Merry Christmas from Our Farm to Yours

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Joyful Holiday Season. Thank you all for your support this past year. I look forward to sharing more with you in 2016. 

I just found out the Yankee article is now available on-line. Check it out here. 

This is too good not to share. Enjoy! 

Fabric Design and The Spoonflower Handbook + a Giveaway

A couple years ago, I thought I wanted to be a fabric designer. I thought I might have a chance at having my art licensed. I have seen many artists take this route and so I decided I had better figure out how to build a pattern repeat. Most of my surface design is rather random and doesn't repeat. It is printed or painted by hand and when you are designing that kind of fabric, there is no need for motifs to be ordered and repeat exactly. 

If I was going to design fabric, I knew I was going to have to learn how to properly make a pattern repeat. I decided to teach myself fabric design using Adobe Illustrator - part of Adobe's Creative Suite. I have worked in Illustrator for years, but mostly for drawing charts for my knitting patterns and books and schematics. I knew that Illustrator worked with "vectors" which means that any design you draw can be increased in size a million times and the different bits and pieces would not become pixelated. If I were to design in Photoshop or simply scan an illustration, when it was blown up, there would be the chance of pixelation. 

I spent about 3 weeks, off and on, teaching myself how to design repeats in Illustrator. There was a steep learning curve and lots of frustration but I wanted to conquer it. I used this book and this book and this video. And then I uploaded the designs to Spoonflower, the digital fabric printing website. I ordered some 8 x 8" samples of my fabric designs and once I was sure that the fabric was the color I wanted them to be, I got a couple of the designs printed. I used them for projects in my book Crafting a Colorful Home. You can see and order my fabric designs on Spoonflower here. If you do, I will get a commission of 10% of the fabric sale as a credit towards my own fabric purchase. These are some fabrics that I had printed of my own design. I made them into Tea Towels to sell at our recent Open House. 

Like with lots of things I learn, I lost interest. Some things I continue with but some things I just drop. I knew I was not well-connected within the quilting industry - that is an understatement - I know pretty much no one. I also got wind that the fabric designers that do get licensing deals really don't make that much money. You can read a good article by Abby Glassenburg about that here. And so I dropped the idea and moved onto other projects that I felt had better payback and prospects for me. 

This fall a new book was published by STC/Melanie Falick Books called The Spoonflower Handbook. Boy, I wish this book was out when began teaching myself fabric design. It would have been the perfect starting point. I got a review copy of it and thought it would be a great time to share it with all of you. I know that many of you are interested in fabric and that after the holidays are over, you might spend time sewing. Maybe you might like to try your hand at fabric design too. 

The Spoonflower Handbook was written by Becka Rahn, Judi Ketteler, and Spoonflower founder Stephen Fraser. It is meant to be a beginner primer for those new to fabric design. The first section of the book explains what you need to know to design your own fabric. They discuss the different fabrics they print on. Both vector and jpeg files are explained and how and where to use each one. Working with color and the Spoonflower website is also explained. And then there is a section on working with repeats. 

The second part of the book gives thirty different project ideas. These ideas include how to design fabric and then sew projects out of the fabric you would design. They have some cute ideas - scanning found objects, using photo images you already have on your computer, working with type and more. These are my favorite project ideas from the book. 

The Spoonflower Handbook is just the beginning for those of you interested in designing your fabric. You and I might not get rich designing our own fabric, but it is a way to have unique fabric to use in your home or wardrobe. And now Spoonflower also prints wrapping paper and removable wallpaper too. 

Contest is over. The winner is Spejo on Rav. Congrats! Here's what she wrote: 
I love the idea of this book. I had already set aside a drawing one of my daughters made of birch trees. I 'd love to use it for birch tree fabric, which I would use to make a set of napkins and a table runner. It would make a lovely wintery tablescape. I really hope I win the book. Thanks for all your inspiration. 

So here is what I have for one lucky reader.... Their very own copy of The Spoonflower Handbook donated by the fine folks at STC Craft. 

Answer the following question in the Comments section of this post:

If you were to design your very own fabric, what would be the object you would make with it? 

US residents only. Contest ends December 21st at 11:59 p.m. As always, please leave an easy way to get a hold of you - blogger id, email, or Rav id. 

Waiting

I feel a bit of relief. My pottery orders from my Etsy Shop are all caught up. Thank you everyone for all the orders. It was amazing. I was short $20 of my self-made sales goal and for that I am very thankful - considering I haven't sold nor made pottery in over 17 years. 

The First Ever Leyden Glen Farm Open House is over. That was a huge amount of work and then there was the question of whether anyone would come and what would be the response. I am really glad that I got over my fears and decided to go for it. Sometimes I think and think about something I want to do and just put it off. Jumping in quickly with only a month to plan The First Ever Open House was the right thing to do. Now, I'm thinking about next year - what to make, how to make it better, on and on! Thanks to my friends Alicia and Deborah for doing it with me. Much easier to do when you know you aren't the only one. 

It is too late to make more pottery and have it done for the holidays although I am hoping to throw some more vases and mugs to decorate in January. Making pottery is a long process and there are many steps to it which use different parts of my brain. I like that part of it. The physical, messy part of wet clay and then the neater, more artistically challenging part of the decoration of each piece. 

The days here have been unseasonably warm and full of gray clouds and lots of fog. We are waiting for the cold to set in but it looks like it will stay warm through the holidays. With the days as short as they are, and getting shorter for a few more, it makes it tough to get much done outside. 

We are also waiting for the solstice and the lengthening days. And waiting for the holidays, time off from school for Julia, and spending time with family and friends. It is a funny time of year on our farm. Although the sheep are still grazing because of the warm weather, The Farmer isn't harvesting hay anymore. It's almost a lull before the storm. Sure, there are plenty of chores to do but he isn't running around like a crazy man quite as much as he does during harvest time. Some of the ewes are starting to look quite round and their bellies are full of babies. We are waiting for babies. The lambs should start coming in the beginning to middle of January. Then it will be busy busy busy. 

The puppies Beau and Sadie are growing like crazy. They really are turning into great dogs. They instinctively know their purpose here at the farm - guarding the sheep from the coyotes. Beau is mellow, slow and plodding with the sweetest kind and warm eyes. He reminds me so much of Winston. Sadie is always on high alert making sure everything is in place. She is the first to bark at anything. I can't help but compare their male and female personalities to humans. At least in my world, the women here at our house are always scurrying around doing something. It's that way in our dog world too. Interesting. 

Sadie making sure everything is ok. Beau sniffing around.

I took these photos last week. You can see how gray everything is. Only little bits of color once in a while. 

Beau loves to lay in the moss.

Those eyes make me melt.

I hope you all are enjoying the run-up to the holidays. Stay calm. It will all get done. XO

Easy Decorations Here for Christmas at the Farm

Last week, I had to make our farmhouse feel festive for the first Open House here at Leyden Glen Farm. I must be honest with you all -- we don't entertain a lot during the holidays. I mostly decorate for us to make the short winter days seem more bearable. We only have a few more days of shortening days and then they will get longer - hooray. 

So last week before the Open House, I did some quick holiday decorating. I never have a lot of time and don't go over the top. I prefer a natural look with little bits of our Christmas traditions added in. And I love little lights. I leave them up some places all year long. I think in the UK they call them fairy lights. I usually buy extras when they are at a deep discount after the holidays because for some reason, when i pull out the old ones, they never seem to work. Quality? 

My favorite part of decorating is to take my pruning shears and go out into the woods and clip lots of pine boughs, spruce, hemlock and whatever other green-ish stuff I can find. I throw it into the back of the truck and lug it indoors. Then I fill vases with greens and it just makes the house seem more alive and ready for the holidays. Nothing fancy and very reasonably priced - free. 

Mom brought me some pine roping at Thanksgiving and my brother-in-law Pat helped me hang it on the house. I love pine roping - it lasts a long time and it just says Christmas to me. Sometimes I make roping but I didn't have a lot of time this year. My family and I made some wreaths after Thanksgiving on our craft day. I ripped some silk scraps I had to make really pretty ribbons. Even the lamb shack and chicken coop get some roping and wreaths. 

I pulled out some of the little antique sheep I have collected over the years and grouped them on a desk with my Staffordshire statues.

The pom pom garland has been a staple this year at our house. You can watch my YouTube video and make your own. 

And because we are into pom poms, I dressed up some other sheep things I have around with pom poms. 

Out came the birch houses and my glittered sheep and pig. I have quite a collection that I have made over the years. I lined them up on the mantle in the dining room and added some votives. The candlelight makes the glitter sparkle. Here is a birch house tutorial. 

Here is the total scene - The oil painting above the mantle is done by a friend's husband who passed away. She gave it to me because it was a farm scene. He painted for years and years and never had a show nor sold any paintings. He just painted for the joy of painting. I like to have it as a reminder of what is important in art. 

I started a bunch of paperwhites just before Thanksgiving. They are blooming now. I was hoping they would be open for the Open House but they weren't. Just having the greenery though makes the house feel warmer. I ordered a bunch of them from Van Engelen so I keep potting them up all winter long. Nice quality and a reasonable way to keep up some cheer and life all winter. 

Here are some on the windowsill. The thing in front of them is Kate's dog crate in the kitchen. It is such a big ugly thing but she likes it and feels safe in it so it stays. On top is my sunflower fabric design which you can get on Spoonflower here. There was a lot of interest in it at the Open House. 

I also brought out the glittery ornaments I made out of cardboard when Julia was little. I love these things. More sparkle and really easy to make and cheap. All you need is recycled cardboard, glitter, scissors, Elmer's glue, and a paintbrush. 

So that is pretty much it here for decorations until we get our tree next weekend. I hope you all are enjoying the festive season. 

And if you missed it - my Etsy Pottery Shop re-opened on Friday. There is still a good selection of my colorful pottery left. Check it out here. 

Pottery, Lampshades + Paintings Etsy Shop Update

Coming tomorrow - Friday December 11th - at NOON Eastern Standard Time!

I will be updating my Etsy shop with lots and lots of new pottery. 

Just in time for Christmas gifts. Here is a sneak peek of one of the large platters.

It has taken me most of this week after the Open House to photograph, describe, measure and list these pieces on Etsy. I'm not sure which is harder - opening our home which took a heck of a lot of work or listing on ETSY.

Whatever - Please stop by and check out the shop here. New work will go live at NOON Eastern Standard Time. 

This Past Weekend's Hugely Successful Open House at Leyden Glen Farm

Well, we made it through! We weren't sure what to expect, or even if anyone would come to our first Open Farmhouse/Open Studio Event here on Glen Road in little old Leyden in western Massachusetts. Last week was a whirlwind of activity, decorating the house in a Christmas theme, cleaning it up, making signs, pricing goods, thinking about the traffic flow through our house, figuring out what to sell and where to merchandise it. I was awake for several nights, trying to figure it all out over and over in my mind.

In between it all, I was still glazing pottery. (There is some left and I am working on getting it onto my Etsy shop.)

The kiln had to be unloaded Saturday morning because it was still cooling the night before. These mugs came out warm and pretty much flew out the door. 

I sewed tea towels made out of my own fabric designs. They all sold out by early Saturday afternoon - yippee! Next year I will increase my fabric order and sewing and hopefully schedule my time a little better. I had several late nights which I am still recovering from. I must admit - I am not as young as I used to be and late nights aren't as frequent.

I taught Julia how to use the Clover Pom Pom maker and she made pom poms to sell. She is still counting her riches. Pretty cute. I'm really proud of her because she hasn't been able to do anything like this before. I had to tie the ends so they wouldn't fall apart. And she vacuumed up all the colorful wooly mess in the morning.

My handpainted lampshades and antique lampbases looked fantastic at one end of the living room. 

My friend Deborah set up on our porch. It looked like a textile bazaar full of beautiful rich colors. 

And her incredible handmade jewelry. Exquisite. Across the street, Alicia was displaying and selling her art. I didn't get there for photos unfortunately. In fact, I barely had time to take many here.  

Outside, my neighbor Debbie and her grand-daughter Marissa were making and selling wreaths all day long. It was pretty cool - as people walked in, Debbie would be beginning a wreath. When they left it would be done and they would buy it. We are pretty resourceful here in the country, aren't we? 

At 10 a.m. the first guests arrived. Or should I say that they arrived before as I was still scurrying around and vacuuming. We had a steady flow of guests all day long on Saturday. Many were curious about the decoration of our home, asking lots of questions. I was so happy to be able to share my techniques with them and point them in the direction of my book Crafting A Colorful Home so that they too could replicate the look of our home. (Signed copies of Crafting A Colorful Home is available on my website for Christmas gifts - $27.95 + free shipping.  Makes an awesome Christmas gift if I do say so myself.)

I couldn't believe how far people travelled from. Two women came from California - planning trips around our Open House. Two women drove 6 hours from Syracuse, NY - they had discovered me on Houzz.com. One woman came from Minnesota combining her trip with another event. Three friends (above) came from New Jersey. Many more came from CT. One woman came from PA and many folks came from northern VT, New Hampshire, Boston and eastern Mass. Many locals and further afield western-Mass'ers came too. It was great to meet many new friends and have the support of old friends too. 

In our farmhouse kitchen, my friends helped out with the purchases and wrapping. Here is Clara manning the kitchen island/aka retail sales space. She did a great job on Saturday and Gail and Stephanie were awesome on Sunday. Thanks you all. 

Outside, The Farmer sold our farm-raised lamb (we had to miss the opening day of the Amherst Winter Market - I will be there this Saturday though). On Sunday, The Farmer, Ness and Kate did a herding demo. There was so much interest in the dogs, the sheep, and what it is like to live on a sheep farm. We had several sheep farmers come too - I think they wanted to see what we are doing here. Many of our farming friends and lamb customer friends from the different markets we do supported us also. Here Nessie resting up in the morning before her demo. 

The "puppies" and collies were kept in a fenced in area so they didn't cause havoc. They were a hit and everyone went to see them and say hi. Aren't Beau and Sadie getting big? 

It was an awesome two days. We will probably do it again next year although we will not have the caveat of the Yankee Magazine article which is what prompted me to get this together quickly and do it this year. I know many people came because of the article and I cannot thank Yankee Magazine enough for running the story on our home at Christmastime. 

It was a festive atmosphere and everyone was happy to be here. Some of my yarn industry friends even came to support me. It was an awesome experience all around. And we couldn't have been luckier with the weather - it was sunny and in the 50's. Amazingly warm for early December. 

As I am thinking back on the weekend this morning, I thought - what a nice way for folks to do some Christmas shopping and leave inspired about decorating and color. Certainly beats the mall and all the sameness out there. 

I've been working on listing the remaining pottery on my Etsy Shop which is still on "vacation mode." It is a super time-consuming process but I am chipping away at the photos, the descriptions, the pricing, etc. I'm trying to get it all done by Friday. I'll announce the re-opening of the shop here on the blog, on FB and IG - hopefully sometime on Friday which will give me time to pack and ship orders next week before Christmas.

Tomorrow, I will share some of the easy holiday decorations I threw together for the Open House. Funny thing is, I never decorate this early but this event forced me into it. Except for the tree, we are all set now for the holidays. That will come sometime next week.