Dreamcatchers, Hats and Dragonflies

What do these three have in common? They are all making appearances in my house lately! lol. Ok, it wasn[‘t profound, but I never claimed to be a genius.

We are, however, totally inundated with dragonflies lately. I don’t mean just a few flitting about. That’s normal. But SWARMS of them. It’s wierd to stand in your yard and having dozens and dozens of them flitting all around you. Sure am glad they don’t bite or sting! I keep trying to pin down what colors they are or what kind, but they move too fast to get a decent look. I read that having dragonflies means you have a healthy ecosystem. It also means there are a lot of mosquito and mosquito larvae about which is their favorite food. If you have had a lot of rain or have standing water or slow moving creeks you will find them scarfing down the mosquito larvae. A lot of people actually make small water features just for attracting them to the yard. We’ve had a drought most of the summer, but a LOT of humidity. Way more than usual. We finally started getting a little rain, but there must have been enough humidity in the air to make the mosquitos hang around. The dragonflies are eating like mad.

I just came in from painting my front door the same blue as my shutters.  That door is scheduled to be replaced, but in the meantime it will match better with some paint on it. Not sure doing it in this heat was a great idea. You couldn’t hardly stand to keep your hand on the door and the paint was drying as I tried to spread it. I got one coat on though and hopefully the second coat will help a little. As I said, it’s going to be gone. so just trying to make a cursory change to hold it for now.

So there I was in Michael’s Arts and Crafts picking up various odds and ends that I needed. I just HAD to wander down the yarn aisle. Anyway, there was this gorgeous ball of yarn that positively screamed out at me. It was a super bulky wool, but it was so soft it was hard to believe it was wool at all. It had that really soft roving feel to it. The color was called Harvest and it was really lovely. It had a pattern for a cute hat and only took 1 ball of yarn so I got it. I couldn’t wait and did it up right away. The flower was my idea, not on the pattern. I’m still not very proficient with cables so I was really happy with how it came out. They sure don’t leave you much in the way of extra yarn though. It goes almost right up to the end. I was really sweating it. I may look for a little better flower but we’ll see.

I’ve been hunting down doilies and embroidery hoops at yard sales lately. Having found some I started working on another project I’ve been wanting to try. Dreamcatchers generally have more of a Native American feel to them, but I wanted these to have a little more victorian/country/cottagey feel to them. These are my first two. The first one has pearls, a small
pearl angel, a little glass bottle with fairy dust, a tiny glass teapot and pretty clustered beads. It also has a ribbon of pink woven into the crochet scallops around the outside of the ring.  The second one has a square of taupe in the center which I attached at the center and around the bottom two sides. The tops drape down, giving you room to tuch whatever you want inside…flowers, vintage hankies, whatever. I put silk flowers into it. It also has a small pale pink square pouch in the middle which will have lavender in it when I get some lavender. The bottom is a simple fringe.

So whatcha think so far?

 

While I cool down from painting outside, I’m going to be working on mini-dreamcatchers to hang from your car mirror, or wherever you want something small and pretty. Photos will follow.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

A Frozen Niagara Falls??

Yep, apparantly so. I never thought this would have been possible, but here it is. I just had to share this olde picture. Now the winter doesn’t seem so bad, does it?

My Fair Isle Hat Project

Ok, so I wanted to learn Fair Isle knitting. I just LOVE that style and all the colors and patterns. I decided to start with a hat. The pattern is called Icebreaker Hat and its put out by Green Mountain Spinnery. If you look that up (not sure how to do links in this yet ) you’ll see what it looks like when someone really knows what they are doing makes it.

Still, I am very proud of it. I love the colors and overall am happy with my first try at it. I do plan to make another but this is good for now. It’s very warm and thats the main thing right? You will also notice the lack of ear flaps on mine. I’ve been working on them for a couple weeks now and they never come out right. I’ve tried and retried and retried about 6 times and by this point am mortally sick of them. So for now…. I’m leaving the flaps off. It worked fine last winter and I’m sure it will work fine this winter. Sometimes you just have to choose your knitting battles. LOL.