Heirloom Expressions: A Little Crochet

Yesterday I finished the last of the few items for the Artist Gallery and made the delivery to the shop. Today is Art in the Garden. The shop owner is hoping for some foot traffic. We are a teeny, tiny town, West Point, in the Sierra Nevada foothills, so we look for the community events to draw traffic up the mountain road.

I am amazed at the artistic talent in this area of mostly retired individuals who moved up here from the big cities in the Valley and along the Pacific coast. So, we are not exactly out to make huge profits on our products, but I suppose, like me, most of us like to keep busy working at our little hobbies and crafts and need an outlet to sell what we make and have no plans to gift or donate the items. My way of contributing to the local economy, helping the shop owner make a living, donate items to local events, and whatever other reasons I choose to do what I do.

Speaking of donations....I made an obligation to make something for one of the local organizations for their Fall fund drive. I have some really cute Fall/Halloween type embroidery designs I've been wanting to use in a blanket. (I'm back to making my blankets again. WOO HOO!!) I want to make it a pretty generous size, but my quilting skills are not the greatest yet and I really don't want to send it to a professional quilter. It looks like I will just have to set up a schedule for practicing on my small arm quilting machine set-up. Good project for this winter. Can you tell I am somewhat of a procrastinator???

So, back to the baby/toddler/children items. I have a small sketch journal with several ideas for the smaller items. I want to incorporate some hand embroidery into these items. Right now, I am practicing my hand embroidery skills as they are a little rusty. Updated my library with a few used embroidery books I found at Amazon and even splurged on a new book. I have also been collecting ideas from various Pinterest boards. Pretty soon, I will be on an information overload high.

Well, I have a few more pictures to show of a couple crochet baby coverlets I made for the Artist Gallery. With these I included an ornament from Sonia Showalter Designs.