Happy Haunting

Our neighborhood has hundreds of kids. Homeowners love to dress up their houses for Halloween. This year, Dale joined in a major way!

Lots of webs

Plenty of spiders

Two are big and hairy!

Lots of their little buddies

are scurrying all over the place. EEK!

Welcome, welcome, little trick-or-treaters!

Bwuuhh-ha-ha-ha-ha

Ready for Fall

Kit stopped by yesterday to play dress-up with me. Well, dress up the house that is. We put on our creativity hats, pulled out the Autumn and pumpkin decorations, and gussied up the living room and entry way.

These two vignettes are on the mantle. The owl is a new addition this year. I found it at a thrift store a few months ago. He's very expressive!

We raided Abby's toy chest for some colorful blocks to use as pumpkin risers.

We also decorated a few shelves on the bookcase.

Whimsy and humor are a must!

Dale decorated the front porch. It's a masterpiece. I'll try to share that tomorrow.

2025 Pumpkin Wreath - Part 1

Last year I pulled out a pumpkin wreath form 

and decorated it with fall leaves, sunflowers, berries and other doodads. I was majorly unsatisfied because the color of the green leaves is off-putting. The entire wreath was fussier than I intended it to be. 

When I pulled it out of storage, I just couldn't get myself to display it again.

So I'm going to try something different.

I was inspired by these two photos I found on Pinterest. This pumpkin wreath form is wrapped in looped yarn. That's an easy and super-fast option.

This one is macrame. The simplicity and tidiness of this wreath attracts me.

So a few months ago I went looking for the loop yarn but couldn't find the quantity I needed in orange. So off to my trusty Dollar Tree I went and found these small skeins of Premier Just Chenille yarn in the color Salmon. 

I think it's orange enough for my purposes. I hope it's thick enough. I hope 5 skeins is enough.

I was considering winding the yard around each spine of the wreath form. When I talked it over with Jodie, she suggested I crochet a slip stitch around each spine. I like that idea.

Chenille yarn isn't the easiest to work with because once you get a knot in it, the knot doesn't release very easily. Yarn from the Dollar Tree isn't a very high quality, so it's likely to break fairly easily. I like the fuzzy softness of it, though.

It's all a giant experiment. If it works, it works. If it doesn't ... well ... maybe I'll have to use last year's pumpkin after all.

It's for the Birds

It's Penpal Day at my house. I took some time to write letters to our granddaughters in Idaho. I included a paper bird for each of them.

The last time I saw Melody, she handed me a paper Ziploc bag that was decorated with nature images. She asked me to make something for her from the bag. I made this:

I learned the technique from this video:

For Annalee, I wrote about our Friday Fieldtrip to the Cascades Raptor Center. So I sent her an origami owl.

I learned the technique from this video:

Fly away, fly away, fly away home.

Conjuring Momentum

I need a place to rest my head.

I got emotionally overwrought again this week. (Thus, missing days of posting on my blog). You know, medical stuff. Family stuff. Stuff stuff.

When I get like this, my Studio gets turned inside out with all kinds of partially finished projects strewn across my work table. Chaos in my Studio becomes chaos in my head. Or is it that other way around? Who can say?

But I woke up this morning hurting and sad and crying and overwhelmed. So I took my meds. I had a good breakfast. I started making order out of chaos. I returned to my "bed piles" technique. Each project was removed from my work table and put in a neat, compact pile on my bed. Then I can tackle the project piles one at a time.

But how do I decide where to start? Decision-making is a test when my mind's off kilter. This time I decided to make a game of it. I used the "fish bowl" approach of putting categories of projects on slips of paper, then pulling one paper to lead me to which project to start with.

My first pull said, "Easiest thing." So I cut up scrap paper, disposed of recycling, put yarn and crochet tools away, put the things that belong downstairs away.

My other categories include:

• Want to do the most
• Biggest dent
• For someone else
• Want to do the least
• Waiting the longest to get done

My second pull said, "For me."

I decided it was time to finish my Penguin Pillow. I'd put it off for over a month. It's time to treat myself to finish a project I get to keep.

Since I was dealing with a plaid fabric again, I decided to applique the stitching onto the front pillow fabric, rather than piecing the fabric to the edge of the stitching. This time I sewed some red piping to the edge of the stitching, then centered the stitching on the pillow front and sewed the penguins in place.

I hadn't worked with piping in years, so that was a fun technique to revisit.

'Tis done! 'Tis done! We have a new decoration for this coming Christmas.

Very satisfying.

I think I'll stop for a meal (it's 3pm), then pick my next project. There's a chance I could finish something else today.

Leaf Peeping

After running an errand in town, Jodie and I decided it was too pretty of a day to go back home. Instead, she and Abby and I headed southwest of Springfield to do a little leaf peeping. It's not quite the peak of autumn color yet, but it's close. 

I picked the general direction of our ride, then Jodie knew of a park I've never been to before to use as our destination. Along the drive, Abby sang to herself in the back seat. She's 21 months old now, and can sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star all by herself -- and holds a tune well!

Since the trip was spur-of-the-moment, we weren't wearing the correct clothes and shoes for an impromptu hike. So we stayed in the car and made the park's rounds on the paved road.

This park has a large, excellent disc golf course and plenty of picnic shelters for group gatherings.

We couldn't have asked for a prettier day, and would have stayed out longer, but Abby started rubbing her eyes and saying, "Tiiirrred." So we got her back home where she quickly snuggled up into her crib for a nap.

Sunflower Crochet Coasters

I had such a pleasant time making the pumpkin coasters last week, that I thought I'd go ahead and make a set of sunflower coasters, too. This pattern has been on my radar for months. I intended to make them for late summer/early fall when I decorate the house with sunflowers. Well, the season is over and the sunflower decorations are put away, but I made the coasters anyway. They'll be ready for next year.

This pattern is created by the same designer as the pumpkin coasters, Repeat Crafter Me.

The ideal size ...

I used these two yarns that I had on hand: 

            * Premier Just Yarn Tweed in the color Rust Tweed (from Dollar Tree)
            * Caron Simply Soft in the color Lemonade (thrift store)

Once again, the directions are super simple. I knocked these out while watching TV one evening and listening to an audiobook the next morning.

You can follow this video or get a print version of the pattern on their website.

A Return to Garment Construction

Though I do all kinds of crafts and needlework and sewing, it's been a while since I've jumped back into making clothes. But I have an excellent excuse to do some sewing now. Our Jodie is ready for some maternity dresses.

She bought a pattern online that we printed out and taped together. Since I'm out of practice and it's a new pattern, we decided to make a "muslin" first ... make a dress from inexpensive fabric (in our case, some old curtains from our Post Falls house!). Usually, muslins are finished just enough to check fit and make alterations, but not actually worn.

The first thing we needed to change was the neckline and shoulder slope. I turned the jewel neckline into a V neckline. Then I drafted a neck facing instead of using a bias binding as called for in the pattern.

I sewed the rest of the dress together and had Jodie try it on. More alterations were needed. The pocket placement was far too low. The front was still too big, so needed to be narrowed.

Even though we didn't make this muslin to be worn, Jodie thought she might as well wear it anyway -- at least around the house. It's pretty sheer so she'll put a tank top and bike shorts or slip underneath.

I made a pleat in the front of the bodice and sewed buttons in place for decoration.

To make the "real" dresses, we bought some sheets at a thrift store. The color is quite pretty. The fabric was awful to work with. It was some kind of poly-blend that was very soft to the touch, but frayed terribly. I relearned a few sewing techniques along the way, including a seam finish, interfacing at the neckline, under stitching, and stitch-in-the-ditch.

I made this dress with the new pattern alterations. The top fits much better now and the pockets are almost in the right spot. It's wearable, anyway.

I'll be making at least one more dress from this pattern out of more thrifted fabric Jodie chose. And possibly a matching dress for Abby.

In Her Glory

Mother Nature knows how to turn on the charm

Friday Fieldtrip: Cascades Raptor Center

Our second Friday Fieldtrip took us to the south side of Eugene to visit the Cascades Raptor Center. This is a wildlife hospital and rehabilitation center for injured birds of prey. 

The center currently has around 30 "Ambassador" residents that Dale and I got to see. Each has their own enclosure/aviary with signage that gives the bird's name and the story of how it came to be a resident. 

We missed the presentations the day we were there, but the center does a lot of teaching, especially with school kids.

Getting photos of the beautiful birds was a little tricky because my camera wanted to focus on the bars of the cage rather than the birds inside. Also, we were there in the middle of the day rather than in the early evening when the nocturnal birds are more animated.

We enjoyed our time immensely and hope to return when our granddaughters visit. Owls are our Annalee's favorite animal. 

She'll feel right at home there.