Flowery Bag

This makes me happy! A beautiful fabric made into a lovely bag. The materials to make this bag all came tucked into the Cath Kidston book "Sew". It is a pretty book with lots of projects, from simple to a little harder. Chief reason for purchase was to get my hands on the material. It is a wonderful heavy duck cotton. Love the bluey-gray background and the rosy pink flowers.

I changed the pattern a wee bit to add a lining of my own material-the green with white dots. The instructions for another bag in the book had some of the instructions for adding a lining, but in changing the handles of the bag I needed to work some of it out on my own. As you can see that some of the handle ended up showing inside the bag. It worked out tho.

Here is an end of the purse showing how the handle is attached. The original pattern has the handle attached with a button on each side. I sewed the handle down in the midst of laying in the upper rim lining.
One of the best tips in the book was to use matching thread for the topstitching. I would have used white but I like the matching thread so much better.

Cheery Checks

Slowly making some gingham curtains for the front bedroom. I am stitching on some white cross-stitches in a little pattern near the bottom.  

Red Riding Hood and her Wolfie

Here she is! Red and her pal Wolfie are all set to venture off through the woods to Grannies. Red started out as a pattern from Handmade Awards . I had a little trouble with the pattern as written. I hate when that happens. I think it was supposed to be made on double-pointed needles in the round but it never said so. I started making the body on two dpn, flat and when the instructions started getting confusing on the limbs I just made up my own pattern to make it come out the way I wanted. The dress is almost all my own pattern except for the zigzaging decorations. I made at least three dress fronts before I got it working out to my liking. I made the dress quite a bit longer and under the apron it gathers gently at the yoke.

Here is Red's pal Wolfie. In the pattern he is supposed to be a puppet, very cute idea, but I wanted a full-bodied wolf so I ad-libbed. Just added on at the back and changed the legs and tail to suit me. Devilish white teeth out of worsted weight. All the rest of the project is of fingering weight, Palette Yarn, from KnitPicks.

For Red's shoes, I used a pattern for a totally different doll, Tilly Twirl, by Amanda Jones, found in a Simply Knitting magazine's booklet from the Spring issue. I made up the shoes using a smaller set of needles and they fit Red. Yeah!

Finally, the food loaded up in the basket for Grannie. I used Handmade Award's pattern for the apple and roughly the basket but figured out my own patterns for the cheese wheel and bread. :-)

Fun Yet?

Sorry, I haven't posted much lately. We are busy, busy, busy.
Openings in roofs don't do well in rain storms--duh! Right? Well we had some water come in during the storms that roared through Ohio and on to New York. J was up on the roof pulling on more plastic in the middle of the first storm. No tornados right here though, thankfully. :-)
Tomorrow, I hope to get a photo up of the latest finished knitting.

Coincidence?

We are in the midst of fixing some things on our house this summer. Can you see here in this photo taken of an area where some of the siding was removed. These two painted letters, J & S represent my husband's and my own first initials. Isn't that just too funny! I don't know when these were put there. We just bought the house in January and we have felt so at home, right from the start. So it must be some kind of "fate" or something. :-) I don't know, but it is fun! 

Stash

In the Garden

Projects Stacking Up

The pile of projects grows and wobbles as I contemplate yet another knit up. I love the Mary, Mary Quite Contrary Mouse with her wee watering can in this project booklet found in the August copy of UK's Simply Knitting magazine. I want to pick the Alan Dart gingerbread cottage back up to finish for holiday decorating, but I also want to finish the hood for the little knit doll that I worked on up in Michigan. I've made some mistake in the knitting and am now laborously picking it back a few rows. All this knitting and I'm not even mentioning the fabric that is crying out to be quilted. Do you want to see some pictures? Wait a day or so and I'll post some photos. :-)

Cool Braiding

Been fooling around here with braids. Em got a kit for her birthday recently (she's ten now!) to make friendship bracelets. I thought I'd seen them somewhere before and googled Japanese braiding. Lo and behold there is a braiding technique called Kumihimo (which means plaiting string).

Here is an example of a flat braid made with the square foam loom. There is one main kind of loom for the rounded braids (called a Marudai--it is made of wood traditionally), A loom for large intricate flat braids is called a Takadai. It is a related technique but with a woven aspect.

Here is one of the patterns for a rounded braid, a kind of flower or dot. The pattern is marked out on one of Em's looms. The kit that Em got came with 4 dense foam looms (2 round, 2 square). The kit is from ALEX and included embroidery floss and beads (which can be added to some of the braids).

The ALEX kit is an easy entry to the world of Kumihimo and my girls and I have enjoyed it tremendously. We are waiting to borrow a book by Roderick Owen "Braids: 250 from Japan, Peru and Beyond". A couple other books we have from the library don't talk about using the foam boards at all but concentrate on the Japanese traditional Marudai or Takadai. The traditional patterns for the Marudai can work on the foam boards as well. There are other foam boards available called Kumilooms which can come with bobbins to help with long threads (which are easily tangled while working the braid) and also two from Beadsmith (many people make elegant necklaces from silk string). 

Beautiful and Hot

When it's hot and humid an early morning walk on the beach is just the thing. By the time the sun broke over the horizon it was already time to walk back to our beach house. We got back from a week at the beaches of North Carolina last night. Our vacation was fun but I'm glad to get home. It is the comfortable couch, stretching out on a familar mattress, and picking all the green beans and tomatoes that were waiting for us. "There's no place like home, there's no place like home"

Dolly Knit

I made a good start on the little knitted dolly while we were at the beach.

Here is the dolly all made up but a bit naked! Eeeck!

I love her little brown eyes and can't decide whether or not to put a mouth on her. She reminds me of a Joan Walsh Anglund doll.

Beach Stones

I was strolling along looking at the pebbles on the shores of Lake Michigan and see what I found! :-) I  loved the matryoshka shape of some of the stones and I just helped it along a little. I was going to leave a few of these matroystones on the beach but in the end I couldn't leave any--I loved them all too much. I brought a bunch of blanks back home to doodle on.

Doll Clothes Pattern

I found this pattern for doll clothes at an antique mall up in Michigan. It seems complete for an 18" doll. It was printed in 1966. I love the coat and hat and the the little red dress.

Wonderfully Silent--mostly

Just the lapping of waves on shore and splashing about in the water. (and a few speedboats buzzing past with crazy people roped to the back ends) :-)

Sunset over Lake Michigan--a beautiful sight. I got a t-shirt that says "Lake Michigan No Salt, No Sharks, No Worries" Gotta love it!! :-)

Funky picture with the flash going off but the moon was really that color orange--it was cool. It looked a whole lot bigger that night.

Beachy Keen

We are heading out for some beach walking, relaxing and a bit of rock-hunting.
One project I am taking is a knit Little Red Riding Hood doll from a pattern I purchased from Hand Made Awards. The doll comes with a pattern for a wolf puppet and a basket of food. Too cute. The other patterns are cute, too. I am still working on the Alan Dart Gingerbread House...it is slow going...the candy-canes are a pain...the pattern is not hard but it requires carefully watching each stitch. Not my idea of relaxing beach knitting. :-)
Have a great week.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Penelope's Bedroom

This is just a goofy little sketch on a 3x5 card I made last night. She looks like a Penelope to me. :-)

Peter Hunt Inspiration

Look at this unique little desk. I found the pictures at an auction site online. The desk had sold but the pictures are inspirational. This desk is the work of the artist Peter Hunt or one of his helpers. Information about him can be found here and here (click on the link at bottom "Peter Hunt by Andy Jones" for a pull down article).

Sort of trompe l' oiel letters on the writing surface. The painting style is folk art, Peter Hunt called it peasant style painting. Peter Hunt's painted furniture was very popular in the 30's and 40's, selling at Macy's and Gimbel's department stores and commands high prices now as well.

I love all the hearts along the side and the hearts at the knees on the man's knickers.

Above are two pages from "Peter Hunt's How To Do It" book. I found a copy by chance at a library book sale a couple of years ago. I had never even heard of him before that.

Produce

Look what we are having for dinner. :-) Our first beans are ripe, we are still getting snow peas and just beginning to see the tomatoes. Yum! I made applesauce today, that I am freezing for winter--1/2 bushel of Transparents. I'm a little sick of seeing apples at the moment but we are having some of the sauce for dinner with the veges.
Yeah for summer!!

Walking

I am in awe at how easy a sewing machine attachment makes this sewing project a breeze. 

I was so frustrated with the top-stitching on the other pillowcases I made just recently. My 19 year old Singer would feed thru at different rates and pucker up the stitching around the top where there are several layers.

In my machine's instruction booklet I read about an attachment called a walking foot and thought it might help but I'd never heard of them. I sure didn't figure I'd be able to find one after all this time. Well, what a surprise when I found a box of Singer attachments at an antiques shop's clearance area.

Oh, lovely day, for five bucks I became the proud owner of this box of gems.

I didn't even know for sure that all the attachments would fit but they looked right so I brought them home.

Here is my magical walking foot. Such a simple gadget. It makes the feed dog and all behave and work together. Not a pucker in sight. All frustrations gone--now that was a splendid find, wouldn't you say? Happy Day!

Cupcakes

Small flagged cakes.

Happy 4th!!!

Hope everyone has a great 4th!

We had our fireworks last night and the parade on Monday.

So it is a picnic tomorrow with cupcakes!

Happy Birthday America! :-)