Rag Rug Bug Has Bitten

 
This rug was made with one fabric.  It was a black with bright colored skulls all over it.  Not something I would have chosen to quilt with but it was perfect for weaving!  After hours bending down to weave, I decided to try putting the loom on an easel and it worked wonderfully!  Initially I borrowed an old art easel from my daughter  and once I was sure it worked well, my husband built an easel for me.

 

He is not aware that I took this action shot of the building process!  I have been trying to get him to make a YouTube video showing how he did it since it was a combination of several ideas.  No luck with that but he did build another easel for my larger loom,

He likes to claim that I am craft obsessed, but he is definitely an enabler!

 

Summer of Weaving

This has been a summer of  weaving for me.  It all started  with a day on Pinterest looking for ideas on weaving an old fashioned rag rug.  The crochet rag rugs are absolutely beautiful but I found that crocheting with fabric strips is hard on the hands...at least for me!  So I began looking at other options.

One of the great things about having been in the military is that you have friends living all over!  On a recent trip to visit family in Florida, I stopped in for some time with a close friend in Tennessee.  I had mentioned the weaving interest to her and by the time I got there she had tracked down some looms for me.  Turns out the very loom I had been looking at was made by a gentleman in Dell, Ar which was close by!  Take a look at their website...I have enjoyed reading through all of it!  http://ouroldcountrystore.blogspot.com/p/rag-rug-looms.html

I came home with a set of 3 looms that you can actually combine and get 2 more sizes.  One of them is a mug mat size which is a great one to start with!  Friends and family would tell you I am very crafty and  while I do love to make things...learning a new skill takes time.

I found a few videos where people were whipping right thru their weaving.  That is great but I think it is easy to forget what it is like to be new.  I finally found very helpful tips and video here: http://simplyresourceful.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-to-make-rag-rug.html

 

With much help from my corgi Poppy, I managed to get my rags ready.  I tried both 2 and 3 inch strips and both worked great.  I found that I prefer using a rotary cutter rather than just ripping...fewer strings and just looked neater over all.

Really enjoying making these rugs and will be posting pictures of several I have worked on the last few months.  They are time consuming and I like to have more than one going at a time.

I have been frequenting charity shops and yard sales to pick up sheets in a bunch of colors.  Cleaned out my own closet and all old sets of sheets went in a basket to be cut into strips.  It doesnt matter if they have a stain...all can be used for rugs.  Put the word out to friends to save old sheets for you too!

More weaving to come!!

Wild West Graduation

Flashback:

May was a busy month gearing up for graduation!  Because of the fact that we have moved around a lot as a military family we don't actually live near any blood relatives.  We have loved every minute of this nomadic life and have found adopted family in each place we have lived.   This particular graduation is for my adopted niece, Madeleine, who graduated from high school this year.  

Last year during the flurry of graduation open houses that go on, Madeleine decided that when her time came she would like to have a western theme.  I love a good theme!  My youngest graduated 2 years ago and we had a big graduation luau out at the lake and loved every minute of it!  I was happy to hear that the next graduate in our family also wanted something a little different!

Because her mom and I are planners we had no less than four meetings to make lists and bounce ideas off of our girl.  During this period we succumbed to something I like to call the DOG (Delusions of Grandeur) syndrome so needless to say, many lofty ideas did not come to pass.  All in all though, I think we pulled off a great day complete with western theme and for me the process was actually more fun than the party!

my first attempt at burlap roses and I was thrilled to find that burlap now comes in many vibrant colors!  we had collected little glass boots to use for vases and filled them with coffee beans to hold our flowers in place.

The candy graduation caps are one of my favorite things to make and take for a grad open house.  Miniature Reese's peanut butter cups on the bottom with an after 8 dinner mint on the top with an m&m and yellow icing for the tassel.  glued together with icing.

The message jar below was made from a pickle jar...just spray painted the lid red and added some rafia.

The picture horseshoe was my husbands contribution.  Poor guy has been the victim of many a crazy plan from me.  He always says I use the "royally we" when volunteering to take on some mad project.  We used plywood for the base and attached cork.  The our graduate put all her pictures on to make it her own!

The graduation was held at a beautiful country home and we roped off the driveway to make an area for tables and fellowship.  Her colors were red and silver and I was able to find a chicken feeder in red and fill it with skittles to make a people feeder.

A sweet picture of grad and grandma at the cute little picture booth complete with hats and bandanas and picture frame

I am notorious for decorating everything I can so even the pickle jars didn't escape! 

Candy mold are easy and can be made ahead of time for any event!  love these little  boots and hats.  The light brown ones are peanut butter and they were especially tasty!

Found some inexpensive glass plates at wal-mart and decoupaged them with turquoise and red bandanas to make plates for this stand.     The candles are simple votives I had inherited a box of and a little ribbon and burlap made them perfect for the occasion!

Back to Blogging!

  I have got to be the world's worst blogger!  I look back over my Crafty Corgi Cottage blog and so enjoy seeing the chronicle of crafts  unfold and regret not having stuck with it.
  I can't possibly go back and recover those lost months so I will start with  the present and occasionally include excerpts from the lost months...lol!
 

Birthday Knitting Needles

A friend recently had a birthday and since she loves all things pink...and is quite crafty...I decided to try making her a pair of knitting needles to match her personality!  I looked at several ideas and after trying to whittle some out of sticks from the yard...lol...there will be no pictures of those today...I opted to take a shortcut and use dowel sticks.

I had dowels of all sizes from a yard sale find so I selected a pair and cut them off to make them 10 inches long.  Sharpened one end with a pencil sharpener to make a dull point, sanded well and put on some beeswax to seal and polish a bit.  Had some wooden beads just the right size and painted them.  Now my artistic abilities are severely limited so I warned her not to look at that part too closely.  I sprayed a clear sealer on the beads and after they were completely dry I put a little glue in the inside of each bead and slid them on.  what I found was it helped to have some extra dowels you don't mind getting paint on for ease in the painting and drying process.

After I finished my pink beads, I played around with a few others...as I said, not a lot of talent going on in the

 painting department...lol!

I have a fall planter that I usually put flower pins in at this time of year and for the day they housed a variety of knitting needles as they dried.  my husband said it looked like an alien on the cabinet

...and he says I have a wild imagination.

New Craft Room!

I've been busy rearranging and setting up my craft kingdom in a new room.  Previously I had a corner of the living room and was happy with that but really wanted to switch things up for a change.  

This room is right off of the kitchen and I love the fireplace.  This year I will enjoy it even more!

I had just enough wall space for all of my threads and a bulletin board!  I like to leave my sewing and embroidery machines set up for easy use.  Now the noise won't bother anyone watching tv in the other room.

Never far away from the action, Poppy likes to be in the middle of things.  You have to look closely to see her in this picture but she is firmly planted on the air conditioning vent...I wondered why the room felt stuffy - going to have to put a stop to that!

Moving furniture really tires her out.

Now, no excuses...time to get to work and finish up final projects for an upcomoing craft fair!

New Yarn Swift!

I desperately needed a yarn swift!  My husband jumped in to build me one!  He rolls his eyes and sighs loudly when it comes to all my crafting ventures, but his is an enabler and always steps up to help me build the tools of my obsession.

We found the instructions and a great youtube video here! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNSEXRRxOzQ  

I got some action shots...here he is getting the legs glued on

hammering in the dowels

all assembled.  Of course there was a bit more work that went on in between!  We needed a white plastic hose coupler as used in the video and they were not so easy to find.  No luck at Home Depot, Lowes or even Walmart but we finally found it at Ace Hardware!

here it is undergoing the final test!

my first yarn ball  using the swift