Coming soon to an etsy shop near you. Pincushions! With ribbons! There will be some needle books too, I think.

I'll post again, when they are in the shop. 

Yay for three day weekends! I know some people might go somewhere fun, or throw a party, or go to the beach, but I was happy to just stay home and spend some time in my little house studio. It's been awhile, and I thoroughly enjoyed just puttering. Plus, now I have lots of blog fodder for the rest of the week, I can't wait to share some of the things I've been making. For now I will just tell you about some little necklaces I finished up and listed in my etsy shop. 

You might remember these from earlier this summer. I'm happy to say that I finished them and listed three on etsy. I kept one for myself, of course, and another is going to someone who I think will especially like it. 

I had all my jewelry/beading supplies out and spread all over my work table. I'm a terrible jewelry maker, but it so fun to play with the little bits and pieces. 

I kept these simple, and just hung them from a bit of leather cord. I don't wear necklaces often, but I tend to like this sort of long, silly pendent type jewelry. Pretty soon I'm going to need something to organize all these necklaces I can't stop making. I'm thinking something like this is awfully cute, and thrifty too!

I got this purple-y cotton cardigan at Old Navy (of course!) a few weeks ago. It's comfy and basic and cozy, but it was lacking a little something something. So I cut a bias strip of cotton calico and gussied it up.

I cut the strip about 2 3/4" wide, and slightly longer than the neckline. I cut one of the short side straight across and turned it under. I ran a gathering stitch in the fold and then stitched it down, even with the center edge of the sweater. From there, each section is sewn individually, about 2" apart. I just stitched around the calico strip a couple times and then knotted it off on the wrong side.

It took just minutes, and I think my sweater isn't so basic any more!

Thank goodness for Photoshop, I used it to make several cat hairs magically disappear! If only I could use it on my sofa. Note to self: use a lint roller before taking photos of your clothes.

I also have to point out my cute earrings, purchased recently from SpoolDesign on etsy! I especially like them since getting my hair trimmed on Friday so they could dangle down below the edges of my bob.

That's right, I am reporting the very first recorded terrarium-related injury. I headed out with the dogs this afternoon on a quest for moss. It's very hard to walk through our gate and down the street and leave the dogs behind, because the pitiful barks make the neighbors think we're dog abusers. So I hooked them up to the dual leash, and we set out. And we walked by the Next Door Neighbor's house, when their dog (the same dog that runs along the fence line in tandem with Winston every, single, day) started barking and my dogs freaked out, tangled themselves up and tripped me, even though I was, at that point, standing still. I'm still not sure how they did it. But because I know you all are as excited about terrariums as I am, I couldn't let a little bloody hand wound and a couple scraped knees stop me. Oh no, we got ourselves up and untangled, and continued on the Moss Quest. I just tried really hard not to bleed on it, the leash, or the dogs.

Oh, but I have to back up a little bit. Last night I went searching for some cute mushrooms, also for the terrarium, and I couldn't find anything. So in desperation, I picked up some red and some white polymer clay, despite the fact that I've never used the stuff before, and have never considered sculpting anything in my life, least of all tiny mushrooms. I had to have some mushrooms, you see. A plain moss terrarium  just would not do.

Here they are in progress. Those are their spots, waiting to be added. This picture kind of makes me laugh. I figured I'd just use up all the clay and make as many mushrooms as I could, while I was at it. The clay was easy to work with. I'd say the hardest thing about the whole project was the fact that the red smudges really badly, so that was kind of a pain. I had to scrub really hard to get it all off my hands, and you can't even think about touching the white unless your hands are perfectly clean. If there's any interest, I could maybe, one day, post a little mushroom making tutorial. It usually takes me a long time to get around to these things, so don't get too excited.

I'm quite pleased with how they came out. I'm almost tempted to just leave this little fairy ring in my studio forever.

Obviously, I can't put all of them in my terrarium, so I'm going to list a couple sets of three in my shop, and I'm going to give away a set of three right now! Surprise! Well, not right this minute, but just leave a comment if you want to make a terrarium and need a set of mushrooms. I'll leave the comments open this week, until Friday or so, and then choose a winner next weekend.

And now, for the big reveal:

I'll keep you updated on its survival. I hope it does okay. Mr. HeyLucy was concerned that it might start to smell. I have to say, that thought never crossed my mind, so I will report on that as well.

And here is a hopefully sympathy-inducing shot of part of my injury (small, so you don't get too grossed out):


You can click to see it bigger, if you're into that kind of thing. The saddest part about my injuries? I actually fell off my back step a few weeks ago, and scraped up my hands and knees in the same places, and it was FINALLY nearly healed. I can't blame the dogs for that one, however. I'm not very coordinated, I think my center of gravity is all wacky because I'm tall.

Oh it’s so nice to spend my weekends in my little house studio. I set my iPod on shuffle, or turn on the portable DVD player, and just get to work. The quilt wall will be getting a lot of use, I hope. I sketched out an idea the week before last, and started playing around with it the last couple days.

It’s lap or baby-sized, and I’m thinking there will be three or four more flowers. I wanted to use shot cotton, and originally thought I’d do the whole thing with all solid shot cotton colors, but the quilt shop didn’t have any good, saturated pinks and greens like I wanted. I was so disappointed, until I wandered over to the batiks. I don’t think of myself as a batik sort of person, but the colors just got me, so I’m giving it a try. I’ll just be satisfied that only the background is shot cotton.

I also blocked my scarf, and am having a little fun playing with some Anthropologie-like embellishments from my vintage lace stash.

Since I wasn’t feeling too great last week, about the only thing I did was knit. I stuck mostly to my orange sweater, but I thought I’d start a couple other, small-ish projects just to mix it up a little. When I cleaned out my yarn stash I decided I needed to find specific projects for the yarn I have, so now I have a half a dozen things to chose from. I started on a shrug, because I just happen to have the exact number of skeins of Homespun in a lovely, deep purple. I needed a size 10 cable needle, so I was searching through all my circular needles and it turns out I have four size 9 needles and not a one in size 10. I’m not sure how that happened. Anyone need a size 9 needle?

I also managed to finish up the needle books and pincushions for the shop. They were a lot of fun to make, so I hope they all find good homes.