I LOVE WOOL!

Sorry this piles of wool do look a little bit messy and unorganized....that's another project....to refold and restack my wool piles!



Yep, that's it...wool is my absolute most favorite type of material. I love the feel, (yes, I know it is rough) the texture, even the smell of wool, and I just love using it! There is something very cozy about a checked piece of wool material, or an old grey houndstooth piece. Its associated with a time of long ago...old wool blankets, red and black check wool hunting coats. I will also add in there that those old hunting clothes were previously made right here in Woolrich, Pennsylvania, but now unfortunately is made overseas.

My love of wool came from a craft/hobby that my friend shared with me....braided rugs! When I saw my friends' rugs, I loved them so much I wanted one, but instead of making me one, she gave me the gift of showing me how to make them and got me started on this very excitingly new journey.
So, over the years I slowly began building up my inventory of wool. It's hard to find wool and has become quite expensive! But I still love searching for it and feeling the texture of it, and I have learned to use wool in many other crafting projects along the way. Many of which I will share with you at a later date....but I thought I would share with you some of my favorite pieces of wool and my very first braided rug that I made.....

And here are a few more recent rugs that I made....




Sorry that I haven't posted in almost a week. Nursing school is back in session and it is kicking my butt! I am quite exhausted and the end of the day after classes and clinicals. Hope you all have a great week!
Tarrah

An End of Summer

The evenings are starting to change here in Pa. I can slowly tell that it is getting darker a little bit earlier more and more. I guess summer has pretty much come to an end for my family. My children start school this coming Monday, and I already started back at nursing school yesterday. So unfortunately, I will have very little free time left to work on my many crafts, but I will still try to do some small things that I have here, just to keep my sanity! :)
My next post is going to be about my favorite type of material, and how I use that material........visit soon! :)

Fresh Eggs For Sale!

We had something very exciting happen at the Miller house here yesterday...my husband found our very first chicken egg out in the chicken house! It was very eggggg-citing considering we weren't expecting eggs from our chickens for another month! We have 14 Rhode Island Reds, and 2 of them are SUPPOSED to be roosters, with the other 12 being hens...but I still can't tell if we have any roosters. They still pretty much look the same?! Well my husband exclaimed when he walked through the door holding up this tiny egg, "well, we know we have atleast 1 hen"! It of course was quite small, but we didn't care! So here it is....the picture got quite blurry because it was so small. The second picture is of my son, Indiana, holding the egg! Isn't he a cutie?



Here are some of my crazy chickens! Whenever we go out to see them and feed them they just gravitate towards you...they love the attention and cluck like crazy at you!


This is our pottery shed and chicken house! The upper half with the old barn door is the side of the pottery shed and the lower half with the fence beside it is the chicken's side...their chicken house!


So now I bet you are wondering what we did with that very first egg?! Well, I will show you.....

Yep, it was hardly a meal for anyone but I fried it up and we each had a small bite of it, and it was the best egg ever! :) We later found another egg yesterday and can you believe that we got 3 more today??!!! So we soon will be in the egg business too!!!! LOL!!!

Punch Needle Patterns and New Finds!

Ok, so I currently have 2 punchneedle pieces going. I ran out of thread on my first one and then started the other one awhile. Yeah...the pumpkin is missing part of his face....I only needed a little more orange, and of course I ran out right at the end! I want to finish them both quickly, so I can move onto my other craft projects! These patterns are from threadsthatbindonline.com designed by Shawn Williams. I just love these patterns, and I am using the regular DMC Embroidery Floss that Shawn suggested. I love the hand dyed threads, but they can be quite costly when you are doing a large piece, which both of these are. I think you can get almost the same look using varigated colors of thread for the same area.
So here is what they should look like when they are finished, which should be real soon....I got more thread today! :)



Now, onto my little finds of the day:
First is this great ABC gameboard I got to sit in my new bowl rack. This piece I got for $14, I thought that the price was pretty good!


I also found this cute little witch broom. Got this for less than $6! Looks so cute and primitive...I think I will either hang this or lean it up against the wall at our door. That way when those girlie guests are ready to leave our house, I can offer them their ride! :)


I wanted to also show you this cute little pumpkin nodder that I got at Patti's Brickhouse Craft Shop a couple weeks ago. I had him put away until this week when I started digging out my fall and Halloween things. I wish I could give credit to who makes these for her, but I don't know who it is. He's a cutie!


I will post more of my great fall and Halloween finds next week! Have a great weekend!
Tarrah

Computer Issues

I finally have my original page layout back...after having these weird pictures on my blog for a day and not having the penny layout I became very frustrated! I did nothing different and I started messing around on my design page, but honestly I don't know what I did to change it?! Don't ya just hate computer glitches/problems that you have no control over? I DO!
Anyway...I just wanted to say hello quick and plan on giving a more detailed post tomorrow on 2 different punch needles I am working on....They are just awesome and I can't wait to finish them both!
Ok....heading off to a small water park with the kiddies today. See you tomorrow!
Tarrah

Muggy Monday

Whew...today is going to be a hot one here in Central Pa! A good day to stay indoors and craft and do some decorating, maybe?! As I shared in my previous post, I certainly am getting anxious for fall...looking for new primitive decorations and ideas to help warm up my house for the upcoming season. A few of you commented on this great time of year sharing some of your favorites. I have soooo many favorites, as I am sure most of you do as well. I think we love this time of year because it is such a cozy time and it allows us to be so creative with nature and the outdoors by bringing in the fruit of the earth like the leaves, acorns, bittersweet, pumpkins, and we get to feel the great outdoors inside our homes. As I start decorating and crafting for the season I will share photos.
Now, for my little show and tell time for today. A while back, Char from The Pickled Pepper Patch shared a great wood project! She gave a tutorial on making a primitive bowl rack. I always enjoyed seeing these in stores, and I thought that Char's post was great, and now that I had some instructions on how to make one, I could easily have one and better yet...it would be FREE! I thought when my husband had a few extra hours, I would ask him to make me one. Well, I asked and he made me one!


We actually had some very old, thick barnwood that we used for this project. It looked really neat as is, although this picture doesn't do it justice, but all of our walls are already brown because we do live in a log cabin, and I wanted it to pop, so I primmed it up by giving it a coat of flat black, then a New England red color was added. Sanded, and stained, and a little while later for the drying process and this is how it turned out....

This is my husband hanging it up for me, working hard out in the sun and heat all day...he is such a hard worker!

And here it is all finished! I just love it! Thanks so much Char! Now, I need more bowls or gameboards, or something to fill it with~! :)
Well, I hope everyone has a great week. Enjoy the last days of summer of 2009!
Tarrah

Thinking of Fall

Caramel apples, crunchy leaf piles, football games, sweatshirt weather,mums, and pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins!!! Fall has been on my mind so much lately. I guess because I love this season best and it is slowly getting closer and closer along with school beginning real soon. I also had entered a harvest swap through another blog and it has my brain spinning and turning of the fall items that I will be making to send to my partner. I have some ideas, but not sure on everything quite yet. I will post pictures of the package that I send off to my partner, after she has received it of course....I wouldn't want any ruined surprises! :)
Anyway, I think I will be pulling out some of my harvest decorations next week. I know...maybe it is a bit premature, but if I have the extra time before nursing school begins again, I think I should take advantage of it.

I would love to hear about any of your favorite traditions, decorating tips/ideas, or anything that you would love to share on this spectacular season!

Finished

I was able to finish the tree of life penny rug and then hung it. Here it is with its black border which I think really makes it pop, and stand out on my wall.

The 2 Latest Penny Rugs

As promised I have pictures of my 2 latest penny rugs that I made. I wasn't going to post the second picture because it really isn't quite finished yet....I was unsure of where I was going to hang it and what kind of background/border I wanted, but I did finally decide and hopefully will have that done soon and hanging in the new space I made for it in my entrance way.

Anyway.........



This is a pattern that my friend Amy came up with...its the Star of David. I really like it.



And this is my latest one...the Tree of Life. I really had fun doing this one...it was a little bit different and more folk artie than the others. It is quite large (that is my husband holding it for me and hiding behind it) and I don't have a ton of wall space because of so many windows that I have here, and like I said, I was unsure of a border. But I am going to finish it by next week and hang it. I will post a picture of it in its new space. What do you think? Here is another shot of it on my table. The first picture kind of looks a little dark, but it was the best we could do at the time! ;)

Penny Rugs

One of my favorite crafts to make are penny rugs. I never knew that they existed until after I saw this really neat wall hanging in a plow and hearth magazine. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that I could make it somehow...after I read the description, I then googled penny rugs and did some research and realized what new world I just opened up for myself. I called up one of my BFF's, Amy, and told her about it and she became quickly interested in it as well....so we got to talking, and worked out how this new found craft would be done. This is it, pictured above.
A few years have past, and the world of penny rugs has certainly grown, but I still have a love for penny rugs that not necessarily have a picture, but more of a design. Here are some of my first ones.... I hope you enjoy them....the latest ones are soon to follow! Take Care, Tarrah


This is the second one I made...I loved the style of the first one so much that I decided to make this for in my little guy's room.


This is hanging in our front entrance of our house. Its a quilt star pattern.


I made this one not too long ago for on top of our table, but I move it around quite a lot, depending on where I need it!

Stay tuned for more...I decided to get a little crazy on the size with the latest one I made!