silly.

Posted on April 2, 2009 by cosymakes

i was very silly to think that there might not be much blogging this week. my mother-in-law (katie) arrived yesterday and already there has been yarn gifting.

love the labels on this one!! there’s certainly a sweater lot of this, although i don’t think i’ll be making myself a sweater out of it ;)

although my current place in the world lacks the vintage yarn i used to find, katie found a batch for me in alaska. woo hoo!

8 skeins of the baby wool, 7 of the wool/moahair, and 5 of the wine red

buttons sorting.

got these a while ago at a craft swap, along with the yarn below, but never got around to sorting them yet!

finished object showing

katie’s most recent shawl, i spent last night wrapped up in it while too tired to move

later today there will be yarn store journeying! i love vacation at home.

in the red

Posted on January 10, 2009 by cosymakes

craigslist run. first this, then, quite a bit later, this box, and then these.

and now these

a grandmother’s and mother’s button collection. i used to not care about whether there were any sets of buttons in the buttons i bought, but now i seem to be doubly pleased when there’s more of one of something. especially when they’re red ;)

spin and thrift

Posted on October 10, 2007 by cosymakes

there has been a little spinning lately. celebratory and de-stressing fleece artist merino/silk done yesterday at knitting group and home (finished the papers!)

a bit of blue green bfl, washed and ready to knit- from this roving, and here’s a sister yarn. such a hard colorway to photo, but here’s my most recent attempt. i must say i’m so tempted to write poetry about how much i enjoy spinning bfl. it very well might be my favorite

and on the thrifty front, we’ve been hitting garage sales looking for furniture and the such lately. last saturday i walked into a church sale and the first thing i saw was this tin

i would have bought it had it just been a tin… but it wasn’t. it contained buttons!
here are some of my faves

and i couldn’t resist photographing this darling one still on its card

happy wednesday!

the wheels on the train go…

Posted on September 8, 2007 by cosymakes

hat a day – day three. an easy one to finish today, and there probably will be no hat tomorrow since i’m trying to get back into my sabbath routine. the train tam pattern in a size small. my friend sarah tried this on and it looked great. once again, it didn’t fit me, so i couldn’t quite tell. i think this style is one of the few hat patterns i’ve made up that look good pushed back a bit rather than all the way down on the forehead.

ingredients:
donegal tweed homespun (gifted from my friend laurie)
mountain colors mill end
buttons from the stash

and of course this post couldn’t be complete without a gratuitous button shot:

SHOP UPDATE: i’ve noticed lots of clicks to etsy or directly into my shop from here lately, so i thought i’d let you all know what’s going on. next week sometime i’ll announce the re-opening of the shop and along with, a little one day sale in celebration. stay tuned, i’ve got to find my calendar first.

the unexpected

Posted on September 5, 2007 by cosymakes

obviously our trip across the nation was about moving and visiting friends and family… but it also came to be about two things that i never expected: glasses and buttons.
(ha! you thought that was going to be deep…)

anyhow. you already saw the white glasses i picked up in seattle. well, i also got a pair in missoula and here i am in all of my greasy pittsburgh glory modeling them for you:

garage sale. 50 cents. i also got an amazing quilt at that one, but i’ll post that later (when i find it again).

you also already heard about my grandma’s massive button stash and about the buttons in seattle (click the picture with the white glasses), but i also got two more sets of buttons if you can believe it. i was a wee bit overwhelmed by the whole thing, thus the fact that you’re hearing about the buttons now that i want to sort them rather than earlier. first, when i visit home it has become a tradition to look through and take some choice buttons from my mother’s button stash. here are this year’s picks complete with notes if you click over to flickr:

and lastly, my grandmother and mom found a great second hand store in Polson Montana that they took me to on our way to get on the train for pittsburgh. they were, sadly, closing for good, but they had two HUGE containers full of buttons all at half price. wish i had more time to dig, but frankly, i’m perfectly happy with what i got now that i’m looking at them again:

now i’m off to sort them. once we get settled more, i’ll get one of the pairs of glasses filled with my prescription. which do you think? i’m leaning towards the rhinestones at the moment…

camera case

Posted on September 1, 2007 by cosymakes

finally! a bit of what i knit on the trip to pittsburgh. i knit this one while i was in montana. i must confess that this case and an i-pod cozy were all i knit besides hats on the trip. i know i planned to do this shawl, but i just didn’t have the brain for it. moving stressful? naw.

anyhow, i am forever throwing my camera into my purse and decided it could use a little bit of cushioning. i made it up as i went along and it ended up a bit wide, so i just took in a bit on the sides. it’s not like it needs to fit the camera perfectly or anything…

mostly, it looks like a very very dorky mal-formed purse when i carry my camera alone. ah well. i like it :)

ingredients:
thrifted rough maroon wool
my hand dyed wool (used for the train tam also)
buttons are from my mother’s button stash

p.s. we moved in yesterday and today we’re unpacking. my body hurts everywhere. i think i’ll get rid of more books next time we move – or maybe hire someone to haul them for me?

spinning spinning

Posted on August 28, 2007 by cosymakes

in celebration for finishing one of my last classes yesterday, i picked up my drop spindle for the first time in what felt like forever. i finished spinning up this roving which i started before we left vancouver (and which matches my header…):

and now i’ve moved on to this roving:

sorry for the old pics – i’ve been wirelessless… but not for long because we move in thursday, friday and saturday… yipee!

in other news, i’m going to be at the ‘I Made It’ Saturday market on september 29th, which i find a bit daunting, but frankly, what’s there to do but jump right in? i’m also planning to register the biz to make it official sometime this week. yikes!

regular programming will start again soon, i promise. have a great day!

p.s. spotted some really lovely buttons over here – she has some interesting glass and bone ones.

grandma’s button stash

Posted on August 16, 2007 by cosymakes

while we were visiting my hometown, my grandmother found and gave to me her button stash – which consisted of 2 3 lb. coffee cans full of buttons. i should never have to buy buttons again. here’s a mere smattering on our friend maggie and lucas’ window sill where we are staying right now:

if you’d like to see them bigger, go to flickr and click the ‘all sizes’ button above the picture. there were some real gems in there. here we are looking through them at grandma’s house:

here’s a similar picture with more buttons in it. ben’s look cracks me up :)

my grandma said that these are collected from years and years of sewing (especially for her daughter when she was young) and from saving buttons off of old clothing that wore out. that is a lot of buttons. although a bit overwhelmed, you can see that i dug through and brought two little jars with me in my luggage, the rest will be mailed at a later date or collected while back home. i think i’ll also need to update my button storage system. i’m thinking of adding some jars because they’ll show them off nicely.

resurfacing lovelies

Posted on July 26, 2007 by cosymakes

found while packing, these were a gift and a thank you from ruth after she bought one of my favorite pairs of fingerless mitts. i love it when my work goes to people i have some sort of connection to and in light of that notice how she themed the left hand one? she also has a lovely little shop on etsy where she often has collages like these and, more recently, some fun new brooches. i think this one is brilliant. thanks ruth!

we put all of the names in a hat…

Posted on June 29, 2007 by cosymakes

and pulled out ‘alissa and kristen’ and joanne! congrats you two! i’ll put together some packages for you shortly.

seen in this photo is the yarn that will be going out to these two lucky winners. it is lady allure double crepe – here’s the label and here’s a more sparkly picture. you get two balls each and you get to choose your color. the yellow has gold in it and the red has silver. i never promised you a rose garden… er something pretty, but instead something interesting so here’s the story.

while in alaska, i somehow managed to inherit this wool from a lovely serbian alaskan pioneer named angie. this adventure included eating both pineapple upside down cake and fudge, as well as digging around in her basement, where she hadn’t been for at least several years. i was actually searching for some darker yarn in skein form that she bought in china, but came up with this crazy crepe stuff and some mohair and loopy wool. i left the acrylic for the next unsuspecting soul. i plan to make her twin grandchildren hats in return for her generosity, but mostly i think she’s glad to see it used. my mother-in-law had me show her all of my book knits and she showed me some of her lovely crochet work. the garbage bag with this yarn in it also included a pattern for a granny square tunic (yikes), but angie said that someone gave her this yarn too and she just never used it.

what do i find spectacular about this yarn? all the yarn that i’ve ever seen similar to this has been nasty christmas acrylic. i was, indeed, pleased as punch to find not only wool with labels, but also a slice of history that i didn’t even know ever existed. i’ve no idea what i’ll do with it… but i’m happy to have it. and i hope that the winners of the contest are too!