More Christmas Things.

More Crafty Things

I am not really spending all that much time on Pinterest, but there sure are some nice ideas to be found.

Our advent wreath this year and an 'ice lantern' made with salt. Greenery as usual from the back yard.

A Bit of Seasonal Crafting

As usual the holidays are sneaking up on me, time just goes by so fast this time of the year. I wanted a new wreath for the back door and saw something on Pinterest (where else?) that I liked and decided to give it a try.
The wreath is store bought, the twigs and the holly are from my garden, the ivy is fake. Del and I split the work and I like the result a lot.

Handmade Gifts

I only managed to make one Christmas card, but I did get the presents finished that I had planned for this year.

BOO!

My little stitchery is all finished. I used some leftover cotton yarn to wind around the frame. The pattern is from last year's designer of the month series on the Aurifil blog. You can find it and all the others HERE.

Happy Imbolc/St. Brigid's Day/Candlemas/Groundhog Day

Whatever you observe or celebrate this weekend eat, drink and be merry.

We will have an Irish themed lunch in honor of St. Brigid on Saturday and if the groundhog predicts 6 more weeks of Winter it will be groundhog stew on Sunday. Nah, just kidding, it will actually be Charleston Shrimp and Grits. I think there are not enough holidays in the US calendar and life is too short to miss an occasion for feasting and merry making therefore we decided to celebrate all kinds of holidays this year. And so this weekend we celebrate than the return of light and the beginning of the agricultural year. And don't forget to do a rain dance for Saturday. ;-)

I made an Imbolc candle and a St. Brigid's Cross.

UFO Whacking - The Pictures

Jackie, you asked for it, here is what I have found. These are the projects I am planning on working on and - hopefully - finishing before the year is over. I could not fit them all on one photo so I divided them into categories, knitting, sewing and quilting and hand stitching. After I took the photos I realized that I forgot to add two to the sewing projects, so there are 10 knitting projects, 12 sewing/quilting projects and 6 hand stitching projects. As you can see I am an excellent starter of things, but I do lack a bit in the finishing department. ;-)

UFO Whacking

The ongoing and planned projects are growing like weeds around here and it is time to start some serious weed project whacking. I will be gathering them this weekend to see how bad it really is and starting Monday I will work on finishing them. Some of them are meant to become gifts and there is a kind of deadline for finishing them so they will probably be the first ones to get worked on. A lot of them require hand sewing and stitching and it is finally getting cool enough to do so. I just need to tear myself away from the computer long enough to accomplish something. Wish me luck! :-)

A Crafty Morning

I spent some time this morning making gift tags and wrapping presents. The letters on the tags are courtesy of Martha Stewart and they are printed on colored paper that is more than 17 years old and well traveled. I bought it to print the program leaflets for our wedding.

Ornament Swap

I received my ornaments yesterday and they are all so pretty and creative, love them. My tree will look great this year. Thank you ladies!

Christmas Projects

Well, here they are, all materials and patterns are gathered, now all that needs to be done is - well, everything else. ;) These are the projects for my handmade Christmas, both for the house and for gifts, the only thing not planned yet are the cards. I better get to work, time is flying, I can't believe August is almost over already.

A Bit of Crafting

I finally got these little ornaments done. When I saw them on Corinne's blog I liked them so much that I wanted to make myself some too. Pattern and tutorial can be found here. I found the 3" hoops on Ebay after I could not find any around here, the smallest ones that HobbyLobby carries are 4". For some reason the fusible web did not work well on one of the fabrics, no idea why.

Something New

One of my goals for 2010 was to learn a new craft. I would really like to learn how to weave but until I can afford a loom I am getting started on spinning instead. I treated myself to a starter kit with drop spindle and some fiber and can't wait to try it out.

Another UFO

While I was searching for something today I came across this abandoned project.

I cannot remember where the pattern came from or when I started it but I decided that today is a good day to finish it.

BTW, I never found what I was looking for.

More Stitching

This is a piece of embroidery I have done many moons ago and I finally found a use for it - a birthday card for a friend.

Christmas Cards

A bit late this year but my Christmas Mojo ran off with the circus. ;-)

Catching Up

I caught Del's cold and it knocked me out good. First it visited my sinuses making my head feel like it is going to explode, then it settled in my chest, stayed there for two weeks and some bits and pieces of it are still there, I have a lingering nasty cough.
So instead of doing all the usual things I spent the last two weeks with a lot of reading, a little bit of knitting (Del's birthday present) and very little housework and cooking.
Del is on vacation this week and we plan to get the garden cleaned up and I need to catch up on laundry (provided it won't be raining again).
I got everything ready for the church bazaar on Saturday, we will be setting up on Friday and then go in early on Saturday because Del will be helping with the pancake breakfast. I missed church for 4 weeks in a row (first Del was sick, then me and we are not in the habit of sharing our germs with everybody) and I really miss it.

Here are a few pictures I took recently.

Summer's last hurrah.

Fall colors.

A sleeping cat (Mr. Scarface) in my garden.

A birthday card for my mother.

And Miss Kitty helping me make it.

Rainy Day Project

Step one of bringing new colors into the living room is done.

Before:

After:

Boxes from Ikea, perfect for holding all kind of stuff (or in our case CDs), three sheets of scrap booking paper and some glue.

And some more fresh radishes.

New Colors

I spent a lot of time in our living room this week, knitting, and I decided that it could do with some new colors. A trip to the craft store was in order and now I am working on a few projects. Stay tuned for the outcome. :)

A little Fall crafting

Well, the church yard sale was postponed due to iffy weather. We did get some rain and wind from Hanna, but it was not too bad in our area and we do need the rain. Since we did all our grocery shopping last night we were free to do whatever we wanted today. After a nice breakfast of pancakes with coconut and chocolate chips with fresh peaches, Del washed the dishes and then we headed off to our various projects. He worked on his model railroad and I decided to do some Fall crafting.

Remember the little doll that is sitting on my mantel? I bought him many years ago at an international craft fair and I think he is from what was then Czechoslovakia. His blue frock fits nicely in with my mostly blue living room.


Today I made him a new frock in Fall colors so I can keep him on the mantel with the other Fall decorations. I was searching high and low for a bit of lace I know I have somewhere that would have looked cute around the neckline but so far I have not found it.

And then I made a leaf garland for the kitchen. A bag of artificial leaves from the Dollar Store, inspiration from here, a couple of minutes at the sewing machine and I got this.

Now I am off to play in the kitchen, I want to try out something with tomatoes and cheese and buttermilk, I will post the result later (if it works out).