TUSAL: April 2011

A half-gallon size Ball jar stepped up to become the new TUSAL bottle after the minor disaster that claimed the original apothecary jar. This one should be a bit more forgiving if it slips from my hands, but I'd best be quick to get toes out of the way since this jar is rather hefty.

Friend SU had a birthday recently. I made a book safe and a tin and scissor fob set for her. The book safe, at first, didn't go over well; I believe she really would have rather had the single volume from the 1957 edition children's encyclopedia. When I explained the original condition of the book (dirty, sooty, broken spine, pages tearing from spine etc), I think she understood why I did what I did with it. I promise I do not destroy any books of value when I make book safes. SU really loved the repurposed Altoids tin with the cute sheep on the front. The tiny scissors made her happy too since they are too small to use for anything other than snipping yarn or embroidery threads. She said she's infamous for ruining scissors by using them as screwdrivers or cutting up paper or tough fabrics like denim.

TUSAL: March 2011

Looking down on TUSAL for March's new moon.

Lots of orts of all sorts added during February.

Moments later... uh-oh. And, yes. The bottom part landed right side up.

The lid survived but the orts are currently in a one quart zippy bag.

More later. I've got a Randy Rogers Band concert to go to.

TUSAL: February 2011

Greetings. Here we are Groundhog's Day as well as another new moon, which means it's time for another picture for the TUSAL hosted by It'sDaffycat. There is a lot more to show this time than last.



During the last month, I made nine scissor fobs, took a needle work class in Florida and worked on several smalls for a project that's still in the works. In addition to orts from stitching, there's also the label and empty spool from a ball of #12 black perle cotton, an empty spool of Krienik #4 very fine braid, scraps of handmade cording and various and sundry scraps of linens and felts and velvets from finishing projects. Yes, it's been a busy month!



The needlework class I attended is an annual event taught by Susan Greening Davis. The attendees lovingly refer to it as Pirate Camp since it is held in the St. Augustine area - and they've had more than their fair share of pirates in the day. The beaches are beautiful in this area.



I like to make favors for my table-mates and hosts of the class and, this year, decided to make scissor fobs.



A little piece of needle work from JE's late mother inspired the black-on-black stitching on the front. The fabric is 22 count Hardanger stitched with #12 perle cotton.



In keeping with the pirate theme, I found a cute Jolly Roger rubber stamp and used it to make emblossed velvet for the back of the fob.



Joining the two pieces was a bit of a challenge. The velvet was crawly and evil and didn't want to stay put to be sewn together with the stitched piece. There was a lot of cussing involved. I made the tassels from #12 perle cotton, and the cording was made with #5 perle cotton and red #4 Krienik braid.

I'd been to St. Augustine several times but had never visited the lighthouse. Right before taking our afternoon break, one of the ladies at the class asked who was going to be climbing to the top of the lighthouse. At the time I thought to myself, "Not me!" But a while latter, driving down A1A, there was the lighthouse.



I turned off the main road to get some pictures of it and one thing lead to another. Oh, did I mention my mom was with me? Yuppers, she'd come to the stitching class and here we were at the lighthouse.



Now, understand, I'm afraid of heights and Mama had a total hip replacement a year ago last Christmas. Neither of us were great candidates for doing this, but I knew we could. All 219 stairs up to the top.



I kept my eyes on the wall when going up the stairs; the holes made into the stairs offered too much of a view to look down. Mama, on the other hand, was watching the stairs to make sure she didn't make a misstep. We'd rest on the landings, and Mama wanted to quit a few times, but I kept egging her on.



And we made it to the top! It was a glorious view and I wish I'd been able to step away from the safety of the brick wall to look around more, but I was terrified. Going down was a lot faster than going up for Mama. It took me a bit longer because I had a death-grip on wall mounted handrail (with both hands) and had to hand-over-hand my way down - looking at the wall not the steps. I was very happy to reach the bottom but could now brag I'd actually made it to the top. Three cheers for me and Mama!

Pookie had also made the trip, but we left him in Jacksonville with our friends B and TM and their bird, Gus.



Here's a book safe I made for B for her hospitality:



It's the best book safe I've made to date and she appeared to be please by it.



While there, I saw the scissor fob I'd made for her last year. It's a Lori Birmingham design. Don't you love them? They're all so delicate and beautifully feminine



I'll leave you with a shot of the good ship Bob sailing along the carpet.

TUSAL: January 2011

Happy 2011, everyone! Hope all got though it safe and sound and are back in the swing of things.


Along with the new year, we've got a New Moon and that means a TUSAL post. Being so early in the year, I haven't much in the way of orts to show off. The strange picture above is shooting down the apothecary jar that will be my TUSAL container for the year. Yes, that's three waste knots and three pieces of #12 perle cotton. Wooo! What a stitching session that was. :P

Here's a more recognizable shot of the jar.

And a close-up pointing out the tiny bits.

Here are the 2010 TUSAL that I continued to use, though I fell off on posting pictures toward the end of the summer. The 2009 bottle is also in the picture, but that only accounted for May through December, as I started late.

Many, many thanks to Daffycat for continuing the TUSAL project started by Yoyo (who I miss bunches). If you want to join in the 2011 TUSAL with Daffycat click here to sign up on her blog. It really is loads of fun!


I didn't do very much in the way of creations for Christmas this year, and some of what I did managed to get away from me without pictures. Oh, well. The covered matches (there were two additional boxes with different designs that got away sans picture) made a nice gift paired with nice candles.


Friend SU does tiny knitting and has had some problems keeping with her tiny needles, so I made a needle book for her so they wouldn't go astray so easily.

The interior was finished with leftovers from the fabric I used to cover her stitching basket. She really loved this and it made my heart happy to delight her so.


Happy stitching, everyone. I'll leave you with a picture of Bob sleeping. Notice all the paws curled up. Isn't he adorable? Ok, I'm biased.

It's Daffycat: A Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long

Oh, boy! DaffyCat will be hosting TUSAL for 2011. :)
It's Daffycat: A Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long

What I Want for Christmas

This song makes me happy. Hope it makes you happy, too! Enjoy!

Santa Paws

Yesterday was an interesting experience. Stitching buddy AC is active in a greyhound rescue group that has Meet & Greets periodically at area PetSmart locations. During the holidays, PetSmart has weekend "Photo with Santa Paws" events worked by different animal charities who receive part of the procedes from photo sales.

Thursday evening, AC was bemoaning the fact that try as she might, she wasn't getting any volunteers to play Santa on Saturday when the greyhound group was to benefit from the photo sales. Without thinking it through, I volunteered for the task - having had no, zero, zilch experience playing Santa Claus, of course.

From Thursday evening to Saturday morning I had plenty of time to think about what I had gotten myself into. Visions of dog bites, cat scratches and blood and urine soaked Santa suits haunted me. Plus, who had had on that Santa suit last? Ewwww....


AC at Santa Paws event

The photo shoot was to go from 11am to 4pm. I arrived at the PetSmart location at about 10:45. I was shown to the employee break room and the Santa suit. Thankfully, the Santa suit was fresh in a dry cleaner's bag. I took the costume - pants, jacket, belt, wig, beard, hat, spats, glasses and gloves - to the ladies' room to change, praying no little kids wandered in and caught a cross-dressing Santa getting dressed.

The costume was heavy, hot and ill fitting. The belt was way too big, even on the last notch; I could have used a pillow. The beard and wig were scratchy. This was going to be a long five hours.

When I walked out to the photo area, there was a line of folks ready and excited for their photos. Everyone was in a great and festive mood. This really did a lot to boost my spirts and lose my jitters. I tried a deep, "Ho! Ho! Ho!" but soon gave up because I sounded more like the Jolly Green Giant than Santa. Beside, the dogs didn't care and the owners didn't either since they just wanted cute photos of their pets and couldn't care less about whether Santa was a man or a woman.

The first dog up was Lucy, a short haired dog of undetermined breed that was absolutely determined that she was going to lick me to death. She pulled down the beard by stepping (nay, dancing) in it, tried to eat my nose, licked my glasses and face and had me laughing in that way that only happens when a joyous dog attempts to love you to death. She finally calmed down, while I readjusted the beard, and we got a cute picture after all.

That pretty much set the tone for the day. We had French bulldogs, English bulldogs, a trio of HUGE basset hounds, boxers, boxer/Pit bull mixes, Shih Tsus, Lhasa Apsos, Yorkies, a Dorkie (a designer-dog mix Yorkie + Dachshund), poodles, a Weimaraner named Grover that had just won the doggie lottery and been rescued (that day) by a large and loving family. There was only one dog, a Shelty named Unitus, that was a flop. He just wasn't in the mood to have his picture made. His owner said she had shopping to do and would try later; we never saw her again.

I got tickled at one of the owners. She was a real take-charge sort of gal and her dog was a Lhasa Apso (whose name I don't recall). She put the dog up on the platform next to me and began fussily arranging the dog's holiday collar, the position of her paws. As soon as she was satisfied with the dog, she began on me: fluffing the beard just so, arranging the pom-pom on the hat, tucking in whisps of hair, even arranging how my hands were positioned. I had to fight laughing at this. It really was a hoot and was all I needed to see to know this gal got what she wanted. All. The. Time.


Santa Paws!

At the end of the session, we'd raised over $125 dollars for the greyhound charity. This was impressive since the weather went to hell shortly after we got started and it was cold and windy with a hard rain for most of the day. I got to meet a lot of great dogs and some great owners, too. When I was returning the Santa suit to the employee break room, there were some cashiers who said all the photos that came through their lines were cute. That made me feel good and that the discomfort of the beard and wig (the worst part of the costume) was worth it.


Pookie braved the weather to come see me. Said he wouldn't miss it for the world. :)

T-Day +1

Hope everyone had a good holiday with family and/or friends. We had a nice quiet evening here at Casa d'Fidget and were thankful to be together with a warm meal, a roof over our heads and means to keep the wolves from the door. Life is pretty good.

Pookie and I just took a vacation in Florida. I haven't had a chance to go though all the photos yet so I'll save the narrative for later.

Enjoy your leftovers and good shopping bargains.

Late Summer/Early Fall Craftiness

Ok, first things first. Here are the pictures of the TUSAL bottle for the last three months. August is on the left and October is on the right. I thought I'd taken a picture of September but I can't find it if I did. It looked a lot like August except there was a huge blob of blue floss added. More on that later.





The first crafty thing to share is one of the more recent, but it is also seasonal so I'd best get it in now.

A while back, I made a biscornu out of some great purple fabric that came in a kit. The fabric really was awesome and I couldn't bring myself to throw away the leftover scraps after assembling the biscornu. The scraps turned up just in time for a make-a-scissor-fob desire to hit me. (I can always use another scissor fob because I own too many scissors.)

Purple is my favorite Halloween color -- especially when paired with emerald green. Thinking cap engaged for a Halloween scissor fob, I quickly found a small bat motif, tweaked it just a bit and had a bat. Instead of stitching eyes, I applied two red glitter chips from some glitter glue in the stash.



I wanted to put some words on the back of the scissor fob, but couldn't come up with anything pithy off the top of my head, so I turned to the Internet and started looking for batty things there. A wonderful poem by Frank Jacobs called The Bat turned up:

The Bat
By Frank Jacobs

Bats are creepy; bats are scary;
Bats do not seem sanitary;
Bats in dismal caves keep cozy;
Bats remind us of Lugosi;
Bats have webby wings that fold up;
Bats from ceilings hang down rolled up;
Bats when flying undismayed are;
Bats are careful; bats use radar;
Bats at nighttime at their best are;
Bats by Batman unimpressed are!

I fell in love with the line "Bats remind us of Lugosi" and knew that was what the scissor fob needed. The lettering style came from taking batty = deranged.



The scissor fob was assembled using the tag string from a Vera Bradley bag (love that emerald green!) and a bead from my stash. I had some black matte scissors that were just begging for this scissor fob. But, they would need a scissor sheath, too.

Again turning to my stash for inspiration, I found some supple, old boot leather and some pleather that came from gawd-knows-where, and some scrap black velvet. Yes, there was a bat in my future. This seemed to be the perfect sheath for these scissors with that fob at this time of year.



This really wasn't hard to make. If anyone has a desire for a tutorial, or just some instructions for making one, let me know and I'll be happy to fill you in.

The big blue floss blob that was added to the September TUSAL bottle was the orts from the (finally) completed Smokey Mountain Cats that I've been working on for a long time. I believe I started it around 2000, but one of my friends thinks it was around 2002 or 2003. Either way, it's been in the WIP pile for a long time and it was time for the final push to get it done.



This project is 184 x 140 stitches - a small one for many of you - but for your humble author, the ADD Kid, this was a mammoth undertaking and I'm pretty damn proud of myself for getting it done. And the funny part of it all? It's going to be given away. It's always been destine for AH and I hope it is appreciated.

Fall is my favorite season. I love the mild temperatures, sleeping under quilts with the window open, the changing leaves and the winds. Going to the Farmers Market is also a treat. All the produce looks great and there are colorful pumpkins, gourds and mums all around.







This is my friend SU. She is very talented with tiny knitting needles and crochet hooks.



She had come across the first tiny needles she'd ever bought and was bringing them to our stitching group so we could admire the beautiful rose wood handles on them. When she arrived at the stitching group, she discovered one of the needles had been lost - probably when she dropped them into her project basket. I offered to make a lining for her basket so it wouldn't happen again.




The happy ending to the story is that SU found the missing needle not far from her stitching nest. It really had dropped through the open weave of the basket. But that will never happen again.

Lately, I've been playing with felting sweater in the washing machine. After a couple of near disasters and some reading on the Internet, I learned to put the sweaters in pillowcases prior to felting them in the machine.

I'm still in the thinking stage on what to do with most of the felted sweaters. I've made cat toys with the cuffs



and some house slippers for Mama



but I've got a lot more already felted and ready to go - as soon as the inspiration hits me.