Tongue Rolling Dog

My son seldom wears his good glasses. I begged him to wear his glasses so I could take a picture. He held the dog up to his face for the pictures. When I looked at them later, we noticed the dog, Annie and her tongue.

Not A Creature Was Stirring, Not Even a Mouse........

I planned on making neckties for Christmas for the men in my life. I am still in progress............2010 here I come.






Ready, Set, Go...............

P A R T Y !

We all ate at Carlos O'Kelly's for our Christmas Party.

My Christmas Present

I had to share my new Christmas present from my son. It is precious! Mom is doing the dating thing and he thought this gift was appropriate. It is much better than the dancing boobs that A__ got for his birthday!!! Merry Christmas to All!

Christmas Lights and Roses

Have you seen these new lights that plug into your computer with a USB plug. Ain't they cute!


I also have more doilies to show you. The roses are a must in any cottage chic home. Don't you agree?

Feed My Addiction!

Every time pink or pink rose-adorned doilies are found by shop owners at Polka Dot Rose, they send me an email. I am adicted like others are addicted to drugs. These are my drugs!

Blog Vacation

I took a blog vacation. I am back. What are you working on at this time? I have several projects going, as usual. I am about to complete a plain pink shawl. It is only plain because of the plain stitching. The yarn is variegated flag yarn and it gives the shawl a lovely texture.

I ordered a new pair of needles. Do you see anything wrong with this picture??? One is at least 1/2 inch shorter. Interesting...........

My new glasses arrived this last week. They are from Sweet Necessi-teas. I love that lace!

I saw Lily Chin in the magazine Inside Crochet. Look closely. The dress and shawl are her designs. Has she been hiding? I have not seen anything of hers lately. Just in case you have not heard of her, she is a speed crocheter and a designer.


I started the on-line dating thing. I ended the on-line dating thing. Has anyone else had any on-line dating experiences they wish to share????????????

Finally Completed!

I finally finished this cozy!

I looked inside of my sewing machine cabinet. I have an old machine in it and I have not ever used it. I wasn't even sure what was in the cabinet. This is what I found.

I had a good laugh today when I looked at my website and I noticed that I put the word famine in place for feminine. I must have spelled the word wrong and with spell-check, I just pushed change. Well, the words are not quite the same.

Teapot and Cozy

I completed a medium sized dome tea cozy. I knitted it with recycled yarn. The cozy came out nicely, but I am not real keen on the seam. Some dome cozies I have seen were made with I cord sewn around the seam.

I have a new teapot and it is going to go to someone special, but I am not telling who.

WIP or Work In Progress

I am finally making this tea cozy and Sunday Undie. This was a BFL wool that I spun this past winter. The fabric has teapots on it and also gold metallic decoration. I wanted a ruffle on the bottom of the cozy from the lining fabric and a decorative trim on the wool cozy at the bottom. I achieved this goal by putting elastic in the lining just above the area I wanted a ruffle. I put extra fabric in the lining to allow the fabric to move with the lining. The elastic is the best choice for the ruffle since I want the fabric and fiber to fit over the teapot. I know you have seen tea cozies that have ribbon strung through it and you have to untie the bow and put the teapot in the cozy and then tie the bow up making a ruffle as you draw the fabric up by pulling on the ribbon. If a tea cozy is a pain to put on the teapot, it will not get used. I want cozies which are functional and attractive. I do have vintage seam binding lace tied on one side, but it is not necessary to untie it. It is just decorative.

These colors go very well together. The cozy could be reversed. I want the inside to look as neatly made as the outside of the cozy.

With this lining, I used a black bias tape band sewn on the fabric as the tube to put elastic in, and it just does not match. I really did not need anything sewn on, since I had doubled lining. I could have just sewn 2 rows about 1/2 inch apart and it would have made a tube. I will be redoing the black bias tape, when I dig out my sewing machine. I put it away in the basement and now I need it again. I always have several projects going at one time, so I may surprise you when it gets done.

Dog Days of Summer

I just happened to comb the larger dog, Gus, this weekend. When I looked at the amount of hair I had piling up, I took a photo. Some people spin dog hair. This hair is soft, but not long enough so it would need to be mixed with wool. I can not spin dog hair. I have thoughts of stinky, wet dog and, well, it just sounds awful!!! Besides, I wear dog hair daily, without intending to. With two dogs, it gets on everything!!! The picture of the dog hair is a little funny looking, can you see rabbit in it? Maybe a cat? It is like looking at the clouds, everyone sees something different.

What You Doin?

What have I been up to lately? Sometimes I get busy and do not post, but that doesn't mean that I have given up all of my creative endeavors. I have posted a collective assortment of a few projects and then posted the individual projects. Project #1 is a large batch of lemon lavender lotion. Say that 10 times fast! Project #2 is a prototype tea cozy for me. It is still in the beginning stages. I found this wonderful yarn at Twist Yarn Shop. Yes, I know that I can make my own, but sometimes you want too just knit and not make the yarn first, and uh well, , it was pink! This is actually pretty unusual yarn. It was made into a garment, ripped out, cleaned, stretched, and sold again. So they call this frogging since they are ripping, or ribbiting the old stitches out. This was from Frogged for Ewe. Good idea! I guess I can say I recycled this year! Project #3 is a dome type tea cozy awaiting a lining. This is made from acrylic yarn. Project #4 is blue wool yarn, single ply and novelty spun. I added extra wool into the twist sideways as I was spinning. This gives it a soft texture with a lot of extra bumps. I have a project in mind, but it will have to wait.

Project #1
Project #2
Project #3

Project #4

Any comments?

Big Toe Blemish

I fell over the corner of the flower bed right before Memorial Day weekend. I was rushing around trying to load the spinning wheel and go visit and spin at the yarn shop. Some how I ripped my big left toe. I have no idea what it ripped on, but I had to have 12 stitches on the back of the toe. The toe is still healing and the stitches are out. The stitches were done with blue thread! The most pain was the needle between the toes to deaden the nerves!!!!!!!!!!! I have used all of my sympathy up, so I can't complain and wine any longer.

YES, IT IS PINK AGAIN!

I have been adding many items onto my website. It has taken me 6 months longer than I wanted, but it is a new web host and I had to learn all over how to walk and talk. I still have many items not listed and I will add them as fast as I can do so. Have you checked out my website lately? Let me know what you think. http://www.custercottage.com
Recent Project:
I died a roving of Merino wool with pink. I knotted the roving up which allowed some the wool to receive a stronger dye solution than other parts of the roving. I blended up various shades of this pink wool with a little hot pink cotton. When I spun the yarn, the hot pink lumped a little, which is what I intended. Even though this was beautiful in one ply, or another ply the same, I had to do something different. I used a thick bubblegum pink nylon thread as the ply. This added a lot of shine to the yarn and unified the varied pinks.

Even though the pinks went well together, putting a solid color as a ply helps the yarn seem more together and less diverse. I have included a couple of pictures of my yarn. What do you think of it???

Fabric and Wool Combination

When I first learned to spin, I wanted to incorporate fabric into the wool which would allow me to make matching garments. If I made a yellow cardigan sweater with a yellow fabric print, I could make a fabric print shirt with the same material and it would match. I tried spinning with fabric and wool, the fabric swallowed the wool so all one could see was fabric. I have knitted and crocheted with wool and fabric using 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch fabric along with a strand of homespun or novelty yarn. This works very well. It took a little practice to find out what dimensions worked best for me. I also found that gluing the ends with washable glue worked very well. Tieing the ends is also fine, but the garment will not lay smoothly.

I have seen fabric spun with wool , but it is usually lumped here and there on the wool. I do not like that look. I have also seen fabric spun alone and it needs a lot of twist and it is hard to use without catching on the hooks in the spinning wheel. I finally found a method of spinning with fabric and wool that isn't too lumpy. What I found that works, is to spin a 1/2" piece of fabric for about 10-12 inches, using a lot of twist. Then add some wool and it catches onto the fabric. If you can keep this momentum going, you will have fabric and wool spun at the same time. The end product does not go into my orifice very well, so I was hand winding it onto the bobbin. I also had to set the twist with water and a water bottle weight. Pictures of the yarn are in this post. What do you think?

Comparison pictures:

The knitting with the fabric and yarn together looks more uniform. In the other sample, the spinning takes more time to spin and is a little lumpier, but my sparkles from the Angelina fibers show up more.

I want to show you some more experimenting with plying. One single ply yarn can look so different, depending on the second ply.

I first spin a single yarn with a lavender batt containing Shetland, Merino, Mystery Wool, and Kid Mohair. There are some lumps and bumps designed in the batt. The first sample is a single ply, with the twist sent. The second sample is a 2 ply yarn using the same fiber for both plies. The third sample has a second ply of cream colored Merino/Montdale. The fourth has a second ply of Athena yarn. The 5th sample is Fiesta yarn as the second ply. Finally the 6th sample is a ply of Colorlash yarn.

Above is a sample of the batt and a single ply yarn.

This is the two ply yarn.

Sample 3 shows the second ply as white Merino/Montdale

Sample 4 shows a novelty commercially spun yarn as the second ply.

Sample 5 shows another commercially spun yarn as the second ply.

Sample 6 shows yet another commercially prepared yarn as a second ply.

Which do you prefer? I like them all, but I think I like the Colorlash yarn the best. I went to Yarns in Salina on the way to a visit with family this weekend. I picked up a $5.00 grab bag. In that bag, I used two of the 3 balls of yarn in the samples above. The 3rd ball of yarn was used for a new scarf.

You can't forget about my new mug. Isn't it cute! On the handle and inside, it says," Knit One Sip One." The best thing of all is the color. Pink!