Tuesday Finds: Felted goodness

It's time for Tuesday Find again! Every week I'll choose a theme and show off a few items I've found that fit that theme. The items will mainly be from Etsy shops, but can also be from other parts of the internet.

I'm a friend of wool, as you may have noticed, so this week's theme is felted items.

To start things off I chose this gorgeous felted necklace by ArtMind. The colours just work beautifully together. There are also many other necklaces in different colours and styles available in the shop, check them out too!
($12.50, ArtMind.etsy.com)

Karlita's beautiful scarves have been featured quite a few times around the internet, but I think they're definitely worth another showoff. I adore the contrast between the pretty pink and pitch black in this one. Take a look at her blog too, for she's currently running a contest where the prize is one of these scarves!
($30, karlita.etsy.com)

The last item this week is something I haven't tried myself yet, but which I'd like to: felted soaps. These pretty soaps by the funky felter look very tempting indeed.
($10, thefunkyfelter.etsy.com)

Oh MY, it's a Monster!

Maybe someone out there remembers this blog post of mine from way olden times. In the post I pondered the possibility of making monster scarves for sale. Well, it only took me a year to get around to it!

Yet another creation of mine featuring teeth and eyes, this red guy will keep your neck warm and free from any unwanted attention. He's cuddly and very friendly towards the owner of "his" neck though, don't worry. All he needs to be happy is a good home and a suitable neck to curl around.

Dinos are cool. So there.

Look at what I received in the mail yesterday! A fun origami dino t-shirt from Interrobang! It's the little 'roar' that made me have to get this. I feel like I'm a 12-year-old huge dino fan again, ridiculously excited about my latest dino-themed find. I shall wear this t-shirt proudly, whenever and wherever I can.

The dinosaurigami t-shirt is on sale and there's only a few of them left, so go get one while you still can!

Busy times

Busy times, busy times. Take for example this pair of fingerless gloves I just listed. Stripes, pretty cables, not too small a needle size. Normally they should have been ready a week ago, but I could only find about 15 minutes at a time to work on them.

Well, better late than never, I suppose. Plus I shouldn't really complain, it's been a good kind of busy. Not horribly stressful or anything, just the 'not enough time in a day' kind.

Anybody out there selling a few extra hours per day? I'd be very interested!

Tuesday Finds: Swirls

I decided to start a regular feature for the blog. Every week I'll choose a theme and show off a few items I've found that fit that theme. The items will mainly be from Etsy shops, but can also be from other parts of the internet. The day will be Tuesday, at least for now. I'd be happy to hear some feedback on this idea!

My first ever theme of choice is swirls. I like the flowing, often intricate shapes, especially when used in a striking colour combination, such as black and white. This Swirl Dress embroidery painting by Heli Sengezer features precisely that kind of pattern.
($50, helisengezer.etsy.com)

This handmade leather journal by Kreativlink has a more subtle colour scheme with its black swirls on grey suede, but the swirls themselves are far from subdued!
($38, Kreativlink.etsy.com)

My last feature today is a sterling silver chaos ring by Brandy Brook Designs. 'Chaos' is definitely a suitable name for this beautiful and intricate ring.
($15, brandybrookdesigns.etsy.com)

Something Fishy

Well, the weekend is over and I'm completely exhausted. I spent 9-10 hours each day at the garden where the aquarium exhibition was held, plus I helped set things up before and take them down after. Time for a long, looooong night's sleep, methinks.

The aquariums were set up in the garden's greenhouses in tropical environments, which is a pretty awesome way to show them off. The aquarium below is the one I brought there for display. It's my smallest one and the only inhabitants are Red Cherry shrimp. The little red blobs in the photo is all you'll see of my shrimp this time, unfortunately I didn't get a good photo up close (there are some very pretty pictures at the bottom of this page though, if you're curious).


The fish photos here are all of fish at the show I would have liked to bring home with me, but didn't as I suspect their owner would have noticed them missing. Especially as the pretty pleco to the left here for example costs around 50€ in shops.






I didn't come home empty-handed though, as there were fish, plants and other fishy stuff for sale too. I got a lovely school of 24 glowlight tetras, which should liven up a certain aquarium of mine that had mostly bottom-dwellers before.

The aquariums weren't the only thing to look at, as the garden is impressive on its own with plenty to enjoy.



Well, that's all the photos I am able to upload, as I'll fall asleep on the keyboard at any moment. Good night, internet.

The world needs more fruit

The local aquarium society is holding an exhibition this weekend and one of my aquariums is on display. I'll also be helping out there the whole weekend, so I highly doubt I'll have any new knitwork to show you for the next few days.

But, I do have a treasury list to show you. I finally managed to get one again and put together a collection of cool items, inspired by my previous fruit-focused post. (Update: The list has expired now, but I'll leave the thumbnail up for your viewing pleasure.)

My fruit bowl runneth over. Or something.

I'm the kind of person who enjoys having a bowl full of fruit in the house. Mine is a simple glass bowl, currently filled with satsumas. When the fruit bowl is full, all is good. A full fruit bowl means all problems can be overcome.

Why do I have this strange fixation with fruit bowls? I honestly don't know. All I know is that seeing my bowl full of fruit makes me happy, and why question such a simple source of happiness?

So, what does my fruit bowl have to do with what I have to show you today? Well, not much, really. In fact, probably nothing at all. I just like the photo I took of it.

Onwards to the showoff, then.


These are another pair of fingerless gloves in my usual striped pattern, knitted from a wool/polyamide blend on 5 needles. I've been wanting to make another pair with blue ever since the first one sold; don't know why it's taken so long to get around to it.

Onwards to new ideas!

The custom orders are finished for now and my brain is fizzing with new ideas. I have plans for all kinds of gloves, scarves and slippers in new colour combinations and designs, not to mention new sweet creatures! At times like these I'd either need more hours per day or another pair of hands. Actually, both of those would be good.

So, I'm itching to make all these ideas a reality. How typical is it then that we just got both HL2: Episode Two and Bioshock and I really, really want to play them as soon as possible? Gah! More time! Needs more TIME!

While I'll be busy figuring out how to squeeze more hours into a day, take a peek at Eustace the goldfish and a pair of almond white mittens with hearts. These aren't all new designs, but it's been a while since they were last available in my shop. Besides, I don't think I've shown them off here yet, so it's about time!

Oh and finally, today is my brother's birthday. Have a good one, bro!

More muffins! Joy!

At times my husband really surprises me. I've had a very, very busy week - at worst getting up at 6 am in the morning and getting to bed at 1 am at night. Not only has hubby taken over most of my part of cooking and washing dishes and such, but when I got back from a late meeting at about 8 pm one evening, he was baking muffins. Muffins! Delicious ones too! With peanuts!

Ladies, if you find a man like this, don't let him go. Ever. Keep him chained up in the basement if you have to.

So, if you want to surprise your own partner, here's hubby's muffin recipe. I would have taken a photo of them, but they disappeared too fast. Instead I recycled a photo from before, which, uh, looks nothing like the crumble topping muffins. But it's a nice photo!


Banana Muffins with Crumble Topping

Muffins:
2 medium-sized bananas, mashed
1 dl chopped nuts (optional)
1 dl (~½ cup) milk
4 dl (~1½ cups) flour
2 dl (~ ¾ cups) sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp vanilla sugar
100 g (~½ cup) melted butter
3 eggs

Topping:
1 dl brown sugar
1 dl oats
1 tsp cinnamon
1-2 tbsp butter

Mix the dry ingredients together. Whisk the eggs, then add mashed bananas, milk, nuts and melted butter. Fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture.

For the topping, mix sugar and oats together, and cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

Divide the batter into 12 muffin cups, and sprinkle each with the topping. Bake for 18-20 minutes at 200°C (392°F).

Oh, my poor neglected blog...

...how will I ever make this up to thee?

Well, one thing that comes to mind is by getting on with writing blog posts, oddly enough. I shall do so immediately.

I don't have anything new to show you, because I have more custom orders I'm working on. Instead I'll show you this list I made of other people's cool stuff. It was a treasury list on Etsy which expired already. I think the items in it are worth showing off a bit more though, so here it is in image form. The image has the shop names listed under each item, so to visit a shop you like, just type shopname.etsy.com into your browser's address bar.

Speaking of treasuries, I found myself in one that made me laugh out loud, featuring my small wild heart. Take a peek, it's got a lot of great items in it!

EUROVISION Vol.3

Thanks XbyLeinaNeima! Be sure to also take a peek at her Etsy shop, for it is full of all kinds of lovelies!

I'm still alive

First of all, thanks for the get well wishes! I'm better now; not quite back to normal, but better. Shouldn't be too long before I'm back to 100%!

Also, sorry about not visiting your blogs lately, but I hope you understand. I'll catch up once my brain works well enough again. ;) I hope I have a lot of random facts waiting for me, oh tagged ones.

As expected, I didn't make anything while ill, so I don't have anything new to show you. However, I found this pair of mittens I made last year and listed them again in time for colder weather. They're made from a wool blend in blue, purple and black in my usual striped style. I wish I had more of the blue, it's a nice colour.