Hat For A Towering Intellect

As you can see, the silk neckties have worked their way into my hats. It was time to revisit the Hat For A Towering Intellect with the improved skill set I've developed. This is really fun! I used to give each hat a title and a fun story tag back when they were at Zoe & Floyd, the much missed gallery that used to be in Seymour CT. But doing shows and general business led me to drop that. I think it's time to return to tagging the hats and to the level of carefree craziness I had at that time. There's an odd synergy between playful and serious. That's what I'm going for.

Buttons Buttons and More Buttons

I'm finished with my pre Christmas craft shows and have started on a bunch of new things I wanted to try. This technique is one I've done before but never on this scale. It's a way of felting texture into the knit fabric. I'm tying buttons into the wool before felting using the little elastics that are made for corn rowing hair. After felting I'll remove the buttons. Where the button stretched the fabric tight there will be an unfelted bubble. This is most of the front of an extra large man's sweater so it's going to take me a while. I'm curious about how many buttons I'll end up with in there but not curious enough to sit and count them! The small tumbled stones sold for flower arranging work well too. The bigger ones can be too heavy and end up ripping the material. I've got this idea to do some needle felting between the bubbles to add color. I love to layer techniques like that. The other thing I've been ruminating on for quite a while was how to make round felted cords from sweater wool. I'm tired of crocheting hat ties and the felted cord looks a lot nicer. Woolyfabulous, whose work I love, has a tutorial for sale in her shop, http://www.etsy.com/shop/woollyfabulous?ref=ss_profile. I have a strange attraction to reinventing the wheel so I set out to figure it out for myself. My friends were into wet felting so I had a pretty good idea of what might work and it did. But out of respect for Woollyfabulous, I'm not going to post the details. I'm sure her instructions are great so unless you're into reverse engineering like me, save yourself the effort and buy them!

A Productive Saturday

Feels like I've gotten things done today. I've been working out with my husband and I got my own gym membership today so I can go by myself if he's busy. My car is mostly loaded up for the American Made Craft Show tomorrow in Chester, I've gotten some more time in on the sewing machine and I have a 16" x 20" toy telephone painting started. Could it be that I'm a little nearer to finding a reasonable working balance in my life? Of course, it's always a work in progress. It's funny how things can work out. I've been mulling over how to do a top hat for my Halloween costume - the Mad Hatter, of course! But I wasn't thinking about it when I stopped in the thrift store today. We needed a lamp for the living room since the knob broke off the old one and we've been turning it on with pliers. They finally had one I liked, and then it dawned on me that I could use the lamp shade as the structure for my top hat. Excellent since I was planning to keep using the larger shade from the old lamp and didn't need the new one. I use this lamp shade as a swift when I need to turn a skein of yarn into a ball. The skein sits on the shade. I put the lamp on the floor, unscrew the finial so the shade will turn freely and away I go winding the yarn into a ball. My husband and I love Halloween so, naturally, we produced a kid who isn't into it at all. I kinda let that put a damper on my celebration but this year I've decided to get dressed up and hang out with my friend who lives on Main St. in Newtown. It's a trick or treat hot spot, unlike our house. Nobody comes here at all. I was going to take pictures today but I'm having trouble with the camera battery. These pictures are recent anyway. I'm really pleased with the pendants on this one. They are made of the seams that are leftover from deconstructing the felted sweaters. It pleases me that I keep finding ways to use almost every scrap.

Works in Progress

It's a sloppy snowy/rainy gray day here. The word that popped into my head this morning was: boring. I'm bored of winter. Oh well. So here's what I'm working on now. The painting is an extreme close up of two canning jars against a blue background. It's 8" x 10", a warm up for some 11" x 14"'s and a study for a bigger version. I'd like to see this really big but with the market being what it is, smaller is what is selling. The painting is a bit beyond block in. It's painted in acrylic and has a bit of a dry look to it but it will look a lot richer after varnishing.
The monster purse is just a fun thing that I started last night while watching a Discovery program about King Tut. I think I'm going to make it into a handbag rather than a shoulder bag and it will probably end up in my etsy shop.

Zipper Hat

I've been seeing some wonderful things being made with creatively used zippers. (Check out Wooly Fabulous on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/woolly_fabulous/) so I went through my stash and found enough zippers to use them in place of my usual crocheted trim on a spiral hat. I'm very pleased with the finish on this hat. The spiral is lightly stuffed with fiberfil so it will hold its shape. The zippers did add a little weight though not enough that you'd notice it when wearing the hat. It's lined with very soft lambs wool. Feels like I crossed every t and dotted all the i's. Most of the materials were thrifted, the exceptions being a bit of interfacing and the green tapestry wool I used to finish the edge. I love tapestry wool! It comes in so many colors and can be felted too. It's always a happy day when I find a bag of it at a thrift store or tag sale. Sometimes I get in the mood to crochet and felt little patches with a single strand and a small hook. The possibility for color blending are awesome!