I’m in love with my new bags – I admit it! I like my regular sock bags – a lot – but they didn’t feel seasonal. And winter has definitely settled into Colorado.

I bought a ton of wool felt last month to make creatures, but I haven’t felt (ooo, not a punny person) very motivated.

I got very excited when it occurred to me to make some bags out of felt. The felt makes for such a great canvas to play with other fabrics.

I made three and then sold one at work. My etsy store sold out of regular sock bags about two weeks ago, so I’m going to try and get some felt bags made for etsy and see how they do…

My Yarn Aboard! box – Leif Eriksson – tried to fly out the morning we got 12″ of snow. Leif spent the day sledding with us. The sun came out for a gorgeous afternoon of playing in the snow.

I’m not a very still person. Maybe most crafty people aren’t.

For The Boy’s birthday this year we got him an aquarium for his office – a little company, a little humidity. I thought I would just go to the store, buy a tank, buy some fish and plug it in. I did’t know that it takes weeks to set-up an aquarium waiting for all of the balances and cycles to settle in – weeks until you can even buy a couple of fish.

Now though, after a few months we have a nice happy tank and I was surprised to find that I love it. I love watching the fish. Sometimes they’re peaceful, sometimes they play tag. Watching the fish is a real mental break that I never expected.

I came up with a new variation on a previous idea. I’m pretty excited about all the possibilities. We’ll see how it goes tonight and maybe I’ll be able to show more tomorrow. (…maybe Baby Girl will even go to bed on time…)

Baby Girl and I were the glitter queens – or the queen and the princess. She was in love with the big bowl of glitter. I’ve never owned so much glitter in my life. She picked her ornament first…I think she made a pretty good choice.

Each snowball ornament is definitely unique. I think in the end I’ll use a red ribbon and tag. I hope my swap partners realize that there will be just a little bit of glitter – everywhere…

– complete acceptance – even happiness – of using a store bought crust (instead of making my own) if that means actually having pie

– understanding that crafting comes in waves – waiting for the big ones and treading through some little ones to keep my mind happy

– finding any means necessary to get a photo – actual camera, camera phone, scanner, getting someone else to take a picture (even if it means harassing my professional photographer husband to the point of getting the ‘marge’ noise made at me to get the picture)

– hoping my family is reading to stay in touch and up to date when life gets too hectic to use the camera phone to make a phone call

– realizing that swaps make the best motivators and that there is often good crafting mojo after that

– complete appreciation for knitters – it takes so much longer then anything else i do (understanding that there probably won’t ever be handknit christmas or channukah gifts and that those may come at times when there aren’t…hmmm…19 people thinking maybe they’ll get the handknit gift)

– loving selling in the online world (the sweetest customers and the best hours)

– an amazing record of the things i’ve made (sometimes it feels like there has been no crafting, but i have this blog that tells me otherwise)

– and a new world full of remarkable people and inspiration (really – competition may be my best motivator!)

Preparing for the upcoming holiday craft shows has meant stitching lots of books – mostly bingo books so far. I get them into ziplocs as soon as I can for fear of something happening to them. (Besides the fact that I’m a ziploc junky and have to buy them at Costco now to keep up with my habit.)

a lovely shot of my holiday ornament swap project in progress – in the guest bath. the reality of craft is that it isn’t always happening in a lovely studio, at an organized craft table with ikea products everywhere – or better yet perfectly placed and color coordinated vintage items – the bathroom is the best spot for a mom, baby, lots of string and too much glue…

There is no mail delivery where we live – we all have PO Boxes. So we try to get to the post office every couple days. Mail is always exciting, but a key in your box is the best. A key means there is a package that won’t fit in with your regular mail…yesterday – I got my key!

My Yarn Aboard! package arrived from Jennie in Virginia. The box was so stuffed with goodies there was one rubberband around the box – and one that couldn’t take the pressure – broken in the bottom of the box.

Jennie sent the most fabulous box with a wonderful note explaning the treats – I definitely feel spoiled! To begin with she sent Vesper sock yarn – a real treat I hadn’t spoiled myself with yet. Jennie also sent yarn from J. Knits – a beautiful blue I can’t wait to try. The other amazing gifts included monogrammed note cards, japanese tea, dark chocolate, vintage gift tags and beautiful soap (from Virginia, New York and Philadelphia – and I thought we traveled a lot). Thank you Jennie! I should get back to knitting…

and Thank you Amanda for creating a wonderful swap! (now…what should my box do while it’s visiting…hmmm?)

61/2 stitches posted about Moo.com today – how cool! They’ll take your flickr pics and turn them into 100 unique business type card for $20 bucks – how fabulous is that?

Paper Forest just posted about the most amazing paper artist – Su Blackwell. I just think this piece is beautiful. I’ve been working with paper for years now, but I’ve always had trouble making the leap from practical use to ornamental sculpture.

Living in the land of snow – I’m thinking about an ornament like Martha’s snowball for the Holiday Ornament Swap. Maybe adding some color – we have lots of color on our tree. With all the string, glue and glitter I think Baby Girl might even be interested in helping.

i think i’m going to participate in two holiday craft shows – the same weekend, with no current inventory – so with all the crafting about to happen i joined cake + pie’s ornament swap (also the same weekend). this might mean the end to any handmade gifts (maybe they’ll be birthday socks this year).

…admittedly I’ve been crafting less as I’ve been learning HTML and web design more. I’ve really enjoyed learning something new – and a new way to use color and my sense of design. Since I have no intention of going back to school for this I’m using every resource I can to learn. Digg featured a great article from Mark Boulton last week on designing with color that I think is useful across many media. And the more I’ve read Mark’s blog the more amazing design articles I find. He is an excellent designer, a concise writer and good teacher.

Happy Halloween!

We made this incredibly cute banner for our pumpkin carving party last weekend. Jenny from allsorts posted this idea and fabulous alphabet so we made one. I just love it!

We had a fun little halloween party for Baby Girl and a few of her friends. It’s a great motivator to decorate (and clean) the house. Target has so much cute halloween stuff this year. We bought more then our share.

And here’s a close-up of my favorite blue pumpkin…

(ooo – and should I comment on how long it’s been since I posted? I thought it had been a week, maybe two… I thought September was short…)

I’ve been trying to learn how to knit two socks at once on two circulars. Everyone else seems to be able to do it and there’s nothing like a little competitive nature to keep me motivated.

Somehow I kept finding it so difficult and messy until I found the magic cast on for toe up on Knitty by Judy Becker. Starting from that point made it all seem easy and possible. I even emailed Judy a question and she was so nice and helpful. So now I’m working on her Tangled up in Blue sock pattern.

Look at that cute little toe…

The Boy surprised me with Craft: today! I am so excited. I wasn’t sure when I would get it. It is so full – fat with craft and ideas and things to do – it will take me a long time to get through it.

I forgot I took this picture –
we couldn’t believe how much snow
there was for September.
The snow always looks good
with the changing leaves.  

A black bear has been hanging out across the way from our house for the past week or so…so, I watch with the binoculars and The Boy goes over and I tell him where the bear is going. Last night he got a good pic of the bear…