Cairns Happen

I can't leave anything alone.

If you put people and rocks together, cairns happen. 

There's a cool extension on the Zim Smith Trail that leads to Route 9.  For some reason, this part of the trail has great rocks that the rest of the trail is sorely lacking.  I take it as a personal responsibility to build a mini cairn on every visit.  Yes, the best part about this cairn is the big, gorgeous rock on the bottom for which I can take no credit, but I like to think that I have improved upon it.  It's what crafters do, right?

Happy Easter!

The Easter bunny is as old as dirt.  If I have to wear reading glasses, s/he must need them as well.  Question is whether this bunny is male or female.  Anyone know??  I want proof--opinions only count in politics and other nonsensical things.  With proof, I will add either a nice bow tie or a hair fur ribbon.

Update:  From the Encyclopedia Mythica:  Ostara is the personification of the rising sun. In that capacity she is associated with the spring and is considered a fertility goddess. She is the friend of all children and to amuse them she changed her pet bird into a rabbit. This rabbit brought forth brightly coloured eggs, which the Greek goddess gave to children as gifts. From her name and rites the festival of Easter is derived.

If the bird changed into a rabbit "brought forth" eggs, it must have been a female bird changed to a female rabbit.  Yes!  Yes!  The Easter bunny is a female!!! 

For all those who celebrate Easter for religious or fun reasons, I am wishing you a sunny, happy day!

 

Dragon Wing Scarf

I have been mulling this project for weeks and decided the procrastination had to stop today. I put on my Harry Potter films for inspiration and started drafting a pattern. 

The idea for this, as with my last scarf, came from a knitted scarf pattern.  Unfortunately all you get from a knitting pattern is inspiration in the form of a photo.  I have no knowledge of pattern making--yet another strike against me in this project.  If you want something badly enough, you figure it out!

I drafted a pattern by guess and by luck coming up with this.

It's supposed to look like a dragon wing draped over the shoulder. Hopefully it looks like that to others.  I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

Now, how to keep it in place.  The original pattern had buttons on the shoulder which looked great on the knitted version, but I didn't think buttons would look good on the fabric once it was finished. I decided on the silver pin which is listed as a scarf or kilt pin on Etsy.  I was going to wear the scarf on my trip to California until the pin came in the mail and I saw just how long a four inch pin really is.    No way that was getting through TSA!  I'm glad I got it, though.  It looks great with the scarf.

 

None of the photos are showing the great texture of the fabric.  The "scales" are raised bumps in the fabric.  You can kind of see it more in the photo below.

While it took weeks of mental prepping, it only took one afternoon to make the scarf (or three Harry Potter movies).  As I type this, I am on my fourth movie at the very part where Harry is fighting the Hungarian Horntail dragon.  How fitting!

The Perks of Being a Sewer

Oh, the upsides of sewing, and there are many.  You can make things you could not otherwise afford or tweak things to make them work just right for you.  You can create things that only you imagined! Sometimes you can make something you really need right now rather than having to head out to the store.

This is my new lingerie bag born as a result of misplacing my one and only lingerie bag at a time when the laundry could not wait another day.  While I may not be able to keep track of everything, my sewing room is organized well enough that I could find a zipper and a mesh fabric remnant.  Thanks to my sewing muse, Sandra, the zipper pouch queen, I have long since lost any fear of sewing zippers.  Using the method of moving the zipper down a bit from the top made this even simpler.

Start to finish, this project took about about five minutes.   Yay me for being a sewer, having a stash, and getting the laundry done!  As for the original bag that I knew would turn up sooner or later...

sitting on the quilt stand in my bedroom that I must have passed by at least five times while searching for it.  Eyes wide shut.

Straight Skirt to Comfortable Skirt

 This:

from this:

I bought this straight skirt last year because straight skirts are cool.  Cool, yes, but not comfortable for me. So the side seams came out, and inserts went in.

The hardest part of this project was figuring out how to cut two pieces of stripped fabric so that I could line up the stripes to form inverted Vs!  If there is an easy way, please, please share it with me.  I had to call in my in-house engineer to help with this part.  I just could not understand how to make it happen.  Next time, one simple piece of fabric there.

I ended up making an oversized diamond-shaped piece for each side of the skirt. I chose not to cut the inserts down at this point so I wouldn't have to worry about getting the stripes even--lots of room to play around.  After the panels were sewn in place, I used my serger to cut the inserts close to the seam and finish the edges.

This is a lot larger than it needed to be.  I cut it down after sewing it in.

Here it is pinned in place

Inside after sewing in place and serging off the insert excess.

I used a ruler with a slight curve to make the hem line on the inset pieces before cutting them down for hemming. 

The back--still has the slit from being a straight skirt which is kinda cool.

The front.  Hemmed and done!

Now this is a skirt I can actually wear.  As you can see, I am not a too good at taking selfies.  This will have to do.

Landmarks of England Kitchen Towels

I used these embroidery designs once before on a set of towels for my son to commemorate one of his overseas trips. The designs are from The Embroidery Library (pretty sure on that...).   Last time I made the towels from a bolt of Huck toweling I bought at Joann's.  This time I decided to buy the towels cuz I cannot find a decent source for striped toweling by the bolt.  These are for my sister who will be getting a new kitchen put in soon.

Towels were purchased from Amazon.

The towels are to commemorate Robin's trip to England.  Lovin' the black embroidery with the black stripes. 

I am ticking off the sewing projects lately.  I think it is the hint of spring in the air and the increased amount of daylight here.  I'm coming out of hibernation.    

Another Misting Fountain

Yet another water feature added to the house.

Look at the mist rising in the center!

I strongly identify with Gollum from The Hobbit.  I, too, have precious things.  This computer is, in fact, officially named My Precious.  The difference between Gollum and me is that I have many precious things while Gollum was satisfied with one.  Yes, I should be ashamed.  No, I am not.  Techie toys, fabric, sewing machines, and water features--I love them all.  Right now, I'm on a misting water fountain kick.  I love the sound of the water trickling in the background and the mist rising and floating away.

After my sister gave my first misting fountain,

 the obsession began.  That one even has lights that change colors--or not.

The one problem with using the large vase is that it is too deep to see the mist which dissipates rather quickly. You need a fairly shallow container for the water if you want to see that mist.  To get around that issue, I bought a giant cocktail glass and plunked it in the center. 


You can see the upper edge of the glass piece in the photos above.  Dissipating mist dilemma solved, and I still get to use my beautiful vase.  Between the pink pine cones and this, I've had my crafty fix for the month.  One more project off the list.

The Story of the Pink Painted Glittery Pine Cones

Pinterest sent me a notice that they were removing one of my pins for copyright infringement or something of that sort.  Fortunately, they also sent a photo of the pin.  It was pink painted glittery pine cones in a glass bowl sort of like these.

just imagine them in a glass bowl

I can't believe anyone has the rights to pink painted glittery pine cones.  The photo was nice, but just in a crafty photo--look what I did kinda way, not in a professional photographer can sell this way.

The point here is the the pink painted glittery pine cones were about to disappear from my life.  I could not let this happen.  I liked those freakin' pine cones!  I wanted to keep them on my Crafty-Things-I-Want-To-Do-Someday board because my memory isn't worth the powder to blow it to hell.  I would definitely forget them if they were not pinned. 

This project was supposed to be done when I could find the perfect pine cones that would be painted outside on an eighty degree summer day with no wind.  Instead, I picked up some leftover pine cones while out walking on Sunday.  Then today, I was out in 30 degree weather with high winds spray painting in order to have something to pin on my board.

So that is the story of the pink painted glittery pine cones that had to be made and blogged about so that they could be pinned.

The End

String Storage

Still reorganizing the kitchen, and I was about to throw out these cutesy little glasses with tops and straws.  When I bought them at Michael's last year I was absolutely sure that I would use them.  They were going to keep bugs out of my drinks.  Never happened.  If it's that buggy outside, I go inside.  No need for these things.

But those little holes...where did I see that before?  It was a Pinterest pin where someone put grommets on something to hold string.  Here I had two perfect little string containers and two kinds of string sitting in the cabinet.  

These are so freakin' cute!  Justifying my frivolous spending habits is probably not a good idea, but it's nice to have one of these  dumb purchases work out after all.

Kitchen Reorganizing - The Knives

I've been on a reorganization binge in the kitchen. My idea of making fabric boxes for the silverware did not work at all--too floppy, but I kept going with some store-bought things.  My drawers are oddly narrow making this simple white plastic organizer a HUGE find!

This and the most of the other items worked out. Like this

 and this

Everything except the knives.  I was too cheap to pay for a nice wood holder when my lovely husband has workshop tools up the wazoo.  I sent him downstairs with a mission and got this piece.

The fat one in the middle is for the ceramic knife because I refused to give up the cover that came with it.

All the other knives fit in the other slots,

and it all fits right in the drawer.

On to the junk drawer!