Sheep Dreams

Yay!

Another completed project. I saw this pattern on eBay and knew I just HAD to hook it!!! The pattern is from Angela of Breezy Ridge Rugs. I've turned mine into a pillow and I can TOTALLY see this hooked in baby blues, soft pinks or soft yellows. This would make a wonderful baby gift

....I can see me hooking more of these in my future. I loved it because I only had to use 4 colors and it was fun to hook....all those swirls!!!

Thanks Angela....I'll be back for more!

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

A few new wools for fall!

I've spent my morning in the dye pots and my afternoon listing wools on eBay.

Marvelous fall colors with names like Bittersweet, Pumpkin, Clementine, Apples & Oak.

YAY! Just the names make me think of cooler weather....not this 80 degree weather that we are having now.

I'm way ready for things to cool off.

I'm so tired of making up ads for the wools and I have this one last wool to list, so instead I'm going to offer it here on my blog.

It's a yummy spot dyed wool called Chrysanthemum and it's from a recipe out of a great little dye book called "Dyeing From the Doo Dye Inn" by Dick LaBarge and Patti Varley. I haven't had this book for long, but so far everything I've dyed from it has been fabulous.

I have two 1/4 yard pieces of this spot dyed wool and I'm offering it here on my blog for $8 a piece....2 pieces available. They measure about 15" x 30". Shipping is $1 for each piece.

If you are interested drop me a line here, it's first come first serve.

Tonight I'm going to be finishing up a few more projects for the upcoming craft show.....I hope to have them finished to show you tomorrow.

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

Welcome Flower rug

Just popping in to share another rug that I've finished. This was my first time using my #8.5 blade....just a little chubbier than the #8. I used the #8.5 on the background on this rug. Now, I usually "plan" on how much wool I will need for a rug before I get too far....on this one I just jumped in and I only had 1 strip of wool left-over when I finished the background.....kinda sweated that one out!
Another new thing I tried on this rug was using a plaid for the covered cording binding and cutting it on the bias to take advantage of the plaid pattern. I love how it turned out! It gives the rug more of a braided look on the edge.
This was a super fun pattern from Bren at www.heydiddlewoolies.com

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

Lazy sheep

I've had this "Lazy Sheep" done for about a week now, but I'm just now getting around to writing about it. I finished hooking it a while ago here and have since changed the face... so much sweeter now!
Then I went and finished it with covered cording and made it into a pillow complete with vintage buttons.

A big thanks to Maria Barton for this lovely design!!!! Not sure whether to keep or sell this one? Hubby says KEEP and he rarely says that. Hmmmmm, I may have to re-design my hooking room around it!!!

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

A Couple of Artsy Sundays

For the past two Sundays I've been lucky enough to spend time going to art events.

Last Sunday I went to "Cider Days" in downtown Springfield with my husband and friends David and Patti. Usually we don't end up buying much, but it certainly is fun to see the sights....

.....people walking their miniature horses.....

......wild outfits.....

...dancing.....

.....face painting.....

.....historical homes.....

.......beautiful, old trees.......

......and our spirits weren't dampened....even in the rain!

Thankfully, the weather cooperated a little more nicely while I was in Kansas City this weekend with my aunt Jo an. We had such fun looking, eating, shopping and visiting with my cousin Katrina.

(me and aunt Jo an)

We saw beautiful works of art from the stunning jewelry of Robyn Nichols

Fiber art from Mary Beth Yates

Mixed-media from John Whipple.

We also took time to watch Haylee and her friend Callie get "eye" make-overs at MAC cosmetics.

Here are the before........and after pictures.....
BEAUTIMOUS!!!

We stayed in a revived little boutique hotel with the most fun color scheme!

We had brunch at a great spot in Kansas City called One80. I had the most wonderful Cajun Bloody Mary and an omlette with smoked salmon, sun-dried tomatoes, pesto and fontina cheese....YUM!

Then later I snacked on some Wedding Cake Gelato...OH MY GOSH!!!!

However, all good things must come to an end and we come back to our "real" lives of Mt. Saint Laundry!!!

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

All about cats and dogs!

What makes a kitty cat get up on the top of your shed and hide behind the branches and leaves? Perhaps it's a big sad-eyed bassoon? I really think Truvy just wanted him to come down and play and she was puzzled at why the cat kept hiding.

The cat did eventually come down and when we called to him he would "meow" back at us. Must be one of the neighbor's cats....not sure. He sure was pretty hiding behind the leaves......wouldn't he be great in a rug?
Go forth and be creative,
Tammy

Pumpkin tutorial continued.....

.....well sort of.

To finish off the pumpkins you can use some dried vine if you'd like for the stem. What I used was some scrap yarn folded in half and then needle felted into a stem shape. I then needle felted it onto the back of the pumpkin.

For the vine I used a wool worm and kind of twirled it around and needle felted it to the front and back of the pumpkin and then cut leaves out of scrap wool and needle felted them on as well.

If you'd like to learn more about needle felting look here. It's a great way to attach wool to wool using these little barbed felting tools....a great thing to have in your creative arsenal. If you want to order felting needles I'm going to steer you towards Amherst Antiques.....Sally is a rug hooker and all around great gal!

Later this week I'll be bringing you several pictures of the things I'm working on for the upcoming Ozark Craft show. Blogs might be a little fewer and further between, but be assured I'm hooking away!

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

Of pumpkins and bikes

I've really been dragging my feet on posting the tutorial on the coiled pumpkin pins........

Here is enough to start you out and then I'll post the rest of the instructions tomorrow or the next day.

Supplies needed: worms......wool worms that is!

Pick out something suitable for a pumpkin......remember, they come in different colors these days....orange, white, blue, green....for this I'm sticking with your basic orange...but jazzing it up with a checked fabric.

Now, just take that puppy and roll it into a nice little round shape like this.....
See....wasn't that easy? Now run and go get your needle and thread......something that half-way coordinates is a good idea....I'm using brown. It's rare that I have a calling for orange thread.....hey, if you sew a lot it could happen. ME, yeah, I don't sew a lot!

Now, here is where you have to pay attention....don't poke yourself while you are threading that needle....hmmmm, better go get my reading glasses to thread that dude!

Okay....now that it's threaded let's get busy! Make a knot in your thread....I know it sounds obvious, but I HAVE forgotten before. Put your needle in about two rows back and come up through the little end of the tail....as shown below.....draw your needle through until the knot catches.

Did I mention that my freshman English teacher tried to convince me to be a technical writer?

Now take your needle and go back and come up in the center. My picture shows me being on the totally opposite side of the tail.....OOOPS! Your starting out right there by the tail and then coming up in the middle. Making sense?

You continue to do this in a spoke like fashion.....like this.....

You end up coming up in the middle and knotting off. If you want your pumpkin to be more squatty (or as Kenny, my husband, calls them.....Cinderella pumpkins) then pull tighter where you want them to squash in.

Later on....tomorrow or the next day I'll show you how I made the stem (needle felting with yarn scraps....old dried vines of some sort would look way cool, but things aren't dry enough here to find any of those yet), vine (another worm) and leaves....just cut them out of scraps of wool as well.

Speaking of spokes....

Today (okay....it's 3am here, so I guess that means yesterday....Wednesday....my day off work) we went downtown to watch the Tour of Missouri come through town.

We went down to hang out at one of our favorite eateries...Mille's

You can dine indoors or out....we were outside on the covered patio to watch the bikers come by, but Mille's did a great job of setting up extra tables outside in their parking lot to accomadate all of the folks who came to cheer on the athletes. Funny, it looks like Kenny is in jail!

This event was a pretty big deal....they shut down city streets for probably an hour for the racers to come through. My pictures are not too bad considering how fast they came by. There were 120 bikers....including the guy who won the 2007 Tour de France!

This is the guy who won todays segment of the race...it's 600 miles in 6 days across the state of Missouri....his name is George Hincapie of the Discovery Channel Team.

I'll be updating this everyday with race information.....just because now that I've been and watched these guys in action I'm a little addicted!!!

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy