The gnomes have homes

After my craft show work was done, I whipped out a couple of gnomes...or, I guess I should say....I gneedled a couple of gnomes....

They're identical twins. They look kind of Christmasy.  Both were gifted to friends, one of whom really likes gnomes and had been dropping hints.  The other one didn't know she liked gnomes until she opened the wrapping.  She seemed to think he was gnice.  I was pretty sure she would like him because she really likes anything gnick-gnacky.

So now back to my gnitting.

Whew!

I've just finished another spell of crazy crafting....all because of a fun trip last weekend up to the old hotel to show Big City Girl the festiveness.  "Many of your items have sold," said the lady-in-charge.  I was all smiles, but the lady was not.  "What are we going to do?  This is only day one and there are five more."

So, of course, I came home and got out my felting supplies and got right to work.  I'm a glutton for compliments.

Today I'm resting up in my recliner watching football with Mr. Gadget.  How much football can one man watch I wonder?  I'm not totally zoned out though.  I'm getting some knitting projects lined up.  Knitting to me is like cleansing the palate is to a foodie.  It's a nice neutralizing activity during the holidays and afterwards.  

We'll be leaving for the west coast soon....early this year to spend Christmas with family members in northern California.  I have the packing down to a science after all these years of going to and fro.  25% of the suitcase is for clothes (I wear the same thing a lot), and 75% is for craft supplies.  And in the event that I run out of suitcase space Mr. Gadget is not above packing a little yarn in his.

Waxing poetic

Now that Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and I've delivered all of my holiday crafty things to the old hotel, it's time to think about what's for dinner.  Here's my plan, along with a few of the above-mentioned crafty things.

Brussel sprouts

and pumpkin pie,

and a turkey breast,

not the whole big guy.

Mashed potatoes, of course!

And cranberry sauce.

Plenty of stuffing.....

and dental floss.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Whiteout conditions

I've been working on my winter crop of felted goodies.  This one's ready for market, although I did add a white snowflake to his hat as an afterthought.  It just needed a little something.  I'm happy with the scarf.  Each of those little patches of color was felted on one at a time.

Tomorrow I'm going to the New England Fiber Festival in Springfield, Mass.  It's time to restock. It should be a day with sunshine, a little nip in the air, some lingering fall colors, and plenty of aroma o' sheep. My kind of day.

I finally came to my senses and decided not to jump into more craft fairs this year.  I like my current pace...which allows for some socializing, some grocery shopping, and keeping Mr. Gadget in clean undies.  It's always a nice ego boost when people praise my work, but I have to remember to keep things in perspective.  Plus, I'd hate to miss a cruise op.

Thanks, Mr. Bendy!

Today I'm working on felted ornaments.  Here are a couple, in various states of doneness.  I owe a special "thank you" to Mr. Bendy for helping me pose them. I would have asked Mr. Gadget, but he probably would have suggested using a wrench or a clamp. And then he would have mentioned, in a persuasive-sounding voice, that I should list my completed ornaments on some sort of spread sheet....

Here is another one--still a little ways from finished.

The fun part is when I dress them up with a little bling.  Which makes me think that maybe I should put some clothes on Mr. Bendy.

I just finished reading A Man Called Ove. It's a fun book about a man who has curmudgeon qualities, and who reminds me just a little of Mr. Gadget.  Ove has long-held routines and staunch principles. His car is always spotless. He gets angry when people in his neighborhood association don't follow the rules.  

I'm lucky that Mr. Gadget doesn't get annoyed when I tease him on the blog.  I've been doing it for almost eleven years. He's very confident and comfortable in his own skin.  He has no desire to change. I like that about him.  He takes good care of me too.  He opens jar lids, reaches stuff on high shelves, and deletes all the old messages from the answering machine....

Metamorphosis

The big orange something has morphed into another Santa.  He isn't finished obviously. He's faceless and has that painful needle stuck in his chest. So, you're probably wondering why he isn't orange, right?

None of my Santas are red through and through.  Sometimes I start with fiber I have on hand that isn't Grade A.  Sometimes it even has bits of the barnyard in it. It's less expensive than the nicer quality colored fiber, so I use it to bulk him up.  Then I do the final layer with Grade A.

I may have mentioned that I taught myself to needle felt.  And I've probably learned the most from my mistakes, and from trial and error.

I had lunch the other day with a friend and former neighbor.  She was wearing a beautiful cardigan sweater she had just finished knitting.  She has made amazing progress with her knitting in a short period of time.  New knitters today have a real advantage with the large number of teaching videos online. The same can be said for needle-felters. When I learned to knit I had to ask my mom for help, and she was just slightly more advanced than me.  The only other option was to return to the yarn store and ask the owner for help.

On another subject, the old hotel show was this past weekend and I did very well.  All of my needle-felted items sold.  I'm a happy crafty lady. That just means I made enough money to buy more fiber.

A big orange something

This thing somehow sprouted on my work table yesterday.  I do have a plan for it, but you'd never know it at this point.  You'll just have to follow along as it begins to blossom.

So yesterday I got a call from a lady who had been at the old hotel craft show and had purchased two of my witches.....the felted one with bunny slippers, and the really ugly one holding the cat.  She loved the whimsicalness she said. And that made me happy because, you know me, I just love me some whimsy.

Would I, she wanted to know, be interested in putting some things in a holiday show she was organizing?

And since I've just been talking about slowing down my often-frenzied-crafting schedule, I asked her for more details.  My work would be displayed in a gallery-type setting for six weeks during Nov. and Dec. and my presence would not be required.  I could display as much or as little as I wanted with a reasonable commission for things that sold.

"What about picking up my unsold items?" I asked her.  "I'll be out of town and not available to do that in a timely manner."

"Not a problem," she said. "I'll take them home, put them around my house, and keep them safe."

I told her I'd think about it and get back to her.  So much for slowing down.

Fearsome foursome

I just finished these frightful gals.  They're sitting on our mantel amongst the family photos.  They're small--only 6 inches or so. The only challenging part was making the bottoms flat enough so they would stand nicely. They look like they're up to no good, don't they?

So, the other day I decided to clean Mr. Gadget's bathroom--the one in the basement next to his man cave.  I don't do it very often.  I keep forgetting it's there.....

I took my cleaning supplies downstairs and got to work while he was away at the gym.  After I was done I had a silly idea.  I decided to fold the end of the toilet paper into a nice, sharp point--just like the room stewards do on a cruise ship.  For those of you who don't cruise, this is the universal, across-all-cruise-lines, finishing touch of all room stewards.

Now fast forward to later that afternoon.

Mr. Gadget:  Were you by chance in my bathroom today?

Me:  Yes I was.

Mr. G:  Did you do something to the toilet paper?

Me:  Indeed I did.

Mr. G:  (smiling) Oh, ok.

Me:  Did you notice that your bathroom was nice and clean?

Mr. G:  Um, well.  Um, I might have.  I did notice the toilet paper.

Me:  So maybe next time I'm considering doing some fun bathroom cleaning for you I'll just sew instead. And I'll just pop in there now and then and fold the toilet paper.

Alleys and cats

There's just something about alleys.

They almost demand to be photographed.

Maybe it's the cobblestones.

Or the mystery of where they might lead.

It could be the warm colors and shadows.

Or the interesting shops along the way.

The ones with pink buildings are the most alluring.

With a couple of bicycles they're really hard to resist.

And what's an alley without a cat?

This one went off to the craft show today.

I'm hoping he gets adopted next weekend.

He has a pleasing temperament

and a small appetite.

 





 

Witches and what-nots

I finished a needle-felted witch for the Fall craft show.

She's a morning witch and, like me, she can be especially witchy without her coffee.
 
So, now for the what-nots: a collection of photos from my trip that I found amusing.

 

 

Castles and pumpkins

I've still got a little jet lag I'm sorry to say. Or maybe I'm just allergic to housework. Sometimes I wonder if all the traipsing is worth it.  But of course it is.  As a nice lady from Sweden told me on a park bench somewhere along the way, "I'm collecting countries."

I'm collecting pumpkins.  I started early this year so I'd have a good crop for the craft fair.  Maybe I can add a little more change to my piggy bank.

One of the highlights of our river cruise was the day we spent watching castles go by.

It was a hot day and space up on the sun deck was at a premium.

We were lucky to find chairs in the shade under the awning, 

but it wasn't long before the river turned and we were in the sun.

Most of the castles (there are 40 along this stretch of the river) were built in the 12th Century.

Many were heavily damaged or destroyed during centuries of warfare and had to be rebuilt.

Only one remained completely unscathed--Marksburg Castle in the town of Braubach--until 1945 when it was damaged by American artillery fired from the other side of the river.

So now it's time for witches.  I have one week to finish them and that won't be easy.  They can be cranky.

Life jackets yes; lifeboats no

So there's really no room for lifeboats on a river boat. And there's really not much need either.  You could pretty much just walk to shore.  Just one of many differences between a river cruise and an ocean cruise.  Another difference is that once you return home from a river cruise you have to do a lot of resting.  On an ocean cruise you can do your resting right on the ship.

My apologies for not blogging along the way.  The post I did from the hotel in Amsterdam went instantly from my iPad to the blog, but things seemed to bog down once onboard. And since I had places to see and people to meet, I had little time to fiddle.

The trip was wonderful (24 days from Amsterdam to Bucharest via the Rhine, Main, and Danube) and I will share some of it here in the coming days, along with the crafty items I'm trying to finish for the October old hotel show that's coming up soon.

Thanks for hangin' in!

Rise and Shine

I'm awake! I'm awake!  I don't know what happened. I must have dozed off for a few....

Mr. Gadget and I are in Amsterdam and about to start a river cruise. Today we've been seeing some of the sights via a guided walking tour and a canal boat ride. Very nice but very hot. The city is in the midst of a heatwave.

As long as I have internet service and a working pointer finger (my iPad keyboard continually curses me) I will blog along the way. 

Amsterdam is a lovely city, but at the end of the day a tourist is completely exhausted from the effort of staying out of the paths of what must be a million bicycles.  The Dutch are skinny folks. They ride their bikes everywhere and have no room in their bike baskets for Twinkies and Doritos.

Here's today's photo.....the Amsterdam train station.  I'll be back after we've made it a little further down the river (the Rhine).

Still crazy

I've started another crazy quilt square--this time for a slightly smaller bag.  I bought some 7" zippers by mistake a couple of weeks ago.  I went in the store with the intention of getting 9" ones, and when I came home I discovered I had purchased 7's.  I have no idea how that happened....

But then I realized I could make smaller bags and use the 7's after all.  Here's the beginnings of the smaller bag. 

This will give you an idea of the mess I create when I'm in  planning and assembling mode.  I sit in front of my fabric stash and pull out everything I think might work. I put pieces side-by-side and decide what looks the most pleasing. That small floral print fabric is an old piece of flannel that I'm using as a foundation for the patches.

On another subject, on Saturday we're having another Celebrating our Creativity day here at the condo clubhouse. 

Three years ago we had our first one and it was successful enough that we've had requests to do another.  Since it was my bright idea in the first place, everyone is looking to me to get it off and running.  It's not difficult really.  We just put on the coffee pot, set up some tables, and make sure everyone knows it's on the schedule.  This time I've suggested that participants demonstrate their craft if it's easy to do in their space.  I will be doing some needle felting.  There'll also be demonstrations of weaving and Chinese brush painting.  Small collections will be included this time, and one of our residents will display his toy trucks.

It should be a fun afternoon.  As I've said before, I'm usually happiest being a quiet homebody, but sometimes an idea slips out and I'm wheedled right out of my recliner.  

Scrappy happy!

Here's my first finished crazy quilt bag.  I'm very happy with it, and it's always fun to make something pretty out of scraps.

I learned a few things during the making of it.  It's wise to make the bag pattern to accommodate a certain zipper size.  My bag was too wide for a standard-sized zipper so I had to make the side seams wider and that cut into some of the designs.

It's also a good idea to keep bead embellishments away from the seam line to avoid breaking sewing machine needles.

I still need to find some good instructions for attaching a shoulder strap.  This one has a chain strap that I attached with heavy black thread through the end link.  I know there are better ways.  But all things considered, I'm scrappy happy, and I'll enjoy carrying my new little purse to special events....like maybe my next dental appointment....