Felted Heart

As a gift for a friend whose birthday was today, I made this needle felted heart and hung it in the center of a grapevine wreath. I was happy with the lovely results of such a simple handmade gift. I used a small heart cookie cutter as a template for the heart, which took about 15 minutes to felt.

Looking forward to Spring!

Mud season has begun, so can Spring be very far behind? Carolyn and I just picked up our garden seeds yesterday, and I've begun to think about fresh garden veggies again. Here's a couple card designs portraying some of my favorite garden delights!

Lampshade Redo

A pattern caught my eye recently. My plain old lampshade now is more interesting after this crocheted open lace idea, done in sport weight wool. The pendants are bone and carved or decorated fine black lines, fish and feathers and other shapes. I like the lamp much better now. Easy to do, mostly chain stitches and then single crochet. Next project? Felted hat with brim.
Btw, the rag rug has been ripped out twice....

Loom

Hi, this is the loom that I built to weave a rag rug for my daughter Jessica's room, it's made from a piece of 1 x 2 pine .I made a frame (28inches x 4 feet) then added legs so it would stand on it's own. I then screwed screws in top and bottom evenly across 3/4 of an inch apart. I then ran ribbon of different colors. I used strips of material to weave. It should have some pink in it but the material I got was to silky and did not work.

Also added some fringe to ends with blue material.

And this is the finished product my daughter loves it in her room.

Printed Gift Tags

Hi everyone! I've been hunkered down in the house carving and printing away...and having fun in the process! I've had a number of requests for gift cards, so I thought I'd post a few samples. I still haven't been able to figure out how to get photos to come up where I want them to on this blog, so I'll share another photo in my next post.

Have Tea Will Cozy

The endless gray days and snow, snow, snow, make having tea that much more appealing. And me without a tea cozy! With Kyla's redesign of a pattern on line, two cozies have been created.
The pattern came from http://www.crochetpatterncentral.com/directory/cozies.php It is called Straightforward Cozy.
Kyla made the prototype in pink... in about an hour.

With more leftover yarns, and the Olympics raging on and on, another cozy emerged today.

Here are two views:
spout view and handle view.

Now where did I put that tea?

These are my comfort dolls Elsie and Fred.They are also headed to Haiti in March 2010, and I hope they find a little girl and boy to adopt them. It has been fun making them and giving them some personality. My daughter Jessica loves them and helped name them. Jessica and I are keeping all of the people of Haiti in our hearts and prayers.

Two Dolls Ready for Haiti

Newly named, Joe and Isa, are ready for their trip to Haiti. Kyla is completing her dolls and will post their pics soon. You can see that the dolls have Vermont and Made in Vermont on their hats and their names on the back of their heads. We enjoyed making these (once we got the hang of it) and may make more for a future Etsy store under discussion. Back to the rug and onward to more projects.

Spring Color Creation

Kyla mentioned some colored string, actually it's rope, at a local store. After a sampling of one 50 ft. roll of each, I ended up with this. Starting to just crochet without patterns now and ending up with things like this. What will it be? Plant holder? Waiste basket? Bag? Suggestions???

Rag Rug - first creation

This is going to be fun, and as I expected, it goes fast. Once it is out of the lap, it goes to the table top and then to the floor. This is just the beginning and there are many more colors to come. I am working with two fabric strips at a time, or fabric strips and bulky yarn. It is becoming a very heavy and thick rug, which I don't really care for, but it is too far done to rip it out. Next one will not be so heavy.

woodworking projects

Here are few of my woodworking projects, a bench,set of blocks and a rubberband gun.

Headed for Haiti

This doll is just about ready for a trip to Haiti. Her brother will happen over the weekend. And my neighbor Kyla, another potential contributor to this blog, is crocheting dolls, too. Then the best thing happened today. My friend and weaver extraordinaire who works at Southern Maine Medical Center knows of a relief effort at the hospital there. There is a call out for medical supplies that anyone might have, used crutches, anything for hospital use. The dolls have a way to go to Haiti now. How wonderful. These dolls will finally have a place to call home with someone who needs them.