angry chicken

secret squirrel —crewel work project

 

I finished my first crewel work project a few weeks ago and I have fallen hard for this type of embroidery. This kit is by The Crewelwork Company. It's called Secret Squirrel, and sadly, is hard to find and not made anymore, but some shops still have it. I bought it a long time ago and tucked it away and then a swift 6 years went by and rediscovered it along with quite a bit of other needlework items I bought around that time. My favorite shop went out of business and I bought everything I could, knowing I would be happy later I did, and I sure am.

Here's a close up. The color is a bit off, the color above is much more accurate.

I feel like I am in a race car stitching crewel compared to cross-stitch and needlepoint on canvas and the painter in me is giddy over the ability to mix color and directions and make marks with the threads. It's so much fun. I have started another kit and then I am onto my own designs. I really am happy I am taking the time to work from kits now, to get a sense of color, learning different stitches, and working on precision without have to make design decisions along the way—but I already have drawn my own designs and they are waiting in the wings. The amount of research about fabric, wool threads, and browsing the vast amount of amazing books about crewel has been so fun to dive into. I have to be careful and back away from the computer, because you know, I could also be stitching instead of researching. I have been looking at books over at The Mad Samplar, and reading about crewel technique over at Needle n' Thread.

On the opposite side of this type of work, I have been madly stitching for the girls' ballet recital coming up, Alice in Wonderland, and it's been a lot of sheers, feathers, fake furs, hat making, glue gunning, serging, and tons of fast, furious, and loud sewing. So, my embroidery will have to be on hold for a couple weeks.

unrelated:

I was told to watch Mortified Nation on instant netflix (thanks sarah!) and oh, man, it's so good. It remnds me of This American Life, at it's most cringy. In the best way.

wise craft—the book

I have known Blair Stocker a long time, since our earliest days of blogging, and am so happy to have receieved a review copy of  Wise Craft: Turning Thrift Store Finds, Fabric Scraps, and Natural Objects Into Stuff You Love. Blair's blog, wise craft has always been a great source of inspiration and this book has all that wise craft love in it. She has a great eye and knows how to have fun with creating, which I really appreciate.

This project will have me crocheting. I mean it.

Blair is so good at using found/thrifted items in her projects.

The chapters are by seasons, which I love. I wish more craft books did this, it works so well in cookbooks, it's genius to have a craft book organized this way. This is the Spring chapter. So minimal and pretty but not too serious—that's wise craft all the way.

And becasue Halloween is my favorite holiday, I zoned right in on her fall projects and love them to death.

Zombie barbies. I don't need to say anything else.

Of all the blog people I have met over the years, and I am so happy to have met so many, Blair is probably the funniest. I mean, crazy, stand-up comedian style funny. I wish she lived in Portland, but I shouldn't complain because Seattle isn't that far, really.

delia's needlepoint and portland bakeries

Delia finished her first needlepoint recently. She was happy doing cross stitch but when she saw me try needlepoint, she was eager to start. She chose this pattern from a book and picked out her own colors, and off she went. She's now back onto another cross stitch project and heavy into making rainbow loom charms. She learns them from this you tube channel, Made by Mommy.

Unrelated:

I recently went to Frice Pastry, an amazing bakery new to me, and was so happy I made the stop. I found quite a round up Portland bakeries over at Under the Table with Jen.  I am glad to see I've been to almost all of them, but there's a few I still need to check out. Research! It's a great list.

I ate this at Frice and took home many other items. This was so amazing, but I can't remember the name of it. I bought another to take home to Pete. It's got an almond filling with a puff- pastry crust. it's not too sweet and the texture is as light as air.

Also, unrelated:

I finally updated my website. It's been about 8 years, so this feels pretty good. It's got all my shenanigans in one place and it's much easier now to get to all my videos on creatvebug. Yippee!

chocolate cereal nests

We spontaneously made some chocolate cereal nests yesterday. I had 3/4 of a box of very unpopular shredded wheat cereal, unsweetened, and didn't want to get rid of it, so I melted a bag of chocolate chips and stirred it all up. I had made these before years ago and it was fun, but kind of a mess and hard to shape. These were so much easier and fun to make.

I used the food processor to make the cereal fine and crossed my fingers that one bag of melted chocolate chips was enough for about 3/4 of a box of finely chopped cereal. After a lot of stirring, it was just fine. Adding shredded coconut to the mix would have been good, too.

For shaping, we used cupcake liners in a tin. I had the girls scoop in the mixture, press with their fingers to make a little indent, and then chilled them until they firmed up. They keep fine room temperature after that. This amount made 12 nests in a standard muffin tin. They make the nests a bit more uniform and less natural, but were so much easier to handle and shape. The paper came off just fine and they are so tasty.

Unrelated-

I have taken a break from my shawl (pattern and yarn here) to start on a crewel work project and am having so much fun. More needlework excitement! I have been buying/collecting/ needlework kits and books of all kinds for years now and only recently have been able to dive in. I have been shopping in my own closet and bins and can't believe what I have stashed away that I had forgotten about. My tastes don't really change at all, so what I have found, I love. I am so happy I snatched things up when I saw them on sale years ago.

tulips and zip lines

We went to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm over the weekend and the tulip fields were amazing.

There were plenty of other activities as well. You can go just for the tulips (parking is $10) but everything else—the food and activities, add up real fast. Zip lines, paintball archery, rock climbing, and this crazy jumping thing. The hippie in me wanted a little less of all this extreme un-tulip like activity and a little more nature craft, but the girls had a blast. Watching people totally eat it on the the mechanical bull was very funny.

Angie thought it was lovely.

the last few days

• Dinner at Tilt with the Ladies. I can still feel my biscuit sandwich a day later. The pies were very good.

• I streamed Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, with the Bee Gees, while I was sewing for the girls' upcoming ballet show. I loved this movie when I was little and now that I watch it again I marvel at how it got made. It's so bad, confusing, boring, and wonderful. Peter Frampton's white overalls are outstanding. How could I have forgotten Steve Martin was in this movie?

• I am knitting my first shawl and really digging it. The idea of grabbing a yarn and needles, casting on, and then stopping when I am out of yarn is thrilling to me.

 

embroidery wall—newest additions

 

I finished my first needlepoint project and am so happy with how it turned out. I used a pattern from this book and just stitched until it felt done. The frame is 8" x 8" and the mat opening is 5" x 5". This is stitched in hand-dyed silk. Next up will be my first crewel work project. I'm really excited.

Here's how our needlework wall is looking. I'm prepared for the fact that the girls might want to have their pieces in their rooms eventually. For now, they are happy to have them up here, which I love. It's the first wall you see when you come in our house.  All these pieces make me so happy.

more poem resources-

Another poem-a-day feature at the Poetry Foundation. This huge site also has a wonderful phone app, lots of audio and great teaching/learning resources.

knitted item for a neck and poetry month

This was a quick knit made with malabrigo rasta. I used 17 needles and knit a big rib until I ran out of yarn and then seamed it up. It's a belated birthday gift for a dear friend who lives in a climate that is too warm for this right now. But, you know, It was so fun to work on. Mindless and huge. It was a nice change from my needlepoint that is tiny and a bit eye straining.

It's poetry month!

We have been reading a lot more poetry around here the last few weeks, and I didn't even know poetry month was coming up. Recently, the girls and I have been reading these wonderful postcards from MIEL evey morning, discussing the artwork and the text written on them. There is something magical about the words not being in a book, but on a cards, to pass around and study closely. I show some photos of these postcards here. We also still use this book.They want to write some poems on small cards and leave them in public places, which I fully support.

I found myself spending a lot of time on Poets.org. It's a huge site for writers, readers, and educators. I signed up for the poem-a-day (which is e-mailed to me) and I love it. It sends me poems I would have never found on my own.