Blog Masquerade

In the spirit of Halloween and holiday dress-up, my blog will  become more fashionable soon to match a website in development. You may see some changes in the design and layout. Don't be alarmed. You're at the right place.

Mask Up!

Here are some more handmade masks and mask images that don't scare me--in descending order from "almost scary" to "must have it for the office!"

Handmade Venetian Mask & Hat by koloritsky

Stage Beauty 8x8 Inch Print by ThisYearsGirl

Alice and Her Wonder Mask by urbanblue

Soft Cyborg Helmet and Arm Piece by crisellebelle

New Spinner Reading / Yarn Photos

I want all the spinning books on the list from this post from Ask The Bellwether.
****

I love making color-twist bulky yarns. Here are some of mine that are destined for hats:

If there were time to knit for me...

I'd make this gorgeous keyhole scarf, Rodekool, designed by Nancy Marchant and featured in the Deep Fall issue of Knitty.

It's worked in brioche stitch, which has captivated my imagination since I bought the designer's book:

Alas, it will have to wait because I'm in the thick of knitting hats, cowls, and neckwarmers for my store. There will be photos as soon as they are dry enough to take off the blocking table.

Everyone is Mad Here

October always puts me in the mood for combing the Etsy shops for art doll photos. These art photographs of Super Dollfies, bjd (ball-jointed dolls) are styled perfectly for my pre-Halloween mood and they feature some cool doll-sized crocheted hats that are for sale.

These whimsical hats are all for sale at the shop called EveryoneIsMadHere on Etsy, a new favorite shop of mine. The proprietress, Jessica Rosario, is an engaging and imaginative artist. You can find out more about here at her website.

Here are some of my favorites from her shop:

Cream Crocheted Hat for SD dollfie 1/3 bjd

Brown Crocheted hat for SD dollfie 1/3 bjd

Pink crocheted Hat for SD dollfie 1/3 bjd

Cream/Yellow Crocheted hat for SD dollfie 1/3 bjd

Season of the Mask

Masks generally creep me out, but once in a while I find some that are arresting without being alarming. Here are some examples by extraordinary mask maker, Tom Banwell, all for sale in his Etsy store.

Yam Blossom Special

Yummy yammy color on my new blossoming scarf for fall:

More photos and info

Phone Photos

It's so handy to have a camera in your phone. . .

Corner of desk after twilight.

The Pacific swallows the sun.

Watching TV with the folks.

Getting Caught Up

Goodness! What has this bad blogger been doing while playing hooky from the blog?

First fiber festival experience as a vendor at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival: I didn't have the perfect product mix or a lot of inventory, so it was basically a break even proposition, but it was fun, a lot was learned, and I got to see lots of spinner and knitter friends. Took pictures, but my iPhone died last week before I downloaded the photos to my computer, and so they are lost forever. How about a  sheep goat photo from a previous festival? (See comments below)

Getting ready for the winter selling season and holiday knitting: I'm been knitting hats, scarves, neckwarmers, and handwarmers to try to get my gift knitting done early and also get stocked up for winter selling on Etsy. Also getting stocked up with shipping supplies. Learned how to do PayPal shipping.

Working on pattern writing: At the festival I sold some hat kits that will soon appear in my shop. More on this later. In addition to the hat, two other patterns are ready, and more patterns are in progress. Hope to have kits in the store by the end of the month and some patterns for sale on Ravelry soon.

Consulting with a local web design team: I want to finally do something with my totally neglected domain name, a web page, blog redesign, etc. You may start to see changes to the blog. I'll be adding some additional pages to announce upcoming classes, patterns in development, and events at which I'll be a vendor.

Really busy at the day job: Things have been hopping at the office. Between this and that, pretty much I'm going to be busy until a few days before Christmas. Need to talk to Mr. Cha Cha about a fun holiday vacation.

Missing my blog writing and reading: Hope you all have been well.  For those of you who have blogs, I'll try to do some blog reading this coming weekend to see what you all have been doing.