Floral Fridays

{Country Living UK}

Hoping you enjoy all things sweet this weekend, a cuppa, fragrant flowers and loving pets!  

Handmade Love

I thought I'd show you the gift I made for my oldest daughter's birthday which was Wednesday.  Unfortunately I didn't seem to take a picture of the finished gift.  All these handmade dishtowels and dishcloths were stuffed (for lack of a better word) into a fun vase along with wooden spoons, yellow and green spatulas, and a green oven mit from Williams Sonoma. This all started when I wrote this post about vintage dishtowels.  My daughter loves Vintage Modern and I knew she would enjoy these additions to her new kitchen.  The pink dishcloth is a pattern from Deb at Homespun Living.  The dishtowels and transfers are from Aunt Martha's that I found at Michaels. 

 Happy Birthday DD1

Knitting Store Excursions - Part Two

Yesterday I shared with you a link to Sarah's Fabrics in Lawrence, Kansas.  Across the street is the Yarn Barn which has knitting and weaving supplies.  It's a fiber Fantasyland.  You come in the door to luscious color combination's like these.  They have a great catalog and website.  I bought a yarn called Irish Lace to make the Big Hug Mobius pattern that I bought at Yarn Barn years ago.  You can find the kit here.  This is the cute pattern. The yarn is cotton and linen, so it should be good for our Southern California climate.

{yarn barn}

Doesn't yarn make the prettiest pictures?  I also bought a sock yarn the other day at Knit Wit.  I don't want to make socks, but do want to follow (copy) in my friend Cheryl's footsteps and make a lace shawl with sock yarn.  Her's are crochet projects.  I'm going to knit, because I'm a lousy crocheter.  Something I want to work on. You can see many of Cheryl's beautiful projects on her blog Acorn to Oak. The yarn I bought is by Malabrigo and has a beautiful blue variegation. But, I'll show you that another day. 

Knitting Store Excursions

Tuesday after going into Nell Hill's for quite a while, I also wanted to go into Urban Arts and Crafts.  I had formerly been in the store when it was located close to the Kansas City, Missouri Farmer's Market area.  I was disappointed when I thought it had gone out of business.  Somehow I found out that it had just moved locations.  I had totally forgotten about it until I was searching for yarn shops in the GASP, yellow pages.  Not, yellowpages.com, don't you know, the real, hold-in-your-hand, yellow pages.  I was so excited to have discovered this BEFORE heading up there.  How often does that happen? Never. It's across the parking lot from Nell Hill's!  It is a hip and cool combination of yarn, fabric, scrapbooking, jewelry, you-name-it craft store. I bought the fabrics from Anna Marie Horner to make this beautiful scarf.  These fabrics are gorgeous and very light and drapey. Okay, so that's not a real word, but you get what I mean. Check here for Urban's website and here for their free scarf pattern.

 Okay, so this should've been cropped.

I bought the fabric, some way cool knitting needles and this fun Amy Butler pattern for my daughter's new house.  On Thursday, while at Sarah's Fabrics, I bought her fabrics for it by Heather Bailey. 

Wednesday I went into another local yarn store called Knit Wit.  They have beautiful yarns and a helpful staff.  I came away with more yarn and a fun knitting book, Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders: 101 Small Indulgences. 

Well, there is more to share, but I feel like this post is getting too long.  So, come back tomorrow for the second installment of Knitting Store Excursions.  I know, only some of you get this.  But, yarns are pretty!  I have more yarn to share and another pattern or two. 

Nell Hill's Visit

I visited Nell Hill's at Briarcliff Village today.

I absolutely love the ottoman below.

They always do a lovely job of galleries picture arrangements.

I really wanted to take this lamp home.  I love it, but not the price. It was beautiful!

She had several things in Indigo blue.  The ottoman was wonderful.  I need one similar, but a rectangle, not a huge square.  The pillows above would go lovely at my house, but left without buying anything. Strange, I know! Basically because everything I wanted was BIG.  Big and lovely.  Nell Hill's is definitely a great place to shop for your home.  Tomorrow I'll show you some yarn shops I visited.

Love me some Curious Sofa

One thing about the IPhone, is that it is definitely handy when you go to your favorite store having forgotten your much loved, digital camera.  But, seeing as how the good digital camera is kind of bulky, the IPhone fits the bill.  Except when it takes blurry pictures which are not the greatest blogging pictures.  But, at least you get to have a taste of what Curious Sofa looked like today.  There were two things that I regret not taking photos of, but I won't go into detail because it might make you regret that you weren't with me.  You can still visit Debbie and her gang here and at her blog here.

Tomorrow I'm going to visit Mary Carol Garrity's newest store in the Kansas City area, Nell Hill's Briarcliff.  Let's see if I remember my camera tomorrow. 

Up, Up and Away

I'm trying something new tonight on Elderberry Street. I'm trying to write this post from my IPhone. I took some fun in-flight pictures upon leaving and wanted to see if I could post them for you to see. Here goes. . . Guess not, there's not even a photo icon to load them with. Well if you eventually see them I will have figured out this technology.

 In the end, had to e-mail them to myself, download them on my parents' computer then attach them on the blog.  Definitely an improvement, but not quite perfect!  Love my IPhone, though.  It's a 3G, btw.  It really helped when our electricity went out on Thursday and I could actually check in for my Southwest flight on time through my phone.  Love it!

Floral Fridays

{country living}

Have a delightful, restful weekend!  See you in a few days!

Amy Butler Linens

The Queen of Midwest Modern has ventured into bed linens.

Not only that, they're reasonably priced and accessible!

These are just a few of the patterns available by Amy Butler from

Bed, Bath and Beyond!

Things are crazy around here at the moment.  So, posting is going to be sparse.  I know you wait with baited breath for my next posts. Seriously, I really appreciate those who visit me and I promise I'll be back soon.  I'll probably have pictures from Nell Hill's and Curious Sofa!  See you soon!

Amy Butler Knits

This has probably been all over blogland, but I just came across Amy Butler's new line of yarn and patterns.  As usual, they are indicative of her amazing style and eye for color.  She has teamed up with Rowan to produce this amazing line. You can see them here. Here are a few of her other designs.

I also didn't know (my head must be in the sand) that Amy has designed gorgeous area rugs.  I'd love to figure out a spot for one of these, but then I'd have to decide which was my favorite!  You can see the entire collection at Amy Butler's site.

Oh, I see a color trend here.  Aren't they beautiful?