A basket for me and A basket for you!

Stopped at my first garage sale of the summer yesterday.  Glad I did!  Mixed in with several China baskets I spied this gem.  

Made from ash this basket features 3 blue rows and a hand carved handle.  The handle is worn smooth and feels like silk in my hand.  

The bottom of the basket looks moldy in this photo, but it's really scorch marks - love it!  Was it sitting on a wood stove sometime in its past?   

 

$1.00!

At the same sale, I picked up this antique wooden bowl.  These pictures are after I cleaned it up a little.

The bottom of the bowl has several surface cracks in it - just the way I like them - nice and prim. 

$4.00

If I don't find any more treasures all summer, for the $5.00 I spent on these 2 I won't be able to complain.

Be sure to visit my 1803 Ohio Farm Baskets blog and sign up for the basket I'm giving away.  There's a link to this blog on my right sidebar.  

Have a great weekend.

~Ann

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!  I'm sorry I haven't visited you all this weekend - I've been one busy Mom.

Can you tell what this flower is?

After our 11 year old son's baseball game last night, the boys surprised all us Mom's with a baseball carnation!  One Dad had the great idea, got all the other Dad's to fork over the $ and the boys presented them to us last night.  

Starting Friday night at 8:00 and ending tonight at 6:15, our 2 boys played 7 games.  The tournament was here in our town - we have a great park system with beautiful fields.  So many teams coming in compliment us on our  town facilities and want us to host more tournaments. It's A LOT of work, my husband and I volunteer many hours.  I'm just glad we aren't the co-ordinators of the event. Not to leave her left out and lonely, our daughter works the concession stands around the facilites.  She is one tired, but slightly richer girl tonight.   

Unfortunately  neither boy's team came home with any hardware, but it was a fun weekend.  

Our older son played his first game on the BIG high school field.  In 2 weeks this will be his home field - he'll be in high school and I'll have 2 high schoolers.  

Our oldest son warming up to pitch Friday night.

For me, this was the perfect Mother's day weekend.  How was yours?  Hopefully you spent time with your loved ones.

~Ann

Blue Sewing Roll

In my last post I shared a doll coat that I purchased for the old blue homespuns in it.  I ripped the coat apart on Tuesday night - at the baseball field!  Last night I pulled this finished cross stitch out of my basket, combined it with the homespun and actually finished a project.  

The pattern is from Stacy Nash Primitives - Blue Sewing Roll.  I had thought I'd use an antique brown fabric when I came across some, but the blue works just as well.  I do wish I'd put a stabilizer in the middle, it's a little on the flimsy side.  The antique blues are thin and worn.   

I've never before shared with you my stitching baskets.  The rib basket on the right I made 12 years ago- I remember working on it while we were expecting our last child. It's one of my favorites, it features double swing handles and cane overlays woven into the rim and over the handles on the sides and bottom.  The tote basket on the left I like because of the color combination of smoked reed and blue.  The handles are leather.  Both baskets are dedicated to my cross stitching stash (and plenty of other unfinished projects.)

I have another finished cross stitch piece sitting in one of these baskets that I think I can use with a portion of what is left from the doll coat.  I'll show you soon.

~Ann

                              

A new cupboard

Carol (Firecracker Kid) and I recently swapped.  I've been drooling over this 2 shelf cupboard with a door for some time.  Thank you so much Carol!  

My plan was to hang it in our master bath.  I couldn't bear to hide it away in our bathroom where no one could see it and enjoy it.  It's now found a permanent home in our living room.  I just ordered a WOOL sign on Etsy to replace the CROCKS one.  WOOL will go a little better with my them of sheep on the top shelf.  

  My last post I shared my new rug hooking piece I started.  I'm not done with it and I've found yet another project to get in the works! 

I found this little coat on a snow man in a thrift store.  It's all old  homespuns; blues, red and cream.   I believe it was made from an old quilt.  You can see on this where the quilt was tied originally.  For the $3.00 I paid, I threw away the snowman and kept the coat.  My plan is to rip it apart (carefully) and see what I can put together  - maybe a table runner or table square.  I've also thought of making prim seed bags or ditty bags and sewing patches of homespuns to them.  

All my projects will have to wait a little longer, I'm off to a baseball game now!  

~Ann

Can Cats Have Heart Attacks?

If they can have heart attacks, this little gray cat is going to have one today.  Can you tell from this photo how tense he is?  

 There is a stare down going on, his tail is whipping back and forth and he's shaking. 

 Mama Robin decided to build her nest in the honeysuckle vine outside our kitchen.  You can see that a chair was thoughtfully placed right next to the window for Shadow's viewing pleasure.  Not sure he's going to survive, it's just so tantalizing to have this nest so close.   

I'm really not sure how great of a spot she chose.  Our cats do not go outside, but there are neighborhood cats that come to our backyard and Mama is only a few feet off the ground.  Where is Frito you may ask? Not at all interested in Mama, he's taking his morning nap upstairs.  

My next hooking project is a design as I go.  I've amassed a nice collection of browns/taupes/tans/creams for a table runner.  I have overdyed, as is and recycled wool in this piece.  

I'm thinking it will be 2 blocks (I would prefer 3, but my bench is not that wide) by 5 blocks and then I'll hook some solid rows at the ends.  The only constant is the black middle of each square.  

Have a great weekend.

~Ann

Treasures from the Show

In my last post, I'd mentioned that I would share what I came home with from the Gathered Treasures show in Mansfield.  I've been slightly tardy in sharing with you.  Baseball is in full swing (ha ha) in our house and with 2 boys playing on 4 teams we're running here and there.  

I spied this wonderful basket in the booth across the aisle from mine when we were setting up our booth on Friday afternoon.  The owners of the booth were completely set up and gone before we arrived so I had to wait it out until Saturday morning to see if the basket was still there.  

Fits in great with my collection of antique baskets - and it's just the way I like them - worn and not perfect.

From Alice I purchased some wonderful as is wool.  The top piece is my favorite.

I did not buy this wool to be a cat bed!

 I repeat, this wool is not a cat bed!

 I also purchased some wool pieces that Alice hand dyes.  The middle 2 pieces are green and the bottom are oranges.  The colors are not showing up correctly.

 Linda (you know...Linda!) and I swapped, this is my haul from her.

And Angie (you know....Raggedy Angie!) gifted me this swan that she made from a feedsack.  Angie - it looks great on this old wooden box.  Thank you.  Be on the look out for a box coming your way this weekend!

 Sitting and waiting for baseball games to start gives me a little free time - just enough time to pull loops through and hook up this little cat.  It's a design from Robin of Bird in the Hand Primitives.  Now I need to hook something with an orange cat!

~Ann