Catch-up

I've tried to write this blog about 5 times and my phone keeps deleting it. Horrible. So I'm trying again.
I've been dyeing a bit of fiber lately. Still haven't handpainted any but I really hope to get to that tonight. The first picture is mr holding a big ol ball of corriedale cross wool roving that weighs a little less than a pound. I love wool :) all of the little bundles are the same kind of wool off of this big blob. I didn't want to dye the roving evenly but rather have a few shades present throughout. The blues bundle will be up on my etsy shop sometime in the near future as a PIF so keep an eye out! I just revived my new pink dye and tried it out on just over an ounce of wool which will be for sale in my shop when I get better pics. The last dyed roving is one ounce also and unfortunately a terrible picture. It is actually really pretty with darker purple and a few colors down to purples more on the pink side. It reminds me African violets so I suppose that will be its name when it arrives in my shop!
There are of course 3 pics of Elijah. Of course of course. He played the electric bass for the first time about a week ago. It was a hit and he had loads of fun! He really enjoyed modeling the chemo cap I knitted for a friend of my aunt. He ran around screaming "I'm a clown!" and it was difficult to get a picture. Funfur is a bitch to knit at first and after the first few rows it gets much better... Unless you make a mistake and then it is almost impossible to see what is going on. It was fun though. The pattern is The 'No Hair Day' Hairy Chemo Cap http://www.headhuggers.org/patterns/kpatt10.htm and is really easy. The last Elijah picture is just simply Elijah with his hair up playing on the kitchen floor. I thought it looked cute.
I also acquired a cute little headform thanks to my aunt and will be putting it to use soon. I have some pics of her but that will have to wait 'til next time. I've been slowly making some dreads for her though I have no idea how or if they will be attached. She came from Pensacola Junior College so there is a big PJC sharpie mark on her neck. I'm going to sit down sometime and make it look like a tattoo or find someone else who can.
Its been chilly here some days and down right warm/almost got on others. Hope you are all warm and cozy one way or another where you are!

Mail

I'm slow but that's ok.

I did a trade with Danielle of Pixy Patch http://www.pixypatch.com for the super sweet legwarmers. I *LOVE* them :) and was wearing them everyday until it decided to be summer here in south Alabama. Now its a bit too hot.

Then I got a Random Act of Kindness (RAOK) from the lovely Libby http://mayleesgarden.etsy.com & http://aurorasgarden.etsy.com She knows I want to eat her soap...specifically the warm vanilla sugar. Now she's taunting me. She sent me some of her homemade warm vanilla sugar laundry soap. And if that wasn't bad enough she is trying to make my son a soap eater too. That pink swirly bar up there is bubble gum soap for Elijah :) yum! Thanks Libby!!!!

Minde http://twosoulsearththreads.etsy.com has been a bit addicted to felting lately. She sent me a (not so random) act of kindness since I was whining about not getting to keep any of the yummy soap from Libby that I used to knit and crochet lil sweaters onto for Xmas. She sent me a patchouli soap (made by Libby) that she felted with alpaca :) so soft and so good smelling :)

And of course no post would be complete without the obligatory cute Elijah picture!

To pita or not to pita

I really don't have any new pics BUT I do have 2 full photos of rare and elusive Lacy. That's me in my back yard modeling the sparkly dreadband I made that miraculously sold on etsy a few hours after I listed it. The second one is me midsentence...and looks like I should be holding a pear or something.
Photos out of the way, I'm debating whether or not to make pita bread this afternoon. I know I need to make regular bread in the machine. I've wanted to make pita bread for 10 yrs... Literally. I have a few recipes so I may tackle one later. Or garlic herb monkey bread :)
I'm pondering my bread path as I dye a little corriedale wool roving and a little yarn to get a feel for this violet color :) it's pretty as can be! I'm going to try to hand paint a small piece of roving later this week though it seems a daunting task! I'm hoping all will go well because I really love playing with color and of course wool. We will see how it goes... If I'm brave!
Any pita bakers out there?

Happy 3rd Birthday Elijah!

Elijah Winter Ray just turned 3 :) what a big boy :) He even pooped in the potty today (of course that is mainly because I make him run around bottomless while we are home). Happy Birthday!

Multimedia message

Elijah got some really great stuff for xmas. The top pics are the cutest freakin shoes ever that his daddy got for him. I just had to stick a pic of them up because they were just too adorable.
I started baking artisan bread (french boule- see pic 3) around 10 PM on Christmas Eve. 6 loaves plus cooling time later I was able to go to bed... At 4:30 AM xmas morning. They made nice gifts to go with the soaps. Since I sucked at completing presents this year I needed something so fancy smancy bread it was :) Actually it wasn't all that fancy because of the marvelous no-knead recipe you can find online at Mother Earth News http://tiny.cc/RWobk Its pretty yummy too. Looks fancy but pretty low maintenance as bread goes!
We went to my parent's and then to my aunt's house for our festivities and when it was all over... My truck would not start. This is my life. Today after a bunch of fiddlin it is starting but we still don't know why it does what it does and nothing is really fixed. Sooo... It will probably act right for a few days/weeks/months and then BLAMO! it won't start when I am in a hurry or far away or its an emergency. This is one of those facts you just have to deal with. Quirks follow me and infect everything I touch. It becomes funny after awhile albeit annoying.
A few days ago... Saturday maybe, a few (near?) tragedies happened. We were visiting my parents and Elijah was in awe of "grandma's special light tree". So he decided to eat a Christmas light. They were plugged in. He stuck one in his mouth and bit through the glass and swallowed part of the light and filament! *Le sigh* He is a little monster! Well I got quite a bit of knitting done while we were on a pretty fruitless ER visit. I had about 15 mins or so left until I finished the Nalu mitts which was supposed to be a Christmas present and needed to be mailed out Monday. What happened you say? I realized I had made 2 right mitts! I have to take out 2/3 of my work. It was a very ugh day but Elijah is ok and after I rip out all my work and one day finish them, the mitts will be gorgeous and hopefully loved by their recipient! But once again... UGH.
Elijah also got a cool Bob Marley shirt as can be seen in the last pic. He runs around bottomless most days so he can get the hang of this potty thing. His 3rd bday will be January 2nd :) how exciting!!! I can't believe he is already that old!!!

Bringing Michael Jackson fashion back

So I think one mitten is good. 2 mittens is just being selfish! Who needs two!?? So this is Elijah's mitten. Be proud for I have started the 2nd! The color is closest to the top pic where Elijah is trying it on.

The Nalu mitts... still are not complete but much closer. The 2nd is almost done. Just a bit more & then the thumb.

I'm still sick but a bit better. Hopefully tomorrow (well later today) I will wake and feel perfect!

A crafty post

So I have been workin my but off. Custom orders and trades - check! Christmas presents - not so much. The first pic is for one trade and the 2nd pic is just a small fraction of another. I'm extemely behind due to the migraines brought on by the rain. So the cozies were crocheted and then hand wet felted/ fulled on the stove with a tremendous amount of elbow grease. After they dried I took them for an outing to the back yard for a shave to remove excess fuzzies (see trio pic).
The 4th picture is one of the mittens I'm knitting for Elijah. This picture also shows that I have been crafting and definately not cleaning. I've also neglected my bread baking! We're breadless! And speaking of neglect... Picture 5... *sigh* the lame amount of work I've done on the 2nd fingerless mitt. Bad Lacy, bad. Oh yes, and those unfinished Xmas presents from last year... Still unfinished. But I did finish and ship a custom order for 2 headbands so I'm not all bad right?
Right? Anyone???

Santa

We missed the xmas parade but we did get to see Santa. He was so excited. We went to Walmart just to see Santa not buy anything lol Thought I'd share the cuteness. Of course he wants cars for xmas. Just cars and surprises... Which should be more cars. :)

Sparkles and tents and migraines

Well here is the sneak peek at the sparkly white dreadband I made. I have tried about 20 times to take closeups so you can see the sparkles to no avail. Take my word for it; it sparkles! It's pretty and wintery.
The bottom picture is Elijah of course. We were playing in his little sun tent... Inside because we really need an SPF 60 (or some # I can't remember) tent in the living room. The kid won't go in it outside, but inside its fun for a minute or 2. It has been up for a couple of days. We were gonna take a nap in it today- well he would be inside mostly and I would be mostly outside- but then that didn't happen. I did take a nap with him in my bed though.
You see I woke up with a migraine. Thought I was gonna puke. And it was xmas parade day. I camped out in the bathroom and ended passing out for about 45 mins. Elijah woke me up. We hung out on the couch and I felt a little better. Not pukey anymore but still a lot of pain. So we missed the parade. About an hour later I was able to walk upright again and eat. My headache is still not totally gone and I feel kinda gross all over but I will survive and I WILL NOT WAKE WITH A HEADACHE!
Tomorrow I'll be crocheting and felting with a bit of "damnit lacy, finish knitting the effin fingerless mitts already, will ya!!!?"

Todays baking

*****EDITED TO ADD BAGEL RECIPE LINK*****

This afternoon/evening I made my staple bread for the next few days. I *LOVE* my bread machines :) yes, I said machines. I have had one since '98 but it is starting to sound elderly. My aunt was giving away hers because she never uses it. It is basically the same model as mine but newer with a couple more settings. So I have 2. And it makes me fancy.
Today I started my wheat bread in the afternoon right before I put Elijah down for a nap. After he was asleep I started some whole wheat cinnamon, dried cranberry, and raisin bagels. After the dough for the bagels was ready I took it out and made 6 bagel shapes, boiled and then baked them. I got a bit of crocheting done while the bagel dough was kneading too :) I started the 2nd batch of bagels soon after the others were finished, plain whole wheat bagels. They are all really yummy :) the colors are a bit off. My cell phone takes really crappy pictures.
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Here is the link to the bagel recipe I use. I had no idea it would still be online. I printed it in 1998! http://www.vegweb.com/index.php?topic=5812.0
If you don't have a bread machine I figure you could still make em. My machine's dough cycle kneads for 22 mins, lts rise for 58 mins, then kneads for another 16 seconds. I freakin love this recipe :)

sometimes i play with photoshop

=)
i play with wool in photoshop too though lol
i'm honestly a photoshop idiot but i did learn a lot...and then i forgot it. so i'm trying to refresh my memory and then add some knowledge. i made a few things and would like your opinion on them. nothing extravagant or fancy but i think they look ok. as a little background info my shop is called blissful goods but it has blisskitty in the link so i figure soon i will have 2 etsy shops blisskitty (yarn and fibery stuff) and blissful goods (for everything else) but honestly i have no idea =)
these are ideas for ad type thingies that i'm kicking around in my head:




and here is a banner and a slightly different banner:


so do i at least get an A for effort???

I'm a winner (& soap & thanksgiving)

Well I freakin won something. I never ever win stuff but I did and it's awesome! I'm a Twilight saga freak and even before the movie came out I saw all these pics from the movie and being a crocheting and knitting madwoman I became obsessed with a pair of mittens. Bella's mittens. I mean I didn't pay much attention to the movie when she was wearing them- I just strained to see details lol. So I was excited to see that folks were trying to decifer the pattern :) and one lovely lady is selling patterns for her version. Cheap too! BUT she had a contest to give away 3 copies and somehow I won. Badass? Yes. Yes it is. Check them out and if you knit and like the mittens then snag yourself a pattern for a great price! http://snoweviolet.wordpress.com/2008/11/20/new-pattern-bellas-mittens/
So today was thanksgiving and Brandon's parents drove down and took us to eat at the beach. Then we stopped by the public beach momentarily. It was warm and gorgeous out so I couldn't just drive away :) I really wanted to stay and lounge in the sun... But had to go to my aunt's house... And she had pie so all was well :) lol
And last but not least there is a photo above of my lovely soap sweaters. They are Christmas gifts. The one in the front is a random soap I had on hand but the others are special :) they were made by the lovely Libby and I swear I want to eat her soaps! Do yourself a favor and get yourself some! http://mayleesgarden.etsy.com they are awesome!