Camera Silliness....

   I am sure having difficulty uploading videos from my phone to this blog. I can use the built in web cams but it is hard to crochet with a laptop between it and me. My phone takes much better videos too.
  It seems my only recourse is to have someone else (Ellie?) hold the phone and take the video -then we can upload to the computer.
  Anyone that knows Ellie.. Stop laughing. :)

Nesting..... Baby Watch

   It has been a long 40+ weeks. Or so it seems to me. We are so eager to meet Little Miss Seraphina. There was an area on her wall where Mira was wanting to put some shelves in to hold all of the children's books. That has not happened yet. For now she did make this sweet little hammock out of the yarn we used at her baby shower. The game was to guess the length to go around her waist.
  It just made this little hammock very sentimental and a nice way to keep a piece of her shower around long past the diapers and pacifiers.

Crochet 1

I recommend getting a size J or K hook for learning reasons.

 Some regular white or very light colored yarn and we are all set to begin.

Watch the video first, then I will add some notes.

The reason I prefer you get a large hook and light yarn is so we can see what you are doing. If you have a problem and send a pic. It will be nice if I can actually see it. 

I am getting very frustrated trying to load a video here. I finally figured out my problem. My youtube and google are on different accounts.  Makes me quite silly *rolls eyes*

Tomorrow if we are not on babywatch, I will remedy this.  :)

When you first start go ahead and rip it out as many times as you need to,

 until you are sure you have the beginning and chain down pat.  

This video is not very good, but other things came up today. 

Then the ones I did after dark did not work at all. 

We will get a better one up though. With instructions on it. 

God Bless

~Ginger

Crafting Friendships

Another day with not a single thing made, except a strengthening of faith and renewal of spirit.
We had our weiner roast and hay ride at church tonight. They counted 130-150. Hard to say for sure. For a little country church we have a lot of souls. This is probably one of my favorite church activities. I did not stay late because I had taken a couple other kids with me. Smore's are just not my favorite food. The blackened hot dogs however I could live on YUMMY!!

DITNEY RIDGE BAPTIST CHURCH

Ashley's House

Tomorrow there will be an event to raise money for a project very close to our hearts. They are raising money for a smoke trailer used in training children of all ages what to do in the event of a fire.
Ashley Weir was Mira's very close friend all through school. From third grade on.
We will be donating 50% of our profits to the Ashley Weir Scholarship Fund. So I hope we do well, so we have something to give.
They already have the trailer and take it to schools or anywhere people want them to bring it to teach children about fire. They really want to get a flat screen T.V. and a DVD player for it. They play educational material during the tours.
There will also be a table set up with prints of Jessi Evans Art With the proceeds going to the Jessi Evans Scholarship Fund. Another girl that left us way too soon, I still can't type about her without choking on the words. So anyone within the vicinity of Norris City Crossroads church come on out and help support these causes.
God Bless!
~Ginger

Bread Yet?

   Between Craft Shows and sewing it seems I am spinning in circles. It has been a wish of mine to make real home started sourdough with no packaged yeast. Just the water and flour. It has finally happened. Tuesday was the first time I felt it was stable enough to use. So I carefully followed all of the instructions for bread using just my own homemade starter and after hours and hours my rolls were in the oven. ..... I went back to my sewing room, i had been working on several things in there all day. BIG NO-NO. I forgot I was cooking. One hundred and five (105) minutes later as I walked up the hall, The aroma hit me. Fresh bread! Oh man, so disappointed in myself. It did not burn, it dried. Like pottery. Fortunately as I was making the starter instead of throwing away the excess I kept one other starter, so I could give some away. It is so simple if anyone wants to do it. Here is what you have to do.
   One cup warm water to one cup of flour. Stir it up well, cover and set on top the refrigerator (preferably in glass container) until it gets all bubbly and smells yeasty (24 hours). If it isn't bubbly just wait. According to everything I have read it can happen in 12 to 36 hours.  I have a starter friendly climate and mine did well. After it is bubbly feed it 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of warm water. Wait again until it is bubbly. You might have water on top, that is fine (called hooch) just pour it off or stir it in. I kept mine. Now the next time it bubbles divide it in half. Throw half away and feed the other 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup warm water. Instead of throwing mine away - I made another starter.
   After you have done this several times and it is obviously a good healthy starter it is time to feed it again then putting it in the refrigerator. Feed it once a week with 1/2 C f;our and 1/2 C water. Throwing 1/2 away before feeding.
   To make your bread take the starter out and feed it 1 C flour and 1 C water let it sit on the counter until it is bubbly all the way through to the bottom. This is called a sponge. Make sure it is bubbly on the bottom too, it will look like a slow boiling cream soup or something. (you won't see it boiling, it just looks like it has been)  After the sponge is ready take 2 C of it and put in a bowl with 2 T soft butter 2 t salt and 5 t sugar, mix it up and start adding flour until you have a soft dough. Mine has taken anywhere from 2 to 4 Cs. Not sure why such a difference. Just use the dough consistency to get the proper amount, not the recipe. Barely dry enough to be able to knead. Knead for about 10 minutes.or until a finger hole poked in pops right back out. Let sit until it doubles in size. Punch it down, shape into a loaf and let rize again. Sourdough start with no added yeast takes longer to rise. A LOT longer to rise. Best to start in the morning or let the last rising rise overnight.
   My best advice is to not sew once you pop it in the oven.
   Enjoy!

Crochet? Anyone?

Our event today was rather slow. Things just did not work out as planned. Not anyone's fault, just the way it goes sometimes.
  So we had other sorts of fun instead. One woman was teaching some crochet stitches to another woman. Several other vendors watched this interaction with some amusement. If you have never watched someone get crochet lessons, it might be worth your time. ;)
  Tomorrow is supposed to be another show if it isn't raining. Maybe it will be a bit better..
God Bless

~Ginger

Little Doggy Ruffs

  We have an event tomorrow to raise money for a local animal rescue. We wracked our brains and Mira finally asked me if I could make some doggy cuffs. She even came up with the label idea. I have seen dog leg warmers before although usually crocheted or knitted. So I made one and we put it on Thea. She did not mind it at all and when she would take it off she brought it back to Mira to put back on her. I did not get many made.  Oh well..  This is something I think I will continue to make..
God Bless.
~Ginger

Work, work, work, or not.

 I have been wanting to get a lot of items made up for our next two events. It just seems something happens everyday. There are so many things I want to blog about yet it seems there is never enough time. My sewing room is almost finished, just have one more cabinet and table to move back here. Things will be much easier with it all in the same place. Tomorrow evening we will be setting up in Carmi for Saturdays show. Then in one week we will have another event here in town. I would like to post some pictures of our displays, however if I remember correctly this weeks event will have limited space. We will see.
God Bless
~Ginger

Duct Tape and Baling Wire

  A silly fun fact I thought I would share. What is in a name? We changed our name from one that did not indicate what we did. Through long hard discussions we decided on ~ Emporium ~ It has a nice ring to it and denotes many items. Mira makes many things including her duct tape line. She does wooden wall decor, canvas wall decor, lanyards, beaded everything, crochet and so much more. I myself sew about anything, crochet about anything, do bead work and I bend baling wire. Yes! Baling wire or electric fencing. I bend it into rings, bracelets, and more. My favorite bent wire item though is my tree. So when we were trying to come up with a name Duct Tape and Baling Wire was at the forefront (for a minute or two anyway). We were afraid people would be disappointed when they realized we did not really carry nuts and bolts etc. ~Ginger

Another OOPS Day.

  For weeks I have known Ellie's leaf collection was due yet I could not remember to grab my printer. (It was on loan to someone) So here it is the last day. We had a visitation to go to. Meds to go fetch for Ells only to get home to find her leaves in a horrible mess, labels missing, everything in a jumble. At some point I might explain about Ellie, she does not really process information like we do. It did not occur to her when the leaves fell out of the "pressing" book that they needed to be laid flat again and the labels put back with them separately....- Then we discovered her list and instructions were not here. Her Dad had just lost a close friend so I hated to bother him, I did finally call him but he was not back home yet. A friend finally told me to just Facebook it. Within 5 minutes I had the list.
The End
Maybe tomorrow I can craft or sew again. Fred lost her clothes again so I need to make something else sparkly..
Good night..
May God Bless..

Another Fun Day

  We were supposed to have an event today, it was cancelled due to the weather. So I went back to sleep. Since I was going to miss church I had turned off my church alarms and just had the very early event alarm set. OOPS! I slept very late. When I finally woke up Ellie had eaten four, yes FOUR cupcakes. Oh my...

  First thing I did was start on diapers. We had some old hoodies from some popular brands, they will make cute bums. Then Mira came over worried about curtains for Baby Seraphina's room. So we pushed the diapers to the side and got out the only non-velvet white fabric I had. The Bridal Satin that we never used.
We got some curtains whipped up, now nesting mother can relax.
Mira has several plans for dressing them up. 

Not sure which one she will go with. 

Of course we will post pics and the "how-we-did-its" when we/she do whatever it may be.

God Bless!

Duct Tape Doggy Decorations

   Mira has come up with these adorable little decorative collars for our loving, devoted, furry four footed friends. Thorin was so excited to be up on the pile of pillows I could barely get any pictures. These will be available at the Pets @ Risk event in Carmi on the 12th..

Fred Gets New Clothes

   Figured I should make Fred another outfit for tomorrow. This had been cut out laying in my "Ready-to-Sew" basket (along with many more). We are supposed to go to Grayville tomorrow however the weather might not cooperate.

I took all of these pictures at the same time. The white background is the truer color..

Bum Covers from the Behind Side

   Just wanted to show what some of the backs look like. I meant to earlier and got sidetracked by life.

Diapers

Today we worked on diapers and inserts for Seraphina. We are cutting it a bit close since she is due in less than two weeks. We will have plenty done though. She (Mira) is going to use disposable for the first couple of weeks, so that eases the pressure some. 

Nursery Lace

Nursery Lace HOW-TO

Mira's newest creation for the Baby's bedroom. 

She painted three flat canvas 8x10s

~ in colors to coordinate in the nursery, 

~ then layered lace over in strips.

~ then lightly painted with white spray paint.

Meet Fred.

Finally got Fred where I need her. I will have to work fast though since we have another event on Saturday. All the two piece leotard sets. (Gymnastic/dance) are gone. So it will be sew like crazy all week. Thankfully I have a lot already cut out. Anyone in the Infield Illinois area come over and see us at Mule Days...praying the weather is pleasant ;) God Bless!

oooh Candy Corn

  Mira has made the cutest little Halloween Versaclip. Not sure how much more Duct Taping she will be doing with her due date looming so near. I did want to post this before Halloween though. Her Versaclips have been very popular.

Now I hope to get some serious sewing done today. God willing.  I made some charm rings last night because the tree (explained at a later date) is getting so bare. ~Ginger