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the duck says mac mac

These three have been sitting on my work desk for about 2 months now. The pig and duck came together lickety split back was I was all gung-ho on make-a-long #2 The Farm Story. Mr. Sheep took me a little longer, because sheep are just trouble. All was going along fine until I got stuck on the outfits. Every day I’d look at them knowing exactly what I wanted to make but not wanting to construct tiny little clothes.

Then this past week inspiration struck and I realized the problem was the sewing machine. I didn’t want to deal with it. So I decided these stinkers wanted to be hand-sewing projects. So I put them in my shrink-o-mater and here’s Mr. Duck.

Coming in at a cute 8″ tall, hand sewn from wool and wool felt and sporting some easy to whip up hand sewn overalls. Mac Mac! We’ve decided ‘quack quack’ is bunk and ducks really say mac mac.

I’m totally feeling these now! Miss Pig and her petticoat are cut out and ready to go. I’d like to get the pig and duck into the shop as Hand Sewing for Fun PDFs. And I hope to have the farm gal cross stitch patterns joining them. Not exactly the make-a-long extravaganza I’d been planning but I guess I’m not really working at an extravaganza pace these days. The smaller, more manageable and relaxing, hand sewing projects are definitely my scene right now, you know, the kind of project you can work on while sitting under a blanket 🙂

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x x x x x x x

After my success with the Blackbird Designs pattern I thought it’d be fun to try to come up with my own little something. That’s why you didn’t hear from me for a week! Here she is, after many false starts, my little egg collecting girl. I looked to these gals for inspiration. I’ve got ideas for butter, apples and wool next but first I’m sitting with this gal and trying to decide if she’s right.

Here’s what I’ve learned about cross stitch so far. To get me started on my first cross stitch project I googled and found this wonderful post on Yarn tree’s blog…Learn how to Cross Stitch in 5 minutes. I love succinct info like this. So much more helpful than the stack of library books I checked out. A few more things I learned while trying to design this… the linen you get at the needlework shop is amazing. It took me a very long morning of driving around to a bunch of needlework shops until I discovered the perfect shop right under my nose, Tomorrow’s Heirlooms. That’s where I got the linen and Crescent Colours thread I used for the pins and needles design. For egg girl I tried some linen I had on hand and it didn’t work out so well. I had a problem with my design being elongated. Also my stitches were confused and I couldn’t keep them nice and neat. I think the weave wasn’t even enough. And I tried 3 strands of floss instead of 2 and it was a mess. Obviously wrong amount of thread for the size. I’m still trying to figure out the sizes. So then I bought DMC 28 ct linen at Joanns and it worked out well. It’s very even and stiff, easy to work with, but I was wishing there were more colors at the store. I love cross stitch on darker backgrounds but I’m working on a little bird design for my mom on black and it is hard going at night, working on that dark background.

So that’s what I know about xstitch so far. I have a lot to learn. If you have any bits of wisdom or great needlework shops or sites I’d love to hear!

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moving it inside

We’re in the process of wrapping up the 2009 garden. I’m bringing a few pretty things inside. We’re mulching and trying to make our decisions for next year. I’m disappointed the books say we can’t cut back perennials until the first frost. Some things are so shabby and I’m so tired of watching them decay. I think our garden was sort of a bust this year. Weird weather and no time and some really bad impulse decisions lead to a garden that seemed to have no rhyme or reason. We definitely erred on the side of too much variety and are trying to pare it down for next year. So hard though to yank out plants that didn’t make it or that just aren’t working for us. All that money spent. It’s painful. We try to find other spots for things but we have a small yard and only a few spots that get good sun so our choices are limited.

The vegetable garden fared about as well as the flower garden. Some hits (tomatoes, green beans, basil, lettuces) and lots of misses (zucchini, cantaloupe, tomatillos, peppers). We don’t get as much sun as we need I think and also the non-raised bed needed more than crossed fingers. Our zucchini actually did well but was eaten by rabbits as soon as it grew.

So going forward, all cool colors. Different shades of greens and purples. Things that are getting axed: coneflowers (too sloppy), phlox (too tall), pinks (too neon and too shabby), golden tansy (too big). Things that will be added in the spring: more dragon’s blood stonecrop, more artemisia (to replace the ones I killed by cutting them back too far), japanese anemones for pretty late summer blooms. We bought some more evergreen shrubs to do that whole bones for the garden thing and although I was resisting it I have to say it looks much better. Funny because we started out here 2 years ago in our first house with our new yard thinking we wanted modern, simple, just a few flowers, lots of green and then somehow we went garden gone wild. It’s the lure of the nurseries, all those beautiful flowers, they’re impossible to resist. I think we’ve learned our lessons. I have high hopes for Spring.

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bend it!

I’ve been waiting waiting waiting for Amy Karol’s new book to come out and it’s finally here! Bend the Rules with Fabric!

I long ago determined that Amy knows everything. And at least once a day I wish I had Amy sitting in my craft room so I could ask her my many annoying questions… should I do it like this? how does that work? why in the heck won’t this turn out? Now I have her right here, in my hands, showing me all the coolio arty craft stuff I’ve always wanted to do. Fun cool stamping ideas, dying fabric, how to use that iron-on transfer stuff, how she does that free motion drawing with thread thing… actually I want to do every single thing in here. I guess she wrote this book just for me! Thanks Amy! Oh, alright, for all of us. But I’ll bet you have so many a-ha moments you’ll feel she wrote it just for you too.

Here is my first success, a most exciting success, screen printing with PhotoEZ, page 60. Screen printed kitty dolls, a very belated batch of thank you gifts. I find manufacturer’s instructions are often too detailed and tedious. Having Amy’s cut-to-the-chase advice and tips kept me on track where I would normally get overwhelmed and give up.

Bend the Rules with Fabric is really my kind of book, accessible, jump right in, adaptable. I have a long list of projects inspired by the techniques and supplies described in the book. As a person who wants to try everything, but just a little differently from the suggested, it’s a perfect book. Nice job Amy! Thanks for writing a book just for me. Now I will be needing that book on knitting kids hats with bulky yarn.. thanks 🙂