Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

 So my blogging got side-railed this week, and probably last week too, I didn't check to see the date of my last post.  I've not been getting much sleep lately for one reason or another, my back is trying to go out for one thing, so I've been in a bit of a haze during the day.   I also am trying to get things ready for a couple of vendor events coming up in the next few months.  A friend and I are scheduled to set up at the Celtic Festival on Sept 7th.  I always love going there.  The calling of the clans on Friday night is always moving.   I found some Pioneer Woman brand velvet yarn a few weeks ago, so I have made a handful of octopi: Ellen wanted googledy eyes on them, but I prefer the more traditional stuffed animal eyes.  Haha...  Ellen saw the googledy-eyed one and laughed and laughed.   The velvet yarn is a pain to work with.  It's workability, as it were, varies with the color.  The green on the left is m...

 Seems hard to believe but winter will soon be drawing to a close.  Spring is on its way! Spring means several different things aside from gardening.  One of those is it now means is the beginning of vendor events season.  The first one I go to is the Buffalo Art Walk in May.  At least I believe it's in May; the first Saturday.   I am therefore trying to come up with new loom knit patterns to sell at said events.  The above Peeps Bunny pattern is from loomahat.com.  Denise, the lady who IS the loomahat lady, also has a YouTube channel where I get her patterns.  She has beautiful patterns; scarves and hats and shawls and all sorts of toys and dolls.  I have yet to try any really large project, even a scarf, because in my observations at these vendor events, large items like scarves, shawls, blankets...etc, rarely sell.  And even if they DO sell they usually don't go for what they are truly worth.  I have more luck selling l...

A couple of days ago I finished a project I started in mid-December.  I saw on a Facebook page that someone had made little dolls like this, so I tried it as well.  Per Ellen's advice I modified it from what the other person had done, and I think they turned out super cute.  Gingerbread cookie dolls. Their smiles leave a great deal to be desired.  I wish I were more talented at doing faces.  But I figure younger children will probably end up with them, and usually they aren't too picky.  That is also why I didn't put the plastic safety eyes in them.  I realize one doesn't put a cherry on a real gingerbread cookie, or at least I have never seen any like that, but it makes a nice addition to a 3-dimensional doll.  I am hoping the little ties maybe resemble a little piece of that red rope candy. So these dollies will be packed away until Nov or December, to be taken to a Christmas/Craft Bazaar somewhere.  Now I am going to make more of the other...

 Bella and I took our walk yesterday morning in the creek bottom.  No strange dogs in sight, but I always keep my pepper spray in hand.  It wasn't too terribly cold; temps hovered around mid-30s, but the wind was awful, driving the snow horizontally.  You can't really see it from this picture.  It was that dry hominy snow again, little pellets that would go up my nose in the wind.   You can see it better in this picture.  I had her leashed because we were headed back up the hill to the house.   We only got maybe a quarter inch all told, but it still blew and snew all day.  Yes, I am aware "snew" isn't a word, but it ought to be.  I mean: "blow-blew" "throw-threw."  "grow-grew."  What happened to "snow-snew?"  English is forever a frustrating mix of nonsensical rules, to which there are endless exceptions.   Yesterday evening about sundown, after 5 PM-ish, the temps finally started dipping below freezing and ...

 Here several years before COVID, which is how we seem to be timing things now, at our ladies group at church a lady taught us how to loom knit hats.  For some reason this activity charmed me.  I was astounded that I could actually create something usable from simple yarn.  I did some research and discovered there are jillions of patterns and projects on YouTube so I had a family member get me a set of looms, for Christmas I believe, and I took off looming. I wish I had kept a picture of my first couple of hats. For a long time my hats were fairly plain, with maybe different patterns in the looming. I also did dish cloths and scrubbies...etc, and would set up at different vendor events around.  I discovered that quite a few other people did hats and scarves (I have yet to even attempt to make a scarf, I don't know why.) to sell, so I wasn't doing very well at that, though I'd sell other things.   After a year or two I discovered faux fur yarn ...