That’s it…our entire “post office.”  It is at the back of the General Store (seen in this blogpost).  I was mistaken earlier…it is larger than I thought.  We have a whopping 36 regular post boxes (alas the utterly un-charming ones) and 16 “larger” ones.   The mail is handled and delivered through the Camden, ME, Post Office, which is fine by me… love going in there!

I think I’ll periodically do some Home, Hope, Home posts…. just about life in a small Maine town.  So this is the first (since I hadn’t thought up the idea when I did the earlier post).   Now….back to driving to my teaching jobs in Harrisonburg and Floyd, Virginia.  I’m currently in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, but only for a couple more hours.  Then back into the car for a short drive today.  Think I’ll skip I-81 though once I get south of Winchester (remember Patsy Cline?  That’s her home town.) and take the old Shenandoah Valley highway, Route 11, and putter my way south.  Cheers!

These past few months have been more than amply filled with family and household responsibilities, and precious little time for creativity and art.  But I did eke out a few moments…over the course of two weeks! (these ought to have been done in a day or two..tells you what my days have been like) to make some mistletoe ornaments for my Frayed Edges Friends (we are, by the way, getting a rather lovely collection of ornaments we have swapped over the years).

Photographed at Kate's house, the Mistletoe ornament pattern is by Susan Brubaker Knapp, in the 2010-11 Quilting Arts Gifts magazine

When I received my author’s copy of Quilting Arts Gifts 2010-2011, I immediately paged through it to find my article, but on the way was immediately stopped by Susan Brubaker Knapp‘s wonderful mistletoe ornaments.  Susan and I have only met once “in the real,” in Houston (where else?), but have become friends via internet.  I was thrilled when I looked at the credit to see that these beauties were her pattern!

Of course, could I make it just like the pattern?  Not quite….. I used a slightly smaller pattern (I think now I like hers better–more room between the leaves…since I haven’t seen “live” mistletoe in decades tho, I wasn’t sure about the branching pattern on the leaves).

My leaves ready to cut out, and the big photo from QArts Gifts issue

Also, when I went to make these just before our Frayed Edges meeting, I realized I didn’t have either the 1 cm white wool balls Susan used OR the variegated light green floss OR anywhere to buy them locally AND not enough time to order stuff.  So what did I do?  I made it up!

I promptly thought of my polymer clay (neglected for a couple years in a box), and dug out my translucent and Pearl white Sculpey III (I think that was the kind) and made round white beads.  LOTS of them.  Think 7-8 for each sprig, with three sprigs per ornament, times four ornaments…… folded up some parchment paper into “Z” folds so the little pesky things wouldn’t roll in the tray while going into and out of the toaster oven. And since I couldn’t sew through wool beads with floss and make a lovely French Knot like Susan, I used green seed beads (a couple colors) as a “stop” to secure the beads to the stems.  I think Susan had quite a few more berries per ornament than I did, and if I had had time I would have made another bazillion beads, but not enough time!  Oh well!

Here's my "work station" on the dining table, with the polymer clay beads I made in the "Z" fold parchment, waiting to be sewn on to the ornaments. Wear a thimble!

Then I didn’t have lovely silk ribbon like Susan, or a place to buy any, or time to order, so I dug through my ribbons and tidbits box and found the plaid ribbon.  It’s not great quality ribbon, but it looks PERFECT.  I tied an overhand knot about halfway down to make a hanging loop.  Then I used some 1/8″ wide green satin double-faced ribbon (from JoAnns) to seriously tie together tightly the three branches of mistletoe and the plaid loop.  I made sure the knot of the loop was below the tightly-tied green ribbon so the loop wouldn’t pull up and out.

Here’s the three I gave away—mine had to wait until later to get finished, but it did make it onto the tree before Christmas!

3 mistletoe ornaments, and MANY polymer-bead-berries

And a close up:

On mine I tried painting the edges as I wasn’t certain about the white.  What a PAIN!   I finished my ornament that way but it was so fiddly getting the brush between the edges of the leaves that I decided to skip that.  And Kathy said she really liked the spark of white…good!   Also, I used a heavy 35-wt cotton thread–heavier than I usually use–for the quilting.  I had bought some of Superior Thread’s King Tut line (the Bullrushes color) for a class for kits, and had a bunch leftover.  It was perfect, used it top and bobbin!

Best of all was when Kate just gasped….she had bought a similar ornament at a craft fair for the Mother and SO wanted one for herself but was good with the budget and didn’t buy one.  So she got one anyway!

Thanks Susan for a really WONDERFUL ornament!

The pug always gets top billing...and he loved his raccoon! See how proud he is!

The before:

Twas the night before Christmas, and the goodies were actually wrapped!

The stocking were hung by the chimney with care (using my new best thingies, easily removed “command strip” hooks):

I promise...the stockings really are there, just off to the left....

The during:

That's Paul's hand in the lower right--he tends to glare at the camera so I mostly take pictures of the boys, when they tolerate it....

We had a lovely Christmas and hope you did, too!  I recently killed my beloved Panasonic DMC FZ-30 camera.  The first death blow was when hiking about 3 years ago and I slipped and the camera banged against a rock hard enough to chip the metal on the rim…miraculously, the camera still took good photos…good enough that all the studio / in progress shots in my book are taken on that one “after the fall” (and no, I didn’t get but a scrape…I was a lot more upset about the camera)!…the final death blow was a couple weeks ago when it slipped off a pile of fabric on my work table.  I had moved it, foolishly, to the top of a not-terribly-stable or flat pile to make room to cut something.  Then I bumped the table.  Ooops.  Landed lens down, and that led to a repair that led to the front of the lens coming off.  Erg.  So I bought a Canon G12 as a carry-around camera (not one of the fits in a jeans or shirt pocket size, but fits in a jacket pocket or purse easily) and have discovered it takes AWESOME pictures.  These were almost ALL taken *without* flash and handheld…. I could never have done that on the old camera!

The not-roast beast:

Thumper had to check out Paul's gift of salami, which beloved SIL Joyce sends from California since we can't get this here on the East Coast

We will only touch briefly on the fact that Paul left the salami on the table and the next day the pug, temporarily persona non grata, helped himself to one of them.  Including a lot of the paper wrapper.  Astonishingly, the pug was not sick. Paul was a bit queasy about the loss of the one salami, but he didn’t ask the dog to return it.  Ahem.

Are you done taking pictures yet?

After snapping about a dozen pictures of the boys and Paul, I hit their limit….. but I DO like the camera!

OK…this was too adorable not to share!  This version is shortened because parts of the original (see link below) have songs that aren’t exactly used according to copyright.  But I’m putting this version instead of the silent, longer one since I love the animal sounds:

PS…I originally saw it at http://www.wimp.com/swimmingpiglet/ where it has a fun song track, so click on the link if you want the whole shebang.  Enjoy!

Maria Peagler, whose book on Color Mastery is designed to help you get over your fear of playing with color, has just published this video on her blog and facebook pages.  If you’d like to vote for your favorite and win a free (my book, her book, Inklingo or fabric), take a look at the video, the surf over to Maria’s place and vote (more on that below).  Here’s the video:

Maria profiles four must-haves for quilters, starting with my book, ThreadWork  Unraveled.  Most of you who visit here have heard plenty about the book, but just in case, there is more info here plus lots of very kind reviews of the book on Amazon (and if you’d like to add your own review, please do!). Maria’s Facebook fan page is http://www.facebook.com/colormaster .  You can visit the page even if you’re not a member on Facebook.

Maria also shares Linda Franz’s Inklingo, a system for  precise piecing using any size scrap.  Linda is the author of the FANTABULOUS Quilted Diamonds, which is a diamond-variation on the theme of the Jane Stickle (Dear Jane) quilt, liberally salted with Jane Austen quotes, and which has some of the BEST hand piecing and hand applique directions you’ll find.  I treasure this book–clear, precise directions, stupendous photos…a keeper! Linda’s website is here, and more about InkLingo is here.

Third on Maria’s list is a Clothworks kit with the fabulous Laurel Burch fabrics.  As many of you know, the talented artist died not too long ago, but she spent a lot of her last years making art which her children could then turn into prints and designs for the many facets of Laurel’s work which include not just fabric, but mugs, earrings, totes, socks…..lots of fun things! You can find the kit here.

Finally, there is Maria’s own award-winning book, Color Mastery.  To learn more about her book, check it out on Maria’s website, here (scroll down to the bottom for the link to purchase Maria’s book).

To vote and have a chance to win your favorite, click here.  First it appears you need to “like” the post.  Then click on the photo of each of the items;  you can leave a comment to enter to win.  It appears, however, that you may need to be a Facebook member to actually vote.  Give it a try and see if you can vote! Update:  Linda Franz posted really good, thorough instructions on how to vote here.   Thanks Linda!

And if you’re not the lucky winner but just HAVE to have one of these items they are (what a surprise…not!) available from the maker!  I hope  YOU win!