Today I woke up to this!

It's amazingly beautiful, yet I really long for Spring right now.  However, every day I wake up breathing is a blessing.  Jesus referred to Heaven as "Paradise" and I often wonder if it will be like earth at all because there are so many beautiful things about our earth that I will miss when I go.  But, maybe Heaven will be so gloriously wonderful that it won't matter anymore.

I participated in a Yarn Swap on Ravelry.com last month and the theme was Steam Punk!  First of all, Ravelry is an online community of people who knit, spin, crochet, and weave.  You can make friends, get free patterns on the site and you can even keep a record of all your projects!  That way, even when you gift it you have a nice record and picture of it!

The swap moderator matches people together for each swap so you don't know who you will be getting a package from.  Usually you have to include at least 1 skein of yarn and several hand made items based on the theme of the swap and then the rest is up to you.  There is always a dollar amount so that everything is pretty even with other swappers.  It is great fun and kinda like a Secret Santa!  Anyway, I found out that my partner received her swap in the mail the other day!  This is what I made and sent to her!!

Here are the items I made for her!

 The PB&J is a tiny pin I made with Polymer Clay!  I don't know who will be sending a package to me, but I will keep you posted when I do!

I have started weaving on my Rigid Heddle Loom and I will post some pics later this week!

Happy Crafting and God Bless!  OH,  Frankenstein says, "HI!"

Weave me alone!!

So I recently went to the Weavers Guild of Minnesota's Annual Garage Sale!  It is a hoot and you can find all sorts of interesting things there.  They have plenty of yarn, fabric, cross stitch, needle point, notions, and some unfinished projects you can buy and finish yourself!  Best of all, they had tons of books, patterns and magazines on everything crafty you could think of, even basket weaving!

I didn't buy any yarn or fabric as I have a ginormous yarn stash as it is and I didn't really find any fabric that caught my eye.

They did however have a nice Silent Auction that I took part in!  They had lots of sewing machines this year, only 1 spinning wheel and a lot of different kinds of looms.  I saw a nice Rigid Heddle Loom that was table top sized so I put a bid on that.  As I was checking out I asked the cashier when they would contact people who won the bids at the Silent Auction and he told me by 3pm that day.   I waited and waited but didn't get a call, I was admittedly, very disappointed.

Yesterday, I received a phone call from the guild telling me I did in fact win the bid on the loom!  Yippee!!!  Here she is!

She is quite lovely and I am trying my darndest to figure out how to warp the thing and get going on the weaving, it is hard to understand.  I may need to take a basic weaving class after all.

This last winter I found a great little table loom made by Brio.  It is a beginners child loom but big enough to make place mats, table runners, hand towels and other small items.  This item was discontinued and I understand it is very hard to find one of these looms, I still can't believe I bought it at a thrift store for $7.99!  Here she is!

I have a few other small looms that are very basic, one is an antique called the Weave-It!  They came in various sizes and I have the bigger one pictured at the bottom left corner of this picture.

These are used for making coasters and small purses for coins and even patchwork type throws if you have the patience for it!

I will show some more pictures of some other types of looms I have later and my progress with weaving!  God bless!!

Well, it keeps snowing and snowing and snowing!  I know I'm in Minne-snow-tah but I'm kinda sick of it already.  I'm really antsy about working in the yard!  I have an addition to my pond to install this spring and I got a greenhouse for Christmas that I'm dying to put up already!  I may start my own seeds in there and possibly grow and flower garden in the backyard.  I would really love to grow a vegetable garden however something has always managed to eat up everything, especially squash blossoms!  Since it is still winter, I'm forced to work on inside stuff like home improvement, redoing old dressers like these,

sewing new curtains,

and painting the walls.  It keeps me busy and helps me fulfill the urge to create!  I started knitting again and I will likely take up wool processing and spinning again as well.  OH but wait!!  I have my craft room to work on!  Now that we gutted it and tore out the built in bunk beds there is room in there, we need to paint and cover some of the walls with paneling, etc.  So, until I can get outside, I will be working inside.

Painting my bathroom

Actually this was a very long project of redoing the whole bathroom and now it is finally finished!  We pretty much gutted it and replaced the sink, bathtub, shower walls, the tile floor, light fixtures, everything!  It was so much work but very much worth it.  The walls had to be sanded, spackled and painted in a base coat and then the metallic paint.  It was quite the job but I really love the results of the paint job!  Here's a before and after pic of the paint job!

I guess now that the bathroom is done we can move onto another room!

My cute little grand daughter had her first birthday party today, it was really fun and cute!

I finished the hamburger I made for her birthday and all the kids loved it!!

It was a really fun time for all!  Here's some more birthday party pictures.

Here's the Japanese Garden I've been working on in my backyard for years now.  I just dug a new pond behind the existing one and this spring I will be removing a wall and connecting the two together.  This will be quite the feat as it involves a lot of heavy rock lifting, then I have to line the new pond with used carpet and then the flexible pond liner and then rock again.  Hopefully it will all go very smoothly and I can get it done soon so my fish have a lot more room to roam this summer!

I have been thinking about making a blog for a long time now so that I can post all the crafty things I've been doing in my spare time.  I seriously think I have a sickness or an addiction to creating things, I just MUST create however there are only so many hours in a day so I try not to get to looking at a bunch of new crafty things to add to my too long list already!  Since it is my grand daughter's birthday today, I will post the fun felt food I've been making for her!