With Mom and Grandma in town for a much anticipated visit, sister in law Cindee and I decided to treat our two favorite knitters to a trip to our super cool local yarn store, Blazing Needles. Our entire family of women: Mom, Grandma, Cindee, myself and my four daughters descended upon the store in force. There’s no mistaking the location …read more
Mary Gildersleeve is a prolific published designer, an author and knitting instructor. She currently blogs at By Hand, With Heart. Many of her designs are available through her website. Color theory encompasses a multitude of definitions, concepts and design applications. All the information would fill several encyclopedias. As an introduction, …read more
My kids have been making their own ice cream the last few months. They found this fun idea in a book and have conjured up their own recipes and additives. The unusual part of this recipe comes after the mixing. They place the ingredients in a small plastic zip lock bag, double bag it then seal it shut, then place the small bag into a gallon …read more
Correna sent me an email to ask me for a small favor – to get something for her from Greece. It was easily done and I was reimbursed properly, but being the giving person she is, Correna wasn’t satisfied with that. She wanted to share her skill with me in exchange for my trouble, Though it was no trouble, really! So Correna sent me a new friend, Annie: I’ll …read more
Blue Castle Fiber Arts sent us one of their trial size natural dye kits for review that I couldn’t wait to get my hands on. Something about dying with a natural dye instead of using synthetic chemicals makes me feel sort of warm and fuzzy inside. Their natural plant dyes come from India and are created using a fermentation process …read more
Wandering around the flea market in Athens today, I came upon the most interesting fellow! Mr P. is a craftsman who makes wooden toys here in Greece and sells them in the central flea market. He has a simple little folding table piled with the most compelling, brightly stained wooden toys. Mr P. specializes in hand turned wooden tops. He stains …read more
My stepson Adam is a creative sort. Not only does he create things for his work as a mechanical engineer, he does so in his time off as well. As a newcomer to woodworking, he’s already made some special pieces – including a one of a kind handcrafted photo frame that we received from him at Christmas. When Adam sent me some photos of his latest project, …read more
Have you seen Sherwin Williams’ iphone/android/blackberry app called Color Snap? What a great tool for creating color combinations! It allows you to snap a picture , then pull colors from that picture to create great color chip combo’s of Sherwin Williams’ paint colors. You can change the hues, saturation and lightness of each color until …read more
How much would you pay to have your very own handwriting turned into a font you could use on your computer? I’ve found a website – YourFonts that will generate a font from your own handwriting! For less than ten dollars, you can download it to your computer and use it on any program you have. It’s easy to do and the result is impressive. If …read more
I’m the first to admit that I’m not the most techy Mom on the block. I get a lot of help from my kids. But I found an app for PDF pattern management that I’m so happy with, I thought I’d share. Like many knitters and crocheters, I find it so convenient to have my needlework patterns in PDF form. For me, the Goodreader application for my ipod touch …read more
