Thursday, December 08, 2011

Needle Felted Pin Cushions














I found a cool tutorial on WC Mercantile website  for making needle felted pin cushions.   Well, I have quite a 'fondness' for pin-cushions (OK, I'm a bit obsessed)  and even picked up a couple of containers at the WC Mercantile shop in Navasota to make these little creations.  Now, you have to understand.  My Thursday Night (Quilt) Bee exchanges 'homemade' gifts each year at our Christmas party.  (Yes- Christmas - not Holiday).  there are 14 of us, so that means making at least 13 of something.... Not always easy to come up with an ideas of the time to do it.  In past years, I've always wooosed out by buying Quilt calenders for everyone.  but, if you look at last years gifts  Mariet and a couple of others upped the ante on creativeness...  So, I've been thinking about making felted pin-cushions since this past summer.  

 I found pottery type votive containers on eBay, and they have been sitting on my dining room table since July!  Finally got them done last week, and can show the pictures now that the party was last Thursday.  Oh,  I did NOT hand needle felt these like in the tutorial.  I have one of those fancy dancy felting machines (Pfaff 350) that I got at Quilt festival a couple of years ago.  I used Wool Batting that I kind of shredded for the stuffing and as the base for the needle felting.  I used wool roving for the color swirls and machine felted the crud out of it.  Then made the pin cushion.

Got lots of cool things from the Bee members.  Cherry Salsa, some AWESOME Rum Cake,  a knitted Cowl from Michelle, a knitted/felted pin cushion from Mariet (these are COOL), Cup Cozies, Shoe pants, Texas Pin cushions (see a theme going on here..) and several other cool items.  

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Doing a Little Dyeing



Yarn drying on the back porch

This summer, a couple of my knitting/quilting friends came over to the house for a day of experimenting with dyeing yarn.    Most of the dyeing was in the microwave, but we did some in the crockpot as well ( the brown & turquoise ones).  Mariet made a big bucket of Indigo dye, which was really fascinating.  It's GREEN when you first look at it, and pull the yarn out of the mix.   Then as you watch it magically starts turning blue.  A couple of the hanks were pretty bright, so we experimented with over-dyeing in the left-over indigo bath.




These are the ones I dyed.


Friday, November 18, 2011

New Grandbabies! Yes - that is Plural!

You all just think I've abandoned this blog, but actually there has been lots going on.  The best is that both my daughters were pregnant at the same time.  Due dates were just 3 weeks apart. Well, little Julia Kathyrn was born October 13, at a healthy 8 pounds, 10 oz.    I spent a couple of weeks in Atlanta, helping out with Chloe and little Julia.  What fun spending time with Rachaels family.


Had to miss Quilt Market and Quilt Festival this year, but that's OK, Lindsey had her first child - Olive Elena - and as her father said " A modest 9 ibs, 10 oz"   What a big girl!  She is also a pretty one - with the Moormann nose!   Sorry kiddo. You'll grow into it!  :)



Olive Elena Naumann - 2 days