Friday Finish!

 Another week zipped by too fast. I spent most of it, decorating the house. I have a mix of prim and fun around the house. One thing I wanted to try was a rag garland. I looked up ideas and found one that I could base mine on. You can find it at Ikorn crafts.

I used up the scraps and smaller pieces to make it, and used a red twine to tie them onto. I was going to put it on the banister, but it was too thin, so I used it on top of my curtain rod.

And I decorated with what I had in the basement, and there is more that I had no room for. 

I found a new place for my Grandmother's quilt.

And some of my nativity collection with a bit of cats mixed in.

And a few trees. This year I decided to put up my cat collection. I could only do so many and I have a lot of larger ones, that don't fit on the skinny tree. I have quilts hanging on the banister and decorations in the kitchen, so it is fun for the boys when they visit.

I hope you are all enjoying the holiday. I am finishing up my cheater quilt and next is getting my cards done. After that I will work on my other quilt, even if I can't finish it in time. 

Twelve Days of Christmas: My Day!

I hope you have been following the Twelve Days of Christmas, each day there is a new tutorial or free pattern that you can make, just in time for Christmas. Thank you to Wendy for hosting the hop and all of the ladies who are participating. You can follow along each day by clicking on the banner.

I love to work with wool and I know most of you, love wool as well. I also love doing pieces with inspirational words and I think Joy is one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy my project and make one for yourselves to remember to keep Joy in your hearts, each and every day, this season.

I have given instructions, if anything seems confusing or you have a question, you can email me, anytime. The bells are about 5" long, but you can make them any size by enlarging or reducing the design.

This is  closer photo of the bells, the garland goes across my windows, with more bells and ties.

Have fun with the pattern, instructions are a guideline of how I made mine, but you can change it to suit your likes.

Instructions:

Materials:

Wool

floss

red berries (Beads, buttons or french knot.)

Rusty bell

2” styrofoam ball.

Red and green homespun 1/4” strips

Jute

Clothespins

Bells:

Cut out 3 bells, 3 bell backs, letters, candle, 2 leaves. Sew on the appliques with a blanket stitch.

Attach berries

Sew back and front with a blanket stitch, starting at the bottom and when you come around to the end, attach the bell with the same thread.

Balls:

Cut strips from the green homespun and wrap them around the styrofoam ball, until it is covered. Take a red piece and wrap it around the ball, twist around at the bottom and come around the opposite side, tie into a tight bow, leaving a few inches of the tail, to hang from the clothespin. 

You can buy pre-stained clothespins or soak them in walnut ink to age them. You can also have fun and paint them in christmas colors.

To make the garland, take a piece of homespun and a piece of jute and twist them together. Add  red ties if you like to fill in the spaces, and you can add larger rusty bells, as well. The length depends on how much you add to your garland and the size of your window, or area that you hang from.

Pattern Pieces:

Another fun thing to do for Christmas is baking treats that everyone will love. I have made these for years, they are great for parties and your guests who come to visit. They melt in your mouth and I haven't met anyone who didn't love them.

I hope you enjoyed visiting today and don't forget to follow along each day.

Friday Finish!

This week I worked on some more punch needle stockings so I would have six, in total. I did two in crazy quilt pattern, which look more like stained glass. Two were, hit and miss stripes and the last two I did in the traditional red and white stripe, ticking pattern.

I took a piece of jute and wound a piece of red  homespun around that and tied it to my curtain rod. I used mini wooden clothes pins that I stained with walnut. They seem a bit bare all by themselves so I added a piece of homespun in between them. I think I like the idea of making the ropes with homespun ties and some with bells and other items, then I can hang stockings or mittens from them. Lots of possibilities and it will be fun experimenting.

This is a closer look at the new ones, that I made this week. I aged them all with walnut ink, so they have a nice grungy look. I think the hit and miss stripes is my favorite. This is a great way to use up those scraps. The stockings are about 6 1/2" long and 1 1/2" wide.

I was going through old photos, trying to find some Christmas photos, when the kids were young and found this photo. I had forgotten all about these. I made them in the 80's and sold them to my friends. We lived in a townhouse complex, so I had lots of customers for my hand made items. I just wish I knew where I got the pattern from, I think a box of old magazines got thrown out by accident since i cannot find the ones with my wood nativities in them. Would love to make these again, so if you happen to stumble onto it, in one of your old magazines, would love to have the pattern again.

Not the best photo, I should have scanned it in at a higher resolution and maybe clean my scanner glass;)

Weekend Wanderings!

Yesterday was a cold day and we got snow and rain, so it was a good day to go shopping. I found a new store that I wanted to check out and had fun walking around the rooms, at least three times. The store is called Carol's Country Corner and she carries primitive and country goods. You could walk around a second time and see things you missed the first time, so a fun activity for a rainy day. There were a lot of wonderful prims and some antiques and I took some photos, but most came out bad or blurry. This was one of my favorite displays, wouldn't this set up, be fun in a corner of the house.

Here are some of the goodies I got, the sheep and the spool candle will go with a sewing display, that I will be doing in my sewing room. Bill bought the tin candle and striped candle, he had to have it, lol. He is worse than I am, he went so far as to pull that garland off a tree, since it was the last one. He said he liked it, think I should leave him in the car, next time;)

Today was beautiful, a bit cloudy at times and a bit of drizzle, but the rain stayed away and it was a lot warmer. We wanted to check out the area at Point Judith, where there is the lighthouse and fishing area with the breakers. This is what we found at the fishing area. The area was deteriorating from some recent storms and hurricane Sandy did a lot more damage. This is the parking lot now, before it went to the sign, way in the back of the photo. Half of the old parking area, is gone.

We also went to Black Rock. The high cliffs were fine, but as we walked, we realized all the bush was gone. Then we went onto the beach and saw why, the storm came up and ripped away at the land and took half of it, back into the sea and left more piles of rocks on the beach and the pathways.

There was a lot of damage further up and areas where the path got taken down, but it is still a beautiful place to walk and enjoy the views. I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.