Belle Armoire January/February 2009

A couple of days ago, I opened the mailbox to find a copy of the new Belle Armoire January/February 2009 issue. Inside was a variety of wonderful delights including an article about one of my favorite designers, Claudia Grau. She is based in Southern California and I always look forward to admiring all the glorious creations in her booth at the Contemporary Crafts Market twice a year.

Additionally, the issue contained an article on a couple of my abstract freeform shawls. I love the way the photographs turned out and was really pleased with the layout of the article. I will be working up a tutorial for creating a leaf shawl in the next month or so and will post it in my Etsy shop when ready.

In the coming year, I will be teaching a lot more classes using some new techniques and materials. I am really looking forward to this.

Wishing you all a joyous New Year!

Holiday decorating and new ideas

The final Christmas orders were sent out on Saturday morning by priority mail. Hurrah! Now, it is time to play for a few days. So, in addition to my wonderfully tacky little lopsided fiber optic tree, I dragged an old Santa I made years ago out of the box for a few days hanging out to keep a watchful eye on the two presents under the tree.

In going through my button box, I found some cards of old cover-it-yourself buttons and decided to try an experiment. In my opinion, they turned out pretty nice. So, I have written up a tutorial with lots of how-to photos so others can try this too! They were fun and pretty easy and I can see all kinds of possibilities for creativity with these. More to come later....

Now, I am going to get busy with dyeing and carding art batts for a few days as my stockpile has diminished and besides playing with color makes me feel good. It has been cold, rainy, windy and even snowy around here in the past week with more promised. I am still working on the fashion show sweater jacket for TNNA in January but it is getting pretty close to finished. There are a lot of wonderful new things for Ozark Handspun which can be seen at the TNNA trade show coming up. I am getting excited!

I plan to surprise my husband and cook a nice meal for Christmas Day. He has been doing most of the cooking for a while as I have been knitting like a mad woman to fill orders. So, I guess it is only fair - he will even get home-baked pie for dessert! Poor guy, he will probably faint!

Even if you do not celebrate Christmas, I wish you and yours joy, peace and prosperity in the coming year!

Sneak peek for fashion show TNNA January 2009

My fingers are flying these days, working up a new item for the TNNA January 2009 fashion show in San Diego, CA. These colors are so wonderful together (pics don't do them justice) and working with the combination of Opulent and Companion yarns by Ozark Handspun is fabulous! We are going to have some amazing new things to introduce at the show featuring all these yarns. I am so excited about all of this and can't wait to see how everyone responds to the new looks! Will post photo of completed project after the show.

Additionally, I am working on a how-to tutorial article on creating a freeform handbag for an upcoming magazine article so that will be fun to see how that develops over the next week or so. Furthermore, I have lots of holiday orders that are shipping out and am pleased about the response to the ruffled neckwarmers and wristwarmers this year.

Tomorrow, I plan to be at Unraveled most of the day, just hanging out and knitting. If you happen to be in the area and want to join me, will be happy for the company. Come in and enjoy this wonderful store! On Sunday, will be at the LAF Guild meeting in Los Angeles. I will have SpinOlution Mach 1 spinning wheel with me if you want to give one a whirl! Hope to see you this weekend!