No winter colors on this bag!

I'm particularly fond of this bag. This is the second of it's kind, I posted a picture of a light green one with a ceramic button awhile back. Heck I'll post it again because I'd like to see them together.

Oh dear, that ceramic button would have looked great on the bag above!! Oh well, I wanted the closure to blend in with the rest of the bag so the stripes would be emphasized. Besides, those buttons are $10tx each!

I sold the light green one on etsy and the pink/green/blue one was just listed today. Gotta make myself one of these some day!

Here are some pictures of my latest work. This is a Fair Isle bag that was fun to knit. It's one of the faster motifs to knit up, and it's a nice effect. I gave it an i-cord knot and loop style closure.

Before:



After:


Here's another bag that I forgot to take a before picture of. I've been getting neglectful of that lately! It's made from Noro Kureyon #92, accented by a hand-painted ceramic button.

More family pictures!

(Edited to add that I'm very bummed that I never got a picture of my dad!!! I'll have to make sure I get one next time!)

Little darlings!!!!


My sister's very talented hubby Todd, my beautiful sister Christie, my wonderful brother Carey, and his beautiful wife Janice:


My brother's beautiful wife Marissa, my other wonderful brother Brad, our son Mitchell, myself, and Jon:


Cousin Dolce! I now want a Boston Terrier!!:


My sis:



My son Mitchell, who hates getting his picture taken. Can you tell??:


An attempt to sneak a non-flash picture of Katie...oops, she caught me! Kids at this age, boy you could just eat 'em up! ;-)

Goodies I bought while away!


On the top of my list was the Fiber Trends Needle Felting Starter Kit. In hindsight I wish I would have bought the coloured roving too, but I'm pretty sure my LYS carries some beautiful stuff. I didn't find any shops in my travels that had any, but then I didn't hit Toronto.


I almost didn't buy the book on the right!!!! I'm so glad that I did. It was $9.99tx and has some neat felted items in it. It also has some needle felting instructions. Thankfully all the instructions are in english. It's a Scandinavian company, here's their website.

Cool new purse ideas, woo hoo!!!
This is Canadian wool from a company I wasn't familiar with. It's very much like Briggs & Little. This colour was the most unique from what B&L offers, it's a nice dark foresty green. I just found the company, Topsy Farms.

This is some gorgeous 1 ply bulky from the UK. I had to frog what I started because I was running out of wool. I'm attempting to squeeze a bag out of it, but that might be difficult. Perhaps I'll have to finally make my first hat. It's very pretty stuff! It was purchased at Kniterary in Whitby, Ontario. Here's one source.


A Briggs & Little felted bag pattern I didn't even know existed. A nice surprise.
I got Pursenalities Plus for 40% off with a Michaels coupon, and I found the Stitch & Bitch book at a discount store for half the cover price. Yay!

Finally made it to Briggs & Little


On our way out of the province we were able to pop into Canada's oldest woolen mill, Briggs & Little. I was thrilled to find that the colours listed at their site are not up to date, they had more colours than I expected.


Here are the pictures I took, plus what I bought. The wonderful thing is that since this is their mill, the price per skein is $3.75 instead of the usual $5.15 you pay in your LYS.
Look at all this wool!!!!
Nice felted bag.
More nice felted bags.
Had to buy the pattern, especially since it was $2.
What I left with. The colours are much better in real life. I'll be back for more after Christmas when I can convince Jon to go for an hour and a half long drive.

Back home from visiting with my family

I'm back from visiting my wonderful family! Oh how I miss them!! All my siblings, parents, and extended family live in Ontario, and I in New Brunswick. I'm going to try to not be sad but instead look forward to going back again in early spring.

Here are some pictures:

Kids watching Alf in the hotel room. We broke the trip up into 2 days going there, but drove back in one day to get back home.


Preparations for my mom's killer chili (killer meaning beats all others I've had for a long long time). I'll have to attempt to duplicate it pronto.


Jon (hubby) and my mom working on the chili.


Eating breakfast out!


My sister's kids, Mason and Sophie, and my daughter Faith conveniently hiding behind the railing.


My mom and her boyfriend Lawrence, and Jon.


Well, as usual, Blogger is being a pain in the butt and not allowing me to upload any more pictures. I'll post more pics as soon as Blogger cooperates. I'll just say that I had a wonderful time and miss everyone like crazy. Can't wait to head up there again.

Ah sheep, My new favourite animal. I'll be leaving in the morning to head to Ontario to visit my family. It's about a 15 hour drive but we'll be breaking that up between 2 days. Hubby is content to have time off from work, I have lots of wool and needles to keep me occupied, and the kids have their DVD players to watch their shows and movies.

Along our way we're going to stop in at Briggs & Little, Canada's oldest woolen mill. I'm excited because I've never been there! I love their wool, it's very affordable and felts nice and slow which makes for less felting disasters. I think they have a bunch of new colours which are not even shown on their site. I'm giddy with anticipation!

I hope to hit a few LYS's. My wish list consists of Fiber Trends Needle Felting Starter Kit, the book "Pursenalities", and roving. A few skeins would be lovely (and necessary). This is an economy trip, so I'll have to be very picky! :-)

Finally fixed my Fair Isle bag...


I don't remember if I posted a picture of this Fair Isle bag with it's borrowed blue handles.


I finally made a coordinating grey i-cord strap yesterday and felted it this afternoon. It looks pretty good.


Fair Isle is very time consuming, but the end result is really worth it.

My most recent felted bags...

I think it's about time I revealed what I've been working on. Over the past few months I've been knitting bags in hopes to strike upon ones that are worthy of selling on Etsy. I adore knitting and felting bags, picking the colours, being inspired by something unrelated to knitting that gives me a design or colour idea. I'm not even really a purse person! I carry next to nothing in my favourite felted bag. I'm not into having a purse that goes with this outfit or that. So what's a girl to do? Might as well enjoy making more bags and selling them.

Here are some bags I've made, including a few befores and afters. I keep needing my hubby's and best friend's assurance that they are "good enough"...yes I'm fishing for more opinions! ;-) It's too late anyways as I finally started an Etsy shop and listed some bags on Friday. The site is down for updating for this weekend....figures! LOL!

Before and After Clogs



I love the colour combo she chose. Now I just need to gather up some colours for myself.