Paper Kitty’s Day Off

I had today off from work. I had an absolutely freaking awesome day. Today was my Kiwanis club’s Special Field Day. We had almost 500 kids to come. I helped run the Big Basketball game. No rules, just shoot the ball. All the kids had so much fun… and so did I. I ended up with a sunburn even though I put on sunscreen.

I ran some errands, which included stopping at the Coffee Station and getting a slice of white chocolate toasted pecan cake (my absolute favorite ever).

Today’s mail brought this awesome vintage Kerr jar from PetitPoulailler, this needle felting kit that came in the most awesomely cute packaging ever from princessminders, and a set of hand carders from a very lovely ebay seller.

That’s Raisin’s nose in the corner, inspecting things as usual.

My morning started with finding this adorableness on my side of the bed before I left.

And this is how my evening went…

She insisted on sitting on me like that. I was trying so hard to keep up with the Etsy Lab’s Craft Night but it was hard to do anything with her sitting like that. She kept pushing her head up under my chin too. Too cute. Once she stopped I was able to follow the Demo for making a paper bag.

Busy Bee, That is me…

I’ve been getting so much done…

This is my newest project, a Baby Blocks quilt in red, white and blue.  This is just part of the first two rows.  I cut enough pieces tonight for seven or eight more rows.

Two knit wash cloths for a friend that’s having a baby girl. 70% Tanguis Cotton 30% linen.

Four new needle books. I haven’t listed these in the shop yet because I haven’t had enough sunshine to take decent photos of them.

New Purse

I made this tonight when I got home from work. I used the instructions found here. Neutral gray outside; fun and funky inside.

I also got started on cutting out pieces for my next quilt project….

But don’t think I did all this on my own! I had a helper…. Snuggies was my crafty kitten tonight instead of Zoe.

But she quickly got bored and started chewing her toes in a very cute way….

I got this adorable little drawing last night that was drawn by my 3 1/2 year old niece. It’s a drawing of one of the M&M people. I think this is excellent for someone her age!

Duckie Day

I came home today to check my mail and discovered this coming toward me…..

A mama duck with 13 little adorable behbeh duckies!! I stood really still by my car and they came up to me then around the back of the house…. I took a ton of photos but I didn’t want to over-run everyone with behbeh duckie photos.

Blackberry Winter

I had planned on walking to work beginning today…. but Blackberry Winter put a stop to it.  It’s currently 45 degrees and very cold drizzly rain.  Oh well, I suppose that I can wait a few more days.

I bought fabric to begin a Baby Blocks quilt from one of the pattern books that I got yesterday.  It’s cream, navy, and a dark red.  I can’t wait to get started on it!

Mother’s Day With Grandma

I spent my mother’s day with my grandmother. My dad fixed homemade pizza and pork BBQ, both were delicious. I enjoyed some alone time with mommaw while my dad and uncle fixed the back fence and got to listen to her stories from during the war (WWII). As always, she doesn’t send me home empty handed. She gave me her grandmother’s corner shelf and the things that go on it. I’m so touched by this. She told me that she wanted me to have it because if she gave it to one of the boys she didn’t think their wives would take care of it like I would, lol. She also sent me home with potato peeling gloves and a plate of food (as usual). I also got to take home with me her quilting, crochet, and crafting magazines. One dates back to 1948 and a bunch of them are from the 1950’s. I’m really looking forward to making some of these things.

When I was little I used to sit and look through these crochet toys books all day. I loved them! My grandma made many dolls & toys for me from these books.

This is from 1971 and the addy sticker is addressed to my Great Grandmother. I really love the photo on the front.

The blue and white book is from 1948 and the other is from 1950.

These are all from the 1950’s and there are some really great patterns in them that I want to make.

These are Quilt pattern books that I can’t wait to use. I’m going to make some copies from them tomorrow and get started as soon as I can get to the fabric store.

Seriously, who wouldn’t want a red cape like that? I’m totally going to make one.

I have a whole lot more but this is all I took photos of. I couldn’t carry all that she had when I left. She has a bunch more Better Homes and Country Living and a few Design Ideas from the early 1970’s (that have excellent photos in them). I’ll probably bring those home next time.

I took the plunge…

I bought a domain name… thecraftykitten.com Currently it forwards straight to my Etsy shop but hopefully in the near future I’ll have a full running site that connects this blog, my shop, flickr, and anything else I’ve got going on.

Soy Silk #1

Don’t ya just wanna smoosh it??

Super Soft Soy Silk

I’ve been spinning a very lovely 90% soy silk 10% viscose roving. I took some off my spindle tonight and it is ridiculously soft. I keep petting it. I’m going to ply this back on its self. I have about 1/2 of the roving left but I really want to spin a roving that I purchased from Blondechicken.

First Quilt Finished

As promised, here are the photos of my finished quilt.

Hand Quilted. Machine and hand pieced. Blocks are: top left – Ohio Star, top right – Ohio Rose, bottom left – Chicken Scratch or Amish Embroidery hearts, and bottom right – Log Cabin Heart. The Ohio Star is machine pieced. The Ohio Rose is needle turn appliqué. The Log Cabin Heart is Paper Pieced. The patch on the back is embroidered muslin that I appliquéd on.

Visit my flickr page for detail photos of the quilt.

I’m so excited that my quilt will be on display at the AAC during the Portfolio Resume Exhibit this Friday.  I’m not a part of the portfolio resume class but Robyn has asked our quilting class to include our quilts for the exhibit.