Barn Goodies

Over the years, my obsession with our little barn has been mentioned (and yes, I know it's actually a chicken coop, but we've called it a barn for long enough, that it is now officially The Barn). I take pictures of it in all seasons, and from all angles, and post them everywhere. Here and there, folks have asked me to make items with Barn images available for ordering. This week I finally did it.

All the Little Barn goodies you might ever want (and some it never occurred to anyone to want, ever) are now available in my Zazzle Store, Ktaylor1952 (there are evidently many Kathleen Taylors selling things on Zazzle, that was the best I could do for a store name.)

It won't just be barn images- I'm going to make some of my needlepoint designs available as note cards, and other stationery items. I've already created a Sunflower Needlepoint card, though it may not show up in the shop until tomorrow.

Here are a couple of the things already listed:

Aprons

Tiles

Playing Cards

Note cards

I'll be creating and listing more stuff over time, and I'll announce here and there when new things are available, but I'll try not to be obnoxious about it. A permanent link to the store is on the upper right of the main blog page.

This will be fun!

HopHeadSaid New Year's Giveaway

Curtis Taylor, intrepid artist and author, blogger, radio personality, beer expert, and not incidentally, my oldest son, is hosting a giveaway contest on his HopHeadSaid blog for this wonderful apron:

 It's a heavy-duty canvas apron with the HopHeadSaid logo on it, from CafePress. I have another CafePress apron (with the Sex and Salmonella eBook cover on it) and can attest to its durability and functionality (in other words- it's a really good apron). And I love the way the ties are attached through casings, so it really does fit all sizes. The giveaway apron is like the one above: navy with the white logo.

Here's the logo, a little more visible. I'm wearing my HopHeadSaid sweatshirt right now (gray fabric, black image).

In order to enter, head on over to HopHeadSaid and follow the instructions (it's easy- post the contest on Facebook or some other place, and leave a comment). Easy peasy! And when you get done, head over to the CafePress shop from HopHead Said for other cool beer related items.

Good Luck!

Dolly 'n Me, stash spinning

I spent a lot of time indoors yesterday- it was a purely miserable day, with the heat index topping 102 and a blast furnace wind. Luckily, I had some fabric calling me, and the sewing machine was handy.

The Dolly 'n Me child/doll apron set turned out very well (it still tickles me no end that I designed the fabric itself, and that I used a vector-based program to do the drawing). I'm really glad that I lined the apron-I don't think that the quilting weight cotton is heavy enough to make a good working apron by itself, which I want this to be. I had a hard time turning the doll apron ties, so I had to take the stitching out and do the fold/press/sew thing from the outside, which was a pain (I can usually turn narrow tubes with no trouble, I don't know what the problem was with this fabric).

Unfortunately, the sample doll apron is far too short. So I ammended the Spoonflower file by lengthening it by about 1" (which is all the room I had to work with). I also added instructions for lining both aprons (which I do recommend). Anyone who orders the fabric will get the ammended design with the longer doll apron and the lining instructions. The sample doll apron will fit fine on a smaller doll.

Finished Lined Child Apron Stats (after shrinkage):

25 3/4" wide, 20 1/2" long, 22" ties, 7 1/2" x 6 1/2" pocket. I estimate that it will fit ages 2/5

Finished Lined Doll Apron Stats (after shrinkage, with the new file dimensions taken into consideration)(this is not the length shown above):

8 3/4" wide, 5 3/4" long, 9" ties, 2 3/4" x 2" pocket. The apron will fit 18" dolls, and smaller (and many Teddy Bears).

The fabric is available from Spoonflower- my designer name is Gramma K

I finished spinning the charcoal romney lamb and it turned out beautifully- so soft. The yarn is darker than what shows in the pic, but you can see the bits of red and other color highlights. The final skein was 109 yards and 2.8 ozs. Total on the Romney Lamb: 366 yds of 2-ply yarn, 8.6 ozs

I started spinning what's left of the silver Romney (also from Iron Water Ranch). I have a lot of this roving, so I'll be at it for awhile, but I'm making headway on the Stashbusting Vow. I think I'll knit myself a plain, striped sweater from all of this yarn (plain in that it won't have cables or fair isle).

It's both cooler and drier today, and the wind isn't hot, so I may not be inside quite so much, but I hope to do more sewing and spinning. We'll see how that goes.

Spoon to the infinite power

Yeah, it does seem like it's All Spoonflower, All the Time, but that's how it goes with my obsessions.

I washed and dried the quilt and apron fabrics and linings yesterday. The fabric does shrink, which was not a surprise, but it shrinks more in length than width (or maybe it's the other way around, I forgot to mark the up/down before washing), which was. So if whatever you're making from the quilting cotton is going to be washed eventually (which is pretty much everything except doll clothes), it's a good idea to pre-wash. (and yes, I know that's always a good idea, but I often skip that part).

This is the yard of border fabric for the All Star ABC cheater quilt (I'll have plenty left over). I'm going to have to work on my repeats so I don't get such visible divisions. It's not a big deal, but I would like a more *seamless * look to whole-yard printouts.

The quilt is sandwiched and pinned and ready to quilt. Given that the background colors are a little lighter than I'd envisioned (there was no color change in the wash, btw), I'm really glad that I changed all of the Alphabet letters to a much darker shade. They pop now, and they should really stand out after machine quilting.

The Dolly 'n Me aprons are also cut out. I decided to line the aprons and pockets because the fabric is lovely but a little light for a working apron. There's really no change to the assembly for the lining, except that the ties need to be tacked in place before the front is sewn to the back. I'll sew the pocket on afterwards, which will help anchor the layers. I think this apron will fit ages 2-5 pretty well, though I'll know better after it's finished.

I don't know if I'll get any sewing done today or not. Temps, dew points, and humidity levels are all astronomical today, so I may hide out in the AC this afternoon (when I'm not in the pool with The Grands).

Spoonflower!

Two of my current Spoonflower orders arrived, and I am thrilled!

1 yard each of the Color Cut and Sew 18" Doll Outfit, and Color Cut and Sew Robots (which works out to 4 complete sets of each design).

Each of the girls gets a doll outfit to color, and SuperHero Boy gets a robot. I am going to color, cut and sew one of the robot sets myself, so I can take pics. Actually, I'm sure I'll get to take pics of all of the finished items since I'll be doing the assembly, but I want to make one myself anyway, because I am a Big Kid. But you all knew that already. I tinkered with the Robots file to space the smaller ones out a bit so there's more room for the seam allowance.

I am especially thrilled with the Dolly 'n Me Child and Doll Sized Aprons. I love how they came out- the outlines are so crisp and sharp. Only problem is that the red on the crayons, scissors handles, brush handles, and paints came out orange. And the upper left doll-sized tie border cut off. Neither of those things matters in the long run. Or even the short run. I've ammended the fabric description so that anyone interested in the aprons is warned in advance.

It's too bad that I absolutely don't have time to sew any of these things together this afternoon. I still have packing and cleaning and organizing to do (I did get the mowing done).

Oh- if you are interested, these fabrics are now listed as *for sale* at Spoonflower. My designer name is GrammaK (and I don't make actual money from sales, just a discount on future orders).

Aprons Aweigh

I did finish my apron-in-a-yard design in time to enter the Spoonflower contest. I'm pretty thrilled with it, and I learned a lot about vector drawing as I put it together. I ordered a sample yard, so I'll know fairly soon if the pieces will go together properly (it was designed entirely by pixels- 150 per inch for so many inches wide... etc). After sewing the color/cut/sew doll outfit, I think that Spoonflower's quilting cotton (a lovely fabric for quilting and regular sewing) might be too thin for an actual working apron, so when my sample arrives, I will line the body and pocket (not the ties). That'll make it more durable.

The next Spoonflower contest is a Nautical Theme, and it doesn't have to be a full yard, or even a fat quarter, so though the design will still be plenty of work, the canvas will be much smaller. I have something in mind already for my entry.

In the meantime, I realized that the Grandboy might also enjoy a color/cut/sew item. So I think I'll put together some robots for him. I'll post my progress.

On the knitting front: the Grandgirls' feet are growing exponentially, so I've put sock knitting for them on hiatus until their shoe size stabilizes. In the meantime, I've started on Christmas presents. They have all admired the fingerless mittens that I keep on my desk for chilly mornings, so they'll each get a pair, with a matching doll sweater (and probably fingerless mitts for their dolls as well). I can knit all three things from 100gr of sock yarn, and probably have enough yarn left over for a doll hat as well. And in the name of Stashbusting, I'm using only yarns I have on hand- I feel so very virtuous.

I'm nearly done with the sweater that goes with the above mittens. The short repeat self-patterning yarn is making for an *interesting* sweater, but it's still cute.