winter projects

Amy, I love the new color on our opening page....and we need color during the dreary days of winter.   I have started a colorful project...and in fact it is all over the kitchen table...I took a photo and tried to post it here but nothing happened..and I suspect I need a bit of adjustment....when I took my computer in for repair there are a few things that are not right and this is one of them...but the guy did fix the problem..just created a few more......at any rate, I am painting......have 20-5ft. stakes with a  rounded pointy end, all over the table...yesterday I cleaned them with a wire brush and primed a few of them...today I have painted 5 of them like colored pencils and they are so cute...they will be put together with a piece of wood to create some trellises for our spring plant sale.....of course in the meantime we cannot eat breakfast or dinner there...is a mess...I need a heated workshop

Wool Rug

I have started a warp on the warping board to use some of the rug wool that I have in my stash. I am hoping that I can use a linen warp for the rugs. I didn't have any wool that I thought would work for the warp, only the weft, so I am trying the linen. The only thing I am concerned about is that the linen is "hairy". Although I haven't used 100% linen before, I know that it is difficult to use. That it needs to have even tension. So even though the linen is very strong, I am not sure that I will be successful using it. Time will tell!

I scanned some of the linen. You can see the how
hairy it is-wish me luck

Amy

Empty Boxes

I know that Diana got a giant frog but did any of you get an empty box? My husband received two empty boxes from our oldest son. On the side of the box is a website, www.lifeboxcompany.com. If you read the website you will realize that the boxes only appear to be empty. The directions on the side said that we should tear, soak, chill, peel, cover and water and our box will come to life. A project to do with our grandsons this spring.
Amy

Christmas rarities

sure you are all stuffed with goodies, tired from frivolities and playing with your new toys....I received so many of them from favorite books to good smelling stuff.....and perhaps that is close to what you received too....but I bet none of you got a frog like me....this guy is so heavy and is huge...about a foot and a half long and a foot high and wide......and he will be so at home on my deck this next summer....and I had to share him with you today.....he was a gift from my husband's daughter who always finds the 'bestest' gifts for me and I love it of course...

A Little Present

These are a couple of Asian dolls that I got at a
yard sale. I love them. They appear to be vintage, but
I am unsure how old they are. The have some stains but such
character.

This little doll was made by Diana and was
a Christmas gift a few years ago. Her clothing is
made of felt with yarn hair and a little heart mouth.

This one was made for my daughter when she
got her job. It was made by a woman that
I worked with about 25 years ago. My daughter
thought she was a little creepy, I thoughts she was
great, so she is at my house.

I am sure you have seen the commercials about getting a new car for Christmas with a beautiful red bow on the top and the commercials about getting diamonds, "He went to Jareds!" Well I haven't got any of those things but I do have a really big cold. I haven't had a cold in years, but now that the Christmas season is here I feel like just sleeping. So not much weaving going on here, I am almost finished with the warp of bibs, but I am unhappy with the selvedges. So I thought I would show you my small collection of dolls.
Amy

Wait these aren't dolls, these are my grandsons. 

Amy forgot something

It was great to see all that loot that Amy displayed but she forgot to mention the beautiful weavings that she    has created for us.    I received that beautiful set of blue napkins but there is a problem.   She wove that great washcloth and her hubby made the soap, then she gave me that sweet dishtowel and now the napkins...but I  can't use them....never washed my face, wiped a dish and now am I expected to wipe my greasy lips with those napkins?......how did those folks a hundred years ago use their things they wove?.....they are just too wonderful and heirlooms to me...We did enjoy a wonderful lunch and gift exchange and I am so lucky to have sisters with such talent.  Thank you to both of them.

Christmas cards

Amy already mentioned the cards I made that have a packet of hot chocolate inside but I thought I'd show another picture. I found the idea on line but failed to note where. Sorry about that. Anyway, they are made from a piece of 12x12 scrapbooking paper that is heavier than the just printed paper kind and are cut approximately 4-1/4" wide by 11"long and are scored at 5" and 10". These measurements are approximate so if yours is a 1/4" larger, that's okay. Fold  paper on the folds, decorate the front however you'd like, stick a pack of Swiss Miss up under the 1" folded end, punch 2 holes (use a 1/8" or 1/4" punch) about 1" apart and about 1/4" down from the fold through the front, the hot chocolate mix and the back of the card. Thread a ribbon (about 12" to 14" long) through from the back, tie on a jingle bell and tie ribbon into a bow. Fold the front up and tuck it under the top so it looks like a matchbook. I liked making these so much that I made 30 of them!

Goodies

I know some of these pictures

should have been rotated, but 

I hope you can see them without

rotation.

This is a paper mache snowman on a box-made
by my sister, Gail. Isn't he cute?

This picture is of the pillow, made by my sister, Diana.
She does a beautiful job on her counted cross
stitch. This also shows a star made by our friend and some
towels she gave me.

This is a little blurry and should be the other way, but it was
made by Gail and if you lift the flap, it has a package
of hot chocolate inside, too cute.

Gail also gave me this purse made our of a Little
Golden Book, she bought it and if you want
to make one yourself, you would need a
heavy duty sewing machine.

Diana gave me a very old doll, she appears to have legs made
of oilcloth. I will have to show my other dolls that I have
I don't really collect dolls, but I do have a few of them.

Yesterday, my sisters, a friend and I went to lunch. We usually try to meet at least once a month for lunch and in December we exchange some gifts and get a gift box ready for our sister that lives in another city.  I know she always reads this blog, so she should be on the look out for her box. Hopefully it will get there before her birthday and it can be a birthday/Christmas box. I got a lot of goodies and I took a few pictures of them.

I made this runner to go from our side door
to our kitchen. This is the door that we use
the most and we are always tracking things in-after
I put the rug down, I spilled a large pepsi on it and
then I had to wash it and a threw it into the dryer.
It came out a little smaller but really stayed
together well.

This is the start of my first bib, I am a little off on the
tension, I may cut this one off and tie on again.

I also finished my run of rag rugs and have started on some bibs.
Amy

Love Christmas

don't you?...love Christmas that is.....cookies, and festivities, music too......when we were kids we thought we had the best Christmas, but looking back it was really not much, but our Mom made it feel that way...there was always new colors, and coloring books, jumpropes, candy and oranges, and new doll clothes she made for our dolls...we were in Christmas Heaven.   One of the things our Mom always gave us was a new book for Christmas and it is one of the things I miss from her...I would save that book till the hustle and bustle settled down and then I would settle down with that book....My daughter has taken her place and always buys me a book to read.   So I am in the midst of doing for Christmas just like all the rest of you...isn't it fun........oh and the photo?...the Santa is my favorite of course because he is a gardening one given to me by my good friend Dawna years ago...and the sheep is a gift from just last year, felted by my friend Patsy...isn't it cute?     Gail I love that advent banner and think it would be a great seller to others.

advent calendar

I made an advent calendar for one of my granddaughters. I found it posted at www.skiptomylou.org/2011/11/24/fabric-gift-tag-advent-calendar-turtorial  This person used red clothespins to pin each pocket to the jumbo rick rack but I couldn't find my clothespins so I just sewed all the pockets onto the rick rack, then I filled the pockets with little trinkets like buttons, shells, thread, labels, and a few dollars. I originally bought candy to go into the pockets but we somehow ate it all before I got the calendar made. Imagine that!?:

 And a close up pic.

I used bingo numbers on each pocket. Gail

a practice post

Hurray!!!!   I can put a photo on...had the high speed guy come today and now will have to learn a few things but loving it already.....Amy glad you changed the opening with the colored weaving...beautiful...and been loving all your posts on here.....now I can join you....and the photo?...is of a part of a little collection I have....they are pin cushions and believe they are called around the world but not sure about that...the green one on the right was our Moms...rest were found at thrift stores and the tiny one with just one guy 'around the world' was a gift from Gail....

another card

I made this card last week but didn't get it posted until now. I'm not sure if the little guy is an alien from outer space or a robot but I'm pretending that he arrived in the space craft. The stamps all came from the same stamp set but can't remember who the manufacturer is. The silver piece on the left side is a piece of sticky back duct tape that I put through an embossing folder in my Cuttlebug. This is the type of tape that people use to tape around their duct work to keep it from leaking, not the fiber type of Duct Tape that people are using to make wallets, etc. with. I found the flowers in my stash  The black one is leather and the silver one is a corregated cardboard. There is a plastic cog attached to the center of the flower with a black brad. It's a little hard to see. The little guy and spaceship were colored with Copics markers and there are some black sticky back gems on the spaceship and under the word "world."

Santa ornament class

 Yesterday five wonderful women came to my house (Gail's) for a Santa ornament class. The ornament is shown below and it is about 6" in diameter. I copied some ideas from the net so you may have seen something like it already. The tree sprigs, center bow and Santa are stamps from Flourishes. We used Copics markers to color the Santa and bow. They were stamped with Memento black ink and the sprigs were stamped with Memories Hunter Green Ink. We used red liner tape, Tacky glue, Score tape and glue sticks in the construction. All the circles were cut from Spellbinder's Nestabilities and the Cuttlebug and attached with pop dots. The fluted circle is composed of two 3"x12" pieces of cardstock that I scored on Martha Stewart's Score Board and then they were accordion folded, stuck together end to end and then flattened into a fluted circle. The class only took 1-1/2 hour and everyone enjoyed it. 

I'm having issues with being able to write captions for the pictures so will just have to say that in the last picture you will see (left to right) my daughter Laurie, Amy, me (Gail), Charlotte, Mary and Diana.

Here are Diana and Amy working away with Laurie behind Amy.

Ornament Exchange

This first ornament is made from can tabs laced together with ribbon.
The second wreath is made from buttons.

Some years we have had a project to work on
at the exchange. This year we made trees
with cardboard cones from the craft store
and cardstock. We cut and layered the paper.
This would be a good project to do with kids

For the last 30 years, a group of us have been exchanging ornaments. We usually get together before Christmas and have a little dinner and exchange our ornaments. The last few years we have been choosing a theme. One year we did a country and we brought ornaments that would be part of that countries' tradition. Another year we did era of time, we had everything from a caveman suit (with a bone) to poodle skirts. This year we had to make an ornament from recycled or from material that you already had in your home. We make about 13-15 ornaments which are all the same and then pass around our ornaments for others to take one. One of the ladies that we trade with was a baby at the first ornament exchange, sitting in her infant seat!

 The top ornament was made by my sister, Diana. She took
a wooden spool, covered it with sheet music and put a wire through it
with beads. The second one was made by a friend's daughter.
She took a small bottle and put small beads in it and charms on the outside.
The envelope is the one that I made. It has my woven trees up
in the corner.

The snowman is felt on a medal can lid. The little Raggedy Ann was
made from small fabric scraps. The little house is made from Christmas
cards. The bird was made by my sister, Gail. It is a little fabric scrap with a
vintage yo-yo and is estampad with "brrr"

Weaving surprise

This is what I thought they would look like,
straight tabby.

Instead this is what they turned out like-I love the texture.

I spent yesterday doing some sewing on edges of things that my husband and I have woven. He had made some dish towels using some rug warp and cotton yarn. He was only doing tabby, so I wasn't so sure how they would be as dish towels. Boy was I in for a surprise when I washed them. I thought I would just get a straight tabby look but they became very full and have a V shaped pattern! I have no idea where that came from-I told my husband that we should use that combination again because they really made nice towels, who knew! I also put hems in some of my handwovens. So I put 6 towels in the Christmas box from Sam and 2 small towels and 1 dishtowel of mine in the box. Sam also had enough warp for a washcloth, dishcloth and a dish towel for us.  So now the only thing left of our handwovens are the place mats that Sam made. I am avoiding them because I hate putting on bias binding. And I couldn't find any that I thought was the right size at the fabric store, so I bought some fabric to make them, another thing I hate to do, make bias binding.
Amy

musings

I simply cannot post photos and this is the week I see about some high speed...what am I waiting for...have also decided to buy me something for Chrismtas...I am pretty cheap with myself....but going to do it, but not sure just what....do I want a laptop, a 'pad', a smart phone, a reader.....not sure yet...so will have to do some thinking and studying to decide...but first things first...and that is the high speed so I can put a photo on here...a good one would have been the barn owl that was in our spruce tree yesterday...right out the window from the computer.....beautiful and been years since I saw one so close...it sat there for about 45 minutes....was our entertainment for the day....................I have been staying busy working on Christmas gifts and today will be real busy when kids all come for birthday beans...chilli beans that is....we have 5 birthdays in our family over this weekend....I am baking brownies and some apple crisp this morning for dessert and will take a trip to the store for some ice cream.    I love my sister's posts on here and wish mine had a bit of color.....but just wait...

Photo

I was looking at the placemat picture that I put on the blog yesterday and it appears to be orange. Actually it is green and white. My camera seems to be giving everything that tint. Not pretty. Today we had snow, not a super a lot of it but enough that my husband had to shovel and the neighbor kids were having a lot of fun in it. Today I started to warp my Gilmore to make some overshot bibs. It isn't a long warp and shouldn't take me very long. I am also on my 4th and last rug on my Hammett. I will move from the Hammett to the Gilmore. Yesterday I tried to do some baskets with my four year old grandson and decided that he wasn't ready for that-I'll try it when he gets a little older.
Amy

Placemats

Placemats-waiting to be cut

I am on the computer when I should be upstairs cleaning for Thanksgiving. We are planning to have all our children and grandchildren here for the day. Hopefully the pass will be okay for my son from Seattle to make it home. Another thing that I should be doing is cutting apart some placemats that my husband wove. He wasn't happy with the results but I think that they will be okay. I need to cut, wash and  put some bias binding around the edges. It is from a pattern in an old Handwoven magazine. When I looked at the draft, it didn't appear to be the same as the picture in the magazine but I suggested to just make it according to the draft and to not worry if the pattern is a little different. What my husband did not like was that the design will be under the plate instead of along the side. If we ever make this pattern again, we will have to make some adjustments.
Amy

More Quilted Things

These are a couple of my favorite things. The heart was made by my sister, Gail. and the quilt was made by my Grandmother. How does that red heart look against the orange wall?  My grandmother made quilts for all her grandchildren and hand quilted them. Her quilt hangs in my weaving room.

Amy

Yesterday

Yesterday I had to take my IMac back to the store because I did a very stupid thing. I was going to put my camera memory card into the slot that is on the side of the IMac. However I wasn't paying attention to where I was putting it and I put it into the cd slot. Then it just disappeared into the machine. I tried to force it out but it was no go-when I went to the store the clerk took a piece of paper and folded in half and slipped it in the cd player and just flipped the card out. The good news is that he didn't charge me for my stupidity. I would have hated to pay for such an easy fix. He said it is just one of those things that you learn to do with an IMac. I suggested that they should have put the two different slots on opposite sides. So now
I have my memory card back and I wanted to show a couple of things that my sister, Gail has made for me.

Sorry this picture is a little blurry-this is a wall hanging
that is 24 inches square

This wall hanging is only about 12 inches square-these pieces are very
small-this was done with paper piecing-Gail does a beautiful job. 

My sister, Diana has suggested that with 10 boxes of jeans, I may be starting to collect too many things just like our mother, actually that ship has already sailed.
Amy

Jeans

I was reading Craigslist and someone locally had offered 10 boxes of denim jean legs. She had used the other part of the pants for some project and had the legs left. Did I mentioned that they were free! So today my husband and I went to her house and brought those boxes home. We had the trunk full, the back seat full and I was holding a box on my lap. We got them home and now I will have to get with it and make some denim rugs. I have so much material to make rugs that I will have to get with it, but this weekend I have to finish my 15 ornaments for our ornament exchange that will be on the day after Thanksgiving.
Amy

Weaving stuff

I received my new temple and it is working very well. I am just making a random rug of different types of blue fabric. I am trying to use up some fabric strips that I received from e-bay. I just finished paying for some more wool yarn on e-bay, hopefully I will be able to use it for some rugs. Today I also finished washing and ironing my last warp of napkins, they don't look too bad. I am thinking ahead to putting a scarf warp on the Gilmore. My husband has been doing some weaving, I have some towels that he made that I need to sew the edges and now he is thinking about doing a placemat warp on the 24 inch table loom.
On another note, we went to the Sons of Norway annual dinner on Saturday. It is the first time I have ever gone, even tho they have been doing it for 31 years. It is the first time I have ever tasted lutefisk. I really wasn't very impressed with it, not much flavor,  even after I smothered it with butter.
I am reading "Skeleton Lake" by Mike Doogan. It is a library book but I am enjoying it so much that I ordered another book by the same author on www.paperbackswap.com.

My rug about 1/2 way done and my new temple.

My napkins after I ironed them-can you see the mistake?

The End

Amy

problems posting

seems I can write something on here but I would love to attach a photo and yet my computer doesn't want me to....think it is just this dial up but yet it is even worse than that.....love seeing all of my sister's entries though, Gail with her wonderful cards and Amy with her beautiful weaving.   I also have been playing with a craft item...a new Cricut given to me when I retired.   I hadn't used it till this week because I wanted a personal teacher and my daughter in law came and gave me a lesson...she was paid with dinner.  Kim has come and played with it too so it is sitting out on the table for all of us to use.  Now the rest of the world has probably been playing with and using them for years but I am just now doing so.   It sort of reminds me that I have never done what is popular at the time.   I am still waiting to wear one of those starched petticoats they wore in the 1950s.....

Rug warp again

I thought by this time I would have at least one rug done, but I experienced more problems with this rug warp. My first mistake was using a 12 dent reed. I decided to use 8 ends per inch, so I warped the reed, 2 ends, skip one dent and 2 ends. Just as I was ready to weave the rug and after having everything tied etc, I noticed that I had skipped more than one dent in one place, so I corrected that mistake by resleying  half of the reed. I got everything ready again and discovered that I had a thread missing from one heddle (no idea where it went), so I resleyed the other half of the reed and tied on again.  But of course I had skipped 2 dents instead of 1 and of course it was in the middle.  So I left it for now and will try to correct it tomorrow. I have two temples, one of them is too short for this warp and the other is too long, so I had to order another temple from Webs www.yarn.com.  Maybe by the time it arrives I will be ready to use it!
Amy

Rug warp

I spent some time today and put on a rug warp on the Hammett. Of course I had some trouble with the warp, I wonder if I will ever be able to put on a warp without any problems? Is that possible? I love the way the Hammett has a back beam that comes off and the back roller and it  allows me to put a small stool inside the loom, in order to thread the heddles. I would never be able to thread without this because it would just be too far to reach. On the Gilmore the back beam pivots up and allows me to thread, but it isn't as deep as the Hammett. For the weft I am going to be using some cotton that I bought on E-bay. It is already cut, I think it was material that was used for sheets and these are the unused ends. Hopefully I will have some of it woven by tomorrow.

I just take a couple of pins off and this just lifts off, easy
to take off and replace.

This is showing my little stool that I use when
I thread the heddles, it was another find
at a thrift shop.

Amy

Finished Warp

This is my second try to publish this post. I tried yesterday and when I went to add a picture, it said that there was an error. I purchased a new IMac and I have been using a pc, so even tho I used Mac's when I was working, I haven't used one for 7 years.  Change is hard! I finally got my warp off of my Gilmore. I looked back in the blog to where I talked about getting the warp on  and it took we over a month to get one warp off! I really need to speed up my weaving. I have been working on the Hammett and I am hopeful that I will get started on some rag rugs soon. I hope to do some scarves on the Gilmore for my next warp. I have to cut the napkins that I finished and hem and wash them before they are actually done.  Today in the mail I got one of Gail's cute Halloween cards, thank you Gail.

My fabric just off the loom, what a stack!

Amy

Every Day Cards for Kids

Here are the last three cards I've made recently, all for kids:

Yes, these are a few of my favorite things that kids would like, too. This is all one stamp stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored with Copics. It is mounted on foam tape and the other pieces are attached with my Scotch Advanced Tape Glider (ATG) which is what I use mostly for adhesieve. The ribbon is tied to the left side to finish the card.

As I said before, cats are one of my fav things. So here are two cats playing with each other in a First Impressions stamp. They are colored with Copics and colored pencils, mounted on foam tape with CAT stickers stuck up above.

This is the last card for today. The bike is stamped and die cut from a Sizzix/Hero Arts Framibilites  and stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink. The grass and banner are die cut from Taylored Expressions. The ribbon is 1/4" wide checked grosgrain tied in a bow. The little "road trip" stamp company is unknown. The white corregated card behind the bike is from a light bulb package and distressed with Walnut Stain Distress Ink by Tim Holtz for Ranger.

Birthday cards

Gail here again. I have two granddaughters who have birthdays this month so here are the cards I'm sending:

The image and phrase are both on one rubber stamp but I don't know who made the stamp. The green lacy border is by a Martha Stewart all-around punch set. The image is colored with Copics and is stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink. The ribbon is a silky feeling one with wired sides.

Here is a big 6" square card with a lacy border from a Martha Stewart all-around punch set. The center image is applied with foam tape to make it stand out. It is one stamp that is stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and the green border is sticky back paper ribbon.

Halloween

Gail here.  I've been busy making Halloween cards.  Here they are, hope you like a long post.

The pumpkins, phrase and  the word, "tricks" are all rubber stamps that I've purchased over the years. The wonky square papers were cut with Spellbinder's Nestabilities on the Cuttle Bug. The arrow is from Sizzix/Hero Arts die/rubber stamps combination called Framabilities. the leaf is a wooden piece and the buttons I've had a long time, probably from JoAnn's.  I can't tell you the maker of the papers, cardstocks.

Edgar Allen Poe, don't you just love him? Especially at Halloween time. There are many rubber stamped images on this card, including Edgar. The birds are all various stamps as are the two haunted houses with the bats flying around, the phrase, too is a stamp. The feather is one I made with aluminum foil, tag board and black distress ink by Tim Holtz for Ranger. I don't know if you can see it, but the raven on the feather has a red eye with some Plaid Royal Coat Dimensional Magic on it so it pops out a little. The grass was cut with a die from The Cat's Pajamas.

 This is a dark card, kinda hard to photograph. The houses are from a die by Tim Holtz for Ranger. The words, "Trick or Treat" and the Pumpkins with a cat on the left side are rubber stamps. I don't know the manufacturer. The three black spots above the houses are brads with a slight shine on them. The words are cut out with a die from another Framabilities set from Sizzix/Hero Arts.

I'm not really into witches unless they are as cute as this one. The rubber stamps are: the web, the spider, the witch and the words, all stamped in Memento tuxedo black ink. The sign is attached with orange jump rings and it was cut out with an oval die and decorated with marmalade Distress Ink. The image is colored with Copics, the three orange dots are just sticky backed dots stuck on. The fence is a die from Taylored Expressions.

The rubber stamps are: the corn stalks, both pumpkins, the frog and the "Hey there Pumpkin!" They are colored with Copics markers and three square brads were added to the right of the frog as was the tiny picket fence from Taylored Expressions.

This is one big, cute witch in her bloomers that was colored with Copics markers and then hand cut and attached to the card with foam tape so she stands out. The Happy Halloween is a stamp, stamped on a card, trimmed and added to her hands. The yellow strip along the left side is a sticky back braided thread.
That's all the Halloween cards I have.