GWJ Winter Craft Swap

Hey everyone,

I just went thought my inventory of pickled garlic scapes and discovered my wife had given away more than I thought. I have 7 jars left for the exchange, 5 regular and 2 jars with a hot pepper to spice up the pickle solution. I also have an abundance of home grow garlic between myself and my friend. We grow 15 different varieties.

5 = 1 jar garlic scapes + a couple bulbs of garlic
2 = 1 jar garlic scapes (hot pepper) + a couple bulbs of garlic
As many as needed = 3-4 varieties of garlic

Let me know which of the three options you would like above and I will make sure I ship them when we are all ready. Sorry for the change.

And I'd love to try your pickles, Bonnonon -- sounds yummy. If you have enough to share, I'd be glad to make you a hat.

Thank you for including me, a hat would be awesome. Let me know which you would prefer from the list above.

This is such a great idea, you guys inspired me to learn a new craft. I just recently began making Tagua nut necklaces (not the fancy carved ones, the beads).

The nuts came from other necklaces purchased from Greater Good. The necklaces I bought as Christmas gifts turned out to be just massive and I wanted to create simpler pieces, so I disassembled them and rebuilt. I spent Christmas Eve practicing and made one for each of my nephews. They really liked them. I made a more girly version for myself. I have enough nuts left over to make many more necklaces!

I'm perfecting my style, and want to be in on the spring swap for sure!

The more the merrier SillyRabbit!
Bonnonon I am happy with any of the choices

All the crafts are done!!

So, I need some addresses to send things out. Is that Google doc up, Clover - or are we all PMing each other for addresses and such?

Hamburger A... back in a jiffy with the deets.

I will be hitting my studio hard this weekend to catch up making the shinies!

Bononon, any of the jars of garlic scapes sound delicious.

I've finished up all my projects (except for about 20 minutes work sewing in some ends). I'm going to wash everything, which should get rid of any stray cat hairs that have wandered into the mix, take some photos, and then I'll be ready to package everything up and send it away.

I won't share the photos here on GWJ until everyone has gotten their package, but I do want to share the big pile of knits on the "something you've made" thread.

Cards are done. Awaiting addresses to being delivery.

Ok, everyone should have gotten a PM with me that has the gDoc link in it. Now we can all stalk each other!

If you're done, awesome. If you're not so done, it's cool. It would be good to have them all in the mail by, like, the 19th? After that it's up to gods and/or Canada Post.

Woo! The 19th is much more possible for me. I had wondrous plans of setting up my studio this weekend and it turned into catching up on sleep and rest instead. I should be much more productive in the next week.

Also, a heads up that the US postal rate is going up on January 27, so check your postage if you end up mailing after that! (I hear that Canada Post's rate went up on the first.)

Hurrah! I'll go to the post office tomorrow for packaging supplies and mail them the following day.

Thanks for heading up the GoogleDoc spreadsheet thingy, Clover.

Thank you to Mimble and Clover for the organizing. Can't wait to see all the crafts and happy GWJers!

Crafty stuff is in the mail!

It should arrive in roughly two weeks - it's coming by ground post as air was ridiculously expensive.

If anyone doesn't receive their crafty thing within four weeks, let me know and I'll make and send another.

The snails have been loaded and have begun their journey.

Can't say I've shipped anything, but my studio is unpacked and I'm getting ready to start my projects! Goal: have them ready to ship by/before 1/19.

IMAGE(https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/481155_4485321205249_130656373_n.jpg)

Mimble wrote:

Crafty stuff is in the mail!

It should arrive in roughly two weeks - it's coming by ground post as air was ridiculously expensive.

If anyone doesn't receive their crafty thing within four weeks, let me know and I'll make and send another.

You underestimate the speed of Canada Post (or the US Postal Service). Mine arrived today!

I will be packing up my gifts tonight, and sending them out tomorrow.

edit: Packed & waiting for labels
IMAGE(http://imageshack.us/a/img341/561/imageevr.jpg)

Katy wrote:
Mimble wrote:

Crafty stuff is in the mail!

It should arrive in roughly two weeks - it's coming by ground post as air was ridiculously expensive.

If anyone doesn't receive their crafty thing within four weeks, let me know and I'll make and send another.

You underestimate the speed of Canada Post (or the US Postal Service). Mine arrived today!

Yay!!! I hope you liked it and that it arrived undamaged/unmauled by the postmen!

I have received goodies from Mimble & Kiri! I love them both. The towel and cloth look great in my kitchen Mimble, perfect color choices. Kiri those cards are adorable! I'm looking forward to finding excuses to use them.

My shinies were delayed first by my move, and now by the fact I can't find a critical tool that I *know* I packed! Sigh. Luckily a friend has most of the tool required so I hopefully will be able to complete them by the weekend. Spoiler, I get to use my torch! I love playing with fire.

I am waiting for all goods to arrive and will post a pic of them. Mimble, I received the Towel and hit pad. They are perfect! Thank you

Yellek wrote:

I love playing with fire. :)

IMAGE(http://rps.net/QS/Images/Smilies/scared.gif)

I received my dice bag and it is gorgeous. It's the perfect shade of purple and I love the random sparkly bits that were added to it.

Unfortunately, I've been under the weather all week. As soon as I'm better, I'll be heading to the post office.

Hurrah!! I'm really glad the teatowel/dishcloth and dice bags are arriving and making people happy!

Seriously, big goofy grin on my face right now because fellow Goodgers are happy.

This makes my day awesome.

My dice bag, cards and toque arrived. Oh thats right, I forgot to mention I am Canadian, but I had you all ship to my US pick-up location. (Sorry to the one Canadian who had to ship to the US. I meant to contact you).

I shipped the items out, I needed extra time to figure out how to safely ship them. I packaged all the items and upon arriving at the border going into the US realized the border guards hate when you pre-wrap packages. Luckily for me the border guard asked where I was going, did not let me finish my sentence and waved me through... I was shocked.

For those of you who were wondering, shipping to Canada or the States Can be expensive. For example $6.50 for state side shipping for WA to WA or CA, but from Canada to WA or CA it costs $28.50... Needless to say I crossed the border, bought me cheap gas, an ice cream cone (half the cost as Canada and double the amount), shipped the items, picked up your lovley gifts and returned home.

Garlic scapes come from the stem at the top of the plant and are widley used/eaten in Asia. The scape has to be cut off at the right time to transfer the energy from reproduction to the bulb. For every 2 long stems in the jar it represents one plant of garlic that I grow. I wrapped all the garlic jars. It is a mystery which of you will get one of the two with a hot pepper in it. So far I have opened three jars with the peppers and one was mild and two were just right, of course the longer you leave the garlic scapes in the jar the hotter it will get and if you want it to get hotter you can always break the pepper in half and add it back to the jar.

P.S Incuding the one jar jar of garlic scapes, I also packaged at least one bulb of "Asian Tempst" garlic and some even have 4.

Asiatic garlics typically have about eight cloves per bulb in a circular configuration around a central scape. They're generally large bulbs with fat cloves. The bulb wrappers are firm, tight and vivid with broad, bold purple stripes merging into areas of solid purple. A very strongly colored garlic. The clove covers are silky and a lovely golden tan with a rosy aura and tiny pink veins. It is one of the very first cultivars planted in the fall and the first harvested in the spring around here.

Asian Tempest is an early harvesting hot, strong weakly-bolting Asiatic garlic at a time when nobody else has any. That's reason enough to grow it right there. If you grow it in conjunction with longer storing garlics, you can have good garlic year around.

Asian Tempest came from South Korea and when you first bite into a clove suddenly your entire mouth seems to explode in flames, your face turns red and you break out in an instant heavy sweat. The fire rages hotter and hotter for about 30 to 45 seconds and you begin to wonder what to do about it, then it begins to gently dissipate and is almost gone at the end of one minute leaving you to discover the rich earthy garlickness hiding behind the heat. It took 30 to 45 minutes for the hair on the back of my neck to dry-just from a half of a clove.

I no longer wonder where fire breathing dragons come from in Asian folklore - they're ordinary people who have eaten too much of these fiery garlics.

I'm sure Bonnonon will share a picture, but I made him a hat (er, toque) of twisty little passages, all alike:
IMAGE(http://images4-b.ravelrycache.com/uploads/KayTeeEm/141063299/gwj11_medium.jpg)

I've already put the towel/hot pad to good use, and got the nifty cards in the mail yesterday. We are looking forward to the garlic!

This all looks so awesome. I'll be sending stuff out tomorrow. I hope you all enjoy them.

Katy wrote:

I'm sure Bonnonon will share a picture, but I made him a hat (er, toque) of twisty little passages, all alike:
IMAGE(awesome amazing hat picture)

I've already put the towel/hot pad to good use, and got the nifty cards in the mail yesterday. We are looking forward to the garlic!

Thank you. I am pretty excited to start wearing the hat. My wife is jealous. What would be the best method to wash the hat? I have an alergic reaction to 'sizing’ in clothing, most fabrics and have to wash everything before wearing it. sink? Hang dry?

momgamer wrote:

This all looks so awesome. I'll be sending stuff out tomorrow. I hope you all enjoy them.

I am excited and am sure to enjoy.

This was an awesome idea, and I look forward to doing it a again. I think I need to come up with a more light weight option for craft swapping however.

That one uses acrylic yarn, you should be able to wash it on gentle and put it in the dryer as long as it's not too hot. Hand wash in the sink, squeeze out the water with a towel and dry flat would also be fine. I did give it a good rinse/dry flat cycle before I mailed it out, too. I would probably not hang to dry, as it might stretch -- but hats are pretty forgiving.

Katy, I received your lovely gloves yesterday and already put them to good use today for our SNOWMAGGEDONOMG that turned out to be just a light dusting of snow. They fit and are cute and comfy and let me still use my iDevices while wearing them.

I got some conductive thread at the craft store -- I am planning to try my hand at gloves with fingers that can be used with iDevices.

These are the Yellek gloves. I didn't fix the color on the picture -- in real life they are black, not navy:
IMAGE(http://images4-b.ravelrycache.com/uploads/KayTeeEm/141063930/IMG_1598_medium2.JPG)