Thursday Threads

Textile crafts have always been my favorite way to have fun and be creative. I've tried paper crafts, painting crafts, glue, wood, and other types of creativity, but I always come back to textiles.

I taught myself how to knit socks this year and yesterday I completed my second pair. I'm not perfect yet, but I'm feeling more confident. I have more yarns to keep going for quite a while and am excited to know I can have what I want and need more than what manufacturers think I need. I also started a pair of mittens and they are still a work in progress, but with a couple more hours of time I will have them finished. It feels great to be using the yarns that have been sitting and waiting to be made into the projects intended. 

My daughter made this up cycled tote bag from her collection of vintage bed sheets. She uses a lot of the reclaimed linens for projects like this. She added a doily and made ribbon and yo yo flowers to embellish it.

She also finished this large granny square afghan this week. I love the aqua and white. This may be donated to a hospital charity. That's what's been keeping us busy here at the "Craft Zone" these past couple of weeks in our spare time. I can't even begin to tell you the ideas that float around in our heads and wonder if there will ever be time to do all that we would love to do.

Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend.

Thursday Threads

Happy Halloween!

Been very busy this week and am looking forward to a quiet Friday. Most gals who sew end up with a stash of bits and pieces of left over fabric. I have made up my mind to try and use as much as possible. I enjoy sewing and after a long day it's always a treat to have an hour or so to sew.

This is a set of mug rugs that I practiced with some new stitches on. Need to practice a little more. I'll put these to use here in the townhouse. 

This is the next set still in progress, but the stitching is better. This does not even represent 10% of the Halloween scraps I have to use up but even the batting is left over pieces. I am actually looking forward to cooler weather moving in so I can do more of the indoor things. It's become a challenge to myself to use as much as possible. 

Have a great weekend everyone and thank you for stopping by.

Townhouse Homestead Tuesday

Wow that was a fast week. To say time flies when you're having fun is not totally the truth. Let's say time flies when your busy. To start from the townhouse this week I've gone back to seriously baking and cooking. Doing what I can to eat better, but still enjoy food and life. I've gone back to baking my own bread. I've tried a lot of new recipes floating around on the Internet, but I'm going back to my good old Betty Crocker recipes I got as a teenager in the sixties. I just like the result, taste and I like the kneading. I know it's easy to let the machine do it, but when you've spent so much time doing something a certain way it's hard to let go.

I like home made bread better for French toast. I can slice it to the thickness I want and when soaking in the egg mixture it holds up better. Doesn't that look yummy? It certainly was.

I also make this ahead and keep it in the refrigerator so my daughter can take it to work for breakfast. I never did this when the kids were younger, but now it works great for her. 

Another task this week was cleaning the recipe files and papers. Over the years I've accumulated so many books, papers and clippings that I could never find what I needed when I needed it. I got a good start, but there is more to do.

This is some of the before. Can't believe I let it get so out of control, but...

look how neat the after is. I found recipes I thought were lost and would never find again and I can now just go to the right spot and get it. I put printed recipes in plastic sleeves to preserve them and can just pull them out of the notebook and wipe clean if they get messy. 

From the sewing and craft room this week I used a few scraps to make a candle cozy for 4th of July decorating. I don't do a lot of decorating any more so I'm keeping it simple with a holiday candle.

Sewing projects listed on the store have already started selling. There were pillows and napkins.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/192554082/hand-made-16-inch-black-cotton-pillow?

https://www.etsy.com/listing/192563409/hand-made-16-inch-teal-pillow?

https://www.etsy.com/listing/192564741/hand-made-screen-printed-buddha-pillow?

The pink napkins have sold, but the green napkins can be found here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/192558851/set-of-4-double-sided-13-inch-napkins?

Well I guess that's why the week flew by. I harvested parsley and basil from the garden this week and dried it for my soup mixes. I also took some clippings of my peppermint plant to start a new one and it's already rooting. Everything is growing nicely. It's small and mostly herbs, but it's my bit of earth. 

Thank you for stopping by and I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

Linking to: We Call It Junkin

Finished or not at The Craft Zone.

The Craft Zone is just that. A place where we can work on our love of textile crafts. All kinds of textile crafts. It has merged into a blog or two, a store or two and many, many friends. There are so many people that finish every project or nearly every project. My eldest daughter finishes projects. Here are two pillows she finished this weekend in between studying. Yes she works full time and carries a full time college schedule and manages to finish sewing projects. Of course they only needed the inserts and the closing stitched, but she finished them.

Her listing manager got them on her shop today and they can both be found at poetcharms.etsy.com.

I on the other hand had several plans for this piece of Waverly fabric but never started and therefore never finished. So this morning it also got listed as commercial fabric at poetcharms.etsy.com.

I'd like to finish some knitting projects. One is started, but could anyone finish a project if their knitting basket looked like this?

What a mess. Really. There is a sweater in that mess that is just about all done. I believe there may be just a few inches to go to finish the sleeves. Then just block it, sew it together and knit the neckline and front edges, but could I work with that mess? Could I even find the directions to finish it in that mess? This morning was the end. It had to get cleaned. I got to it and threw out endless pieces of paper that I used to count. I cleaned my late aunts knitting bag and put it in the wash, sorted out at least 20 extra pairs of knitting needles to donate, organized every little marker, pad of paper, textile tool and yarn. The final result is a clean knitting basket that I can now use. Doesn't it look better?

And here are the knitting needles to be donated. I think I had a few too many.

So spring cleaning has begun here and it feels good. Maybe I'll have that sweater finished by next fall when cooler weather comes back. I know I won't have it finished for the cold we have now.