Spring/Easter Woolpets

If you have followed my blog for any length of time ,you will have seen my Woolpets. These are all designed and made by my talented artistic daughter, Laurie. She and her husband Kevin have a great business called ,"Woolpets." As I have said before, Kevin is the business part and Laurie is the artist. Right now she is devoting her time to illustrating a children's alphabet book. (You can see it at the blog Hazel Basil Pudding Pie). In my attempt to get spring going here, I got out all my spring decorating things. Of course, that means my spring /Easter Woolpets. I hope you enjoy seeing them. I love decorating with them!!

The white wool for this sheep came from Laurie's real sheep named Hazel!

I used this adorable little bunny in a spring blog header last year.

He is my newest addition to my white bunny collection!
Thanks Laurie! I love you! Mom
Thanks for taking a look and hope your week is going well. Today we had rain, sleet,snow, and sun all in one day!!!

New Project

After much indecision I finally got my feeble mind to decide my next cross stitch project. I have spent a lot of time on The Scarlett Letter's Rebecca Robinson. It seems that every time I started to work on it, I found something else to do(all my little Easter squares!) I finally admitted to myself that I just didn't like the colors that she chose. I had sacrificed a huge piece of linen to this project , plus the SBA kept saying how much he liked it. One day I just admitted to myself that I was not enjoying this!!!!!! I think I learned a great lesson. Even when you do a reproduction, YOU have to like the colors. I'm not saying that applies to everyone. Some folks can do a reproduction and stick to it for the historic integrity-that's not me I guess! Well, I got an OOP Sheepish Designs on Ebay and I'm loving it. It's called " From Every Mountainside." I'm seriously thinking of doing a wall of patriotic projects because I'm drawn to them. I also have Sheepish Designs ,"Betsy" that I want to do. So I'm finally off that stuck place and happily stitching away. I remember Edgar's advice( at Blacksheep's Bit Of the Web") this is a hobby, you have to enjoy what you are doing!! Thanks Edgar for the reminder!

I'm being very careful with the colors and changing any that I don't like.

I used a dark Navy for the first border and a soft gold for the second. The linen is antique white.For some reason , there are lots of shadows.

This is a very interesting read. I guess you could say it's the Civil War from the perspective of the women. I like her quilting stories best when they have a historic component.
Well, thanks for taking a look and I wish you all a great week ahead. We are still very cold and wintery!!!! The SBA just said, " Hey, it's snowing!" My flowers are just sitting and waiting for some sun and warmth!

Snow and a little Northwest town

The first photo shows you what we got up to this morning. The snow was a sign of how chilly it was,but we had glorious strong sunshine so by now most of the snow is gone. I needed some linen to start my next project so we headed up to a little town called Port Gamble. A great quilt store up there is trying to meet the needs of cross stitchers and carries great linen and several kinds of floss. It is one of the oldest towns near Seattle. It is kind of odd in that you can not own a house in the historic area. You can only rent. The town is in a beautiful spot near the water. That's because it was an important lumbering town years ago. The town was modeled on a New England village. I hope you enjoy the photos!

Here's my garden!!

This sign gives you a bit of history about the town.

This is in front of The Dauntless Bookstore. Many old houses have been converted to shops and small businesses.

Love that picket fence!

Notice the pretty view in back of this house.

Love that trim!

Many weddings are held here in the summer.

Here is the view I was referring to.

I hope you enjoyed seeing this delightful little town . It's about 20 minutes from our home. We feel very lucky! Thanks for taking a look!

The Sewing Expo

Last week my dear daughter and I went to a sewing expo. This is a very well known event and people come from quite far away. Here was the problem for us. As for me, there were very little if any, needlework supplies. I'm not that much of a seamstress! I do sew for my home, pillows , bed skirts , etc. but that is about it and only when necessary. Laurie is a wool-felting artist. She was looking for things she could use in her designs and really didn't find anything. There were several great trim booths but you had to know exactly what you wanted. The event was a quilters paradise! It was extremely crowded!!!! We did have a nice day together so that was worth the trip. We decided that we will probably skip it next year.

Now in Washington, any event that is held at the Fairgrounds sells these yummy scones! We resisted!

Here are a few of my purchases. I never tried this but thought I might like to use this for trim. It can be dyed.

Looks easy!! We'll see!!!

Vintage ribbon in a color I love.

This was my favorite booth. They had tons of these great ceramic buttons. There were some for Halloween that were wonderful. I loved the spider ones. I have some ceramic Halloween buttons that I haven't used so I decided to wait on those. I can use these for my summer decorating. I have her card so I can order more.

Thanks for taking a look and have a great week!

Almost finished!

I have 6 of the 7 little projects that I plan to do all finished . I plan to make them into little pillows. Each design is only about 1 5/8 inches. They will either go on my feather tree or on a small wreath. I took my sewing machine to be serviced so I can't finish them till I get it back. I thought I was done with Spring/Easter but then I found that I had purchased the Prairie Schooler "April". I have done several other months so I have a frame and you can just change the stitch project out and no need to buy a frame or any other framing supplies! Yea! I even had a nice piece of linen and so this won't cost any additional money! Another Yea! My dear daughter and I had fun on Thurs. We went to a sewing expo. I'll show you those pictures tomorrow.

There were 2 roosters to choose from.

This flower reminds me of a Pennsylvania Dutch design. I like that look!

Spring needs a little lamb!

This bunny was a challenge. I didn't like the bunny in the pattern I was using. The SBA was an engineer in his working life, so he helped me adapt this design to the small size I needed. I do love this bunny. I put the grass in because it looked empty between the fence and the bunny. My next and final design is also an adaptation! I do like a challenge!
Thanks so much for taking a look. I hope you are all having a great week-end. The weather is super here and we're off for a walk!

The Final Spring/Easter Stitch

I planned three projects for my spring/Easter decorating. I have posted the first two and will show them again when they are framed. My final project involves 5 or 6 small stitches. I plan to put them on a wreath or on my little feather tree. I will probably decide when they are finished. Each one takes me 2-3 hours. That is what I call a fast stitch!!!

Here is the pattern I'm using. It is a Prairie Schooler. I'm using some 32ct. antique ivory linen that I have on hand. It's a great way to use a scrap of linen.

This cupboard is in my kitchen and that 's the little wreath I plan to use.

A close up of the wreath.

Or maybe I'll put them on this tree!

I have two stitched.

Sorry for the wrinkles! Thanks so much for taking a look.

Quaker Easter Egg

This represents the second of three Easter/Spring projects. If you have looked at my blog you will know that I do love to decorate for the seasons. I think I''ll start the Spring decorating about the middle of March. I will have these little projects done . I really liked stitching this egg. The colors are the best we can do. I'm thinking of trying to learn more about this camera so I don't use the automatic setting. I'm never happy with the colors. My fabric for this was antique white. That shows you how far off my colors are. I changed all the colors in the egg. I'll describe them at the bottom.

Here is the whole egg. Good Easter eggs need certain things:

Like a baby chick

Butterflies and leaves

a pretty potted plant

And of course, the message of Easter!

The colors I used were: DMC-355 and 356
NPI Atlantic Blue Range #925 and #923
NPI Sunflower gold Range #772
GA-Oatmeal, Summer Meadow,Dried thyme, and Wood Trail
I didn't buy any supplies for this, I used things from my stash.

Thanks for looking. Tomorrow, I'll describe my final project! Have a great week!

Quaker Easter and Birds

I have three projects I want to do for Easter/Spring. I do leave most of my Easter stuff up for the greater part of spring. I think rabbits , eggs, etc. represent the rebirth of spring as well as Easter. I finished the white bunny egg, and now I'm about to finish a Quaker egg. I do love Quaker patterns and could not resist this one. I changed it a lot as far as color is concerned. I'm not a pastel person at least not with my home decorating. So I have to be careful with spring /Easter designs which tend to be more pastel. I will show the finished egg tomorrow. I took these pictures a few days ago.

I am using lighter versions of colors I often use in cross stitch.

I even mixed colors within the design.

Here is the pattern. It uses lots of pale over-dyed thread.

We had a very busy feeder this week-end. I think maybe because it was cold! I do love chickadees!

I was so happy to see this picture when I looked at the ones I took. The birds were moving so fast that I just kept snapping, not sure what I was getting. This is a little rosy breasted nuthatch with his little head in the feeder!

Another woodpecker!
I hope you all have a wonderful week-ahead and thanks for taking a look!