First Lake Freighters of the Season

I saw my first boat of this autumn season out on the Lake this afternoon,

it is always a thrill to see them!

then as I sat here at my computer I spied another out on the horizon, 

so I took the photo through the screened window

Fridays Jewels

 Clear Vintage Acrylic and Copper Earrings

Fog Grey Green Spiral Glass and Silver Earrings

Brass Star, Glass and Copper Earrings

Vintage Sapphire Blue Sabrina Opal and Amethyst AB Glass, Antiqued Brass, and Copper Earrings

Sky Blue Glass and Shiny Silver Necklace

Fresh New Work!

Pale Soft Pink Glass and Silver Hoop Earrings

Indigo Blue Rectangular Copper and Silver Earrings

Willow Ball Sterling Silver Hoop Earrings

Four Long Months... of Outside House Chores

The summer in reverse.. back to front.

We almost didn't make it, the cold weather has arrived. We just finished putting the second coat of paint on the outside of this big old house. All we have left are the two doors, but hopefully we can sneak them in before the snow flies. The walls, paint covered cedar shakes were in terrible shape, they needed so much scraping, it took two months to do. A long two months of constant work.

Mark working on the last wall!

luckily a friend lent us scaffolding

the end of the big dig, walls waterproofed and all set for wet weather

blue seal coated foundation

Mark hard at it

scrubbing the old tar off the foundation

hand dug, ready to go

people could not figure out what Mark was doing

I told some that I am a princess and he was digging me a moat..

back patio taken apart for the big dig

digging

front entrance

chimney rebuild

chimney construction in the fog

Handwoven Felted Recycled Wool Sweater Rag Rug .

New listing for me today! Gorgeous rich vibrant wool rug. I am however having trouble portraying the rich gorgeous colour in my photos. I find it hard to photograph red, and have it be true to the real thing.

red, orange, blue and purple

recycled wool sweater rug

Jewelry

I have accepted a consignment order with a shop in Toronto and have been busily making jewelry for it. I have the rug portion of the order complete. I will admit  I am nervous about it. The unknown, it is far away. I will feel better once the package reaches its destination. Here are a couple of the pieces I have finished.

pearls, glass & copper

a trio of pearls with silver

Pancake Tuesday & Heavenly Hots!

I have a large collection of cookbooks, one of my many obsessions! 

The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham has been an old faithful for many many years. I was reminded of this delicious recipe when I got my new copy of Gourmet magazine yesterday. I have not made this pancake recipe for years, but will make it for dinner tonight. These pancakes are very tender, light and delicate, and oh so delicious! I am so excited, yum! 

Maria, this recipe is for you!!

Bridge Creek Heavenly Hots

4 eggs

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 cup cake flour

2 cups sour cream

3 tbsp. sugar

Put the eggs in a mixing bowl and stir until well blended. Add the salt, baking soda, flour, sour cream, and sugar, and mix well. All of this can be done in a blender if you prefer.

Heat a griddle or frying pan until it is good and hot, film with grease, and drop small spoonfuls of batter onto the griddle - just enough to spread to an approximately 2 1/2 inch round. When a few bubbles appear on top of the pancakes, turn them over and cook briefly.

Makes 50 to 60 dollar sized pancakes.

Whipped Shortbread Recipe

This is Megan's favourite Christmas cookie recipe, I guess I better start baking soon. Not sure where this recipe originated from, it was my dads recipe.

Whipped Shortbread

1 lb. butter

3 cups flour

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup cornstarch

1 cup icing sugar

Cream butter and add sugar. Add remaining ingredients. (For best results mix with clean hands first) Beat with electric mixer until the consistency of whipped cream. Drop by teaspoonfuls or roll in balls and press with a fork. Bake at 350F. for 12 minutes.

Enjoy. They keep well in a sealed container, in a cool place, for weeks.

Morels!!

Finally after searching for a week, Mark found enough morels to have with our dinner. He found a few yesterday, and we had those sauteed with our scrambled eggs this morning. This afternoon on his walk with the dogs, he found quite a few more. I sauteed them, in a mixture of butter and olive oil, and some minced garlic. 

We will have to go back out tomorrow to see if we can find some more. They are out two weeks later this year than last  year.

Close up of morels, prepped ready to cook!

Pretty Pearls and Copper

I have been enjoying working with copper lately. I do love the elongated copper kidney wires. Their earthiness works very well with pearls, another of my favourites to work with.

I made this pretty pair of earrings last night, and tomorrow morning will list them in my Etsy shop.

Green Toys

I woke up this morning to find my treasury of gorgeous green, handmade toys on the front page of Etsy! Always a thrill and honour. Four of these little beauties sold, which is just fantastic!!

Wood Flower Earrings

I ordered these gorgeous wood and metal flower beads from Artbeads, I love them. They are really quite light. I made a pair of earrings with them for my daughter Megan. This is not the best photo in the world but I took it late last night. I was just so excited by these beads. They were pricey, but now I wish I had ordered more of them.

Recycled Material Basket Weaving

I have been asked by one of the elementary schools here to give a workshop in May to 50 students from area schools. My choice of what I do with them. I have decided that whatever I do decide it will be totally a recycled material craft.

I have been doing massive online searches for recycled material weaving for children, but am not really coming up with anything that gets my attention.

I think I have decided to try a simple basket with them, grades 4 through 8. I quickly worked with newspaper and plastic last night, and this is what I came up with. Very crude, they only have two hours to complete the project. Mark thinks it will be too difficult for the younger kids. I am not sure, I have been away from children for too long, and am not sure of their capabilities. I could just use round reed, but would rather not, I will have to come up with a better way of rolling the newspaper tighter. If anyone has any suggestions I would very much appreciate them. I do think it is nicer if they go home with something, not just a wall hanging. 

Newspaper reeds and cling wrap warp, twine woven basket, unfinished. The cling wrap comes from my local grocery store. They have been saving it for me for my rug experiments that for now are at a standstill. I am being over run with boxes of used plastic, but will get to it soon.

Canada Geese

Whoohoo, a big sign of spring today, I saw my first three flocks of Canada geese flying back home to the north land. Pure spring tonic to my ears, eyes and well being!! There is nothing better than watching the little specks in the distance as they fly over Lake Superior, winging their way north. 

I have tried over and over again to take photos of this pearl necklace. I had some success last night, and listed it on Etsy today. It is a very elegant necklace, gorgeous colours.

Coffee Banana Scones

1 cup unbleached white flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup sugar

4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup chocolate or carob chips (optional)

2 mashed bananas

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1 tsp. coffee powder

1 tsp. vanilla

In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs.

In a separate bowl combine bananas, yogurt, coffee and vanilla. Add to dry ingredients, stirring lightly to make a moist dough. 

On a floured surface knead lightly for about 30 seconds. Roll dough to 1 1/2" thickness - cut into 3" circles, place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake in a 425 F oven for 15 minutes or  until cooked through.

The Original Rug for my Article.

This is the first rug I wove for my step by step article. Before I knew enough to save copies of my original photos. 

I was going to post this yesterday but life happened and distracted me, my poor old Tukker.

I love this rug, it really reminds me of a plaid shirt, I cannot  quite figure out which, but it does remind me loosely of a tartan.

My cat "Lu"!!

Littlebit, my 15 year old cat, affectionately know to me as Lu. Sleeps all day and wants to visit with me all night long. Maybe I should become nocturnal too. He is a bit of a brat, but I love him to pieces.

Plastic Rug

This is the progress I have made on this little experimental rug. Not much! I didn't even touch it yesterday, but will get back to it today. For as hard as it is to work with this shrink wrap, it is kind of cool, the woven bits. 

A Very Long Week

I have been writing a step by step article on my felted wool rugs, for Craft magazine. I have never done anything like this before, so I did not know to make copies of my photos and save high quality copies. I sent off the article, with the smaller sized photos attached, in pdf. I was then asked to send the high rez photos. Yikes, I didn't have any, so I had to weave whole new rug, take new photos, and here we are. I have just loaded the photos of this rug, into the computer. Tomorrow when I have fresh eyes and mind, will choose and crop the photos I need for the article. What a stressful couple of days, and a lot of work!

I actually like this rug better for the article, it is brighter and more springlike. The other rug, is gorgeous too, but more like a tartan. I will have to get some photos of it and post it.

 

I just listed this rug, on my Etsy shop! It is a gorgeous little rug, greens, blues, grey and beige.

Rug Weaving!

I have been busy in the past week or so weaving, or prepping to weave rugs. I feel inspired for some reason! This rug, below, is very pretty. It has a beautiful range of greens through to blues to mauve to yellow. Very spring like! 

I have a lot of ideas, so I will be trying to weave rugs with some different materials, to see what works. I am excited about it! Our local grocer has started to save me different packing material, so I will be trying plastic before the week is through. I am not quite sure how to finish a plastic rug though. I will have to play around with it. I am not sure if fused plastic becomes brittle of it it is still pliable.

I will see!