Second Verse.... Same As The First (Only MORE!)

We haven't seen snow like this here in over 20 years! Such a beautiful and wet snow that stuck to everything. Thought I would share a couple of pictures I took of the yard before it got dark. I went out and measured and we had about 8 inches. We probably got another inch of snow after that so all told, 9 inches!!! That is CRAZY for Arkansas. I played around with Photo Shop and think the sepia toned one is kind of neat. May end up using that one for Christmas cards this year.

Woohoo! Snow Day (Not!)

We don't get a whole lot of snow here in Arkansas so when they forecast lots of ice and snow (even if they forecast a flurry), everyone in town runs to the store to stock up on the standard milk, bread, and of course toilet paper. I shake my head every time. People stock up like they are heading into the end times. I knew school would be out the next day so I planned ahead bringing scissors and lots of wool home to do some cutting. The snow and ice came and it was the perfect day to stay at home as a family and enjoy being lazy. That was until shortly before 5pm Friday night. The power went off and I knew it wasn't a good sign. I had flash backs to earlier in the year when we were without power for a couple of days due to ice. I first went and took a bunch of heavy quilts and covered Caleb's nameless angel fish couple to hold the heat in the water as long as possible. Then we prepared for the worst and James headed out to gather plenty of wood. No chain saw. He had forgotten he let his brother borrow it and it had not been returned. So, he gathered whatever lumber he could (and whatever he could break to fit into the fireplace). We had just enough to last through that night. We all slept around the fire. The kids loved it.... thought it was the biggest adventure ever. James was up probably 10 times taking care of the fire (since we didn't have anything big to burn, it was constant to keep the fire up) I didn't sleep at all thanks to snoring people and afraid I would fall asleep and the fire would go out. By 7am the temperature in the house was down to 57 which was pretty good considering it was below 20 out there. We were totally out of wood so we loaded up in the car and hit the roads despite the ice. Since snow and ice are kind of a rarity here, most of the roads had not been cleared at all. We ended up at the shop and just kind of sat there since we were cold and tired. I was able to check the progress of our power online which was kind of cool. I could see the power would come on, then go off, come on, then go off. I could see how many other houses around us were out. Very frustrating yet entertaining. Power was restored after lunch and we were all SO thankful for having electricity and heat. We all settled in and finished watching "Inn of the Sixth Happiness" which we were in the middle of when we lost power. Sunday we all went out and played in the snow. It was great to laugh and have so much fun. I took my pet rooster George and set him in the snow. Needless to say he was NOT a happy bird with his first snow experience. We had about 6 inches on the ground and he had been staying under our shed away from all of it. He walked a few steps with exaggerated high stepping and stopped at my feet, looked up at me, and refused to move another step until I picked him up and put him back :)

Really Awesome Site for the Wool Obsessed

In my poking around, I came across this site that just made me drool. I realized that there was someone out there just as obsessed with wool like I am. Kris has a super abundance of recycled wool that she crafts with and offers wool for sale too!


I found this really awesome sweater that I HAD to have with little roosters all over it. The colors are even more vibrant in person and I imagine making a soaker and several pairs of slippers from this one. Kris is constantly posting great tutorials. You can find tutorials for making regular socks, blankets, dryer balls, and tons of other cool things. If it can be made from wool, she has probably made it. I hope you enjoy poking around this site as much as I do. So many great projects for a rainy (or icy day like we are having today).

Happy New Year!!!

I am excited to start a brand new year AND a brand new decade. I am working on my annual business plan and hope to be a little more organized this year. I am planning on cutting out a few things, and growing in other areas. My main struggle has always been to come up with oodles of great ideas and then would not have the time to cultivate those ideas. Those of you that have been with me since the beginning in 2004 have seen me make just about everything under the sun out of wool at one time or another. I realized this and really did well on working on my crafting obsession this past year. I plan to continue that trend this year. I had started up a second website (what was I thinking?!?!) that grew beyond what I could handle very quickly. I sold Artisan Baby so I could completly focus on Woollybottoms. I made another decision for 2010 that I will not be doing all interlock pieces any longer. I LOVE the fabric as do many of you, but the unpredictable milling and cost of the fabric just kind of caused me to loose all my joy in it. I have realized that I can not do everything and be scattered across the board. I will only be using the interlock in our hybrid soakers and longies. We have also kind of moved away from stocking on hyena cart last year. I will probably continue that trend into this year as well. We will still have our fun "uglies" sales and will stock through hyena cart for those but that will probably be it. We will be sticking with stocking (wow... say sticking with stocking 5 times fast lol) the main website several times a week and I am working on stocking on Etsy (one of many unfinished projects from last year LOL). I don't want to be spread all over the place.

The main theme I guess I should say for 2010 is balance. It is becoming increasingly hard. I am not a big business. It is just little old me and I do have one person helping me full time doing sewing and inspecting each and every piece we make. I still handle all of the computer work and answering phones and emails. I also package and ship each and every package along with sewing. I am so incredibly thankful for the increasing business but in order to keep up and still be able to keep this a local mom owned business (and most importantly my sanity) some changes will be made throughout the month of January.

My accomplishment for today (well besides the typical sewing and shipping) was working on the Etsy store (as you can see over on the side of the page now). One thing to cross off the list woohoo!