Birthday Knitting Needles

A friend recently had a birthday and since she loves all things pink...and is quite crafty...I decided to try making her a pair of knitting needles to match her personality!  I looked at several ideas and after trying to whittle some out of sticks from the yard...lol...there will be no pictures of those today...I opted to take a shortcut and use dowel sticks.

I had dowels of all sizes from a yard sale find so I selected a pair and cut them off to make them 10 inches long.  Sharpened one end with a pencil sharpener to make a dull point, sanded well and put on some beeswax to seal and polish a bit.  Had some wooden beads just the right size and painted them.  Now my artistic abilities are severely limited so I warned her not to look at that part too closely.  I sprayed a clear sealer on the beads and after they were completely dry I put a little glue in the inside of each bead and slid them on.  what I found was it helped to have some extra dowels you don't mind getting paint on for ease in the painting and drying process.

After I finished my pink beads, I played around with a few others...as I said, not a lot of talent going on in the

 painting department...lol!

I have a fall planter that I usually put flower pins in at this time of year and for the day they housed a variety of knitting needles as they dried.  my husband said it looked like an alien on the cabinet

...and he says I have a wild imagination.

New Craft Room!

I've been busy rearranging and setting up my craft kingdom in a new room.  Previously I had a corner of the living room and was happy with that but really wanted to switch things up for a change.  

This room is right off of the kitchen and I love the fireplace.  This year I will enjoy it even more!

I had just enough wall space for all of my threads and a bulletin board!  I like to leave my sewing and embroidery machines set up for easy use.  Now the noise won't bother anyone watching tv in the other room.

Never far away from the action, Poppy likes to be in the middle of things.  You have to look closely to see her in this picture but she is firmly planted on the air conditioning vent...I wondered why the room felt stuffy - going to have to put a stop to that!

Moving furniture really tires her out.

Now, no excuses...time to get to work and finish up final projects for an upcomoing craft fair!

New Yarn Swift!

I desperately needed a yarn swift!  My husband jumped in to build me one!  He rolls his eyes and sighs loudly when it comes to all my crafting ventures, but his is an enabler and always steps up to help me build the tools of my obsession.

We found the instructions and a great youtube video here! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNSEXRRxOzQ  

I got some action shots...here he is getting the legs glued on

hammering in the dowels

all assembled.  Of course there was a bit more work that went on in between!  We needed a white plastic hose coupler as used in the video and they were not so easy to find.  No luck at Home Depot, Lowes or even Walmart but we finally found it at Ace Hardware!

here it is undergoing the final test!

my first yarn ball  using the swift