Suddenly I have a brand

 I made the decision to be a vendor at our local farmer's market this summer. I've been spending a lot of time this spring spinning my rabbit fur and I have a stock of yarn. I knew I needed a band telling people the basic information about the yarn. It could have been plain but I wanted a catchy name and a little picture. And this is what I came up with:

So hopefully you'll see some more updates from me soon telling you where you can find Hutch On The Hill Rabbit Fiber Yarns both online and in person.

Third time is acceptable

 I learned to knit in college and spent a couple of years satisfied with small projects - hats and mittens, that sort of thing. And then I decided to try a sweater. After all, isn't that the pinacle of knitting? That experience taught me a couple of things: 1. I hate seaming a garment and especially setting in sleeves. 2. It's okay to enjoy small things. I resolved at that point to stick to small projects from that point.

Fast forward to now. I got this idea for a sweater, using a variegated yarn in a colorwork pattern. It was ridiculous and felt like a lot of work. And it would not leave me alone. Not only did I want to do a colorwork pattern, I wanted to invent my own chart. I started it right after Christmas. And when I got it done it was wrong. I had to take out the whole top and try again. When I had it nearly finished I discovered a major error and had to rip out the top for a second time. It's finally done. The fit isn't quite right but I refuse to redo it again. And this may well be the last sweater I ever make. Still, it matches my imagination pretty well.

Maple syrup

 I live on a sixty-some acre property that includes a fair number of maple trees. So we have occasionally tapped the trees and made maple syrup. The sap is running now so this week we cooked up our first batch for the year. Here's the result of cooking down the first run sap.

Cards

I decided I wanted to make Valentine's Day cards this year. I had some cards I'd made some errors on, so they seemed like the perfect base for some fun cards. I figured I'd just draw over the old designs. Because the cards I have are nice vibrant colors I thought I'd make them Pokemon themed. And that's where things went a bit off the rails. It seems I am incapable of being sincere when writing the sentiment on the card and I wanted these to be clever. So the result isn't exactly Valentines themed. Like, at all. But they are fun.

Headband

 Over the summer, a friend of mine gifted me with a rabbit. Galactus the Devourer of Worlds is a fuzzy French Lop and while she was still a baby when I got her she's now around 10 pounds of attitude and fur.

Much like my angoras, Galactus regularly sheds a great deal of soft fur and while it's not as long as angora fiber, I was quite certain that this fur could be spun.

Here's a small sample of the fiber.

And what it looks like spun, first as a single and then a plied yarn.

Once I had a small ball of yarn, I decided to crochet a headband for the friend who gave me Galactus in the first place. It's a simple design but super soft and should be quite warm.

Custom t-shirt

 I had a plain t-shirt in my craft supplies that I decided to decorate for my mother for her birthday (which is today - Happy Birthday to Mom!). I decided on this fellow from Animaniacs for the theme:

If you're unfamiliar, he was the star of a short segment where he would come out and tell a story, a common urban legend, as told to him by a kid named Randy Beaman.

Here's my take on him, painted with silver fabric paint.

Christmas gifts

 Now that gift giving is done I can share with you some of the things I made as gifts this year. I did a fair amount of knitting and crocheting this year. 

First we have fish slippers for my mom. She'd had a pair of these that I made years ago in orange that finally completely wore out. So I made her new ones in this soft blue wool.

Next, for my gamer brother, a Link hat.

And for my sister, a pair of waffle weave mittens in woolease.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 1

If there's one thing most people don't need, it's more holiday jewelry but I can't seem to help myself. I made this mismatched set for myself and a set for my sister.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 2

 I doodled a little frog wearing a Santa hat and beard and immediately knew I wanted to do something with him. I copied the image onto a sheet of clear plastic and colored him with permanent markers. I added a layer of glitter glaze and a magnet to finish him off.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 3

 A couple of years ago I learned to punch needle. I try to make something with the skill every year, mostly so I remember how to do it. Christmas is a great time for punch needle because you can make a dynamic image fairly quickly. This camel is an original design and would look nice attached to a bag like a patch or as a part of a wall display. 

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 4

 I was only going to do one set of peg dolls this year, but then I found some little peg trees in my craft supplies that begged to be decorated. And you can't just do a tree. A tree needs a character with it. So I found a little peg wearing a hat and turned it into a bunny. I decorated these pegs with colored pencil rather than paint for a softer look.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 5

 It's time for another puppet. I was thinking about Christmas foods and settled on the Little Debbie's Christmas Tree Cake. I don't know that I've ever eaten them but the package is rather iconic. And as I was considering them I immediately imagined one of those cakes with a face. I fashioned my puppet out of foam with knit fabric stretched over it. The stripes are made from fabric paint and the sprinkles are glitter. The mouth is a loop of elastic with a string attached to manage the movement. 

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 6

 I have mentioned before that I have rabbits. They don't get a lot of toys and treats but at Christmas I like to give them something special. This year I fixed them some paper twist wreaths. I took sheets of packing paper that came in packages, spread on a mixture of chopped hay and dried fruit, rolled the paper the long way, and twisted the resulting logs into a wreath shape. I'll hang these wreaths in the pens for them to tear into on Christmas. For now, they are stored in a coffee can with a fun festive sticker.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 7

 We're big gnome fans in this house so it's no surprise that I found some little gnome woodcuts in my craft supplies. I decorated this one with permanent marker, with a little bit of rabbit fur on his beard.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 8

 I found this antler headband in my Christmas things. It was already kind of cheesy with the bells but I figured we could kick it up a notch. Some gold ink designs and sequins make it delightful.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 9

 Here we are in the single digits! Christmas is fast approaching so today I have for you Christmas cookies. When I was a kid my mother would make butter cookies for us to frost and decorate while we listened to selections from the Nutcracker Suite and it was a favorite holiday tradition. We got out of the habit as we got older but have recently brought it back. This year, in addition to some traditional shapes, I decided to make some chickens. I'm especially fond of the coconut covered chickens. They remind me of silkies.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 10

 This particular set of ornaments is likely to end up in my craft sale inventory. I love the simple look and the contrast of the gold ink.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 11

This paintable shark was hanging out in my craft supplies, so I figured I'd give him a Christmas makeover with green glitter paint and some earmuffs.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 12

 Would it be Christmas if I didn't make a sock puppet? Some years I try to pick a more traditional Christmas figure but this year I leaned into more of a "that's not normally something I associate with the holidays" theme. And this particular sock really wanted to be a rhino. So it's a rhino struggling to decorate.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 14

 I always like to include a couple of practical projects in my Christmas crafting and bookmarks are always useful, so I whipped up these watercolor and ink bookmarks.