collaging with fabric,

and combining that annoying curling ribbon we all use with yarn to make a knit basket that actually stands up straight and a market bag that won’t stretch down to your knees after a few uses.

I’m so excited and thrilled and relieved and filled with joy to birth this beast out into the world. It was of course about triple the work either of us anticipated with many bumps, bruises and swearing (at least on my end) to get it finished. And I’m so happy we did! Because. It. Is. Awesome!

I’m going to be totally conceded here and say that this is the sweetest ebook ever…. okay I can’t be that conceded because I totally loved Knitting Game by Lee and Diane’s Craft Blog series of ebooks. How about I say that this is just one more awesome ebook in a long line of awesome ebooks put out by the newly annointed authority on crafty ebooks: CraftyPod Publishing!

It was so wonderful working with Diane, she was great to throw ideas around with, she was a great editor, she’s a wonderful friend and inspiration!

You can pick up this awesome beast of a craft ebook in the CraftyPod Publishing Shop starting now!

And if you order it between now and Friday 12th, 11:59pm – you will get a pretty sweet chance at winning one of these DecoArt paint sets.

Hooray! The first Craft Leftovers Ebook Card.Paper.Ribbon. is now out Today!

Happy Crafting and making and being creative!

Kristin Roach

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When I showed my friend Linda the new embroidery set, she started laughing and said “It’s Jack the Ripper”. So I painted this one up just for her. I Wasn’t originally intending to do painted illustrations of all the Crafty Buddies, but now I think I will. You can get the first embroidery set in the Kro Studio Shop or the Craft Leftovers Shop.

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I had a lot of fun putting together a set of embroidery designs this week! I started out with this illustration and decided it would be really fun to do a set of embroidery patterns. They are now available in the Kro Studio shop! I’m looking for printer that will make some high quality prints of the Crafty Buddies series. I think they would be so much fun hung in a sewing studio or just around

And here is a freebie pattern to get you started stitching!

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I used some doll rod scraps from another project to make some charcoal for myself. I haven’t drawn with it yet though, but my test marks seem very nice.

I also used a reject whittled crochet hook too – the funnest piece of charcoal ever!

And then here is some more – skewers and sticks:

I’ll be adding a tutorial on how to make your own charcoal as well as some instructions on drawing with charcoal in the August issue of Craft Leftovers Monthly. It’s going to be a great issue all about drawing – my favorite thing ever!

And speaking of drawing and loving it – I’ll be back tomorrow morning with a drawing daily post. Last week was an insanely irregular waking up schedule and I’m hopeful that I will be back to my regular routine starting tomorrow morning.

Oh and some random good news – I have my first Ames area show of paintings semi scheduled for October! I’ve started stretching canvas and finished gessoing my first. I’m going to work on the under drawing tonight so I’ll have pictures of that in the morning too.

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And in other news, I just rerelased the springy crochet headwrap on Craft Leftovers Today:

Hello there! Don’t I feel fancy. You can check out the post here and download the full pattern for free. There is a $1 suggested donation if you make it and love it.

See you all in the morning! Have a great night!

Kristin

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Two great things today! First, was the first class of a three part class on making a sun hat out of raffia – working with raffia being the primary focus of the class. It’s a challenge, but it’s fun and I love the way it looks crocheted up.

Second is that for the very first time I’m offering a pattern for sale in the Green Prairie Fibers Shop – That same crocheted sun hat. It has instructions for working with raffia and of couse, the pattern for the hat pictured above. The pattern is just $3 too. It works up in about 8-10 hours depending on how quickly the raffia will work for you.

Take a look at all the details and some extra photos in the shop.

I can’t wait for my Thursday volunteer day at the garden, I’m sure my hat will be the envy of everyone – well, not really, but that’s okay, Jason told me it looks really cute so that’s good enough for me.

You can see what other classes I’m teaching here, on the Classes Page of the site. And you can sign up for any of them by calling the Rose Tree Fiber Shop or emailing me at kristinmroach [at] gmail [dot] com .

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Tomorrow my friend Christina is coming over to paint. I can’t wait! We are going to do some still life paintings and just hang out. It’s going to be such fun!

-K

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I’m really excited about this as I really love the Rose Tree Fiber shop and really respect Rosemary. I feel really honored that she asked me to teach at her store.

It’s been a crochet week for me for sure. All these things kind of lined up on their own, but I also just posted a “how to crochet” post on Craft Leftovers on Friday!

And, I’m working on making up a mosaic scarf (Craft Leftovers Pattern) this weekend to double check the pattern and the yarn requirements because I’m going to start offering the kits in the shop on Tuesday! It’s just funny how much crochet has been going on in the studio lately, I like it.

And after I finish that, I’m going to jump right into finishing off the pattern for tomorrow – a crocheted hat with a knit rib!

I’m also finishing up my tutorial that will be in CRAFT vol 11, very exciting. A busy day for sure! And what fun too, all in the studio!

Yesterday was more of a office work type day. I finally corrected and reposted the Lady Moss Mittens pattern and I set up and made a donate button for Craft Leftovers. There were other boring office type things yesterday, but those were purely paper work blah stuff.

Oh this is the donate button, what do you think?

I’m going to work on getting all my past patterns spruced up and in pdf format and one of the things I’ve been kicking around is having a suggested donation price for each pattern. Ranging from like $1 – $5 depending on the complexity. Just put it out there and see what happens.

Well, I’m going to get back to work crocheting away!

Have a good Sunday afternoon!
++ Kristin Roach ++

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This is my pattern right here on page 21 (I misspoke earlier when I said page 20); it’s the blue knit/crochet hat.

I’m so proud in fact, that I want to share it with you – I may be proud, but that doesn’t mean I’m selfish – So much so that I’m giving away a free issue and making it really super easy too!

Anyway, so all you have to do is:

Leave a comment On This Post by Friday, January 23rd and donate a bit for postage.

Please make sure to use an email address that you check frequently when you leave your comment.

I’ll post the winner and contact them on Saturday to make arrangements and it will go out in the mail on Monday.

Happy Knitting and Crocheting!
++Kristin++

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Yesterday I did a whole lot of recipe testing for this month’s clm, which is in the shop, btw. And the one (which i’m not talking about because it’s going into the zine was awesome) turned out so perfect and the other, yogurt, was a flop. I think I added the yogurt before the milk was cool enough, so nothing happened. Now I just have some yogurty smelling thick milk, yuck. I feel like it’s making fun of me, so, just to teach that yogurt from scratch who is boss, I’m going to try again today. I’m also going to try to make some egg nog. I really want some and of course you just can’t get the stuff anywhere anymore.

I did get yarn dyed up last week and it turned out really well. I’ll be getting that up into the shop today or tomorrow (depending on reskiening and etc). I have already sold 2 skeins in person and one skein was a birthday present to my friend Jess.

In the mood of getting things done, Craft Leftovers Monthly is in the shop. I really like this month’s cover:

This month is all about the sun coming back home. Even though it is totally snowy outside, I am so happy the sun is shining again. Ahhhh, so nice. I have a bunch of really great stuff set aside for this issue. I was on the ball this past month.

Back to studio practice, I had an interesting revelation about the painting I was working on. It was not something I would have liked to have hanging on my wall. It was too smooth. Too clean. Too proper. So I went about muddying it up a bit.

Here is the starting point:

Flickr is doing something kind of weird, it’s uploading my photos, they are showing up in my photo page, but then when you click on them, they aren’t there. So go here to see all the stages of the painting so far. It was better at this point (from a wip standpoint, not a finished piece), but I wasn’t sure where to take it next. So I set it down for a week. Then, of all days, Thursday I attacked it with furver and it turned out just perfect. I still have more to do (adding in the foreground for one thing), but I got it over that “this doesn’t really look like much” to the “wow, that’s a nice painting (pats self on back)”.

I’ll show you a new progress photo later tonight. I’m going into my studio today. First time since last Thursday. I have two stretcher bars finished, one has canvas stretched and the first coat of gesso on it. I’m all sorts of happy that I get to go in there today and get it finished up and start the next. I think i’ll be able to get the first of the series just about finished today, so I’ll start the second while I’m gessoing the third. I really need to step up the pace. I just got my Senior Show date finalized and it’s in three weeks! Yikes! Two of my friends in the painting program will be in it too, so, thankfully, not all me. But still. I want to get about 9 paintings done. And I want to have quite a few photos too. Plus a found object instillation. I’m going to electroplating found objects, casting them in luminecent beeswax, and making them into objects of art instead of ordinary “stuff”.

The other pictures that you saw on flickr? Well the honey bear is a still life I set up. I’m going to paint it several times using different techniques. The big mess picture? That is my at home fibers studio before I tackled cleaning it up.

I also just finished up this pattern on Monday:

Thanks Jill for the great name idea! Naming and titling my work is always my hardest task. Crazy how that works when it is such a small thing.

Well, I’m going to get back to work.

See you you all later tonight with new wip photos!

++Kristin Roach++

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First off, I wanted to let you know that I decided to go with Etsy for my shop. It’s sooo easy. So its up and you can check it out here: Kristin Roach: Shop.

I’m going to be adding some handmade note cards and other drawings over the next 3 days and then I will update the shop twice a week or more.

The new pattern is up over on Craft Leftovers and I must say, I really like it! It’s to help keep my tea warmer than it is already kept.

I’ve also been updating the Craft Leftovers Shop, so you should check that out too.

Well, I’m going to draw for a bit and then play wii!

++Kristin Roach++

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