One of my coworkers has a baby on the way!  It's exciting - they know it'll be a girl, so I made a blanket and two dresses.  The blanket is a pattern of my own (I didn't write as I went, but it's pretty easy), while the dresses are both the same pattern (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/baby-girl-sleeper-set---dress) off ravelry.  It's awesome how different they turned out, just from using a boucle yarn instead of a smooth one.

I made these as a (late) birthday gift for one of my co-workers.  She just turned 20, and I thought it would be something fun for her to have a pair of fishnets that she could wear and still be warm in!  So I went to the store and bought 2 skeins of a wool/bamboo blend and used this pattern: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/julys-sock---pink-and-green-foo-foo as a starting point.

The end result?  My first pair of socks EVER


I think they turned out really nice.  The detailing on the top is a simple picot, but it makes it look really chic, I think.  It was the fussiest part of the whole thing.


The first heels I ever turned.  It was easier than I expected, but the second one was harder than the first, strangely.


She was super happy with how they turned out, and so was I!  It was a win-win crafting project!

So, I have a grand idea.  I need a new purse, and I want to make myself one - the plan is to crochet it, and then full it so that it isn't, as crochet tends to be, full of holes were pens can work their way through.

I'd like it to be an argyle pattern (I'm crazy for argyle, and I can't explain it), and I can't decide if I should work the pattern into the crochet before the bag is fulled, or if I should make separate, felted pieces and needle-felt them into the fulled piece.  Or something else.  I thought I'd ask and get people's opinions, since I've never needle felted before (it fascinates and frightens, with the stabbing and the barbs and the fluff and all).  I recall reading that it's hard, if not impossible, to needle-felt onto something that's already been "felted", so I'm not certain that it would work the way I'm imagining it working.

What say you, felting divas?  Should I just work the diamonds into the pattern, or make them and felt them on?

I recently moved (about a year ago) to Ohio, and had somehow managed to move without packing my winter gear!  I left behind a hat and 3 scarves, which I sorely missed in the frigid winter this past year.

As a result, I decided to take the time while it was warm to make myself some cold-weather stuff, and this hat was the first thing I made (as well as my second hat ever; the other one was a gift for my grandmother a few years back, and was nothing like this one.  I used this pattern from ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/divine-hat-2

The yarn I used was Cascade Eco+ wool in Merlot from my (small) stash - had almost a whole skein left after making a sweater for a birthday gift.