Once upon a time this was a blog about making stuff. Let’s bring the creativity back, shall we?  Remember how I had big plans to install a clothesline? Well, I actually did it and have been using it the past few weeks. I just really love it. It’s just lovely to go out on a sunny Saturday morning and hang up my freshly washed clothes. I’m not sure how nice it will be in the Winter, but I still plan on trying. Here are not my clothes, but a selection of pretty fabrics, many of which are soon to be a quilt for a nephew who is on the way. I’m pretty excited to get started on this one, my craft room was overtaken by goslings for a few weeks, but they are happily living outside now and I have my very messy space back. For the quilt, I’m using Denyse Schmidt’s What a Bunch of Squares pattern (I think it’s slightly different than the one on her site), and lots of bright, graphic prints, like the numbers fabric on the left, and the green with black printing in the middle. The solid blue that you can just see towards the left will be used for the outside of each block. I hope it works. Her quilts are usually more solid, so I hope it’s not too busy. I plan on working on it all week, so I should have more pictures soon.

And here’s a little something I did a while ago. I bought this cute vintage table cloth on etsy. I love it, but the outlines around the daisy flowers were really faded, so I decided to fill them back in with a little backstitching. I added a cute red border and plain linen back, and viola! A pretty pillow! I like it on my rocking chair, but it will probably spend most of the time in the living room on one of the wing-back chairs, once I recover them with some linen I picked up a few weeks ago for $2 a yard. That’s no typo people, two dollars! I thought it was $4 when I took it to the cutting table, but it was on clearance, and another 50% off. Score!

I have been on a self-imposed fabric diet for a very long time. I don’t think I’ve bought hardly any fabric in the past year, as a matter of fact. So when I got a little gift card to Joann’s for Valentine’s Day, I had to go spend it right away:

Actually, the fabric diet ended a couple weeks ago, when I went to the dentist, which happens to be next to a quilt shop. I was such a brave patient that I thought I deserved a little treat, so I got the tape measure fabric and the red floral underneath it in the top picture. It really helped with the pain in my jaw. Really, I recommend fabric buying for toothache pain. And then I also need to try out Superbuzzy, so see if they really were as great as everyone is saying. I ordered the green fabric with the words and the orange dot fabric, and I’ll have to agree that yes, Superbuzzy is all that. The rest is what a $40 gift card gets you at Joann’s when their quilting fabric goes on sale, 30% off. I had to get the chicken fabric after seeing it over at Alicia’s, and I love the apple and pear print, the colors are so pretty!

I love, love, love this quilt from the Tokyo Quilt Show, and I’d like to do something similar, so that’s what I was thinking while picking out a lot of the fabrics. I love how it’s a traditional pattern, but the colors and fabrics make it seem so modern and fresh.

I haven’t taken pictures of the chickens for a few weeks, so I attempted to get a few yesterday morning. They’re getting a little harder to photograph, because, like Pavlov’s dog, when they hear the screen door slam, they all come running, hoping that I’m bringing them a treat. So they get very very close to me, and it’s not so easy to get pictures that way. I managed a few decent shots, however:

They’re trying to get closer to me, hoping that the shiny silver thing in my hands is actually some food.

I don’t think there is much of anything cuter than a chicken butt:

A few more of the chickens have names now. The four Barred Rocks are named Ruby. I can’t tell them apart, other than the one is always the first to run to me when she sees me. When I don’t give her something to eat, she clucks indignantly and trys to stare me down.

This is Curly:

I can tell her from the other Buff Orpingtons, because her comb and wattle are much bigger and redder.

And of course, here is what Fuzzy Penelope Caramella looks like these days:

I have to try and get a shot of Bluebeard, so you’ll be able to tell where that name came from, and then there is the Free! Exotic chick, who is either Snow White or Snowball, I haven’t decided yet.

We’ve been getting one little egg just about every day. I found one of the Ruby’s in the nesting boxes twice, so I’m pretty sure one or two of them is the layer. They may be tiny eggs, but they are delicious! And, like Amy suggested in the comments, I blew out the first two eggs so the shells are still intact, and it turns out I had the perfect spot for them:

It’s hard to get a good picture in my dark living room, but you get the idea.

I was watching Nigella last night. She is just the queen of adjectives, isn’t she? Anyway, while she was busily creating a quadruple chocolate cake (quadruple! not double or triple, she goes all out and does quadruple, which is really how much chocolate any good chocolate cake should have, now that I think about it), she said something about how she loved this sort of enjoyable busy-ness. I love that phrase. That’s how I spent my weekend, involved in all sorts of enjoyable busy-ness.

First of all, I wanted to try my hand at needle felting, so I made this little snowman:

I forgot to measure, but I think he’s about 5 inches high from the tip of his hat to the base of the flower pot he’s sitting in. He’ll be going into my etsy shop when it’s back up. They’ve been down all weekend, doing an upgrade.

Then I finished up the sock monkey that I’ve been working on for around 4 years. Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I have been doing a little bit here and a little bit there for a very long time. I finally got some decent pictures this time:


She will also be in the shop. Do you love her shoes? Because I really love her shoes. I don’t know that anyone will buy her, I put a lot of work into her, so she’s a bit expensive, but well worth it, if I do say so myself.

Also for the shop, I made some little bags:

They’re sort of Japanese craft book-esque, aren’t they? They’re about 10"x12", so just perfect for a sock knitting project or a couple libray books, or maybe to carry your lunch to work.

I even made one thing not for the shop, that yellow pillow behind the sock monkey! Since I’m working on this apartment therapy project in my clubhouse I’m finding all sorts of cute stuff that I forgot I had, including a feather pillow form and two yellow linen placemats. I just stitched them together with turquoise-y floss et voila! A pillow!

Since there is no chicken content today, I will just point you over to the right hand sidebar where you will find links to some of my favorite fellow crazy chicken ladies chicken keepers.

Ooh, and I almost forgot! One of my brother‘s songs will be in an episode of Men in Trees, I believe around Thanksgiving. I’ve never watched that show before, but everyone set your Tivo’s, and I’ll be doing the same!

And, in case you missed any of the links above, my shop is here. :o)

P.S. I have 499 comments on my blog, who wants to be number 500?

I am having the darndest time taking a good picture of this sock monkey. Out of about 8 shots, this was the best I could do:

I’m not sure if I’m completely done yet. I have some lavender felt, and I might attempt a pair of shoes. What she needs, more than anything, however, is a name. I can’t think of anything, I need some suggestions. Please share your ideas in the comments!

As I’ve been sewing lately, I’ve been trying to get my clubhouse (aka guesthouse, aka former tack shed) cleaned up a bit. Here’s a tiny corner that is all cleaned up and pretty (except for the hideous paint on the walls, I’ll get to that someday):

I like those little Chinese pincushions. They come in such great colors.

I got an e-mail yesterday from someone at Penguin Australia regarding a craft book to be published, and they are interested in including my monster pattern. Did anyone else out there in creative blog-land get a similar e-mail? It looks authentic, I’ll definitely be checking into it further.

Having recovered from the catfish attack, my dad marched in a parade this week.

I went and picked up a chicken coop this weekend. And then I ordered 25 day old baby chicks. I’m not quite sure what I’m getting myself into, but I think it should be fun! They won’t be arriving until sometime the week of September 25, which is good, because I still have a lot to do. I cleaned off the coop, so I’ll be able to paint it next weekend. I also need to build some nesting boxes and put in a pole for them to roost. I’m not showing any before pictures until I can show some after pictures too. It’s just too ugly right now.

I packed up Lou, and she’s on her way to Washington:

Her new owner’s name starts with an ‘M’, so I added a glittery letter.

I wanted to make more monsters this weekend, but I started working on an outfit for my sock monkey, and didn’t have time for anything else:

Since she’s still a work in progress I’m not going to worry about the blurry picture, when she’s all done I’ll try a little harder to take some clear pictures. I think I will be adding her to the shop. Aren’t her puffed sleeves cute? And her little handkerchief apron? I didn’t get her little purple-ruffled petticoat in the picture, but it’s cute too.

My dad was attacked by a Chinese catfish. Yikes! He’s okay though.