Bluebirds & Quilts

Bluebird On A Fence Post
Yeah!! January is over and it won't be long and we will be seeing the bluebirds checking out their nesting spots. If you have bluebirds who typically nest in your yard or nearby, do them a favor and clean out their houses for them. If the weather gets nice, you can see them as early as March.
This is a pencil sketch that I did a while back and I also used some watercolor touches on it. It just reminds me so much of spring that I just had to share it with you today to hopefully make it seem like Spring is not that far off. Our Winter started early this year the first of December we already had snow on the ground and it was bitter cold and it has continued through January except for about a week when we had a break of 30 degree weather. So we are ready!!!!
I will be posting some more of my Spring Ornaments, by the end of the week, which by the way are called the Heirloom Ornament line.
Thanks for checking in.
Happy Stitching! Carol

Spring In My Heart, But Winter Outside!!

Peeper

May Flowers

Here in Minnesota we have had every imaginable combination of weather in the last couple of days. It is downright miserable out, every time you look out at the weather it is changing. Snow, rain, sleet, freezing rain, slush, wind, and drizzle. Soooo I tend to keep busy stitching when it is like this. It makes great stitching weather. My collection of Spring and Easter ornaments continues to grow. They should all be done by the end of this week.

Tommorrow is the big game between the Vikings and the Saints, so I will have to have some stitching ready to do during the game. I am one of those people who has to be doing something with my hands when I am watching TV, and stitching is better than eating snacks. You can eat a lot of snacks during a 3 hour game and that is not good!!

Tomorrow, I am going to make some of my homemade boiled ham dinner. This is a great dish for a wintery day. Besides being healthy and good for you, it is easy to make. I am going to share the recipe here with you:

Carol's Hambone Boiled Dinner

Ingredients:

Hambone with a fair amount of meat left on it.

Cabbage

Potatoes

Carrots

Onions

Place the ham bone in a large pot along with enough water to cover the bone. Bring to a boil and then turn down to medium for about an hour or until the meat falls easly from the bone. Don't trim it before you cook it.

After the ham bone is cooked, remove it from the liquid, and let cool until you can cut the meat from the bones. Remove all the meat, trim out fat skin and bone. Cut the meat into bite size pieces.

Peel and cut up about 4 medium potatoes. Chop into 1/2" to 3/4" pieces and add to the liquid.

Cut up about 4 medium carrots or two cups of the shorcut carrots and add to liquid.

Cut up one medium onion and add to liquid.

Cut up 2-3 cups full of cabbage and add to liquid.

Cook until all the vegetables are tender, add some pepper. Taste the liquid before you add salt. There is usually enough salt in to ham so you don't have to add any. You can also add extra water if it gets too thick.

This is so good, let me know how it turns out!

Happy Stitching! Carol

Spring Preview

April Showers

The weather has been great here for the last week, with temperatures in the low 30's. That is wonderful for January in Minnesota. It sure does get the spring fever going though. But I have lived here long enough to know that we have a lot of winter ahead of us yet. But, I can pretend it is Spring as I work on some new things for Spring. I am teasing you today with a little Spring/Easter Ornament or Charm, whatever you want to call them. We should have them all ready by the last week in January.
I think the winter is going pretty fast, course I spend a lot of time here in my "happy room." It helps to have something to do. We have several shows coming up and also a lot of trunk show to do, so we are basically booked up until the Minnesota Quilt Show which is in June. After that it will be time to start working on things for this fall.
Remember to take some time and count your blessings and pray for the people of Haiti and please if you are able to donate, give if you can. They can use all of our prayers and anything else we can share with them. I did hear that right now is not the time to start donating quilts and other furnishings. Right now they need water and food to survive and rest will have to be for later.
Enjoy the rest of the winter season, and will share some more goodies with you later in the month.
Happy Stitching! Carol

A Time To Be Grateful

Freindship Charm

Thank You to all my faithful customers for this past year. You have blessed me in so many ways
with all of your nice comments, your support of my products, and the encouragement that I get
from so many of you. I enjoy hearing from all of you, and it is a pleasure to meet so many of you
via cyberspace. In the coming year, we will continue to bring you some new ideas and more
"fun stuff." I can not do this business by myself, and I have to mention the gals who help me with
various aspects of the business. Thanks to Vickie, Judy#1, Joyce, Judy#2, Christi, and my
husband who run errands, makes trips to the post office, and supports me in many ways. Thanks
again to each and every one of you!!
Happy Stitching! Carol

It's Christmas,and then the New Year!!!

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year

to all of my faithful readers and customers !

It has been a very good year in spite of all that is going on nationally and internationally. I hope that all of you have also had a good year. Even though it makes me a year older, I am excited to be able to have the promise of a New Year. So much about what kind of a year it will be, or even a new day, depends on each of us individually and how we face the new day or New Year. If we face it with enthusiasm , and with a good attitude

for the most part, we will have a great year. It is so true that the only way to find true happiness, is to reach out to others and bring happiness into their lives and the more we do this, the happier we will be. Being happy is a choice, and happy people don't necessarily have a perfect life, they have just chosen not to let the imperfections in their lives ruin their perspective on life. So be happy, pick up some stitching or quilting when times get tough and enjoy the process of creating. And if you really want to be happy, teach a child how to embroider, sew, or quilt. By doing this, you are teaching them something that could become a major part of their life.

For those of you who might be interested in doing our ornament line as a Stitchery of the Month, you can check out the details on our website, http://www.chickadeehollowdesigns/ click on the Santa in the ornament section to get all the details, or send me an e-mail. You may also want to check out our Christmas Club.

Have a great holiday and I will be in touch in the New Year.

Happy Stitching! Carol

2009 Ornament Series

Vintage Quilt Shop Ornament
Today, I am posting the last ornament of the 2009 ornament series! These have been so much fun to do, and I can hardly wait for next year to start my second series. If you haven't started making this series yet, go to our website, www.chickadeehollowdesigns.com and check them out. We also have a SOM (Stitchery of the Month) option for those of you who would like to save a little money but get all 18 ornaments done in a year. Remeber to click on the View Details option beneath each ornament, it will give you a large colored picture of each ornament that you can print for floss color placement. The SOM option includes the floss pack in the total price. Also,wo do have floss packs available for the entire set for $10.00 I hope you enjoy them.
Happy Stitching! Carol

New Ornaments

It is getting close to Christmas! We are winding down on our ornaments for this year, today, we add two more and the last one for 2009 will be sometime this weekend. These guys have been so much fun for me, and apparently others too, because we have sold a lot of them. Some shops are also going to do them as a SOM (Stitchery of the Month) for the coming year. That is a good way to do them! Most of them can be completed in a couple of evenings. These also make great gifts for your stitching friends.

Happy Stitching! Carol

Needle Magazine Premiere Issue

We are so happy to be a part of this! You can read all about it and subscribe to the online magazine if you choose. Go to the link shown to read. Our ornaments are featured as well as the process I use to create them.
Happy Stitching! Carol

My Favorite Time of the Year

Isn't this just the best time of the year? Getting ready to hunker down for the winter and endless days filled with stitching!! The best birdwatching is in the winter when the birds are no longer able to find food in snow covered fields. I have to admit that I really do like winter. I get a little tired of the lack of sunshine but all in all it is a good time of the year. This week we can look forward the best meal of the year. What is better than a turkey dinner with all the trimmings? My favorite part of the meal is the stuffing and squash. that is the best!!!
I also like the Norwegian Rice with Raspberry Sauce that usually shows up, and of course my daughter-in-laws apple and pumpkin pie. Yum, I can't wait! Remembering to give thanks is also something that I take very seriously. We have so much to be thankful for.

I want to share with you a new ornament today. This is my little ginger bread boy!! There are three more ornaments in this years ornament series, that will be out some time this week, and I will share them here with you.
I have a lot to be thankful for this year and I have decided to pass along some of my good fortune andI am having a contest. Here are the details. I will give away 5 of my ornaments, your choice to these lucky people. 1. The first person to comment on this blog post.
2. The person who answers this question in the best way? What is the one thing that you are most thankful for this Thanksgiving.
3. The last person to comment on this blog post up until 12:00 noon on Thanksgiving Day.
4. The one who says the magic word. (I have chosen a word associated with Thanksgiving
dinner.)
5. What do you like best about my blog?
Get going now and post your comments!!
Happy Stitching! Carol

Designers Are Thinking Spring

Roses For Mom
Even though Christmas is right around the corner, people who design are thinking of spring. You have to be one season ahead of everything in order to design, get photographs, and have your products ready to sell right after Christmas. It is hard to think spring when you are just fiinishing all your fall outside work and getting ready for Christmas, but today I started my thought process. actually I did a while back already because I did purchase some georgous fabric for a spring quilt from Robyn Pandolph's line Somerset Cottage about a month ago. I have the quilt pattern all drawn out on graph paper and am ready to start doing a test block to see how that will look. It should be kind of fun if it works as I have designed it.
The other thing I did was go through my stash of finished embroidered pieces to see if there were some little treasures buried there that I wanted to resurrect. And lo and behold I did find an embroidery that I was working on when my Mom became very ill and passed away. I decided to call it Roses For Mom, and after she passed, I couldn't quite bring myself to do anything with it, but I am at a better place with all of that now and I think I would like to do something with it for this spring. I think Mom would like that. Hmmm, maybe a little verse around the borderwith some little pretties tucked in here and there. we will have to see what becomes of that.
I am curious, do any of you finish little things and then stash them away for awhile until a notion comes about what to do with them? Write and tell me about them if you do. I think it is fun to listen to stories about things that people find in their stash that they forgot they had.
Well, it is the magic hour when it is time to go to bed, say my prayers, and then dream about what to design next.
Happy Stitching! Carol

My Little Chickadees

By Carol L Steffensen

Chickadee Watercolor Painting

Everyday I like to spend a little time watching the birds. Today, as I watched, the chickadees were feeding in earnest. I have always liked chickadees, plus the fact that we have lots of them at our place here in the country. It is also part of the reason I named my business Chickadee Hollow Designs. Long before I started designing quiltng and stitchery patterns, I did a lot of painting and drawing, and of course one of my favorite subjects was birds and other wildlife.
I think the good Lord knew what he was doing when he created the earth and gave us all the beautiful wildlife, flowers, trees and terrain for us to look at. Have you ever thought about what this world would be like if there were none of those things I mentioned. Just think about it for a minute, and look around you and see how many things, tangible things, that would not be part of your world, if those things were gone. Pretty scary, isn't it. Then the other things I think about are like the war riden countries like Iraq, and Afghanistan. What happens to all of that wildlife and beauty? I can't imagine birds stick around when there are bombs going off. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Happy Stitching! Carol

The Needleworks Show....Retail

Reminder!!

Don't forget to check out the first on line retail needlework show at the link shown above. Show starts tomorrow, November 5th and goes through November 8th.
Lots of great items to choose from. Check it out.







Happy Stitching! Carol

58 Days til Christmas, Yikes!!

Yes, I am afraid it is true, 58 days til Christmas; why does it always seem to come so fast? I think the problem is that I just plan too many things to get done before Christmas. I want to thank all of you who are enjoying my Vintage Ornaments. The ideas keep coming and I keep stitching and who knows where it will end. Today I am going to share a couple more with you.The first one is a church, which reminds us what the Christmas season is all about.

The next one is one I really enjoyed making. As you may know, I love cats, like many quilters and stitchers do and I couldn't resist making this little gal. I have three cats, and my absolute favorite cats have always been calico cats. Wonder what will be next? Keep checking in with me and see what my upcoming ornament ideas will be.

www.chickadeehollowdesigns.com

I am also working on a redwork project, if you remember the redwork teapot that I posted aqbout a month ago. I wanted to share it with you, but have temporarily misplaced it. Can you imagine that?? You could if you could see my studio! The worst part of this wondeful job is cleaning up the shop! I need to be in the mood to do it, and they don't come too often, but my husband is going on a four day goose hunt and the weather is suppose to be gray and dreary so I should be able to fit it in sometime in the next couple of days.
I am in the mood to throw a quilt on the quilt frame and do some hand stitching. I haven't done that in a long while. For me, it is very relaxing to to do hand stitching. My favorite kind of hand stitching is to do it with Perle Cotton. I am interested in knowing if any of you also like hand stitching with Perle Cotton.
Well, on to the next project, and remember the countdown to Christmas is on. I will be sharing projects that I am making for my family for Christmas.
Happy Stitching! Carol

We woke up this morning to the most beautiful snowfall. Here is a look out my backyard, about three-four inches here, the earliest snow that I can remember, and apparently there has only been snow this early about eight times since they have been keeping records. Awwwh!, We love it here in Minnesota!!
I finally finished my miniature heart quilt, so here it is Scrappy Hearts & Lazy Daisies!

I've been having some troule with my camera, yesterday we had the big pumpkin carve and I tried to take pictures of all the grandkids and ity didn't work for some reason. But enjoy, and remember you can purchase any of my designs at www.chickadeehollowdesigns.com

Happy Stitching! Carol

A Sign of Things to Come

Redwork Teapot
Today I finished this Redwork Teapot, and I really like how it turned out. It is fun to finish something; gives you a sense of accomplishment. However, this project is far from done as this is just the beginning. I can't tell you what it will become, but just keep watching and I will keep you up to date on the progress.
Can you believe that right now in Central Minnesota, October 9th, we have one inch of snow on the ground.? Well, it's true, if it wasn't dark outside I would have taken a picture and posted it, maybe I will do that tomorrow. We are suppose to have our annual Fall Fun day with our family, do a hayride, carve some pumpkins, eat my daughter-in-laws homemade apple pie. Not sure if the hayride will happen; it is also suppose to be very chilly and windy this weekend. But, we will have fun no matter what we do, hope all the grandkids will be feeling good, some of them have had the flu.
Went for a ride today through the State Park that we live near, on my way home from the beauty salon, the trees are just turning here, which is very late, but some really great color starting, however, with this snow and the freeze warning, there may not be a lot of nice color for very long. I have noticed that the birds are feeding more at the feeder already and they are really picking away at the suet. I love watching the birds in the winter, especially after we have a heavy snow. They come all crouched up to the feeders and sit there like little feather balls picking away at the seeds.
The clock is striking 1:00am so I think I better shut this thing down for the night. Enjoy my teapot!!
Happy Stitching! Carol

Autumn Cherish It!

Autumn Cherish It !
Here it is just as I promised, my new Crazy Stitching. I finally finshed it, and I am pleased with the results. I plan to sew it into a little shelf pillow. I hope you enjoy it. It will be posted on my website later today if you are interested in purchasing the pattern.
Happy Stitching! Carol

Stitching At Midnight & Scary Sounds

Do you like to stay up in the evening and stitch after everybody else has gone to bed? Well, I do. I enjoy the peacefulness of it and just the time for me to reflect on my day and mentally prepare for the next day. Running this business does require some quiet time for thinking! So you can usually find me up at least an hour or so after my husband retires to bed. Well last night about 1:00am, I was stitching in our four season porch which is all windows on three sides; I had a lamp on and soon I heard the coyotes. We live where there is a lot of woodlands, lakes and thickets, but also in a farming neighborhood. The coyotes are plentiful around here and we have sacrificed more than one calf from our beef herd to the coyotes. So I am used to their wailing and noises at night, but all of a sudden I heard this awful noise mixed in with the coyotes that I can only describe as a blood curdling roar that I have never heard before, but sounds like the noise a monster would make in a horror movie. The needle stopped, and I froze, the hair on the back of my neck stood at attention!!! I listened and then I heard it again and again for four times total.
I got so scared that I reached over and turned the lamp off and crept from my chair through my studio and crawled into bed and I actually woke my husband, I was so scared. It has bothered me all day as I try in my mind to figure out what it could have been. Today my husband asked me again to describe it and I said the best way I can describe it is like Sasquatch running through the woods screaming as he was being chased by coyotes. Brrrrrrrrr! So what am I doing tonight; sitting up writing in my blog and it is well after midnight!!
You have seen some of what I call my Crazy Stitching stuff before and I just love doing these things. I have finished a new drawing that I will print to fabric and then embellish with embroidery stitches or other items. This one is called Autumn, Cherish It! It is a collage of sorts
that reflects sights of autumn.

I just love how they look after I apply the stitches to it. Tune in again tomorrow and see what the finished product looks like. I am almost done with the stitching on it and I can hardly wait to show it to you. They are so much fun!!
Well, if I quick close and hurry to bed, I can get their before Sasquatch goes out for his 1:00am stroll!

Happy Stitching! Carol

Rainy Fall Days and Other Delights

It looks like we are headed for a couple of rainys days. I can't wait, I love rainy days in the fall. It freshens everything up and all of the flowers shoot out some new blooms before they get frost. I also get a lot of stitching done! I have some projects I have been trying to wrap up.

Every year about this time we plan a day for the family and we do a hayride and carve pumpkins. we usually follow that with a spaghetti supper and my daughter-in-laws Apple Pie. it is the best apple pie I have ever eaten, hands down! She is an excellent cook , and we all look forward to her apple pie. Of course, the grandkids have fun throwing each other in the leaves and trying to slime each other with pumpkin goo. It gets a little messy, so we do it in the garage and we store our little pumpkin carvers in a drawer so they are handy. The dads usually have to help with making the big hole at the top of the pumpkin, but after that the kids dig in and do the rest. It's great fun, and they each get to take their pumpkins home. We take pictures and just have a lot of fun.

Here is a quick sneak peak of one of my newest projects. Can't give all the details away yet, but you should be able to see it all completed in a few days. Bring on the rain!

Check back in towards the end of the week and I will have some more pictures of my projects for you.

Happy Stitching! Carol

Lavender Roses In My Stuff.

Lavender Roses
I was digging through my "stuff" yesterday and came upon this lavender rose that I had designed a couple of years ago, did the hand embroidery on it and put it in with my "stuff." It certainly deserves a chance to get out of my "stuff" pile and be made into something useful. I will have to ponder that awhile and see what I can make of it. Hmmmmm, I just recently joined a Round Robin group on line, maybe I will use it for my center block and see what can become of it. Do you have piles of "stuff" around that are just begging to get made into something? Being a quilter, stitcher, designer, painter, let me tell you I have piles of stuff around. i wish I could be like some people and be better at discarding things that most people view as worthless, but my problem is an imagination that I think it too vivid and so I can see value and worth in most anything that most people discard. I was raised in a family of eight kids and my parents were farmers, so we grew up ceertainly not destitute or poor in todays sense, but we defintely lived a life of frugality.
Getting back to "stuff," I used to do a lot of hand painting and so I would often search through garage sales, used a bit stores etc. to look for smaller wooden objects that can be refinished and used to paint something on, so I have a room full of that kind of "stuff" in the basement. And, needless to say I certainlty have a lot of sewing and stitching "stuff" around and a good share of it is in plastic storage tubs in my basement and it fills a couple of rooms. But, I do get rid of some "stuff' once in a while. I sent a huge box of stuff to Louisiana during Katrina to a quilter who had contacted me to say she was putting together a group of quilters who had lost their "stuff" during the hurricane. Thats a good thing and I try to give whenever I can to things like that. Well, I guess it is back to my "stuff!"
Happy Stitching! Carol

The Evolution Of An Idea

Printed onto fabric

My Supplies

I decided it was time to take a break from the remodeling we are doing to our house and do some designing. When I am busy working on other projects such as my house, I still get ideas all the time as I am working, so I have gotten pretty good at tucking them in the back of my mind until I have the time to work on them. We are down to two rooms left on our remodel job and most of what needs to be done is "man's work." The cooler, "fall type" weather we have been having is getting me in the mood to work in my studio anyway. As some of you may know, I like designing small things, "putsy" as my Mom used to say. As an artist I like detail so I think that is where that comes from. When thinking of quilt blocks, most people see quilts, big quilts, throw size etc. I do sometimes too, but I always think the block in itself is a design all of it's own, and I like to think of ways to use them in the products I design, not necessarily always a quilt. In the following pictures, I am going to show you how an idea I had comes to evolve into something. First I had to gather my supplies: (See Photo at the top of post

My first drawing is made using a mechanical pencil. This is my rough draft;I then use permanent ink markers such as Pigma or Copic pens in black to go over my pencil lines to make a permanent drawing. Here is where I use an eraser to remove the pencil lines. My drawing is now just a black line drawing. I call that my original.

Two quilt block designs in black pen

Since I want to be able to print this drawing onto a fabric sheet, I prefer to not have block pen lines, so now I re-trace my drawing using a sepia colored permanent ink pen, as you can see in the photo below. They are alittle hard to see in this picture, but in real life they are very clear lines.

Drawings now done in sepia colored ink

My next step is to use my colored pencils to apply the color and shading to my design. First, I lay

down the color where I want it, not necessarily as dark as I want it, but enough so I know where I want what color. I now start to apply another layer of color in the areas where I want it shaded darker. As you know, shading is what gives a drawing form and the form is what gives dimension or perspective. I continue to lay color until I have it shaded just the way I want it. I try to make good use of my paper and supplies by getting ideas about how to use all of the room on the sheet as my plan is to transfer this to fabric, and I don't want to waste a fabric transfer sheet.

Colorplate prior to printing

Ok, I am now ready to print to fabric. If you have never done this before, it does take a certain amount of practice to get everything just right. You may have to adjust the color on your printer, etc. to get everything just right. This is what the finished product looks like after I have added some stitches and tiny buttons to embellish it.

These happen to be miniature Christmas ornaments. Thease are the steps I use for making all of my preprinted designs, so there are a lot of steps but it is worth it in the end.

Also at the top I have posted a picture of what it looks like when it is printed on the fabric. Sorry it is out of sequence.

The fun part is when it is ready to be stitched!

Happy Stitching!

Carol