Two for Me!

      I've been busy making things for gifts lately.  I finally finished a couple of things for myself.  I love this nice warm scarf.  It's made from pom-pom yarn and works up really thick and wonderful.

     The yarn for the handbag is made with two yarns worked together.  It turned out really great.  Lots of color and texture.  The main yarn is a bulky weight that is made up of an ivory yarn wrapped with a varigated fuzzy yarn that gives it its color.  It is worked along with a fine olive green yarn with a tiny sequin every few inches.  Adds a bit of bling! 



  

   This will go with lots of different outfits!  Love it!

Another Project Completed

      I completed another knitting loom project.  Unfortunately, it was too late to go into The Birthday Box!  This handbag is for Andra's birthday which is coming up on Sunday.  She will get this one late.  I have a friend who says that one should not just celebrate one's birth DAY, but should celebrate one's birth MONTH.  So this will give Andra a chance to keep celebrating her birth month!

     I spent some time sorting through my yarn stash this morning and found that I have a LOT OF YARN!  Guess I had better keep at it.  On to the next project!!

A Great Day!

     Today has been a great day!  It's cold and cloudy, although there have been moments of sunshine.  I spent most of the day baking.  I have decided to make my own bread from now on.  I love baking bread.  I learned how to make bread in the 8th grade!  That was a couple of years ago.  (Snort!)  I do still have the cookbook we were given in Home Ec in 8th grade.  However, I used a recipe from King Arthur Flour. ( I really like King Arthur Flour.)  This bread is 100% whole wheat with lots of seeds (sesame, sunflower, flax).  I am all about real whole grain bread.  So while the bread was rising, I baked a cake to take to our potluck dinner after church tomorrow.  I also made some apple, raisin, nut bars that are just plain yummy!

After all the baking was finished, I decided to "finish" the hat and scarf I made on my new knitting looms.  I believe I have said before that my mother-in-law (who is an expert knitter) calls my looms idiot knitting!  That's okay.  They are great fun and wonderful therapy.  I learned to crochet when I was seven so I have always crocheted.  However, knitting still eludes me.  These looms are just great.  My older son sent me a set of round ones for Christmas along with a lot of pattern books.  I got the long loom set on sale at Michael's after Christmas.  I made the hat on one of the round looms and the scarf on one of the long looms.  I am very proud of them both.  Plus they are nice and warm!  I used one strand of ivory acrylic worsted weight and 1 strand of the metallic yarn together.  I just needed to sew on the buttons today.  I can't wait to wear them.

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     It has been a very busy week!  On Wednesday, my BFFs Joanie, Rita, and Phyllis gathered at my house to do some PUNCHING!  Phyllis has been doing punchneedle work for several months and we all wanted to learn how.  It is (well Phyllis' anyway!) beautiful work and fabulous therapy.  Thanks to Phyllis' guidance we were all punching away and trying to make ours look as beautiful as hers.  I think we were all "hooked" on this new needle art form.  I will add it to my growing list of crafts.  Like I need another one!!

     I've also spent a lot of time sewing this week.  I got to use my new Elna 444 Coverstitch machine.  LOVE IT!  I made a nice warm fleece top and did all the hemming on the Elna.  Lots more of that to come.

     I also made something I have been wanted to get to for months.  Rita and I attended a Martha Pullen even in St. Louis over a year ago.  It was a week long "sew-in" with Martha herself.  (Love that woman!)  I bought several embroidery machine design packs at the event.  This one is my favorite.  I finally made my chatelaine!  I have been wanting to do this forever.  It is a wonderful "gadget' for keeping all your hand sewing tools at the ready.  (You wear it around your neck in case you don't know what a chatelaine is.)  No more searching for lost scissors or hidden tools.  I think it turned out beautifully.

     This is the CD I used.  You can find it on www.marthapullen.com

This will make my sewing even more fun to do!

     This has been a very productive week.  Since we had snow yesterday, I turned up the heat in my (tongue firmly in cheek!) studio and went to work.  Looking forward to more sewing and card making today.

     Speaking of card making here are a couple of cards I made recently:

 For a musical friend

A Christmas card

A Special Gift

This little guy is for Robert whose hobby is doing cross-stitch. He also loves rabbits. This jaunty hare is made of wool and has a thimble sized pincushion in his grasp to hold those needles full of cross-stitch thread . He's about six inches tall and should fit neatly into a work basket or box. I know he is going to a great home! I think I will call him Herbert Hare. He was great fun to make.

Variation on a Theme

Same great paper from K&Company (background) and Stampin' Up! Spice Cake. Love it, love it!

Can You Find the Differences?

I love those 'find the differences" pictures.  These two cards use substantially the same paper and layout, but have slight variations.  Can you spot them?  How many are there?

On A Roll!

Using more new stuff from SU and one of my favorite punches - Bird Builder.  I snagged some really great paper stacks at Michael's the day after Christmas for a steal!  Had to have them!!!

Many Thanks

I've been in Thank You Card Mode since Christmas.  I got so many wonderful gifts from friends and family I had to create special cards with which to thank them.  I love this paper from K&Company (background on the second card and the label image on the first.)  To that I added images from SU's Spice Cake Designer Series Paper.  (I must get more of this before it is gone!)  The colors are MY colors - brown, olive, aqua, gold, orange - love them.

Not just cards!

I've been very busy lately!  Now that I have taken some time off from playing the organ for services at my church, I am using that time to play with the new toys I got for Christmas.  I started with this necklace.  My precious daughter-in-law, Andra, gave me a Xyron.  I had heard about them, but didn't know how much I needed one!!!  I ran a piece of Basic Black (SU) cardstock through the Xyron and adhered it to chipboard.  Then I ran that through the oval die cutter to come up with the background for my collage.  I stamped the R with the wonderful Broadstreet Alphabet stamp set from SU.  I love it that all the letters are a different type font.  Then I punched that out with the SU scalloped oval punch.  Love that punch!  I made a rosette by scoring the striped paper every quarter inch first then punching it with the scalloped edge punch (SU).  Then I punched out other shapes and added the butterflies in Very Vanilla cardstock (SU) which were cut with the Embosslits Beautiful Wings (that cuts and embossing all at once!)  Love that Embosslit.  I punched holes for the jump rings and tassel which I had in my stash, added the chain and a little lime green bling -  and voila!  A great necklace that matched the outfit I wore to church this morning.  This was so much fun I will make more - probably for the ladies who admired mine this morning!!!  What fun I had making it and then wearing it.  I might make more for myself - in different colors and themes.