Cloche Crochet

I have been making quite a few crochet flowers, but haven't ventured much beyond that until today. I decided I would try a hat to go with a new flower. I did find out that I am not very good at following patterns, so this just kind of happened. I am the same with recipes-hee hee. It only took a couple of hours to do in between school and laundry and packing. I would do little bits and pieces. It is made from Wool-Ease Thick and Quick so it is very warm. I may have to try another one. My youngest daughter looks so cute in it, but she thinks it is horrible. Maybe my oldest will wear it. These look so much cuter on people with long hair. I'll have to wait til she gets home.

Ahhh! To sew clothing again...

As much as I love crafts, I really enjoy sewing clothes and I have missed doing that while working on all the craft fair goodies.  I did make another crochet flower yesterday and I put together a potholder that I like. I am hoping to put together several sets of these for Christmas gifts. I put buttons in the center of my other black and white flowers I made last week too. The most fun part of my evening though was cutting out and starting the serging/sewing on this Maggy London dress pattern in a robin's egg blue knit. I have loved the cutting, pinning, serging and marking! Hope to get it done by this weekend. Today I will be spreading seed and straw over all of the newly landscaped area before rains and snow wash all of our smooth dirt down the hill. Maybe I will get a little more done tonight if I am not totally exhausted.

A Busy Weekend

This past week proved to be a rather busy one. I spent quite a bit of time preparing for our first unit celebration for our Tapestry co-op. I was in charge of doing a Seder meal display and explanation. We have been studying the first 5 books of the Bible and also Jewish festivals and feasts. I made Egyptian Palace Bread that is nothing but honey and white bread baked low and slow, then topped with homemade whipped cream. I made charoset that was very yummy. It is a mixture of apples, nuts, raisins, dates, honey and cinnamon. We had a very good time Saturday night with all of the families that attended and ate some amazing foods. Friday night, Katy had her second sewing class of the year. She is getting so good at reading her patterns and knowing what to do. The class is making purses for their fall project and Katy's looks so cute. She just has to finish the handles and sew on the button accents and she is done. Too bad it is a spring/summer fabric. I also made a custom order crochet flower that will be made into a pin that this customer can use on anything. She wanted black and white with this cute 1920's flapper button as the center. I am going to attach it to a hat to give to her. Yesterday I came home and had to do something with a huge bag of pears my son brought home from work. Most of them were bad and many of them weren't ripe even though they were rotting. I chopped them into pieces and then cooked them in red wine, honey, cinammon and ginger-OH man did they smell good! I then made a basic dough from flour, sugar-both brown and white, eggs, buttermilk, baking soda and salt. I added a little of the syrup from cooking and some of the charoset I had left over as well. To finish it off and make it moist, I added a cup of oil. I then tossed in the pears and about a half cup of chopped pecans. I baked it in a bundt pan for almost an hour and it is fabulous! I am sending half of it with cream cheese icing to the guy my son works with that gave him the pears. He gives them away with the hope that someone will make him something to eat out of them. All in all, we had a busy week and I am hoping for a little slower pace this week so I can get some sewing in. Have a great start to your week!

Floral Creations

My kids and I were watching the pres. debate tonight online and I hate not being productive when I sit and watch something, so I made 3 flowers out of this home decor remnant scrap I had. I added tulle and a little white on cream for the centers. Sewing these is much easier than hot gluing them-I have tried both. I'll probably make these into pins.Two of them still need buttons in the center. I was playing "clean up your fabrics" today and figured I could make something out of that scrap. Unfortunately my youngest daughter was quite ill this morning, so I tried to take care of her first. I hate it when my babies are sick! Hope you have had a great day.

Glendale Leftovers

We had an enjoyable day, although not quite as profitable as I would have liked. I have quite a bit of stuff leftover, so I started an Etsy store today. Hopefully I will be able to sell some of my goods. That would be exciting. My store name is Andrea's Basement Boutique. Here are some of the goodies I made and plan on listing.

Work, work, work

This craft fair thing is going to make me crazy. As if college deadlines weren't enough! I have been hastily finishing up projects for Saturday. Oh my. I made several sets of "No Sweat" coasters and finished crocheting all of the flowers for the 4 hats. I even sewed them on buttons and all tonight while listening to the pres. debate. I also tried a new flower made of tulle and decor weight cloth. It needs some tweaking and some more petals, but I really like the body it has. I will work on those tomorrow. Bed is calling my name!

Another crochet flower and a take along blankie

Finished up another flower in a worsted weight teal. I changed my pattern a little and I like the way this one came out. I need to write down what I did before I forget. I also did a little take along blankie. I blanket stitched one of the flowers from the backing material onto some nice yellow jersey and then added a denim strap. It is 12X12 roughly. Nice size for the car or stroller and the strap keeps it handy.

An abundance of burp cloths

Working on getting these done for the craft fair. They look pretty all in a row.

Flavored vinegars

Today I started several vinegars that I plan to use for me and for gifts. I made a garlic apple cider vinegar, a basil white wine vinegar and also a hot pepper white wine vinegar.  You have to let them sit for several weeks before using. You also have to shake them a bit like my vanilla, which is doing well by the way. It is turning a lovely shade of chocolate brown.

Simple crochet rose

I am certainly a knitter, not a crocheter. I do find these crochet flowers oh so cute though. I can crochet a little, but I prefer to knit. I have to admit that I do like only keeping up with one needle however. These are just made by creating a chain that is 2 ruler lengths long. Then you single crochet every stitch and then you double crochet 3 times in every second stitch. I will try to find the link to the neat tutorial on you tube to post. I have made 3 of these now, each one taking about an hour. I used 3 different yarns and 3 different size hooks and they are all pretty cool. The smaller ones will be easier to use. The one pictured is out of cotton yarn.

The land in Fall and our lovely new wall

We had 2 guys come out and do about 12 hours of landscaping work around our farm and I LOVE IT! They were very good and it makes everything look so much nicer. We just have to put the capstones on our retaining walls. We still have to return the first batch and get new ones that look decent. They cut and baled our field this weekend too and it looks so much like fall around here. Hope you are enjoying the lovely fall weather.

2 More Nursing Blankets

I finished up 2 identical nursing blankets this weekend. I love this modern material in this print. It is a home decor weight. It works well for this pattern. Don't you love how I just keeep draping them over one another? Hope to get some more of these done before next weekend's sale.

More hair bows

I have made several more of the felt hair bows and some of our ladies at church will be making them on Thursday night. Ignore the bright orange bamboo knit flower. That is another project. You can barely see the rounded petal one to the right, but it is even easier than the rectangular one.  Here is Disney's link for those of you who asked.simple bows

Ahh! October

Time seems to fly although it really travels at the same pace continually. It is funny that we say "time flies" because it is never any faster or slower. 24 hours in a day is what we have been blessed with. My problem is usually trying to fit too much in and not taking time to rest and relax. Instead we run at a dizzying pace all the time and end up never feeling rested. If I had better time management skills, I would probably feel better and more accomplished too. Oh well, enough on that. I have been working on several projects. I finally put eyes on the 2 pigs I had finished. My tiny 3rd pig is still needing a little more wool top-stitching before he gets his eyes. I plan on selling these little guys at the local craft fair in a couple of weeks. If they don't sell, I will give them away as heirloom baby gifts.

I also started serging some burp cloths for the same fair. (Still have a large stack to do). I have been using cute flannels and a couple of cordurory prints for the backings. These are really cute and simple. There are many tutorials out there in blogland, but I went for the simple, strong method. My serger does not like the higher count weave diapers. Last night the thick middle panel of the pre-fold diapers was causing my serger to make weird noises. I might end up having to sew them on the Necchi. I think that thing could sew thru steel! Ha.
We have also finished laying all the block for our retaining walls. We still have to put the cap stones on, but the ones that were delivered are horrible! The guy who will be doing some of the dirt moving and landscaping comes this week! Yahooo! Will post some pics soon. Have a marvelous day!