Kleas

Paper bag swag, round five

What a whirlwind of a week.  I was desperate to get Cathy's pages for the paper bag swag mailed off to Amy - which I'm happy to say I finally did. 

We are winding this project down and have a final mailing date of June 2nd.  Less than one week from today.  I'm afraid I'm not giving Amy much time to work on her pages for Cathy.   

Cathy's theme for her book is INSPIRATION.  I started in my usual fashion and found quotes I love that fit with her theme and embroidered them.

   

In her book, Cathy left for us a long list of things that are inspiring to her.  I loved that.  It was very useful in getting started with her pages.  With her list in mind, I gathered up lots of ribbon and pink and green and turquoise and polka dots and a lock and key and buttons and images that fit things that are inspiring to her.  I wasn't able to incorporate all this into her pages as I had planned so they became part of her swag instead.

 

Cathy is inspired by nature, by trees and flowers...

and birds.

Page one

Page two

Everything is hand stitched using wool felt and embroidery floss in her favorite color scheme.  Here is the final spread.

It was not my intention, but I laughed when I saw that it looks quite similar to the pages I made for Mimi.  Next up is Amy's...I'd better get to the stitching.

Another project that kept me busy last week was Peanut turned four.  We had dinner for twenty on Sunday and I made his very favorite cake.  Chocolate.

It was delicious.

Sunday with Birdie

Finally.  I've been so eager to meet Jen ever since I first found her Etsy shop...and then her blog.  It's only recently that I've made connections with local bloggers and it's so nice when I get to meet them in person.  Jen was my first link to Anna.

About a month ago Jen made arrangements for a wool dyeing party and invited me to join in.  I was thrilled!  As anyone who reads this blog knows, I love to work with wool but had never had the experience of dyeing it before.  So this past Sunday we all met at Birdie's farm where she raises sheep.  Birdie was Jen's neighbor when she was growing up. 

I arrived to the farm late and with the baby in my arms so missed some of the steps, but tried to get my hands into it as much as possible (for more details see Jen's post about it here). 

Anna carding the wool.

Anna again, showing me how to pull the wool from the carding machine.

Dye samples.

Dyeing the wool on the open fire.

Rinsing it out.

Dyed wool drying in sun.

Anna's mom spinning some wool into yarn.

And then we got to meet the beautiful creatures who gave us their wool.

Birdie is an incredible host.  She was constantly on the move.  Teaching us as she went through the entire process of dyeing the wool, checking on the coffee, putting on a video of the sheep being sheared so we could see how that was done.  She moved on to getting lunch served, (she makes a mean rhubard cobbler and has graciously shared her recipe with us-click here and scroll down to the comments) then passed around her books on wool projects so we could all get ideas for the functional felt swap.  And on top of all that, she even had time to give lots of love to Julen.

Thank you so much Birdie for such a great day!  And thank you Jen for inviting me!  It was wonderful to meet you both.

 

Living Craft

Over the weekend my spring issue of Living Crafts magazine arrived in the mail.  In it, there is a pattern for a Playful Seal. I wasted no time in stitching up this sweet little guy.

The perfect hand work project to work on while I sat on the floor playing scrabble with Peanut.  The pattern for the seal said to enlarge it by two hundred percent, but I prefer to work small, so used the pattern as it was.  As you can see, it's pretty little. 

Another project from the magazine I'd love to try is this beautiful felted scarf.

Maybe one day.

I had such a lovely Mother's Day yesterday.  Peanut made me orange bread (his specialty) for breakfast and then I enjoyed a beautiful afternoon outside with my boys.  We got into a dialogue about moms, and their moms and so on.  To try and help explain I took out this old locket that belonged to my great grandmother.  In it she carried these two photos of my mom.

 

Funny thing trying to explain to my almost four-year-old that "yes...that is Grandma".  Seems he had trouble wrapping his brain around the idea that she was ever such a little girl.

I hope all of you who are involved in mothering had a relaxing and peaceful day yesterday. 

Three Sneaky Bugs

In honor of another blog friend meet up, I decided (after more than two years with this blog) to try and figure out how to add links to my side bar.  I'm far from done, but hey...it's a start.  It took me three days to get this far, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.  In Green Kitchen style, I'm going with a list of friends I've met and one of friends I hope to meet someday.  My entire blog could use a face lift, but I'll get to it when I get to it.

Anna and I met last Friday.  We braved the pouring rain and masses of people at the museum to get the chance to put a face to the blog.  It's funny how lines blur with blogging.  I'm not exactly clear when I was first introduced to her site, and when we first began exchanging comments.  It happened so naturally, this online friendship, that it seemed to have always been there.  And maybe this is just how it is with Anna.  We had a meeting spot in the museum, what we weren't expecting were the crowds. When I first arrived I wondered how I would find her.  We thought it would be easy as we each had a babe in a stroller and an almost four year old by our side, but this described about twenty other women there.  Then we saw each other and knew right away.  As with the blogging relationship, our real life friendship came with the same ease and comfort.  I loved reading her entry about our meeting, especially the part about our boys.  They couldn't have been any cuter together.

This is Anna's photograph of the two of them struggling to walk in the rain while each keeping both hands on the umbrella.  It was quite precious and they got the doting attention of every onlooker. 

I couldn't be any happier that just a few miles separate us...hopefully there will be many more outings to come.

Happy May Day

We were able to find a little something blooming in our garden this morning.

I'm not even sure what they're called, but they're tiny and sweet.

For a May Day activity today we (or rather I) made little baskets (while Peanut built a fort out of the sofa cushions).  We have no flowers to fill them with, so instead we embellished this one with some felt ones using Mimi's wonderful tutorial. 

These tiny roses are quite easy and addicting to make.  Before long I had a little pile in front of me.  A good craft fix if you want to make something but have little time.  (Thank you Mimi!)

Earlier today while blog hopping I read about Shona's visit from a garden fairy.  I fell in love with the idea and so I copied it.  This was a perfect activity for Peanut.  I'm not sure how Shona's were made, but here's what we did:

• we added enough water to one small bucket of garden soil and mixed it with our hands
• then we added one package of wild flower mix and thoroughly combined the seeds in the soil
• next we rolled them into golf ball sized balls
• we let them dry a little then packaged them up

Since I had so many of those little felt flowers made it was the perfect way to prettily package them up.

In case you can't read the instructions, they say:

1. Find sunny spot in garden
2. Dig five small holes six inches apart
3. Place one cookie in each hole and cover with dirt
4. Water
5. Enjoy wild flower blooms all summer

These are going to our not so green thumb friend who is sure to appreciate them.

I have high hopes of going to my favorite May Day Festival this weekend, but rumor has it, it's supposed to snow.  Darn.  And as we speak we have tornado warnings.  Crazy spring we're having. 

Happy May Day!