Gotta Brag

OK... the pictures are fuzzy, still, because the zoom zooms but not as close as I'd like. So I'd rather be close and fuzzy than far away and post something to which the response is, "Oh, is THAT what that is?!?"

This is a felted bowl I made for ME. YES! FOR ME!! The rim is a combination of fingerweight yarn in blue and cream, 3 rows. The rest is a combination of merino wool, lilac and purple. The colors are so much more beautiful than you can see here.

After experimenting with beads for my mom's bowl, I wanted to do it for me. Now, fair warning to EVERYONE right now - I will NOT be doing this to every bowl. I like the plain ones, too. But for bowls without stripes, this is a nice little addition. This time I put light lilac colored beads in a row and above in a single row so that they were between the lilac ones, I put fake pearl-like beads. Oh my... this is so much more gorgeous than these pictures show. I may try to take more pictures later but I just had to do something right away and brag. :) I just couldn't help it. I finally have found a way to make beautiful gifts - felted bowls with rims and stripes or with rims and beads. Either way they make nice gifts. Easy to make and gorgeous. Here's a different picture. I hope later I can take some that aren't so fuzzy. And next time the KC gets together I will bring it so they can see how gorgeous it really is!

Fuzzy Pictures

Here's one picture.

And over to the right, another. Yes, fuzzy but you get the idea. I hope.

I Need An Intervention

Someone, please. If you love me, if you even just like me slightly, call HGTV and ask them if "The Carol Duvall Show" does craft interventions. I am desperately in need of one!

Good daughter that I am, I always bring my mom something homemade when I visit. It used to be doilies, sometimes something cross stitched. Last year it was a fleece tie blanket. This year... what else? Felted bowls. Well and something else I can't tell you about here.

This is for mom so I want to make it even more special. So I make her one bowl with the domestic/New Zealand heavy blend of wool that I made my friend Vicky's bowl with for her birthday last month. Yes, as usual I make a rim. So that's nice but not quite cute enough. I make her a second bowl. This bowl has the heavy wool for about half the bowl with the bottom part being a soft blend of fingering peach/red which I have used a lot and love. Different from the rest, cute and slightly smaller than the other bowl. Am I happy? Of course not! I want to do something else to it!

I started thinking about what else I could do to the bowl. There are lots of things, I know. Still, when I think of felted bowls my thoughts these days drift to my dear friend Brooke who let me use her own spun wool to make a bowl (still need to see the PICTURES Brooke!!). I know she's made purses (Linda is going to rival Roni as queen in our KC!) and then I started to think about how much I'd like that pattern of hers for the "bum" gloves she made her "let's bankrupt mom and dad with this wedding" daughter. :) OK... I know she isn't going to... but still, couldn't resist. Anyway, those gloves were really cool. They had beads knitted in. I know how that's done. I always thought that would be cool with felted bowls but, of course, that is so NOT practical because beads don't wash well (for that matter, from past crafting experience, cross stitch and applique and fabric paint are not my friends in the washing machine either and please, don't say, "did you wash it inside out?" because YES, I did! And we are not even going near the experiments with sequin art!).

So I like the idea of beads. I want Mom's bowl to be cuter. I went shopping at Joann's last night (thanks Heather for the coupon!) and saw some cute sparkly reddish beads I thought would compliment the bowl. I bought some embroidery needles because I had no idea if the ones I had would work (and I could blow $1.49 on them, too!). I hauled out PINK thread because I didn't have red but it worked. I used a double strand. Without going all the way through to the back, I slid in the needle, put on a bead, put the needle back in right next to the original hole, slid it under the surface along a length, pull up, put on bead, repeat. I know they aren't even but oh... they're cute.

The pictures are fuzzy. To get them to even show I had to take the picture with the lights out. I am sorry for the quality. I wanted to be close enough for you to see them which made them fuzzy even with my zoom. But you'll get the idea. :)


OK... can't get blogger to post the pictures. See the next post.