Meet Ernie the Giraffe

Last weekend was rather painful due to my having two ribs out of place. My house still looks like a hot mess due to the lack of housework done. On a good note though, they have been popped back into place by a good and capable doctor and now feel much better.

You might well ask, "What exactly did you (as in me) do all weekend?" Well folks, since I couldn't move around much I did what any hot-blooded crafter would do. I made something. Here is the cuteness that is the product of my labor. There was some yarn left over from the last baby blanket I made, and it would be such a shame to let it go to waste. SO...I decided to make a toy, a cow in fact.

As you can see, my uhm, cow ended up being a giraffe after the neck got out of hand. I started with the legs and worked up from there. It just kind of evolved into what you see before you here. Oddly enough, the head part took longer to figure out than the whole rest of the project. The eyes were going to be flat on the head, but when I sewed them on, the first one kind of cupped up after I shoved all the ends into it. That looked pretty good, so I did the other one that way too. Then of course giraffes have lovely long eyelashes, little horns and spots, so they had to be added.


My hubby and I finally decided that it's a "He", and my friend named him Ernie. So now it remains to be seen if I can actually part with him and give him to my friend's baby. He's already been all over Lee county with me and been shown to quite a few people. Perhaps it's time to figure out how I made him and make him some brothers and sister.

Twist off the Old Granny Square

For the past few months I've been hemming and hawing over what sort of gift to make for my dear friend who is pregnant. I wanted to be different, original, unique even. I've made so many crocheted baby blankets that I couldn't even begin to remember what they were all like or even who they were for. "I'm not making another baby blanket." I said. I'll make her something with my homespun, something useful.

SO...I knit the baby soaker from a few posts back. It was a very nice soaker, but for some reason it just didn't seem to be the "it" project. So then other avenues of handicrafts were explored and discarded. I even tried to find enough roving to spin up for a layette set or...or...well something babyish. Finally I broke down and went to the dreaded local superstore "just to look at the yarn possibilities," I said.

Guess what happened. No, I can wait, give it a good guess. Yup, yarn came home with me along with a vision in my head for a new baby blanket. Yes, another one. "I'll just do granny squares in different colors," I said. Then when the thought of sewing all the squares together dawned on me, I just kept on adding to the first one until it got really big. Well, it needed a border, so I made one. Then I decided to put little squares around the big one. Then another border. After that, of course it needs another border, with all the colors right?

What you are seeing here is the result of my obsessive compulsive personality. Isn't it pretty? Now for a matching pillow. Bwahahaha!

Peanut and Tommy - Cute and Cuddly Crafts

Have I ever got a treat for you wonderful crafters this week! We get to meet the energetic and vivacious crocheter Debi, who is one of the creative geniuses behind Peanut and Tommy on Etsy. Let's start with a little insight into her shop.

Peanut and Tommy is made up of things Debi makes and things her mom knits. “My mom lives alone in a retirement community two hours away from me and doesn’t drive anymore. She’s pretty much home-bound and loves to knit toys.” she says. “I originally opened the shop to give her a job—a reason to get up in the morning. She loves the idea of sending out her toys to live with children all over the world. She has sent a knitted snake to Australia, an elephant to Germany, a set of turtles to Florida, a bear to California, and that’s just to mention a few. It gives her great joy and keeps her busy.”

It's great to see that Debi comes from a crafty family. “My mom knit all my sweaters when I was a child. My parents were always pretty thrifty—many of our Christmas or birthday gifts were handmade. If I wanted to buy fabric to sew an outfit, mom was always willing to pay for that. I sewed most of my clothes for many years. Although Mom tried to teach me to knit, I didn’t learn knitting or crochet until I went away to college.

Years of thrifty craftiness has molded Debi's persona. “I love to make things for other people. To me, a handmade gift is a gift from the heart. I have two girls (teenagers now, one is in college). I make the kind of goodies that they would have loved as children. I love to make cuddly cute things like my cupcake bags and the caterpillar in my shop. My mom made the three dinosaurs and all the teddy bears. She loves the cuddly cute things too! I guess we’re related!” she laughs.

“I love making the cupcake bags that turn into a doll cradle. I crochet the bags, sew a cotton lining for them, and then knit the little dolls to go inside. I really enjoy finding beautiful yarn and fabric that coordinate. They take a while to make, which is why I only have one or two in my shop at a time!”

She also takes great joy in helping out in the community. “I started a knitting guild at my daughter’s school where we knit for charity. We’ve made a ton of chemo caps, made up personal care bags (each with a hand knit washcloth) for the women’s shelter, knit a million teddy bears, made blankets for Project Linus, you name it. We’re really quite active!”

Debi is also in to crafting with recycled materials. She makes a cute little Eco-friendly crocheted frog out of cotton yarn that is made from leftovers from t-shirt manufacturing. In addition to that, “I am knitting a market bag with “Plarn” which is yarn that I’ve made out of used plastic bags. The plarn is tiring to knit with, but the bag is really quite beautiful. However, I made it so BIG, that it’s taking me forever to finish it!” So maybe someday we'll see one of those in her shop too!


She has a second shop on Etsy, Peanut and Tommy Too that she has just started up for vintage finds. Recently she has been helping out on the CreateCrochet Etsy Team Blog with the shop of the week and introductions of new members and does a very nice job even if I do say so myself. If you are interested in following her day to day exploits you can find her on Twitter as PeanutandTommy.

As everyone has a dream to work towards, I asked Debi where she would like to be if she could be anywhere. Her reply, “Greece, living in a little house in a small town overlooking the blue sea. Poli Kala! (My husband is Greek).” It sounds wonderful! May all your dreams come true Debi.

Etsy, Ravelry, Twitter and Me

For months now my dear hubby has suggested I start one of these blog things about my fiber projects. More specifically, my spinning of yarn, which I am currently obsessed with. These suggestions were normally put off with, "I'm too busy right now, what would I write about anyway?" Hmm. Apparently the "powers that be" were listening and I find myself with quite a bit of time lately due to losing my job. Sigh...no really, it's OK. Here's why.

Since September I've been spinning yarn on a Babe Double Treadle Spinning Wheel I picked up secondhand at a fiber festival. It's great, and I'm "in love" with it, but now there is a small mountain of fiber and fiber projects in my minuscule living room with nowhere to go. So what is a hot young fiber-holic to do? Why turn some of that effort into cash of course! Not to support the family you see, but to fund the addiction. Off to find some fiber-challenged enablers!

A friend suggested that I check out Etsy.com, which I did and subsequently spent two full weeks submerged in "research" of other people's shops. Several hundred dollars later and in danger of having to go without clean clothes, I finally opened my own little shop called Handmade Sunshine. So far in a month I've managed to have 2 sales and about 300 views. Not too bad for a first month.


I joined a few fiber-related teams on Etsy that keep blogs as well. A new fledgling team is Create Crochet! and is headed by a real sweetheart named Kristen. She is always looking for new ideas by people who are passionate about crochet and crochet supplies. She also makes some pretty amazing greeting cards which you should really check out.

Etsy FAST which stands for Fiber Arts Street Team, is a more established group interested in the promotion of fiber arts of all kinds from paper to yarn and everything in between. They have monthly challenges where fiber artists compete to create an item that best embodies the current theme. For instance, February the topic is "emotions" and several people have already listed their item in their shops. One example is the "That Warm and Fuzzy Feeling Scarflette"

Etsy has some amazing articles on how to promote a shop and that's how I found out about Twitter.com and got addicted to a brand new thing. Well, at least for me micro-blogging is new. So far I've been on for almost a week and have 39 followers. Not that I ever say much on there that is enlightening, but the voyeurism is rather fun. Usually the background is set to show off a new yarn listed in my shop. My hubby now teases me about being "such a geek" which I take in stride since he's an even bigger one. It's the whole, "it takes one to know one" kind of mentality that we have come to expect in our relationship. (Contented sigh, giggle, "I love him")

Earlier this year one of my friends had told me about Ravelry.com which is an wonderful reference tool for knitters and crocheters and unfortunately requires an invitation to log on. It's still in the Beta testing phase and so you submit a request for an invite and the moderator sends one out easy-peasy in about 4 days. Hey, they're young, they're hip, and extremely cool so it's totally worth the wait. Even bunny-loving spinners like me can find a niche on there. They have places to keep track of yarns, projects and books that you have pileing up around the house, forums where you can find the answere to every fiber question imagineable, and a nifty message center to keep track of new friends. Sweet!

So where does that leave little ole yours truely? Glued to the computer between spinning up batches of yarn and trying to maintain basic physical hygine requirements, that's where. I think I'm busier now than I ever was when employed. Every-once-in-a-while the bunnies come by and sit on my feet to remind me to feed them; either that or they're busy plotting the demise of my computer again. I should have never passed up that stock with the electrical tape company.

Here's to wishing all of you a happy and productive weekend! I've got some yarn to spin.