The ornaments pictured above are my newest spun cotton and spun glass designs for the 2011 holiday season. I am now working on another batch of Halloween primitive dolls – a black cat, a witch cat, and a witchy moon. More spun cotton Halloween ornaments will be added next week, and perhaps a Halloween paper doll or two.

What will emerge from my workspace today?

I have new spun cotton ornaments and spun glass ornaments in the works – they will be added to the Old World Primitives Etsy shop later today and tomorrow.

I also realized that I never posted the new set of black cats (for Halloween – or any time of year!) here on this blog yet, so they are also pictured below. They have been available in my Etsy shop for a few weeks now.

Both sets of ornaments are available at either my:

• Old World Primitives Etsy shop

or my brand new:

• Old World Primitives ArtFire shop

Both online storefronts allow you to shop my entire inventory, with the main difference being that my ArtFire shop allows you to buy in larger quantities without requesting a custom listing.  ArtFire also does not require you to register for an account in order to make a purchase.

And here is a peek at pages 18-19, the spread that includes three of my sets of vintage style chenille Halloween ornaments – I am so honored to be featured here!

And a closeup:

I have a few new dolls in progress too.   I am excited to use my new antique shop finds – grungy old buttons and antique lace – in some primitive creations.

So now we have a new plan in mind… bear with me here, as this may sound crazy… to save up enough money to REALLY move into the country… or rather, a step closer to the wilderness. We are going to save up, purchase a motor home, sell our current home, and pursue the freedom of living full time on the road, camping at remote, wild and beautiful spots along the way. This is an idea I have been toying with for 6 years now, but I never thought I would be able to make it happen. I felt too entrenched in my current way of life despite how much I wanted to give this a try. But now, if we can save enough to make this plan feasible… there is a new goal in the horizon.

So. I’ve wasted a ton of time this summer house-hunting, packing… and then un-packing (ugh!), but I’ve still managed to get some new dolls and ornaments created, and to do a bunch of gardening and pickling too.

Do you think my tomato plants are happy??

And now I invite you to meet an extreme primitive doll named Nadine, and a primitive witch make-do named Hexe:

Plus my newest ornaments in spun cotton, spun glass, and chenille:

All of the new creations above can be found in my Old World Primitives Etsy shop.

And this is Laura, my latest primitive cloth doll with a sculpted Paperclay face – she is traveling at the moment, preparing for her feature in a future issue of Prims magazine. 

I have been working ever so slowly on my Izannah Walker doll class, which thankfully has stayed open long enough for slow pokes like me.   This is where I am at with my doll now – her sculpting is done, and I am ready to apply her stockinette next.  I think that perhaps I have been hesitating with moving onto that step for so long now because I’m a bit nervous about messing her up!

I have also managed to squeeze in two new additions to the Old World Primitives Etsy shop.  First is a set of 2 vintage style Halloween ornaments made of chenille, crepe paper, and vintage witch faces printed on card stock.  The set includes 2 of the wee witch pictured below.

Second is a set of 3 Victorian angel Christmas ornaments made of chenille and Victorian angel faces printed on card stock.  They can be used as feather tree ornaments for Christmas or everyday, and would also make nice handmade wedding favors.

I also added this new set of Halloween ornaments to the Old World Primitives Etsy shop last week.

And now I have some garden photos to share – what a difference our new raised beds with great quality soil have made this year! We are using organic and/or heirloom seeds and seedlings, and absolutely no pesticides or chemicals. No fertilizer has been used yet, but we’ll add some of the organic compost that we are creating in our backyard Earth Machine composter soon.

My orange bell pepper plants are so happy and healthy this year! I can’t wait for them to get ripe.

Does anyone need any jalapeños?? I didn’t realize these plants were going to be so prolific – in a couple more weeks, we’ll be swimming in them!

This row of red and white onions were planted from seedlings, and they are extremely happy. I made the mistake of planting snow peas right next to them and THEN reading that snow peas don’t like to be next to onions, but they are still steadily producing nonetheless.

These are my onions planted from seed, after thinning, with my herbs behind them – dill, basil, parsley, and cilantro. I went a little too crazy with the cilantro.

Grape tomatoes – I picked and ate a few after I took this shot.

The biggest cluster of tomatoes I have ever grown – 9 and counting!

Help, help – the pickle cucumbers are coming! My husband is a pickle fanatic, so we planted 23 pickle cucumber plants this year. The canning might begin this weekend or early next week.

SOLD, thank you!

I also added a new set of 3 vintage style chenille Halloween ornaments to the Old World Primitives Etsy Shop, and will be adding a bunch more Halloween ornaments (both chenille and cloth) soon too.

On Sunday I also had the pleasure of attending the Kutztown Folk Festival in Kutztown, PA for the first time and I enjoyed it so much, I can’t wait to go back again next year! The festival included over 200 crafters both selling and demonstrating their crafts, and the quality was just amazing. There were SO many things that I wanted to buy! It was hard to stick to my budget and leave with just a few small goodies, but it was really fun and inspiring to see so many high quality crafts. There was also a quilt barn filled with over 2,500 handmade quilts, many of which I wished I could bring home with me too. We also sampled lots of yummy food and drink including the homemade fudge that I am snacking on right now, looked at the many exhibits, listened to some live folk music, and watched a thatched roofing demonstration. A few of the pictures that I took at the festival are below.

And finally, a big thank you to everyone who voted for my extreme primitive black cat doll in the Etsy Americana Decor Voter Poll! She was featured in a Storque post announcing the voter favorites and is now included in the Americana Folk Gift Guide.