Wednesday, December 19, 2018

What's Up Wednesday

Happy Wednesday, everyone! I know I said I wouldn't be blogging for a while, but I had a cup of tea that made me feel kind of peppy, and I'm between loads of laundry, so here I am!  Sometimes I just need a creative outlet.

It's the 19th of December which means we have just 6 days left before Christmas.  Are you excited?  Are you ready?  Are you pulling out your hair yet?  Over the years, I've crafted a plan of slowly building up to Christmas by making gifts and writing lists and generally planning far in advance, so that by the time mid-December gets here, I'm all set for the big day.  I highly recommend this path for everyone who finds themselves frantic this time of year.  It's much less stressful, but requires more planning of course.  Which I understand for some people is half the effort! 

Chad and I started baking around Thanksgiving, one or two recipes a weekend.  We managed to get four kinds of quick bread made to give away as presents (gingerbread, orange nut bread, chocolate tea bread, and banana bread), plus three kinds of cookies so far (pepparkakor, spritz, and cinnamon bun cookies).  We have one more baking weekend to go!  We're doing my grandma's sugar cookies, and we're making a pumpkin roll too.  Have you ever had pumpkin roll?  It's a bit of work, but oh goodness, so good!  For me, it's very nostalgic.  The older ladies in my family would make up several pumpkin rolls and give them away for Christmas.  They're a spicy pumpkin sponge cake smeared with what is essentially cream cheese frosting, and then rolled up into log form and chilled until firm.  Then you slice it and eat a small piece of heaven.

We decided to cut back on Christmas gifts this year for several reasons.  I'm not really sure which of these reasons are first or most important, honestly.  One reason is because this year we started seriously saving money, for our future country home.  We set aside $600 for Christmas every year, which is actually less than the American average (which is $800), but I felt like we could spend less than that.  Which  brings us to our second reason, which is that spending so much money on Christmas gifts ends up feeling hollow to me.  I don't want Christmas to be about commercialism and consumerism.  I don't want to try to prove my love of someone by buying them stuff.  I want Christmas to be about family, tradition, and spiritual celebrations.  We're trying to cut down on our daily consumption of commercial goods, so it only makes sense to do that at Christmas.

By talking to my family about my ideas and by carefully planning homemade gifts, we were able to cut our Christmas spending down to around $250 for 13 people.  STILL.... even though we spent very little and got very few gifts this year, THIS is what our Christmas tree looks like:


(I realize that was a long story for one picture, but I didn't want you to think that we spent a ton of money when we didn't!)

The bulk of the presents under the tree are canned goods; I made tons of jelly and pickles to gift this year, plus I canned a half a bushel of apples in the form of apple sauce for my dad.  Yay canning!

For comparison, here's what the tree looked like last year.  Yes, I do take this picture every year.


The blue packages are homemade bread, which hasn't showed up under the tree yet this year, but it will be there!

So I have some other things going on other than Christmas this week.  Between loads of laundry, I'm working on my hexie quilt.  This is taking so long to complete!  But it's getting there, slowly but surely.


I'm working on it in sections so that it feels like less work.  Eventially, it's going to be this size:


That's the backing for it behind it.  I'm going to turn it into a cover for one of my sewing machines.  Next time I make a hexie quilt, I'm going to do half hexies and sew them on the machine :P  This is tedious work!

I'm starting to get that itch that I get this time of year...  no, not eczema (which actually I do have right now, but never mind that).  I mean I'm starting to get the desire to start organizing!  That lovely urge to sort my life into neat little boxes.  I'm probably feeling that way because my crafting spaces look like this at the moment.



Yikes.  My studio (the top picture) is especially bad right now.  I've probably done 10 projects without fully putting all of the supplies away!  Once Christmas is over, I'm going to dive into that mess. 

Chad and I went to a cool indoor flea market last weekend, on a futile search for a cassette player.  Do you know how hard those are to come by these days?  I thought flea markets and thrift shops would be overflowing with them, but nope, not a one.  Well, there was one massive one from the 80s, but I want something a tad smaller than an economy car. 

I may not have found what I was looking for, but that doesn't mean I didn't find something worth getting.  I love looking at cool junk from yesteryear, and that place has so much of it.  I usually start feeling cross eyed before I get through the whole store.  My favorite things to hunt down are copper jello molds (I have quite the collection), and mid-century recipe books.  I only found one ugly looking rooster copper mold, which I left behind, but I came out with these:


So charmingly cheesy!  Especially the milk book.


I think my favorite is the Spry book, though.  Mmmm-mmm, partially hydrogenated cotton seed oil...


I don't use vegetable shortening at all, but I love how quirky this book is anyway.  I also got four new additions to my collection of Pillsbury bake-off books.  It's an odd collection, and I already have probably hundreds of books, but at least it's a small and easy to store collection!  (And unlike my sewing machine collection, I don't get any worried looks from Chad when I pick up a new cook book.)

On the request of a fan, I have been working on an addition to my seasonal jar patterns.  She asked if I would make any more seasons like my Fall Jar pattern:

It's a very popular pattern in my shop, so I decided that yes, I would continue making the rest of the seasons.  I have the winter jars all stitched, and now I'm just working on the pattern.  Here's a sneak peak!


She also asked if I would make the alphabet available, which I probably will do as well.  Keep your eyes peeled for these patterns to show up in the future!

And on closing, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  And so does my mom's cat, Maui.


Friday, December 14, 2018

Free Friday: Christmas Collection



Happy Friday, everyone!  We're speeding right through December, aren't we?  It's just 11 more days until Christmas and I feel like it's going to be here before we blink twice. 

That's why today I'm bringing you a different kind of Free Friday post.  Instead of posting a new pattern, I'm putting all of my Christmas patterns all together in one place.  These are quick and easy patterns that you can whip up between now and Christmas in case you need an extra present or just want to make your gift a little extra special!





Charming Christmas Tag









Candy Cane Ornament












Small Box












Poinsettia Basket












Poinsettia Ornament












Christmas Present Coaster











Winter Coaster











Cheery Snowman Wall Hanging







My life is going to be pretty busy between here and New Years, so I'm going to bow out of  blogging for the next two weeks so I can focus on my family and our celebrations.  I'll be back in 2019 though!  I hope you all have a beautiful Christmas and a blessed New Year!

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Cheery Snowman Wall Hanging PDF

Happy Tuesday everyone!  I'm gonna make this quick because I have quite the to-do list today!

I wanted to let you all know that I added the Cheery Snowman Wall Hanging to my Craftsy shop in PDF form!  In case you forgot or haven't seen it yet, I held a 4-week plastic canvas stitch-along and this adorable wall hanging was the result!

If you want to make him yourself, you can go back and check out the stitch-along posts, or you can go grab the PDF over in my Craftsy shop

Have a great week everyone!

Friday, December 7, 2018

Free Friday: Cheery Snowman Stitch-Along #4

Happy Friday to you all today!  And it is a happy day here.  There's a gentle fluffy snow falling outside and the sun is shining a little bit.  It's warm and cheery in my house now that it's all decorated for Christmas and we're starting our winter celebrations.  Don't you love this time of year and how cozy and joyous it is? 

It's once again time for our stitch-along, and this is the last one!  In case you missed it, I announced four weeks ago that we would be doing a Christmasy plastic canvas stitch along!  It will be a pattern given out in four parts, one a week for four weeks.  All of the required materials for the entire project are posted on that announcement page I linked to, so if you want to join us, click on that to see what you'll need to finish the entire project.  If you can't get started right away, I'll post the pattern in its entirety at the end of the stitch-along so that you can do it at your leisure!

Week #1: Snowman Body
Week #2:  Hat and Carrot
Week #3: Scarf and Holly Leaves 

Cheery Snowman Wall Hanging Week #4



Skill Level: 

Beginner

Materials:

  • All stitched pieces from previous weeks
  • Hot glue
  • 18 Gauge black craft wire
  • Wire cutters
  • Two sets of needle nose pliers 
  • Six 7mm red pompoms
  • Eleven 8mm black beads
  • Black sewing thread
  • Sewing needle 
  • Black craft cord 

Instructions:

1. To make the arms, cut six 7-inch pieces of black craft wire.  Use three pieces of wire per arm.  Use one pair of pliers to hold three wires 1/2 inch from the end, as shown:

2. Use the second set of pliers to begin twisting the wires, as below:


3. Continue twisting until you are left with 1/2 inch of untwisted wire on both ends, like in the picture below:


4. Repeat for second arm; set arms aside.
5. Attach the black beads to the snowman body using the black sewing thread and sewing needle according to the graph at the end of the instructions.
6. Using the hot glue, attach the scarf, hat, carrot nose, holly leaves, and red pompoms.  Use the picture above and the close up shot below as a guide.



7. Bend the arms to form the shapes in the picture below, and attach as shown using hot glue.  To make sure arms don't detach in the future, be sure that the hot glue goes all the way around the wire by adding a little on top and smearing it to the sides.


8. Cut a 4 inch piece of craft cord.  Use hot glue to attach the cord to the back of the snowman, using the graph below as a guide. ♥




Click the images above to see them larger.   

You may share this pattern however you please as long as you don't alter it or claim it as your own.  Please link back if you share this pattern.  You may sell items made from this pattern.  However, you may not sell this pattern.

Congrats!  You now have a finished snowman wall hanging to decorate your home with or to give away as a fun Christmas present!  I hope you enjoyed our Cheery Snowman Stitch-Along as much as I did!  Check back next week if you want the whole pattern put together as a PDF.  Have a great weekend everyone!

Monday, December 3, 2018

Holly Leaf TBC

Happy Monday, everyone!  Oh how I love Monday.  Am I the only one?  I love that it's a fresh new start, that there's a whole week ahead where so many good things can happen.  And I love that I can get back to work on my designs, too, which is exactly what I did today!

I finally got my new pattern finished this morning.  It's simple but elegant, and I thought it would be the perfect addition to anyone's Christmas decor (including mine).

https://www.etsy.com/littlesapphire/listing/664197371/pattern-holly-leaf-tissue-box-cover-in?utm_source=Copy&utm_medium=ListingManager&utm_campaign=Share&utm_term=so.lmsm&share_time=1543864937784
Holly Leaf Tissue Box Cover pattern, $4 on Etsy

I hope you had a wonderful weekend and a great week ahead! 

Friday, November 30, 2018

Free Friday: Cheery Snowman Stitch-along #3

Happy Friday, everyone!  Isn't Friday a wonderful day?  It's the end of the week, you can relax knowing the weekend is coming (assuming you don't work weekends that is), life takes on a more chill feeling.   At least that's how it is for me.  The weekend is when I get to really spend time with Chad, my beloved hubby.

Well, I guess I should stop rambling and get on with the stitch-along pattern!  In case you missed it, I announced three weeks ago that we would be doing a Christmasy plastic canvas stitch along!  It will be a pattern given out in four parts, one a week for four weeks.  All of the required materials for the entire project are posted on that announcement page I linked to, so if you want to join us, click on that to see what you'll need to finish the entire project.  If you can't get started right away, I'll post the pattern in its entirety at the end of the stitch-along so that you can do it at your leisure!

Week #1: Snowman Body
Week #2:  Hat and Carrot
Week #4: Putting it all together

Cheery Snowman Wall Hanging Week #3


Skill Level:

Beginner

Materials:

  • Scrap 7-count plastic canvas
  • Red Heart yarn in colors listed in key
  • Plastic canvas needle
  • Hot glue

Instructions:

  1. Cut and stitch plastic canvas according to graphs. *
  2. Overcast holly leaves with Paddy Green yarn.
  3. Overcast scarf with Paddy Green and Hunter Green yarns, matching yarn to nearby stitches.
  4. Trim fringe to 1 inch long.  To keep fringe from unraveling, put small dabs of hot glue on the back side of the knots. 
* If you need instructions on how to do a fringe stitch, Krafty Kat has a very nice tutorial.


Click the image above to see it larger.   

You may share this pattern however you please as long as you don't alter it or claim it as your own.  Please link back if you share this pattern.  You may sell items made from this pattern.  However, you may not sell this pattern.

Now you should have the snowman body, hat, carrot, scarf, and holly leaves made.  Next week, we'll be making his arms and putting it all together.  Are you excited!  Make sure to check back next week for our final week of the stitch along.  Have a great weekend!

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

What's Up Wednesday

Happy Wednesday, everyone!  We're officially into Christmas territory now that Thanksgiving is happily behind us.  How exciting!  So how did all of you Americans enjoy your Thanksgiving?  Mine was really nice for a change.  My hubby and I decided to try to make the very best of our holiday despite my crazy family, and we had a wonderful time.  On Friday, we went over to his mom and dad's house for our not-Thanksgiving dinner, which is basically just a frozen lasagna and some leftover rolls.  It was also nice! 

So what have I been up to this past week?  Well, mostly getting ready for and recovering from Thanksgiving.  I don't host any get-togethers at my house anymore.  I used to and I kind of wish I could again, but my dad is in a wheelchair and he wouldn't be able to make it up my stairs into the house and certainly couldn't get up the stairs to the bathroom.  Instead, my family has dinner at my mom's house on Thursday, and we have dinner with Chad's family on Friday. 

That said, I do some cooking for Thanksgiving dinner.  This year, I made the rolls, the Turkey, and the gravy.  The bird came out really nice this year! 


I wet brined it and it was amazingly moist and flavorful.  We're still enjoying the leftovers!  I also learned how to properly truss a turkey this year, too, yay! 

I have a couple of crafty projects in the works at the moment, too, though I haven't been able to work on them as much as I'd like to.  I have a PC project in the works that I forgot to take a picture of, and I also have a cute Christmas table runner being put together.


We also got our Christmas tree up this weekend!  We don't like to decorate it right away though.  We want to kind of draw out the joy of Christmas, so we do a little bit of decorating and celebrating at a time.



The theme for the runner is perfect for the mood of the day.  When I woke up, I saw this out the window:


It's a little hard to see in the picture, but what that is, is about a foot of snow on the roof outside my window.  When I saw that I knew I had to get up because we'd have to shovel the snow.  This is what the front looked like (after shoveling the porch):


We've being hammered with snow today.  It was literally up to my knees at my mom's house and it's still coming down. Thankfully Chad can work from home (he's a programmer).  That's really handy on days like today because we shovel not one, not two, but three houses (ours, our elderly neighbors', and my mom's), and it takes us 1-2 hours to get it all done.  Phew!  I'm grateful I have him to help me.  I'm also grateful that we bought a couple of snowblowers a couple years back.  It used to be a lot harder and take a lot longer when we did it all by hand. 

Had to get the drying rack up because shoveling creates a bunch of wet clothing!



Anyway, we're snuggled up inside today.  We'll probably have to go shovel again after lunch because the snow is coming down heavily.  I'm going to continue working on my PC project, work on the laundry, and do some baking.  What else can I do on day like this, right? 

Remember to check back on Friday when I'll be posting the third installment of the Snowman stitch-along!  Stay warm!

Friday, November 23, 2018

Free Friday: Cheery Snowman Stitch-along #2



Happy Black Friday, everyone!  I hope your Thanksgiving was full of love and good food this year.  Have you gone out Black Friday shopping yet?  Not me!  I'm warm and safe at home, shopping on my phone like a sane person!  I haven't gone Black Friday shopping since I was about 6 years old and that's probably the last time too.  Big crowds make me anxious!

So here we are again, another Friday Stitch-along!  In case you missed it, I announced two weeks ago that we would be doing a Christmasy plastic canvas stitch along!  It will be a pattern given out in four parts, one a week for four weeks.  All of the required materials for the entire project are posted on that announcement page I linked to, so if you want to join us, click on that to see what you'll need to finish the entire project.  If you can't get started right away, I'll post the pattern in its entirety at the end of the stitch-along so that you can do it at your leisure!

Week #1: Snowman Body 
Week #3: Scarf and holly 
Week #4: Putting it all together

Cheery Snowman Wall Hanging: Week #2


Skill Level:

Beginner

Materials:

  • Scrap 7-cound plastic canvas pieces
  • Red Heart yarn listed in key
  • Plastic canvas needle

Instructions:

  1. Cut and stitch plastic canvas according to graphs.
  2. Overcast carrot piece with Carrot yarn.
  3. Overcast hat piece with Black and Burgundy yarn, matching yarn to nearby stitches.




Click the image above to see it larger.   

You may share this pattern however you please as long as you don't alter it or claim it as your own.  Please link back if you share this pattern.  You may sell items made from this pattern.  However, you may not sell this pattern.

Now you should have the snowman body, the hat, and his carrot made.  Next week, we'll make his scarf.  We're half way done.  Make sure to tune in next week to get the next part of the pattern.

Friday, November 16, 2018

Free Friday: Cheery Snowman Stitch-along #1



Happy Friday, everyone!  And can you believe that it's the Friday before Thanksgiving!?  That's totally bonkers!  It feels too soon to be turkey time!  But the calendar doesn't lie, so I got my turkey out to thaw and I've started getting my to-do list made up.  Phew.  I don't host Thanksgiving (thank goodness!), but I do a lot of cooking.  What do all of you fellow Americans have planned?

Enough chit chat, lets get to the pattern!  In case you missed it, I announced last week that we would be doing a Christmasy plastic canvas stitch along!  It will be a pattern given out in four parts, one a week for four weeks.  All of the required materials for the entire project are posted on that announcement page I linked to, so if you want to join us, click on that to see what you'll need to finish the entire project.  If you can't get started right away, I'll post the pattern in its entirety at the end of the stitch-along so that you can do it at your leisure!

Week #2: Hat and carrot
Week #3: Scarf and holly
Week #4: Putting it all together

Cheery Snowman Wall Hanging: Week #1


Skill Level:

Beginner

Materials:

  • One sheet 7-count plastic canvas
  • Red Heart yarn in color White #311
  • Plastic canvas needle 

Instructions:

  1. Cut plastic canvas according to graph below.  
  2. Stitch according to graph, using white yarn for the blue stitches.
  3. Overcast raw edges with white yarn.

Snowman body (cut 1), 35x76 holes

Click the image above to see it larger.   

You may share this pattern however you please as long as you don't alter it or claim it as your own.  Please link back if you share this pattern.  You may sell items made from this pattern.  However, you may not sell this pattern.

Now we have the snowman body made!  Next week we'll work on his hat!  So make sure to tune back in the next few weeks to get the rest of this adorable wall hanging so that you can have it made in time for Christmas! 

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

What's Up Wednesday

Happy Wednesday, everyone!  Are you all having a good week?  Wednesdays are always a little irritating for me because it's my laundry day.  I just don't like doing laundry!  I know intellectually that I should be grateful that I a) have nice clothes that need washed and that b) I have a nice washing machine and dryer to make doing laundry easier, but I still get grumpy about the interruption to my day.  Oh well, I guess I have to make the best of it!

So I may as well take this time between loads to tell you about my week and what I've been up to.  I feel like I haven't been doing that much, but I'm sure there's more doing on than I remember!  The little details of life tend to fall through the cracks in my brain.  Better check the pictures on my phone.



Oh yeah!  My hubby and I decided to do a COOKIE BAKE OFF this past weekend.  He said he wanted to add gingersnaps to our list of Christmas cookies, and I told him that we already had a recipe for old fashioned pepparkakors in the rotation.  So we decided to get a recipe for American gingersnaps and compare it to (what I found out that weekend is actually) Swedish gingersnaps.  My hubby is 1/4 Swedish, his grandpa came off the boat as a young man and spoke Swedish, so I'm more emotionally partial to the pepparkakors, but we had to know for sure which tasted better.

As it turns out, the pepparkakors were so much better!  I'm sorry I don't have a better picture of them (they're on the left in the photo above).  I usually pipe some white frosting on top to highlight the cookie design.  They're very spicy and just the right amount of sweet.  The American gingersnaps ended up being far too sweet.  When I get around to icing them, I'll take a better picture and post the recipe!



We also bottled our strawberry wine this weekend.  It's hard to capture the lovely pink color in a picture.  Oh My Goodness.  Have you ever had strawberry wine?  Because it's the most heavenly liquid on this earth.  We left it dry because it's just so heady with fruity goodness, adding sugar seemed like a crime.  It needs to mellow another month or so, but it's so amazing.  Wine making is a long term hobby, but it's worth it!  (Plus it's super frugal.  A bottle of wine costs us less than $1 to make.)


I've been very slowly working on a hexie quilt, too.  It will eventually be a sewing machine cover for one of my millions of sewing machines (actually, I sold one so now I'm down to six!  Hubby is happy about that).  It's slow going, though.  This is my first time doing English paper piecing, and although I like it a lot, goodness it takes a lot of time!  I'm so tempted to rev up one of my zigzag machines and just zigzag them together.  But, I'll be patient.  I have just 8 more flowers to go, then I need to put them together with white pieces.  Ugh.  How on earth do people do entire bed sized quilts?  I clearly need more time and/or patience.


I have once again been digging into my Taste of Home magazines.  There's something about cooler weather that makes the cook in me squeal with joy.  I actually got so excited this year that I went onto Ebay and bought a few lots of magazines so that I could fill out my collection.  Yep.  Now I have every since issue published between 1993 and 2000.  I have about half of them from 2001-2006, and maybe someday I'll fill that in too.  That's all I want though.  In 2007, they sold their souls to an evil corporation that took all the heart and warmth out of the magazine.  I wish someone would come out with a magazine like TOH was back in the 90s and early 2000s.  If anyone knows of one, let me know! 


And of course, I've been working on this guy!  That's a sneak peek for you!  (He's sitting on my Wacom tablet, in case you're curious.)  Remember that I'll be posting the first installment of instructions this Friday!

Well, that's my week.  How has your week looked?  I'd love to hear about anything interesting you've been up to!