Fall Boxes

Good Monday morning, everyone!  I hope you all had a lovely weekend!  Mine was busy but fun.  Hubby's brother came to visit from Atlanta for the weekend, so we spent a lot of time out eating and laughing and having lots of fun.  It's nice to have family visit, but you know what's even better?  Getting back to normal life!

And that's what I did this morning!  I finally got around to finishing my Fall Boxes pattern!

Fall boxes pattern, $4 on Etsy

I like these boxes!  They're really cute and also functional.  They would make pretty gifts, filled with shelled nuts or candy.  My next project is to make some Christmas boxes!

Ok, I guess I'd better get going on my housework.  Have a great day, everyone!

Free Friday: Ghost Windsock

Happy Friday, everyone!  I'm in a bit of a rush today because my hubby's brother is flying in from Atlanta this afternoon and I need to take a shower and vacuum the house yet!  So I'll get right to the pattern.

Ghost Windsock

Skill Level:

Beginner

Size:

4x24 inches

Materials:

• 7-count plastic canvas
• Black and white yarn
• Hot Glue
• Size #1 Barrel Swivel (found in fishing supplies)
• ¼ yard white fabric torn into 1x15 inch strips
• Black craft cord
• #16 plastic canvas needle

Instructions:

1. Cut plastic canvas according to graphs. Stitch leaves according to graphs. Leaving red section unfinished, stitch windsock according to graph. Once finished, hold the two narrow ends together, overlapping red sections, and finish stitching.
2. Overcast unfinished edges of windsock with white, and eyes and mouth with black.
3. Use hot glue to attach strips of white fabric to open end of the wind sock, slightly overlapping.
4. Cut two 12” lengths of cord. Working on the end of the windsock without the fabric, attach one end of the first piece of cord anywhere to the inside of the windsock. Slide the other end through the loop on the barrel swivel, and attach it directly across from the first end. Repeat with the second piece of cord so that when you're done, the four ends are attached at all four corners.
5. Use hot glue to attach eyes and mouth onto front and back of windsock.♥

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.

See you all next week, everyone!

What's Up Wednesday

Happy Wednesday, everyone!  I hope you're all having a great week!  It's been absolutely lovely here.  The leaves are at their very peak right now; the beauty of fall never fail to amaze me and thank God for the chance to experience it.  Falling leaves, the smell of a forest, a big juicy apple, pumpkins sitting on the porch!  Life is amazing, isn't it? 

Which brings me to one of the best parts of my week!

What's up with nature

My poor hubs was feeling pretty down in the dumps a couple of weeks ago.  I don't know about you guys, but when someone I love is feeling blue, I want to do everything I can to make them feel better.  I decided for my hubs, the best thing for him was to make sure we got outside and walked/hiked/biked every day, especially now that nature is is so lovely.  And you know, it's worked so well for him!  He's like a brand new man, happy and lighthearted (just a thought for anyone else feeling blue this time of year).

So what we decided to do last weekend was to take our bikes to Allegheny State Park.  They have amazing bike trails all through the park, which is humongous!  We spent at least three hours exploring the place.  It was so nice.

The park is in what the county calls the Enchanted Mountains.  It certainly seemed enchanted last weekend.

It was pretty cloudy at first, but the sky turned blue for our ride back to the car.

We got to ride through this cool bridge on the way out, but on the way back, it was closed because someone was getting their wedding pictures on it.

And there we are!

I also had to stop to take a picture of this cute woolly bear.  I've never seen one like that.  It only had black on its head!  Hubs said that the other ones he saw were mostly red too.  Does everyone around the country try to predict the winter with woolly bears, or are we the only crazy ones?

What's up with plastic canvas

Well, I had planned on posting the apple coaster as the free pattern this week, but I decided I needed to make a ghost wind sock!

So keep your eye out for the pattern for this cutie!

What's up with sewing

So I said I want to keep working on my shirts and get them all sewn before cold weather really gets here.  But... actually, I'm easily distracted!  So instead, I decided to start sewing together a cool flannel quilt kit I got at the Erie quilt show.

It's really simple, just squares, so I figured it would be a great way to get to know my new sewing machine.

What's up with everything else

One way that I knew my hubs is feeling better is that he actually got motivated and started on working on a home improvement project by himself!  Our upstairs hall has been unfinished for a long while now.  It needs to be painted, and then we're going to replace the floor.  And he got up and started painting on Sunday!  How cool!

We got the trim primed and the linen closet door taken off and painted.  Now I need to do the caulking (of small holes and cracks near the ceiling), and we can start painting.

Today is actually the first really October day.  I realize it's the 11th of October, but today is the first REAL Octobery day.  It's gray, the colored leaves are decorating the lawn, it's drizzly, and there's a nice crispness to the air.  It's beautiful.  I tried to capture its wild beauty, but of course a camera can't do it justice.

Doesn't it just break your heart with how lovely it is?  Sigh.  I love fall!

At this point, my kitty Spices decided she wanted to come out on the porch with me.  So I put her leash on and took her out.  Immediately she's like, Mom, No

Mom, this isn't what I signed up for.  It's WET.

Ok Mom, I'm ready to go in now.

So she and I went in and started looking at my collection of Taste of Home magazines from the 90s.

I don't know why, but I love pawing through them this time of year.  It's comforting.  I also have a huge stack of 90s Country Woman, which I love.  They just aren't as nice today, I don't think.  They seem to be all ads and full page photos of tomatoes.  What I like about the ones from the 90s is that they have stories about real women and their lives and their families.  That's nice.

Well, I guess that's all for today everyone.  I hope you have a great rest of the week!  Make sure to go out and enjoy the season!

Free Friday: Gravestone Magnet

Happy Friday, everyone!  Are you all having a good week?  Mine has been kind of chill.  I'm feeling really lazy lately and I'm not quite sure why.  My mom always told me it was the change in weather that made people sleepy in October, but it's been in the high 70s all week!  So I can't use that as an excuse.

Are you getting ready for Halloween yet?  I just LOVE Halloween!  I have all of my decorations out already and we have our candy bought and ready for when the trick-or-treaters come.  Oh I'm so excited!

So in honor of the ghoulish season, I decided to post one of my gravestone magnet patterns!  If you like this one, there is a full set in my Etsy shop selling for $3!  Check them out!

Gravestone Magnet

Skill Level:

Beginner

Materials:

• One sheet 7-count plastic canvas
• Red Heart yarns in key
• ½ inch Flexible magnetic tape
• Craft glue

Instructions:

1. Cut plastic canvas according to graphs.
2. Use graphs as a guide to stitch gravestones using Red Heart yarn in colors indicated on graph.
3. Overcast each gravestone in Putty yarn.
4. Cut several pieces of magnetic tape to fit on the back of gravestones. Remove paper from magnets and apply glue to sticky side before attaching to gravestones. This may seem like overkill, but it makes for a very secure bond.

 
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.

Have a great weekend everyone!  I'll be out biking while the weather is still nice!

What's Up Wednesday

Happy Wednesday, everyone!  I hope you all had a good weekend and a good week so far.  I'm feeling better this week.  Thanks for being patient with me last week.  I guess I'm just feeling overwhelmed with all the things on my to-do list, and once in a while it's nice to crawl back into bed and stay there for a couple of days to get my head back together.  Thankfully I'm in a place in my life where I can do that.

Well, on to all the things I've been up to lately!

What's up around the house

It's a lovely 75 degrees here in western NY!  I've been taking advantage of the unseasonably good weather by putting up my Halloween decorations.  I'm going to have my hubby help me put up the Halloween lights on the porch tonight.  He's 6'5 and he doesn't need a ladder or chair the way I do, so that's handy!  I've gotten everything else up though, and it looks really nice.

Here's a pretty little home.  I got the ghouls out yesterday, and the tombstones and the pumpkin buckets on the railing.  My mums are starting to fade a little bit, but that's ok, that's just the way life is.

I have lots of decorations inside.  Since we were married in the fall, we have lots of fall decorations leftover from the wedding, and over the years I've added some nice things to the collection.  Here's a tour of my fall home! (PS, sorry for the bad pics; it's really cloudy today.)

Here's my front room.

And facing the other way in the front room.

Here's our niche in the front room.

And the desk by the front door.

We have a bigger tv this year.  For many years, we had a small tv and an old fashioned entertainment center, and I could decorate the top of it.  I don't have that now, so I did the best I could with the new set up.

Here's the bookshelf in the dining room.  The bouquet on the left is my wedding bouquet that I made myself! (It was a very frugal wedding!)

Here's our dining table.  It's currently a mix of fall and Halloween stuff.

This is the centerpiece on the table, a bowl full of fabric eyeballs I made a couple of years ago, lol.  I like to point one right at my hubby, lol! 

That's all the pictures I took, but there's so much more that I couldn't get a shot of.  I love getting out my fall decor because it makes the house so warm and cheery, which is so important as the year gets dark and cold. 

What's up with plastic canvas

Well, I started out last week by just making free patterns.  I wanted to get a good pile of them made up in advance so I wouldn't have to worry about them for a few weeks.  However, on the second day, I made a really cool pumpkin box I liked so much that I decided to put it in my shop.

And then I made a couple more boxes to go with it!  I should have the pattern up by next week sometime, and then I decided to make Christmas boxes too!  Yay! 

I did get one free pattern done last week, lol, so you'll be seeing this again soon.

What's up with sewing

I decided that before I get back to my quilting, I need to get my clothes pieces sewn for colder weather, which will be here shortly.  I made a pretty shirt a couple of weeks ago, and last week I decided it was a good time to make a pretty jacket.  It came out so well!

It looks very professional and I'm actually excited for cold weather to get here so I can wear it.  I'm going to start a turtle neck tunic dress tomorrow, and after that, I just have one more piece to make.  That will round out my winter wardrobe pretty nicely.

Well, that's all for me this week.  How are you all doing?  I hope you're getting a chance to enjoy these lovely days before winter gets here.  I'm certainly trying to!

Little delay

Hi everyone.  I haven't been feeling well this week, so I'm going to take a little time off from blogging.  Hopefully I'll be back next week with lots of new stuff for you.  Have a great weekend.

Free Friday: Boo! Blocks

Happy Friday, everyone!  Are you having a good week?  I'm trying to get this post done quickly because it's my 10th wedding anniversary!  My hubs is home from work early and we plan on doing something nice together tonight, so I'll get right to the pattern!

Boo! Blocks

Skill Level:

Beginner

Size:

2x2x2 inches

Materials:

• 7-count plastic canvas
• Red Heart yarn in colors listed in key
• #16 plastic canvas needle

Instructions:

1. Cut and stitch plastic canvas according to graphs.
2. For block one, whipstitch together side 1 and five side 5's with Spring Green yarn.
3. For block two, whipstitch together side 2 and five side 6's with Dark Orchid yarn.
4. For block three, whipstitch together side 3 and five side 5's with Spring Green yarn.
5. For block four, whipstitch together side 4 and five side 6's with Dark Orchid yarn. ♥

 

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.

Have a great weekend everyone!