There was an old woman who lived in a shoe

And that old woman now has a darling little house complete with a flower garden! Yesterday I showed you the shoe that I wanted to turn into a pincushion. Last night I built the house and the "world" on which it is perched! I laced up the shoe with some pretty pink ribbon and voila! I used variegated floss to stitch the flowers in the garden and flower boxes under the windows.

And here is the house up close and personal! I'm telling you these little pincushions are positively addictive. I started out with Mimi Kirchner's Tiny World Make-Do Pincushion pattern and then added my own touches. It is an amazingly simple pattern and the instructions are clear and very well illustrated. It is perfect for all skill levels, even beginners.

My list of addictions continues to grow. Here are a few of them:

• tiny world pincushions
• collecting teacups, mugs and other vessels for pincushions
• hexagons and diamonds
• nine patches
• half square triangles
• machine quilting
• Czech pottery birds
• hand quilting
• hand embellishing with floss, thread and beads
• lazy punk blocks
• porcupine quill boxes
• collecting fabric (cotton and felt)
• embroidery floss
• food
• thread
• quilts
• wall hangings
• blogs and blogging
• CBC Radio
• weird and wonderful natural things like brain rock and Saturn rock
• tchotchkes of all descriptions
• and much, much more!

I have to run an errand for Mom today so I think I will go for an extra long walk for some fresh air and exercise. If it takes me by the thrift shop and they have more teacups and mugs I might just feed my tiny world addiction! What I should be doing however is working on Lazy Punk and the Block of the Month pattern!

Yesterday I decided I would mark the diamonds on Lazy Punk with a Frixion pen rather than use the dot-to-do method. I spent the afternoon doing just that and then started the quilting. It was much faster and easier for me to do it this way. Hilda  of Every Stitch marked her Carolina Lilly for quilting and it is spectacular so I decided that for some parts of my machine quilting marking is definitely called for. I am much happier with the diamonds now.

And I'm loving the back!

Before I go for my "walk" I thought I would leave you will some pretty fall colours from Mom's garden!

Until I post again, happy sewing!