Growing Lessons

Hello my friends!

A week goes by quickly, but it's still easy to pack so much into it! We've been busy at home. I've been busy in my head and heart. We are taking growing lessons, and they are a little uncomfortable, but they are great!

We have lots of teachers, too.



(this is anemone coronaria, from a dry little tuber that I thought I had frozen to oblivion. not so!)

The aminals have even been busy learning how they fit into their new home and with each other, and this past week they have shown tons of progress.





Don't they look calm? Tranquil even? They aren't usually. They're usually all tearing around the house trying to catch each other. Teddy has gone in one short month from trying to chew the cat to curling up and napping with him.



I told you about the wealth of old bias binding hanging on little pegs at the MCC, didn't I? Here's the rainbow of it that I bought last trip. This week I got a book and learned how to use it. No joke, I have been sewing since I was small, small, and never learned how to put bias binding on something properly. I learned to sew from my mother (who was a great teach, btw), but I have recently had a shocking revelation: I have not progressed in my technique since the age of about ten.

So I got a book and learned how to unfold it and stitch it on (I even basted first), fold it over and fix it to the wrong side with tiny hand stitches. I was pretty impressed with how it turned out.

Then I found a chapter called "Perfect Hems". I took a deep breath and patiently made tiny stitches for a close-to-invisible, not-quite-perfect hem. Wow!

Then I flipped through the book a little more and found "Smocking". Smocking is the BEST! I always thought it would be too difficult and time consuming, but I needed a little elastic bit on this dress that I had put the binding and hem into. Instead, I substituted a little band of smocking at the waist, and found that it's as fun as heck to stitch!

It all came together in this one little cotton dress. (pattern: Pochee, volume 4, fabric: reproductionfabrics.com) What do you think?





Not bad for a first go at all that, is it? I'm wearing it today with jeans under and my Tibet jacket over. It needs the same type of elastic bit at the back waist, maybe.

It was a great lesson in patience, and I'll sew a lot more if I can get nice looking results. Next I'm going to learn how to hem jeans and also use my serger.



(Luna thinks I should unpack a few more boxes and do a little more organizing first. She is so great for keeping me on task.)

I did unpack a little more, looking for my birdhouse. It's time to get them out there so that when the birds show up they can get started right away. This one was made by a local retired farmer. I found him last summer at a flea market with three entire tables of joyfully painted houses made of scrap wood. It was his first time taking them somewhere to sell, and I think he was a little surprised at how fast they were going.



The were all so beautiful. I'd like to track him down and see if he's got more. Maybe he wants an apprentice!

And in the boring department, I finished this knit top. And sewed the buttons on. And tried it on and looked at it in the mirror. And it is *not* my colour. Period. It makes my skin look yellow. That's not a good look. Someone with a less sallow complexion could probably pull it off.





I think I'd like to give it away. Any takers? It's 34 or 36 bust, but I still have to block it, so that's not for sure. It's really very pretty, and I'll mail it wherever, if only someone would take it and wear it somewhere sunny.

Otherwise, I've been thinking lately of a new career. I'll not say what at the moment, because it's still in the tiny dormant seed stage. I think. Something is rustling, though. Anyway, it's scary as anything, involving more school and a huge stepping out for me. Which means it's probably the right route to go.

All the best to you and yours! And have a loverly weekend.

Crazily Awaiting Spring (I'm way too early...)

Whew. I just spent the *entire* morning of my town-day trying out Type pad, to see if it's ease of use is better. I've always loved the Type pad blogs I visit; they always look so great. I only tried the basic plan out (I think I'm only willing to pay $5 per month more than $free at the moment.) and you can't really customize much of anything on it. And while Blogger can be a pain (sorry Blogger, but you know it's true!) I didn't find Type pad to be much less of a pain.

So I'll just stay here for now, let my blog get a little uglier each week until I get hooked up at home and can spend some real time on the aesthetic bits.



In the news this week... I have been planting things! It's WAY too early here, but every year I plant a few things to early in order to appease the Gods of Spring and Warm Weather and Sunshine and The Little Green Bits of Things that Poke Up Through the Snow. Case in point, these little Hollyhocks are already dead; fried to oblivion on my dining room windowsill. We said a blessing over the sacrifice and threw them on the compost pile. Which is still a frozen block of peelings and coffee filters.

In other news, I've been frantically searching for my camera cable so that I don't have to burn a disc of snaps whenever I come to town to blog. Last week I picked up a whole whack of bias binding in a rainbow of colours. I took a couple of shots to show you, but couldn't find a rewritable disc anywhere. (How can I manage to dig out every vase, knickknack and bit of linen and not manage to unpack all the necessary things?)

I promise better things for next week. I'm going to plant a whole bunch more seeds (still way too early) and do some archiving of FOs (Finished Objects) for you. In the meantime, it's off to the thrift shop and the library to get more gardening books.

Tomorrow will be spent in rubber boots, stamping around and helping the snow melt into slush. Who said nature can't be hurried along?

Home Sweet Home!

Hullo all, greetings, salutations, I'm back!

Well, I'm not back back. I'm typing to you from a public computer in the city. You see, it's a town day for me, and I have photos and news and access to the Internet so posting is a natural thing to follow all that.

Boy, have I missed the Internet, and your blogs!!! I have browsing capabilities on my cell phone, and managed to catch up with the doings of Turkey Feathers a little bit before the phone got bogged down and froze up. Today will be a ketchup day, and I can't wait to see what everyone has been up to.

As for me, we moved to the homestead on February 1st. Brrr. No running water for the first week, and no hot water for the first two, but plenty of wood in the stove and lots to do around the place. The last month has been spent with mostly unpacking, but I managed to get in some baking, sewing, knitting and I've cooked a real dinner almost every day since we moved in. I had no idea how much I missed real dinners.

So let me show you around the place a little...

Here's the heart of the house, the stove. It's right where the old fake fireplace was, and as you can see, we still need to put up a new piece of drywall behind it. It's big for the square footage of the house, but when it's Thirty-Degrees-Below-Zero-that's-Celsius-folks it's nice to have something with a little more capacity. Mind, when it's only just freezing out I can throw a little chink of wood in, damp it right down and open a window somewhere. I think it'll be time soon to just burn a fire at night and let it go out for the day. With all the sun that comes in, ti stays pretty warm all day anyway.

Gog and Magog are already in place on either side of the hearth. I don't know about those niches. Neat? Tacky? Another place for me to put knickknacks in endless need of dusting? We're talking about putting windows in there. There used to be windows there. The niches were contemporary with the fake fireplace, I believe. There would have originally been a cook stove in the kitchen and a coal furnace in the basement. The plug in pile of logs would have come later, is my best guess.

The living room in front and the dining room beyond. Don't mind the mess too much. The kitchen is past that.

Some of my bits and pieces. The white glass was from a flea market a few weeks ago. The fox was a little gift from Todd. It's one of my favourite things.

My KITCHEN! It's small, but well laid out and nicely done up. I hated the counter tops and the sink at first, but the counter doesn't show marks or scuffs or stains at all, and the sink is a lot bigger than it looks. It's great for now, anyway, and miles better than my old kitchen.

Even better is the spare bedroom, done up to be my temporary studio.

Sewing machines, my loom, the computer (not internets, boo hoo) lots of light and a futon for Hendricks. (Hey! That's not your futon Hendricks! Is it? It is? Sorry, I don't know if I got the house wide memo from your underlings. What do you mean, I'm your underling. You're really coming into your own aren't you? Yes, sir. More food right away!)

(whew, this is turning out to be a long post...)

Okay, now for the fun bits. Like this Japanese sewing magazine.

I got it around Christmastime, and put it straight in a box to go to the house. It comes with four full sheets of patterns, more like twenty sheets, as they are all overlapped and you have to trace them out onto a new sheet. There are some great bits of clothing in there, perfect for a housebound country-wife like myself.

I finished a simple skirt from it yesterday. The fabric is from reproductionfrabrics.com and the trim is a bit of vintage taffeta seam binding in dark green.

And I'm just waiting on some red thread before I finish up this little sundress. The main fabric is from reproductionfrabrics.com and the pocket fabric is from the Mennonite Clothes Closet. They sell these great little grab bags stuffed with vintage fabric scraps. And the red bias binding is from MCC, as well. All I need is a big sunhat, some sunblock, my garden clogs and July. And that's all I need!

And I had to show you this, picked up a few weeks ago from Value Village. It's all hand done in wool, about 18 by 36 inches.

Isn't it great? Here are some juicy details.

I can't believe someone could just drop this off. The amount of work involved is amazing, and it's so pretty. Not to worry, it will have a place of honour on my studio wall. I don't know who stitched it, but it was made with love, that's for sure. It needs to be re-framed I think, and the plexiglass should be changed for real glass.

Well, I think that's enough blathering for one week. I'll post again soon. I'm off to a few thrift shops this afternoon. I need to find some buttons for an unfinished object. And some more ric rack, binding, fabric bits and whatever else take my fancy. Town days are sort of fun!

Best to you all!

Scrappy.

Limbo

It's been ages, I know, but are we ever in a weird state at the moment.


We've moved all our furniture and most of our things to the farm, leaving only a futon, the computer and a couple of dishes. Oh, and all the houseplants. We've been at this same point for about a month now, living like squatters in our city house. All that is holding us up from turning on the water and moving in is a little duct work that needs doing on the furnace. Which is something we totally overlooked.


The reason we overlooked it was because the furnace was supposed to be a temporary and ancillary system to back up the wood stove. We thought we could just hook it up and leave it to keep the basement and pipes from freezing if we had to be away at all. "Temporary" means to us that we could use it this way for the rest of the winter. "Temporary" means something else to the gas inspector, and it turns out we're not allowed to live in the place while there is no duct work. So, a couple of weeks of trying to find a trades person, get in touch with him, and ask him to put something together while he works full time and does three other large jobs that he already had on his plate, and we're stuck a little behind schedule.


On the bright side, we still have our Internet connection! While I haven't done a stitch of crafting in the last couple of months, all of your lovely blogs really helped me get through the holidays. I haven't cooked a real meal in ages, and baking has been out for the last two months. There was no tree or Christmas pudding this year, no stockings and only a couple of small gifts, and New Year's was a funny affair involving drinking champagne in front of a movie on the computer while we sat around on a cotton mattress in our living room! So all your trees and trimming and baking and crafting really made me feel festive.


I'm not sure how many days we'll still be here and have our Internet connection, but I'll be checking in on all your activities throughout the winter whenever I can. I'll try to post as much as possible, but I won't be back in full force until June-ish. (*so* far away!)


In the meantime, we'll be settling into our new place, and I'll get a craft room set up. I've picked out a few that I find inspiring, and I've noticed two things they have in common: Lots of natural light, and a good group of organizing systems. Oh, and they're all neat as a pin, which mine will never be, but "... a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"



1. Home Studio, 2. Crafting Studio, 3. new craft room, 4. Craft Room, 5. craft room, 6. Pottery Barn craft room, 7. temporary craft corner, 8. craft room, 9. anthropologie craft room window display 2, 10. my craft room, 11. craft room right, 12. after: the craft room, 13. craft room Sammy storage, 14. London Craft Room, 15. Reorganized Craft Room, 16. Craft room upgraded

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.



All the best, and 'til we meet again!

Apologies... and lettermail!

I haven't been away, or even offline these last two weeks, and besides moving and packing and working on the house I have no real excuse for the missed posts.

I have been a little sad about the blog though. Not that it isn't tons of fun. It's been a real nice way to challenge myself, and so much fun keeping up with what everyone else has been doing. And the comments! Comments send me over the moon!


All that part has been great. But a week or so ago I heard that we won't be getting a land line to our house this winter. In fact there is no chance of getting one until June '08! There is no remote access where we are, and the land line does cut across our yardsite, so it doesn't make sense to do anything but wait until they'll come in and trench to the house. I'm just so disappointed that I'll be offline for so long, just when things were getting going and I'm so hooked on all your lovely blogs, myself. I'll work something out where I can come into town once a week to use the Internet somewhere, but it won't be the same!


So, I'm not closing down the blog, and I'll keep posting through the holiday season still, but afterward there will be a lot less posts and I'll be getting back to people and checking out your blogs with less regularity. I *will* be back full force in June, I hope.

In the meantime, I'd like to suggest a way that I can keep in touch with all of you. If you write me a note or a card, I'll write you back. Like the old days! I'd put my address up, as it's just a PO box, but who knows what I'd get. Up until Dec 31 you can request my address at scrappythebandit at gmail dot com, I'll give you my address, you drop me a note and I'll send one back with all the craft and house and farm news I can pack in! I'll leave it open to anyone, blog or no.


Sound good?


In the meantime I'll be waiting for this to come around again...

Upheaval

I am frantically trying to pack all our belongings and keep everything in a state of domestic stability at the same time. The result is absolute CHAOS. There are stacks of boxes everywhere, most of them packed and ready to go, but some of them have been cracked open and dipped into to get at things I'm still using. Like my craft supplies.

I didn't plan on making many Christmas gifts this year because of the move, but there are still a few people I can't imagine buying anything for, like my sister and my niece and nephew. So after packing most of my supplies and keeping the few things aside that I think I'll need, I find out I've missed something, and mid-stitch I'm ripping through carefully packed cartons and tossing things out looking for something like a tiny pack of beads. Whew.

I think we should just move and get it over with, but with both of us working different schedules and without heat or water just yet (but very very soon) it's hard to co-ordinate.

Anyway, here's what I've made my niece for Christmas, almost finished. I just have to finish one last gingerbread man and make up some sort of box for it all to go into. I was thinking of covering a simple cardboard box with fabric. I have lots of HeatnBond around, and I happen to know *exactly* where it is... I think.


















I was inspired by Turkey Feathers' donut post, and it just took off from there. I think they'll be a nice addition to a little girl's tea party, don't you?

And when ripping through all those boxes, I came across a neat little find from last spring that I have yet to put to use. It's six yards of paper ribbon, printed with a very short repeat of birch bark. It's got a crinkly, crepe-y texture. I think it would make a very nice something, or embellish something to make it very nice, but I'm not sure what. So back in the box it goes for now, or I'll be tempted to try and find my podge and something to podge it to.


















And finally today, we got some snow. I think it's going to stay, but we got through a lot of the autumn without snow. Ordinarily we would have had snow on the ground for a few weeks by now. I usually love the first snow fall, but as you can see, I *still* have not got everything packed in from the yard .
























I'll be out there all afternoon, banging snow off everything a piling it who-knows-where, ready to go to the farm who-knows-when.

Wish me luck!

I'm still here!

It's been busy around here the last week-ish, so the posts have fallen off a bit. I'll get them back up to their normal rate soon, but for the next while we've got a lot to do because it looks like...



We're finally moving!



We just had the power connected to the house, the wood stove has arrived in the city, the water is all ready to go, we just need the hot water heater, about ten cords of good wood and to pack all our things!



That's what I've been doing these last days; packing. I've got loads more to do, and while we're aiming to move in December 1, we're keeping our place in the city for a little longer so I'm not too worried, blah-de-blah-de-blah...



In the crafting department, I've started making Christmas gifts (finally) and I'm currently whipping up a pair of penguins from Kath Dalmeny's World of Knitted Toys. After that it's a "baking box" of sweets, actually softies. No pics yet, the penguins look very un-penguin-like in their curly wool strip pieces, not yet sewn up.



And today Hendricks weighs two pounds, twelve ounces!


And he says hello.