Friday Finish!

When I am sick, I like to keep my hands busy, but too lazy to get up and gather supplies or cut out shapes, so I like to work on projects I can just grab and create. Needle felting is one of those. I decided I wanted to try a snowman, so I got my felting box out, which holds my supplies and some rovings, picked out a few more extra colors and I was all set.

I started out at the beginning of the week, but I crashed for a few days, too weak and sore to move much and I didn't think holding a very sharp needle was a good idea;) Yesterday I finished it, and I worked a bit quickly and it didn't come out exactly like I wanted, but it was fun to make and I find that I can work for hours and the time slips away.

The snowman is about 5" tall, all wool roving from various sources. I do not use forms or wires in my pieces. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but no pattern, I tend to work as I go, sort of like sculpting, so it isn't always perfect, since I am learning and it gives me ideas of things I want to do for the next one.

I may be sick and needing rest, but Bean doesn't think so, he still wants to play. He has been pretty good and stopped bugging me so much and then I can save some energy for outdoor play. We have large balls for kicking and some for throwing and we go back and forth in the yard as he chases them. Now the leaves are falling, we can make leaf piles. He basically flies through the air to catch them and we do that till his tongue is hanging to the side, lol. A great way to tire him out without me moving too much. This is Bean after a chase and jumping workout.

Looking for a fun, new idea for making scrap pillows? I love the pillow that Jude Hill made and she has a tutorial on her blog. I am definitely going to try this, maybe a bit differently, but I like the idea of weaving a top and doing prim stitching and maybe some small appliqués on top. Great way to use up those scraps. You can find the tutorial at Spirit Cloth, as well as, beautiful work by Jude. She also has online classes and tutorials.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and a fun Halloween. I am better than I was days ago, so hopefully I can keep fighting this flu on my own now. We have Nicholas for the day, so I am trying to decide something fun that we can all enjoy without tiring me out too much. We still have foliage so maybe a ride to the orchards in Connecticut, since it is the last weekend to get fresh off the tree. One can never have enough apples, lol.

Weekend Wonderings!

Well, I am in a cynical mood tonight, I had fun plans with Nick for the weekend, and on Friday night I got hit with The flu that is going around. I was ok on Saturday, I was sick and weak but used my energy for Nick and Bean and I even fell asleep with Nick when he took a nap.

Bill had to work the weekend so no help there. Today he took the day off, no help there, haha. He did take Bean out for me, that I could  not do, too weak and woozy. And he cooked french fries and hamburgers, not what I really wanted, but I ate it anyways;)

So, Saturday had it's up and downs and fun memories with Nick, Sunday my son pulled a muscle so told me he wasn't dropping him off, even though the fact that I was sicker from pushing it on Saturday, that wasn't part of the equation;)

I am on meds and vitamins and my body is on overload and I cannot stand sitting still all day, so hopefully I can get my energy back tomorrow and work on some new projects.

I was out of apples and I knew I needed them now, so we took Nick to the local orchard. The apples are not that great, a bit small and not as fresh, but still better than the store's.

Nick loved it, he loves apples and walked around saying apple, apple, apple. Grandpa helped him pick his own apple.

He had his own two apples, he was not letting them go. This is a place that you pay by the bag, so we had a full bag and Nick's two, just try and stop us, haha.

Just walking and kicking the leaves, being a boy.

I am not sure if he has ever seen a chicken, but he was laughing and loving their antics. We also spent the day playing with Bean and they are becoming best friends, Bean even put some of his balls in Nick's wagon and he never shares.

Do you like free patterns and looking for a fun gift to make for your dog loving friends? Check out Connecting Threads and sign up for their newsletter. They are offering a free pattern each week and this week, they have a scottie dog placemat. Once you sign up, you can also look through their pattern archive.

Friday (un) Finish!

I want to thank all for the wonderful comments each week, it means a lot to me that you take the time to comment and I appreciate each and every one, even when I cannot answer or forget.

This week I worked on a punch needle that was a design in the winter issue of Primitive Quilts and Projects. The design is by Tonya Robey of Mad Hen Primitives. The original is a hooked rug. I love Tonya's designs and this was a perfect one to punch. My plan is to make it into  pillow for a gift. I am not happy with the kitty face, needs tweaking and I still have to add the border. This just made it into my punch frame so I will have to put it on my rug frame to finish off the edge and border.

I used Dmc threads, 6 strands. The design is done with a higher height and I went down in height for the background, hard to see in a photo. Once I finish it, I will give it a light wash of antique medium to tone down the brighter colors and give it a more worn look.

The face shows up in the photo since it gets lightened, but it is really too dark to show, in person.

This weekend I will have my grandson. Today I went out and got him a play set and some coloring items, so he has his own toys here. I was also looking for things to do with him and found some new free patterns that you might like to do, while I was searching.

Looking for a no sew pumpkin that you can make with the kids? Or for those of us who are lazy, I like this idea, you just need some styrofoam balls and scrap fabrics. You can find the directions at Think Crafts. I think this is a site that I will explore more when I have the time.

At Trish's Crafts, you can find a really fun witch that is quick and easy. It is a pattern that you could change and do in any style and have fun with the materials.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and lots of fun creating and spending time with your family.

Weekend Wanderings!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. We had beautiful weather and were able to get out and enjoy the foliage.

We drove into Connecticut and got off in the town of Putnum. It was a beautiful old town with some beautiful graveyards. I love looking at the old stones but we had a long day ahead, so just enjoyed a short stop to take some photos.

This tree was gorgeous, love how it stood out among the gravestones.

We didn't go too far when I saw this gate to another old graveyard. Someday I would like to go back to this town and take photos of the gravestones and explore the area.

This is the area behind the arch, the trees and fallen leaves, made a stunning view.

It was a nice ride up to Massachusetts, we followed the river and found some great places to kayak and bike, in the future. We went through a lot of old towns with old mills and when we got into Sturbridge, we found an indoor flea market and there was a beautiful waterfall near the parking lot.

I got a beam of light in this photo, it has rainbow colors in it, so I like to think that it is a little bit of heaven, shining down on us.

We do stop a lot and one area we found with a boat launch, had beautiful views and it was a great place to get out with Bean. We also found an area with a dam and a beautiful blue heron, but he flew away before I could get a shot.

The last place we stopped was in the Bigelow forest, they had beautiful trails to walk on and a beautiful pond to paddle on, this will be a place, we come back to. The view is from the picnic area.

Sunday was church and then a drive to do some shopping and a ride along the coastline. The local farm had a new hay sculpture, isn't she fun.

The day ended at Point Judith fishing area. They are still repairing the parking lot from Sandy, but it is larger now, so more parking and the perfect place to relax and enjoy the views. This is a panoramic shot, a fun way to get more of the scenery.

I also wanted to let you know about a beautiful free pattern from Deborah O'Hare of Quilt Routes. Deborah does beautiful art quilts and also sells some of her patterns so you can make your own art quilts. Today she is offering a free pattern by signing up for her newsletter. Her work will inspire you to create your own pieces, so visit her website and you can receive a free pattern, just for signing up.

Friday Finish!

I love to work with wool and when I saw Rebekah's book, and the projects that others were doing, I knew I wanted to have her book. When I saw a blog hop with a giveaway of her book, I had to enter. I couldn't believe I was the lucky winner of her book and even more excited when I saw all of the wonderful projects in it. You can see her book and other wonderful wool patterns at Rebekah's Website. She also sells kits and wool if you want to get the time worn look of her pieces.

I decided to start with the cat pillow and I have finished the top, so far. It will be set on another piece of wool but I wanted to look at it and decide if it is ok, as is or if I should change anything, before I make it into a pillow. What do you think? Of course I changed a few things and used buttons for the eyes. I wish I could get the colors better, I tried using dark and prim hand dyed wools from my stash. I used DMC for the stitching.

Of course the colors do not look right in the photo, the background is a darker brown shade and the spots of blue or yellow are markings I made, so those will get washed out.

I won the book from Doreen of Vermont Harvest Folk Art, who is a wonderful artist in her own right. I love her unique pumpkin men and the pieces she creates. She also has wonderful patterns and PDF patterns so you can buy and start working on it right away.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. I am still trying to decide on a trip for tomorrow, so a new adventure and hopefully more foliage now that a week has gone by.

Weekend Wanderings!

We did a lot this weekend, and now I am tired out, but it is a good tired. Saturday we planned on a ride but got a late start, so we decided to check out the art festival in Scituate. The nice thing is, it is also a craft fair and antique market.

It is a beautiful historic town that is on the Scituate reservoir and we had to cross a strip of land to get across the lake. Beautiful views and pops of color among the trees.

One of the reasons I wanted to go was, I had never heard of the festival until a friend liked one of the artists on Facebook. Of course I had to find and visit her booth and I was not disappointed. This is what was left in her booth on the first day, I guess the morning patrons took half of the things, before we got there. I did treat myself to one doll, see the pumpkin man sitting on the shelf, with the wool pants? He now lives with me and he makes me smile:) You can visit her Facebook page, Folk friends and see photos of her booth before the show.

I also found a rug hooking studio and found out, she is Deanne Fitzpatrick's sister. Sharon and her daughter hook together and have a store in Swansea, Massachusetts, called Loop by Loop Studio.

On Sunday we watched Nick. His dad was working on the house, so we took him to church with us. Our church has a back room for mom's with small children and we sat there, so he could play with the other kids and we could try and concentrate on the service, not easy with a hyper grandchild, lol. I call it a service of joy, since that is what Nick brings to me. After we took him home, the guys worked on the house and Nick and I went for a walk by the river.

Today we got out for our ride in Connecticut. We drove down the back roads to Willimantic. It is an old Mill town and as we crossed the bridge, this is what we were greeted with, frogs on both ends. They are sitting on spools to honor the history of the mills and if you follow this Link, you can see the story of the frogs.

We stopped at the old mills to look at the river. There is a bridge that goes across and it is covered with gardens, a beautiful place to just sit and enjoy the views.

After we saw a bit of the town, we headed up to the lakes. I wanted to see the dam, but we took the wrong road and ended up at the boat launch. By then I was tired and hot and had no brain energy to figure out which way to go to get to the larger falls, so we enjoyed walking bean around the launch area. I would definitely want to come back and paddle here.

The next stop was the Natchaug forest area. There is a pond, hiking trails and a beautiful bike trail in the area, but with Bean, we stick to walking. We just enjoyed the immediate area, and the sound of shotguns in the distance did not instill a sense of safety since this is also a hunting area. It was a nice day to just explore and we enjoyed a lot of beautiful towns and scenery and I did stop at a wonderful old graveyard to get photos and a few churches, they will be future design ideas;)

I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend and try to explore in your own backyard and surrounding areas, you never know what you will find. 

Friday Finish!

This week I wanted to make another fall piece and I got the idea of using my star pattern from Buttermilk Basin with another of her appliqués from another pattern. I reduced the size of the pattern to fit the star. The fabric for the star was some old cotton that I over dyed with grungy browns but it doesn't show up too well in the photo.

It is a fun piece to make and you can see more of Stacy's designs at Buttermilk Basin, she has patterns with Christmas and fall, as well as, wool appliqué and stitchery types on stars. She also has a new free pattern on her Blog.

The American Made Contest is still running and I would love to see Stacy raise her votes. I hope everyone has a nice weekend. Bill has the long weekend off, so we will be doing some exploring, so we shall see where we end up;)

This was a fun piece to make, and great for a shelf sitter. The star looks light but it is actually a grungy brown.

Buttermilk Basin Winner!

Thank you all for supporting Stacy and helping her to reach her goal. You can still help by voting every day, it only takes a few minutes and it would mean so much to her. You can also bookmark her page, so it is easier to reach each day and cast your votes. You can vote for her on the Buttermilk Basin Entry,  you do need to sign in or your votes won't count.

Stacy will also be hosting events with free designs,  this week, so make sure you visit her blog and her Facebook page.

One of the things that Stacy does is, host free BOM's and her newest one is a set of wonderful designs to make into a quilt. I finished this month's block and I love it, I think this would be fun to make into a quilt with different colored jars. You can find the free blocks on her Blog.


I used my atlas jar to do some writing on the jar, and used a light shade to look like the jar, but that didn't work out too well, think I should have just gone with black;)

And now for the winner..... Charlotte, also known as kurt Schindler, number 43. Congratulations Charlotte, please email me with your full name and address and I will pass it along to Stacy. Thank you all for taking the time to stop by and comment and for all of your kind words.

Friday Giveaway: Buttermilk Basin Patterns!

Have you heard about the American Made Contest? Martha Stewart is honoring those who have started their own business with American Made products. One woman who exemplifies this is Stacy West of Buttermilk Basin. 

Stacy grew up in a home with creative inspiration from her grandmother and mother, then when her dad passed away, she turned that passion into a business that has grown over the years. From her simple beginnings of sewing with her mom and selling patterns, to the exposure of online media, Stacy’s patterns are sold in stores nationwide and created by woman in every state. Who better to represent an American Made business than Buttermilk Basin!

If you would like to help Stacy realize her dream of taking a trip to New York to meet Martha and a monetary prize to help build her business, please visit Buttermilk Basin’s Entry, and cast your vote for Stacy. You can vote up to 6 times, but your vote only counts if you are signed in. It is simple to sign up, just your name and email and you can opt for mailings or not. 

Not only does Stacy share her talents with others at events and classes, she shares with all of us online with her generous giveaways and free patterns. You can find Stacy’s free patterns on her website, Buttermilk Basin; keep up with news on her blog, Buttermilk Basin Blog; or stay tuned with daily news on her Facebook Page.

Today Stacy is offering my followers a chance to win three of her fall patterns. Stacy’s designs come with full sized patterns that are easy to trace out onto freezer paper or fusible. In fact, I have never really read the instructions, I just cut out and make and most in a day, so perfect for beginners. Not only does she create wonderful designs each year, but she puts as much care into the patterns, so that we can make them ourselves, without the frustration of confusing instructions or blurry photos.

To enter the giveaway, visit Stacy’s Entry and enjoy reading her story and cast your vote. You can visit her webpage and let me know what pattern is your favorite or tell me something you read about Stacy that inspires you. Help me to help Stacy and make her dream come true.

I will pick a winner from the comments on this post, anyone can enter, open to all visitors, US and our friends Overseas and Canada. The contest is open until 9pm EST, Monday October 5 and I will announce the winner, that night. I have a few no reply commenters and I wish I could reply, I love all of your comments and you can list your email with google, but keep it private from others.