Wolf's Den

Safety First!
Handmade Kumihimo Cuff
7" long x 2" wide

Fits wrists 7" to 9"

* * *

Tired of not coordinating your accesories with your safety orange hunting vest? Missing the neon orange of the 80s? Want some dayglo orange for that rave coming up? Want to dazzle the school kids at your crossing guard job?

Look no more!

Safety First! is a handmade 8 strand kumihimo cuff made from dayglo/safety orange yarn, I believe to be 100% acrylic, possibly acrylic/wool blend. This awesomely bright yarn is from the Team BNA Traveling Swap Box and found its home with me.

This is a fun cuff! It features a gloriously cool handmade stoneware flower by Lisa Peters ART, securely attached to the cuff with a Czech glass druk bead in teal with a vitrial coating. The flower itself color coordinates with the cuff itself, with a glazing of cobalt, hints of teal and bright orange.

The ends of this spectacularly bright- and I mean bright!- cuff are handbeaded in peyote stitch, using 6lb FireLine, with Czech glass seed beads in cobalt and teal. The clasp is a silver plated extension chain and lobster claw clasp.

Amaze your friends! Blind the deer or wild turkey or men or whatever you chose to hunt! Flash back to the 80s! Where ever you wear it, Safety First! is sure to turn heads! If not completely blind people!

The first 3 photos are taken in direct sunlight- including this one. They serve to show just how bright this cuff is. The last 2 photos were taken in indirect sunlight. When I say neon, I mean neon!

Available HERE!(For now, Zibbet and Artfire soon.)

Monday night, Jo, of Big East Akita Rescue, and her family were home with 12 of the Rescue Akitas under BEAR's purview. It was supposed to be the safest place for them during the storm.

But we all saw and heard what happened to New Jersey's coast.

According to Jo, the barrier islands off Tom's River, NJ were gone in the storm surge. Between 10pm and midnight that night, sudden storm surge resulted in 4ft of water in their yard and home. Her husband and 2 teenage kids went into the water to rescue the Akitas from the kennels and bring them to the second floor of their house.

Tuesday morning, they had no power, no running water, no food, heat, etc and the first floor of the house was destroyed. Both vehicles are gone.

Word got out via other Akita Rescue people and is still being spread across Facebook and the internet. Donations have started coming in, via non Akita Rescue groups, Akita owners and others.

The area they are in was and is restricted to emergency personnel only because of the water and down power lines.

They could have left. They opted to stay. For them, the love of the breed is a family thing and they refused to leave the Akitas behind. Many are senior Akitas and Rescue is the best place, next to a forever home, for them.

Boarding for the Akitas has been offered, others are gathering supplies for them, and someone else has a van with a generator waiting for the word that they can go in.

Last word was from today. They have been able to take the dogs out for a morning walk and put a few back in the kennel runs in the garage.

But they still need your help to rebuild. The link above takes you directly to their donation page. Anything you can send will help BEAR rebuild and resupply to help these Rescue Akitas as well as Jo and her family.

To that end, I am running a scarf sale on Artfire. Each scarf has been put on sale. You DO NOT need an account to buy there. Proceeds from each sale will go to Akita Rescue, specificly BEAR.


Even if you can't donate, or don't wish to buy a scarf, at least pass the word.

So I hand dyed some 100% pima cotton yarn a few days ago. Ok, actually I did it Friday, it sat over the weekend and I rinsed it yesterday.



I am in love with these colors. Rich, vibrant and deep. They're only 5-10 yd skeins, but that's plenty for what I do with it. And they're exactly the colors I wanted.



These two are mixed colors. The top one is Butterscotch and Rust Orange. The bottom one is Camel and Khaki.



These two are single colors. Top is Curry. Bottom is Pumpkin Spice.

Why'd I dye these in such autumny colors?



For these of course.}:P A whole slew of gorgeous new pieces from Lisa Peters ART.

Hope to have a few new cuffs listed on Etsy, Artfire and Zibbet in the next week or so! Stay tuned!

'Wine and Roses'




'Rose and Lavender'




'Whirligig'




'Meditation'

These are also available at Artfire and Zibbet

Not much going on here lately.

Made the decision to reopen my Etsy shop, temporarily. I'll be listing my kumihimo cuffs there, now through Jan 1, 2013. Hoping to drum up some sales.

Artfire has me rather disillusioned with the entire thing. Monday, I tried listing a new cuff and was having issues with their listing page. As of last night, absolutely no response to my post in their bugs forum. Yet other bug reports were getting responses immediately. That's not cool. So now, I'm no longer listing there and may end up just shutting that shop down.

Zibbet's bringing in views, lots of them, but again, no sales.

Relisted a few items in my Big Cartel shop. That at least is a free shop, but I can only list 5 items there.

Starting to feel like all I'm doing is throwing my money away. My last actual sales on Artfire was in August, before that it was Dec of last year. My last actual sale on Zibbet was also in August, before that it was Oct of 2010. Yeah. Even offline sales have dropped off- last one was in Sept, before that it was July.

Granted they were good sized sales that made up for a good portion of the monthly shop fees, but still, I'm getting tired of not having any extra funds for supplies without having to pull the money from elsewhere.

I guess I'm just feeling really discouraged right now.

It's been in the low 70s to mid 60s during the day and high 30s to low 40s at night for the past few days/nights now.

It rained for 2 days straight- dreary, grey, cold rain. Made me rather glad I found some plastic to cover the volunteer tomatoes with. Also glad I brought in the plants that over winter inside on Friday too. The cats aren't real happy about losing one of their easterly facing windows for plants- well, Max and Aries aren't, Morrigan thinks it's grand because SHE fits in the window sill behind them. That would be the Peace Lily, the Anthurium and the Bay tree. Good thing I have cats not inclined to chew on leaves.

The Curry Plant, which has quadrupled in size since I repotted it, is in the bathroom, where it gets southeast light and a lot more humidity/moisture than it would elsewhere.

The clematis vines are dying back already, trees are putting on their fall colors now- quicker than last week.

A few leaves even fell past one of the kitchen windows earlier.

Meanwhile, my Russian Sage is budding out, the Lavender, Catmint, Chocolate Mint and Rosemary are still growing and I swear the Lemon Balm never stops growing. The transplanted Hollyhocks have new leaves on them, so I think they've gotten mostly established in their new bed for now, thankfully. It also looks like the Wisteria is finally stopping its growing to settle in- there's a few yellow leaves on it, and it's made a lovely nearly green cover over the wood fence now as well.

The feral cats are showing up again- a little black kitty, rather the same size Morrigan was when she showed up 2+ years ago, was in the driveway. No getting near this one though, it ran as soon as we tried talking to it. Either a feral or the resident hawk left a 'present' next to the CR-V for Mark the other morning- a gutted, half eaten rodent carcass was found. Fun times.

In the meantime, I've been busy making cuffs and bracelets and listing them, 5 in the last week or so. Working on a new Bead Soup cuff and have 2 more kumihimo cuffs in the works- they need beading and the clasps put on. So look for a big post containing photos of all those within the next few days or so.

Woke up to a dead monitor. Yeah. Had to swipe Mark's.

So now I'm sitting here, watching Individual Dressage, medal round, in Olympic Equestrian. Beautiful stuff, let me tell ya.

Listed a new set of silk fat quarters yesterday-



7 piece, 2 color run, Bubble Gum to Eggplant. Fat Quarters, 100% habotai silk

Available HERE

Mark actually picked out these colors this time. I think he did a great job. That other silk fat quarter set I listed recently? Has been reserved for a friend who requested 2 more sets just like it. So this afternoon, I'll get those rinsed, photographed and update the listing for her. She said she wanted to make them into an autumn themed quilt. I think it'll be beautiful.

Two weeks until vacation. Not that I"m counting...