craftin for roundtop

i have a girlfriend of 30+years who is just a crafter extraordinairre! she will soon be departing to go to roundtop and will bring her great  crafts(beautiful hats and jackets).she sells in roundtop , new mexico, virginia and also san angelo, texas.

 bc(before cancer) i used to go on some of her craft trips with her and sell my crafts as well.  a good time was had by all!!!!

 

now  i stay home, and hope for the day when i will again “hit the trail” and hang out with my friend , reid, but since i have started to craft again she usually offers to take some of my wares with her, like the  domestic goddes aprons that i have pictured above.

if you are going to roundtop, be sure and check out the folks at “gone to texas”. they are a fun group with wonderful items. my friend , reid will be there amongst them:hats, jackets, from recycled vintage wools and linens.

dust yourself off, and start all over again……

i have spent the last couple of days in THE craft room, what i call.. putzin around.

i thought i would try and share with you some of the sights in there and where i hope to go from here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i havent been in the craft room much in the last couple of years, as some of you may know.But the same motivation that got me crafting before has sprung up again….and i find myself increasingly taking refuse in there.  of course, this summer with texas hitting record high temps, i havent been so tempted  to venture into my gal  cave.

Now, this is the hall way leading into the craft room. some would say that my “stuff” has started to spill out of the craftroom and even into the house.(more about this at another time).i of course dont really agree wth this belief.

 the house.  so the first order of the day was to dust, dust, dust, and see if there could be a starting point here.

now if i can just find my.........

 old crafts, journals, pin cushions and bunnies

hand crafted journals

and new ideas and new friends:

i think i can ……..

what a shock, you can stay away from your post for over a year, and then like a good friend just pick up where you left off.

this blog has always been about the bunnies, but now it will have to serve as a posting site for all thinkgs omie…..the farm, the crafts, the kids and their kids and the farm animals.

alot has happened in the last year,,,and surprisingly not much has really changed.

but over the next few days and weeks i hope we can catch up and i can get back on this bike and ride.

recrafting a quilt……..

i love this quilt. i bought it in round top from a great dealer named harol hollis. it was really the first time i had ever met harold and he gave me a wonderful deal on this piece. the first of many great deals.

so when the quilt after much use and love started to fray, i decided i would have to tackle the task of the repair myself. the price i paid was so minimal that maybe in my eyes this piece wasnt worth paying to have the repairs done, but i love this quilt and to me it is priceless, so maybe i just wanted to repair it myself.                      

There are so many things i love about this quilt. the colors are dramatic. the pattern is big , bordering on huge ,and the fabric is a cool crepe, not the typical cotton fabric that we usually imagine with quilts. there are some cotton pieces in the quilt but they are almost homespun in their roughness and surprisingly they are the pieces that must be replaced as if they finally decided to revolt and get away from this rebellious piece.  even the back of the quilt looks amazing and the fabric is as contemporary in its boldness as it is quant in its subject matter.

it could easily be seen in an anthropologie cataloque today. 

i would guess this quilt was made at least in the 50′s, but i lean a little more towards the 30-40′s.

this makes me wonder about the creator of the quilt. i think i must know her .

she had to be a dreamer, a young woman who thought out of the box. but her box may have been the 1950s, when the box for women was a tad more confining than it is today.

and somehow this quilt brought to mind a picture of my mom with her graduating class. she is the one looking off  tothe left.

i think about how she would often take the road less travelled in her opinions and then would “VOICE” them. what a journey she made. what changes she saw.

but i know she is not the only woman i have known that had an amazing story and a dream that if not fufilled by them, might one day be dreamed by a daughter or granddaughter.

i wonder sometimes where my stories come from , and my love for telling them. my mom was a woman of direct communication. she had romantic notions and loved to read, but she was not a story teller. when i asked about her past and the stories of her family she would complain to me that those things were not important, or that she just simply did not know the answers. after all, her mom grew up in a tenement house in new york, helping to raise her siblings who were without parents, orphaned at an early age. she died in a sanitarium for tuberculosis in san angelo, texas in the early 20′s. maybe these were stories that she would rather not remember.

so i had other women in my life, storytellers and dreamers who could see beauty and create it and had a life or maybe just a soul that inspired it in others.  i think of them as angels of mychildhood, who helped me remain an optomist. encouraged me with their humor and storytelling to believe in beauty and myself.

simone garcia was one of these angels, and tiny stepchinski was the other.

these ladies would encourage me, that i Could have long hair if i wanted it, and i could sing like a bird and that life could be fun,,,,,,and that storytelling is an art.

i think they would love my quilt.

i know my mom would.

it’s raining at the farm!

 isabella, the farmdog, was quite perplexed when she heard the strange sound of the rumbling thunder.   she literally had to run out on the porch to check out this sound which she had never heard, and her being a new mom, but not quite an ‘ole lady, as olivia would say, she just didnt have a clue what that rumblin sound meant.

but i did. i stopped my housecleaning and stared outside in complete amazement.

i was just putting the kitchen tablecloth on when i heard the strange sounds myself. the day was already determined for me. i was going to spend the morning cleaning house and the afternoon crafting. a perfect combination. i had just wondered if i should remove a few layers from the west windows.  this summer was so hot and dry that i had stored my tablecloths on the west windows to block some of the sun, aka heat from the kitchen which gets hot enough in the evening when you cook. 

besides i just like looking at all the vintage tablecloths and believe it diverts the eye from my “exposed” ceilings.  a little sharecropper chic decorating, there.

but as i was adding my layers of table cloth curtains, i heard the pounding of rain on the window and well, i had to go outside with little isabella and introduce her to rain.

ps. she says she likes it.

autumn loves her omies stuffies……..

this is one of the reasons that i love to make the felted stuffies. my youngest daughter sent  this picture to me of her daughter hugging her latest stuffie from her omie.

i love the way that autumn comes to the farm just knowing that there is a new stuffie waiting for her….and that her omie made it….and that it was made from felted sweaters that have been transformed into a new treasure or lovey.  i love being a grandma, and a crafter and feeling like i have a new chance to hopefully  impart some  kind of wisdom to be grandchildren about our world .  i am constantly surprised, though at how much they all teach me about our world and what it means to love and be loved.

a simpler christmas this year.

i think it is a little early for christmas,  we have yet to have thanksgiving.

but this year is full of surprises for me….so when i started getting the christmas feeling waaaay to early, i didnt know what to do.

i havent had a “bona fide” christmas in many years….about 20 to be exact.

and i never have the m0ney to go all out at christmas anyway.

my big celebration has always been thanksgiving, on christmas, i am usually alone, the result of a divorce that occured a lifetime ago.

it long ago ceased to be a sad time for me….it is a quiet time, with no deadlines and no frantic preparation.  i do use the time to reflect, and on occasion i do feel alone, but have long ago stopped feeling lonely.

so now i have grandchildren and they do NOT adhere to divorce decrees that have nothing to do with them,,,,and then this year i had the cancer journey which has made me more tender and more nostalgic…..i dont know how else to describe it.

olivia, my oldest grandaughter is frequently the catalyst here for new and improved ideas.  this year “omie” will be having a tree at the farm and here are the rules.

the tree will be miniature, fake and second hand. i am among other things a queen of all things second hand.  the ornaments can be found , or made but cannot be purchased specifically for the tree. no 25.00 ornaments, even though they are quite beautiful.

first exception:  the tree topper was purchased today……it coast 1.50.

i couldnt help myself , it is quite lovely and wasnt meant to be a tree topper, it is a repurposed ornament.  

then olivia and deven came to visit and olivia went right into the decorating mode. she understood the whole concept for the simpler christmas and wanted to do her part.

she started with some antique miniature ornaments that i had gathered up from the local thrift stores and started to decorate the tree.

we decided to gather up some beautiful items from nature and embellish them and see what kind of a tree we have from this plan.

i am so crafting again……

 

and now i have an etsy site.

i have started crafting pincushions and acorns and bunnies again and having a great time doing it.

will be taking some bunnies to dallas this weekend . i am making a trip there to see my friend reid,  teal and the grandkids, and hope to go to a meeting with the dallas fiber artist, a group i want to join and start attending meetings.

i am still making the giant pincushions from burr acorn caps, that are native to this area. they are so unique and if you are caught up in the acorn thang you will love these unique pincushions. they are stuffed with cedar sawdust so they can also be used in your sweater drawer to keep those pesky moths at bay.

so , until then, we’ll see ya on the craftin trail!

frannie in texas

bittersweet goodbyes………..

the bunnies destined for kentucky had a picnic meeting to plan their trip home….……………………………………………………………………………………………..

as, with any change, i have had bittersweet moments over the thought of the bunnies making there much delayed trip to kentucky. i really knew all along that the couple was travelling to their new home, but then i got sick and mama bunny got pregnant, and it seemed that the trip was never going to happen.

mama and pappa bunny are just wonderful parents, and well, no one could have helped me more with the farm during my journey through chemo. they knew every inch of the farm, and all the animals, and kept everything going while i just slept through my treatments!

so many folks have been so thoughtful and kind  with prayers, and well wishes, cards and gifts. i will never be able  to repay every ones kindness.

the bunnys really sacrificed to be here with me, and so it seems the time has come for me to say a bittersweet goodbye and set them free.  they have a new home waiting for them in kentucky, and while they have made my cancer journey bettersweet rather than bittersweet, we have known all along that eventually they would have to resume their own journey and leave me to mine.

i am truly the richer for their comfort and they will always be in my heart.

hitchin a ride on the gypsy wagon……..

A SURPRISE FOR VIOLET…….

Of all the crafts i do, i have missed working with the bunnies the most. for one thing they were really a joint project that i shared with my granddaughter, olivia. and well, i never really felt i created them, i just  felt they were somehow, channelling themselves through me.(insert eeeerie music here). hehe

so it was pretty disappointing and embarrassing to me when i had to stop making them when i got sick. and really i still had a back order on them, and that left a bad feeling  in my heart as well.

i hope slowly to get all of that ironed out and then my bunnies will be on my etsy site.   we’ll see…

these are some bunnies i hope to send off to kentucky to a farmgirl mom and her new daughter violet. i know the bunnies will enjoy their new home and i hope my farmgirl friend jonni and her little one will enjoy the bunnies.