More Little Cat Dolls

I like to stitch these little Crazy Quilt cat dolls in between larger projects.  Here are my 2 newest along with closeups of my embroidered seams:

It was a very windy day here yesterday so I did a lot of stitching!  The only good thing I can say about Winter is that I have a lot more stitching time than I do in the Summer!

Crazy Quilt Teddy Bear Dolls in Cottage Boutique

I was finally able to get these Crazy Quilt Teddy Bears added to our Cottage Boutique:

I haven't run my sewing machine in awhile so I think for today, I'll get my fancy fabrics out and sew up some more teddy bears, some cat dolls and some IPhone pouches.  I have another idea for a cool Crazy Quilt project too so I'll try to do that as well!

There are so many wonderful things to do and never enough hours in the day!!!

Crazy Quilt Teddy Bear Dolls

Just a little Sneak Peek on my Crazy Quilt Teddy Bears!

Arent' they sweet?  I think I still like making my little cat dolls more but it was fun to do something different.
I just picked up that little wicker doll chair at the last Flea Market we went to.  I thought it would be perfect for photographing my little crazy quilt dolls.

I'll add these to the Boutique as soon as I have time.  I have some new Mixed Media Gift Tags that mom made to add as well.

For now, please consider signing up for our newsletter!  You can find the sign up box in my sidebar.  We'll be offering news about our boutique, specials & discounts, occasional recipes, a freebie or 2 along with some how-to's that you won't find here.

I certainly don't intend to bombard anyone's inbox with tons of newsletters.  At the most, a newsletter will go out once a week.  More likely, every other week.

A New Litter Of Crazy Quilt Cat Dolls!

I just finished wrapping my gifts and now I'm making soup.  Smells good!

I'll keep this post short today as I know everyone is quite busy.  I just thought you'd like to see my latest Crazy Quilt Cat Dolls.  Perfect for Valentine's Day Gifts!  Yes, I am already thinking Valentine's Day!  I love the pink and the cupids and the hearts!  Anyway, here are the kitties:

These are all available in our Boutique.

I'm off to check on my soup.  Have a great evening everyone!

Guest Blogger - Mary Anne Richardson

I honestly can't remember when or how I met today's guest blogger.  I feel like I've know her all my life!  She was so very kind to me when I had my breakdown.  She sent me so much love & encouragement and so much comfort.  I've admired her work for quite some time now.   She has much to share in today's post so I will stop rambling here.  Please welcome my dear friend and today's Guest Blogger, Mary Anne Richardson of Magpie's Mumblings blog.

Pam has asked me to tell you a little about how I made my own walnut ink and to show you a little of the work I do. Thank you for having me Pam!


Walnut ink is really simple to make. All you need is to fend off squirrels while you collect about 20 black walnuts! It doesn’t matter if they are damaged in their fall from the tree, because they will look a whole lot worse when you’re finished with them! I put mine into a plastic bag and then used a hammer to crack them a bit. Place the walnuts (including the shells) in either an old slow cooker or a large pot that you don’t plan to use for food later on. I don’t know if black walnuts are toxic, but it’s better to be safe. Cover the walnuts with water and simmer for approximately eight hours (keep an eye on it to be sure the liquid doesn’t evaporate too much). The walnuts will turn black and your liquid will become a rich dark brown. I strained the liquid off, saved it, and the next day I added fresh water and re-cooked the same walnuts (only because I was curious to see what would happen – you don’t have to repeat the process if you’re happy with the amount you made the first time). I then re-heated the liquid and poured it into hot canning jars. I made sure the lids were hot in order to have a good seal on my jars. I’m not sure that all the care with the sealing of the jars was necessary but I wanted to be sure my ink didn’t have a chance to spoil. Now I will use it to either dye fabric or paper. I ended up with five jars of walnut ink with very little effort. It’s perhaps not quite as saturated with colour as the walnut ink you can buy commercially, but certainly the price is right!!

Now I will tell you a little bit about me and my creative life. I really don’t know when I haven’t been doing something creative, but my earliest memory of my first project was years ago when the huge granny square afghans were ‘in’. My aunt made several and showed me how to start off. The pattern was simple – one gigantic granny square which you went round and round until you were heartily sick of the process! I hated that afghan, however I did love crocheting and still do.


From there I progressed into macramé and, I think, horrified every person on my gift list that Christmas by giving them horrible jute plant hangers – complete with ceramic pots (another phase I went through). Looking back I realize just how horrible they were! A few people were brave enough to hang them up but most of them I never saw again. Needless to say, macramé was not my forte.


Over the years I think I probably have tried pretty much every craft going – leatherwork, tatting, knitting, beadwork – you name it, I’ve tried it. I decided a number of years ago that knitting would be my ‘thing’ and, being a generous soul, I undertook to knit a pair of socks for my husband. The nice lady at the yarn shop assured me that the pattern was quite easy and if I started them right then (it was October) I would definitely have them done for Christmas. Well, I knitted. And I knitted. And I knitted some more. I knitted on those socks every spare second I had for weeks. Christmas came and I presented my husband with ONE complete sock and the ball of wool for the second one. After Christmas, I knitted and (well, you get the picture). There endeth my knitting career – or so I thought. Fast forward twenty years, and guess what I like doing now? I’m not good at it, but I do enjoy it. My best effort so far has been to make at least a dozen pairs of felted slippers. As for socks? Nope – not going there!!


I was bitten by the crazy quilting ‘bug’ in the early 90’s and it is now my first love. It combines so many techniques, all wrapped up in one beautiful package. I stumbled across a book by Judith Baker Montano and my obsession began. I rapidly discovered the cheapest place to get fabrics for use in crazy quilts was the thrift store. At that time I could pick up beautiful silk blouses for about two dollars which was w-a-y cheaper than buying yardage. Vests, skirts, blouses – all became fodder for my projects. Then came trading bits of fabrics with people I met online to expand my collection.


My next discovery was that there were a whole lot of people out there who were anxious to trade their work with me – either an entire block or in the form of a round robin. What a learning experience that was – I rapidly found that in crazy quilting ANYTHING that can be sewn down is fodder for use (broken jewellery, bead necklaces, brooches, buttons, coins – the possibilities are endless). It’s possible to glue things onto a piece too, but I don’t generally do that mainly because I don’t trust glue to hold over the years.

Art Dolls are another love and last year I took part in an exciting project – the Art Doll Coolaberation 2009. It worked in a similar way to a round robin with each participant creating a basic doll body and the rest of the artists adding to it and also telling a story about the doll along the way. It was great fun and a total learning curve. Being able to see how others work and what they create is so exciting! We had so much fun that we have begun another project this year. Can’t wait!


Here’s a photo of Shudayra, the doll that came home to me from the ’09 Coolaberation...

More of the dolls I’ve made...

My other passion is to make things using recycled denim jeans – mostly bags and jackets. I took a class several years ago about how to make the basic jacket and then I’ve gone on and added my own twist. They are in the crazy quilting style with lots of button clusters, recycled pockets, and labels for decoration. I’ve made over thirty jackets so I guess they must be well-liked!

A couple of years ago I joined in the colour challenge with SharonB and made a block each month using the colours Sharon suggested. Many of them turned out to be so different from the colour combinations I would normally have used, which was good for expanding my confidence. The blocks were eventually turned into three wall hangings and are the ones you see pictured with this article.

Thank you once again to Pam for inviting me to visit with you today. I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing a little bit of my work and would love to have you visit me at my blog (http://magpiesmumblings.blogspot.com). Please say hi when you’re there!

I would like to thank my sweet friend Mary Anne for taking the time to put this post together.  Mary Anne's work is phenomenal and I just knew my blog followers would enjoy her.  Thank you so much Mary Anne!!

I'm going to put my Guest Blogger Feature on hold now until after the holidays.  I know everyone is going to be busy for awhile now.  I'll resume this feature after the New Year.

This And That

First, I'd like to welcome my new followers!  I truly hope you enjoy my posts.  I offer tutorials, recipes, guest bloggers and tons of needlework & craft eye candy! I'd love to hear how you found my blog.

I've been busy the past few days, stitching on some little Halloween Crazy Quilt Cat Dolls!  Here are the first 2:





I have a few more in progress but these are available in the shop now.  I think I'll do an Autumn purse when I complete the next litter of Halloween kitties!

Also in the shop are some new Scarecrow Tussy Mussy's by mom:



There are 6 different Scarecrow Tussy Mussy's available, each one is different and so cute!  Mom is now working on some Halloween Tussy Mussy's!

Does anyone else feel like it's August already?  I don't know what it is but I feel like I should be putting out a few sunflowers and mums!  Maybe it's the extreme heat we've had the past few weeks.  Feels like I should be baking apple pies & carrot cake!

I've had Autumn on my mind a lot lately and came up with these sweet little Spider Web Needlekeepers:



I just love doing spider webs on Crazyquilts but wanted to make a few needle-keepers.  I'm planning on making a few more of these, not necessarily with spiderwebs but perhaps some flowers.  When I do, I'll write up a tutorial for you.  I'm going to make 1 little change to how I put them together next time.

In other news, Bubba has the gas tank in the Model A:



And he has the fenders on it:



Every day is getting a little closer!!!  Scott's been working on it for 7 years now!   If you would like to see more photos of our 1929 Ford Model A Tudor Sedan, click here to visit my Flickr site.

Last week I mentioned that I plan to write some articles on coping with disorders such as ADD/ADHD, BiPolar, depression, anxiety and Seasonal Affective Disorder Syndrome using creativity to ease the symptoms.  From personal experience, I think it's safe to say that I've become quite the expert on the subject.  I like to keep my blog cheerful and uplifting so I won't be complaining about these things.  I've been able to see much of my disorders with a sense of humor!  I just want to help others who who suffer with these things.  I want other women to know that they're not alone and that artistic creativity is tool that we can use to work with the disorders rather than fighting them constantly.  I'll be starting this series of discussions in the next day or so.

I joined the Sister In Bloggerette Sorority at Some Days Are Diamonds blog:

Please hop over to Karen's blog and read about it!  Join too!  I think it'll be fun!

Well, I could swear there was something else I wanted to talk about today but it now eludes me.  I think my brain is fried for the day!  I'll leave you with my sister's newest pair of earrings:



These gorgeous green quartz earrings remind of Jadite Fire King!  They are so pretty in person!!!  And, they are available here.