Orphan Cats

My latest creative endeavour doesn't involve beads or fabric, although it did involve yarn at one point. It was another photo shoot of shelter cats - part of my ongoing project to work with talent photographers to get great photos of homeless animals to spruce up their online profiles and help catch someone's eye (and heart) so they get adopted.

This time around it was a photo shoot with Cindy from Muddy Love Pet Photography - we had a fantastic time and the photos she sent afterwards made me so happy! I know one of the things the volunteers at rescues struggle with is getting photos that show the animals as the really are: beautiful and unique and wonderful. Cindy really made these cats shine.

To help capture the work being done by these volunteer photographers, I put together a website with some photo galleries. It's still a work in progress, but I'm pretty pleased with it - please check it out, let me know what you think!

Now my task is finding some new websites (Vancouver-area) that are willing to post these great photos along with the animal profile so we can get these creatures some exposure.  If you have any suggestions, please comment!

And if you have space in your home and life for an animal, I really encourage you to adopt from a local rescue; there are so many wonderful animals waiting for homes. If you can't take on an animal permanently - consider signing up to be a foster home for a local rescue group: all the fun of a pet, none of the long-term commitment!

Coming soon - a progress update on my epic crochet spiral project (the project I actually learned to crochet to make, and then forgot about for several years).

Wood & cats

I was posting a few items in the etsy shop and, as is inevitable, I started poking around, looking in some shops I had favourited a while back.  A few years ago I purchased a lovely wood necklace from a seller in Montreal, 3dots, and now she has even more items I lust after.... this fabulous bracelet, for example.  And this necklace - stunning!

Then there is Untamed Menagerie who makes stuff like this necklace - isn't this unique and wonderful?

It's been a while since I browsed around etsy - it's lovely to see so many fantastic artists producing cool stuff.  Time to make a wishlist for myself!

Unrelated to falling in love with jewelry on etsy:  photos of cute cats!

My talented photographer friend, Ben Johnson, and I did another photoshoot for HomeFinders Animal Rescue.

They had a batch of adorable adoptables that needed some good profile photos for their online listings so we went to help out.

It's quite fun wrangling the cats - they get freaked out by the camera and lights, or they're kittens and move too fast, or they're very chill and easy - you never know how it'll go!  We did some bunnies this time too, which was new!  These cats all really need loving homes and are all available for adoption!

kung-fu cat!

kittens!

hello bunny!

 

Super fluffy Azlan.

bunnies!

Cowl

I've got a coat that's pretty snug, definitely no room for a scarf.  So I quickly made myself this cowl - something to keep my neck warm, without the bulk of a scarf - win!  I used yarn I got in a shop in Riga, Latvia, that I can find no trace of online, and a pattern from a shop somewhere in the US, so it's an international project really. I love the pattern - it's got great angles and makes a soft, drapy fabric (assuming you pick the right crochet hook size for your yarn, of course).

 It's good to start and finish a project quickly sometimes!  And I had this ready just in time for snow!  (It doesn't snow much here in Vancouver, so this kind of weather is a big deal.)

Holiday Finishing

One of the best parts of vacation time during christmas/new years is having some time at home to finish up projects. I seem better able to buckle down and finish things I have been slow about getting around to.

I finally finished my concentric squares baby blanket, for example, which turned out well. It's got lovely drape, I think. 

Kitty clearly thinks the blanket is hers and made herself right at home.

The yarn I used is discontinued, which is too bad, as I like it (a superwash bamboo blend from Elann).  Discontinued yarn also makes it hard to finish when you run out and still need 1 ball. Luckily for me, someone on ravelry had it in their stash and was willing to sell me the 1 ball I needed - I don't know what I would have done pre-ravelry!


Feels good to start the new year with a complete project! Seems like a good time to start a new one!

Tasty yarn

Rather than whine about being sick, how about some photos of my kool-aid yarn dyeing experiment?  This is grape and cherry, and just for the record, you need a fair bit of kool-aid to dye this much yarn (8 packs of cherry for 105g of yarn, 10 of grape for 125g of yarn)!

Still, I'm pleased - nice vibrant colours.  The grape isn't as fully saturated as I would like, but I'm hoping it results in a heather-like look, rather than an incomplete dyed-look.

I have more of this yarn to dye, but I think I'll wait until I start a project and see how much I need of what colour.

White Yarn

Like most knitters/crocheters... I have a yarn stash. It's tucked away in a few different places so I never see it all at once and have to face that I have a problem. One thing that has nagged me about my stash are the batches of natural coloured yarns I have that I'm not interested in using. I picked a bunch up from a former weaver, but didn't use them in my weaving projects. I thought I might try dyeing some of it and Kalin (fellow Maked girl) suggested I do a test with kool-aid dyeing, to see if that would work (some of the fibres are of unknown content, and kool-aid dyeing works best on natural fibres like wool).

So I did! I read a tutorial on kool-aid dyeing, watched a youtube video tutorial, and did it. Easy peasy! And now I know one of my fibres takes kool-aid colouring super well, one takes it in a more pale way (soy/acrylic blend), one took it very pale (cotton, I think), and two others don't really take it at all (which means I need a different kind of yarn dye, or I need to donate the yarn to someone else who will use it).  And, as a bonus, my kitchen smells like cherry kool-aid.

In the next day or two I'm hoping I can find time to dye the large batch I have that sucked up the kool-aid colouring so well - it's a great yarn, from a thrift store sweater I unraveled! I'm excited at turning it into a colour and actually using it to make something finally!  (I used some of it, au natural, in a weaving project a while back. More photos here.)

Fairly Tired

Thanks to everyone who came out to Got Craft on Sunday - it was crazy busy, like usual!  I'm going to give you a secret tip... the trick to avoiding the crowds (i.e. where you practically have to stand in line to even look at a table) is to arrive at 4pm. The fair goes until 5pm, so you'll have a good hour to shop, and you'll be able to stroll around leisurely and see whatever you want - no need to elbow someone out of the way! It's very calm and civilized in the last hour. It's up and down during the other hours - you might get lucky and be there during a lull, but at 4, you'll be set.

Maked had a good day. Hopefully our stuff will make people happy. I always love the people who admit they're buying something for themselves - it means they loved something so much they broke their own rule about buying for themselves - that's pretty satisfying for a maker to hear!

Got Craft Anticipation

I'm kind of obsessed at the moment with making reflective flower pins. It's a bit out of control really. So I'm hoping loads of people show up at the Holiday Got Craft fair in search of them!

Sunday, December 4, 10am - 5pm at the Legion Hall on Commercial Drive.

Got Craft is fabulous for so many reasons. It's always a great mix of vendors - creative local folks making beautiful things (who all happen to be super nice people as well). It has good music (this is important when you are there for 7 hours as a vendor!).  It has a chance to hand-make something lovely yourself at the Spool of Thread Sewing Lounge area.

I know I'm looking forward to getting some tasty tasty items from Bake Sale Baking Co, in addition to picking up some gifts!  I particularly recommend you check out Atomic Broccoli who has the most fabulous lego jewelry.

Be sure to put it in your calendars!

Keeping it Simple

Most of my craft projects tend to be very detailed and intricate.  They can take months to finish. I don't know why I'm attracted to really lengthy projects that take forever to complete, perhaps because I feel like if I'm going to go to the trouble of making something by hand, I want it to be amazing and complicated/elaborate.  Still, every now and then I get the urge to make something quick and simple. Or I'll get an idea for something that is very plain and I can't bear to make it more fussy.

I've been missing my beads lately, what with all the other crafts, so that combined with some components I picked up at the store recently resulted in a few new necklaces that I'm very pleased with! Simple, unfussy necklaces - some with an sparkly industrial style even.  I know my style might not appeal to everyone, but that's another benefit of making stuff for yourself - it can be custom made to suit me! 

I do feel strange showing these off as things I 'made' when I really just assembled components that other people/factories made.  It's not the kind of handmade I usually do!  Let's call this, necklaces I assembled.

First off - a very simple, classy snowflake necklace for winter.  It's got a bit of sparkle and I combined it with sterling silver chain and a pretty magnetic clasp I've been holding on to, waiting for the right project.



Next, does it get any easier than this? A cool bar component that is industrial + sparkly, paired with stainless steel neckwire. I thought about making this more complicated but love it too much as it is.


Last one - harder to assemble, but still keeping it simple & clean - a two bar necklace.

Sometimes it's good to do something different. It is also very nice to be able to finish several projects in one sitting for a change!

These may appear in the etsy shop one day - email me if you're interested.

Cute!

This may not be strictly craft-related, but it does include a dose of cute and some creativity....

I recently roped a friend of mine into taking photos of homeless cats in need of homes - to spruce up their online profiles. He's been very enthusiastic about it and on Tuesday, we did our second photoshoot with cats.... except this time it was mostly KITTENS!

It's been a long time since I've been around kittens, and having seven 5-week old ones running around was seriously cute overload. It was awesome.

And, Ben took more fabulous photos!  Don't these photos make you want to adopt them all?  I think Ben and I both want to quit our jobs and photograph cats full time.

 

All these cats are available for adoption from HomeFinders Animal Rescue!