I spent some time over the weekend finishing things up for the Autumn Arts and Fun Fest at the Mass Audubon Visual Arts Center in Canton. The event will be this Saturday from 10 am - 4 pm and will include, "a boutique selection of New England crafters, a professional storyteller, hayrides, live animals, pumpkin painting, fall treats and fun for the entire family." I am not one to sit behind a table at a craft fair, but this one is great because someone else will do that part! On Thursday I am dropping off fish and birds, along with these little mice.
These mice are quick and fun to make, and use up some of those little scraps of wool felt that are leftover from other projects. I decided to write up the pattern in case you would like to make some yourself. The holidays are right around the corner, you know.
Here are the instructions and here are the pattern pieces so you can make your own mice. Get craftin'.
This morning I decided to visit the dump quickly after dropping Stella off at school. The dump is down the street from her school so it is very tempting to visit often. But today I came away with perhaps the best dump find ever. It certainly rivals the $250 Dansk pepper grinder I found last year.
I was walking past a table full of vases and three-ring binders (dump staples), when I spotted this box.
The obvious age of the box (a quick search after I got home revealed that RH Stearns Company was a thriving department store in Boston in the 1950's, back in the days when department stores sold fabric...) gave me a clue that this might be something special.
I flipped the top of the box up quickly just to see what might be inside and then I just took the whole thing home. The great thing about the dump is you can take something home and check it out and then if you don't end up wanting it, you can just take it back. But I'm not taking this back.
Here are some of the contents of the box. And it is very full.
This Audubon stationary box is full of perfectly cut feedsack hexagons and triangles.
And a little pamphlet from the 1940s from a chocolate company about quilting.
And the rest of the box has bigger scraps, pre-cut squares, and strips of triangles hand-sewn together with perfect neat stitches. The fabrics are wonderful.
A box to treasures. Oh yeah.
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