Lip Balm, Finally

A while back I purchased (via craigslist) the soap & beauty making supply stash of someone who had had kids and sadly decided it was going to be a while before she had time and space to do things like make soap or anything else. At the time I was just looking for basic soap making supplies, but for a steal I got all that and a pile of essential oils and tons of other supplies. I actually had to research what some of this stuff was for. The huge quantity of beeswax, I soon learned, was for lip balms. So I've been meaning to try making some for ages. The internet says it's easy, which is nice.

Tonight I finally did it! I started with a base recipe and modified it slightly according to the general guide here.  I can't tell you if I like this product yet, but if I don't, I have enough supplies to make approximately 2853 pots of lip balm, so I can probably do another batch. I'll let you know.  And the internet was right - this was stupidly easy. Frankly, finding the lip balm pots was the hardest part! (Daiso)

Fashion Mod Help

I just found this dress in a thrift shop ($8) and had to get it because she skirt portion is this lovely printed velvet. However, I'm not so into the gold metallic ruched top (also it's currently strapless, unless I hunt down some straps to hook onto the loops, and I prefer my clothing to have straps).

My short-term plan is to wear it with a short cardi over the top (hide the gold) - but I'd love advice & inspiration photos for permanent alterations to make the dress a bit more classic and a bit less disco (there is a time and place for shiny metallic fabric, I just don't think it's on top of a lovely velvet skirt). I'd love a new black top portion to this, something with straps.

The tricky part is that the dress has a side zipper that goes through the gold fabric.... so actually removing the gold & replacing it will be tricky (my sewing skills, especially re: alterations, are pretty weak)!

All ideas/suggestions are welcome!  Also - yay for thrift store finds!

Things You Might Like

A list of random things you might find cool or useful...

Juniper Moon Farm Blog - this awesome blog chronicles the adventures of running a fibre farm - everything from sheep of the day profiles, to the anticipation of waiting for lambs (cows, puppies, goats) to be born, shearing, yarn dyeing... you name it, and all with a great sense of humour. Juniper Moon takes the food CSA concept and applies it to yarn.  This is one of the blogs I check every day.

I have a thing for reading very old books on etiquette, and instructional books for young women on how to be proper ladies... it's so fascinating, so of a different world. People are digitizing craft patterns & cooking books from previous eras.  How about "Dressmaking Made Easy" from 1919?  Or "Woman As Decoration" from 1920? (check out the chapter "Establish habits of carriage which create good line" !). Or "The Ladies Worktable Book: containing clear and practical instructions in plain and fancy needlework, embroidery, knitting, netting, and crochet." from 1845!

Less craft related but still very interesting: "The Ladies Vase or Polite Manual for Young Ladies" from 1849 with chapters on "Behaviour to Gentlemen" and "Conversation". Or from 1785 (!) - "Essays on Various Subjects, Principally Designed for Young Ladies"  It's endlessly fascinating. 

Make your own sewing desk - with your machine flush mounted. This DIY project caught my eye - this couple took an Ikea desk and with a little DIY ingenuity (and power tools) turned it into a fantastic sewing table with the machine mounted underneath. It's virtually impossible to find a sewing table that is modern & attractive, so this seems like a great idea!

Modern macrame project!  I've never done macrame before, but am tempted to by this project (with tutorial) for these stunning & modern bracelets! Aren't these fabulous? 

Crochet

I've been spending a lot of my spare time doing cat photos as part of my Orphan Animal Photos project, so crafting has taken a hiatus.

Except that crafting never fully takes a hiatus! I went on a short trip to Vancouver Island to do some camping & walking through rainforests and in my downtime I crocheted a hat! It wouldn't be a vacation if I didn't have some kind of craft project on hand.

I recently got my hair cut short again and I sometimes fail to blow dry it right away; my thinking is I can pop on this hat and my hair will dry reasonably flat, even when I'm too lazy to blow dry... we'll see how that goes. In any case, it never hurts to have more cute hats around.

The pattern is available here (free) & I used some random, unlabeled yarn from my stash.  I love that the colour of the hat so perfectly matches the rainforests I've been wandering around!

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.)