Scrap Challenge completed!

I participated in the Scrap Challenge hosted by JCasa Handmade. We each sent in a scarp of fabric and got 10 smaller scraps back with which to create something and post to the flickr group. Here is what I made:

Just kidding! Those would be some crazy big earrings! They are two brooches made using this tutorial. (Except I hot glued mine into the backing instead of sewing it. I hate hand sewing!!)

You can see all the other participants' challenge pieces that have bee posted so far here at the flickr group.

Pup Pal of the week!

oooo, i am sooo sad, i think i will cry (says rani macaw) (3 of 3)
Originally uploaded by sansanparrots

This lovely fluffy Corgi girl is Kali corgi (with her pal Rani macaw). Doesn't she have the prettiest face? She is also quite talented in agility and has a blog of her very own! And Sully is very honored to be her featured Pup Pal of the Week this week! Thank you Kali corgi (and owner SanSan), we love your blog and are extremely honored to be your Pup Pal any day of any week!

Enough talk!

Enough talking about it, finally here it is! My new pattern for fall, the Black Forest Scoodie!

It's a super-warm double-layer fleece scarf-hood combo! Perfect for those with gnome fantasies or a secret elf personality. The scarf wraps around to keep out the chill and the pointy hood can be worn pointed up or flopped down! Just like when the Pillowcase Pinnie was introduced, you can buy it at the special introductory rate (save 50 cents!) and of course there's no shipping charge for a PDF pattern! Love that!

Tell me what you think!

Friday Flea Market

I used to love to look at Holly Doodle's Flea Market posts where she would post her recent finds up for sale! She now just puts those items in her shop but still fun to go look around. So I've decided to try out participating in the Friday Flea Market! I have a couple of collections of things I have been meaning to sell so each Friday for the next couple of weeks will have a theme. If you're interested in anything shown below, email or leave a comment.
Today's theme is:
Vintage Doll Clothes
I think these would be really fun hanging up on a clothesline with little clothes pegs in a kid's room or a crafty studio area! Or I have also seen some really neat arrangements of framed doll clothes. These are all well-played-with and most have stains, rips, missing buttons and such, which happens when you love your dolls enough to change their clothes for every meal! I purchased these from an older woman who had just moved into town after living in the country all her life. They are mostly handmade with a few commercial pieces. All have been washed and stored in a smoke-free home.

*SOLD* The white collection includes a white dress with lace, a pink dress with lace, ruffly pink bonnet, flannel diaper and one lone flannel mitten. (The tiny thumb gets me every time, it's so darn cute!)

The Mary collection includes a pink and blue print dress (very cute little girls and lambs print), a long white dress, a short white dress with lace and hand-embroidered blue flowers and a white bonnet with lace edging. $8 plus shipping

The pink collection includes a pink puff-sleeved dress and lace collar, purple ruffly bonnet, too-cute flannel jacket/shirt, large pink bonnet and store-bought tie-on long sleeve shirt. $9

And to keep the baby dolls warm at night, we have two blankets!

Do you know what this is? It's a Esmond Bunny Blanket. In a book given out free to children by Esmond Mills, a bunny looses his coat of hair and mommy bunny gets him a blanket from Esmond Mills to keep him warm. The book contains the line “Tell your mother that if she would like to find blankets just as cozy as Bunny’s, all she needs to do is to insist on Esmonds.” This blanket measures 12" x 10". $11 plus shiping

This crazy patch quilt is WORN with love. The piecing is all done by hand, binding by machine. Some patches are dientegrating, the faded backing is a charming large polka dot print, besides the decorative stitches around each patch there is embroidery in a couple of places (a nice butterfly for example), most stitching is visible on the backing as well. I would say this is most likely a child's first quilt. $14 plus shipping

To visit all the other participants this week, click here.


And if you've got a My Friend doll who would love some vintage outfits that fit her to a T, I have two etsy listings for super-cute outfits complete with accessories!

Strawberry Shortcake

and Pancake Breakfast

Caution-Halloween in progress

This month I have slowly been putting out more and more Halloween. I'm taking it slow, letting things develop as I go. And I want to spread out my posts about the Halloween decorations this month as well. So here are some in-progress shots to whet your appetite.
This cat is a cutie from Mom. She had a booth at craft fairs for a while, selling paintings and wooden things that Dad had cut out and she painted. This cat is too sweet!

Another cutie, this bat was a Target find last year. Isn't his little smile cute?

Here is the front porch in progress. It consists of branches (painted black) in planters behind the bench and strewn with cobwebs, pumpkins and gourds, my skeleton wreath and a light-up spiderweb on the window. I have more to add too! Can you see my two big helpers in the doorway?

And here are more of those pumpkins and gourds, this time on the dining table. They aren't arranged the way I want yet, some will stay here and some will go on the buffet. These are all from my garden, from seeds I have saved over the years. I love gourds!

I submitted this post to Tip Junkie's Talk to me Tuesday. I love that blog!

Wind-Fall

I visited my parents Sunday. They still live on the farm where I grew up, and on the next farm live my sister and her family. I love the farm and I love my parents. My mom is such a kind person and dad is such a codger! I was glad I made it out there before noon so I got to see him (home for lunch). Do farm people ever really retire? Not when there's grain to haul!

While we sat on the porch, watching the afternoon go by (there were no hummingbirds to keep us on our toes, they've all flown south) I realized a striking difference between my family and Mike's family. A large part of what I like about visiting my family is that we are all comfortable with silence. Just to be together in one place is enough, no one needs to keep up a conversation. You can get lost in your own thoughts while enjoying the company around you getting lost in their own. Don't get me wrong, I love Mike's family. A girl could do SO much worse when it comes to in-laws. But sometimes the chattering gets to be too much for me and I wish I could turn the volume down.

Visiting the farm in the fall means going home with lots of treats! Mom, Sully and I ran around the whole place on the (new, shiny) golf cart picking apples, peppers, herbs to dry and a special fall treat: hazelnuts! Yum, I'm looking forward to making some homemade hazelnut-filled chocolate goodies!

Above are husked nuts, ready to be taken from their shells and roasted quickly in the oven. Below are what they look like in their husks.

Mom also gave me two jars of her rhubarb jam! Delicious! And I had asked a week or so ago if she still had a picture I remember her hanging up every Halloween because I wanted to make a copy to hang myself! She did the mom thing and gave me the original. And a companion print to go along with it! This picture always hung in our entry hall an I remember being scared by it until I was old enough (and tall enough) to see the lady at her dressing table and understand the title "All is vanity."


Next time I'm out at the farm I'll have to take some pictures. The apple tree nearest the milking shed (where we kept chickens and the mules) was SO full of apples and against the white pealing paint of the barn it was quite striking. Also, the "big" barn (think classic barn shape but white, not red) might not be there much longer. Mom is corresponding with someone who buys old barns, takes them apart and relocates them, turning them into houses for (I'm sure) extremely wealthy people. But here's what made me feel wealthy last night:

Some of those apples became skillet apples which I ate over ice cream!

Free motion quilting

Here it is, my very first attempt at machine quilting. No, it's certainly not even throughout but I kind of like it, it's very childlike, like crayon scribbles on a piece of paper. Hopefully the recipient will like it and it was great to get my feet wet and experiment! The next one will be one for me. Or maybe the one after the next one, I do still have one more Linus quilt to finish.

Now available!

In the store now, Yo-settes for Halloween. And soon I'll have some for Christmas and some for everyday that are customizable with your initial!

Swap news and more swap news!

Hooray, I made it into one of Club Little House's juried spots this round! This is doubly good because I couldn't possibly purchase a spot on Friday when they went on sale-I was in the dog show ring! So it was either juried or nothing for me. Now to get to work on my little masterpieces!

In other swap news, I have organized a Swap-Bot swap for pressed pennies. If you like those hand-cranked souvenir squiches pennies then join me! We'll be sending 2 partners each one penny. I squished mine while we were up north! The picture is of some of my pennies in my "Penny Passport" which is a plastic binder made specifically for keeping pressed pennies.

In ever MORE swap news, sign up for the winter round of Lucy's Sassy Apron Swap before Monday and get your name in the drawing to win a copy of my Pillowcase Pinnie Pattern!

Too early?

Ok, so I had the Halloween boxes out of the garage on September 15! Is that too early?

What can I say, I get excited! We do up Halloween big at work, decorating the library and hosting a trick-or-treating party for employees and their kids with hot cider, apples and caramel dip and apple cider doughnuts! And I get to help decorate since my office is IN the library! This year I started gathering ideas early for quick, simple things that would also have a big impact. I've learned that small, cutesy things get lost in a public space. You need to make a statement if you want your decorations to really say "Halloween!" And I've tried to adopt this rule to my home as well, though I do still break out some smaller cutesy things.

One of my first decorations up this year is a new wreath! Inspired by the Hallo-Wreath Challenge, I whipped this one up yesterday. In the past, my wreaths were usually a grapevine wreath with cutesy ghosts, candy corn and some spider webs. I am going for a more spooky/decrepit/haunted look this year so this one is made with branches from our Hawthorne tree (VERY thorny), a dollar store plastic skeleton and a string of orange lights.

It hangs above the mailbox by the front door and is my first outdoor decoration for ANY holiday at the new house! (Well, besides the American flag on flag holidays.) It will be joined by some super-spooky large-scale decorations on the front porch including a giant plastic-bag spider, lots of pumpkins (grown in the backyard) and more of those thorny branches! Pictures later this month.