November

It looks as though I manage to get around to updating this blog about once a month.  This month I am happy to state that my doll last posted won first place and Best in Show at the NC State Fair.  I was very surprised about the Best in Show and of course very pleased as well.  My other two gourd entries received second place ribbons.  I need to try a little harder next year I think. 
At this point in time my once a month Christmas craft party has turned into every Monday night and we are busy making Christmas ornaments to give as gifts.  Seeing what others do to the same craft is very inspiring.  We have so far made my favorite (and my sister's favorite too!) ornament the egg gourd bird house.

I grow the egg gourds and the roof of the birdhouse is basically pieces of mulch.  The bird came from Hobby Lobby as did the 'snow'.    I think I will keep this one as it is my favorite one so far.

We have also made little Reindeer from bottle corks.

The model my daughter lent to me had legs made of jute cording.  But I used cinammon sticks.  The little hooves are beads.    Here is another one.

I made jointed cinnamon stick legs but it did not seem to make much difference and was harder.  So back to the plain legs.  While I was crafting with the corks I got the bright idea to make a train engine...  Here is the result.

There is a jingle bell for a smoke stack and the front grill piece (which you can't really see in this picture) has sequins and beads for lights.  Sort of small.  But cute.

I also made something outside of the Christmas craft parties that is rather smart.  I saw one that my sister Melody had made and since I had been needing one anyway... well,,  there you go.   It is a watchband made of elastic and covered with buttons and beads.

Although the first picture is a little blurry, hopefully you can still see the result.  I also crocheted a little border on either side of the elastic. I really like it and I received a lot of compliments on it when I wore it.  But I used button and carpet thread to attach the embelishments and once the band got wet (oops) the buttons started coming off when they were snagged.  I am going to have to start replacing them with 100% nylon upholstery thread as that will not break!  And that was a lot of work to have it start unraveling.  In fact, I was at a party and was chewing a grape when I bit into something hard.  Thinking it was a piece of a grape seed I spit it out. But it was a little amber bead.  Oops.    Yea, time to remake that thing.  I bought a couple more watches at a yard sale and want to make a couple more from another color beads.