Surprise

I was at an auction on Saturday, which had your typical house hold goods. Some furniture, lots of books, china, house hold items, tools and the like. Going through a coupe of the boxes on one of the tables I found some cool stuff. So when they got to that table I bid and got 2 boxes for three dollars a box. So what was so cool in those boxes you may be asking. I will allow you one guess so take a chance and think about it before you scroll down.

 

 

How's it going, do you got an answer yet?

 

 

Ok ready for the answer (you may be saying, God this better be good the suspense is killing me).

 

 

The first box was filled with craft books from 1946 and earlier. From tatting to crochet, knitting, weaving, sewing, mixed media and I even got 2 women's day magazines as well. A very large amount of wealth for three dollars and the really cool thing is out of this box I now have a Jiffy Loom and Weave – It book. I have PDF copies of both but I never thought I would own an original.

The second box is cool just not as old. That one is filled with mixed media, crochet, fashion and the lot form the 80’s. like I said cool not as exciting as the first box, but still a wealth of knowledge and one of the crochet magazine I used to get from that time period.

So below you will find a photo album with pics of the books and magazine for you to look at. Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Rooster 2

I have completed the first quarter of the rooster including all the detailing. I wasn’t sure if I should finish all the cross stitching first and then go back to do the backstitching or just do it all at one time. I choose the one time method I figured it wouldn’t hurt and it made more sense to me to do it all at once. So now I have three quarters to go, I will post a picture when I get the cross stitching done.

Rooster

Back in August Ed and I where in Hobby Lobby (if I've been good sometimes Ed takes me there). While we where walking around we got to the needle art section (next to the yarn, knitting, tatting section). He got a phone call and while he was talking I found a cross stitch rooster. The really cool thing was instead of grapes, this rooster is surrounded by olive branches with olives amongst them. I thought that was the coolest looking rooster. Ed finally got off the phone and I showed it to him and he liked it as well. So I got it.

I started it about a month ago, after I got the Christmas pieces done. This is the upper right hand corner. When its done it will be 12” – 12”, once  I finish the cross stitching in this section, I will put the detailing in this section. Then I will work on the upper left corner. When I get the detailing done I’ll post about it.

Antique Pattern Library

I was searching the web for some cross stitch patterns and came across the Antique Pattern Library. This Library as some very old pattern and pattern books that are free to download. The site remains a free site by taking in donations (which can be made on the site). If you have a chance check it out I just started checking it out my self and what I found thus far is really cool.

Christmas

Ok not really Christmas the holiday, just a couple of items that I was working on for Christmas. Back in July when we where selling at Saylorsburg the couple set up next to us had a lot of craft items. I was looking through them to get something to work on in between customers. I did, it was a watermelon with a crow. A nice little country piece (which is currently MIA, so sorry no picture of that piece).

Latter in the day I looked through the boxes of craft stuff again and picked up a dozen different cross stitch and needle work pieces. From those I picked up two Christmas Pieces. One is a free standing Santa, with his bag of toys.  A very bright and colorful piece. The second is a pillow done on linen not aida, which was a first for me. I have never worked on plain fabric before, other then stamped cross stitch. This piece could have been framed or turned into a pillow, I chose the pillow. This piece is more country and a lot of fun to work on.

So I had vowed to have these two pieces completed for this years Christmas. I did just that and in plenty of time for the holiday season too.

Lehigh Valley Style

Lehigh Valley Style is a local magazine, the cool think is that Ed and I are in it. Sustainable Country Gentlemen llc is featured in the life in the valley section of the magazine. The article is very well written and I would like to give them a big thanks for having us in there magazine. The picture is a scan of the article .

Zoo

Yesterday I had the privilege to attend Party with the Planet at the Lehigh Valley Zoo. I attended this event as a demonstrator,  for the first time I got to demonstrate only the fiber arts. Normally when I do a demonstration I do it along side us selling produce. This time it was all about The House of Bickert (bik – AIR) with the fiber side of things.
As a child growing up I had visited the zoo, but then it was called The Trexler Game Preserve. They had monkeys, some wild cats, farm animals and birds of prey. It was a neat place to visit for a child of 4 or 5. I had gone back as an adult when I was married. The area where they had the monkeys was there but no monkeys. Every thing else was pretty much the same as I remembered. This time not only was the name changed so was the zoo itself.
They had me setup right has you walked in the front gate. So as you entered the zoo you where greeted by one of the zoos residence and me on the other side. The day was filled with allot of inquisitive minds not just asking questions but also knowing what I was doing and asking questions to confirm  what they have learned in school. I had taken with me my big loom (aka table loom), lace pillow, inkle loom, drop spindle, Chakra, braiding looms and some pieces I had done, some of them where ribbon winners from the Allentown Fair. Every one that had stopped by was very interested in what I was doing and as I said above they asked intelligent  questions.
I was also impressed in the zoo itself, that for a small zoo they have a diverse amount of animals. The list includes penguins, wolfs, owls, eagles, falcons, hawks, palomino horses, camels, wild cats, kangaroos, otters and much more. Ed and I are planning on going back to the zoo when we are able to spend more time there. All in all in was a wonderful day and both Ed and I had a lot of fun. Please look at the photo album below for more pics from the day.

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