A Bit of Sewing...and Promises of Spring

With all the wet weather we've been having, I've had a bit more time for sewing.  Just slogging through the mud to get to the mailbox is enough to cause me and the dogs to stay warm and cozy inside. Even Roger, who loves nothing better in life than to patrol our yard, has been just lying around inside with no desire to go outside.  Those muddy paw clean-ups are no fun for any of us, and we will all be glad when the mud has dried up!

So while "springter" is here with all its drizzly rain and gray skies, I remembered I had a darling pattern for a little elephant that had been saved in my to-do file for several years, and now it was time to put it to good use!

Lucky the Elephant is a darling pattern created by Virginia Lindsey Design.  The website where you can find (and buy) this pattern is here: Lucky The Elephant.

Lindsay's pattern calls for the eyes to be buttons, but because I was giving these elephants to small children, I decided to embroider the eye on instead of using a button.  Also, the original pattern that I had did not show the option for a tail, but I did add the tail.  Upon visiting her website to share the link here, I saw that she had updated her pattern to include a tail.

The pattern prints on two sheets of paper and then you tape it together.  It is a really easy pattern, comes with a great PDF and excellent instructions, and can be made in about 2 hours from start to finish. This is a wonderful project to make and give away.

I also found another pattern while searching through my pattern file, and decided I had the perfect fabric to make this apron.  I had been looking for a pattern for an apron but had never decided upon one. How glad I was to find this simple pattern (actually it was a free handout I picked up years ago from Hobby Lobby) and the directions again were very simple, easy to follow, and this apron was easily made in about two hours.

I used Pellon fusible fleece to first adhere the applique, and then stitched around the edges as well.

You may remember this fabric was a gift that I received from dear Cheryl at Homespun Devotions, and shared about in this post.  Oh how I appreciated her generous gift of fabric to me, and so this little apron made its way to Cheryl's home along as a thank you for her sending such a lovely assortment of fabric to me.

I've also had other projects that I've been working on... I was asked to make a birthday banner for the little girl who received the pink Lucky Elephant from me.

I was happy to make this for her, as I have a pennant die for my Big Shot die cut machine which makes cutting out dies for banners easy and fun.  I used some large die cut letters I had as well, and added some cute flowers and ribbons, and the cute birthday banner was done, easy and fun to do!

While at a thrift store recently, I found a ziplock bag full of fabric for $2.00, of which I couldn't pass up.  When I got home and opened the bag, I found this unfinished piece inside that had been sewn by hand.

You can see the hand sewn stitches.

The square was quite a bit off center, and perhaps that is why it was a leftover in the bag, but I thought it would make a unique little potholder, and so I finished the little lopsided square into a potholder that I will keep for my own use, and will always wonder about the story behind the little lopsided square each time I use it {smiles}. After all, it is better being put to some good use, rather than hiding in a lonely bag of fabrics... :)

I mentioned in my last post that our area has been inundated with heavy rain recently, and our county has been placed under emergency declaration because of the rain, flooding, and mudslides. We were on our way back home from town this past weekend when traffic came to a standstill, and we saw this scene in the distance.  Apparently several trees had fallen over the road just a few cars in front of us.

It wasn't too long and someone with a chainsaw began to cut the trees back off the road.  You can see off to the side that there were a lot of helpers!  Quite a few people, many of them children, helped carry the brush and limbs off the road. It took about 30 minutes of waiting for the road to be cleared, but we were very thankful that no one was hurt.

Another mudslide happened early Sunday morning on a main road in our area, that has only one way in and out, thus cutting off many people from being able to travel to their Sunday morning worship.  The road opened late Sunday morning, but you can see the devastation this slide caused.

An entire hillside gave way and rolled down the hill and onto the road.  It took crews many hours to completely clear away the debris.

Again, thankfully no one was hurt!

We saw this cute face peeking out at us in the woods one afternoon.  She wasn't sure whether to run or wait and watch us.  Eventually she wandered off, not too worried about us after all.

The sunsets haven't been as brilliant as they were during the dark winter days, but still, the soft pale colors were beautiful to behold.

You can see that our snow is quickly melting away, and it really is beginning to feel like spring is here.  Today we took our family vehicle to get the studded snow tires off and our regular summer tires put back on.  The roads now are clear of snow, and the grader came this week and graded off all the potholes, which makes it much easier to drive down our gravel road.  My husband and I worked today to clean out the chicken coop, and put the lovely composted manure in my garden.

So, things are looking up around here for spring, and while I know that the bright blooms of spring are still a month or so away, it is exciting to be putting away winter wraps, and exchanging them for lighter spring jackets, and looking forward to the promise of the beauty of late spring, when the mud has dried up, and the tulips, daffodils and crocuses are in bloom :)