simplesparrow

New bag + pincushions

Finally, something crafty to show you! And---all of it made using what I have.

With all the cute bag making that is going on among my blogging friends, I was energized to get moving on some of the bag ideas I've had percolating in my mind.  This one I call Minty because it reminds me of my mint patch that I so love.

(edited: this is a better photo then the previous one)

The bamboo handle I salvaged from a vintage purse that had seen better days. The shape is my own pattern. I'm very new to this pattern making thing and have been happy so far with my attempts (can you spell simple? as in my designs are very basic!)  I added an applique flower to the front with a bit of hand stitching for accent and a vintage button. A crochet loop slips over one of my own custom buttons for the closure. Grosgrain ribbons hold the handle.

I'm offering this one up for  sale. I'll leave it here for a couple of days, and then move it over to my Etsy shop. From the top of the handle to the bottom of the bag measures 17 in. , 14.5 in. wide. $48.00 + 5.55 shipping with insurance in the US. , international $10.00  Email me if you are interested or leave a comment.  But wait! There's more.....

I have a new pincushion set done. This is part of the small offerings I would like to make available through my blog. Sometime I'll get around to setting up an album in the sidebar for this purpose but for the moment here they are. Same style as the others with a minor change. I added a tiny felt flower and a pretty glass bead to the centers. The photos do not do the cute beads justice!

They measure approx.   3.5" x 5", made with cotton fabrics, stuffed with poly-fill and tied with embroidery floss. $6.00 plus 2.00 shipping in the U.S. and $4.00 International. Leave a comment or email me with your choice and I'll be in touch.

Top two from left to right: whisper, rosebud. Bottom: brown betty, pink patch, meadow.

Oh yes, today is Friday and I'm not supposed to be on the computer! But, I do have a valid excuse. Since I was in yurtsville on monday and there was nigh a computer in sight--that was my computer free day for this week.  I knew you'd understand!

To a yurt and back

Firstly, (is that a word? it sounds funny to me right now) thank you so much for all the nice comments wishing Mark and I a good time! So nice of you all. We did have a MEMORABLE time, that is for sure.  For starters, I present to you a little yurt village, so cute.

There is just something about round dwellings that gets to me. Not sure what it is exactly, but I like it.  So anyway, we drove a little bit farther north to have lunch in Pacific Grove and visit a favorite yarn shop of mine (more on that later) On the way back down it starts to rain and by the time we get to Treebones we are in a full on storm!! It was a bit comical, as our very friendly helper drove us down this gravel road in a golf-cart skidding every few feet and telling us "the brakes on this thing are really good..oops! oh sorry"..skidddddd..skidd..skidddddddd) This after we watched her try to cover the wet seats with plastic (that was hopelessly flapping in the gale winds) so we could have a dry ride. We finally stopped her and said it was really OK.

We had an ocean view yurt. Definitely the yurt to have in pleasant weather, definitely NOT the yurt to have in a major rain storm. Since we were right on the bluff, we got the full force of the wind. No trees, no nothing to break the wind, just our yurt of course. It rained and it poured all night long and as we left the next morning.  I think with all the noise of the weather beating down on our yurt, we still might have had a good nights sleep. That is if we didn't have this nagging thought that we might just blow away...and had they tested these things in storm conditions???

I know I just sounded really negative, but honestly and truly we were laughing much of the time and really did enjoy our wild ride.  After we had dropped our things off, I stayed at the yurt while Mark parked the car. When he came back and the wind ripped the door out of his hands and a waterfall of water blew in with him, I couldn't resist wishing him a "happy birthday". hehehe.
He laughed too....whew.

Pictures of the inside :

 

And our view:

So nice inside, no?  We had a nice gas fireplace too that kept us toasty. We have plans to go back positively. During the dry season :)

Look at my yummy yarn! This is what I picked up from the yarn store I like to visit when we're up that way. Aren't those colors so happy? The green one is a cotton/silk blend , the 2 next to it are cotton made from new textile waste originating in the apparel and textile industry (neat, uh?) and the others are Debbie Bliss cashmerino..need I say more? My last purchase until after April.

Our yurt holiday

Little did I know that when I made this little yurt pincushion many months ago, that I would actually get to live in one....just for one day.  With many thanks to Kelly  and this post , Mark and I will get to experience some yurt living overlooking the ocean tomorrow in honor of his birthday. I had booked our stay about a month ago, arranged for my good friend to come stay with the kids, and then wanted to  surprise him with the news today.  Um, well...I pretty much stink with keeping secrets like this and ended up blabbing the whole thing to him about 2 days later.  My secret-keeping abilities (or lack thereof) will not interfere with us having a great time. Are you kidding?!

I hope to be ready here soon with a few little offerings, sort of a simple sparrow sidewalk sale.  Nothing grand, just some cute things at a cute price.

Use what you have will begin for me officially on April 1st. 6 more days! Although I have unofficially started this past week.  I may need to make a tiny purchase at this yarn shop while we are away and that will be it for another month! Are you guys ready?

I'll be back in a few days...talk to ya then!

A Wee sneaky rabbit

(Two posts in one day, now that rarely happens! )
Someone is looking a bit sheepish....

I think it's because she has been caught in the cabbage patch...

and I have the evidence....

This is Junie, and please excuse her for not giving you a proper hello. She has her mouth full at the moment.

Junie was made from Hillary's  original Wee Bunny pattern. Thank you so much for sharing Hillary! xo.

A corner I'm looking forward to

This is definitely a favorite corner of my home. Our deck is tucked in the corner next to our long and narrow patio. By the end of spring and all the way through fall, we are spending lots of time out here off and on throughout the day. Positively an extension of our living space. Almost each morning the kids will eat their breakfast here, do some of their schoolwork and just soak in the sun. I'll meander out with my tea and sit in my corner, maybe jot down a grocery list or steal a few moments to read. Or do nothing but sit quietly and try to figure out what the birds are saying.

These photos were taken last summer, and I'm longing for the deck to come alive again.  Soon. It's just around the corner *big smile*

My favorite corner....

See more corners here.

The happy craft table

Sunday afternoon Hannah, Noah and I had some fun with paper. I mean, we really had fun. The kids were cracking up and being silly the whole time.  I found this book at the thrift store a couple of months ago:

 

It's so great.  I took several pics. of the inside, but honestly, I lost steam trying to crop them and get them ready for this post. So, I'm just showing the cover and one of my favorite illustrations:

 

(sorry for the glare)  Cute, eh? Love those tress. Just a tiny taste of all the vintage goodness that is in this book.  Noah picked out the Indian headband to make first complete with feathers. Later he asked me to help him put his name on the front with his letter stickers. Very slowly and carefully I helped him as he repeated each letter.  "Great, looks good bud don't ya think?"  I say. "Yeah, but I want to do my WHOLE name" .  Oh dear, here we go. Slowly and carefully, with him repeating each letter we proceed to put his middle  and last name on.  A wonderful activity for him to practice his letters but, by this time we had been crafting together for about an hour and I needed to get dinner on the stove! 

We also picked out some kites to make. March is a good month for kites. Lots of wind.

Hannah fixed Noah up with a beard and mustache (and the infectious laughter started all over again) :

Hannah also made a paper princess, with a crown I think the Pope helped design. (this was her own project, not from the above book)

And lastly, I just had to show you a picture of the cake Hannah baked last night in honor of the first day Spring. Very yummy.

A beachy kind of tote

Digging through my stash of thrift store finds, I decided to use these placemats for what they were really intended for---a beach bag. This is what they said to me the day I found them, "Hello. please don't put me on your kitchen table where all that food and everything else gooey and soggy will spoil my happy stripes. What I really desire is to go to the beach. Pretty-please?" O.K.,  wish granted. It's true. Those stripes and colors say nothing but BEACH to me.

As you may imagine, this was a very easy project. Sewing 2 palcemats together is about as simple as it gets. I added a very roomy double pocket on the inside...

 

and a smaller one on the front, with a little free-form embroidery. My one red petal is a bit sad, but I like to say it just has character ;)

 

 

Can someone tell me how to master a french knot? I can not do those to save my life! I practice and practice, with my how-to book right next to me, continually referring to it.  What is my problem? Anyway, those tiny spots are my attempt. I just gave up and did a couple of small stitches to give the appearance of a knot....from about 5 feet away.

I tea-stained some cotton cording for the strap and tried my hand at grommets for the first time. Grommets are very beach tote-ish I think.

They were fun. Note to self: hammer grommets in over a hard surface, not the living room carpet, duh. Well, I did at least put a hard cutting board underneath. But man, it worked so much easier when I moved out to the front walkway outside.  Now I just need the temperature to go up about 20 degrees and for the wind to stop blowing and I'll be ready to hit the sand.

'Use what you have' cont.

Wow! Just wow. I didn't even expect this kind of response. For some of you, 60+ comments is just a way of bloggy life. But for little ol' me, it's a major traffic explosion! A very big THANK YOU to each one of you who left a comment.  It is really wonderful, although now I had better be sure to keep my challenge! *gulp*  Lots of eyes out there will be looking, or maybe not :) Every time the thought crosses my mind that maybe I won't be able to do this; I just look at my towering pile and tell myself, "You had better darn well be able to!" g-OLL-yyy.

My bag of thrifted clothing, waiting for a new life as??? There is
quite a bit stuffed in there!

Sooz has gotten very excited about this and set up a Flikr group you can join here.  We can all post pictures of the things we made using only what we have. She set up the group to be an ongoing thing, which means if you can't take part during April you can choose another month! Great idea, no? Thank you Sooz for all your energy and enthusiasm!! And, have you seen the new button that Suzy made just for this purpose? Look   here.  I can't wait to get that up on my blog. So perfect.

Recent fabric purchases....

Some of you have businesses and may need to purchase things for a custom order. Of course! Do it. By all means do what you need to to keep your business going. I don't want to be blamed because there is no food on the table!! ha. Some of you have said that you have made recent purchases and is that O.K.? Hey, so have I. ....uh, um, see the above photo. My challenge is for the month of APRIL. There is still almost 2 weeks left in March, hehe! Well, if I over spend in March gearing up for the challenge in April, that will be counter-productive don't you think? Yes, me thinks. I personally am going to try to not spend anything in April towards crafting. But , what I think is most important is that we catch the spirit of this whole idea. I am not legalistic about this or anything else in life! If you resist the urge to buy fabric or what-not even just once and use what you have, then super! Don't despise small beginnings. I would like (and have been trying to think this way for many years) for this to become a way of life and something that transfers over into other areas of life as well. Think of the possibilities ?!

Sorry for being a bit long-winded. If you have come this far you are very sweet*

Use what I have

I've been thinking about something. Not anything that has not crossed my mind many, many times before. But something I try to tell myself often and that is use what I have. I have so much STUFF.  Stuff that needs to get used, to be turned into something useful, something fun, something pretty. I know how inspiring it is to browse the thrift store or fabric shop in search of new materials, be it second-hand clothing, vintage textiles, or bolts of spanking,brand new fabric. Honestly, nothing relaxes me quite like that activity!! I love it. L-O-V-E it.

But, as I was searching through my piles of fabrics and such, I kept coming across things I had bought and forgotten I had. It was a lot actually. I thought this is wasteful. Oh yes, someday I'll use it. Will I really? I just keep stacking more and more stuff on top. With that said, I want to challenge myself, for the month of April, to create only from the things I already have. No buying supplies. Nope. I want to use up some of this lovely fabric, trims, ribbons,yarn, thrifted sweaters etc...that I already have. Just for one month. Would anyone like to join me? I'm totally prepared to go at this solo, but just thought I'd ask :)

People are just nice

The blogging community is full of people who are just so nice. Look what I got in the mail yesterday from my friend Kristy in the UK. A darling cupcake pincushion (don't you just love the ruffly icing?) Her tiny stitches are so perfect! She also sent a scented candle (forgot to stick that in the photo) some gorgeous old buttons; the white ones remind me of something yummy to eat! Love the little owls and those jumbo sized ones..fabulous. The fabric they all sit on is a vintage Austrian cotton embroidered in brown, I'm so IN LOVE with it. Thank you dear Kristy, you brought a huge smile to my face :)

And let me take a moment to mention a few other nice people...like Patricia who sent me a whole pile of fabric button parts because she saw that I was making those; like Manda who set aside this beautiful pillow  and other gifts for me just because; like Blair who surprised me with this  lovely flower pin because I took part in her 'computer free friday'; like Vicki , who sent me a box of her very own ornaments when she had read that I lost all of ours in a move several years ago; like Eireann , who sent me the gorgeous kimono fabric and more to make these buttons ; and like Dixie , who sent me a surprise for my birthday last year. These were not prearranged swaps, (which i might add are terrific and always so generous) it was just because. Just because they are all so nice. Thank you from the bottom of my heart*