A Multitude Of Ducks

 I have a friend who has figured out how to cruise on a budget.  When she can get a great deal on a cruise she'll go!  Lately she has been telling me about duck culture on a cruise ship.  It seems guests are bringing ducks and hiding them. 

No, not real ducks. I guess it started with rubber ducks.  The kind kids play with in the tub.  Then they started buying tiny ones in bulk on sites like Temu. Some people branched out into other tiny cute things. Or they glue magnets to whatever duck items they have bought. Then the other cruisers interested in this started to search the giant cruise ships trying to find the most ducks and posting about it.  The staff sometimes get into it.  They use them to decorate their small quarters or to take home to their children.  

Then Marcy told me about classes being offered by guests to learn to crochet ducks. Marcy can't see well enough to crochet, so she thought I could make her some.  I found some patterns on Etsy and got busy.

I have some yarn left over from other knitting projects.  I started with that.  Then JoAnn Fabric had a yarn sale.  So I bought a bunch and kept going.  I stuck with one pattern as I could make them faster that way.  

I played around with the colors for a Mallard duck. I tried a poof on top. 

I used different thicknesses of yarn and different sizes of crochet hooks. All the ducks I made had the same pattern but they turned out different.  That made it more fun for me.

For my first ducks, I embroidered an eye while I waited for some safety eyes to get here from Temu.

 Then I used those for the eyes.

I shipped off a box of more than thirty this morning. I know she can't fit all of them in her suitcase, but this should last her for awhile. 

Now I can use some of that yarn I bought to try to figure out how to make some other animals or at least different patterns for the ducks.

Elephant Baby Quilt

 I need to make a baby quilt for our granddaughter, Cecilia. I found a cute pattern with elephants and flower pots on Etsy. The pattern was for a full size quilt. I want a baby quilt so I decided to only use a few of the elephants and flower pots. But the flower pot squares were too small to make the quilt work. 

   

I re-sized the flower pot squares making them the same size as the elephant squares.  Then I had to fill the bare spots in them.  

I have a few fabrics from other projects with cute bugs. 

I have cartoon bugs and some bees, ladybugs, and dragonflies. I added these to the squares. I even added a few that escaped from the squares and flew around the border fabric.

When I started quilting I realized I should have kept more fabric around the tiny bugs to make for easier quilting. I have no idea how long they will last with a crawling baby and many washes.  But the bigger, cartoon bugs should last.

    

The back of the quilt is a flannel with a lot of cute elephants.  I prefer flannel on quilt backs if I can find one I like. It makes them feel cozier.

    

I like the quilt and hope Cecilia does, too.

Pink Baby Afghan

My daughter is pregnant with a baby girl.  I make all my grandkids an afghan. 

   

I made a pink one with a pattern I found on Etsy.  I like how it urned out.  But for the first time I bought some blocking squares to see if that made it look different.

In order to block a knitted item, you need to soak it. I used lukewarm water.  After about 15 minutes, I gently squeezed out the water.  I was careful to not twist or wring.   

I placed the wet afghan on a large towel and rolled it up.  Then I squeezed along the length to get out even more water.  

I placed the blocking squares on a large table and gently straightened the afghan.  I used the blocking pins to hold the afghan in an even rectangle and left it to dry.  

I like that there are no uneven spots or curled edges. 

    

Now I just need to wait for that baby.

Barnyard Animal Quilt

 When I was looking on Etsy for a transportation themed quilt for my grandson, I ran across this quilt. It is called Sleepy Acres.  It is a bunch of silly barnyard animals in a bed. It was so cute I had to buy the pattern, even though I didn't have an idea of where it was going to end up.

    

This is an appliqué quilt. I cut out squares of the black fabric. I traced the pieces for each animal and all the embellishments on Steam A Seam.  Next I cut roughly around the shapes and ironed each one on the back side of the appropriate fabric and cut on the lines. These pieces were then placed appropriately and ironed on each square.

The white fabric for the bed allowed too much of the black to show through, so the pattern suggested making two of each shape, doubling them up.  This was a lot of ironing, cutting and more ironing.  

Rather than doing a blanket stitch around each appliquéd piece as the pattern instructed, I chose to wait and do a straight stitch around each shape when I got to the quilting phase. This saved a lot of work but ended up making the quilt look a little more rustic where there was a bit of fraying.  I'm not sure how I feel about that. But I am going to do another appliqué quilt and I'll try the blanket stitch and then a straight stitch when quilting and see which I like best.      

There was a bit of embroidery that I did before I put the squares together.  The creases in the rabbit ears, a bit of satin stitching on the cookies to indicate chocolate chips, and the numbers on the sheep to show counting, etc.

Isn't this the perfect back? It is flannel for softness and has a bunch of barnyard animals!  It wasn't wide enough, so I bought extra and made it double wide. Now I have a bunch of left over fabric.  I may make a pillow or something with it.

After I put all squares together with the sashing and borders, I quilted around all the pieces to attach them and sewed the border.

I washed the quilt to see if the areas with triple layers of fabric and glue would soften up a little.  They did.  But then I found places that were fraying too much and added some more stitches. 

The pattern called for buttons and beads for the eyes.  If I had to do it again I would embroider them before quilting. If they pose a problem, I will remove them and add the embroidery.

I really like the quilt and hope the eventual recipient will like it too!

Another Afghan

 On my last trip to California, I stayed with a friend.  I have known her for over 40 years and she is someone I try to visit every time I am there. We were roommates back in the day.

   

I decided as a thank you that I would knit her an afghan.  I found a pattern I liked on Etsy.  

Our local yarn shop closed recently. I don't like to get yarn from the chain stores. If you are going to spend over 100 hours making something, you don't want to do it with poor quality yarn.  

I liked the color of the yarn on the pattern and they kindly included the name of the manufacturer. It was Blue Sky Organic Cotton, so I went online and bought some.

I like knitting in the afternoons when I am done with other things.  It allows me watch TV and catch up on the shows I have on my DVR, without feeling like I am being useless!

I really should have blocked it. This involves getting it wet, then blotting it dry and pinning it into shape on a special waterproof board to dry.  It evens out the project and gives it a finished look.  But I don't have the things needed to do so. That will be my next purchase!

It is in the mail now. I hope she likes it!

Adding To The Transportation Quilt

 After I made all the designs for a construction quilt, I thought that the six shapes were insufficient.  I found this pattern on Etsy,

so I looked there for more shapes. 

I changed the sizes and did some minor tweaks to suit me

There were other patterns on Etsy that I liked, but they included things like covered wagons and bicycles. I didn't want to do that.  

It was important to match the simplistic style of the previous patterns. The biggest obstacle to adding designs is my absolute inability to draw any recognizable shape.  My stick figures are pretty sad, too. 

I wanted to add a school bus, train and fire engine.  These are all things that Wesley finds fascinating. 

I found some simple designs on my Cricut Design Space. I also Googled some cartoon images. These are the ones I used to make a ladder truck/fire engine.

I cut out the shapes from Cricut and then played with the shapes until I was happy with the finished shapes.

Once again I traced the designs on a sheet of Steam A Seam.  I roughly cut out the shapes and ironed them onto the back side of the chosen fabric.  Then I cut out the shapes and assembled them to finish the design.  

Along the way I made small artistic changes. And when I say artistic, I do not in any way claim to be an artist.  I don't even identify as an artist.  But I do seem to be able to play around with someone else's design to suit my ideas. But you can decide how successful I am.

The train is a bit smaller than the other designs and less cartoon like.But I wanted to get the second car included.  After all, is an engine alone a train??  It may not match the feeling of the other designs, but I'm happy with it.

Now, my problem is that I think I may want to add some more designs. After all, our grandson, Wesley, really likes garbage trucks.  He also loves airplanes and helicopters.  I'm not sure when this madness will end. 

Transportation Quilt

Our 18 month old grandson loves trucks and other large construction equipment.  Is it because he is a boy, or are we unconsciously leading him in that direction?  Who knows?  But he loves all large vehicles

I looked online to find a pattern to make him a quilt. I found a few good ones on Etsy. I started making projects using Steam A Seam to appliqué shapes on fabric as part of the design. I used it extensively for the horse quilt I wrote about previously. This pattern uses a lot of appliqué. 

The one I bought had six different designs. But they were two different sizes. Three of each size. I didn't want to do that. I discovered that if I used my copier and reduced the larger designs (the three on the left) to 75%, they would be similar sizes.

I made some minor changes. Then I traced the patterns on the Steam a Seam, cut out roughly around the tracing and then ironed onto the back of the chosen fabric.  Using the pictures, I assembled the vehicle and ironed them in place. 

After I made the six designs, I laid them out to see how the quilt would look.  Now I think I need to make it a bit bigger. 

I need to decide which three vehicles to add.  My current plan is a train, a fire engine and a yellow school bus, because the wheels go round and round. 

No More Etsy

After much contemplation, I decided to close my Etsy shop, SgfCreations.  Before I do, I have to thank my brother Randy and sister-in-law Jeanne for supporting me and buying my first basket.  My daughters helped with getting some beautiful photos for the site.  But there was just not enough traffic to make it a worthwhile adventure.  On Etsy you have to pay a monthly fee for each item you have for sale, so there was a cost to just have the site.

I was approached at a craft fair to place my baskets at a Roanoke Parks and Recreation location along the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is called Explore Park.  They are really expanding the operations there and have a thriving gift shop for local artisans.  I was asked to represent the fiber arts.

Up until now, I have had baskets for sale in both locations.  Sadly, I have only sold a few baskets on the Etsy site and many more are being sold at Explore Park.

This coming week I will be taking some replacement baskets up there.  Maybe some people will find some beautiful Christmas presents in the form of my baskets.  Think hostess gifts!

Etsy Site

I am in the process of setting up an Etsy site to sell some of my baskets.  Slow internet and slow brain are making this an arduous process.  I even downloaded new photo editing software, but I need a child to teach me how to use it.

As of this time, I have three baskets listed.  I'll try to upload another one today or tomorrow. I also need to make more as I have a craft show coming up in October and I need to have a lot of stock for that.  I have sent 10 baskets to a friend in California and she will try to sell some at the craft fairs where she sells other items.

I have named the site SgfCreations.  I would have like to make it two words, but that is not allowed on Etsy.  Would you like to see my Etsy site?  I would love some input.  Go check it out and let me know what you think.  I need more photos on the site and will be working on that in the coming days.

Disappointed

I was getting pretty excited about selling my baskets at Mountain Magic in Fall, a local festival here in Buchanan, VA.

Then the rain began  It rained off and on for about 5 days.  The last 24 hours or so dropped over 5 inches.  Many inches came poring out of the sky in just a few hours. 

 

The James River is up and the carnival grounds in Buchanan, where they hold the festival, are soaked.  So the Town Of Buchanan decided to push the festival back to next Saturday.  The Saturday when I will be in Texas.  That Saturday.

So now I have bins of baskets. Bunches of bins of baskets.  Scads of baskets.  Sixty-six baskets.

I will put them away and wait for the next Buchanan festival.  Or maybe I will start an Etsy site.

 

Either way, I will sell them somewhere.

But in the meantime, there are some other shapes and things I want to try with the baskets that I put off learning.  I wanted to make as many baskets as possible in as many styles as I was comfortable making, so I put off my experimentation.

So now I get to go play around and I don't have to worry about producing.  So, that will be fun.

But I REALLY wanted to try selling them and see if other people like my baskets as much as I do.

Another basket

I'm really enjoying the clothesline basket making.  I am not ready to make enough for a site on Etsy, but it is fun and I like the creativity of it.  I'm enjoying playing with the colors and sizes and shapes.

 

I had a basket of fabric strips I had left over from my large purse project.  I thought it would be enough to make another small basket.

 

I wrapped the strips around some clothesline and zig zagged them together as I have done since I learned it for my first basket.

 

This time I went to Jo-Ann fabrics and bought some beads and findings to decorate the baskets.  I wrapped a short length of clothesline with a single strip of fabric and did a zig zag stitch down the middle.  I attached it by hand to the basket as a sort of handle.  I added a few beards of a matching color and decided I liked it. 

 

Now I want to make MORE!!!

Sinks From Amazon

Don't you just love Amazon?  No matter what you need, you can probably find it on Amazon.com.  I was searching a lot of sites to find the perfect vessel sink to go on the antique sideboard we bought for the vanity.  I even checked Etsy as I heard from another blogger that it was a good site to try.  They had some great sinks, but not what I was looking for.  The problem was that I didn't know what I was looking for.  I wanted to see it and then know.

I found some great brilliant blue sinks.  Two things bothered me about them.  They looked black from the side, you could only see the blue when looking down into the bowl.  They looked very modern.  I wasn't sure I like the juxtaposition of modern sink in an antique cabinet.  Tara and I found a vessel sink that had copper foil and it really looked like it was going to go with the antique look I wanted while being modern and kind of cool.  Unless it isn't cool for old people to use the word cool.  Didn't Maynard G Krebs invent that word??  He would be old today if he hadn't turned into Gilligan and then passed away.

 

So the sink came in the happy box with a  smile from Amazon.com.  The faucet came from someone else through the Amazon web site and came even faster.

 

Cats love to help with the boxes.  What will they do when we get no more deliveries?

Then we had to decide where to cut the holes.   I looked for two months for the sideboard.  I have put two sanding sealer coats and two coats of a satin polyurethane on the top to protect it from moisture. I had to sand and use steel wool between each coat.  It took more than four days as the humidity was so high that the polyurethane didn't always dry overnight.   Now we are cutting holes in it.  I moved the bowl and the faucet around, marked the spots and then couldn't look. Good thing Lee is braver than I.

  

This sink will be one of the first things you see as you walk in the door.  I really like it and Lee did a great job of hooking up the plumbing and fastening it to the wall. 

 

Now I just need to put a bead of caulk all around the top edge and line the shelves.  And done.

 

Doesn't it look great?  Lee said it was too bad we were getting out the remodeling business just when we started to know what we are doing!

 

A bit more touch up paint and we are ready for carpet.  And for the county to sign off on the permit.  Can't wait.