NO HAGGIS EXPLOSION…

The haggis was piped in, addressed and then eaten! yummmmmmy.  I love Haggis – when we were in Scotland a prerequisite to dining in a restaurant was that they must have Cullen Skink and Haggis on the menu! Then they were worthy! and of course Sticky Toffee pudding for dessert! We celebrated Robbie Burns birthday – even though hmmm, I am of Swiss/German descent and Gord is pure Liverpudlian – and Gord got my dram of Whiskey and a few others. The music was wonderful! anddddddd to top it off I got to watch a profusion of beautiful wooden kilts swishing by me. I think had the owners had a few more drams and had I had one! some of those kilts would have made it home into my washer and dryer and cutter. Of course, when I mentioned this to the Scots sitting at my table they were shocked – apparently cutting up a kilt is sacrilege so I did not mention the 6 I have bagged on the shelf!

A few rugs to share – today is a great day to stay home once again and be creative as we are expecting 8 – 10 inches (not those crazy centimetres that I still have to convert to inches in my head) of snow…

This was last week’s snow accumulation… Susie finished the Santa for her wooden stocking stretcher – this is one of three interchangeable patterns I made for vintage stocking stretchers – Santa, a snowman and a sheep.  They are siliconed on the back and along the edges so you can cut out right up against the hooking and velcro them to the stocking stretcher and then embellish with snowflakes, stars, old scrabble letters…

 

 

Lori finished her purse and it turned out beautifully…

 

A NEW PUNCH NEEDLE PATTERN…

Well, in times of stress, hooking and punching have been my saviour! The motion is almost zen like and I focus on what I am hooking or punching and forget all the bad stuff. So yesterday I started punching my Twin Horses rughooking pattern as a miniature punch needle pattern and today it is finished! and I am feeling much less stressed!

I tried a new thread in the background – a wonderful wool that I now carry in limited colours for backgrounds and love the way this turned out. This piece will be available as a pattern and kit. I am going to mount it to an antique draw with a metal handle and tin base – great for collecting keys and remotes…

One of the shows that I love to do because it breaks up the month of March (well also because it is a great show and because Gord and I usually go junkin on the way to the show! yeahhhh) is the Peterborough Fibre Arts Festival and Sale. If you have not been in the past you should try to make it to this show – you won’t be disappointed!… And now off to celebrate Robbie Burns day with the piping in of the haggis! (Noooooo I am not cooking the haggis! Last time I poked the skin while it was cooking in the pot and all the wonderful haggis started oozing out of the puncture like lava – had to resort to repairing the hole with duct tape! which gave the haggis hmmmm, a rather unusual flavour!)…

 

SNOW DAYS…

are such great days for staying home and hooking or punching. Well, unless you live in Newfoundland where the snow is like nothing I have seen since I was a kid in northern Ontario. I can remember days when the snow would be over the top of the window ledge – and our windows were high! I actually am one of those strange people who loves winter! I like cold, I love clean fresh snow. I love to wake up at 3:30 in the morning and flip on the outside lights to watch the snow drifting down and the DEER standing at the foot of my stairs in 10 inches of snow staring at the house and waiting for food! Well, maybe I don’t love the 3:30 a.m. part but all the rest… But I live in the beautiful woods and I don’t necessarily have to go out so I can enjoy the snow. This weekend, however, we had an urgent call to head to Montreal and I realized hmmmmm, maybe snow in the city and blowing snow on the highways is something I don’t love! We missed most of the bad weather heading out on Friday and coming back yesterday. So today I hunker down and work on Porky again! and maybe with a few more snow days she will be done!

A few pictures of lovely finished pieces that people kindly shared:

Allyson finished her punch needle (one of the patterns by Wendy Tremblay that I carry)…

Wendy finished her Snowy…  and did a beautiful job on her Blooming Birches kit… Edie finished her Yuletide Sheep bag… Susan finished her Martina Lesar runner… Sylvie finished her Antique Rabbit and Tulips kit… Joanne finished her Jack Pine (pattern from Carol Shewan)… and Tracy recently asked for 4 different versions of House and Trees chairpad and wow they are hooked and finished and on the chairs…  

MORE FINISHED PIECES TO SHARE…

but not by me! 🙂

Tara sent me a picture of her most recent rug – the skyline sadly, was inspired by a photo of the horrific Australian wildfires…

Michelle almost finished a mat which will become a pillow for a friend…

Allyson finished some cute punch needle ornies…

 

Carolyn finished her punch needle sheep and mini fish bones which she hung off a lure…

 

and Anne sent pix of her lovely pieces…

 

AND A FEW MORE DONE DONE DONE!!!!…

Finished the last 2 miniature punch needle pieces off – one on a beautiful oak box. This box I DID NOT PAINT as the colour and grain were too beautiful. The pattern is based on an adaptation of an antique hooked rug…

The second one was mounted on a piece that was either for putting under a pot on on a wood stove or gosh, maybe it was a grease catcher that you put over a frying pan. Needless to say, I stuck it in the dishwasher to clean out the grime and then chalk painted it. The pattern is Yuletide sheep which, originally, was a hooked pattern that I did as a pocket to fill with greenery and hang on a door. For the punched version I would attach fresh greenery and berries at the base of the handle to embellish it. The punched version and hooked version are available as patterns or kits…

ALL OF THESE FINISHED PUNCH NEEDLE ITEMS ON THIS AND THE PREVIOUS POST ARE FOR SALE – EMAIL ME IF YOU ARE INTERESTED…

MOUNTING YOUR PUNCH NEEDLE PIECES…

Anne asked me how I mount my pieces so I thought I would share how I do it with everyone. I use this technique with hooked pieces as well.  Keep in mind that once you mount the pieces and they have set you can no longer remove them so make sure that 1. you want to leave it where it is forever and 2. you are not mounting it to what may be a quality, high value antique!

So, the first thing I do once my piece is finished is I press from the back only and then with my iron i press the excess weavers cloth to the back.  Now I have nice crisp edges and can then trim off the excess – I leave about 1/2 inch all the way around and cut off the dogs ears at the corners.  My weavers cloth should now not be visible from the front.

If I am attaching to a box or tray or a wonderful piece of “junk” I use clear kitchen and bathroom silicone.  This comes in a small tube with a nozzle – try to find one that has a nozzle that twists off because what I have found over the years is that the nozzle quickly becomes dried out and you lose a good portion of the tube because you can no longer squeeze it out whereas if you have a nozzle that twists off it you can use the entire tube! less wasteful!

I put a little bit (you may have to use a stick or your finger to spread it) under the excess edges of weavers cloth and push them flat to the back and then I cover the back of the piece right up to the edge of the punching and place it on the piece that I am attaching it to.  Because the silicone remains “open” for a good hour you can reposition the piece easily so that it is centered.

I use the silicone rather than white glue as glue bleeds through the punching and makes the piece stiff whereas silicone is thick and does not bleed through and remains flexible.

Now this is MY method but I am sure there are many others out there – please feel free to share your technique(s)…

HAPPY NEW YEAR…

and may your 2020 be filled with peace, joy, good health, love of family and friends and CREATIVITY!

My New Years resolution (well, one of many that have already been broken in 1 day!) is to finish allllllll my UFO’s and create new ones! So, with that in mind, I actually finished off a punch needle piece this morning…

The sheep head I punched before the holidays but finally this morning I stitched, stuffed and mounted it to a rusty, grungy (oh you KNOW I love rust and grunge!) doorknob – it is now a snow globe…

Finally painted a vintage box dirty old maroon and mounted the Jonie Black A Winter’s Day punch needle I finished, hmmmmm a few weeks ago to the lid…

A Teresa Kogut Santa pattern I punched one morning and finally got around to mounting onto a tarnished silver tray…

Punched a small snowman head in a few hours and mounted it inside an antique cookie cutter…

and now I have 2 more punch needle pieces I did in the last week that I need to mount and then back to hooking! In the meantime, methinks a trip to the junk store may be in my near future as I have now used up 4 of my junk items and the remaining 2 punch needle pieces are being mounted to 2 more of my junk items – yikes!!!!! need more junk!!!!!!

Louise framed this beautiful piece in an antique window and now needs to find REALLY strong hooks to hang it with…

Sherri taught her 12 year old grand daughter how to hook and she drew and hooked this wonderful piece in no time flat – ahhh new there’s inspiration for all of us!!!!…

Linda finished off a small punch needle angel and mounted her to an ash shovel…

Kim punched her nuthatch and mounted it to a slice of tree trunk – I LOVEEEEEEEEE this idea!!! Gord – get that chainsaw out and get to work!!!!…

So, this year for the first time ever, we have had deer with antlers – four deer in fact with antlers ranging from 2 inches to 4 prongs! Of course they had to have names – big spike, medium spike and little spike. Wellll, the spikes grow quickly so they soon did not resemble their names! But now we can distinguish them from each other as 2 of them have lost an antler – so it is big one spike! (how innovative 🙂 ), medium one spike and little spike. Just wish they had dropped one at the foot of my stairs so I could collect it and use it for hanging something but no such luck!…