~*Creative Weekend*~

Hello Dear Friends & Happy February! I spent the final weekend of January in a flurry of creative activity... and oh did it feel G*R*E*A*T! Last week I finished charting up the two cross stitch, market releases... including mailing charts and models to the distributors to show in their display... so the weekend was deadline free. Well... sort of. Most of what I'm working on are very belated birthday gifts... I really can be such a terrible friend. I cross stitched, needlepunched, and sewed dolly bodies. Our home is in total shambles with snippets of threads and scraps of fabric scattered about... mingling with the dust that is always present. In fact, I thought about taking pictures of my many work spaces ~ kind of like Where Women Create ~ but tee hee... you surely wouldn't be impressed!

So, instead, I bundled up some of the goodies in some cheapy, spray~painted baskets...


Ya, I know you can't see much with everything crammed in the basket, but they are for gifts. I can't share them all.

I will share this one more though...


I stitched this from a Stacy Nash pattern ~ Hands to Work Pinkeep Pillow. Of course, I didn't have all the floss numbers that she used... and since it wasn't possible to get to the store for more... I substituted. It worked, I think. I stitched with two over two on prairie cloth. The backing is a reproduction calico... and I filled it with woolly snippets. It is one of my favorite finishes.

The dollies are pieced together a little different than my past ones... mostly because I was out of osnaburg. These are made from muslin, stuffed with raw cotton (one of my new favorite finds); then painted with watered~down, burnt umber acrylic; then sanded to distress. I'm still stitching the seams over by hand with linen thread. After that, they will be antiqued with walnut stain. Then dressed... and trimmed with prim~sweets. One of the things I do, and I'm not sure why... thrify maybe?... is use up a whole piece of fabric for dolly bodies at once. I don't do this with wool or calico.. but with muslin or osnaburg, I trace as many bodies that will fit on the piece and go from there. In this case, I was able to fit 7 dollies. Lucky number maybe?

Wishing you all warm smiles and a blessed start of the new month...
Betty