These past few months have been more than amply filled with family and household responsibilities, and precious little time for creativity and art.  But I did eke out a few moments…over the course of two weeks! (these ought to have been done in a day or two..tells you what my days have been like) to make some mistletoe ornaments for my Frayed Edges Friends (we are, by the way, getting a rather lovely collection of ornaments we have swapped over the years).

Photographed at Kate's house, the Mistletoe ornament pattern is by Susan Brubaker Knapp, in the 2010-11 Quilting Arts Gifts magazine

When I received my author’s copy of Quilting Arts Gifts 2010-2011, I immediately paged through it to find my article, but on the way was immediately stopped by Susan Brubaker Knapp‘s wonderful mistletoe ornaments.  Susan and I have only met once “in the real,” in Houston (where else?), but have become friends via internet.  I was thrilled when I looked at the credit to see that these beauties were her pattern!

Of course, could I make it just like the pattern?  Not quite….. I used a slightly smaller pattern (I think now I like hers better–more room between the leaves…since I haven’t seen “live” mistletoe in decades tho, I wasn’t sure about the branching pattern on the leaves).

My leaves ready to cut out, and the big photo from QArts Gifts issue

Also, when I went to make these just before our Frayed Edges meeting, I realized I didn’t have either the 1 cm white wool balls Susan used OR the variegated light green floss OR anywhere to buy them locally AND not enough time to order stuff.  So what did I do?  I made it up!

I promptly thought of my polymer clay (neglected for a couple years in a box), and dug out my translucent and Pearl white Sculpey III (I think that was the kind) and made round white beads.  LOTS of them.  Think 7-8 for each sprig, with three sprigs per ornament, times four ornaments…… folded up some parchment paper into “Z” folds so the little pesky things wouldn’t roll in the tray while going into and out of the toaster oven. And since I couldn’t sew through wool beads with floss and make a lovely French Knot like Susan, I used green seed beads (a couple colors) as a “stop” to secure the beads to the stems.  I think Susan had quite a few more berries per ornament than I did, and if I had had time I would have made another bazillion beads, but not enough time!  Oh well!

Here's my "work station" on the dining table, with the polymer clay beads I made in the "Z" fold parchment, waiting to be sewn on to the ornaments. Wear a thimble!

Then I didn’t have lovely silk ribbon like Susan, or a place to buy any, or time to order, so I dug through my ribbons and tidbits box and found the plaid ribbon.  It’s not great quality ribbon, but it looks PERFECT.  I tied an overhand knot about halfway down to make a hanging loop.  Then I used some 1/8″ wide green satin double-faced ribbon (from JoAnns) to seriously tie together tightly the three branches of mistletoe and the plaid loop.  I made sure the knot of the loop was below the tightly-tied green ribbon so the loop wouldn’t pull up and out.

Here’s the three I gave away—mine had to wait until later to get finished, but it did make it onto the tree before Christmas!

3 mistletoe ornaments, and MANY polymer-bead-berries

And a close up:

On mine I tried painting the edges as I wasn’t certain about the white.  What a PAIN!   I finished my ornament that way but it was so fiddly getting the brush between the edges of the leaves that I decided to skip that.  And Kathy said she really liked the spark of white…good!   Also, I used a heavy 35-wt cotton thread–heavier than I usually use–for the quilting.  I had bought some of Superior Thread’s King Tut line (the Bullrushes color) for a class for kits, and had a bunch leftover.  It was perfect, used it top and bobbin!

Best of all was when Kate just gasped….she had bought a similar ornament at a craft fair for the Mother and SO wanted one for herself but was good with the budget and didn’t buy one.  So she got one anyway!

Thanks Susan for a really WONDERFUL ornament!

As always, our December Frayed Edges was friends, food, smiles and fun.

And since it was December, gifties!  We met in Kate’s couple-hundred-year-old farmhouse near Merrymeeting Bay (isn’t that the most awesome name?) on a gray day with the woodstove warming us in the kitchen/dining room, and Bailey (OOOPS…I am SO bad with names)  Bristol the wonderdog keeping us company. The photo at the very  top is as I sat in my chair and looked up…isn’t the shadow pattern on the ceiling awesome?

As always, Kathy was the one with work to share!

Kathy's portrait of her son, for a drum case!

Her son is a drummer, and asked Mom to make him some round covers to put on his drum cases.  Kathy is using a different technique for each, and this one is a portrait  of said son done with bleach pen on cloth!  Totally cool!  She shared that she did a sketch of her son, place glass or clear plastic on top, drew over the lines with the bleach pen, THEN placed the cloth down  on the bleach pen.  That solved the problem of having the bleach react too much with where you start drawing and not enough where you finish.  A clever lady she is!

Then we had gifties… My small offerings are the mistletoe, Kath gave us each awonderful key and card holder, thereby supporting local craftswomen, and Kate took some fabric I had given her (an old damask tablecloth of Mom’s, actually), dyed it, and made us a set of re-usable gift bags.  Those clearly will be for in-house giving!!!!  Kate made the lovely vignette of votives on a small mirror (also found at the local dump’s swap shack….I really need to go to the Bowdoinham dump!), then gave us the candles which you saw here on my blog! Kate recycled old music sheets to make them.

then there is lunch in the sunshine:

including soup and dessert…yum!

Then we remembered Deborah, our itinerant member who lived in Maine, then near Dallas, and now near Annapolis, had sent a box!  more gifties! Here are her funny snowmen and one of the inspiring ‘zines she makes:

After lunch, Kate said “let’s make journals”.  Hunh? It appears the gift-giving wasn’t over!  Kate bought this cool gizzie and said we’d make journals.  Apparently the covers of discarded Readers’ Digest Condensed Books make the best recycled covers.  And then Kate had a stash of de-commissioned letterhead from a couple places; some of the paper had this “ghost” terrain map on it…SO cool!   So she let us choose from her stash of scavenged-from-the-swap-shack (gotta go there!) stuff, and we made our own journals.  I’ll share than in a post fairly soon.

Finally, there is Bailey Bristol being sweet!

Last year (I had to search my blog to find it), my word for the year was

Simplify.

Even though I had actually attempted to do that over the course of the year, the fact that I didn’t remember the word (sigh) will tell you that I have some work to do on that score!

The word for 2011 is

Breathe.

The year, as I mentioned yesterday, is starting on quite a stressful note thanks (well, NO thanks) to the owner of the house on which we put an offer.  Our house has sold, so we MUST move  (we have a short rentback from the new owners and think we can extend that a bit), but we don’t know if the current owner will comply with the requirement to be out of the house for *us* to occupy it when we go to closing due to a lot of things that have gone on since we got the contract to sell our house.  So we will know next week when closing happens if he will be out, and if it will be this month……

In the meantime, I am trying to breathe.  Trying not to feel like a quivering mass of stress.  Trying to pack up some things, clear out junk (to Goodwill when suitable, to the dump when not!), keep up with paperwork, not snap at the hubster and children.  All will be well in the long run, but at the moment it is pretty nerve-wracking.  Again, I’ll ask for you all to send vibes for things to work out the way we would most like!

Happy New Year to one and all!

Hi all…just ducking in to wish you all a blessed and peaceful new year filled with joy and creativity!

Made using Susan Brubaker Knapp's pattern in Quilting Arts Gifts 2010-2011 issue

This past week we became tenants…yes, we sold our house!  It was on the market for an unbelievable twelve days before we had an offer!  That good news has led to a bunch of difficulty, however, with the owner of the house on which we had already made an offer (the only reason we listed our house was to purchase the one we had just seen).  Let’s just say things are turbulent, so please send good wishes for the desired outcome!  We are renting back for the rest of this month, but at the moment we don’t know where we’ll be living in six weeks!!!! EEEK!Let’s just say things are tense…..

That, of course, has seriously stymied creativity.  That and the fact that I should be packing and cleaning out in preparation for our move!

The photo above, by the way, I’ll blog about more…. I had a pattern included in the Quilting Arts Gifts issue for this year (2010-2011), my fabric frames.  My favorite other pattern in the issue is my friend Susan Brubaker Knapp‘s beautiful mistletoe.  Since I didn’t have the embroidery floss or wool balls I had to improvise, but I love the way these turned out.  I made them as gifts for my Frayed Edges friends, so will blog about our Frayed Edges meeting soon and also the making of the mistletoe.

Now it’s time for dinner, so I’ll sign off and wish you all a Happy new year!

Yes, while the turkey was roasting on Christmas day and the potatoes were boiling and the pie and stuffing were done, I took a little time for art!  About a thousand lifetimes ago (meaning last winter, maybe February-ish) I took an online class with Sharon Boggon (her site is here and is now called In a Minute Ago, here blog is  Pin Tangle)  about a “working” sketchbook.  Not a fancy, work-of-art-in-itself journal, but about using a journal as a way to flesh out ideas and stimulate creativity.  Here’s a link to the class description…I really enjoyed the class!  Alas, I have been abysmal at keeping up with it–simply too much life happening.  BUT…. I have the journal and the supplies and the desire.  So on Christmas I made the time!

I just LOVE how this turned out....it makes me happy. Being creative and noodling around just makes me content. I should do this more!

I took some of the squares I had cut from magazine pages, and some words and phrases, and started gluing them up.  One page became two…. then I took my WONDERFUL Christmas gift from hubby:  a set of 72 Derwent Inktense pencils

The Inktense pencils are in the upper left. My magazine snippings are in the box, and the bag on the right is my travel-art bag, with room for a set of 6 graphite pencils, a 12-travel-set of watercolor, a waterbrush, glue stick and a couple odd pens are inside in their custom-made pockets

and a waterbrush and, in the evening after supper while watching Starman with my family, colored in the background.  I LOVE IT!

And I cannot let the last Christmas posting pass without Kate’s candles–I’ll blog about our Frayed Edges meeting in a few days, but I had to share these.  Kate found the votives in cylindrical glass cups then re-purposed old (tossed out) sheet music.  The large one is from Stonewall Kitchen (a Maine company) and smells of “Maine Forest.”

My new Canon G12 has a "candlelight" setting on the dial, and this was taken just holding the camera still, no tripod or bracing...love it!