twenty pound tabby

January 1, 2011 - Frakus Emerges

2011-01-01T14:48:00.000-08:00

The first day of the year was cold. It never got above freezing and the lows were around zero degrees F. Our first real snow of the season fell two days earlier. Despite the cold, the snow slowly eroded away through a process known as sublimation. This is a common process here near Denver, Colorado, where the dry air and sun can cause the snow to escape it's solid state and go into the air without going through a liquid phase.

As the snow eroded around our small pond, Frakus, our devil frog from StoneCraft Arts emerged to show his lovely grin.

2011 Seeds Ordered So Far

2010-12-31T13:44:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of seeds ordered so far:

From Select Seeds:

Morning Glory 'Scarlett O'Hara
Poppy 'Danish Flag'
Poppy 'Heirloom'
Poppy 'Imperial Pink'
Poppy 'Ladybird'
Poppy 'Lauren's Grape'
Poppy--Peony Black
Sweet Pea 'Chatsworth'
Sweet Pea 'Elegance French Blue'
Sweet Pea 'Mollie Rilestone'
Venus's Looking Glass

From Seeds of Change:

Orange Temple Bells Celosia
Texas Hummingbird Sage
Goldy Double Sunflower
Tiger's Eye Mix Sunflower
Belstar F-1 Broccoli
Corno Di Toro Pepper
Stupice Tomato
Famosa F-1 Cabbage

From Thomson and Morgan:

Sweet Pea Ballerina Blue
Sweet Pea Tickled Pink
Sweet Pea Apricot Sprite
Chrysanthemum - carinatum Sunset
Sweet Pea Zorija Rose
Sweet Pea Elegant Ladies
Salvia - patens
Pepper Gypsy Hybrid
Tomato Sungold

From Burpee:

Sweet Pea, Spanish Dancer
Corn, Ruby Queen
Pea Super Sugar Snap
Pepper Jalapeno False Alarm
Tomato Super Sweet 100
Tomato Bloody Butcher
Tomato Better Boy
Morning Glory Candy Pink

Sempervivums, Sedums and Hypertufa Revisited

2010-12-30T13:26:00.000-08:00

A little over a year ago I posted about some recently acquired hypertufa pots and some plants to put in them. Well, not only did the plants I bought do well, but I went and bought some more pots from Fox Meadow up in Fort Collins, Colorado and then went hog wild buying plants. It didn't help that Timberline Gardens, a local nursery in Arvada, Colorado, has an unbelievably large variety of sedum and sempervivum. This variety, combined with Timberline's discount table where many cool plants can be had for only a $1, cause me to go crazy and buy way more plants than I had pots or gardens for. I guess I'll just have to get more pots and dig up more of the back yard.
The picture above shows the pot I pictured in the 2009, only all potted up with some sedums, sempervivums, jovibarba and a tiny dwarf ice plant. The pot below is my old, home made hypertufa pot filled with sempervivum Oddity, S. funckii and S. arachnoidium. Click on picture for a much bigger image:

The other new hypertufa pots from Fox Meadow are shown below, all planted up. Click on the pic for a bigger image:

Plus, there's a new pot made from left over Quikcrete and a bit of cement colorant:

And then there faux hypertufa, or as I like to call it, faux faux Tufa since hypertufa is meant to simulate tufa, which is a naturally occurring rock. These pots are made of Styrofoam boxes that have been roughed up and painted with leftover house paint and some acrylics.

All of the pots, whether they are hypertufa or styrofoam have plenty of drainage holes in the bottom.

The plastic pots planted up with sedums, iceplants and sempervivum in the spring filled in nicely:

It was fun the see the radical color and appearance change in the sempervivum throughout the year. These pictures show the color change Sempervivum Calcerum Pink Pearl went through from May to July (click for larger pics):

These pictures show the range of colors S. Spherette went through from May to September:

Sempervivum Fuego also undergoes a radical color change. Here it is from April to September:

As winter arrived, some became an intense shade of red, while others became more green. Some changed from blue green to purple. Some stayed pretty much the same. I have lots more pictures here.

Sheperd's Pie

2010-12-07T12:41:00.001-08:00

Now that winter is here, we make more suppers in the oven. One that my spouse makes is Sheperd's Pie. Traditionally, it's made with ground lamb, but we don't often have ground lamb so we use ground beef instead.

Ingredients:
1 pound lean ground beef - we use 93% lean
2 eggs
1 cup oats
1 cup milk
1/2 cup barbecue sauce
1 teaspoon Better than Bullion
onion

cheddar cheese
enough mashed potatoes to cover the top

Stir the beef eggs, oats, milk barbecue sauce, bullion and onion all together like you would a meatloaf. Put this in the bottom of a 9 inch glass pie plate. Cover with a layer of cheddar cheese slices. Cover this with enough mashed potatoes to cover the top. Usually this is 6 medium pototatoes, smashed with some milk and a couple tablespoons of butter. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes, then reduce temperature to 300 and bake another 15 minutes.

This year we had some roasted sweet peppers and put a layer of those between the meat and cheese. That was excellent!

This feeds six people.

Backyard Pollinators: Honeybees

2010-11-22T20:39:00.000-08:00

The days are getting so short and the nights long right now near Denver, Colorado. It's cold and windy outside, the trees are bare and the gardens give the appearance of being dead.

This is a good time to go through all the pictures taken during the summer months and see what I actually got. During the spring, summer and fall, when the gardens are full of life, I take many pictures of the flowers, plants and bugs. I go through these photo albums multiple times during the winter, each time seeing different things that grab my interest.

Today, the bugs in the photos captured my interest. More specifically, the pollinators. But, since there are many pollinators in my photos, I'm first just going to focus on the most common ones in the pictures - the honeybees.

Honeybees seem to really like my yard. Is it because there are flowers blooming constantly from early spring until late fall? I think this is probably so, plus I have multiple water gardens to provide water as well. As soon as there is a crocus blooming in spring, there is a bee in it.

(Clicking on each picture will being up a much larger version of the same image.)

A little later, the hyacinths, tulips, daffodils and other spring bulbs are full of honeybees:

Later in the spring, all the fruit tree bloom and are so full of bees the trees seem to be humming. But sometime after that, the roses start to bloom.

There are over 400 roses in the yard and many thousands of blooms. The above picture is most likely of the rose Darlow's Enigma.

Here is a photo of a bee busy in one of my dark red gallica roses. This is a particularly clear image of the bee, especially in the larger photo where even the hairs on the bee's head, thorax, abdomen, and legs can be seen.

As the summer continues on, the bees search out the blooms on the petite, but repeat blooming miniature roses.

The poppies attract many honeybees.

Some share a flower. These two bees in this flower look different to me, although they both spent quite a lot of time in there without any squabbling. Are they from different hives or is one older than the other?

Later in the summer, the anise hyssop, also known as agastache, is buzzing with hundreds of bees. The lavender, daylilies, sunflowers, dahlias, salvias and many other flowers are also thick with bees.

There also seems to be some very dark, or black honeybees visiting the flowers. Are these a different species of bee or just a color variation?

There are bees coming to the gardens into the late fall, drawn to the flowers of the sedums and the last hurrah of the repeat blooming hybrid teas and miniature roses.

All in all, there are a lot of bees in the gardens. Later, I'll post about the native bees and other pollinators in the gardens as there are a lot of them too.

Next spring there may be even more bees in the garden since some bee keeping friends are considering putting some hives out back near the fruit trees.

Hot Peppers! - Ring of Fire

2010-10-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

This year I wanted to make pepper jelly again, only hotter. In the pepper bed, I grew only Marconi peppers for the sweet pepper part of the jelly and grew Jalapenos and a new one I never tried before called Ring of Fire. I was originally thinking of making the jelly using all of peppers grown this year. That was the idea until I tried the Ring of Fire.
Ring of Fire is definitely one of the hottest peppers I've grown. I grew a few Habaneros in a pot, which are also pictured above, and thought they were hot, but these turned out hotter. They are a long thin Cayenne style pepper with not much juice in them so I dried them instead. I cut the first batch up with bare hands which was a mistake because I couldn't get all the oil off my fingers, even when scrubbed them with lots of soap, which I found out when I accidentally touched my eye. Since they are a very productive pepper, I had more to dry, but wore latex gloves when cutting them up.
Once dried, these peppers were ground using a grinder dedicated to just peppers. The powder is a bright. toxic orange. About 1/4 teaspoon can well season an entire pot of chili.
I ended up using all the Marconi and Jalpeno pepper juice for the jelly, but only added about a pinch of the Ring of Fire pepper powder to each jelly batch, which proved to be plenty hot.

Burgundy Woolly Acorn Earrings for sale

2010-10-26T12:25:00.000-07:00

Since selling directly off this blog has worked well so far, I'm going to offer a few more things.

These little burgundy wool earrings are made using felted wool and real red oak acorn caps, along with brass beads and findings.

The wool is needle felted from corridale wool and then wet felted to create a very firm, dense and smooth little acorn.
The ear wires are Vintaj natural brass and are nickel free.

The entire earring is about 1 7/8 inches long, from top of ear wire to bottom of the dangle. The ear wires pictured are 1 inch from top to end of back curve and the dangle is 1 1/4 inch from top to bottom.

There are four different styles of ear wires available. One is a nickel free brass colored lever back and the other three are Vintaj nickel free brass.

These earrings, as well as all my jewelery, come packaged in a brand new jewelry box tied up with ribbon to keep it safe in its travels.

Burgundy Woolly Acorn Earrings
$14.00 includes shipping in the USA

A rare occurance - Morning Rainbow

2010-10-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

We rarely get early morning rainbows. Usually the rainbows come in the afternoon, when most showers happen, when the sun is in the west and the rainbow in the east. But at 8:00 this morning, the sun was shining brightly in the east and the rain was coming in from the west, making a beautiful, full, double rainbow over the mountains in the west. I couldn't fit the entire rainbow in the camera lens, so I got as much as I could. It lookd like the clouds obscured most of the mountains:

My Fuzzy Nuts: Woolly Felt Acorn Earrings

2010-10-22T14:14:00.000-07:00

It's been while since I posted a new blog entry, but now it's time I do something about that. Once of the things I've been keeping busy with is making lots of felted acorn earrings out of wool. Nice soft light weight fuzzy earrings. I started making them last year and put a few on my Etsy shop. This year I'll be selling them at the local handweaver's guild sale as well, and I think I'll put a few up on this blog too.
The nut is made of wool that is needle felted and then wet felted to create a very firm, dense and smooth little acorn. Usually the wool is Merino but sometimes Corriedale is used. Sometimes the nut is hand felted and then died using a good, light fast commercial protein fiber dye and sometimes it's felted from pre-dyed wool.
The caps used are oak acorn caps and vary from red oak,

to white oak:

to fuzzy burr oak caps:

The metal parts are brass and the ear wires are either Vintaj natural nickel free brass french ear wires in small or large, or nickel free brass lever backs.

Kitties in the Snow

2009-11-20T17:52:00.000-08:00

When it REALLY snows here, the poor kitties can't get anywhere until I've shoveled or snow blowed a path for them. Above, Eric wanders down the path to the chicken coop.

Here he attempts to break out of the path - but fails.

So he consoles himself by catching snowflakes with his tongue.

Huckleberry Pie

2009-11-13T23:39:00.001-08:00

This pie is a very special treat for my family. I only grow enough garden huckleberries for one or two pies a year. Plus, this pie is very rich so we would get quite fat if we ate it too often.

The huckleberries used in this pie are not the huckleberries commonly found in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, but are a member of the nightshade family and are sometimes sold as garden huckleberries. Yet most garden huckleberry seeds sold seem to produce a fruit that is impossible to eat raw and take a lot of lemon juice to neutralize its alkalinity. The variety I grow came from a friend whose family brought the seeds back from Russia and I believe they are Solanum burbankii, which is also known as Wonderberry. Solanum burbankii produces a fruit that is mild to eat when ripe and cooks up wonderfully into a pie filling that is similar to blueberries.

These garden huckleberries, or Wonderberries, are annuals that reseed very well. The fruit ripens in the late summer and can even stand a very light frost.

Garden Huckleberry Pie Recipe

1 8 oz package cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vamilla
1 cup cream, whipped
1 graham cracker crust

Cream the cream cheese, powdered
sugar and vanilla together. Fold in
the whipped cream. Spread on the bottom
and the sides of the pie shell.

3 cups huckleberries
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
pinch of salt
1 tblsp lemon juice

Cook the above ingredients over low heat until it
comes to a boil and thickens up. Cool and spread
over the cream cheese layer. Refrigerate.

New Items in 1000 Markets Shop

2009-11-11T14:24:00.001-08:00

Today I put quite a few new earrings in my 1000 markets shop:
http://www.1000markets.com/users/twentypoundtabby
including the moon earrings above. 1000 Markets takes Amazon payments, so if you already buy from Amazon, you'll have no trouble making purchases from 1000 Markets.

How I Put Paypal Buttons on my Blog

2009-11-10T07:18:00.002-08:00

I've had a few requests for how I learned to put Paypal buttons on my blog. It turns out that it's incredibly easy!
I just followed the instructions in this YouTube video:
Adding Paypal buttons

Selling on Blogger! Orange Red Poppy Flower Earrings

2009-11-02T16:12:00.000-08:00

Paypal makes it so easy to sell right off a blog, that I'm going to try it out myself. Here's one of my more popular items - Orange Red Poppy Flower Earrings. This way, if you'd like to buy a pair, but don't want to join Etsy, you can just buy them from here. I've included the shipping in the price.

These dainty, garden inspired earrings remind me of the California Poppies that reseed in my garden, especially the vivid orange red Mikado variety. They are made using glass flower beads that are a mottled Picasso finished orange red with touches of green.

I offer three different ear hooks. One is a nickel free antiqued copper plated lever back and the other two are nickel free pure copper, one large and one small. I make the pure copper hooks myself using 20 gage jewelry grade copper wire and sand the ends down so they are smooth after hardening them.

Until Paypal gives me the option of specifying which country I can ship internationally to, I'll be shipping to USA addresses only.

Orange Red Poppy Flower Earrings
$10.00 Including shipping within the USA

Snow in Denver

2009-10-28T07:27:00.000-07:00

I woke up to see quite a bit of snow today, October 28, 2009. Right now it's 8:30 mountain time and there is about 5 or 6 inches on the ground of very heavy wet snow and it's still snowing. It's suppose to keep snowing until sometime Thursday. I'm so glad I topped off the bird feeders yesterday.

Here is an unusual sight - a junco on a bird feeder. They usually feed on the ground. This is the first time I have noticed them up on the feeder.

Pepper Jelly

2009-10-23T07:55:00.000-07:00

This year I grew peppers solely for the purpose of making jelly. The peppers I grew were Gypsy (mild), Marconi (mild) and Volcano (hot, but not killer hot). My spouse had the idea of using the juicer on the peppers and then making jelly out of the juice. The only problem I had then was figuring out how much juice to use since the recipes called for chopped up peppers, not juice. The Gypsy peppers ripened yellow and made a nice golden jelly, while the Marconi peppers are green and made an olive green jelly.
Here is the recipe I used:

Pepper Jelly

2 cups juice from mild peppers
1/2 cup juice from hot peppers
2 cups cider vingegar
6 cups sugar
2 pouches of Certo liquid pectin

Juice peppers using a juicer.
Combine with vinegar and sugar in large pot.
Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil for ten more minutes.
Add pectin. Bring back to a rolling boil and keep boiling for 1 minute.
Pout into hot sterilized jars.
Process (boil) in hot water bath for 10 minutes.

At first I used just 1 cup of juice from the mild peppers and 1/2 cup from the Volcanos, but that didn't seem quite peppery enough, so I eventually settled on 2 cups of either Gypsy or Marconi pepper juice and 1/2 cup of Volcano pepper juice. Next time, I'll grow more hot peppers and make the jelly even hotter.

Sempervivums, Sedums and Hypertufa

2009-10-20T11:32:00.000-07:00

Recently, I bought some new hypertufa pots from a local pot maker. What is hypertufa, you may ask? It is a concoction of cement, peat, and other stuff such as vermiculite or perlite that is used to make planters, fake rocks other garden objects. Its main advantage over regular cement is that it's lighter. Plants, such as succulents do well in planters made of it.

Years ago I made my own hypertufa pot and it turned out well. But it was quite messy and time consuming for one pot. I planted some Sempervivum funckii, Monstrosum and Cobweb in it and pretty much ignored it for years. The pot sat there in all weather, staying in good shape and the semps grew.
Eventually the pot got partially covered up by rogue lavender plants, which didn't hurt the pot, but did cause some of the semps to disappear. I pulled the pot out from under the lavender, put it back in the sun and the semps resumed their growing. See the picture at the top of this post.

Since I really like the look of hypertufa as well as its ability to withstand our freezes and thaws, when I saw some for sale (at a VERY good price!) I bought some more. The picture above shows one of four I bought.

Then, I hit up some of the end of season clearance sales at Timberline and O'Tooles and bought some more sedums, alpines and sempervivum. I planted them in temporary pots and will keep them there until next spring, when I'll then plant those that overwinter well into the hypertufa pots that will be well seasoned by then and ready to plant.

The pot above contains Sedum dasyphyllum, Sedum globosum, Sedum tetractinum and an unknown sempervivum.

The pot above contains Sedum divergens, Draba aizoides, Sedum rupestre 'Angelina', Sedum Major, Sedum hispanicum Purple Form and Sempervivum arachnoideum.

I also acquired some sempervivum via mail order. The above two pots contain sempervivum Blue Boy, calcareum, Gay Jester, Magical, Maigret, Speciosum, Spherette, Casa, Sirius, Fuego, Solange, Dolle Dina and Jovibarba arenaria x hirta f/Belansky Tatra.

Demon Eyed Cat!

2009-10-19T09:16:00.001-07:00

There was a glowing eyed beasty in the garage the other night!

Eric is hoping we don't notice him and he can stay there all night hunting mousies!

A Few New Necklaces for the Shop

2009-10-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

Here are a few new necklaces and a bracelet for the Etsy shop. I haven't got them listed yet, but I will soon.

My Best Zucchini Bread

2009-10-15T08:40:00.001-07:00

Zucchini bread is yet another great way to use surplus Zucchini or other summer squash. As usual, I had quite a surplus so I experimented with different recipes and also varied recipes to see what I liked best. This particular recipe is my favorite and is also well liked by my family and friends. It is tasty, very moist and has loads of fiber.

ZUCCHINI CARROT BREAD

3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups brown sugar
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups shredded zucchini, packed
1 cup shredded carrots
3 cups flour
1 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup raisins

Beat 3 eggs. Add vegetable oil and brown sugar. Beat together until smooth. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking power, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt. Add everything else and mix well.

Pour into 2 greased bread pans and bake at 350°F until done - about an hour. Use the toothpick test.

Dried Tomatoes

2009-10-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

Here it is the middle of October, weeks after a hard freeze, and I'm still drying tomatoes. The tomato crop was large again this year, with a good crop from about 16 tomato plants. Since I have so many tomatoes ripe at the same time, I have to find a way to store them for use later, and having already so many jars of canned tomatoes, I now dry them.

We use a lot of dried tomatoes - they are great on salads, thrown into stews, or just eaten right out of the bag. Since I don't use any preservatives, I freeze them once I dry them, just to be sure they don't go bad from any residual moisture left in them.

This year we grew Better boys, Amish Paste, Sun Golds, Jet Sonic, Sweet 100's, and two varieties from Bulgaria.

The Bulgarian Tomatoes were from seeds brought back by a relative. They germinated well and grew vigorously. The fruit from these were huge, one being a pinkish red and the other a true tomato red. Both were gorgeous tomatoes, but we thought they were rather bland compared to the Better Boys. I probably won't grow them again, although I may save some seeds.

The Sungolds and Sweet 100s are cherry tomatoes that taste great, produce well and dry fantastic. These are on my "always grow" list, along with Better Boys and Amish Paste.

The Jet Sonic tomatoes were great producers of perfect looking fruit, but I found them rather bland. I won't be growing them again.

Green!

2009-10-09T09:24:00.001-07:00

I was going through some photographs from this past summer and came across these from July. Back in March, my daughter died her hair her hair vivid pink

This past July, she found a very green dress at a vintage clothing store and decided to dye her hair to match.

While I was taking pictures, the Twenty Pound Tabby, decided he was in need of a belly rub. Here he is in his best "come hither" look.

He got his belly rubbed and then he got cuddled.

Zucchini Broccoli Cheese Quiche

2009-10-07T08:06:00.000-07:00

If you grow broccoli and zucchini, chances are you have too much. Here is one way I found that uses both in a way that the family really likes, and is easy to make as well.
This year I grew yellow summer squash instead of zucchini, but I found that they are indistinguishable in the quiche except for the color.

1 store bought pie crust or homemade pie crust
1 clove garlic or 1/4 chopped onion - which ever you prefer
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 1/2 cups broccoli
3 small zucchini sliced
1 cup milk
5 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
dash of pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Put the crust in the pie plate and prick the bottom to prevent the bottom from bubbling up. Put the plate in the oven for 5 minutes to set the crust.
While the crust is cooking, grate the cheese.
Beat the eggs, salt, pepper and milk together. Add the garlic or onions.
When the crust has cooked for give minutes, remove it. Sprinkle the cheese on the bottom, add the broccoli then top it with the zucchini slices.
Pour the egg mixture over the broccoli and zucchini.
Bake for 10 minutes at 400, then turn down the temperature to 350 and bake for another 30 minutes or so until a knife comes out clean when inserted in the middle.
For a variation, try putting the cheese on top instead of the bottom.

The Xeric Garden - Sedums

2009-09-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

I have quite a few gardens in my Arvada, Colorado yard and way in the back of the yard is a small garden of sedums. This garden rarely gets any water other than what comes naturally from the sky, although I will occasionally bring a watering can of water back there if I think about it. That occurs once a month, maybe.
It's been interesting to see how different sedums grow in this garden compared to how they grow in the gardens that get regular water from the drip system. Here is Sedum Autumn Joy in a well watered garden compared to sedum Maestro out back. The well watered sedum is much lusher and has much larger flower heads. The leaves on the sedums out back are often a bit limp, especially after several weeks of no rain.

Autumn Joy

Maestro

Here are the other sedums I have out back where the water is scarce:

Autumn Fire

Autumn Joy

Brilliant

Maestro

Maestro (again
)

Neon

Purple Emperor

Red Cauli

Xenox

New Earrings in the Shop

2009-08-25T07:25:00.000-07:00

I've been adding some new earrings to the Etsy shop TabbyToo.
There's this vivid lime green and brass pair:

This deep brown lucite and brass pair:

This pair of acorn earrings made with rich looking deep topaz brown glass:

These sterling silver pair of earrings made with white opalescent glass flowers and the hand made sterling ear wires pictured in my previous post:

And some copper kitty earrings, inspired by my kitties in the garden:

The Pond's New Inhabitants

2009-08-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

A couple of leopard frogs moved into the pond a few weeks ago. These frogs are native to the area. I don't know whether they came via the irrigation ditch than runs nearby, or whether somebody laid some eggs in my upper pond and the tadpoles grew up in there without me noticing. Either way, I've got some new pond inhabitants, provided they can avoid the snake that lives nearby. Leopard frogs aren't nearly as problematic as bullfrogs. They don't get as big and don't seem to bother the fish much.

Wordless Wednesday - Eric Still Lounging Around

2009-05-06T08:41:00.000-07:00

Wordless Wednesday - Eric Before His Coffee

2009-04-29T06:10:00.000-07:00

Wordless Wednesday - Eric On a Nice Day

2009-04-15T05:38:00.000-07:00

New Spool Rack and Spinning Wheel

2009-04-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

Today I had fun at the local weaver's guild used equipment sale. I picked up a spool rack that my spouse wanted for warping his loom and also a little double drive spinning wheel that needs just a little bit of work to be a nice wheel. It's such a pretty wheel.
I also picked up some pearl cotton and various little odds and ends such as orifice hooks, sleighing hooks and such.

Sterling Silver Ear Wires

2009-04-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

Just got out my jig and wire whacker and made up some sterling silver ear wires using half hard 20 gauge wire that I've had for over a decade. They're all nice and de-burred and hardened. Now I just have to made something with them.

New Pretty Pansies

2009-04-02T14:31:00.000-07:00

I'm a real sucker for pansies, and they do so well here.
Here's a couple of new ones I couldn't resist. I may collect the seeds from these and see what they produce next year. When I've done this in the past, the results have been interesting and quite unpredictable.

Wordless Wednesday - the Furry Headrest

2009-04-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

It's Pinker!

2009-03-31T06:45:00.001-07:00

Before she left for college, my daughter decided that her hair wasn't pink enough and dyed it again. She's happy with the final result.

Easy Pot Roast Recipe

2009-03-30T13:09:00.001-07:00

I made this last week when it was blizzarding out. It turned out perfect, as always. The meat was tender and moist and the carrots were wonderful. This is such a reliable recipe I thought I'd post it.

4 pounds of beef - this time I used boneless beef ribs, but any good beef for pot roast will work. I always look for a lacing of fat throughout the meat rather than completely lean since this ensures a moist roast. I cut off any thick fat.

1 jar of beef gravy - I always avoid any with MSG

2 pounds of carrots

onion if I have it

Place enough aluminum foil to be able to seal up over the contents in a glass baking dish about 12 x 9 x 2 inches or there abouts .
Place the beef in the pan, surround with carrots. Pour entire jar of gravy all over everything. Fold the foil over and seal. Bake at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 4 hours.

The picture below is just before the foil was sealed up.

This also works well with potatoes. It fed our family of 3 for two nights.

Blizzarding in Denver

2009-03-26T08:32:00.001-07:00

Right at this moment, Denver is getting dumped on. It looks like there's at least 10 inches on top of the trash can lid and it's still coming down hard.

We haven't seen hardly any precipitation in such a long time that this is actually needed. We are having the driest winter on record. I just hope this isn't a another barn roof breaking blizzard like we had a few years go.

Donny and the African Violet

2009-03-20T09:44:00.000-07:00

When I bother to look after them, my african violets reward me well. I love the ruffly picotee edge on this one. Apparently so does Donovan.

The Pink Hair Trend

2009-03-19T13:52:00.000-07:00

My spouse liked my daughter's hair so much, he decided to go for it.
Hair by Adobe Photoshop.

And Speaking of Dyeing...

2009-03-17T19:44:00.000-07:00

While I was dyeing beads, this is what my older daughter did to her hair today.

More Flowery Things

2009-03-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

I have one heck of a flowery fabric stash, so I made up this little jewelry bag to put some of my overwhelming jewelry stash in. I think I'll try and put some of these in the TabbyToo shop and see if anyone would like one. It has eight little pockets in it to keep things separate.

I've also been dyeing my own lucite flower beads, after purchasing some that I wasn't too please with. Since I've been dyeing fabric and fiber for decades, and have a fantastic collection of good dyes, I thought I'd try dyeing lucite.
I ended up with nice, smoothly dyed beads that the color stays fast on even when washed in hot water. Here' some earrings that have a violet color I'm particularly fond of. These will end up in the shop too.

These deep red ones were dyed by me and are already in the shop. I've got some gorgeous burgundies, lavenders, blues, pinks, peach, rusts, mauves and grays to make up into jewelry. It's lots of fun.

Spring Time Flower Necklace

2009-03-10T08:48:00.001-07:00

I'm still yearning for Spring, especially after waking up to 14 degrees Fahrenheit this morning. Here is a Spring inspired necklace I made up using purple lucite and glass beads, antiqued brass and copper. It can be worn at either 16 inches (see above) or eighteen inches (see below), and can be found in my Etsy shop.

Dad's Birthday

2009-03-09T07:28:00.000-07:00

Today is my Dad's birthday.

RIP Dad. I love you.

The First Flowers of Spring

2009-03-06T09:27:00.001-08:00

The very first flowers to bloom in my yard are always Iris reticulata. They bloom even earlier than my earliest crocus and are often popping through the snow. They are very tiny - about the size of crocus and come in various shades of purple and blue. They've increased slowly over the years and some have formed a nice clump. Here are what's blooming in my yard right now.

Wordless Wednesday - Eric Finds a Box

2009-03-04T07:11:00.000-08:00

Some Vintage Finds

2009-02-27T12:14:00.000-08:00

Here are some things I've found this past week at the thrift store. The first is a Haviland Limoges Cup and Saucer that was so thin, translucent and delicate looking that I loved it at first sight.

The next is an old Singer buttonholer that I bought to use on my old Singers. Although I already had a buttonholer, this one had 4 button hole templates that I didn't have, but wanted. Previously, the smallest template I had was for a 1/2 inch button hole and this one has one that is 5/16 inch and another that looks like it just makes a tiny round button hole.

Finally, I found an old mixer to replace my 26 year old GE hand mixer that just broke. The nylon gears in my old mixer failed. This one looks much more robust than my old mixer and appears to have been used very little if at all. I think it's from the 1950s.

Waiting for the Roses

2009-02-25T06:41:00.000-08:00

While waiting for spring and all the flowers to bloom, I continue to go through last year's pictures and pick out some of my favorites. Here are some of my English roses that I grow. These are repeat blooming modern roses developed by David Austin, that have the look and fragrance of the old garden roses of antiquity.

The image above is of the rose Evelyn. It produces huge peach colored blooms that have a fantastic fragrance that Crabtree and Evelyn used in their soaps and perfumes of the same name. The Crabtree and Evelyn products actually smell pretty similar to the rose.

The rose pictured below is my first David Austin English rose, Mary Rose. It produces loads of medium pink blooms all summer, but I don't find it nearly as fragrant as Evelyn.

This semi-double rose is called The Herbalist. I'm guessing that they thought the rose was similar to the Apothecary Rose, which is another name for Rosa gallica var. officinalis - a very very old variety of once blooming old garden rose. I find Rosa gallica var. officinalis to be a deeper color.

This is the Alexandra Rose. While it is just a five petaled single rose, I find it to be one of the most beautiful in my garden.

I have many more English roses in my garden and hope to take some nice pictures of them this summer. The pictures above may show up as a set of cards in my TabbyToo shop.

The English Stash

2009-02-21T08:55:00.000-08:00

My spouse went to England in late January for a business trip, and since I couldn't go too, I sent him on a mission to hunt down and bring back some fun stuff. What you see above is what he brought back: Maltezers (you need to see the YouTube commercials for these), Jelly Babies (just like on Doctor Who), Fruit Sherberts (a very intense hard candy with a soft center), Mystery Sweets, milk and dark chocolate covered Digestives (very very good!), some stuffed animals from Harrods, and assorted candies we still haven't tried yet.
While he was there, my spouse hooked up with the local Morris side, the Chippenham Town Morris Men. He even danced with them (he's the one in the vivid blue sweater that stands out like a beacon): Vandals of Hammerwich by The Chippenham Morris Men. There are slight, but noticable style differences between how our American side does it and how the Chippenham side does it.

My Spotted Old Garden Roses

2009-02-16T15:21:00.001-08:00

I was going through some of the photographs I took of my garden last year and came across these photos I took of some of my spotted roses. These roses are once blooming old garden roses that I grew from seed about 15 years ago from the gallica Alain Blanchard. Alain Blanchard is also quite spotted and passed this characteristic on to my seedlings, although one of my roses ended up being even more spotted that Alain.

These roses behave as gallicas, they are short and sucker like crazy. They are also quite winter hardy with very little cane death even when winters go down to -20 Fahrenheit.

I really like the starry effect the spots have on this dark double bloom. The spots are quite variable - some blooms have quite a few more spots than others.

A Sticky Valentines Day

2009-02-16T08:26:00.000-08:00

We made cinnamon buns for breakfast on Saturday, Valentines Day. Here is a picture just before the icing was dribbled all over them. These were made from a recipe found in the Rocky Mountain News. The recipe contained all sorts of good things like chopped pecans, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, butter, cream cheese and cottage cheese.

Dreary Days and Lazy Cats

2009-02-13T14:01:00.000-08:00

It's another cold, dreary day here in Colorado. On days like this, the cats spend all day doing this.

A Treasury of Old Garden Roses

2009-02-10T23:51:00.001-08:00

I'm still pining for my gardens so I grabbed another treasury on Etsy and filled it with items that remind me of my old garden roses - those big fat smelly old fashioned roses that bloom in such abundance in June.
This treasury will be up until Friday, 8:11 am.

More Blooming Earrings

2009-02-09T06:04:00.000-08:00

As the muse hits me, I've been assembling more and more garden inspired earrings and putting them in both my Etsy shop and ArtFire shop.

There are soft pastel spring flower earrings in pink, yellow and white:

There are delicate little lily earrings in purple, lavender and blue:

There are warm brown gray earrings with dangley bits:

And finally there are earrings made with milky white opalescent moonstone glass and with some lovely green and amber beads that I'd had for years:

Poet Shirt with Lucet Cord

2009-02-08T16:43:00.001-08:00

I finally finished the poet shirt I was making for my spouse Chris, as part of his Morris Dance kit. This was the shirt I was making a lucet cord for, which I posted about earlier.

Next, I'll be making my daughter a poet shirt for her kit, and maroon britches for both. Then I should be able to get a picture of the whole kit. This is different from the normal white shirt and white pants they usually wear. The white poet shirt and maroon britches kit will have a more Renaissance fair look to it and will probably be used at the Colorado Medieval Festival in June if we dance there.

Springtime Treasuries

2009-02-06T09:32:00.000-08:00

Since I'm such in the mood for spring colors, flowers, romance, etc., I made a couple of treasuries on Etsy in those themes. The first one has items I found using the search terms pansy and petunia. I found some amazing artists and new favorites in that search. The second one on Treasury West was using the terms romance and pink. I found some absolutely beautiful things that way too.

The Pansies and Petunia treasury will expire Friday at 5 pm and the Romantic Pink treasury will expire Saturday at 5 am.

The next treasury I manage to grab will be all about old garden roses - those big fat smelly roses that I love so much.

Two Rowdy Kitties - video!

2009-02-03T08:14:00.000-08:00

Last night we captured Donovan and Eric being rowdy. They sleep all day and then perk up right when we want to go to bed and get some peace and quiet.

Check It Out - an Email Button

2009-01-29T16:11:00.000-08:00

Now there's a way to email me from this blog page. Down on the right hand column, there's a button that looks just like the one above, but you can click it to email me. There's a tutorial on how to do this on Cathe Holden's blog.

Some New Items in the Shops

2009-01-28T08:49:00.000-08:00

This is just a quick note to say I've added some items to my shops. The purple earrings above have been added to my ArtFire shop. And they've also been added to my poor, neglected little second Etsy shop, TabbyToo. I can put the earrings on both shops because I'll be making them fresh for whoever buys them.

This pink, purple and blue hand dyed kitty pin has been added to the ArtFire shop also.

And this bright yellow and pink kitty pin has been added to my Etsy shop.

Spring Flower Earrings

2009-01-26T11:19:00.000-08:00

I been craving flowers and gardening so much lately. I've ordered all my seeds for this year - probably more than I can fit into my gardens, and I've repotted up some of my hundred or so african violets. I've started geranium cuttings.

When actual plants weren't enough, I made flower fairies. And now I'm making flower earrings. I've always loved the look of aged copper and brass, but couldn't wear most brass or copper colored earwires. Then I discovered Vintaj nickel free earwires, so I ordered some to try. I also ordered some acrylic or lucite flower beads, dug out all my findings and many many glass beads and assembled some earrings.

The purple pair up at the top of this post is my favorite so far. I love purple tubular or bell shaped flowers such as penstemon, salvia, and especially clematis Roguchi.

I also made a tiny blue pair and a pinkish mauve pair with stamens. Making these was fun. Maybe I'll make some more and put some in my shops.

Lucet Cord

2009-01-23T07:34:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a poet shirt for my spouse to wear as part of his Morris kit and it needed some cord. I wanted it to be white and non-slippery so it would stay tied and didn't really think a cut off shoe lace would look the best, so I got out my lucet and whipped up 4 feet of lucet cord while watching a few episodes of the Muppets.

I dug out some white pearl cotton I just happened to have and found my lucet. Lucets have been used for cord making for hundreds of year, possibly as far back as the Viking age. It typically has two prongs, although I have seen some four prong ones. I made this one a while back, along with others to be given away as largess at an SCA event. It's made out of walnut, using my scroll saw. I drew up the basic shape, modified it to be comfortable in my hand, cut it out and sanded it so all the edges are rounded and smooth. I experimented a bit with various wood finishes and settled on wax being the most comfortable surface for holding in my hand and sliding the string over the prongs on the lucet.

The process for making cord on a lucet is similar to that using a Knitting Nancy - the old four nails in a wooden spool that I made long rope things with as a kid. I'm not going to go into how to do it here since there are great web tutorials out there and some wonderful YouTube videos that do an excellent job of showing the process. Actually, there are several ways to make cord on a lucet, but this time I did the most simple and most common way which makes a nice square cord. I also use the lucet to make a nice flat cord suitable for trim.

Here's a picture of the cord close up.

Kitties Go Outside

2009-01-22T10:48:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, January 21 was the warmest day so far this year, with a high into the seventies degrees Fahrenheit, so the kitties spent the day exploring their yard. This weekend it's supposed to get back down again with a a high in the thirties, so they'll probably spend all their time indoors where it's warm.
I spend a good part of the day doing some cleanup of dead annuals. Both Eric (above and Donny (below) spent much of their time investigating the terraces.

Donovan uses the terrace ledge as a pathway.

My May Day Hat

2009-01-20T17:28:00.000-08:00

May is still a long time away, but the sale on spring garlands at Michael's inspired me to get my hat all ready for May Day. On May Day, the Maroon Bells Morris dancers dance the sun up and the following weekend they dance all around town. I'll be wearing my hat while playing for the dancers. The picture above has my daughter wearing it so I could take a picture. She looks better in it than I do. :-)

Potting Up Geranium Cuttings

2009-01-19T07:10:00.001-08:00

It's that time of year - time to start my geranium cuttings. These geraniums are also known as pelargoniums, which is the genus name for them. Geranium is the genus name of those plants we know as hardy geraniums, an example of which would be Johnson's Blue. But many people know pelargoniums as geraniums, so that's what I'll call them.

Each fall I move my large pots of geraniums indoors where they spend the winter in a big southern window. They bloom quite well there, but by late winter, early spring, they start to get leggy. When this happens, I cut them back and use the cuttings to make knew geraniums for planting all over the yard. I often plant those that I overwintered in the big pots directly in the ground and plant fresh rooted geraniums into the big pots for the summer, which will be brought back in the following fall. The geranium in the top picture is one I've been reproducing for twenty years.

Unlike most things I root, geraniums don't seem to like the additional humidity provided by a ziplock baggie, terrarium, or other enclosure, but root just fine by just sticking the cutting into the soil in the pot and placing them in a window or under lights. So, I take the geranium trimmings, cut them to about 6 inches and remove most of the leaves from the lower stem. I leave about three or four leaves on, depending on the size and spacing of the leaves. It's best to remove the flowers, but in this case I left them on until after the photo was taken, just because they were pretty.

Here I've taken a cutting of the geranium, stripped the lower leaves, dipped the stem in Rootone (although geraniums root quite well without it too) and placed it into the soil in the pot. Besides rooting hormone, Rootone has a bit of fungicide in it that may protect the cutting a bit from rot from fungus. I always use a sterile, good quality potting soil, such as Sunshine Pro Mix. Besides being sterile, it has great drainage, which will help prevent rot.

Once I've watered it in well, I place the geranium pots in either my southern window or in my plant stand which has a four tube fluorescent bulb shop light fixture in it. The cuttings will need to stay moist, but never soggy and should never be in standing water.

Here's another geranium cutting potted up. It's a better example than the one above in that it has less leaf and stem above the soil.

Sometime in late March, early April, I'll move all my geranium cuttings out to my cold frames, where they will stay until they can be safely planted out in late May.

Kitty Fairy and Mermaid in Shop

2009-01-16T08:54:00.001-08:00

I recently added a kitty fairy and a mermaid to my Etsy shop. Kitty is here and the mermaid is here.

Wait, Wait... We're Not Dead Yet!

2009-01-11T08:40:00.000-08:00

National Public Radio made fun of Morris dancing January 10th, the same day we danced out at a very well attended local event. Even though they made fun of our style of dance, we couldn't help but laugh until our sides hurt. Follow this link to another blog post which contains the link to the episode of "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me".

Waiting for Spring!

2009-01-08T15:16:00.001-08:00

The seed catalogs are coming, and along with the occasional nice day outside, I'm getting anxious for spring. I've been placing plenty of online orders already and here's what I've ordered so far:
Morning Glory 'Xiong's Chinese', Amaranth 'Dreadlocks', Cosmos 'Rubenza', Delphinium 'Purple Passion', Morning Glory 'Scarlett O'Hara, Poppy 'Lauren's Grape', Rudbeckia 'Cherry Brandy', Sweet Pea 'Incense Mix', Poppy 'Danish Flag', Poppy 'Heirloom', Poppy 'Imperial Pink' (see picture below), Purple Bell Vine, Salvia - Gentian Sage, Sweet Pea 'Cupani's Original', Sweet Pea 'Mollie Rilestone', Tobacco - 'Jasmine', Butterfly Pea, Aster chinensis Moonshine Mixed, Clematis integrifolia seeds, morning glories Candy Pink, Cameo Elegance and Heavenly Blue (see above), salvia horminium Claryssa, sweet peas Zorija Rose, Wiltshire Ripple, Elegant Ladies, Scarlet Fire Celosia (see below), Black Peony Poppy, White Peshwar Poppy, Texas Hummingbird Sage, Tiger's Eye Mix Sunflower, Bolivian Rainbow Chile Pepper, tomatoes Sungold, Sweet 100, Amish paste, Better Boy, peppers Marconi, Gypsy, lots of beans, broccoli, brussels sprouts, corn and giant pumpkins.
I also need to start my geranium cuttings and get the plant stand ready for seed starts and cuttings.

Tutorial: Making a Tiny Doll Part 1 - using a Freezer Paper Pattern

2009-01-02T10:43:00.001-08:00

This is a tutorial for making a simple small doll using a pattern made with freezer paper. The pattern is in the previous post:
Free Doll Pattern

I've been making small dolls virtually my whole life, but when I discovered the use of freezer paper about a decade ago, it made my life quite a bit easier. Freezer paper has a plastic coating on one side that enables it to temporarily stick to fabric without leaving any residue when removed and the pattern can be used over and over again. I have some freezer paper patterns that are 5 years old and have been used hundreds of times, although they are getting a bit ratty with use.

Freezer paper can be found in the grocery store and comes in a roll. Some cloth doll supply companies even sell it in nice flat sheets that can be used in your printer.

I draw all my pattern prototypes directly on the freezer paper, but you can see through it enough to trace a pattern on it too. Draw the pattern on the paper side of the freezer paper, not the plastic side.

Once the pattern is drawn on the freezer paper, cut the pattern out right along the line. This will be your sewing line.

Double the fabric, wrong sides out. Since we're using a fairly hot iron, I recommend a cotton fabric. My favorite fabrics are Southern Bell and the Egyptian cotton fabric sold at Joann's Fabrics because they have a nice tight smooth weave that makes it easier to turn tiny cloth dolls without seam blow outs.
Iron the pattern plastic side down onto the wrong side of the fabric using a dry iron. Now, some irons get hot enough to melt the plastic coating on cotton setting, so if you have a hot iron, use wool setting. My old iron doesn't melt the plastic even on the hottest setting, but it's old and well used. If in doubt, use a cooler setting and if the pattern doesn't stick, bump up the heat to the next level.

Let the pattern cool on the fabric.

Sew right up along the edge of the pattern using a tiny stitch. I set my old Singer to stitch setting 15. Leave an area open for turning as indicated on the pattern.

When done sewing, peel the pattern off and cut out the doll leaving about 1/8 inch seam allowance. Clip curves, turn, stuff and embellish however you'd like.

Next tutorial will be about turning and stuffing a tiny doll.

Free Doll Pattern

2009-01-02T10:37:00.000-08:00

Here's a tiny doll pattern I just made for the tutorial that will be my very next post. It makes a tiny little doll just under 3 1/2 inches tall. Click on the image to bring up the full size pattern and print it at 200 DPI.

Just joined ArtFire

2008-12-30T00:18:00.000-08:00

I just joined the ArtFire community, and now have a shop there. So far, I just have this dragon pendant listed, but more items will follow.
http://twentypoundtabby.artfire.com

Some Favorite Christmas Presents

2008-12-27T10:12:00.000-08:00

We had a nice, cozy Christmas with just the four of us - my spouse, me and the two kids. We all received some very nice gifts this year and I managed to get pictures of two of them so far. Both of my daughters received hand knit hats and scarves from my sister, who is a fantastic knitter. Both girls wore their hats and scarves indoors all day! This is a picture of my older daughter, whose green eyes seem to match her new hat.

I received a gorgeous Thomsonite pendant from my spouse. I use to pick up Thomsonite from the beaches of Lake Superior decades ago. It is a zeolite mineral with green, pink and black banding. This particular pendant was made in the upper peninsula of Michigan by Julie Sanford and was found in the Miskwabik Ed Gray Gallery in Calumet.

While we didn't exactly put out the suet for the squirrel, he seems to appreciate it quite a bit.

Donovan watches all from his favorite perch.

A French Feast in Denver

2008-12-26T08:56:00.000-08:00

There will be a 14th century French Feast in Denver on January 10th, 2009. More details here.

The Solstice Egg

2008-12-24T13:22:00.000-08:00

On Winter Solstice I got an egg. While many folks probably wouldn't think much of getting an egg, this was quite the surprise for me, for this egg came from one of my chickens. From one of my very ooollllld chickens. A 13 year old chicken. I don't know which one of my four old hens laid it since none of them have laid eggs for over a year. If it is my silkie, it'll be especially hard since her dark comb doesn't show the usual signs of being bright red when she's laying. Chickens usually quit laying at a much younger age, and it is unusual for them to lay in the middle of winter when the days are short.
So, here it is, an egg laid from a very old little hen on the shortest day of the year. Since then, two more eggs have shown up. Oooh, maybe I'll make eggnog with fresh eggs again.

Give Us Some Morris!

2008-12-19T10:18:00.000-08:00

Today's Rocky Mountain News mentions us in their Weekend Roundup which lists events to go to this weekend. The Maroon Bells Morris and Breathless in Berthoud Border Morris will be at the Solabration this Saturday. The best part is the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance at the very end.

Potential Energy

2008-12-18T07:46:00.000-08:00

This is Eric, recharging his batteries after spending the night having a great time being as rowdy as possible. It's too chilly for him to go outside, so he chooses to sleep all day and discharge his energy during the night.

Sunday, December 14, we woke up to snow and cold after having a beautiful Saturday. The low for Sunday was minus 19 degree Fahrenheit.

I made sure the feeders were full, which the finches seemed to appreciate.

The Bat Cats are Back!

2008-12-16T12:51:00.000-08:00

I finally made a couple of new bat cat ornaments to replace those that sold in my shop. You may remember my previous post about them, where my big furry living cats decided to take quite an interest in them: Bat Cats and Kitty Cats
I've put the first one in my Etsy shop and the second will follow in a day or two.

The Moon in a Sunset

2008-12-12T10:29:00.001-08:00

Here in Colorado, we often have sunsets that color the entire sky, including the east. Here, the moon is rising in the east among pink clouds of one such sunset.

The snow looked like crystal.

And Donovan preferred to stay warm inside.

What to do on cold, snowy days

2008-12-10T13:03:00.000-08:00

Eric has the right idea - find a warm comfy spot and take a nap. We got around 8 inches of snow yesterday and it went down to 10 degrees Fahrenheit last night.

The Accordion

2008-12-03T14:37:00.000-08:00

Ummm, yeah, I really do play it. And I just found a picture of me doing it online here taken by a Coloradoan photographer:
http://tinyurl.com/5p98mz

Don't laugh too hard!

When this picture was taken, I had been playing all of two weeks. I had learned how to play the bass side and how to move the bellows in and out. The keyboard was easy since I already knew piano. Then I memorized 20 songs to play in public for a bunch of dancers at an Irish festival in Fort Collins, Colorado. I didn't do too bad.

A Dragon and a Kitty

2008-12-03T06:55:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple more that went into the Boulder Handweavers Guild sale. I don't usually do blue dragons, but I did one this year, and a tabby kitty fairy.

The Boulder Handweaver's Guild Sale

2008-12-01T21:35:00.000-08:00

I've been busy as heck getting ready for the Boulder Handweaver's Guild Sale, which will be in Longmont, Colorado from this Wednesday until the following Tuesday. I even pulled some items from my Etsy store for it.
I modified the style of a few of my items and also added a few new styles. The Kitty Fairies, which were brand new to the FootHills Holiday Art Mart a few weeks ago are also being entered in the Guild Sale.

The mermaids and fairies have had a hair style change from previous years beaded hair and now have long flowing locks made of a beautiful art yarn.

And I've added a brand new design - a horse:

There will also be dragons, fish, dinos, moons, and of course cats!

The Boulder Handweaver's Guild Sale.

Dragons in Polymer Clay

2008-11-24T07:13:00.001-08:00

A few years back, I discovered Christi Friesen's wonderful work, and shortly thereafter, her tutorials on how to create dragon shapes, imbed stones and beads into polymer clay, etc. I then dug out my huge tub of polymer clay a made myself and little dragon pendant.

The bodies and wings incorporate lots of loops and swirls, which I've always been drawn to so making these came very naturally to me. I liked it so much, I wanted to make more and sell them. Even though none are direct copies of Christi's work, they are done in her style so I asked permission and Christi gave me the OK to sell, so I made some more to sell at an SCA event. I still have a few, so I thought I'd put them up in my Etsy shop.

These little dragons are pretty big for pendants, ranging in size from 2 to 3 1/2 inches. Some have glass beads and some have semiprecious stones in them. Some of the eyes are hematite, some are a very deep red garnet and some are tigereye.

The Morning Paper

2008-11-21T09:52:00.000-08:00

Apparently I'm not supposed to read the paper today. According to Eric, petting comes first.

Foothills Art Center Holiday Art Market

2008-11-20T13:38:00.000-08:00

I've been busy as heck getting stuff ready for two shows, one of which is the Foothills Art Center Holiday Art Market in Golden, Colorado. I put a board full of hand dyed cloth pins and quite a few ornaments there and some of my kitty pot holders.

This is the first time I've ever entered my kitty fairies in a show.

My board full of pins is quite colorful.

The show runs until December 30th.
FootHills Art Center, Golden Colorado

Wordless Wednesday - Eric's Wiskers

2008-11-12T06:44:00.000-08:00

A Treasury of the Moon

2008-11-10T12:55:00.000-08:00

I have always loved the moon, both in nature, folklore and art. Tweedlebee created this beautiful treasury on Etsy and included my moon ornament in it. The treasury will be up until Tuesday, November 11. Until then, you can find it here.

Wordless Wednesday - Donovan Hams It Up

2008-11-05T10:56:00.000-08:00

New Dolls from Nifty Knits

2008-11-02T16:14:00.000-08:00

I just received some genuine English morris dancers from Nifty Knits in the UK. She knitted up two little morris dancers to match my two full sized, living, breathing, stick whacking, hankie waving, bell clad morris dancers - Chris and Emily. The doll's baldrics even have a tiny version of the Maroon Bells Morris badge with the Maroon Bells mountains on it. I love the beard on the one that looks like Chris.

If you're at all curious about morris dancing, we have a website for the Maroon Bells Morris here.

And if you'd like a little morris dancer of your own, or another cool knitted item, Nifty Knits can be found here.

A Different Kind Of Cat!

2008-10-31T16:49:00.000-07:00

An Emily cat!

Halloween Jack O' Lantern

2008-10-31T14:53:00.000-07:00

Our freshly carved Jack O' Lantern, done by Emily. Donovan likes to eat pumpkin guts, so he hung around too.

Ogre! Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T11:14:00.000-07:00

When I made him, I was not quite sure if this little rust, ochre and green guy is an ogre or a demon. He might even be a bogeyman. But he was made with the Halloween spirit in mind.
He can be found here.

Wordless Wednesday - Eric Sees a Bug

2008-10-29T09:17:00.000-07:00

On the Front Page

2008-10-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

One of my items was on the front page of Etsy for a bit - fortunately some friends of mine saw it and caught an image of the front page for me. This image is from Grooveycrafts. My little black cat brooch is in it.

FAE Fundraiser for Nora

2008-10-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

The FAE street team is having a fundraiser for one our member who has had major surgery and whom is recuperating.

See the pair of dolls made in our collaboration:

Dark Doll
http://battlemaidenart.blogspot.com/2008/10/dark-doll-auction.html

Light Doll
http://battlemaidenart.blogspot.com/2008/10/light-doll-auction.html

Each member who volunteered to work on each doll put their own expertise on the doll of their choice.

Please consider visitng our dolls, the sale of them ends 10-25 at SIX PM Central time.

(The above text, courtesy of Debbie)

Butternut Squash Harvest

2008-10-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

I harvested my butternut squash a few days ago. It was a good harvest, although I think I've never had a bad harvest of butternut squash. I've moved them all to shelves in the garage where they will stay until sometime in January or February, at which time I'll cook them all up and store them in the freezer.
Butternut is far better if not eaten as soon as it's picked. If it's allowed to site a while in a nice cool dark place, it'll ripen further and get much sweeter. Once it gets to that stage, I cook it and save the flesh in the freezer. I've found it easier to cook it with the skin on and then just scoop out the soft flesh. Sometimes I save the seeds before cooking the squash and roast them with butter and salt. I prefer them over pumpkin seeds since they are smaller and more tender.
The cooked butternut stores well in the freezer. I'm currently trying to use up last year's crop so I have room for this year's. It's very nice as a side heated up in the microwave with a bit of butter, and makes a fantastic "pumpkin" pie.

Another Kitty Pot Holder

2008-10-19T10:02:00.000-07:00

I love the color on this one! I just uploaded it to my store here.

Bat Cats and Kitty Cats

2008-10-17T12:14:00.001-07:00

Today, I had "help" while trying to photograph my newest bat cat ornament for my Etsy shop. Both Donny and Eric insisted in inspecting my little bat cat while I was taking its picture.
First to inspect and hog the camera was Donny, the twenty pound tabby:

Then Eric had to get a sniff in and thoroughly inspect the ornament:

This is the little bat cat that they were so curious about. You can find him in my Etsy store here.

Fantastic Fall Foliage

2008-10-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

Last week I spent Thursday traveling all the way up Michigan from Saint Clair at the base of the thumb to the Keweenaw Peninsula during peak color season. I don't think I could have picked a better time. Michigan was aflame with color the entire trip. Most of the color was from maples, but there were some oak, sumac and others with bright color.

There was at least as much color in the upper peninsula:

Some closeups of leaves:

We finally got to my sister's place in the Keweenaw:

We found some interesting colorful fungi on her place, plus a bald eagle:

Some Vintage Crewel Pillows

2008-10-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

While I was at my Mom's place last week, I noticed she still had a couple of pillows I made from kits decades ago. These would probably qualify for vintage under Etsy's rules. I made them back when I was a teenager. Even thought they are very dated, they are kind of cute.
Here are some details:

Tag, You're It!

2008-10-13T16:30:00.000-07:00

Sandfibers and Glitzy Gallery Gal tagged me. The rules are I link back to the tagger(s), share seven random or weird facts about myself, post these rules and then tag seven others.

Here's the facts:

1. I have over 420 roses in my gardens. It seemed like a good idea at the time when I was only in my twenties.

2. I play piano, dulcimer, banjo, guitar, penny whistle, and accordion. Harp is next on the list to learn.

3. I've been married 26 years.

4. I met my husband when we were both 14, but we didn't get married until we were 23.

5. I am a first generation American.

6. I craved broccoli when pregnant.

7. I have 4 very old little hens. They are 13 this year.

I'm tagging:
Beaded Tail
Thyme 2 Dream
Rose Thistle Artworks
WaterRose
Groovey Crafts
Purr Prints

Kitten in a Mirror

2008-10-07T13:47:00.000-07:00

Here's my in-laws' new kitten! We just transported Cora from Iowa to her new home in Michigan. Here, she explores a mirror on a table.

September Flowers in the Garden

2008-09-27T16:51:00.000-07:00

September is a great time for color in the garden. The dahlias, hardy hibiscus and morning glories are at their peak. The above is one of my dahlias, as are the next two flowers. Once we get a freeze, I'll need to dig up the tubers and store them in the garage until next spring.

Here's one of the garden residents:

I still have some glorious poppies:

The celosia, Gentian sage, sunflowers and sweet peas are vivid annuals that are at their best right now. I'm amazed how well the sweet peas have lasted this year - it was a cooler summer than usual. The vivid pink Japanese and blue Heavenly Blue morning glories are also gorgeous as well as the bluish purple morning glories that have been reseeding for years.

The hardy hibiscus don't even start blooming until almost September. The flowers are huge and have to be seen to be believed. They are perennial, but don't poke out of the ground until the beginning of June.

And finally, the roses are in the peak of their last flush of the year. These are some of my repeat blooming old garden roses.