and just like that....

                                                I've found my way back to my blog.

I enjoyed the foggy morning 

Not that much has changed in my little red hen house. I built a stone wall around the side and back and put a stone patio in the front of the house. The wiggly willow is a large twig/cutting that is just buried in the dirt.

Still some tweaking needed...

Have a lovely day

Cottage in Red

Here she is.....in all her red and white glory!

Now, we have the fun of figuring out how to landscape the outside 

and oh my, the inside has been much discussed!

What color should the walls be, what should we put in the cottage???

The sheer delight!!!  :-)

Summer scarf

Here is the scarf I was talking about just finishing.

The pattern is located on Ravelry HERE as well as if you search Ravelry for Ete Chic!

I couldn't resist taking a picture with a jean jacket like the author of the pattern did.

It is why I made the scarf in the first place, it looks great with the jacket. :-)

The lacy edging was tricky for me at first but I wrote it down on a separate piece of paper in a larger print and this seemed to help me. I could see it! Imagine....

After a while I got the hang of it and it moved right along.

Bohemia

Didn't Meg do a good job spinning up my fiber?

I love how it barber-poled.

I am thinking of knitting a scarf in linen stitch soon.

I named this colorway Bohemia.

I have wonderful memories of visiting Prague and environs.

The regional folk costumes of Bohemia are very brightly colored 

with heavily embroidered flowers of all colors.

Kind of like this fiber. :-)

I just finished a scarf that was a free pattern from Pinterest/Ravelry.

I will share a picture soon of this scarf.

So much lovely wool in a hot week at this end of August.

I am clearly thinking of cooler weather. :-)

For the Love of Little Houses

I am over the MOON!!!

We have a little house in our back yard!

10 x 14 feet of wonderfulness.

We are all full of plans for the inside and the outside.

So much fun!

It gets a coat of paint in a couple of weeks....stay tuned to see what color! :-)

Flowers & Dots

A little project bag that I made for Meg.

A bag to keep a knitting project from getting tangled.

I had to make it with dots--I love dots!  :-)

Dyed in the Wool

Meg and I finally did it! 

We had been talking about it all spring and summer, maybe longer and we had collected up all the supplies needed to dye wool roving. 

We used Jaquard dyes, watched youtube videos and used a library book to try to figure out how to do it. 

I was exhausted the day we did it, there was so much to figure out. 

We had this soaking wet noodle of 4 oz. of wool fiber, trying to wrap it up in plastic wrap, with dye oozing out and mixing where we didn't want it to mix. Then trying to steam it in a water bath in the oven, unwrapping it when it was too hot to touch. 

We finally got it all stretched out in the sun to dry and I thought mine was too washed out. I had left too much water in it before I added dye. (you have to soak the fiber first) I still felt like that the next day, so I re-dyed the fiber. Meg was pretty sure I was going to felt it from all the handling and water baths, but I thought, well, than I will use the felted roving for another project. 

I am very happy to report however that it appears that I did not felt the fiber. 

Now, I have to wait for Meg to spin it up for me. Lucky I am that Meg has discovered a previously unknown talent for spinning--she is a whiz at it!!! She got a spinning wheel last fall and is a dab hand at spinning. I tried it and thought I had grown at least two more thumbs, I was so very clumsy. It is kind of like rubbing your tummy, patting your head and spinning at the same time.

Anyway.....

What will make I with this when it becomes yarn. 

OOOOOooooo I can hardly wait to see it!! 

Medieval Summer

Every summer, the girls and I have tried to have a project to work on. This year we decided to put on a Medieval Fest for the family. When the day came we set up in part of our back yard with tents, tables and fire. Emily was in charge of archery and hair. I made dresses for both the girls and myself and an execution's hood for J. Meg knit and spun. We had a ton of fun getting ready for it, though the girls dresses were *yikes* fitted. We made soap, bound notebooks and wrote with a nibbed pen and walnut ink.

I learned how to card weave, also known as tablet weaving. I made a loom from scrap lumber and used playing cards to hold the threads in a pattern. 

I didn't take any pictures that day, I wish I had because I made itty-bitty pies and we grilled sausages over the fire. We even had a trader's fair, where we had some of the things we had made. The few pictures we have at least include one of our plague victims that came. :-)

June.......

A little catch-up again...

We vacationed in northern Michigan in late June and even if it was a little warmer than usual up there we enjoyed getting away. The beach is a rock-strewn one near the Pt. Betsie lighthouse. 

It was kind of foggy on this early morning.

We liked Charlevoix where there are stone houses that were built by Earl Young. 

The curving roofs and huge rounded stones are an inspiration.

The knitting is a warm cowl for winter. I think the yarn is Jojoland. I love the barber-poling I am using the leftovers to make finger-less mitts. More details are on my Ravelry page soon. But you can probably figure out that my "soon" won't be very timely. It will get on there, tho!

It's a.......

Little boy beaver!

That is what the Mystery Knit-a-Long turned out to be.

The head was the most difficult part--getting the eyes, 

ears, nose and mouth parts all in a good place. 

Here is the beaver's tail. 

Pretty clever pattern--staying in pattern with increases and decreases.

Now he is off to dam something up.

See ya soon!

Brambly Catalog

My post about the Country Mouse/City Mouse brought about a comment about Jill Barklem and her Brambly Hedge stories. This reminded me about a little project I got up to in January.

I thought that the inhabitants of Brambly Hedge needed a catalog in which to order their goods. 

I started sketching up some pages for the catalog. 

So who wants to go shopping? :-)

Stuffie Surprise Knit-a-long

So far, so good!

I am participating in a knit-a-long over at Barbara Prime's Fuzzy Mitten.

Every Friday we get an update to the pattern with more pieces to the final product. 

What do you think it is going to be? 

It has a long head--but it is rounder than the picture shows.

I have left it unstuffed so far.

I am waiting for the final picture to aid me with any necessary shaping.

There are at least three other patterns for the design on the sweater.

I used KnitPicks, Wool of the Andes, worsted in Almond for the body.

It is various KnitPicks palette yarn in fingering weight for the sweater.

Country Mouse or City Mouse?

This is an illustration from a book published by Platt & Munk called 

"Folk Tales Children Love" edited by Watty Piper.

This story is the classic City Mouse and Country Mouse.

It is a shame that the illustrator is not named. 

Does anyone know who drew this?

These mice look like rats to me..... 

These, of course,are illustrations by the incomparable Richard Scarry for the same story.

I would love a house in a tree, wouldn't you?

I ought to do a post just on illustrations of houses in trees that have fascinated me since childhood.

I am impatiently waiting for spring, which is taking a long time to show up.

Fairy tales help to lift my sagging winter spirits. :-)

Happy Easter Time

Easter is so early this year and we have had a chilly spring break.

Yesterday we cleaned and re-arranged Em's room--yikes, the dust bunnies!

Em has a bird feeder right outside her window 

and the birds kept us company as we gathered three bags of trash and giveaway. 

I moved our dining room table as well, under a window, just to get it into a different spot. 

Somehow that room--really just an extension off the living room has never been right.

It is a thruway and is hardly ever used, dismal ambiance.

Now we have a better view from the windows and more room.

I put out some knitted eggs in a dish for Easter.

I made them from leftover sock yarns with a couple of different patterns from the net.

Knitted Vest for Maggie

Here is Maggie again. :-)

Alicia Paulson has pinned her to a Pinterest board showing 

some of the fabulous Maggies that have been completed from her pattern and kit. 

The little vest I made up for her is not a very complicated pattern. 

The link for it is HERE.

Please let me know if you have any problems with it and enjoy!

Maggie's Done!

Well, here she is!!

I finished the kit for Maggie Rabbit from Alicia Paulson.

I am so pleased with how she turned out and the kit was a breeze to follow.

I made the knitted shawl that came with the kit 

and was inspired to design and make up a wee vest for her as well.

I can hardly wait to see the patterns for clothes that Alicia comes up with. 

Maggie Rabbit!!!!!!

Oh, sweet day!

The cutest rabbit pattern I ordered from

Alicia Paulson of Posie Gets Cozy

is here!!!

I was so lucky to go to her site early enough last Friday to order.

 She sold out of all the kits in less than a day.

(she is going to restock) 

The kit I ordered has Liberty fabric in the Claire Auld pattern.

Yummy!

And like a geeky groupie I'll be keeping the personally signed thank you card.

I can hardly wait to see the other clothing patterns that she comes up with for her 

Maggie Rabbit.

Chaos

When we moved into our house 3 years ago some of the wiring was a bit sketchy.

We have just finished getting it properly fixed.

 Even though things are still messy, everything still pushed around and disorganized, the workmen are gone.

It was horrible having the work go on while everyone in the house had a nasty cold, 

drilling and loud banging doesn't mix with a head cold very well.

We got to adios the shop lights we had down there. I was so happy to see these go away.

When I get my little art area back in order

 I will share pictures of the drop lights I now have over my workbench.

There is still work to do down there in the basement 

but it such a good feeling to have it safe.