Kathy's Sheep Drum Pincushion...

Brynwood Needleworks - Kathy D's PG Sheep Drum Pincushion

Kathy D. did all the hard work to prepare for her YouTube debut on Lisa Bongean's (Stitch With Lisa Bongean) channel. Kathy worked all the parts and pieces so she could show the different stages to making the Sheep Drum Pincushion, which left all those parts unassembled by the end of her video with Lisa.

At our last Sit & Stitch, Kathy offered up her pieces, and I knew I had to have one. She had already completed the sewing and embroidery stitches on the main body, but it hadn't yet been attached to the top, stuffed, or had the bottom attached either.

In between a doctor's appointment, lab tests, grocery shopping, and cleaning house since the weekend, I managed to steal a little time to do the assembly of Kathy's lovely work. I hand stitched the top to the body section; stuffed it with sawdust (after I'd wrapped it in Press n Seal™ per her directions); and then attached the bottom section. It's all finished, unless I decide to do the Palestrina knot trim along the top join. Of course, the label I attach will give Kathy all the credit.

If you're interested in watching my girlfriend's tutorial video, HERE'S the link, and you can download the free pattern HERE. Be sure to click the "like" button for Kathy. We'd be ever so grateful!

A Little Quilting Video Tutorial...

Direct Link: https://youtu.be/QELyDSBTN6o

I thought you might enjoy a little "quilt as you go" tutorial today. This one was produced by Gourmet Quilter.com. I know you'll smile as you listen to her accent...and learn a little something at the same time!

I got my chores accomplished and plan to spend most of today in the studio. I'll be back tomorrow with something "sewn" to share with you. 

Happy Friday!!

A Wee Peek...

I can't take it anymore. I know I have to finish the cleaning, sorting and tossing I've

been working on since we got home, but if I don't do something creative soon, I think I

might explode. (I don't think exploding would be very graceful...I'm sure it wouldn't.)

I read a tutorial while we were traveling and I can't wait to tell you all about it. I"ll 

show you one of my own, but I have to make it first. This is also my excuse to do

something in the studio beside rearrange, sort and put away fabrics and supplies.

I'm thinking a bit of this - or a little of that - will be used in my project. 

This is definitely going to be fun, and I'm hoping I've sparked your curiosity.

I'll be back tomorrow to show you what it is. Today, you only get a wee peek.

Tuesdays With Tag - Williamsburg Play Date...

 

Last Friday was a grand day for Tag and me. Our blog friend, Sharon of Corgis In My Garden brought her fluffy Miss Arabelle to visit us in Williamsburg, Virginia.

When they arrived, there was a "greeting period" which involved a lot of running, jumping and snuffling. Miss Arabelle thought that Taggart was being a bit presumptuous, and didn't hesitate to let him know, but Tag is a persistent little bug and it didn't take long for Arabelle to warm up to him. What can I say? He has a way with the ladies.

Sharon and I decided to take the kids down to Colonial Williamsburg so they could strut their stuff down Duke of Gloucester Street. Sharon warned me that corgis are always a hit on her frequent walks in town.

We needed to get into the car to travel into Williamsburg from our campground, so it was into the crates for the corgis for their own safety during the ride.

I know. Just look at that tongue and those ears! He makes me giggle every time I look at him. Arabelle was so sweet. (During our group photo, she came over and just snuggled and smooched on me. She's such a dear little dog.)

When we arrived at our destination, on went the walking hardware and we were off to the races. Sharon agreed to take the reins for a bit so I could take photos.

Tag must think he's a sled dog because he really leans forward against his collar. He completely frustrated me with his pulling, and I was afraid he was going to hurt himself. (We later went to the pet store and purchased a gentle harness for him, which is much safer for him and actually gives me more control. He's already heeling better already!)

The real reason I wanted Sharon to take both leashes was because I had to get a photo of Arabelle's pants (which Sharon says are referred to as her "prom dress"). Arabelle is four years old and that is an impressive prom dress, for sure!

Of course, I wanted a picture of Mr. Tag walking next to her, so you could see how little he actually is. For some reason, he always looks bigger in the photos of me holding him. I know the camera adds ten pounds, but I didn't know it would apply to the dog, too.

There were a lot of dogs in Williamsburg on Friday. Tag had already said "hello" to the black and white Great Dane and Labrador when I shot this picture. By the time I snapped the shutter, he was busy scoping out other targets of opportunity.

I didn't get the picture of Tag and Arabelle greeting a huge Rottweiler (the owner said the dog was over 100 lbs!). I was more concerned with making sure there were no interaction issues. All was well, and I was relieved that the Rotty was actually quite gentle and friendly.

They were both checking out a pair of German shepherds here, but we thought better of them getting nose-to-nose. To tell the truth, Sharon and I were getting a little tired of all the excitement by then.

We enjoyed watching our dogs interact with each other, too. If Tag and I were separated from Sharon and Arabelle by foot traffic or obstacles in our path, the dogs would stop to look for each other. It was really fun to see how quickly they had become pals.

 

Tag particularly went out of his way to greet children. He adores little kids and the smaller the better. It doesn't matter if they're little girls or boys, only that they're little folk. It must be his fairy heritage, and the fact that he can relate to their smaller stature. 

These two little boys were petting Tag, and he responded by kissing on the tiny tot and making the older brother and mama giggle.

Sharon and I laughed that we were completely unable to carry on a conversation while we walked the two short-legged dogs. Sharon would ask me a question and I'd start to answer, only to be interrupted by passers-by asking what kind of dogs they were, or how old were they, or why their coats were different. We heard a lot of "They're so cute!" and "Look! Corgis!" Teenage girls surrounded Tag at one point, taking his picture and trying to cuddle him. (Sorry. I missed that picture, too.)

We finally decided to kennel up the dogs and head to Chickahominy House for lunch and quiet conversation. There may have been dessert involved, too, but I'll never tell!

I can say for myself that I thoroughly enjoyed meeting up with Sharon and sharing the day with her. She's everything I expected from reading her blog and she's a delightful woman. I really look forward to us being able to spend time together again and becoming good, good friends.

I'll be sharing more surprises from our visit during this week. (You didn't actually think I could fit it all into one post, did you?)

I want to change the subject for a minute: I just adore this little, needle felted Corgi! If you'd like to see the tutorial to learn how to make one for yourself (or for me!), here is the link on Living Crafts website. (http://www.livingcrafts.com/blog/giveaways/needle-felted-corgi) For some reason, I'm unable to use the link feature on Blogger again. sigh

A Tutorial For ZuZu...

I received the comment from Zuzu of A Cottage In The Woods, after I finished the lavender quilt top last weekend.

Zuzu said...It's gorgeous! What wonderful times these lucky little ones will have snuggled up in their quilts! I am very interested in how you finish your quilts, Donna. I made a quilt top years ago, but never finished it, because I just don't know how to. If possible, could you share how you pin the layers together & finish them? I'd love to learn! :)

Zuzu, dear, this is for you and anyone else who wants to know...I'll post a few photos here, but anyone who wants to know more about how I finish my quilts can get all the steps and processes by clicking on my Flickr album here. I don't have room to do large quilts in my studio, but these photos will give you an good representation of how I do the stitching on my own smaller quilts. I do my pinning on my antique oak table in our dinette area. (And, if I had more room, I'd certainly follow the same procedure for a larger quilt.)
In addition to the items I have on hand to do the quilt assembly (shown in this photo), I also used 100% cotton batting and bull dog clips (clamps). I machine quilt, so of course, Prissy got busy yesterday afternoon, too! (I couldn't do it without her or Miss Ellie. I have a nice, big quilting table surface attached to my Espire (quilting) sewing machine (nicknamed Prissy), so she's my go-to gal for these projects.
Here's what the "quilt sandwich" looks like after it's pinned and ready for sewing. Remember to decide on how you want your stitch pattern to look and then pin the pieces together so that you don't stitch over them when you're actually sewing the layers.
You can see in this photo that I have everything assembled, pinned, rolled and ready to quilt. The first photo is my finished "stippling", also called "meandering", pattern. I was lost in the movement of the fabric under the needle in the afternoon and time just seemed to fly. I haven't tackled the binding yet. My plans are to finish stippling the other quilt top and then doing the binding on both on the same day.

I hope you enjoy looking at the album (sort of a tutorial, I guess). Thank you, Zuzu, for the request. Anyone wanting more information from my posts, should know that you're welcome to ask me anything, anytime and I'll try to accommodate you. I really appreciate your comments and like to help whenever I can.

ps. I'll post the balance of this tutorial when I trim the quilt edges and add the binding in the next day or so. Then the tutorial will be complete.

An Upcoming Silk Rose Tutorial And Family...

Remember these silk roses?
When I shared this photo with you a little while ago, I was asked if I'd
do a tutorial on how to make them. Mine are made from
silk charmeuse fabric, but you can use any fabric or ribbon.
I was thinking tomorrow might be a good day to share my technique.
Come back and I'll show you just how they're made.
More family arrived to celebrate. Dinner on the lanai, lots of giggling and
reminiscing. Being thankful for miracles large (healing from cancer)
and small (seeing each other again after many years).
And the party rolls on!

Acorns and A Blogger Tutorial...

Another gift in the mail this week - this one from my sweet girlfriend, Denise. She sent me beautiful marbled craft paper - and Vermont acorns. She harvested them from her back yard last fall before the snow covered them. Thank you, Denise. You know I love the acorns and the paper is stunning! I'm waiting for a flash of inspiration on what to do with the paper. I'm sure going to have fun with them. Thank you, Denise!

Blogger's "Pages" Feature

Many of you responded that you'd like me to tell you about the new "Pages" feature on Blogger's gadget menu. If you have any questions after this post, you can leave it in the comments section, or email me directly.

Believe me, I'm not particularly brave about adding something new to my blog. I always save my template before I do things like change colors, font or add code. I'm perhaps a little more comfortable with code because I've been an eBayer for over ten years, and in the "old days", if you wanted large or colored font, italics, etc. you had to enter them in html format. Now, just like here, you can accomplish that with simple button clicks. There's no need to save your template. You won't be messing with that. This is really as simple as writing a post and adding a gadget, which I'm sure you've already done.

So, here's what I did to add some new pages to my blog menu bar (located directly under my blog banner). Oh...I did the color block through another blog tutorial a while back. I'd have to go searching for those instructions, but I think I found the "Add a menu bar" tutorial on All Blog Tools before Blogger made this new feature available. You won't have that color block unless you link to a tutorial for that. (Hint: I did a Google search: "Blogger Menu Bar" and found lots of entries to explore!)

To add your own "Page" through Blogger is a wonderful feature. You won't have to backdate the post and bury it as you've done before. I usually open my blog in a second window on my desktop, so that when I'm ready to start transferring something into a Page, I can just cut and paste from one window to the other. It's just easier for me that way.

NOTE: You may want to open a second window on your desktop now and bring up your blog so that you can click along with what I've written below for clarity. Just think of it as a test page, which you can easily delete later.

So, sign into your blog and then go to the same place you'd go to write a new post. There you'll see tabs for "New Post", "Edit Post", and "Edit Pages". That's the one you want to click on. Once there, you'll click on "New Page". Once you click on it, you'll write your page title and add your content.In my case, I wanted to make a special page just for all the blog giveaways that I post for you. I wrote a short message and then went back to the other window I had opened for my blog and clicked on the wrench to edit the first blog giveaway gadget. I pulled the giveaway photo from that giveaway onto my desktop so I could capture it for the new page. (Which I then did.) I want to place the link back to the giveaway under the photo (because they wouldn't let me link it by clicking on the photo), so I clicked under the photo first and then clicked the "link" icon. I copied the url from the other window, and then pasted it into the link on the new page. You will see that the url appears in the first box as well as the second. You can remove the url from the first box and type in the name of the blog (which I did). Now when your followers click on that blog title, it will take them to the giveaway.

OK, those are trees, and you still want forest. Sorry. So, type whatever you want into the page content and then click "save".

Now, if you go to your blog, you will see a gadget for "Pages", probably located in your sidebar. Click on its wrench (remember you're still signed in), and you'll see something that looks like this: (click on it to enlarge the image and check it out. I'll wait...tick...tock...tick...tock...)
Because I already had a "Home" link on my original menu bar, I unclicked that here, so that I wouldn't have two. You will want to check the "Home" link so you have one in your menu bar. It's already preloaded with your Blogspot url.

You'll see that you can choose where you want your Pages gadget to appear. In my case, I wanted it up top, so I went to "Customize" (you've done that before), and dragged it to where I wanted it to go (just like you'd do with your other gadgets). Now you have the start of your Pages! Go ahead...add more! No dates appear at the top, no comments will appear on your link. You're going to love this new feature. Let's see...hmmm... what else can I move?

Remember, you can contact me if you have any other questions about this. I'm no genius, but I'll to help you any way I can.

We Now Return You To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming...

Things got back to normal yesterday. No worries. No more snakes. Sorry if I freaked anyone out. I've got a few things to take your minds off the mild trauma of it all today. First, I've got a photograph of the two finished ornaments for my swap partner at Ravelry. Think she'll like them? (I hope so!)And then, I wanted to show you the sweet bookmarks I made from the beautiful handmade egg beads from my dear friend, Marion. I'm going to send her one of the finished ones (along with some other surprises) as a thank you for her generosity. Each bookmark has a 14" length of birds' egg blue velvet ribbon, one of Marion's beautiful blue beads on one end (along with Swarovski crystals), and a bird charm with crystals on the other. I got the idea from a recent cover of Somerset Life. I knew I'd just have to try it!And finally...and I've been thinking about this for a few days...I've noticed that my following has climbed to over 150 members. I'm going to add another giveaway gift if we get to 200 by the time the 200th Post Giveaway ends. Here's what I'll offer if we can celebrate a 200th Follower Giveaway:I'm offering another color-themed gift package...First a vintage washboard. It's about 18 1/2" tall and I'd love to see what the winner does with it. Also included is a hardcover book called Heirlooms From Loving Hands, by Sandy Lynam Clough. It's chock-full of her wonderful, painted images and inspirational words and ideas. You'll also receive a cool wine bottle gift box. I have one in my studio that I use to store knitting needles. I'd love to know how you decide to use it. And, finally, a velvet "Joy" ornament (I didn't make this one, but I loved it).

So, if you haven't already told your pals about the 200th Post Giveaway, or you haven't posted up a button on your blog yet, here's another incentive. I'm thankful for each and every one of you this year, and if we get to 200 followers here by Thanksgiving, this is how I'll show my gratitude.

Tomorrow I'll be sharing the Brynwood Needleworks Acorn Ornament pincushion tutorial with you!


Here's a button you can add to your blog to crow about the 200th Follower Giveaway. If we get to 200, one lucky follower will win all of the items in this photo! I'm crossing my fingers for y'all!

In the event we don't make it to 200, I promise I'll keep this gift set together until we do! Someone is going to win this - either next week, or very soon.

Today, A Rabbit Pincushion Tutorial For You...

I recently had a comment left in my blog by my new online friend, Michelle (Shell) May. She's Razzy and Sugar's Mama over at Tales From The Raspberry Rabbits blog. I love visiting and reading her posts. Razzy and Sugar are both so sweet and Shell is a wonderful writer.

She had seen one of my completed pincushions and said that I should have a rabbit pincushion. I agreed, so while I was in my studio today, I decided to re-purpose a rabbit planter into a new pincushion for my collection.

I've put together my process in a free online tutorial for you. Just go to my Flickr album titled "Rabbit Pincushion Tutorial" (catchy title, don't you think?) and I'll show you what I did. I made the album title a link in this post for you. If you'd like to make the same rabbit planter into your own pincushion, there are a number of them listed up on eBay.

Let me know what you think. I think Razzy and Sugar would be pleased.

A Bird's Nest In The Hand...

I was in the studio playing with wire and beads today, and look what I made! Tiny little bird's nests! Aren't they just the cutest little things?

I visit my favorite blogs every day, and recently came across a tutorial ("Little Wire Birds Nest") by the talented Cathe Holden of Just Something I Made. Her instructions and photographs make it easy peasy to make your own. So today, I decided to give it a go and these are the result.

If you'd like to learn how to make them, just click on the photograph of my nests and it will take you right to Cathe's tutorial.
Fair warning: Making these can be addictive! I'm going to be using them in some of my future collage art. How do you think you'd use them? Leave a comment and let me know.

My First Online Tutorial...

I just finished uploading my first video tutorial. It's for the Beaded Fringe Scarf design from Deanna's Vintage Styles.

A few of my "away" buddies asked how to transfer the beads from the hank to the yarn to begin knitting the scarf, and it was easier to do a video than to travel to where each of them live to show them, hence the birth of my video tutorial!

In just under ten minutes, it will take the viewer from the materials list through to the knitting process. You knitters will have to take it from there...but you all know how to knit, so this will be easy. The scarf is a quick and elegant project, perfect for gifts for friends and loved ones. I hope you enjoy the video. Be sure to let me know what you think!

I said to use size 9 needles in the tutorial...you should use size 3 if you're using the fingering weight yarns called for on the pattern.

Note: You can purchase the pattern for this scarf, along with the prestrung beads directly from Deanna's Vintage Styles at http://www.vintagestyles.com The items do not show on her site, because she doesn't want to compete with LYSs, but if you call or email them, they are very gracious about getting a list of the bead colors to you so you can make your selection and purchase. The pattern and beads are also available from DreamWeavers Yarn online shop at http://www.dreamweaveryarns.com, and they are also happy to special order beads from Deanna's for you if you know which color you want.

Also: I've made the title of this post a link to the video, but I've also added a link under "My Video Tutorials" on the left column (right under my Blog Archive) for this and future teaching videos.