HOMESPUN LIVING IS MOVING!

 

Happy New Year!  Hope yours is off to a great start.  

I have been giving a lot of thought lately to making changes that will help organize and simplify life and hopefully leave more time for writing here, sewing, knitting, gardening...  One of those changes is a move for this blog.  I am relocating it to debbieandriullidesigns so that my {sometimes-neglected} shop and my blog will both be in the same place. It may take a bit to work out the bugs, but I sincerely hope you will follow me there.

Kindly,

Deb

Oh, it is so good to be back here!  It was difficult to leave Instagram, but now that I have, I feel peaceful and content with that decision.  

Here we are four days from Christmas and I am no where near to being ready...I hope to decorate our tree tonight, I did manage to get three types of Christmas cookies made (nothing fancy!) as well as some Oreo Cookie Bark, some orange slices were dried, and almost all my Christmas cards are mailed.  Maybe someday I will be one of those organized people who mail theirs out right after Thanksgiving.

I did fit in some knitting for my new granddaughter Aurora ~ the Small and Clever hat and mittens from Pickles.  They actually knit up very quickly and are perfect for this holiday season.  Soon I will post a picture of the sweater I knit for her also.

Just a quick post here as now I must get decorating that tree!

Take care,

Deb

A Little Spring Update

 

Typical spring weather here means lots of cloudy, cool days, some rain, a few warm sunny days, and this week some lows in the 20's F.  My young peach trees are in bloom, so I hope they will be fine if I cover them.  A nice day means I'm gardening or working on a project, one of which was the beginnings of a stone garden path between the tool shed and the raised beds.  Next up is to lay stone in front of the shed entrance.  With lots of help, I also have a compost bin now, built out of a few free pallets.

One warm day we hiked at the wildlife refuge looking for some signs of spring--leaves are starting to unfurl and some wild flowers were in bloom. 

The hellebores were cut Easter morning and lasted a couple weeks in the vase.  Tulips and snow in summer are in bloom and leaves are starting to open on the trees...I can't wait until all is green again.  Hope you are enjoying Spring!

Deb

late summer projects

Surprisingly I managed to sew more than I am usually able to in the summer.  The top in the picture above was made of chambray linen using the free Grainline Hemlock Tee pattern, to which I made several changes:

• widened the sleeves
• changed sleeve length to 7"
• used a 1/2 inch seam allowance
• raised the neckline by 1/2" at the front center
• shirt length 18 1/2"
• added a bias-cut, raw-edge hemline

I'm really happy with how this turned out.  The lightweight linen has a nice drape, and the loose style was perfect for a hot summer day--of which we had many this year.

My daughter made me a stamp with my business  logo.  With a bit of practice I was finally able to get a good result.  I sewed up several zipper pouches for the shop with my faithful companion for company. As you see, there is still no baseboard and one window yet untrimmed--our winters project.

There is not much left in the garden, but I am picking lots of Heritage raspberries.  Also still getting some zucchini, eggplant, random tomatoes, and out of a half dozen plants, I found one Charantais melon--last year's never ripened properly, but this years melon was delicious!

Today I planted two boxwood next to the back porch and two redbud trees in the meadow.  I'm hoping to find a couple more limelight hydrangeas to add to the front, as the ones I have are doing so well.  
What are your late summer projects?

Deb