It's Owl Calendar Time

Get your printer fired up because it's time to make your 2012 owl calendar.

 

(Click me)

Thank you, My Owl Barn!!

Cute Owl Alert

There's a tutorial at Bugs and Fishes to make a cute felt owl.  I see this owl  squeezing into the #3 spot on my To Do list tomorrow.  Right after 1. Waking up and 2. Eating breakfast  [Link via One Pretty Thing.]

Bonus:  a how-to on making an owl brooch also on Bugs and Fishes.

Owls!

Janet of JMD Designs is holding an "artistic event."  Make an owl based on her free design and you might win some fabulous prizes.  There are two categories to enter. One is for hand stitched needlework or hand applique and the other is for mixed media.  All the details on the Evie Owl Event are here.  Link via Denise at Craft Gossip.

And, here's a tutorial to make a baby felt owl.  Link via my Facebook friend, Shonna.

Another Reason To Get Off My Butt And Make Something

Well, I'm still sitting at my computer, trying to get caught up with some blog reading.

Over at The Inkling Network is a tutorial to make a cute little baby owl brooch link via The Owl Barn.

And, now it's time for a rant:  Why can't Blogger set it up so that each link opens in a new window?!?!  God, this annoys me.

Also for Blogger:  why won't links work in preview mode anymore?  Maybe I'm the exception but I like to check my links before hitting Publish to make sure they work AND open in a new window and now I can't do that.

Ok, I feel better now.

UPDATE 9/24/15:  I can't believe I am doing this.  I'm updating this post from January 2011 because the link for the tutorial for the cute owl brooch no longer works.  THIS IS WHY WE SHOULD ALWAYS PRINT EVERYTHING OUT!!

You can find the link to the owl brooch tutorial as of 9/24/2015 here.

Must Make

I am just about finished with my felt sampler Christmas tree from Inspired Ideas magazine so I'm thinking about my next project. Decisions, decisions!

Little Birdie Plush from A Beautiful Mess

Puppy Pal (scroll down to the bottom of the post) from Turkey Feathers

Owl Hexie Ornament of the Week from Bee Tree Designs (make sure you check all the free patterns there)

Festive Felt Christmas Trees from All Sorts

Christmas deer and fox felt applique from Bustle & Sew

My Life As A Hamster

I've become nocturnal -- sleeping all day and up all night -- so I keep missing opportunities to take more pictures of my Tubby pillow in daylight-- the first round did not turn out well -- and of my TUSAL jar. So, tonight, I am just going to share some links.

There's a cute 1960's kitty embroidery freebie at Primrose Design. That blog was one of the first "crafty" ones I ever read. I still refer to Janet's Stitch School posts when I need a reminder on how to make certain embroidery stitches.

Look at the cute cute cute Jingle Owls from Eileen's Attic. I have got to make one of these! And, have you seen the adorable Kokeshi stuffie from Melly & Me? [Both links via Freebies For Crafters.]

Speaking of softies, it's once again time to make one or two or seventeen and send them off to Pip at Meet Me at Mikes so they can be donated to The Mirabel Foundation, and then given to kids who have been abandoned or orphaned due to drug-abusing parents. For all the details on making softies, where to send them, and links to free patterns, go to this post. I actually made a small bear last night for this project but I used some eco felt which is kind of rough and scratchy (and would make lovely carpeting in a doll house) and I would rather my softie be, well, soft. So I'm considering him a practice run. My goal is to make at least three softies for Mirabel.

Stop laughing, you guys.

Hoot Hoot

I'm fresh out of witty titles.

Not that I ever came up with witty titles.

You can find the Wee Folk Art applique pattern that I used for my owl here. Since I don't applique, I decided to stuff mine so I cut out two body shapes and two sets of wings. I used regular craft felt and attached the eyes, nose, feathers and feet (talons?) to the top body piece before I sewed the top to the bottom body piece together. The wings were added last.



I've been working on a biscornu and I was nearly finished with closing it up, when I remembered biscornus have eight sides. Oops.



To see what the biscornu should look like, go here. I still can't believe I did that! I've made a few biscornus in the past so I know how to put them together but I guess I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing until it was too late. I've already started another one and hopefully, I will remember to assemble it the correct way next time.

For the charts for this biscornu, click on the last two photos in the entry.

The TUSAL Report For June

I'm a little late with this but there was a new moon on Monday (and a firedance through the night) so it's time to post another picture of my orts jar for the Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long. A lot of floss in that jar was ripped out from mistakes I made while putting that owl together (more about him in a later post) so it was fitting they hang out together for the photo shoot.

The TUSAL is the easiest SAL ever. All you do is save your leftover bits of floss (and anything else you want to add) in a container and share a photo of it once a month. For more information on the TUSAL, check out this post over at Dragon My Needle.

And, on a serious note: R.I.P. Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Ed McMahon

My Floss Boxes

The Pimp Stitch girls wanted to see how we store our embroidery floss so here are my three floss boxes. The top two are for DMC floss, which is labeled and in numerical order. (And, I swear nothing else in my life is as organized as those two boxes.)



The bottom box is for everything else: extra DMC floss, unidentified floss, number stickers, buttons, bobbins, gold threads and beads.



Remember the floss bobbins you could make from Craft Chi? They're much nicer than the cardboard or plastic ones you get at the store. (I just realized I never notched mine on the sides. Oh well. They work fine.)



Sometime along the way, my mom gave me her stash of floss from her cross stitching days. She used to wind the leftovers around pieces of cardboard and paper. It's always fun to see which matchbook covers she used. The Hunts one has part of a recipe on the reverse side.



I wish I had the other half of this one just to find out why we should know our pharmacist better.



If you want to see more floss boxes (and, who doesn't?), check out the Pimp Stitch Embroidery Gallery on Flickr. And, check out their embroidered buttons tutorial on the Pimp Stitch blog, complete with free patterns. (Hedgehog & owl alert!)

A Post About Cross Stitch

(I really need to hire someone to come up with more creative titles for my entries.)

Tanya at The Sampler Girl has two free cross stitch charts up on her site this month: one for the election (both parties are represented) and a Halloween one. You will also find links on that page to her other freebies. I've been wanting to do the one called Pumpkin House for awhile.

There's a free owl chart at a French blog called Vick et pique et colle and also a hedgehog from the side, on his back and from the front [links via LaGattaC]. Google Translator keeps giving me the French version for some reason. Maybe you'll have better luck with that.

Of course, I had to print out the Garden Puppy freebie from Artecy. I don't know when I will stitch it but it is cute. (ETA: the chart is no longer available. Sorry! I guess they change their freebies every couple of weeks.)

Belinda of Blue Ribbon Designs is one of my favorite cross stitch designers, which is odd since I don't actually own any of her charts. (I did stitch up one of her freebies a couple of years ago -- and I always obsessively print out the others.) Look at this fun set of smalls called Creepy Crawly. I love that casket! The latest freebie is a Christmas ornament called A Star On Top.

I've always wanted to do a Round Robin but never joined one until now. It's not a traditional RR where one person stitches part of it and then sends it on to another person who does another part, etc. The only stitcher for this Round Robin is me, myself and I. In fact, that's what it's called: Me, Myself And I Round Robin. The first one already has 100 members so a second one has been started up. I still don't know if I actually can do this. I can handle the cross stitching but coming up with a plan for my own neighborhood kind of freaks me out. I already know I will be doing houses, most likely in a row, but I don't want them to look disconnected. I need to figure out what to do when one design ends and another begins. The good thing is you can't start stitching until December 31st so I have plenty of time to plan this all out.

Click Us

Guess who won the 50th post giveaway at Lil Birdie Stitches? That would be me. Can you believe it?! The daylight was fading when I decided to take some pictures of my prizes so all I have so far is one of the cupcake scissors fob. Look how cute it is! I totally love it! And, click the photo so you can see how nicely and neatly Birdie stitches. I'll show you the other goodies as soon as I take more photos.


Felt cupcake scissors fob
Originally uploaded by PipStitch

And, now for stuff you can click:

Jennifer sent me a link to the Owls of Summer cross stitch freebie at Be-Stitched. They're all wearing bathing suits. I love the one in the bikini! (Thanks, Jenn!)

There's a cute embroidery pattern of a "happy boy" sitting on a toy horse (donkey?) on Cata's Craft [link via Stitch By Hand Flickr group]. This would be a good design to use for crayon tinting. By the way, Stitch By Hand is having an Old School Sewing Competition. Entries must be 100% hand sewn and contain fabric and thread. More info is here.

Claudia has posted a unicorn (hearts and a rainbow too!) embroidery pattern and another one with a set of dishware engaged in some athletic activities on her blog, Stitchado.

Jenna at CorgiPants posted the last of her chicken scratch patterns on Sunday. To recap, (and to help you search engine users out there), the patterns are a bird, a snowflake, a windmill with tulips, a butterfly, Autumn leaves, a flower and several borders including one with hearts, plus there were extras on Whip Up and Needlework News. Start here to see all of Jenna's free patterns.

Thanks to Denise at Needlework News for letting us know there's a cute x-stitch freebie of a happy hippo and her happy baby playing at the beach from The Chart Shop. And, that there's a terrific stash giveaway at Needle 'n Thread.

You can find a daily list of links to a bunch of projects from blogs, forums and crafty sites at One Pretty Thing. There are also links to contests and giveaways too.

Something that caught my eye on One Pretty Thing was a link to detailed instructions for making a crazy quilt pincushion that has a CD for a base over at Ivory Blush Roses I'm not usually a huge fan of crazy quilting but this is beautiful. Look at this second pincushion. So pretty!

That should keep you clicking for a while.

A Quickie

My plan was to post one link -- ONE LINK -- and then get up from my chair and walk away from the computer. But then I clicked a link to a blog where there are zillions of links to tutorials and other fun stuff and now I bet I'll be online for the next six hours.

First off, the link I was going to put up is for The Apron Queen's Kick The Bucket Apron Giveaway. You create a Bucket List on your blog and then link it to her blog (and on her blog via Mr. Linky) and you'll be entered in a giveaway for a vintage apron. Since the Apron Queen will be picking winners on Fridays for a couple weeks, you have more than one chance to win.

I just made an executive decision: I am not going back to lovestodream and checking out all the links tonight. For now, I am just going to click one . . . here's a cute owl envelope you can print out. I'll save the rest of the links for when I have more time to spend clicking

Another Freebie From Pimp Stitch

Oh wow! Pimp Stitch already has another free pattern up. This one has an owl and a cupcake. I really should go to bed but now I want to whip out the ironing board and transfer this baby.

Monday's Post

I am already planning how to stay busy during my three month long recovery period, even though it won't actually begin until I get a cast put on my foot, which won't happen until I see a specialist, who I won't get a referral to until the 28th. I've come up with a few projects that I want to get done by the time the cast comes off. (At the rate I'm going, I should be up and walking again by next January!) My sister and I went to a couple of craft stores today so I could stock up on floss and also get some Aida for the Hungarian Sampler Stitch-A-Long. The first two parts of the chart have already been posted so I have some catching up to do.

I also wanted to get a tote bag to embroider for my sister. I had stitched a Pillsbury Doughboy on one last year for her birthday, and when I started doing another Doughboy on the reverse side, I stupidly did not keep track of the colors of floss I was using, so there's a finished Doughboy on one side and a half-embroidered Doughboy on the other. Michael's did not have a blue tote bag in a medium size so we went to Tall Mouse, and not only did we find exactly what we were looking for, but I also found tea towels on sale, five for $10. I am not a huge fan of flour sack towels because I'd rather have a smaller kitchen towel and these are a perfect size. They had them in solid colors (and patterns too) so I got two in white, and one in red, green and blue. Let the embroidering begin!

It seems the majority of my recent cross stitch finishes have been done with floss and fabric scrounged from my stash, so it was really fun to go and get new supplies. Then I came home and excitedly wound all my new floss on those little plastic bobbins. And, then my head exploded because I was so dang happy.

Doe-c-doe is having giveaways all this week. To enter, leave some comments on each post (more information is here.) It looks like she will be sharing an embroidery pattern every day as well. Monday's is a cute squirrel.

And, don't forget the quilting book giveaway at Studio-259.

Of course, I forgot to add this earlier: Over at a blog called Meet Me at Mikes, Floresita is posting a week's worth of embroidery patterns. I don't know if these are ones that she has posted elsewhere or not. There's also a blogroll of other people participating so check those links too, like the freaking adorable pattern at The Lark with an owl, squirrel and hedgehog.

Maybe I Can BeDazzle My Orthopedic Shoes

Well, I missed mentioning another holiday on this blog. I was going to post a picture of my St. Patrick's Day troll too. I hope you all had a nice St. Paddy's Day!

Every so often, usually when I'm eating bacon, I will think about Laura and Mary Ingalls playing with a pig bladder. And, I'm not even on medication. So, I really enjoyed this article.

I forget how I found it but check out the blog for the Hungarian Sampler SAL. If I can find a large enough piece of material before they post any more of the chart, I'd like to join this one.

Some of my freebie links have disappeared from my list on AOL so I was happy to come across a link to Cherished Time (or Kiyo's Cross Stitch Page) again. There's a huge list of free charts there [link via Taking one stitch at a time]. I don't think it's been updated since April 2006 but I'm sure many of the links still work.

I also wanted to mention the x-stitch freebies at LUMIERE403. One night I was trying to find a pattern with sheep for the Christmas Ornament SAL and I ended up there (I think it was linked on LaGattaC).

There's a new free chart called Acorns and Owls at Blue Ribbon Designs. And, click the link to read the March newsletter to see how you can win a chart.

Barbara over at Oodles and oodles has posted the pattern that's on her ready to be embroidered aprons. The same ones she was giving away that I did not win. Not that I'm bitter. Ok, I am but I'll get over it as soon as the next apron giveaway comes along. (Please let me know if you hear about any so I can get happy sooner. Thanks!) (And, thank you for sharing the pattern, Barbara.)

Speaking of getting happy, I had a little bit of bad news last week. I got an official diagnosis on my swollen-since-November-and-now-deformed-foot (I am not exaggerating): I have something called Charcot Foot, yet another fun side effect of diabetes. Apparently, the nerve damage in my feet is so severe, I can no longer feel any pain and didn't know I had fractured several bones. And yes, I was shocked to hear that. Fortunately, this can be treated but that involves wearing a cast and staying off my foot for three months, and then having surgery. (Then I'll probably have to wear special shoes, which you know will be ugly. Can I Bedazzle leather?) I can deal with that -- I went through the same thing last Fall with my broken knee and became a whiz at using a walker -- but it's going to be awhile since I can go back to work and that depresses the hell out of me. So, I'm trying to be positive and look at my recovery as lots and lots and lots of time to cross stitch or embroider or finally try some other projects that I've always wanted to do but didn't because I was too busy reading craft blogs into the wee hours of the night, she typed at 2:53 AM.

As seen on Google: "The BeDazzler is back again and it’s the fashion craze of the season." Har!

Click Away

I don't blog because I enjoy writing. I just want to post links. So, here ya go!

Bordando Freebies is a Spanish blog for posting cross stitch freebie finishes [link via Cross Stitch Happy]. I like that there are links back to where the free charts originally came from -- just look for where it says "grafico aqui" on each post and click. (I actually remembered from my junior high Spanish classes that aqui means here.)

I found another owl. It's part of a larger chart for the month of September on the Aurelle blog. There are a ton of freebies there. You can find an index here. Categories include biscornu, animals, angels, the garden, the sea and some other French words I don't know.

Recycled Slipper Tutorial from Sew Green

An index of free charts (in French) on Echevette. And, here's the translated version.

More Owls

There are five cross stitch charts with owls, along with some other designs, on the freebie page at Chouett 'alors. [Link via Christmas Ornament Stitch-A-Long] I love that French owls say "hou hou."

The chart for Bent Creek's Owl On An Egg is here. (This link worked every other time I tried it until right this very minute.) (OK, I've waited a day and it is working again so I suggest printing or saving it NOW.)

Frimousse has a chart for an owl pincushion.

Jenn (of Sweet Pea Stitches) sent me a link for Midnight Owl from The Chart Shop. (Thanks, Jenn!)

And, if you're not into x-stitch, how about embroidering an owl? Need a pattern?

(To help the search engine crowd: FREE CROSS STITCH CHARTS WITH OWLS)

Forgot To Post This One 3 Days Ago

I'm not a huge fan of clowns but this bear is cute. He's flipping a crepe. And, he's skiing in this one. (To help you Googlers, I'll add that these are free cross stitch charts.)

I'm pretty sure this blogger is a member of a Yahoo group for redwork that I also belong to but I don't think I ever linked to her blog (which I just found again through another blog that I did not save a link to). She has posted some of the embroidery patterns from the J.F. Ingalls catalog that John Governale put online last summer. There are owls, birds, peacock feathers, and what looks to me like Little Bo Peep since she's holding one of those curvy stick things. EDITED TO ADD: Some of the links no longer work. Please go to J.F. Ingalls for scans of the embroidery patterns that Mr. Governale shared a couple of years ago. Updated: April 29. 2010.

TipNut has started posting another days of the week (DOW) set of embroidery patterns. This time, it's puppies doing chores. The link to the pattern for Monday is near the bottom of this post. Thanks to TipNut for sharing these!

I found another cool link on my old blog: a knitted pie.

Did you know Kellogg's stopped making Hydrox cookies a few years ago? [link via Not Martha] I don't know if I ever even had one (and now I guess it's too late). I always was, and still am, an Oreo girl.

I saw the giant cupcake pan in the King Arthur catalog earlier tonight and now I'm not surprised I see it's on back order until February 18th.

Woo hoo!

And, yet another blogger is sharing her vintage embroidery patterns. Here's a cute little chick. Thank you, doe-c-doe (I love that name!) And, check out her fantastic embroidered I Love Lucy! Wow!

Edited to Add: Once I hit the Publish Post button, I really should turn off the computer and get up and walk away. Instead, I keep reading blogs and finding more things to link to.

Not too long ago, I read on someone's blog that if you have a craft blog, you have to make an owl at some point. I guess I missed the memo on that rule but it made me think of several owl charts that I know of. Since I just stumbled across another one, I might as well link to them all so I can get away from this computer and go to bed.
La chouette pour Nannick (I can now add chouette to my ever expanding French vocabulary thanks to this French cross stitch blog)
Owl from Hobby Loco This one is 1" x 2" if done on 14 ct

I'm pretty sure I knew of another x-stitched one but can't remember where it was now. I'll add it when I find the link again. But, Anna Maria Horner has a cute felt owl ornament to make. And, you can watch Floresita's video on making her spooky Halloween owl.