For my friends who love canines as much as we do, here is a little Merry Christmas video! Even if there was someone coaching them, I think these "guys" did a pretty good job!

My apologies for not posting more often. Thing should settle down soon. Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays.

In the meantime, here's a video from You Tube that I get a chuckle out of every time I see it.

Some Stamp A Mania Fun
and
Belated Unveiling of Birthday Card to DB {Dear Brother}

Last January I had the pleasure of going to Grapevine, Texas to the Heirloom Productions Rubber Stamp Convention. I made my first trip a number of years ago and was hooked! Sadly when layoffs came, I had to bypass on the trips. This past January I resumed a tradition a friend and I had for years. If you have never been to a Rubber Stamp convention, I should tell you the energy in the Convention Center is amazing! Stamp Companies spend hours setting up their booths with all the latest, greatest supplies and samples of the wonderful things you can do with their products.

Always being on a budget, I learned that first time many years ago to do a little homework before the convention and during the convention. You will see so many wonderful things that you will want to impulsively buy. The conventions are usually so large, you almost feel like you are in "sensory overload" - the wonderful kind of overload!!  I always check out the Heirloom Productions website for the list of vendors for the show nearest me. Heirloom now has posted their 2010 {Wow ~ 2009 is flying by!!} schedule in case you are in the States and want to know if they will be near you. (Right click on their name above to go to their website.) As time gets closer to the event, they will have a link to the list of vendors who will be at that particular show.  I like to spend some time checking out the vendor websites. Sometimes you find something you feel "you just have to have" and you make a mental note to look for that at the convention. So that's the pre-convention homework fun.

When the long awaited day arrives, I make a preliminary tour of all the booths, take in a few demos and then start formulating my game plan for the purchases I want to make that day. Knowing I cannot possibly spend all the money I would love to spend, I always ask for business cards so I can purchase online later if I find something that is perfect for future projects. I have fun seeing everything first and then deciding which booths caught my attention the most. I make a second round and go back to those booths that grabbed my attention. It gets even more fun as I decide what wonderful tool(s), supplies and/or stamps will be making the trip back to Studio Z.

One of the vendors who caught my attention the most in January was {right click on logo to visit website in a new window}:

Stamp A Mania utilizes calligraphers to hand letter their stamps. The beautiful calligraphy definitely grabbed my attention, as did the wonderful images! I really enjoy Southwest designs. Mark and Cynthia are also busy working on some exciting additions with Posh Impressions and Stampa Barbara. {Right click on name to open websites in new window.}

Part of the fun of watching demos at Stamp Convention is you sometimes become the lucky recipient of a demo card. Below is the card I received from Cynthia.

I shot this on a black background to show the moon template used, but the lighting in the room was not sufficient for you to also see the round portion from the cut out that comes with the template so you can ink around it for a different effect. Cynthia used two shades of Embossing Powder for the trees on a grey cardstock. If I remember correctly, she also used an Alabaster ink with the moon template. {Cynthia, correct me if I am wrong.} Whatever color it was, the ink pads flew off the shelf as everyone saw how great it worked for the moon. Each time I look at the card, I think of a cold winter evening and the "Warm Greetings" remind me of a nice, toasty home.

I have ordered online from Stamp A Mania since the convention and each time they are fast in getting the "goodies" to me!

DB {Dear Brother} enjoys buffalo a lot so for his recent birthday {I am really late in posting this on my blog} I made him a card with the Mimbres Buffalo by Stamp A Mania. Each time I look at this stamp I see more ideas on wonderful ways to use it. Below is a picture of the way their wood mounted stamps originally came ~ with a beautiful laser image. You can still purchase wood mounted images, but the index is no longer done with laser. One can only imagine the logistics (and the cost) of mass producing a full line of stamps with laser images! I love that Stamp A Mania offers all of their stamps in unmounted also. This is a cost savings, in addition to the storage advantage of needing less room to store your stamps.

I liked the look of the buffalo on the polished stone background, but the photo does not do it justice:

Along with cardstock in white and yellow, I used one of my Polished Stone pieces recently shown. The image was stamped with VersaMark Dazzle Frost using Ranger's Fine Detail Silver Embossing Powder.

The punch is a Corner Adorner Card Creator punch by Paper Shapers (a division of EK Success). As you can see by the shape, it is designed to punch thru any corner, including the two by the fold. This punch is called "Lotsa Slots".

On the inside of the card, I used Happy Birthday stamp by Hero Arts and on the back, I used "Original Stamp Art 1/1" by Just for Fun.

Hope you enjoyed the card. Be sure and check out the Stamp A Mania website!

For those arriving in search of fiber, I promise fiber content next post.


KZ

From the mailbox...

Recently I posted about Polished Stone technique {Click here for link to that post}. My subtitle was "The Marriage of Alcohol Inks and Glossy Paper". That title elicited the following response:

Dear Twisted Reader,
You made me laugh! Thanks for adding some comic relief after a very long work day yesterday!

Crochet Bowl ~ Pre-Felted Stage

Wanting to get an interesting shot of my Karaoke yarn by SouthWest Trading Company, I decided to have a photo shoot at Starbucks one evening. A friend was kind enough to loan me her coffee before she took a sip so I could try to grab some shots of my yarn. If I remember correctly she took this particular picture with her cell phone and sent it to me the next day. (Thanks Dawn!)

Karaoke is a worsted weight yarn, 10 ply (9wpi), 109 yards per skein. This particular colorway is #278 Mermaid. I purchased this 50% SoySilk/50% Wool yarn from Jimmy Beans Wool. As mentioned in a previous post I originally purchased these 4 skeins early in my knitting adventure thinking I would use this yarn for a Clapotis. It would have been very pretty but I soon decided I would be happier using it for knitted bowls.

When I learned to crochet I decided I wanted to see what crochet looked like felted. I chose Caffeinated Crafter's pattern for a felted bowl. She recommends starting with a "Magic Circle" and recommends tjw1963's video on You Tube:

I started my bowl with the Magic Circle and loved the ease of it. You also need to know how to decrease or sc2tog. The Caffeinated Crafter recommends the following video by KawaiiGurumi:

Here are two pictures of my bowl before felting. I need to do some more felting and will show the felted bowl in a future post.

I actually think I like the bowl better in the pre-felting stage. Maybe when I finish the felting I will like it better. I ran out of time while felting and so let it dry for now. I hope to come back to it by next weekend. I was so busy when I started to felt it and it was taking cycle after cycle (more than I had to with my knitted felting), so I put it in "time out" for awhile.

Polished Stone ~

{The Marriage of Alcohol Inks and Glossy Paper}

Where do the days go? It seems like I blink and it's Monday all over again! Before my weekend is but a memory, I wanted to make sure I carved out some time to blog. I apologize for the long delay. I spent some of my time trying to get decent shots of Polished Stone over multiple days and finally settled on these pictures as the best my camera could do. (Perhaps it could do better, but I chose to say "enough already!" due to a thing called "time.") I rejected quite a number of pictures. Polished Stone is one of those things that you have to see in person to get the full effect.

I used Ranger Adirondack Alcohol based re-inkers, Adirondack Blending Solution, Blending Tool with felt and glossy card stock.

The felt piece can be "washed" with rubbing alcohol (or the Blending Solution) to "clean it" a few times. You will know when you need to toss the felt and replace it with a clean one.

The spray bottle contains alcohol and the black container has Kosher salt in it.

In the bottom sample on this picture after the ink was applied and blended, I lightly sprayed the paper with alcohol and dropped some Kosher salt around. Leaving the salt to dry on the paper for awhile, the salt interacted with the ink and added an interesting look. This is a watercolor technique some of you may have used before.

On the next two samples and the bottom sample in the top picture, I used Stream, Wild Plum and Butterscotch (pictured above in the photo of the supplies). Ranger sells them in a package of three and the colorway (using a fiber term) is called "Nature Walk." By varying the amount of one color over another and the amount of Blending Solution you can come up with light or dark.

I used one drop of Adirondack Silver Metallic Mixative on this one. You can see 1 drop goes a very long way. I was using someone else's reinkers at this point and did not have the chance to write down the colors.

Here's one way to use Polished Stone. I was using someone else's stamps so I apologize that I did not make notes on the stamps used. This is the outside and the envelope. I always like to tie the envelope and card together in some way. For this card I chose to stamp part of the swirl stamp on the front and back of the envelope. I used embossing powder on the swirl stamped image on the card, but did not emboss the design on the envelope.

I also wanted to tie the front of the card in with the inside, so I included a couple of small strips of polished stone.

Here's a video by Tim Holtz of Ranger Industries demoing the technique. Enjoy!

For those who arrived here in hopes of a "fiber fix," there will be fiber content next time!

Addi Turbo Circular Needles

Skacel, the American distributor for Addi Turbo Circular Needles, played this video at market. This is a "short" version.

I learned to knit on Addis because I did not like the feel of straight needles. I have never regretted that decision. I especially enjoy their lace needles.

Somehow last month was a blur! I blinked and June was history! Please accept my apologies! I feel like I spent the month (when I was not at work) letting the four-legged children in and out! Some have suggested a doggie door, but when your home is guarded by Samson Security Service a doggie door would have to be very large.

This is a guy who takes his job seriously! He is a lot bigger now than in this picture. Samson is all muscle and quite the athlete. He runs and runs in the backyard, constantly building up those muscles.

He can open the back door when he is outside (unless you slam the door really hard and have your foot on the bottom of the door when you slam it). If he hears me leave the room he comes in to make sure he is not missing out on anything! So I immediately have to stop what I am doing and go to the back door to close it. He beats me to the back door and is out in the yard again.

A doggie door does sound nice but it would be so expensive to have one made that did not allow a human being to also come in. If someone was crazy enough to crawl in, I seriously doubt they would be leaving in the same condition. Samson is one lovable guy, but being all German Shepherd he would immediately let the intruder know they made perhaps the biggest, most stupid mistake of their life!

Samson's favorite thing is to open the back door, come in and sit down to eat while intently watching the backyard. Maybe I just need to install a nice glass door (that opens and closes automatically) for him so he can see in when he is outside and see out when he is inside. LOL! I think Sasha and Sweetie would enjoy that also. Hmmmmm... wonder if that would cut down on the wear and tear of my body and on the door? Dreaming!!

Somewhere in the blur of last month, I found a little time to knit. Never enough time though!! I need to take a picture of a scarf I made last month. It was so much fun that I am going to make another one but use three colors instead of one. It involved knitting in the round and cutting my knitting at the end. Have I peeked your interest?

Does this give new meaning to "spinning" yarn? Or perhaps knitting in the round? DS (Dear Son) asked us to send him some pictures of his turntables. As long as we had them out, I could not resist the chance for a different backdrop.

I finally had a chance to send my Mom the dishcloth I knitted for her to "put thru it's paces." I had waited a long time to decide to knit the proverbial dishcloth and have now discovered how fun it was to have a quick project! I plan to knit more (in other designs) after I receive feedback on the durability. I used "tried and true" Sugar 'n Cream in the Buttercreme (#19222) colorway. For those who have already knitted dishcloths, you probably recognize this as being "Grandmother's Favorite Washcloth" pattern.

Somewhere I tucked away the left over yarn so I am unable to measure it to let you know how much I had left from the skein. When I come across it, I will update this blog and also list it on Ravelry. The remnant bag was small so it must have fallen down behind something near the computer. I really want it so I can put the ball band and info in the FO (Finished Objects) notebook I am starting.

Paper Arts have been a source of enjoyment for many years for me and I am going to start including some on my blog. Next weekend I have set some time aside to do Polished Stone Technique with a friend and will post pictures. I have added Paper Arts to the header of this blog since that media has shaped the tapestry of my life for many years.

Seeing the dishcloth on a turntable reminded me I took some other fiber related photographs the same day. I am incredibly late in posting this one:

I am in a group called Whoduknit. As you can probably deduce, we all enjoy knitting, reading and solving mysteries. I won the Easter Egg Hunt from a drawing of all who correctly answered the questions. We had to search on our group blog and Yahoo group site for answers to 12 questions posted on our Whoduknit blog. I had a lot of fun. As you can see I received a felted Easter basket, a dishcloth (illusion knitting with a bunny face), a knitted hand puppet, some yummy candy and some KnitPicks Shadow in Snorkel colorway.

For those who are interested in the turntables, here is a picture without the fiber. The only time we had to take the photos was when the sun was in full force.

I promise more fiber for your daily diet in my next post.

"Just for Fun" Friday!

This couple knows the secret to 62 years of marriage ~ they have not forgotten how to have fun! Check this out:

This young man just turned 90 in February.

Tulsa's Other Buried Car

Recently I alluded to Tulsa's other buried car. Some of you may be wondering what type of car did Tulsa bury the 2nd go round. Additionally one would wonder what changes were made (now that technology is more advanced) to insure this car will be in pristine condition when it is unveiled. The following video will answer those questions.

Carpe Knitting,
KZ

Model A Car Show

Recently there was a Model A Car Show in our area.  DH {Dear Hubby} took some photos to commemorate the day and also to share with some friends and relatives. I had fun putting his pictures to the music he chose.

If you were unable to attend, here's a taste of what you missed:

Carpe Knitting,

KZ

Miss Belvedere, One of Tulsa's Buried Cars

Where is She Now?

It is hard to believe that we are almost two years out from the unveiling of Miss Belvedere, one of Tulsa's buried cars {yes, there is still a buried car in Tulsa}. The first video is a trailer to a documentary that was made about Miss Belvedere. 

This next video will bring us more up to date on how Miss Belvedere is looking these days.

More knitting to come... I promise!

Carpe Knitting,

KZ

Frank, the Working Duck

When I was in elementary school, Mom and Dad bought me a pet duck for Easter.  This duck grew up to be best buddies with my toy poodle.  The two of them spent so many hours playing together. Anytime I was outside, my duck would follow me everywhere.  So when I recently saw this news story about a man who takes his duck to work, I could not resist posting it on my blog.  It takes a moment to load the video, so be patient.

Music Monday

It's time for another Music Monday. My DD {Dear Dad} sent me this one so I could share it with you. He knows I enjoy musical collaborations. Someone very artistically combined the talents of a number of musician from around the world.  

Green Eggs and "Ham"

A co-worker has some chickens that lay different colors of eggs. DH {Dear Hubby} is holding a couple of green eggs.  {My apologies for the color on the photo.  It was a downcast day and it was hard to get a photo that showed the true color.}  Only the shells are green, the yolks are a normal color. I recently purchased a dozen from her. If you have never had fresh, free range eggs you are missing out! What you buy in the grocery store is not anywhere near as fresh as you might imagine. I recently read when eggs reach the grocery store shelf they are anywhere from two weeks to one month old. Another article suggested that eggs may not even be packaged until they are six weeks old. 

Cage free/free range eggs taste so much better to me. I have heard some who grew up in another country and moved to America say they can only eat the cage free/free range eggs because the other eggs bother their stomachs. My son first told me about the difference in taste. Once I tried them, I have stopped buying any eggs that are not cage free/free range.  Add fresh from the chicken to that and you have a winning combination.

Sometimes my co-worker finds some eggs with light turquoise shells also. None of these eggs have been dyed, nor have the chickens been fed special food to produce colored shells.

Thinking of Dr. Seuss' famous book "Green Eggs and Ham" I had to do a "play on words" with the green eggs and DH {Dear Hubby} playing the part of the "Ham" {for those whose first language is not English ~ one definition of the word "ham" is "one who overacts."}

Carpe Knitting,

KZ

Spring Snow

Once again this year we had snow in late March.  We had so much rain yesterday and this morning around 8:00 a.m. it started snowing.  I grabbed the camera and rushed outside when I heard it was snowing.  

The snowflakes were really large.  I made a little video with snippets from the day to give you an idea of the size of the flakes.  Apologies for the grainy videos.  As mentioned previously, a better camera is on my list!  

Our six inches of snow was nothing in comparison to the blizzard that pelted Kansas! We had a little bit of thundersnow at the onset of our snow. That is a phenomenon where you have thunder and snow at the same time.  By nighttime the snow is still around but beginning to melt. Tomorrow's higher temperature will make this snow begin to become a memory.

The snow gives a whole new meaning to "White wall tires" ~ 

Someone recently asked me what "Carpe Knitting" meant so I realized many are probably wondering.  I really like the Latin phrase "Carpe Diem" ~ "Seize the Day!"  I tried to locate a Latin word for knitting but could not find one.  So I just had to settle for "Carpe Knitting" ~ "Seize the Knitting" In other words, enjoy your knitting and make the most of your knitting {or crocheting} time!

Don't You Just Love the Sense of Accomplishment 

with Finished Projects?!

I am finally having a moment to post some finished projects on my blog.  One of the items on my "to do" list was to take a new picture of my very first knitted scarf and replace the horrible picture of myself wearing the scarf.  The angle at which the photo was taken was such that it was one of the most unflattering pictures ever taken of me {LOL ~ Laugh Out Loud}!  Here is my neighbor's pine tree sporting the very first scarf I knitted. {My neighbor has no idea I caught her tree wearing my scarf!} Some of you have been reading my blog since day one. For those who joined me later, I knitted this scarf with size 8 Addi Turbo needles.

Variegated color: Noro Silk Garden Lite

{45% Silk, 45% Kid Mohair and 10% Lamb's Wool}

Solid color: Noro Cash Iroha

{40% Silk, 30% Lamb's Wool, 20% Cashmere and 10%Nylon}

I crocheted the edging {with some help from a friend} to add an accent to the scarf and to keep it from rolling.  Some friends could not believe I chose such nice yarn for my very first project. I knew I had to use yarn {and colors} I would enjoy knitting with or I would grow tired of it before I completed the project. I had to be "proud" of my choice to want to keep knitting thru the awkward beginning stages of learning something new. I have never regretted my choice.

Speaking of crocheting, back in the Summer while at a Knit-In at Gourmet Yarn Company in Oklahoma City, a fellow Raveler Sakae {Sorry the link will only work if you are a member of Ravelry.} was showing everyone her first crocheted project - Tea Scarf by Pixeldiva.  Now if you read my first post, you know I used to think I never wanted to learn to knit.  Well, I wanted to learn to crochet even less!  haha! 

At the Knit-In I was sitting across the room from Sakae, but she had my attention with her beautiful scarf! If I ever wanted to learn to crochet a scarf, this was the project for me.  I waited a few months and then decided I definitely wanted to crochet a Tea Scarf.  My reasoning is perfectly logical to me. If I learn more about crocheting then I will feel comfortable putting crochet edges around my knitted shawls and scarves. What better way to learn crochet than by making a scarf! Plus crocheting gave me another excuse to buy yarn... Did I say that out loud? I meant to say it gave me another venue for using my stash. {That's my story and I am sticking to it!}

I used approximately 1 1/3 skeins of Baby Alpaca D.K. Paint by Plymouth Yarn in Colorway 8817, Dye Lot 672.  

  

I had fun learning to crochet the scarf.  

I am considering making a cowl that involves quite a few stitches on the needles at one time. Not wanting to have to figure out how long of a tail to start with in Long Tail Cast On, I am contemplating the Cable Cast On Method. This method eliminates the worry of miscalculation.

Special thanks to Gingerly4it for the instructional video on Cable Cast On.

Music Monday

This young lady has her keyboard part memorized and does not appear to miss a beat!  Enjoy!!

I am delighted that at this point in time people from 112 countries have viewed my blog, Thanks everyone for making my day!

I promise knitting contact next post!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today's Valentine tribute is for Avery {right side of photo} and Oliver {left side}. Their Moms have been great friends for awhile but Avery and Oliver were only recently introduced to each other.  Here is the little movie I made for their relatives to see their reactions when they first met.  I have also added a few still shots in the movie for their enjoyment. {Turn on your speakers to hear the music.}


Will there be "wedding bells" in their future?  Stay tuned for another exciting episode of "As the Wool Turns"...

Happy New Year

and Some Mid-week Enjoyment

It's been such a crazy week already, so I wanted to take a few moments to share a couple of cute videos.

The first is from a news story about the unusual bond between a dog and an elephant (sorry, there is an ad prior to the video):

 

Next I could not resist leaving you with a chuckle. Ever have an itch you just could not reach? Well this little dog seems to have found a way:

Join the fun by checking to see who else in the world was looking at my blog today. Over to the left you will see a list of which countries have viewed my blog recently. Also check out the map noting recent visitors. If you want to know if someone is on at the same time as you, click at the bottom of the list on "watch in real-time."  For those who are interested you will even be able to see if they were on a Mac or Windows. Thanks everyone for adding to the fun of having a blog!