Tinuviel Kruse

Recently Made

 

Happy Tuesday

New Yarn from the gals @ CastAway yarn shop in Santa Rosa, CA.

Newly Listed

I listed some goodies on Etsy this week:

Crochet Slippers~ Saga Free!

Making another pair of the crochet slippers. This time with some very cute alterations.

Current pair is going to my youngest daughter, Birdie.

They're very Great Aunt Jean-meets-Coco Chanel.

I think I'll make a pattern to go with them & a visual tutorial. Won't that be nice?

Saga of Crochet Slippers

Ages ago my uncle sent me a pair of crocheted slippers to see if I could copy them & make him a new pair. Well, I made swatches and samples galore. I finally got a swatch to look like the ones he sent me. I made one slipper. It was kind of big, but okay. Then I made another and it looked great. But it was smaller than the first. A lot smaller. Then I made a third, thinking that the two that were the most similar would be a pair. The third one was better~much closer to the size of the first one. It fell into the middle. I sewed up the grippy-dot onto the bottoms and used some old, felted cashmere from a dog-shredded throw blanket to line the insides. One was a little smaller than the other but not too hideous. Mostly, I just wanted to get them sent back because he's in Indiana and it's so horribly cold right now. I'm basically dying of guilt. They're in the envelope ready to be sent back tomorrow. I start rooting around in my needle basket for to make a pair of the slippers for my daughter when I discover that the Susan Bates crochet needles are made in the exact same shade of light metallic blue in both sizes G and J. Case solved. Too flipping late. They're going back to Indy tomorrow.

 

I will post pics soon and a pattern. Pattern is easily adjustable.

Holiday Inspiration

So much beautiful stuff out there right now.

For your perusal may I suggest the flickr photo pool at Whip-Up?

Also spending waaay too much time with Haus Maus, SFgirlbybay, pinterest, the English Department, Martha, and last but not least...the purl bee.

All the beautiful styling & decorations make me swoon. I can't tell you why I love English Dept. so muchy much. I'm not getting married (already am). I guess I just like satin and lace.

What I'm working on right now:
Neckwarmers
Fingerless Gloves
Sending Xmas cards
A fancy pillow
Lots of a-line skirts to sell.

We're currently house-hunting. Finding lots of fixers in questionably safe neighbourhods in our price range. Sigh, Sonoma County is so expensive...

On the very, very upside I am dedicating Mondays to 'Studio Day' wherein I experiment and perfect my a-line skirts and get ready to have a million skirt orders. It will happen!

Card-making

A little note for someone special...

 

macro+

 

I crocheted the flower (Cebelia #10) and affixed it with UHU stick. After it dried I flipped it over to write & wished that I'd bought folded cards. Obviously, having a big hump on the other side whilst trying to write is annoying.

I'll probably use this batch of cards up with decoupage or something else. But, I do like the crochet so I'll get foldies on my next Michael's over-spending spree trip.

Flower Brooches

I will be festooning my Christmas gifts with these:

 
 

Will be experimenting soon with these:

 
My birthday pressie to myself this year:

 
and they're flippin' sweet!

Gift Tags

Frittering away my time making gift tags for the Holidays.

Loving my MS paper edgers. Easy-peasy and so cute.

Slicing & dicing my Elle Decor, domino and assorted magazines for the tags:

 

 

 

 

New Acquisitions/Borrows

Some new Inspiration--like I need any more...

And in addition to the great pictures & photos in the book,
it comes with a (ta-da!) CD-Rom.

I haven't even pulled it off the back cover.
My printer is down & it would just torture me.

In other news, my dishwasher came a week ago. I now have a fully functional kitchen.
I was strangely enjoying the handwashing. I think I stayed more on-top of the dishes
when I had to hand wash them. Now, the teenager is in charge of the dishes again and
I feel like I'm constantly harping on her to load/empty the washer.
But, it's great to have somewhere to put the dirties while I'm cooking.
It stinks to need the tongs and realize in the middle of dinner preparations
that it's in the machine covered in boiling, soapy water.

Geez, what a whiner
 

It is sooo quiet. I don't have to shout above the din.

Also, the washer/dryer is free of clothes. They were blocking the light from the window.
It didn't stop the cat from climbing to the top and knocking half of it behind the dryer.
I had to pull them out from the wall and rescue the laundry.

Evidence: