Just got the pictures from my husband's phone from our weekend adventure...Can you believe these icicles!!

 

 

Me by the B&B we stayed at.  Can you see me shivering!!  Burr!!

 

 

AT the very top of the picture you can see the frozen waterfalls.  We were about half way up the mountain.

 

 

MAY YOU ALL HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND MAY THE NEW YEAR BRING YOU LOVE,  GOOD HEALTH, AND A LOT OF HAPPINESS . 

BLESSINGS TO ALL MY FRIENDS,
MARGARET

 

Had trouble uploading pictures.  This B&B was beautiful.  Will try to upload more pictures

 

Lower part of Crabtree Falls, Va.

 

 

Way up near the top. That is ice!!

 

Monticello

 

 

I love this picture.  This was a tree growing next to the larger one and it "wrapped" around the larger tree.....

 

 

 

Anniversary Surprise!

My husband I and just came back from a 3 day get away at a beautiful B & B -Harmony Hills B&B in Arrington--in the Virginia Mountains to celebrate our 27th anniversary.  We even had a fireplace in our bedroom, which was perfect as it was in the 30's, cloudy, and a few snow flakes not to mention the howling wind!!  We went  to Crabtree Falls and climbed the 1.7 miles up the mountain, even climbing over icy rocks.  What an adventure we had.  Freezing---but still an adventure!!  I believe I read these are the highest falls east of the Mississippi--but I could be remembering wrong!! We could not get one picture of the entire falls...took lots of pictures as we climbed up the mountain....After being so cold and windy, we really enjoyed  the fireplace in our room and "hot chocolate" afterwords.  We also saw other things in the area and then spent time at Monticello-Thomas Jefferson's home.  What a fantastic place--even prettier in warmer weather, I am sure!!  A great anniversary and now we are looking forward to Christmas.  Hope you enjoy these few pictures! 

Let me see if my computer will let me upload a few more Christmas pictures from my house :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you enjoy.  Have more pictures, but figure that is plenty.  The painted Santa on my mantel was done by my father-in-law many years ago  He passed away 11 years ago and I wanted the Santa painted on slate to be in a special place this year to honor him.

 

 

Hello my friends,
My computer has not been so friendly for the last several months.  Guess Santa is going to have to bring me a new one.  This one is only 1 year old, but has never worked right.

Finally got my Christmas decorating done and I wanted to share a few pictures.  I just love this time of year.  I am making a few candles right now and my house is smelling so good and so "Christmasy".  H ope all of you are enjoying the season and and finding time to relax!

Well, dang!  Now my computer will only let me load these 3 pictures.   Will log off and try again.
 Smiles to all!

I am so sorry that I have not added pictures or info in a few weeks.  I know I promised info on the latest wool dyeing.....

It has been crazy and we are going on a trip starting Saturday.  I am just trying to finish up packing and you know how that goes!!!   We will be up in Pa.  visiting family, then on to West Point Military Academy, New York for my husbands' class reunion.  I am so excited about going back to West Point.  We always have so much fun and will enjoy the beautiful Fall colors, the football game, and seeing old friends..

When I return, I will post pictures of our trip and beautiful West Point. 

Thanks and see you soon,
Margaret--Tilly's Farm House

Just finished this wooly sheep and her blanket with pennys!

 

 Been rainy, chilly here in Williamsburg, Va. for days and days......So I decided today was a "me" kind of day.  Make something I have been wanting to make.  I love sheep (and crows and saltbox houses :-) and so on)...  So I took 2 different patterns and a stitchery pattern and came up with this gal.....and since it is cold--she had to have a blanket with some pennys on it.. Just finished and I took quick pictures.  Yep, the pictures are not very good, but here she is....  I am going to draw my pattern for my rug hooking pumpkin and crow and get my rug hooking together.  Then I think I will make my sheep gal another quick blanket, but maybe a bit longer on the sides.  I want to put a pumpkin on this one--for Fall......    She will fit right in now and then I will make her a Christmas blanket.... Oh, what fun!!!  

 

I know I said I would add the pictures I took of my pumpkin dyed wool and I will add tomorrow... Until then, everyone have a fantastic day.....  Sunshine is being sent your way--even if  like us here in VA. , you haven't seen the sun in days!  Margaret

 

 

 

Do you have one of those projects that you start and just never finish...well, to be honest I have a few.  But I started a needle punch Halloween piece probably 4 years ago--maybe even longer than that.  A dear friend gave me the piece and I got about 1/2 of it done and just quit.  I decided I just did not enjoy needlepunch as much as I thought I would and my hats off to all that enjoy this artform.  Maybe I would enjoy more if I did it more.  But I really got tired of rethreading that needle!!

Anyway,  I finally finished and had intended to frame my "masterpiece".  It is an odd size of 5" x 5" and I did not like how it looked in a frame.  I ended up cutting it down and made a small pillow tuck that I backed in black wool.  Looking back, I should have made the "pillow tuck" bigger by adding strips of wool to frame the piece then back it with the black wool ....   But I love it and I will enjoy pulling this out every Fall and remembering how long it took me to finish this piece..

Do you have a piece you took forever to finish....love to hear your stories....

Hugs,
Margaret



 how it looks in my kitchen.  I also did the rug hooked pumpkin piece on the shelf above the needlepunch piece.  I really love to rug hook.  I just dyed some white wool a pumpkin color with dark and light shades...  and am going to draw a pumpkin and crow to rug hook.  Will add my wool dyeing pictures next as I love how the color turned out  and I will show the progress of my rug hooking!! 

A few pictures of my Fall/Halloween Decor

Every year I take pictures of how I have decorated for the season.  The pictures are always just for me so I can decide if/what I want to do different next year.  I was just looking at them and decided I would put a  few in my blog.  Nothing is staged and you can even see my dirty dishes!! lol!!

 My decorating is for me and my family and will never be like the beautiful rooms I see in magazines, here on other blogs and on Pinterest, but that is OK.    I just love the fall season and  I am happy with whatever I come up with and have fun changing and adding as the years go by.  I have even done a bit of changing around since I took these pictures.  Oh, well........

It is too warm and early to add real pumpkins yet and I only have mums on my porch so far.  And  now I have decided that I am going to work on sewing up some more wool pumpkins to add around the rooms....because adding one more thing to my "to do" list sounded like fun!!!!

 I did want to crop some of the pictures, BUT for some reason, my picture editing program is not working right now, so please excuse these somewhat sloppy looking pictures....

HAPPY FALL AND ENJOY!

 

OOPS!  I meant to put these in some kind of order!  :-)

How I got my Blog Name

Karen, from KM Primitives has a really interesting contest going on--how did you come up with your blog name!!   Great idea, right.    One I can not wait to read the results of.  So here I go with my little story. 

My name is actually Margaret, not Tilly. I started this blog in 2010.   For me, I wanted my blog name and my "business" name  to be the same.  So why did a Margaret call herself  Tilly from "Tilly's Farm House" ???

We are a military family and we would move ever 2 to 3 years--one move came after only 6 months.  Not as bad as it sounds, but hard when you are trying to have any type of "business".  With every move,  I would "try" on a new name for my business--which were storefronts and craft shows over the years.  Every move started a new game of "what should I name my business this time?"...  My poor husband and son had to participate every time.You wouldn't believe some of the business names I have "tired on" over the years!!    

When we moved to Virginia and I decided to start a blog and sell on ETSY, I knew I had to pick a name and stick with it---not that I haven't tried to change it several times again.  I am HOPELESS!!!

Being as old as I am :-)  (smiles!!!), I started to reflect on "where I came from".  My Mother's side of the family had some wonderfully talented women.    I can still see myself as a young child staring at all the beautiful samplers and pillows made with hand dyed threads, the lace that was hand made and sewn to dresses and so many other beautiful works of art.  All of which are long gone now and only a memory for me.  My mother had a favorite Aunt Tilly- a spinster who lived with her spinster sister way out in the country, in Ohio where I was raised,  in a beautiful old farm house that I always loved and dreamed that one day I would live in something like it.    I decided I  wanted to try and honor all these wonderful women who have  inspired me and came before me,   by naming my business after my great Aunt Tilly and her beautiful old Farm House--thus "Tilly's Farm House" was born...

NOW for the funny part of the story--as every story has one.  Although Aunt Tilly was my Mom's favorite, she scared the " begeebies" out of everyone.  She and her sister only wore dresses that covered them from the neck to their ankles as "proper women" did not show skin.  I am one of 8 kids and she would have a fit when my Dad would take all of us (4 boys and 4 girls) down to the creek to swim and cool off on the hot days of Summer.  "You know boys and girls can not swim in the same area" she would say.  My sweet daddy  took us anyway and would just listen to her rant and rave!!  So my Mom's "Great Aunt Tilly" was  a fiesty old lady, but I owe her and  ALL the other wonderful, talented women in the family, a great debt of gratitude.  

THANKS!

Don't have a picture of my real
Aunt Tilly, but I love this
one.  AND she is smiling!

More Pictures of wool.

So here are more results.  Again, the camera does not do the color justice.  I have to figure that one out.  All in all, I am loving the results.  I know I am using the dark green as a background for a class I am teaching on wool applique.  It will be a holiday pillow with snowman faces on the front.  The plain dark red will be the background for another class and the holiday pillow will be the words "JOY" that will be a wool applique and I think I want to add some candy canes that we will needle punch on.  Have some playing to do!!! 

The deep cranberry red started as a light tan.  Put it in the pot with the plain purple plaid (2nd picture).  Added red and simmered away.....I kept watching until it turned a really deep red.  Added my vinegar and simmered another 20 minutes or so.  Then shut the stove off and let it all cool down.  When it felt cool enough, I dumped the water out, continued to cool, rinsed, got as much water out as I could, then into the dryer with a dryer sheet, an old white towel and a tennis ball (to help fluff)...I am loving it!!!
The bottom two pictures are what happened in the Rit green dye pot.  The green is really a very deep green.  Again, sorry about the pictures.....   I threw in that small piece of  purple plaid into the green pot as I had a lot of color left.  Again, I am loving that color. 

So if you have some wool you really don't like.  I recommend grabbing some Rit dye, old pots and just have some fun.  If you don't like the results, dye again!!!

Smiles going out to everyone!  Have a fantastic day.....



 

 

 

 

What I did with my wool

Storm has passed and now on to the dying of wool.  As I said, I like simple.  I am by no means an expert, but I have really enjoyed dying wool using many different methods.  What I am showing you now are the results of using Rit Dye in a box--well, the red was from the liquid Rit bottle, but I like the powder dye the best.  Several years ago,  I got a lot of wool from our Pendelton Store --they were no longer selling their wool off the bolt.  The colors weren't the best, but I knew I could dye over them.  Worked on a few batches over the weekend and this is what I got.  I first soaked my wool in a little "jet dry" and water for a few hours.  I was cooking breakfast, etc. so just let all my wool hang out in the sink for awhile.

Color Before

Adding Rit dye in a Golden Yellow
I added a whole box and then some....WAY too much as I
had a lot of dye color left in the pot...Lesson learned after that!

A slow simmer on my stove.  I just kept watching it.

Probably simmered a good 30 minutes or so before

I added vinegar and simmered some more.

 

Color After.  The camera does not do the color justice, but I

don't know how to really show the color.  I laid the wool on my off  white

carpet.  The  blue turned into various shades of green.  The tans turned

into the most beautiful shades of golden brown leaning towards burnt orange.

I love it.  Now I am looking for ideas of what to do.  Rug hooking

a Fall piece, wool applique???   IDEAS please!! 

 

 

Having fun dying wool

I can not believe how fast a day can fly by when you start playing with wool.  I have some before and after pictures and will tell you what I did .  It all started because I needed some deep green wool.  I took tan wool and just used Rit dye.  I like things simple and easy.  This is what the light tan turned into using dark green Rit dye.

 

Wow, as I am typing this we are getting hit by a terrible storm.  Lights are flickering, so will post more pictures and explainations after the storm.  Stay safe my friends...

Updating my Blog

I have been working all day on updating this blog.  I want to give a very special THANK YOU to Brenda from Hatties Workshop.  She made the greatest new banner for me and for my ETSY shop and is working on another.    On top of that, she has "held my hand" all day and helped me thru some issues on this blog.  I do believe there are gremlins in my computer--or in my fingers.  I always seem to have trouble adding to my blog. 

HUGS to Brenda for a job well done on my banner---anything else that looks "non professional" is all  my doing!!! 

Smiles to all who are reading this....

I have just finished another pumpkin pillow.  This one is for sale.  Please contact me if you are interested or you can see it on my ETSY.

I had so much fun make this one.  Can you guess I am ready for Fall and all the fun decorating that goes with it!!!

 

Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend....hugs to all

I just finished a fall pillow from a pattern by Calico Rabbit Designs.  It was the one in Primitive Quilts.  I just love it and it was easy to make.  I even took pictures of my progress, for once!!



Looking at my color choices

 



Pinned together and like this so far. 

 



TA DA!!!!  I love how this turned out.  Actually, the colors look better in person.
I am going to make another one to sell on Etsy.  This one is mine!!!