And the Winner of the Great Common Thread Give-Away for January 2013 is…

Congratulations to Imagine You will Fly... for being selected as this January’s winner of this penny rug style pincushion!!  I want to thank all of you for entering this drawing and my apologies for leading some of you to believe that it would be an easy statistical win.  I hadn't a clue that so many of you would sign up to win this pincushion and I thank Maria, Kim and Nancy for encouraging your readers to visit my site.

I was touched by your comments of wanting to win this pin cushion to be a special gift for a dear friend or relative; or those of you who would like it for yourself as it would match your sewing room or bedroom; or needing a pincushion after using the same old one for years, or because your's was destroyed or eaten by your dog; or you were simply anxious to win yourself something pretty. I enjoyed hearing that it reminded you of something your mother or grandmother would make and am truly sorry that there was only one give-away. You are all deserving of winning this pennyrug pincushion and your feedback has truly been most inspiring!

Please check my Etsy store in another few weeks.  I plan to do a Valentines Day Sale so that your dreams of gifting yourself or someone special can become a reality.  I will meanwhile sew, sew, sew.

I am excited that on the first Monday of every month there will continue to be a featured artist with a give-away and I assure you that their crafts will delight you as well! My turn comes around again this spring.

Thank you again for your interest in my work and I would like to leave with you Karen L's comment, "One can never be too thin, too rich or have too many pincushions!"

Imagine You Will Fly - Please email me at jmcvermont@comcast.net with your contact information so that I can get your pincushion off to you!  

Register to Win the Great Common-Thread Give Away!

January is my month to be featured as the Artist for the Great Common-Thread Give Away. To win this penny rug pincushion, simply leave a comment at the end of this blog anytime between Monday, Jan 7th and Thursday, Jan 10th.  I will choose a winner at random  Thursday evening after 10 PM EST.

If you have never visited my blog or shop I welcome you!  If you have visited me before than likely you know that I started doing felted wool pincushions after making Penny Rugs.  Some of my most popular styles of pincushions are what I call, Penny Rug Art.  If you don't see what you are looking for or see something that has sold, know that you can contact me to do custom order work.

In regards to penny rugs, my research has found that they were originally made from scraps of dark wool fabric or recycled wool felt from used clothes and hats and were used as doormats to clean mud and dirt off shoes.  They were named penny rugs as they were made of three different sized medallions layered on top of each other.  The top medallion was the size of a penny, and pennies were actually sewn into them to help weight them and make them lie flat.  As the top medallion wore out with use, it would be replaced with another, and so these mats lasted for years.  They were not colorful or pretty, but merely functional.

Penny rugs eventually evolved into a traditional and colorful folk art.  Women used their remnants and scraps of wool from making clothes or “turned” wool from used clothes to make their penny rugs.  They would use bits of material too small to be used for strips for hooked rugs.  Designs evolved from the simple circular medallions into colorful works of art with appliquéd patterns of various animals, stars, hearts and other primitive shapes. People, flowers, homes and scenes told wonderful personal stories and transformed their scraps into wonderful works of art with elaborate stitching.  Decorative edging also became part of the art.  Scalloped edges or tabs cut in the shape of tongues were added and many of these were decorated with appliquéd circles of wool using colorful blanket stitching.

Penny rugs have recently made a “comeback” and are used to cover beds for warmth and decoration or to decorate table and mantel tops, wall hangings and pictures, quilts and pillows or other items, as in my pincushions.

For more pictures of my penny rug art work please check out How I Came to do Penny Rug Art, as well as more on The History of Penny Rugs.

Don't forget to leave a comment on my blog any time from Monday through Thursday and your name will be entered to win. Good luck and thank you for visiting my blog!

Happy New Year and Don't Miss The Common Thread Give-Away This Monday!

It is New Year’s Eve and I haven’t made any resolutions and just like Christmas, I seem to be pushed into 2013.  It is not that I am clinging to 2012 as the year that was.  I am simply running to keep up these days and will be running right into 2013, ready or not!

Christmas came too quickly.  I was not ready.  I was not Ms. Claus this year…I officially passed the torch to my daughter who was Miss Junior Claus  this year and I am happy to report that she did a fabulous job, right down to Christmas dinner!  I was on the clean up committee and helped to shuffle the paper refuse after the event, and I kept myself well-rested and was on time to dinner.  My package of chocolate-covered Oreos in festive foil wrap of red, green and silver was our dessert.  No one cared that the pie was postponed and planned for the New Year.  It would be here soon enough.

My youngest daughter’s boyfriend came to visit for two days and the dirt was simply swept into the corners and everyone stepped over the clutter and would you believe our dishwasher died in the middle of it all, along with the ice-maker in the refrigerator!  We had a marvelous time and even found time to sit around a jig-saw puzzle as we all got snowed in.

I had forgotten the lost art of washing dishes by hand and the bonding that can occur over the teamwork in doing them. I fondly remembered my dad’s dish washing rule book that was in his head, never written down and changed each time we did dishes together. To make me a faster dishwasher he cited his rule, #102,  that if the dryer caught up to the dishwasher, the dishwasher had to finish the job single-handedly. I was the dryer but didn't want to skip out. I was enjoying this uncommon relating, besides which, I was on my good behavior for my daughter’s boyfriend!

I am finally learning that being a gracious hostess is to focus on the company and not the neatness of the house and no, our guest was excused from dish washing. Being a gracious hostess means that some rules are still followed and rule #1 is that guests are treated like guests!

So regarding the New Year, I have January planned.  First, I am going to be the featured artist this month and provide the Common-Thread-Give-Away.  I haven’t picked the item, but I have decided that it will be one of my Penny Rug Style Felted Wool Pincushions.  So stay tuned this coming  Monday, January 7th, 2013.  I will post a picture of the give-away and all you need to do to enter, is to comment on my blog.  Names will be taken from comments that are left Monday through Thursday and Thursday night a winner will be drawn from among them!  So don’t miss leaving your comment on one of those days and perhaps you will be the winner!

Also in January, I am going to complete two correspondence courses required to meet the requirements for RN Licensure in the state of New York.  I have been in a treatment program that necessitates me being in low lux light and so I haven't worked for the past several years, and instead stayed home and created Little House Home Arts!  It has been my joy and I have no plans to quit sewing, though I may, in the future consider limited part-time work in nursing or would at least like that option if I choose.

Meanwhile, I look forward to another year of serious sewing, starting with my sister’s comforter not finished for Christmas.  It was started by my mother years ago and was done to fit a queen-sized bed and seeing as how it is years later that I am finishing it, it never occurred to me that she now has a different bed.  It was almost completely tied when this discovery was made and so I shall add a wide border to the front, instead of bringing the backing over the edge to form a smaller border. I will post a picture of it when it is completed.  This alteration will not be difficult, but I did realize that it would indeed take more time to complete and decided not to squeeze it in right before Christmas.  It will be nice to complete this long overdue project to start a new year with one less UFO (Un-Finished Object). Don't all sewers have a collection of UFO's with resolutions to finish them?

As a way of relaxing, following a very busy craft show schedule, I turn to cutting.  It is a passion of mine!  I so enjoy sitting down to relax with a stack of materials and cut and cut and cut.  I love working with fleece as well as wool and my fleece sock rack is missing many pairs of socks.  I hope to put these on line soon.  They are  practical, warm and snug.  We discovered them a few years ago when I made them for my children for Christmas.  They weren’t considered a serious gift by my girls who asked if I would be offended if they gave a pair away here and there to friends. When they came back for more, my girls decided to try them on recommendation from their friends, and now we all have a collection of our own.  They make great bed socks to toast your cold toes in the winter and in shoes and boots they are guaranteed to keep your feet warm.  I have stocked up on new materials, but for now I am busy cutting out the baby sized ones from my scraps too small to squeeze out another adult or junior size pair!

Last, but not least, I have planned to do a serious diet in 2013.  This is no resolution though I am resolute about it.  It is overdue and has been done before but not so seriously for some time. I am collaborating with my doctor and it is be a no-nonsense diet, eliminating wheat, milk and sugar, at least initially.  My doctor knows me too well and knows that "the proof is in the pudding" or in this case plain meats, veggies and limited fruit, with NO pudding, milk, sugar and perhaps even no wheat.  Instead of directing me, she will let the diet show me what makes me feel better. I am  The Doubting Thomas of the medical world and still believe Mary Poppins and "that a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down!"

Th Did I mention that my sister sent me about 10 lbs of fudge  that is safely tucked into the freezer, potentially to reward my efforts by mere slivers?  I think I have enough fudge for a two year supply of slivers to reward my success! What is wrong with this plan?  This is actually a test to see if my doctor reads my blog. It may be an even better reward for my family, as their support in all this is truly appreciated!! My doctor says  I am not to think diet but rather think healthy life-style change. I say if it doesn’t include fudge, it a diet for sure!!

Perhaps I am more ready for 2013, than I realize and I wish all of my readers a wonderful 2013 as well!

Merry Christmas and May God Bless Us Everyone!

I am sorry that I missed wishing some of my readers a Happy Hanukkah  In truth my Christmas Greetings are in the Nick of time (no pun originally intended).This year Christmas almost arrived before me. If I hadn't kept my expectations minimal, and had the help of my daughter, Hannah taking over the role of Ms. Santa Jr., it would have looked like the Grinch had come and gone instead!

Christmas is here now.  We have been to mass earlier this evening at beautiful St. Bridget's in West Rutland, Vermont. The packages are wrapped and under the tree.  I am not allowed in the living room now, as Ms. Santa Jr. has been at work already.  I am to be in bed and fast asleep, but I didn't want to go there without wishing you all a Merry Christmas and may God bless us everyone!

I have heard that if you don't believe in Christmas or Santa, you might receive underwear? True or Not? You will have to let me know....

Christmas Preparation Suggestions for Aspiring Santas

It is only 8 (now 6) days before Christmas and my holiday sales are over—well, almost, except for finishing an order of “two French hens and a…” cozy comforter for my sister started by my mother and I ten years ago. Truly if this is sung to the 12 days of Christmas it seems almost festive!  The comforter will not be done until after Christmas now as it seems that I forgot to double check her bed size. At the time we started it she had a queen-sized bed and she now has a king-sized bed instead.  Details! Fortunately the backing was designed to create a very wide border that was to come up and over the top, and will instead be part of the back and extra borders will be added to the front to make the comforter bigger.  This is not ideal, but what is these days, especially in the middle of the Christmas Season?

Creativity, I learned years ago is about getting in the middle of a project and then having to re-design it due to lack of material or fore-thought, or whatever other reason my brain computations didn't work right! Covering mistakes has often lead to my unusual designs!

I thought I learned a few years ago to “let go of the commercialism” and focus on the spiritual side of Christmas, putting Christ back into the season, besides which isn't simpler better? This remains my goal! I have found that this change of focus is easier said than done however. My children are now young adults and I have let them know that the Advent Elf that I created over thirty years ago has now retired.  No more balloons, candy and pre-Christmas stories to teach small children the meaning of Christmas as well as help them wait out the long days of Advent!  With our home-made Advent Calendar, The Elf would write rhymes in shaky left-handed writing that would delight and give clues as to where their advent package would be hidden.

I must caution new parents not to take on this tradition as these gifts ultimately became one more thing to remember in a season that is too busy already, and the number of small gifts needed grew exponentially with each child.  We could have saved enough to put at least one of our girls through college with what was spent on their twenty-four little meaningful gifts before Christmas.  As with raising any child, you don’t see the damage until it is done and the Advent Elf, like Santa lives in their hearts, never to be forgotten!!

This year, my eldest daughter, sensing a diminishing Christmas spirit in her too-quickly-aged and worn-out mother, alias Mrs. Claus, and the past few years, alias Mrs. Grinch instead, announced that she would take on the “fun” role of being Miss Santa for 2012.  This was an offer I couldn't refuse.  It would likely save me from tumbling down the slippery “over-the-hill” slope even faster and perhaps avert us going over our own personal fiscal cliff as well.

This daughter knew that I really meant what I said about sticking to a budget, and it seems that she had a wind-fall job that would afford a lavish Christmas for us all!  I became like a child and started creating a Christmas wish list!  Meanwhile I would indeed be spiritual and thank God for such a wonderful adult child!

For anyone with Alien Adult Children (AACs), these signs of assuming adult roles are so welcome, that it is easy to experience a temporary euphoria.  Be cautious however in giving up your role as parent, Advent Elf, Santa, Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy lest the following happen to you!!

Before I expound on this role-reversal experiment, I must first tell you that as a wife and mother, I have not been perfect!  It seems that my body wasn't cut out for the rigors of maintaining these roles and working too, and so much has been compromised when it comes to keeping a well-organized, clean house and disciplined children.  I am not sure what broke down, BUT I did find that through much experience I did perfect my ability to plan ahead by hours, days, weeks and even months and it isn't easy to train a replacement for Mrs. Claus, though I am noting that replacing Mrs. Grinch isn't so difficult!

I learned long ago that my suggestions, instructions and even commandments fell on deaf ears after my children turned two, and so I simply didn't make a list of suggestions as to how to create a successful Christmas.  My AAC’s constantly remind me that they aren't stupid and of course they already know what I am about to tell them.  I see now, however, that there are some details that should be imparted to those aspiring to be Santa.  Perhaps this list will help you, my readers, as well?

Christmas Preparation Suggestions for Aspiring Santas
1) Overseas packages need to be light-weight, inexpensive to ship ($46 to mail bargain-priced, but coffee table books is entirely too much!).  These gifts need to be purchased or made first and mailed a month before Christmas.
2) Christmas trees must be well-secured to car roof tops lest they blow off and get run over by a truck following close behind you, and down-sizing the tree at both ends!  Yes, this really happened, but was not allowed to be written into my yearly Christmas letter—and so I will merely blog about it instead! Taking the long way home and driving slowly versus speeding down the highway is definitely a suggestion to be heeded!  Decorating “middle of trees” might become a new trend if this suggestion is not followed but would eliminate the need for tree-top angels.

3) Dusting and washing “ordinary house decorations” and safely packing them away for the holiday season needs to be done before Christmas decorations are put out lest the house be doubly decorated—not at all attractive!

4) Tasteful decorating doesn't include displaying all the too-carefully-saved Christmas decorations given AACs by the Advent Elf, so that each child by age twenty will have enough decorations to decorate their own mansions.  Our tastefully decorated home is not, in the end, to resemble a Christmas Tree Shop!
5) No room shall include more than one tree, no matter how pretty they are, unless, of course, you are decorating your own mansion and not your parent's tiny home.
6) Aging parents (APs) need more room to turn around and function in their homes without clumsily knocking off decorations that are too close to their elbows.  You don’t want them to takes cruises every Christmas for the rest of their lives to avoid the holiday season, do you, or send you, their AACs off on a cruise so that they can enjoy a simple holiday season without you?
7) When AACs are buying gifts for their parents, it is important to consider what room is left in their house.  Consumables for those that hate to cook are always a safe bet.  Hide-a-keys are also invaluable and take but a small space attached to bumpers of their cars and outside of their houses, especially nice for the busy holiday season when forgetting seems to be on the rise among seniors and others with half a brain!

8) Decorating schedules cannot be squeezed into an evening already cluttered with other activities or after a long work day.  Decorating is, after all, a big job and this is why it needs to be simplified to include, but not surpass: wreaths on the doors, candles in windows, a tree, a crèche or two, and a few special music boxes if you own a collection.  Anything beyond this needs to be done the previous summer.

9) Nothing should be put up, that you, AAC Santas are not available to help take down and properly store for the next year.

10) As parents age they want the joy of family around them, the music of the season, to celebrate Jesus’ birth at Christmas Eve Mass with the family, and have a nice dinner on Christmas Day. More than that and all sanity might be lost, tensions increased and the spirit of peace fly right out of the season!

I am sure that I am forgetting other “suggestions” for aspiring Santas and will be eager to hear from my readers as to what they might add.

Last, but not least, I want to bless my eldest daughter who had the courage to take on being Santa of 2012.  It is a role that is second only to being God and only done well with small children who can “be programmed” to make their list for Santa to match what has already been purchased at bargain prices and even then some kids will have a great Christmas and some will be disappointed as fantasies often exceed realities.

Whatever happened to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s sort of Christmas where a candy stick, a tiny gift and delicious mashed potatoes NOT made from instant flakes created a wonderful Christmas Day? Did such Christmases really exist, or were they merely a figment of the author’s imagination?

Congratulations

Congratulations to Cheryl B., winner of this month's Common Thread Give-Away!

To my readers:  I will be back with you soon!  Between my last two shows of the season, a child moving  and some computer issues, my writing has been pushed right out...I will be back very soon! jane

Kim Gifford,December's Featured Common Thread Give- Away Artist

Kim Gifford is December's Featured Common Thread Give-A-Way Artist.  Just click on Pug's and Pics on the side of my blog to take you to her website, and leave a comment in the next couple of days to register for her special featured give away piece, Gone to the Dogs.

I met Kim some time ago at a craft sale over a cup of tea and right away she seemed to be a “kindred spirit”.  Our visit was too short and we soon parted with plans to see one another, but as we don’t live nearby, the next time I saw her was at a gallery show featuring her and other artists at Maria Wulf's Pig Barn Gallery.  She had told me of her work which she described as collage art using photographs combined with art of various mediums as well as textiles.  Knowing Kim I knew it had to be good and I was not disappointed!

Just as I had thought, each of her pieces drew me in just like seeing Van Gogh's work for the first time. I had to spend much time with each piece as they were to be experienced not just viewed.  I was especially taken with a piece entitled, You Know the Song. I sat down the day after this gallery show and wrote her a personal email telling her of my thoughts and feelings that related to this picture.

I wrote to Kim, “I didn’t tell you, but I have a “thing” for ballet.  I took ballet when I was a child and used to use the front porch, cement though it was, for my stage.  Perhaps that is why my ballerina years were short lived and not because of the concrete…but rather due to the decreased value to my parent’s home, as I had little dancing talent and my stage was in such public view?"

I went on to tell her that it was likely revenge against my parents for recognizing my lack of talent and cutting my dance education short, that I took ballet again in my twenties, and starred in a local production of the Nutcracker as one of "the backdrop guests" at Clara’s Christmas party. I forgot to tell her at the time that an old close family friend brought me a single rose to celebrate my debut, and joked about me not having a private dressing room as he told me that he thought I was "the prima ballerina star" and so he gave it to me in-person after my performance.

My parents, shortly thereafter gave me a lovely little hand painted shadow box, with a blue velvet lining in which to hang my toe shoes.  My mother had read me the story of The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes when I was a child.  It was the story of young female bunny who found herself with 21 children instead of fulfilling her life-long dream of being an Easter bunny.  But when her children were old enough to take care of their home and all that needed to be done, she went to fulfill her dream of being one of the five Easter bunnies and was selected as she had shown great wisdom in raising her children well. I will not give away the entire story, for it is special and deserves to be read, except to say that her special gold shoes, worn during her important Easter delivery, were ceremoniously  hung up in her little home afterwards. My parents had no way of knowing that I would soon have ankle instability and have to hang up my shoes as well. For years, my pink satin toe shoes were framed and hung just as ceremoniously as The Country Bunny's little gold shoes.

I went on to share with Kim that I still do my ballet exercises in the pool at Castleton where the water helps me el-e-vay (my French is as limited as my ballet talent) and then told her that one of my favorite ballets is a Beatrix Potter ballet,done by a London ballet group featuring all of her characters dancing!  The costumes are as wonderful as the dances. Watching Jemima Puddleduck waddle and Jeremy Fisher sloshing through his house makes me come right off my sofa and dance again in my living room!  I have been known to play it's VHS tape for my child guests and invite them to dance with me.  I have never played it for adult guests and would quite deny knowing any part of it if I did, especially Jemima Puddleduck’s waddle! I knew I could share this with Kim as she would understand, being the creator of a ballerina pug, why not me, no matter my age and condition!

Only a few years ago, I found myself keeping my mother company in a nursing home.  This home had bars along the walls to help the teetery patients walk, but one resident simply stood holding onto it for a long while every day.  And in my mind, I imagined ballet music piped in along with some full length mirrors added to the walls and me joining her at the bar! ...So pugs doing ballet…why not?!  Bring them on!! I am glad that some one else has a great imagination!!

You can imagine my surprise when one day in the mail I found a large padded envelope with a matted print of You know the Song,  along with a Vermont Life Magazine featuring Kim’s work. I am going to have to clean out my basement to find my infamous toe shoes in their shadow box along with the picture of me in my first  recital dress to hang next to it. In my mind I will see its soft yellow fabric though the picture is in black and white and shades of gray!

This blog is not about my dancing career, but rather about my friend, Kim Gifford and her work that will transport you, as all fine artwork does, into the wonderful space between reality and the place in your heart where your innermost dreams reside.  Her work is delightful!  Don’t miss visiting her website, and seeing where her pictures take you!  Thank you Kim and good luck in winning the December Common Thread Give-Away!!