Krod Mandoon

So I realize this is supposed to be a crafting blog but I don't care. I was sick on new years eve and went to bed early so I've got to get excited about something gorrammit!

I grew up watching a lot of shows like Xena and Hercules and Beastmaster. That whole genre, while horribly campy, is very dear to me. So last night the Boy and I cuddled up with our knitting and he introduced me to the mini-series Krod Mandoon which is a satire of all those heroic fantasy shows of the 90's.

I was laughing my ass off. It's clever and crude without being obscene. There are moments which reference not only the cheesey low-budget shows thats it's created to poke fun at, but also pop culture, like when the loathesome oaf of a villain is puplicly scolding Krod, the good looking, affable hero. At the press conference he quotes of former prez, "Fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me... fool me... you can't get fooled again!" A perfectly seamless lead-in to the episode in which the tyrant must welcome a weapons' inspector into his castle where he is hiding some great arcane relic of death, doom and destruction.

So my new year didn't start with a bang, it started with a giggle. Somehow I think that's just as good. I could go on to list all my boring and generic new years resolutions but really I think it's better if I leave it with these parting worlds:

*Happy New Year!*

Nom Nom Noro

Sunday I went out with the Boy's family and his lovely mother bought me two skeins of Noro Silk Garden. it's colorweight 243 which says nothing. Lameness for not naming colors you Noro gods! Its a pretty pink green purple blackish blueish grey ball of yumminess.

Silk Garden is a lot rougher to work with than I expected for being 45% silk so I guess it must be the wool. I don't know if I call really call it an allergy. More of a sensitivity. Wool makes me itch and gives me this wonky rash sometimes. I'm getting so sidetracked there.

Point is I cast on the Entrelac scarf which is a SOB to keep up with. So much counting. I feel like a kindergartener trying to remember what comes after 5. "Is the next one seven? Or is it six?" I guess I need to get one of those counter gadgets that will help me remember. A tiny little brain for the numbers to stay in. I never was any good at keeping track of numbers. It's like hearding cats for me. I've needed a new number-brain my whole life and now I've got an excuse to buy one!

If only I wasn't so broke.

Craft-fair Goodness!

As some of you know, the Monarch Craft Fair at Louden Nelson in Santa Cruz was this past weekend and WildWoodYarn attended in full force! Apparently the only thing that wasn't really full enough was our inventory of felted critters! Brianna had made a whole menagerie and I'd brought a couple of my pieces as well as a mass of felted Christmas ornaments and I sold all but a couple ornaments, and Brianna did even better with her creatures! Ria and Sarah both did well too.

Best of all we made contacts and spread our name to people interested in our crafts.

Beyond just our inventory, we came across several people interested in learning the skills we have and we're interested in teaching a workshop or two! These are fairly informal since none of us are experts however some of us are teachers of one sort or another. We love what we do and want to pass these skills on to others who are curious about bookbinding, felting, spinning and dyeing. For this reason we're taking a tally of who'd like to attend a small class and what subject should be first.

Lets have some feedback guys!

Big Bang Theory

So, I will update about the craft fair shortly, but the hat that Penny is wearing in the opening of today's episode of Big Bang Theory is freaking amazing!  It is a knit Santa hat with two pom poms on the top. I'll post a picture when I find one.

So it's been ages!

I haven't been up to all that much, craft-wise: I knit a sweater in late September, I set up my loom (mostly-- it's missing a few parts, and I spend a few days in August finishing all of my half-completed books.

I started to work on some small dolls for the upcoming craft fair (December 12! Please come, if you're in the area!), and realised that I'd forgotten how *many* different things you need to make them. I mean, knitting: you've got needles, yarn, *maybe* stitch markers/holders. In dollmaking, you need needles, thread, cloth for the skin, sockinet for the head, stuffing, pins, a pencil/marker, scissors... I kept almost being ready, and then figuring out that I'd forgotten about thing X. But if all goes well, there will be at least six small dolls (under 6") available for sale at the fair, along with the books, yarn, and needlefelting.

I'll try and get some pictures of the loom-- I moved in August into a real! house!, in which I finally have space to set up all of my crafts, including the four-harness jack loom that's been living above my parent's garage for the last six years. My mother, art quilter Susan Else, started out as a weaver and a spinner, which is where I got my interest from. However, by the time that I started being interested in anything beyond sewing, she'd forgotten how to spin! I remember the year that I got a spinning wheel for christmas-- she tried to show me how, and didn't tell me to separate out and pull the rolag. This did, of course, lead to some *very* thick yarn. I've been spinning, just a bit, recently. I dyed some merino a very pale pink-- it's not quite the baby-butt pink that SinSpinner did, but it's still pretty pale. I'm going to try and finish that week, I think. Pictures will happen... at some point.

School continues, as it always does. I'm running the Student Council here, and this year, students decided to have a Skate Night. It went very well! We're likely to have one again this spring. I hope that all of you out in blog-space are having a fall (nearly) as full as mine is-- there's certainly never a dull moment!

ORNAMENT PICS WOOHOO!

The holidays are on their way!

It's the last days of October which means Thanksgiving is less than a month away and Christmas is only a month after that. Crazy how time flies. That's why I've been working diligently on a new project: felted Christmas ornaments.

The idea came to me when I was needle-felting a couple days ago and though I ought to make some wintery items. As I was getting close to finishing my second item, I thought they might look nice among the evergreen boughs of a mini-christmas tree like my brother and I used to have in our room growing up. I pulled out some silver wire from my jewelry-making days and Voila! turned a snowglobe and a snowflake into two charming ornaments. I've already made 10 different ornaments but plan to make a ton more before we open our booth at the Holiday Craft Fair in downtown Santa Cruz on December 12.

They are mostly very small, but they are all pet-safe and child-safe. I can absolutely, 100% guarantee no dangerous shards of silvered glass on the floor when one of these beauties falls.

Pictures to come as soon as I can find the mini-USB cable to hook up the camera.