Felting

Mona Jenkins, from Friends of the Hillestad Textile Gallery, presented a program on felting to the Lincoln Sewing Guild. Monica tried felting and she was hooked. Since then, she has been felting bags, making jewelry and embellishing. One of her reference books was Fabulous Felt 78 Ideas for Felted Fashion by Dimensions Crafts. Monica loves adding beads, fiber and felted wool roving to her creations.


Monica demonstrated knitting or crocheting bags and I cords, and then felting them by washing the item in hot water with a pure soap, like Ivory. She then rinses it in cold water. She adds trim to the bag before she felts it because that way it meshes to the bag. Brown Sheep Soap is also a good soap to use. Monica likes to use wool from Brown Sheep Wool Company which she gets from Mitchell, NE. The Yarn Barn from Lawrence, KS is also a great place to get textile supplies. They carry some mill end products. Below are some photos of Monica's beautiful work. She puts a lot of time into her pieces.





This is an example of what you can do with Clover's felting needle tools. Monica also demonstrated using a special felting sewing machine that had twelve needles and felts very rapidly.

Pine Cone Garland

I've almost finished the pine cone garland for my sister's wedding. I'm going to add some more pine cones to the garland when I have it in place along the chairs of the aisle. I worked on it outside because the more I worked with the garland the more the glitter came off the handmade beads. I had to stop adding pine cones because you can always add just one more. :) The florist is going to make me bunches of green berries to add to the garland. I'm also going to have white tulle with the garland because I think the pine cones can better be seen. We've had two great weekends in a row. I hope October 3rd is going to be a beautiful day. Nancy and Jeff are getting married in a tent beside the Missouri river. I went with them to look at the location , and it was so pretty with the river rolling by!! Very calming!

Photo Shoot

My sister, Connie, sent in a running story to a magazine and has made it past the first round. The running magazine now has asked for some photos of various poses. I was the photographer tonight and I think we captured some great ones. I hope Connie gets selected for the article. If she does I want an autographed copy!

My niece, Kate, wanted to do some running poses too. Here is Kate running the trail. We also went on a nature hike. We picked up pine cones, pine needles and some wildflowers. Kate has Show 'n Tell tomorrow and the theme is nature. She did a practice Show 'n Tell for me and she did great!

Spirals

RaNae Merrill gave the program to the Lincoln Quilting Guild in September. ReNae began quilting when her Grandmother left her with a bunch of 9 patch blocks. ReNae now lives in New York City and became a professional quilter by accident. ReNae is a pianist and a photographer. But, it was a temporary job that helped her invent her Spiral style of piecing and a way to finish those 9 patch squares from her Grandmother. She was doodling at work and the spirals were invented. Quilting has allowed ReNae to travel the world.

Here are some examples of her work. Spirals can be made small or large.

You can even add polka dots. :) This is a fun quilt.

This quilt below, RaNae made using her Spiral technique and she quilted it on daily subway rides. RaNae has a second book coming out based on her spiral circular designs.

The Dress is Done

Kaley tried on the dress I made for her and it fits. Yeah! I made it from Simplicity pattern 2724. My favorite part is the pleated front neckline. The dress is an easy pattern and the fabric I used is a polyester samsung. I was informed Kaley will not be wearing flip flops for the wedding. :) Kaley is going to be at the guest book for Jeff and Nancy's wedding.

Natural Beads

Nancy's and Jeff's wedding is coming up and I have been working on the pine cone garland for the aisle. Nancy and I made some natural beads to add some color to the garland. We used cloves, cinnamon, applesauce and white glue. This is the same recipe you can use to make ornaments for Christmas. We rolled the mixture into a ball and used a straw to make the hole and rolled the balls in fine glitter. They dried for 10 days. We're going to make some more since they turned out so good. Sometimes you never know when you have an idea, but this time it worked out. The bonus is they smell great! (The wedding colors are fuschia pink, green and brown.)

State Fair in Lincoln for Last Time

This is the last year for the Nebraska State Fair to be held in Lincoln. Next year the fair will be moving to Grand Island. The University of Nebraska wants the land where the fairgrounds are and there is nothing to stop it. It's the end of an era for me because my parents took my family to the fair each year. I love the fair!

Brian from the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo gave a lecture about bullfrogs and making toad houses. One adult toad can eat 10,000 insects in a 90 day period. The bullfrog is native to Nebraska.

The sheep show was held today, and I don't think there is any other animal as sweet as a lamb, except a bunny.

This is the 4-H building at the Nebraska State Fair. This is where all the textiles, foods, woodworking and photography projects are displayed. It's a special building to me because it was always the first place we stopped when we had projects selected for State Fair and we wanted to see what ribbon we received.

This horse was getting a bath, but was more interested in drinking out of the hose.

Above is a photo I took during my first helicopter ride! A group out of Florida was giving helicopter rides and I couldn't resist. I couldn't believe how smooth the helicopter was. If ever I have another chance, I will definitely get into another helicopter. It was fun!!

Belated Left Hand Day Celebration

While growing up, I was the only left handed person in my family, but now Cody and Kate (my niece and nephew) have joined me and are part of the 10% of the population who are left handed. So, we decided to celebrate by having a left hand lunch. The official day to celebrate being left handed is on August 13th. We are a few weeks late, but we still had a delicious lunch at Romano's Macaroni Grill.