Fall Is In The Air

 Love this little quilt and have been trying to find the name of the pattern.

A cross stitch piece I finally finished this year. It is a Brenda Gervais pattern that calls for you finishing it on a doll house table.

I painted the table, sanded it and then applied an oil-based stain and then wiped off the excess.

Another Brenda Gervais/With Thy Needle and Thread pattern. I finished all of them into pillows using Vonna Pfeiffer's tutorials.

Thanks for looking!

Elves Everywhere!

Getting ready for Fall is so fun. Our weather has turned cooler and the leaves are turning. Some have even started to fall. The chickens are molting and laying few eggs, so the days are getting shorter. The garden is tapering off. I just love this time of the year! Bonfires, corn mazes, hot chocolate, hayrides!

Fun vintage style Halloween/Fall kneehuggers. Some of the hats are made out of 1940s newspaper that I carefully recycled off of some old paper pieced quilt squares. I want to use these squares in a quilt but hate to destroy the old newspaper. So I repurposed some of it. The sailor style hat is made from a modern newspaper, The Valley Times News from Alabama. My in-laws save my hometown papers for me. I love them! It just so happened that the newspaper that I used was from November of last year so it had an article about a skating rink Halloween party. I was able to use this article. The words: costume contest, scary, costumes are shown on the hat.

Fun vintage style pumpkin kneehugger. Hand sculpted by me using pattern that I designed.

He is a green pumpkin with a mischievous laugh.

He has a jolly laugh! Don't you just love his candy corn costume and matching collar.

1940s newspaper hat.

Santa has a FULL beard! He reminds me of the Santa from the old Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer movie.

Frosty has rosy cheeks and a corn cob pipe!

Thanks for reading!

Keep those creative juices flowing,

Holly

Ready For Fall

Summer has come to an end and fall is in the air. I have been working on a few fall things. I recently purchased the kit for the table runner and really enjoyed making it. I believe that I finished it in about a week. Pattern is by Primitive Gatherings and is called Pumpkin Farm table runner. The kit came with everything but the thread. I just used thread that I had in my stash.

The detail on this runner is amazing. I did change the flowers from purple to more subtle yellows, reds and oranges.

The runner fits nicely on an old table in the upstairs hall. Notice the old window? My father in law gave it to me. It is from an old farmhouse that was across the road from their country house.

Fall quilt that is about 7 years in the making. For some reason I never did buy any fabric for the binding. Last year I purchased some matching brown and am just now getting around to binding the quilt. 

Starting to finish some cross stitch pieces. Finished these last year and have started on a few for this year. The small quilt table runner was very easy and was a kit from Prairie Women's Sewing Circle. Very cute pattern and the green is not as bright as this picture makes it. The doll in the old dough bowl is from Gail Wilson pattern. Love her patterns and extremely easy instructions for making the dolls look just like hers. They are very meticulous but turn out beautiful.  

Have a very wonderful weekend,

Holly

Finally Back!

Well....I have been very absent on this blog. I couldn't remember the password and the email address that I used was not added to my other computer. Received a new computer for Christmas and added the old email address and was able to change the password. Now I just have to figure out how to break into my Flickr account :)

Found this little beauty and stitched a small quilt on her. She came all the way from the Netherlands with nary a scratch on her. I found out that I really like sewing with her. Winding her bobbin is magical!

Made this sweet little Brambly Hedge mouse for my sister's birthday. She is a character named Poppy Eyebright. I colored her flowers with a alcohol based marker and embroidered her skirt and dress. I couldn't find small pinstripe fabric in pink so I painted some stripes on white muslin.

Her had is made out of 14 count cream Aida cloth.

Her head fur is a teady bear German mohair which I love!!! And her eyes are reproduction German glass shoe buttons.

We adopted this sweet little kitty, Tesla from the shelter. He is such a precious kitty. Very tolerant of children and has not bitten or scratched us once. We have had him about a month and half. He gets along with our other animals so well. He is part Maine Coon.

Have a wonderful night,

Holly

Car Line Stitches

I love to cross stitch. I have been cross stitching since I was 8. Back then the large Aida was in style, now it is the linen. I absolutely love linen. The linen looks more original to the little school girls' samplers that I dearly love. Needlework is so relaxing to me. I loooovvvveee doing needlework in the car line when I pick D#2 up (it keeps me from falling asleep). Granted it is only about 20-30 minutes but you would be surprised what you can accomplish in that short of time. Take a look and see :)

This was a freebie from Notforgotten Farm. I did change the date to "31" instead of "13". I usually don't stitch Halloween things but Lori was having a contest and how could I resist? Well.....that was last year and as you can see it was not finished. I didn't know how to finish it, so it sat at the bottom of my little stitching basket until this past August. I finished it in about 3 days, so less than 2 hours. I am thinking of making it into a little pillow. The backing will be that little scrap of pumpkin fabric. The pumpkin fabric is only 5" square.

Closer look.

I have been working on this piece for 2 1/2 years. It is a Stacy Nash piece. It is not very big but I got kind of tired of it. I completed it this past August too!! I think a little bowl filler pillow is in it's future. Scissors are 4" and show how small this piece is too.

I love this piece. Again, another pillow. I have almost finished it. It is a Brenda Gervais piece. She has the most amazing patterns. I love it that she will kit the threads for you. That saves so much time! I am in love with two of her new pieces but since everyone else loves them too, they had to put their shop on vacation while they play catch up to the flood of orders. I can't wait to order mine!!

Hope you enjoyed the car line stitches! What are  you working on? Are you baking a cake, working on your Christmas gifts, stitching, cooking supper? 

Keep those needles sharp and have a great weekend,

Holly

Little Boo Pumpkin

Here's a fun little pumpkin tutorial for you! Make sure when Fall is over and you get ready to throw away all of your gourds and little pumpkins, that you save the stems. They add a realistic touch to handmade fabric pumpkins.

 

 

Fabric pumpkin, needle felted acorns, and fabric leaves.

 

 

 

Hand dyed velvet pumpkin.

 

Draw a 4" circle. Lay the pattern on a double layer of fabric and cut out. Right sides together, sew, leaving a 1 1/2" gap for turning and stuffing. Turn pumpkin right side out. Stuff very firmly. Stitch opening closed. Using crochet thread, start in the middle from the bottom, go up through pumpkin, cross over the side downwards and back through the bottom of the pumpkin pushing needle through pumpkin and upwards. Continue doing this first in a "t" or cross shape and then in an x shape. Tie off on the bottom. Now just glue the stem on. There you have it, your cute little pumpkin. Make a bunch of them and put them in a bowl. Super cute! You could use wool, cute fabric or even felt. Have fun! If you get confused just leave a comment and I will try to explain it better.

 

This year I planted cotton in my garden. I hoped that it would make actual cotton bolls and it did! See the tiny bowl on the middle shelf? It has three cotton bolls in it.

More of my NC garden grown cotton. I will have to take some pictures of the plants. The flowers are so pretty, they were white and some were pink.

Close up of cotton. I have some seeds that we have already harvested. I can't guarantee they will grow but if you would like a few just send me your address and I will get some to you. You will need to plant them after the last frost in the Spring.

Blessings,

Holly