These are made without a pattern, always my favorite way to create.

I’ve also been making more from the GAPS Diet cookbook. These are Honeyed Nuts:

These are good. They’re not OMG great but still make a good alternative to plain nuts. Yesterday I made Orange Creamsicle Milkshake:

Now this was OMG great! Despite the name there is no dairy in this recipe. I’ll definitely be making this many times this summer.

And the back:

I’m planning on launching my Etsy store this summer. In the meantime if you’d like to buy a monster bag email me at twilly23 @gmail .com

This year I’ve been volunteering at a local garden. I’ve been learning so much about plants and gardening plus I’m getting yummy food. One night I had a dream about weeds. A Weed Spirit visited me. I asked her why she grew in a place where she would just get ripped up. Isn’t that just a waste of life? She smiled knowingly at me and said, “Just because you don’t know our purpose doesn’t mean we don’t have one”.

That really struck me. I’ve been thinking about weeds ever since. Often we humans just view them as a nuisance but in reality weeds are quite useful and beneficial. I’ve decided to make a series honoring seven weeds and the wisdom they can teach us.

In other news, Sieben and I took a hike somewhere new-Picuris Trail.

This was a wonderful hike.

There’s this new ruffle yarn that I fell in love with. Most people make a simple ruffle scarf. I tried that but it just wasn’t me. Instead I used it for the ruffle.

Check out the poof!

Finished pics soon.

I’ve been exploring more of my GAPS Diet cookbook. This is banana and peanut butter fruit leather:

This was dehydrated in my solar food dehydrator-my new favorite cooking tool. No electricity required. The other day it was up to 130 degrees.

It turned out delicious and is my new favorite snack. I’m going to try different nutbutters and fruit next time.

Another leaf necklace with matching earrings

Next up is a pearl and shell bracelet. I had bought the shells as stitch markers but the rings snagged on my yarn. The pearls were a cheap necklace I bought in Hawaii.

These earrings turned out super cute!

This last set is my most recent.

I love these rock beads! I restrung the bracelet because I forgot to put jump rings before the clasp. The clasp actually was shredding the wire. But that was an easy fix.

Now I have new accessories. Jewelry making is so much fun.

This is an old turtleneck of Thebes. It’s t-shirt material. Every time I work with t-shirt fabric I remember why I don’t like using it. It’s stretchy and moves underneath the sewing machine foot. But hey it works for an inner pillow. I stuffed it pretty full knowing it will flatten out over time.

Since a pillow needs to be washable I made the outer liner with a zipper to easily throw it in the wash. I wanted to make it match my desk chair so I used the leftover fleece flower fabric. There wasn’t enough for a full pillow so I went with tried and true hippie patchwork.

Granola was a good little helper.

Here’s the finished pillow:

A snapshot of the zipper in action:

I’m so happy how it turned out! And my ass will be happy next time I sit down to spin.

This fiber was a challenge! It’s tough on the hands, is very inconsistent and hard to draft.

I have no idea what to make with it though!

Since I only had 4 oz I decided to ply it with some thin yellow yarn to stretch the yardage as much as I could.

I have 196 yd total.

This is the first time she’s been displayed sitting. I like it.

A close up of the beads:

I bought the leaf at Wired for my birthday.

After making the necklace Abbey suggested I make matching earrings. She suggested the design too.

I love how they turned out!

I also made another necklace. It’s much simpler-just a leather cord.

The piece is a fossilized sand dollar that I bought in Quartzite, AZ last December.

Turns out I like jewelry making. More to come!

This version is smaller than my original Chaos Bag. I made this one to sell in my future Etsy store.

I lined it and put in two pockets. Like the bigger bag I used webbing for a strap and a snap for the closure.

This bag is 9” H x 22” W. The strap is 35″ long.

Here’s Granola being cute:

Pattern: Chaos Bag
Source: me
Yarn: Chaos Yarn
Needles: 10.0 mm needles
Size: small
Modifications: N/A
Started: Dec 2011
Finished: Feb 2012