Dixie's Dragon

Treats from Australia

I received my vintage stocking swap stocking today, among a box of other delights from Shell at Sacred Heart Arts . It has been a nasty few days work wise and right when I finished a particularly tedious task, I saw out of the corner of my eye, the mailman pulling away from my mailbox. This was in it:

Was it my blogging by mail food package? my vintage stocking swap package? Hmmm.

It's my vintage stocking swap box. In addition to the wonderful stocking (that is beautifully made and lined in the same material as the cuff), Shell include various and sundry other happies. The pictures speak for themselves. What a treat for me - thank you thank you Shell.  Everything is delightful and extremely well made. I have a crush on the little horsey.

Do you see the lovely handmade card?  and the cute little pencil holder. I am afraid that Peep is sadly mistaken if he thinks that this will be his stocking. Here are the goodies in the vintage stationary box that you see (lots of buttons and such). Yay for me  - I got lots of goodies plus alot of inspiration from Shell's fine handiwork.

 

horses for thought

Me, I am not a horse lover. They are okay, but I much prefer cats. and with a 100 pound greyhound, who needs a horse? Planeta Hilda is, however, turning me into a bit of a horse lover, at least a Planeta Hilda horse lover. See:
Planeta Hilda horses

Guess what's for dinner?

here's a hint:

If I were Martha Stewart, I would turn this stalk of sprouts into a Christmas swag and hang it on my front door with a bright ribbon woven out of red cabbage strips. Speaking of Martha, the December issue of Martha Stewart Kids is fabulous. There is a whole section on little stuffies made out of remnants and old clothes.  The little red square guy sticking out his tongue is made from an old skirt. There are also some peppermint candy animals, peppermint candy desserts and a cute a seemingly simple to make peppermint gingerbread house. It's a keeper, go invest.

I am busily knitting what will soon be orange felted polka dots...

Almost December

Back from a wonderful Thanksgiving with the Carrigan clan in Indiana. We ate, knitted, sewed, ate, ate, decorated my mother in-law's beautiful Victorian home for Christmas, ate, knitted and watched all the little cousins play happily together.

Big Merrill (my father in-law after whom my daughter Meryl Delaney is named) dug up some leather tools for me. I have been interested in trying leather handles on my felted bags, and, not only did Big Merrill find the tools, he took me and Shaun to an Amish leather shop a few farms away. Shaun and Merrill test drove the riveting tool and I rummaged through some leather remnants for straps. We got to watch, Mervin, the son of the shop owner trim up the straps for us in his little Amish boy outfit (why do Amish boys always wear watch caps?).

I have decided to show the step by step process on this bag to keep me from lolly-gagging in completing it. It is going to be a really family affair of a bag since:  (a) I plan to use the leather straps with my father in-law's tools, (b) Shaun will work the tools, and (c) my mother in-law, Pat gave me the orange yarn (she said it is at least 20 years old). Here is the bag after two washings. Obviously, it has not been blocked. I am admiring the muted stockinette pattern that shows after 2 washes and am debating whether to wash it again and completely remove any evidence of knitting.

Delaney constantly reminds me to look at things from a different perspective. She was pottering around in my office playing with some yarn and suddenly exclaimed, look, a dragonfly!

I found these precious little gift tags at CVS the other day for only $1.99. Not your usual drugstore junk...

Lastly, for those who are interested, this little Indian belongs to me and she took first place on my Things to be Thankful for list.

Happy Thanksgiving

a little sumpin sumpin from the washer

I believe in milking every little enjoyable thing out of life. For example, I really enjoy the odd little humps and bumps of loose yarn  produced by my washer after completing a load of felting. I am calling this photo Joys from the Washer 1:

ahh, the simple life...

Another joy, the new Kaffe Fassett line is now available at Hancocks . A sneak preview:

For those who like to swap

A new swap is being hosted by Blytheswideshut called Second String. It is designed for those who won't or cannot be in BackTack III. You use your own stash to make something - the theme is still up for grabs. Everyone entering gets to throw in a suggested theme. So go sign up! I did.

I have been up to crafty endeavors despite my travel. I made this bag before I left and just love the colors. I plan to line it with something equally bright and colorful. As you can see, I have not clipped the yarn threads so its a bit hairy and unkempt looking.

It is my baby's sixth birthday today! We are off to the climbing center for her party which is a real treat since I have hosted her previous parties in my home. Last year after her party I went upstairs to our somewhat hidden away master suite to discover that several grubby five year olds had unmade and played in my bed. hmmm.

Back from the party - here is my little bitty girl bravely ascending the climbing wall:

finally...

I had my post ready to go yesterday and then clicked on a link in an email and lost the whole dern thing.

My kitten is back - I was terribly worried since he was rescued as a kitten and is frightened of everyone but me. After two days of my calling him at all hours, I went outside late on Wednesday night determined to stay out until I collected him. After about ten minutes I heard a little peep, a few more minutes later I heard a distincive peep, then I saw a little orange blur. Once close enough I snatched him up and brought him in. Bless his little heart, he is sitting (and purring) in front of the key board in between my arms as I type. But, enough about cats.

My trip to SF had a very auspicious beginning. As I was knitting in the terminal waiting to  board, a lovely woman came up and asked me what I was knitting ( a knitter's dream). We chatted a bit about knitting and felting. Then lo and behold, I got to sit by her on the plane. We discussed books, sewing, knitting, children, books which resulted (for me anyway)in a four hour flight seeming like ten minutes. Karyl (from Maine) admired my tote bag of many Kaffe Fasset fabrics and so, Karyl, if you are out there here is the best place online to purchase Kaffe's collection: Hancocks of Paducah . I have an e- coupon for free shipping so if any one, including Karyl would like to use it, just email me.

I adore Japanese craft books and have to muddle through the YesAsia and Amazon Japan websites with ISBNs, so, I was thrilled to see myriad craft books in live and in person at the Kinokuniya book store in SF. Since my friend Rana, is an Armani wearing investment banker with absolutely no interest in crafts, I persuaded Jenni, her wonderful Kiwi nanny to accompany me to the bookstore.

I started to have heart palpitations when I saw the craft book aisle. I started taking pictures until Jenni brought me back to reality with a reminder that we were likely to be escorted out if I didn't quit taking pictures.

Yes, I sat on the floor and went through all of those books. Oh bliss. I purchased four books, the first of which I have already posted about, but on to the next three. I was lucky enought to find some craft books for children, titled Start Series, which include many of the same patterns and the grown up version, but with larger pictures in the direction pages and more precise directions. There are not as many patterns, but the price was only $9.70. To boot, a cute little bunny sews along with you.
ISBN 45290404860

This one is my fave and has all kinds of flowers and a bargain price of $9.80. ISBN 4834720985

The last book, is from the Petite Boutique series and is a smaller book, but again, it was very inexpensive: $5.60. ISBN 4834762238

Wheew, that was alot of blogging, more later.

 

Utopia at Kinokuniya

I'm back after a very delightful trip. As it usually happens when the mommy travels, the house is a mess, there is no milk in the fridge, the laundry has piled up, and, sadly, a cat has been misplaced. So rather than the glorious post I had planned, I will focus on one of the highlights: Japanese craft book heaven. I scored four lovely books, three of which were bargains, yes, believe it or not, there are Japanese craft book bargains. I will go on more about the Kstore later and leave you with the one book for which I have a digital image for now...This little mini book of sorts and focuses on felted corsages. The directions are very easy. It was also $3.95. Am too tired to post more.

I'm off....

I am off to San Fran for a few days, sans family. Back later

Jane's Crispy Crackolates

I love cereal. In fact one day I plan on hosting my dream party: Bring your favorite box of cereal. I will supply milk in every catogory and everyone invited would bring their one favorite cereal. I would select Honey Nut Cheerios, those delightful little o's that nourished me through law school, plain, with milk, or on top of frozen yogurt. So when I saw Jane's recipe for  Cripsy Crackolates  which includes cornflakes, chocolate, butter and golden sryup, I promptly copied the recipe and tried to make my own. I couldn't find Tate & Lyle's Golden syrup for the first round and so subsitituted that old Southern stand-by: Karo light syrup. Karo simply didn't sweeten up the the dark chocolate for my taste. Round two, add marshmallows and peanuts and substitute fine dark chocolate for nestle toll house chips. Much better, but still refinement was required. I finally laid my hands on some Tate & Lyle's Golden Syrup which has a wonderful sweet nutty taste without the bitterness of molasses.

The golden syrup made a total difference. I will never be without it in my cabinet again. I still added peanuts because I am a fool for nuts and chocolate. Thank you Jane!

In an effort to generate some comments from those who visit and never comment, let me know what your favorite cereal is!

Good bye Dorry

Last night we suffered the loss of Dorry, Delaney's beta fish. We   Delaney gave her quite the send off, or flush off rather. This is all of Delaney's doing:

Part of my morning ritual (obviously prior to waking up the itty bitty) is to bring coffee into my office and sort through email. This morning Daily Candy featured this wonderful site with wares from Scotland:  Papa Stour . I was absolutely fascinated with this handbag which is described as Knitted, felted jacquard handbag with circular handles. Any idea as to how they made this?

French food, Charley the dog and lace sushi

Friday night was our gourmet club dinner and the theme was French food. Lynn, the host, surprised us all by having a French chef, Patrice, prepare our dinner and give us a tutorial on decoratively carving vegetables as well as preparing a tarragon creme sauce. Patrice looked exactly as one would expect a French chef to look and sound.

Our dinner club is rather rowdy, as I have mentioned before, so, naturally there was plenty of red wine. NellieBell, my craft supply hoarding friend (who is also quite generous with sharing her ginormous stash) brought boxes of sundry vintage buttons for the ladies. Kate another member of our dinner club is a real live button collecter and fabulous repository of all information related to buttons so she happily sipped champagne and tapped buttons on her teeth.

Anyhoo, back to the food, It was fabulous. First we had, mushrooms a la greque (made by moi)and haricots vert made by Nelliebell which were also fab. Next, we had scallops, shrimp and salmon with the fabulous tarragagon cream sauce accompanied by potatoes Diane made by my husband which aboslutely melted in your mouth. We finished off with creme brulee and apple tart tatin, coffee and French brandy. Yum-o.
Lynn's dog Charley remained outside, but showed a definite interest in becoming a saucier. ( which reminds me of one of my favorite movie quotes from The History of the World: "Don't get saucy with me, Bearnaise"

After dinner, Lynn got out the vintage jewelry collection that he inherited from his spinster auntie. We all modeled it and played our own little wine drenched game of self portrait Saturday which resulted in some pictures that will never been shown publicly.

On a crafting note, remember that I challended NellieBell to make catnip stuffed wonton from knitty.com?  Wellelll, We she made the wonton, much to the glee and ensuing drunken rampage of Knox her cat, and she also one upped me by making this California roll out of lace, batting and felt. Eat your heart out Amyville! Go NellieBell.

Vintage stocking swap

For those of you who don't know me, I have a tendency to get really tickled at the silliest things. So it's the middle of the night and I am up because I went to bed too early. I was just cruising around checking out  Oh Joy the most prolific of bloggers and from there moved on to check out some French Bull at Plum Party. Then it happened. I saw this thing and got tickled. You see,  I'm in a vintage stocking swap, hosted by the sweetest of bloggers Ms. Robyn of  Daily Parcels ( Ms. Robyn is my buddy in the swap too.)  She is The Vintage Girl and so I have been searching for just the right pattern. During my nocturnal wanderings I came across this thing that is called a stocking for $95.00. It's made of fine materials  which surely justifies the price. If one were in a vintage swap and one received one's package round about Christmas time wouldn't one be astounded to receive this hideosity? I cannot keep laughing at this thing.

radishes, cats, etc.

For oodles of fun drawing lessons that are extremely user friendly here is the site for you: How to Draw a Radish .

Here's my favorite lesson: kittycat lesson

back tack revealed

My back tackee was Kathreen at Red Current . Finally, her package arrived and so I can post what I made for her. Surprise, it was a felted bag. It's quite a bit larger than the hand bags that I make. The reds required about five trips to the washing machine. This was take two, because the first bag that I made - a ginormous checkerbard duffle bag was ridiculously huge and the purple that I used  to offset all of the reds and pinks got all flat and dull in the wash. The craft I chose for her was water color pencils, but threw in some other drawing goodies. That kooky thing you see is a keychain with a lavendar sachet- I was struggling for the bag accoutrements and successfully avoided having to deal with a zipper. Doesn't every girl want a scented key chain?

Here is a shot of the inside of the back, which I kind of liked (especially the pocket):

The Halloween decorations are down ( I was getting kind of sick of them) and now its the mad dash to Thanksgivng and Christmas.

Remember my friend NellieBell, the craft,knitting, sewing supply hoarder? Well, we are on a mission to actually put the myriad supplies into use. Using the 1000 wooden balls is going to be tricky, but my devious little mind is hard at work for the appropriate project. This weeks task for dear ole NellieB is to make the feline  dim sum at Knitty . Can she do it? Well we shall see........ Stay tuned.

Back Tack is here and I win

My Back Tack goodies arrived on Monday. I am so thrilled and so lucky. Kiri from Kiriosity was my Back Tackor. I received this wonderfully well made Amy Butler Bag in my favorite color. The outside is heavier fabric from the home decor collection and the inside is my all time favorite fabric. I am so pleased.

The craft she chose for me was SPINNING. Yippee. I am going to make some yarn, uncoordination be damned. She packed in two drop spindles and some gorgeous roving. The roving is from Tennessee, oddly enough (I'm in TN). She also gave me "Spin It" a book with easy to read directions, which is a must for someone like me who has difficulty translating from the second dimension into the third.

I also got this glorious sari silk yarn, very much like some I was admiring in the yarn store last week. The colors are simply brilliant.

Also snuggled in my back tack box was this skein of Colinette point 5 chunky called Tapis. I love the bright eye catching colors in both the wool and silk yarn. Thank you thank you sweet Kiri!!!