Knitting Project Bags


Hello friends!  I hope you've been having a wonderful spring.  Around the homestead, the maples are exploding with brilliant red buds, the willows have true leaves, and the frogs are performing nightly in the pond.  It makes me want to get my hands in the dirt and start gardening!  The weather has been so warm and we're outside as much as possible.  My favorite thing right now is when the wind blows just right, I can hear the baby goats from our neighbor's homestead.  It's the sweetest sound ever.  

I'm also having a shop update tomorrow featuring Knitting Project Bags.  I really am loving the fabrics for these bags.  Most of them are made from upcycled cotton shirts, denim, and wool skirts, and all are lined with heavy weight cotton.  The seams are top stitched and the bag finished with cotton twill drawstring handles.  I would consider these a one skein project bag with plenty of room for extras.  You could easily fit two skeins in here, but I like to have room to use my bag as a bucket, too.


They would make a perfect gift for Mother's Day or just to treat yourself.  Update goes live tomorrow morning at 10am in our shop.  I hope to see you there! 

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Shop Update: Hand Dyed Yarn







With all the eggs coming in again from our girls, I was inspired to dye up another batch of yarn based on their color ways.  I really love how the colors came out this year!  So many of the colors blend well with each other and would make a really lovely knitted easter eggsspring leaves, or a sweater.   Just in time for Easter gift making. Each skein is 220 yds {100g) of 100% Peruvian Wool in a worsted weight.

I also dyed up a few other color ways like Lilac, Hydrangea, Spring Sunrise, Dreaming of Summer, Spring Greens to name a few.  You can find them all and more in my shop here.  Update will go live at 10 am central time.  

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  We're going to be spending as much time outside as possible soaking up the spring sunshine!

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Knitting Socks




If you follow on Instagram, you saw that I cast off the pair of socks for Cole and he's been wearing them all week.  In fact I had to sneak them out of his bedroom after he went to sleep to air them out! Wool is great like that isn't it?  A night on the clothes line and they smell good as new.  This week I've cast on a pair using Kroy socks.  The boys bought it for me for Christmas and it is so much softer and nicer to work with than the last yarn.  I'm really loving the colors, too.  I had fully intended this pair to be for me.  Ha!  Cole already asked if he could trade me these for the other pair.  Oh, and could they be shorties instead, since he pushes all his socks down around his ankles anyway? 

So, shorties it is.  I'm using Susan B. Anderson's Smooth Operator Sock  and then planning a Kirby Wirby afterthought heel.  I have to say that knitting a tube is so much faster than turning a heel and building a gusset.  If these fit well, I'm not doing gussets ever again!  

How about you?  What's on your needles this week?


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Knitting Project Bags







It happens every spring... I get the sewing bug.  This year it hit me when I was perusing the knitting needles at the craft store {Which they have none!  Do they really only sell bulky sized metal straight needles?  I can't be the only sock knitter in Wisconsin.  But I digress...} when I happened to walk past a display of fat quarters.  I don't normally get excited about fabric or even pay attention to it for that matter, but the tiny rectangles were all tied up with a sweet little ribbon and were just the pop of color I needed in my life right now. It was like a present waiting there for me, and it was fifty percent off.  I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but I had to have them.

Fast forward a few days and I'm casting on a sock with the yarn I found at the thrift store last month. 
I went to find my basket I usually use for small projects, but it was full of eggs {Yay, the free loaders, ahem, I mean hens, are laying again}.  Then I noticed the little package of fabric sitting on the shelf and that it just happened to match my yarn, so I decided to make a project bag. {I used this pattern here, with a few modifications}.  I paired the fat quarters with some upcycled fabric from a skirt I found at the thrift store, too.  It has the feeling of a cotton canvas and worked perfect for adding stability to the bag.  

I have never had a good quality knitting bag and now I know why everyone likes them so much! The square corners make it sit flat and with the lining, I can fold the top down to use it as a knitting basket. Two fifty gram balls of sock yarn, along with my pattern, needles and notions fit inside.  I also like that it's squishy enough to fit inside my backpack and take it with me everywhere. 

I liked mine so much that I decided to make three more for the shop too.  These are seriously addicting and I'm already cutting fabric for more.  I hope you like them, too!



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Thrift Store Finds









At least once a week, we head to town to the thrift store.  They set out expired baked goods and slightly over ripe produce that we pick up for our chickens.  It really helps on the winter feed budget and they love to have fresh greens and treats in the winter months.  

Of course, we always manage to wander around the store for an hour looking for any new to us treasures.  My favorite area, besides books, is the craft corner.  Most weeks, the yarn bin is full of acrylics and fun furs, but this week... well, I'm pretty sure I gasped out loud since the lady next to me looked at me funny.   Two laundry baskets full of sock yarn, and cakes of mohair, cones of undyed yarn,  Lamb's Pride chunky and sport weight, a partially completed argyle sock kit {which I won't be finishing, but it was so cute}, and a few bits of others that I thought were pretty. All for around fifty cents each. I showed some restraint with the mohair cakes and cones, {aka, I didn't buy the entire basket} because I'm not completely sure they're 100% wool and will take dye.  Experiments to ensue.

How about you?  Any great thrift store finds recently?



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Taproot Inspiration






It's February.  The mornings have been bitter cold.  The afternoons filled with rain and ice.  I dare not admit how long it's been since I've been on a walk, except to the chicken coop to give the girls a few treats.  We're all grumpy, a little rough around the edges {That's a nice way of putting it, my family tells me.} and feeling very uninspired.

But recently I made a discovery that has me so excited.  Our library system subscribes to Taproot Magazine!  I have the first two years in my personal collection, but decided not to renew once we moved to the homestead.  Instead, we've been putting any extra money aside for big purchases like a new vehicle and solar panels.  I know it will be worth it in the end to not have any debt, but I have tremendously missed the seasonal stories, recipes, art, and crafts of so many like minded people.  I ordered all that our system had and have been savoring each issue, one by one.

I'm starting with Issue 16: Shelter.  The Home Sweet Home paper houses were a huge hit with Luke, and had us all make one for his town.  You can download the houses here for free.

I think this will be just the boost we need to get back on the creative track.... and I'm vowing to get outside more this week.  We have another warm up coming and it will be above freezing for a whole week!  I can't wait to see how much the woods have changed since we last visited.

How about you?  Are you in a creative slump right now or have any inspiring ideas to share?



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January Thaw






The boys and I started reading Aldo Leopold's, A Sand County Almanac this week for our morning read aloud. January Thaw, couldn't have come at a more opportune time, as the temps have been well above normal and as our world changes dramatically in a new direction.  I'm loving this season to sit quietly and reflect about what is in store for the next year.  

      "There is time not only to see who has done what, but to speculate why."  ~Aldo Leopold

This week took us to the woods to watch the snow melt from the trees, observe signs of deer nibbling on branches, and witness life stirring awake again.  

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