Dirty Or Clean In Felt

A few years ago, Loralynn sent me a biscornu that she made out of felt that I totally love.




She makes a lot of really cool things and I have to share one of her latest projects because I love it so much.  It's one of those Clean or Dirty signs that you put on your dishwasher.  It's so cute and it's made out of felt.  Please visit her blog now and check it out.  Isn't that great?!

Help With A Quilt For Japan

I was just over at Mom Wald's Place and read about the quilt project she has started to raise money for Japan.  She plans to auction or raffle off the quilt and donate the proceeds to the Red Cross.  You can help by stitching up a square with a vintage fruit or vegetable design -- she suggests checking Hoop Love on Flickr for patterns to use.  She's also accepting fruit and veggie themed fabric squares.  This post has all the details.  And, read this one too.

Great idea, Mom Wald!

Cute Idea For Christmas Ornaments

Hey, it's never too late to start making Christmas stuff and I thought these embroidery hoop ornaments from The Crafty Cupboard were really cute.

Adopt The Internet Day 2011

Today is Adopt the Internet Day.

Petfinder is asking us to promote pet adoption by spreading the word online.  You can add a badge to your blog or website, and use your Facebook status or share a link on Twitter to a Petfinder pet who is looking for a home.  In the past fifteen years, Petfinder has helped 17 million animals find new homes.  Help them get even more pets adopted.  Get more inforamation on Adopt the Internet Day here. 

Pumpkin and Lucy say thank you!

Check Out Wild Olive

Mollie over at Wild Olive is doing a series on embroidery basics, She's starting off with a post on materials you will need before you start stitching.  Go check it out.

Hearts For Christchurch

A blogger named Evie is collecting hearts for people affected by the earthquake in New Zealand. 

"Two heart shapes sewn together, stuffed or not, embellished, embroidered, CQ’d, quilted, plain or fancy, felt or fabric or anything goes. Add a loop at the top."

What will she do with the hearts?  One idea is to hang all the hearts in one place as a show of support so everyone can see them.

You can find all the details on her blog, Hearts for Christchurch.

That's the last link for today but I have more to post so stay tuned.

Stuffed Bunny

Here's a Funny Bunny Plush Doll from A Beautiful Mess.

Cute Little Bag Tutorial

This link turned up on Facebook but now I can't remember who posted it.  Thanks to whoever you are!

A tutorial for a cute little drawstring bag with directions for hand sewing.  Sign me up.

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.

Embroidery Round-ups

You can find a round-up of free embroidery patterns on Craft Gossip and on One Pretty Thing, including the latest freebie from Badbirds:  a platypus.

Also, check out this post on Craft Gossip for some Easter embroidery patterns and cross stitch charts.

A Post Every Hour

I feel bad about not blogging.  I miss it.  Sometimes I post links to crafty stuff on Facebook and think I should be doing that on my blog instead.  I have a bunch of links to share so I'm going to write some posts and then schedule them to publish tomorrow. 

Let's start with two for St. Patrick's Day.

Jenny has a tutorial for a cute felt shamrock pin.  I made one a couple of years ago.  And posed it with a felt guinea pig I made.




And, here's another cute felt pin from Paper Dali.

Wondering why I don't have a Holidays label.

March TUSAL Update

Time for the March TUSAL update.

This afternoon, I tossed my ORTs jar on the bed while Lucy and Ethel Pumpkin* were playing and snapped a few pictures.  If you look closely, you can see a few threads in the bottom of the jar. The poor thing is not getting much action due to a lack of stitching on my part.

And yes, that is a different jar.  For the third month in a row.  After I knew there would be plumbers and work men in my bedroom to fix that leaky pipe behind my closet wall and they would see several jelly jars full of threads on my book shelf and think I was insane, I decided to combine the contents from all the jars into the large canning jar that I picked up last month at the thrift store and just use the one above for 2011.  They can still think I'm insane, just not as much. 

By the way, they plugged up the holes in the walls and re-painted them and they look fantastic.  You can't even tell it was patched, or whatever the term is.  Not sure when they will be here to install the new floor but we're halfway done now.

*My sister and I had Lucy at a new vet and when we mentioned we also had a dog named Pumpkin at home, he said we must be huge Peanuts fans.  At first, neither of us knew what he was talking about.  Probably because Linus and his Great Pumpkin story was never one of our favorites.

And, in semi-related news, this is hilarious:




P. S.  Thanks to Sheila for the reminder it was time for a TUSAL update.

Wordless Wednesday

Hello, Pumpkin!

The Latest News

Here's a post I forgot to finish last week.

The good news is I don't have to have cataract surgery for six months to a year.  Also, I don't have any new changes to my eyes from diabetes.  But I do have to get new glasses for both reading and driving.  Right now, I use a pair of non-prescription readers for the computer and reading, plus a magnifying glass for things like embroidery or cross stitch, and I thought I was doing fine, except on days when my cataract makes everything wonky, but I just looked at a photo on my huge-ass monitor of my latest stitching and I can't believe how clear it is.  Look at the weave on that fabric.  Who knew it was there?  And, now I can see just how bad my embroidery skills are.  Boy, do I need to practice my satin and back stitching.

By the way, that is a lop-sided mushroom with a round stem, in case you were wondering.


I've erased the rest of this post because it's already outdated.  We had a leaky pipe in the wall behind my closet and I had written about that and was going to show a picture of the huge hole in my wall but it's already been patched and dry walled.  Next up: new paint.  And then, and this is the big one: we get new flooring in pretty much the entire house (everywhere but the bathrooms and kitchen/family room).  Sounds good, huh?  Especially when you consider the wood floor that's already here is scratched in places, there's previous water damage by the front door, and even though the same kind of wood was used all over, some it is shiny and some of it isn't (I think there are two different finishes).  Plus the carpet in my bedroom should have been replaced years ago.  I'm excited to get new flooring but it hit me tonight that we will basically have to pack up everything from nearly every room and put it somewhere while the new floor is being installed.  It's almost like moving.


Just shoot me.

Of Course I MIssed The February TUSAL Update

I was just over at It's Daffycat and found out there was a new moon yesterday so I missed posting a TUSAL update.  I took some pictures anyway.  .

I found this canning jar at a thrift store the other day and thought I would make it my new TUSAL jar.  It's the bigger kind so it probably won't be filled up for years.



Meanwhile, this is my current jar.  I made a finished cross stitch into an ornament (shocker!) and also did a little embroidery so few thread ends made it in there.  (Last month, my jar was totally empty.)



On the left, is my 2010 jar and on the right, is my current one.  Well, it was the current one before I bought the canning jar.



Wasn't that exciting?!

Make These For Valentine's Day

I love these felt roses from Spending Less Living More.  They were linked on this post of crafty Valentine ideas from Craft Gossip.

I also love these Valentine marshmallows from The Decorated Cookie.  They were linked here on Craft Gossip.

And, nothing to do with Valentine's Day but also on Craft Gossip is Denise's latest free embroidery pattern round-up.

I love Craft Gossip.

Make A Cute Valentine Pillow

I love this cute little love heart pillow from Lynn B [link via Craft Gossip].

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.

Get Off Your Butt, Patty

I just read over at Craft Gossip that Aimee Ray is doing an embroidery stitch-a-long over at Lark Crafts and thought if only I could transfer some patterns using the stick-your-design-in-the-window-and-trace-it-with-a-pencil method right now and then I realized it wasn't 2 AM like it usually is when I'm online but only 2:30 PM and really sunny out (and 79 degrees!) so I should get up from this chair and go trace some patterns on to my fabric.

OMG, the free patterns are so cute!  You can read more about the SAL on this post.

Lucy Video

This has nothing to do with embroidery or anything I made. I just needed a place to post a video of Lucy doing her scary tail thing so I can share it with some people.