The Club Can't Even Handle Me Right Now

A couple Fridays ago, I got one of the best e-mails I've gotten in a long time. I was getting ready to go to a conference, and the e-mail was from the conference organizers. It said: "Please feel free to bring creative projects you may be working on currently... We invite you to select and bring a project with you that helps support creative thinking during our discussions and activities."

I was so excited, but I was already away from home and my collection of creative projects. (I'm not making it up - that part of the e-mail was bold in the original). Thankfully, I was with my Mom, and she has a huge collection of her own of stuff to make creative projects.  (With love, some might call this collection a "hoard.") I was able to find a couple of small skeins of yarn that, I swear, are older than I am. Knitting needles were not a problem - Mom has quite a few extras. Mom also provided great inspiration with the simplest idea: "Why don't you make felt bowls?"

Why don't I!? Because I don't have a clue how to knit in the round.

I also didn't have a clue how to knit stripes, and as you can see, I was able to figure that out. I still haven't figured out how to knit in the round (project for March, seriously), but I found a pattern online (awesome use of free wireless in the conference hotel!) and adapted it to be able to knit it on straight needles and stitch it up. Since you can't get a sense of the dimensions from the picture (and since a picture of the bowls from farther away wouldn't let you see the fun stripes!), the bowls are 3 1/2 inches in diameter.  

The felting was a fun Saturday evening for me and the hubby. They are very lightly felted (I was using a washing machine and kind of scared of causing a lot of irreparable damage, so only ran them through, like, um, 5 times), but I've been told that better results can be achieved through hand felting. 

Ice, Ice Baby

A few weeks ago, when the snowfall in Boston only reached Shaquille O'Neal's nether regions, my friend Leah and I took a class to learn how to make "designer wrap bracelets."

I affectionately call this bracelet my "f. u. Chan Luu" bracelet. Thanks, Chan Luu, for designing something that people like me will want to learn to replicate. Thanks for charging upwards of $150 for the real thing. Thanks for having more patience than I've ever, even in the more patient years of my life, had. Thanks for giving me arthritis.

The bracelet is really nice, and actually a little addictive to make. I've gotten a lot of compliments, which must mean that it's "real" jewelry (kind of like how the bags I make are "real" bags because people say that they're nice before they find out that I made them). I might make one for you if you pay me for the labor, and foot the bill for my physical therapy, too.