It's been an amazing year for the flowers outside --- particularly the flowering locust trees. Never seen a year like this! We've gotten all kinds of weeding, trimming, mulching and plant moving done in the last two weeks. These photos just show all kinds of things around the property. Our pink Columbine plant actually came back this year (usually they don't), and the Irises and Peonies are AMAZING! I put the photos below in a gallery, which means that you can click on them to see the whole photo (which doesn't show on the thumbnails) in full size.

Today was the beginning of the annual fiber show! I'll post photos of that soon (hopefully tomorrow afternoon), because we actually took the camera this time! Got some fabulous things, but I won't spoil it by telling. More later.

 After so many years of waiting (it's actually been fifteen years since the first LotR film was released), a brilliant company has finally decided to release movie-themed fabric for the "Lord of the Rings" and the "Hobbit" films as produced by Peter Jackson! Usually, when a new fabric line comes out, we seem to be the last ones to find out --- but this time is different! We walked into our local JoAnn Fabric store on Thursday and found some absolutely amazing LotR fabric on the shelf among the licensed prints. There was no copyright date on the selvage, so we were at a bit of a loss to know whether this was a new line or just a happy situation of some old bolts showing up in our store. There was one bolt of black and gold printed cotton with the LotR logo and various Tolkien drawings, a bolt of Frodo flannel (with the LotR logo and Frodo's picture in a tan, black and white pattern) and a bolt of tan and blue LotR designed fleece. Naturally, we couldn't leave all that amazing fabric in the store, right?! We don't use fleece, so that bolt is still waiting for a buyer to show up, but we brought home both bolts of the cotton and flannel. Wow! Here is a quick photo of our fabric:

As soon as we came home, I ran into the computer room here with the bolts to see if any info would come up online. The selvage had the web address for the Canadian-based company, Camelot Fabric, so I punched that into the search bar. They have a nice website with all of their fabric collections shown in photos, but there were absolutely no results on Thursday night for "Lord of the Rings" or "The Hobbit". Immediately, I sent an e-mail explaining what we had just purchased and where --- asking if this was a new line and how it would be available for purchase. Still no answer on that one, but it may be this week before they get to it.

There was no way that I was going to wait around for an answer. We sent photos and e-mails to some friends, but we really were dying to know if there would be more fabric coming and if any "Hobbit" themes or Elven patterns would show up. So, I started searching on Google, eBay and Etsy. One result for someone in Minnesota with homemade pillowcases of the Frodo flannel showed up, but the only person selling yardage of both fabrics shown above turned out to be on eBay and located in Mentor, Ohio. That made us wonder if an Ohio warehouse for JoAnn's was sending this stuff out --- either as a brand-new line or a newly-located batch of old fabric.

More searching, and I decided to browse through the Camelot Fabric catalogs (which are available as PDFs on their website) in hopes of finding something that mentioned these patterns. As it turns out, their Winter/Spring 2017 catalog was just released on Wednesday (the day before we found this fabric), and there it was --- a complete "Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" line showing up with a delivery/availability date of August 2017! Thirty-six hours later, the collection was posted on their website with thirteen different patterns featuring characters, scenes and props from the six films, as well as two full-size fabric panels of a poster from each trilogy. Click on the page below, if you'd like to see Camelot Fabric's online catalog. Or you can click on the individual images in the gallery below that to see the patterns very large.

This is a full update on this fabric (as far as I've been able to discover facts) so far. Hopefully, more of these patterns will show up at JoAnn's, but they'll be available from fabric shops online, I'm sure. The ordering info on Camelot's site implies that there are going to be 15 patterns in all, which suggests that there may be two more not shown. They also make no mention of flannel or fleece, so we'll have to wait on that one to find out which patterns are available in the different styles. Our Frodo pattern is flannel, and the fleece that was at our store was a tan and blue version of the eighth pattern (black, white and silver LotR) in the gallery below. This is such an exciting chance to get fabric in these themes! I'll have to post photos of whatever we decide to make with it. We're pretty sure that the Frodo flannel is going to become throw blankets for our chairs by the television. More later . . .

Time is flying by, and I have been spending so much time working on my two websites that I never have a chance to blog. This winter was a great time to get things done, so I was finally able to update our personal website and get all kinds of photos uploaded. Totally changed the look and added a lot of new sections --- which is something that Elizabeth and I had wanted done for a very long time. It gives the opportunity of posting a wider variety of the projects that we are (or have been) working on, creatively speaking. So, here's the link to that site. Have a look, check it out and don't be afraid to drop an e-mail into our box!

I also had a fun chance this winter to experiment with some miniature needle-felting by trying to come up with 1:12 scale felted dolls. Have a look at the previous entry, and you'll see photos of some of the "Bleak House" dolls that I made for Elizabeth. These turned out so well and were quite fun to make. Shortly after Christmas, a young man from Holland contacted us about ordering a doll of Nori the Dwarf from "The Hobbit". Thinking about it, I thought it would work out to make Nori in the six-inch size --- and Elizabeth was game to give a hand at making the miniature belt and metal hair decorations. It turned out very cute, and the young man (after receiving his little Nori doll) actually took the doll to a convention where it met the real Nori --- Jed Brophy! It was made in America, went to Holland, drove to Germany and met a gentleman from New Zealand! Not bad for a little doll.

Summer is practically here, even though Spring just arrived. Lots of flowers are coming out. Irises are almost ready, as are the Locust Tree flowers (almost two weeks early!). The Poppies have been beautiful, and all the birds are back!

The other project that I've been working on is a historical website about the history of the Eliots of Port Eliot in Cornwall. This research has been a hobby of mine for years, and it's really fun to finally be able to get it out there for others to use and enjoy, too. I spent a month just writing and putting up a section in honor of my hero, Edward James Eliot. That was fun! If you'd like to check that site out, here's the link: http://eliotsofporteliot.com/

I could keep writing here, since there is more news about felting and the large dwarf dolls, but I better save that for another post! Hope there won't be such a long time between the next one. The big fiber show is coming up next weekend, though, so I'll try and post about that later.