First Stop on the NiftyKnits Meerkat World Tour: Rural Blounts Creek, NC!

Etta the Meerkat arrived here in rural Eastern NC all the way from England, and her creator Heather of Niftyknits! What a sweet little kat she is! After unpacking, we set off on a geeky fun adventure together: a trip to explore some of the sharks teeth that our area is internationally known for, at the Aurora Fossil Museum!
As you can see, Etta was in awe of this Great White replica and all the fossil sharks teeth!

Later, back at my house, Etta had a tour of our 75 acre property. My husband Howard is a ham radio operator and she was intrigued by the four huge radio towers in our fields. All of a sudden, Etta was gone! I guess her taste for adventure got the best of her, as I spotted her climbing the 130 footer! Bad Etta! By the time I got there, she was hanging on for dear life!

Luckily she managed to pull herself up and climb down

with no harm done... what a girl! Happily, we went on to safer pursuits.


I think Etta enjoyed seeing the gourd art from my Midnightcoiler shop, and some of my gourd harvest. She told me the egg gourds were her favorites! Tomorrow my little Meerkat friend leaves for her next stop. I'll always remember Etta and what a good time we had together! To see more of Nifty's fabulous Meerkats, check out her shop, NiftyKnits. Read her Blog and join the Meerkat World Tour Fan Page on Facebook to follow all of Etta's adventures, as well as her sibling, Treasure, who is also traveling the world!

Pecans, Our Latest Harvest

The pecans have been falling from the trees, and every few days I go out and collect some. The squirrels have also been busy, and our two dogs love to crunch on a few as well. With five mature trees, there's really plenty enough for us all!

For the last few years we didn't have a harvest due to drought and wind storms, but this has been a good year. The nuts are good-sized due to plenty of rain.

I wish you all could taste these nuts in all their rich, full, smoky sweetness. As anyone with access to old trees knows, there is much more flavor in the nuts they produce compared to ones you may buy at the grocery or even fancy nut houses. The reason is that commercial pecans have been bred for size, and in that pursuit some of the flavor has been lost.

When the weather turns cold, I'll sit and shell them, then freeze most for later use. But right now aren't the bright green husks beautiful?

Last Day for Free Shipping on Designer Eggs--- Happy Valentines!

Grab my colorful designer egg gourds before midnight tonight

to take advantage of free shipping! If you missed this, check my shop for future offers.

Make Mine with a Twist!
I stayed up well past midnight last night to put this treasury up. Guess I'm not called Midnight for nothing, though late hours don't always mean coiling. Can't seem to get a whole shot of this one, sorry. Click on image to enlarge. Featured are Norakaren, Truluxe, Patspottery, Abrushandaneisel, Slavko, Accentsbylori, Glassnwood, Dbabcock, Gocksfrocks, Niftyknits, Adornmejewelry, and Susansheehan.

Black and Cream Dream

This treasury was based on tips that House of Mouse wrote about in the Etteam Blog. I'm ever hopeful to someday achieve that elusive front page spot! In the meantime, I enjoy featuring items from lovely Etsy shops like these:

dbabcock, notrocketsurgery, liciabeads, tiedandfeathered, springcolors, busybeads, galit,
stelmadesigns, beautifulbridget,
jeremisavoie, funwallart, bazketmakr

Heart Sketch... joy and sadness

Just in time for Valentines Day, my latest treasury sets a sweet tone with a touch of sadness.

Featured are members of the etteam and other etsians: folkartvision, papermoth, jeremisavoie, strandsoflight, branchingstreams, zaftigdelights, tyarkoni, bythewayside, heatherrlange, alibalijewellery, aysetugrul, nivenglassoriginals. Please visit their fine shops and discover other wonderful items!

Click image to enlarge.

Designer Egg Gourds Offer: Free Shipping!

FREE SHIPPING

On my beautiful designer egg gourds through Valentine's Day!

Read all about these beauties by clicking on the photo or title.

If you're interested in another color combination, I do custom orders. Just contact me!

These elegant bowl and basket fillers make a fascinating and gorgeous statement in your home decor.

New Flicker Photo Group!

There's a new basket making group for traditional coiled and twined basketry techniques on Flicker! Please post your photos there to create awareness about the two most ancient basketry techniques still being practiced by a small number of us today.

Basketry is one of the very first crafts to be invented by humans. Twining and coiling are the two most ancient basketry techniques. These techniques predate pottery.

One of the reasons I started this on flicker is because there is a serious lack of authentic coiled work out there. I've been seeing more and more vessels that makers are calling "coiled baskets," that don't use basketry techniques at all. With the popularity of crocheting, knitting, felting and quilting has come a variety of vessels, that while often attractive art forms in themselves, do not represent the ancient art of coiling. I've recently become aware of just how obscure our art form is, and of a lack of awareness and even confusion about it. People, especially younger generations, should not confuse glued, piece stitched, or shaped fiber bowls with a coiled basket. They should not confuse crocheting with twining. Lets create some awareness of what coiling and twining is, out there where the general public can discover it! That's why I created this public photo stream group, where we can add our informative comments and photos for the world to see.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/coiled_and_twined_basketry/