Ready for the 4th

I just finished this shirt for Em yesterday. She begged to wear it before the 4th of July--I'm so glad she likes it. It is a pattern that I came up with on my own. This is the test shirt--using fabric I already had and I love how it came out. I took a shirt of Em's that flared out and used it to get the basic width. I made a paper pattern and tried it against Em. It seemed like it would work, I had to make sure that the armholes didn't gape open and thankfully that wasn't a problem. This success gives me great courage to work out other patterns. The applied star in the center is very reminiscent of a dress that my mom made me when I was little. It was dark blue dotted-white fabric with a large white embroidered star on the chest. The only problem I had was the top tubing that the straps run through. When I sewed the bias tape around the armhole I sewed over the opening of the tubes--oops. I had to fiddle and re-sew that portion.

Pink and Refreshing

Lemonade is one of my very favorite summertime/anytime drink. Um-yum! I found a great idea for making and drinking it here on Wee Folk Art, a really cool site for felt projects galore. I changed the recipe slightly, so here is my version......


Garden Lemonade
1 quart mason jar with lid.
Fill the jar 1/3 of the way up with ice cubes.
Add the juice of one lemon, the squeezed lemon cut-up into pieces, 3 Tablespoons of sugar, and a splash of grape juice (for pink lemonade).
(I like to add back in the pulp from the squeezing process and remember to roll the lemon around on the counter before cutting to squeeze to release more juice--at least I think that's what it does)
Finally, fill the jar up with cold water and shake.
Take to the garden or anywhere.

This is extremely yummy and refreshing.

Easy Peasy

All pitted and packaged. These cherries are all ready for the freezer

 awaiting a cold, frosty day when turning on the oven sounds like a good idea. :-)

This is the whiz-bang gadget that made the pitting so easy. I love it!

Find it here if you are interested. It worked fine on sweet cherries too.

Felt bird

Inspiration found here for this little bird.

The pattern for the bird is in the book, embroidery design is made up in my own little head.

Peaceful & Calm

Lakeside puttsing.

Quilting complete

A couple of pics showing the stitching up close.

One of my favorites--the red dotted square.

And finally the backing fabric, a red mini flower.

I hope everyone had a great weekend.

A trip to the AQS quilt show in Ohio is how I spent Saturday.

We viewed about 400 quilts, yikes,

might have missed a few, jabbered and shopped.....great fun.

Grannies

I just learned to make granny squares. They are such fun to make, soothing and rhythmic. 

Meg taught me on a recent trip and I've been cranking them out. I in turn taught Em and she is now making them.

I've been using my familiar wool palette yarn from KnitPicks in fingering weight.

I am working out an afghan the size of a doll's bed (theme of small size here).

The colors are from the center, Serrano, Petal (discontinued), Sky, and Pool.

I am not planning on washing this afghan much and that is the only drawback in using the wool.

Unless you have Superwash wool yarn you are stuck with cold water, hand-washing.

You can just barely see our tent in the background.

We had it set up in our backyard, tucked into the treeline.

We had a dab of cooler weather and we enjoyed ourselves outside with campfires, s'mores and flashlights.

Not so much with the bugs and cot-sleeping. :-)

Camp Mail

Camp mail to be delivered.

The girls and I have been inspired  for many years by the mail that was delivered in Tasha Tudor's household.

She called it the Sparrow Post and the letters were very, very small.

There is a picture of these wee letters in the book "Tasha Tudor's Heirloom Crafts" on page 143.

Strange Nature

Isn't this a funky seed pod on this jack in the pulpit?

Indian Doll is Done!!

Here is the final doll.

I fiddled with the carpet thread hair and cut all those fringes.

I wet the fringe with water, twisted and pulled so it would dry all wonky.

I really liked working with the chamois leather which I picked up in the auto section at a big box store.

It is normally used to dry cars off when hand washing and drying.

WIP---Indian Doll

Here are the small moccasins that I've made. The beading is tricky...really small and wiggley.

I made pretend teeth out of Fimo clay to decorate the dress.

Here they are without the staining and glossy coating that I've since added.

They are a little creepy. (but that makes me smile)

Lovely Pie Cherries

Picking pie cherries....

Processing pie cherries with cherry pitter. I froze two bags of cherries for next winter. :-)

Cherry crisp! It turned out a bit tart but nothing that a little vanilla ice cream can't fix.

We went back to pick more and found that they had been all picked.

Maybe this next weekend they will have more ripe.

Update--Snow Peas

Yes folks, you see them here---our first few snow peas.

It has been so hot and stuffy here that I'm surprised they have produced blossoms and pods.

Knitting Bag

A cloth bag that I made for Meg for her birthday. I got the information on how to put the zipper in on a tutorial here but I then boxed off the bottom so it would sit nice. I left it soft, with no interfacing because I wanted the bag to squish up in a purse easily.

Stuffed

I got the Indian doll stuffed yesterday and her face, beaded.

Indian Toy Doll

The girls and I have started our annual summer camp activities. This years theme is Native Americans of Ohio. We hope to visit the mound builder's sites, such as Serpent Mound and a few others. Meg and I have started making Indian dolls of chamois and Em has made a beaded leather pouch.

The three books that I am using for the doll project are "Native American Indian Toy Dolls" by Katie Newton, "Dolls & Toys of Native America" by Don & Debra McQuiston, "Rag Dolls and How to Make Them" edited by Dorothea Hall. I mixed patterns for the doll from the Rag Doll book and there is plenty of inspiration in the two Indian doll books for faces, dress decoration and so forth.

Bloom and Grow

We finally have several blossoms on our snow peas. Aren't they a pretty pinky, purple.

Lots of lettuce for dinner. :-)

Lay Your Head

A pair of pillowcases that I just finished. Grand Revival "Kitchen Rose" was the fabric that I used and can be found on sale here, although I didn't get it there. I don't remember where I got it, but the tutorial I used for the pillowcases was found here. The internet is an everlasting joy, a buffet of ideas and I'm just loving the tutorials all over the place. Thank you everyone for sharing!