of young children.

It can be done, I says to myself.

And yet, for a long time, I have dithered (à la Vicar of Dibley); but now I’m finally saying ‘no no no no no no… yes!’ and actually starting up a crafting blog. I’m hoping that this will soon be followed by me selling some of my hand-made items both online and in a bricks and mortar shop here in Halifax, but we’ll wait and see.

Anyhow, what I really want from this blog is to share the things I make and to play a larger part in the online crafting community, which is something I partake of every day. It’s finally time to contribute something to the pot.

Welcome, friends, to Platypus Symphony!