I have my very own art show!!

I spoke with a local bar owner last night, and I have an art show in the fall!
I will go in at the beginning and hang all of my knitted items on the walls of the bar, and two weeks later, take hopefully many less down.
This is going to be great exposure for me.
All I need to do now is get knitting.

A custom dishcloth order!

I love custom orders. I was recently asked to make some rainbow dishcloths for a friend of mine. I bought a large skein of cotton yarn on Sunday, and I am halfway through the second cloth. The deadline for these isn't for a while, but I am working on them pretty much exclusively.
Yesterday, I organized part of my yarn stash, and in the process, counted 45 skeins of cotton of various sizes. Some are the small ones that are just enough for a dishcloth, and others are the giant 12 ounce ones. And others are in between. I definitely want to knit all of this during my 101 project.
I am trying to figure out other things I could make with cotton, but I am currently stuck on cloths.
Suggestions?

Some late night yarn bombs

Late last week, my friend Sean and I went out yarn bombing. We go on walks together once in a while, and I asked if he wanted to combine a walk with some creativity, and he agreed. Six of the yarn bombs I have recently made went up in the downtown area. Some of my favourites, for sure.
This one is a light pink one that went up right in front of the art gallery on a pretty busy road. It was hard for Sean to get a decent photo of any of them because of poor lighting and not being familiar with an iPhone camera.
An other went up on the other side of the gallery, one near the bus station, one on a parking meter near a parking garage and two right near the downtown strip. I will try to get some other photos of these ones in the day light.
I am going to work on some more in brighter colours very soon.

It's a numbers game, now

Have you ever thought about the number of skeins and balls of yarn you have? Not just full, new, untouched skeins, but all the little bits left over from the big projects that no one ever throws away?
Have you ever counted them all?
I know I have a lot of untouched, perfect skeins. And a lot of leftovers from other people, and from my own projects, of course. I never know what to do with all of those little mis-matched bits.
I'd love to know how many I have.
But that would involve a lot of counting and untangling and probably swearing.
And time.
Time better spent knitting.

Needle Felting!

This past Sunday, I took a class at Made In Windsor and learned how to needle felt!
It was a fun class with a few other attendees, and we all made flower brooches. I had to leave the class a little bit early so I didn't get to completely finish it, but I will do that soon. We learned how to blend the colours, start the felting and attach the pieces together. All I have left to do is trim the bottom, attach the leaf and then attach the pin back.
It was really fun to learn how to do this awesome craft. I want to learn how to wet felt, as well, and there is a class coming up on that. I am planning on making a set of felted nesting bowls as part of my 101 list, and both of these techniques will come in handy.
I can't stop looking at this wonderful blue/purple colour! I am so excited to finish it.

Starting my new Mission 101

Back in January, I started a Mission 101 list. This mission is where one creates 101 goals to complete in 1001 days. I gave up because most of the goals were very time consuming and I didn't see progress on any of them.
Today is the day I am starting my new list.
Many of them are craft/knitting related. This is something I want to focus on more and more.
14. Make 200 things
15. Do 1 craft show
16. Start an Etsy shop
17. Knit 2 things for myself
18. Knit 1 large blanket (finishing the one I have going now counts)
19. Knit 2 things from patterns in my books
20. Knit 2 things from patterns online
21. Use up all my cotton yarn
22. Make a set of felted nesting bowls
23. Make the denim quilt
24. Knit 1 000 000 stitches
25. Give 10 hand made Christmas/birthday gifts
26. Make 5 moss jars
27. Do a 365 project with iphone camera and knitting and post on the 365 blog
28. Organize my yarn stash
29. Put up 50 yarn bombs
30. Make plantable paper
31. Make soap
32. Learn to crochet
33. Crochet something
34. Spin yarn
35. Make something from my spun yarn
36. Post on the knitting blog 100 times43. Have a craft night at my house
77. Purchase 10 items from Etsy

I am quite excited about this list. I feel like everything is something that can be accomplished. This post is counting for one of the knitting blog updates. I am also just starting on a new dishcloth. Which uses up cotton yarn, and, when completed, will be 2066 stitches towards my million stitch goal.

Are any of you/Have any of you done this mission?

Shipping knitted and bulky items

Several people have been asking me when I plan on opening an Etsy shop, or otherwise selling online. My answer is usually along the lines of "Whenever Canada Post drops their shipping costs".
To ship anything thicker than an envelope within Canada, it can cost as much as $13. That same package going to the US only costs about $6. That is where I am very confused. It costs less to send a package across an international border than it does to go to the other side of my own country.
I have considered crossing the border once a week to ship anything that would be cheaper to do that way. This would quickly become expensive and time consuming. Not to mention, I may have to pay duty to bring everything across.

How do you ship your items without costing the buyer an arm and a leg? I am trying to figure out how to ship my hats and scarves for less than $13.