pleasant success all around

being that we don't have day jobs to go to, most of the time we choose to do any kind of shopping that we do in the middle of the week

but yesterday the DH wanted to get out and finish his Christmas shopping, so we went off to the shopping center and split up

mission accomplished -- he found what he was looking for -- and I took care of odds and ends of things
for one thing, I had begun to have serious doubts that I could pull off getting this item finished

so I actually purchased a sleeper for Mr Cute that is a Christmas themed print

but then, emboldened by having one I know will fit so close at hand, I took the plunge and made this pair too

ta da!!

these are just a tiny bit longer than the store bought ones in the body while the arms and legs are just about the same -- that should work!

and as I was putting the ribbing pieces on the sleeves and around the neck I had some time recalling pleasant memories when a great seamstress, Cleone Parker taught me how to apply this pesky rolling ribbed knit stuff to things -- and sending up a little "thank you" that I still remembered how











and since the sewing machine was out, I got that center seam with all the spikes stitched -- in fact, I double stitched it just to be sure everything is going to stay right where I want it to be

then it was back to the hand work, and by the end of the evening I had Steggy all finished -- the pattern is not very clear on the instructions of how to attach the legs, so that took some fiddling -- in the end I put the legs on so it looks like he's walking -- front and back foot far apart on one side and close together on the other

the pattern also talks about using pompoms and buttons for the eyes, but I'm making something here for a child that still puts things right in his mouth, so that was not happening -- I used little circles of the blue fabric instead -- done yo yo style and stitched down in the right places

cool!

and now that he's done, I'm even more sure I did the right thing by reducing the pattern by half

since I had the table cleaned off and the cutting mat out to cut out the sleeper, I just went ahead and cut the stripping so I can get back to working on the Four Seasons piece

then there is the current project on the sticks -- I do love the colors this yarn lays down as you work through the variations

and now that I've done this pattern for a while, it just speeds right along

looking really good

I'm pretty sure I'll have no problem creating 2 or 3 of these by Christmas


so today I hope to get my Christmas cards ready to go into the mail -- we'll see

after being the social butterfly

wow, I got a good reminder yesterday of why I want to stay in both of the quilt groups I'm a member of -- we had a great time at the luncheon, good food, great conversation and by the end of the gathering we had decided on a theme for next year's projects, selected a new group "president", changed our meeting day (to one I might actually get to go to a lot more often) and figured out who is "teaching" or "sharing a technique" in 6 of the 12 months -- now THAT is a great meeting

we also did show and tell (many things in photos because the actual items had already been gifted to someone) and talked about finding a local charity to donate pieces to

even being gone for 5 hours didn't deter me from finishing one of the super secret Christmas projects that's been being worked on! Yippee!!

and I put something new on the sticks after that -- I really love this yarn -- it's a sock yarn that has a great caramel/cinnamon/coffee colorway and will be quite appropriate for the project I'm knitting it into

after finishing the last project, where I was knitting on size 1 needles, these size 4s feel positively gigantic! it didn't take long to get this much done on this, however

today I hope to get that dinosaur stitched up so I can finish it and get on to the blanket sleeper and the cutting of the "mat" for the trees project

glory in the morning

here in the mountains we get what is called a "wave cloud" off of the mountains from time to time

when we were at our daughter's at Thanksgiving we had one of those mornings when the clouds and the sun coming up all came together to create an amazing blaze of color

I grabbed the camera and started snapping photos -- I have a file of this kind of pictures that I keep to use for future inspiration in making art quilts
Mr. Cute was up too

he came over to the door and stood looking up at me as if he was asking "what are you doing grandma?"

couldn't resist snapping this picture of him bathed in the fiery light of an awesome sunrise

I love this picture!




last night was the Christmas party of the evening quilt group that I belong to

at each place on the tables was one of these cool coasters -- of course, being that everyone at the table is a "stitcher", we right away set to "reverse engineering" them

ok, I can whip up some of these in no time if someone wants some (and yes, other fabrics beside Christmas prints will work too!)

and in keeping with the wearing of my "social butterfly" wings, today is the Christmas luncheon for my other local quilt group, so I'll be heading off (spinach orange salad in hand) to join the ladies for a purely social meeting -- no projects, just good food, show and tell and talking about what we plan to do next year -- it should be fun

guess I need to get something done before it's time to leave!

dino doings

well, even though I had really good intentions (and we know about those and the whole road to you know where) I didn't get the body of the dinosaur stitched yesterday -- seems there is gift wrapping going on and the table was unavailable for setting up the sewing machine

I did, however, get three of the legs all stitched, which means I have one more of those and the four tail spikes left to hand stitch, so the stuffing and finishing should progress nicely once I do get the body stitched

tonight is the guild Christmas party -- dinner provided by the guild, deserts provided by attendees, so I will be figuring out something today

time to get to it

onward with the pointy parts

and yesterday I managed to get the rest of the required 20 pointy parts stitched and pinned

and yes, Alison had it right, this will be a dinosaur toy for Mr Cute when it's finished

the original pattern was twice this size -- just too big in my opinion -- so I ran the whole thing through the technology process and shrunk it by 50%

much more reasonable

I did the pointy pieces by hand, but today I'll set up the sewing machine to stitch these two halves together

as I mentioned earlier in the week, it's been COLD here

it finally got to the dog

last night she decided she needed the DH to be her foot warmer

heh, right -- like he needed 80 pounds of labrador on his lap -- cute though



today's activities will include a run to the store for some supplies for a craft project and a gallon of milk, a stop at the post office to mail a package -- then back home to wrap presents, work on projects and further writing on the Christmas letter

onward!!

what is it?

for one, it's a really bad picture

for another, it's the beginning of a new project I started yesterday for Christmas

(yes, I know, I haven't got much time to get this done!)

trust me here, it will be cute

a finished object

Ta Da!

after all the trials and tribulations of putting this piece together, I finally finished it last night

I still need to do the official photo session so I can enter it in the competition I made it for, but I was so happy to have it finished that I wanted to share it here


don't know what I'll work on next, I need to go through the box of recently acquired goodies and see what "speaks" to me


meantime I'm doing some sketching of an idea for the ongoing Africa quilt piece as well as trying to figure out if I have something I can use to "mat" the trees or if I'll have to make a trip to the fabric store



much as I dislike the cold, there are somethings about living in a climate that produces this look that are very exciting

Friday morning we woke to fog along with the cold

a bit later in the morning, the fog lifted and we had a beautify blue sky -- and totally frosted trees

awesome

more Christmas projects

one of the things that my daughter wanted to do was give a personal gift from Mr Cute to some people on her gift list --- so I volunteered to help with the project

while we were there at Thanksgiving, she selected some photos and emailed them to me and we discussed what sort of thing she wanted to do with them

this week I did some design work for her and emailed the designs to her

yesterday it was a go -- one sweat shirt and two t-shirts all done!

this is one of the pictures I caught of Mr Cute last weekend while the tree was being decorated

he's very seriously regarding this wood trumpet ornament

so adorable

humming along

we finished decorating the second tree that we'll have up this year

this is a small tree (originally it was one that we bought for our daughter to have in her room)

over the years we've acquired ornaments that are very Eastern European in flavor -- hand painted matryoshka dolls, icon style angels, pysanky eggs -- enough that we put those on this little tree

we call it the Russian tree -- not quite accurate, but it does identify the box labels!

it looks pretty good






yesterday afternoon I finally got the quilts hung in the Ruth Holley Branch of the Pikes Peak Library District

it will hang there until January 2

pretty amazing to me







these are now ready to be put together

I've decided to put them all together in one piece, but I'm going to do it so it looks like four individual prints in a single frame

looks like I'll be prowling through the fabric bins to find the appropriate fabric for the "mat" -- and hoping I have something that will work

the sewing machine was humming yesterday afternoon!

did the stitching of all 3 of these pj pants

just one more sewing project that needs to be finished before Christmas (at least that's all I know about right now!)


this morning it is cold and snowing -- makes me really happy that we did the needed shopping right after we finished hanging the art, so we can just hang out here and stay warm

the kitchen is being warmed by the cooking of more of the pumpkins -- 2 are in the oven now and there are 2 more to cook after that -- and it smells good too

work to do on other projects -- time to get there

no forest -- just trees

I got this little baby all decorated yesterday

this year this is our family room tree -- it is on a little table with the snow village on the other end of it

this little tree is decorated with an assortment of Christmas treasures --

the star on top is the last survivor of a set of stars and wreaths that were my grandmother's

the little Santa figure in the middle branch was made by the DH when he was a child

there are ceramic ornaments that were made by a friend of mine and an assortment of the Hallmark miniatures that I've collected over the years


I've been putting more leaves on the fall tree

just a few more to go and this panel will be all finished -- then I'll have to make some decisions about what next


the beading around the necklace is going well -- still need to do the insides of the openings


yesterday I cut out some more items that now are ready to go to the sewing machine

and the knitting is progressing

it's busy, busy!


this afternoon I'll be off to finally hang my art work in the branch library


got to get to it!

a comedy of errors

yesterday was quite a comedy of errors

I had made arrangements to move my art work from one facility to another -- the plan was to take it down in one location at noon and put it up in the second facility at 3 -- this had all been arranged (or so I thought) by phone conversation and email

the take down went well -- we arrived at the appointed time, had a nice conversation with the ladies that work in that branch and took down the quilts

the hanging at 3 -- eh, not so much -- seems the coordinator had told me the room was reserved for me, but it never got on the schedule and someone else was in there -- and it was all scheduled out until 9 last night according to the folks that were actually there

this morning its snowing and cold and the temperature high for the day has already happened -- it will only get colder as the day goes on -- we knew this was coming which was why I wanted to do both parts of that yesterday

I'm waiting now to hear from the coordinator so we can try this again -- but it won't be today

the whole running around taking art down and trying to put it up again cut into the studio time

but I did get the yellow leaves onto the fall tree -- and a couple of them under the tree too


the two knitting projects that are on the sticks are also progressing nicely

moving slowly toward Christmas!








from one year to another we put up one tree or nearly a dozen or somewhere in between

this year we'll have two

and this

these little ephemera houses are one of my first clear Christmas memories -- they were my grandmother's and she would put them on the top corner of the piano every year

a couple of years ago my mother passed them on to me

this year they are on a little table in the family room where I will also be setting up the feather tree with all it's tiny ornaments

the newspaper that we get every day has asked for readers to submit photos of an ornament that means something special to them -- I'm thinking about sending them these

today will be a stay in the house day -- I'll be working on Christmas projects and those other things that I have deadlines for

time to have breakfast and get busy

returning to projects

actually there are a whole lot of Christmas projects going on here, but nothing is at the stage where a picture is appropriate yet

I did spend some time with this yesterday -- having found some soft upholstery velour for the backing, I got the bead work cut out of the backing and the velour cut and I've started doing the beaded edging that holds the pieces together

I was surprised at how well this part went, and I'm feeling pretty sure I'll be able to get it finished by the deadline

the beads I'm using around the edge are the same style as the beads I used for the field, but I've chosen a silvery gray color for those and I plan to use them for the "chain" that will finish this piece

the leaves on the fall panel have been started

these are one of the green fabrics I used for the summer panel, but here I've used the back side of the fabric out

I'll be using some yellows, oranges and browns for more leaves both on the tree and on the ground below it


the two knitting projects I'm working on are moving along --

and over the weekend I got a lot of work done on my Christmas cards too

closing in on those projects!




no, we didn't send the little boy to doggie jail

someone neglected to latch the crate after letting the little dog out and Mr Cute put himself in there and pulled the door closed after himself

cute, very cute!


today we're going to do a couple of errands including a trip to the grocery store -- the weatherman is forecasting several days of frigid temperatures, and we would like to be in a position to just stay put during that

we're baaaaack!

over the weekend we were off to our daughter's house to share Thanksgiving dinner, some Christmas shopping and just generally enjoying one another

on Saturday afternoon, our son in law brought up the Christmas tree and the containers of ornaments

here we have Mr Cute crawling over the top of one of the containers

in the background is the tree

and that railing between him and the tree? heh, that was created by the DH in about half an hour on Tuesday afternoon

it is made up of the open railing sides of what was once my daughter's crib -- it had those now banned sliding sides, and we just couldn't toss the good wood -- and the DH trimmed it and hinged it and put some little "wing" supports on the bottom side to stabilize it

no climbing the Christmas tree this year little man!
while we were there I whipped up these

the yarn was left from the hat I had knit for him earlier

oh look, a matched set!

today we have errands to run and projects to work on

time to get to it!

finished projects all around

direct from the garage workshop

the DH did the final coat of wax on this yesterday afternoon

it came out really nice!

so today when we pack the car I'll be wrapping it in a blanket and putting it in the back seat of the van held down with seat belts!

his next project is to finish refurbishing the wagon -- he's been working on it, but has had to create some additional wood pieces that he hadn't originally planned for

it is moving right along, and he should have no problem finishing it for Christmas



and I found buttons for Mr. Cute's first Christmas hoodie -- FINALLY!!

got this all finished last night -- yippee!!


so now it's on with the current secret Christmas project -- and I'm going to start on the mittens for Mr Cute as soon as I can measure his little hands


time to get rolling

beading is finished!

last night I put in the last bead on the face of this

WOW -- I can't believe I got here this fast (see, if I really need to get a piece done in a hurry I can)

I even spread the fray check on the back of it last night too, so hopefully today I'll get the backing cut and get started on putting it all together

one of the things I'm going to have to do is to create the "chain" that will attach to the ends and create the clasp at the back

I'm really please with the way this looks -- now hopefully the finishing work will go as well




I know, you're thinking "what are you doing with that?"

well, I'm using it to create a pattern for a quilt design that I'm working on

sometimes there is a real challenge to making a 2 dimensional surface look like a 3 dimensional object, so I'm working on that



today's plan includes unpacking the Christmas decorations that I'm going to put up and doing some organizing and getting ready for the cooking of the Thanksgiving dinner -- including a trip to the grocery store

time to get to it

butchering and other projects

yesterday was the day

the biggest pumpkin that we grew (which weighed 10 pounds and 8 ounces) was deemed the one to be made into this Thanksgiving's pumpkin pies

by the end of the day it had been reduced to these two little baggies of pulp

need to do one of your own? instructions for how we did it are here

pumpkin butchering has long waiting periods between steps, so I got a lot of work done on the beading project too

all of the beading on the right hand side is complete

and I've started working on the left side now

looking good!




and this hat is done -- and it's actually the size I need it to be!!

WHOOT!

the knitting of hats is now done -- as far as I know


I started another knitting project last night, but I won't be showing you any pictures of it until after Christmas -- that's just how it goes this time of year

time to get to that laundry!

more patched flannel

there was a bigger variety of pieces in the pink/purple flannel stash

but they were also smaller pieces

so the constructing of yardage from them took considerably more stitching to create

yesterday afternoon I finished making the finished object from this "made up" fabric

it feels pretty good to have been able to create these two items and spending very little for materials (I did have to buy some elastic)




these fabrics are the ones that just arrived for the next Keepsake Quilting challenge

the theme this time is celebration

and even before I saw the fabrics, I had been thinking about the theme and had created the pencil drawing (ok, it was a doodle on a piece of paper that is the size of a post it note!)

I will have to get the fabric that will be the back drop for this design, but I think this will be fun to work on

after I finish a couple of other things

the bead work is moving right along

on this side of the piece I have almost finished the bead "fill", which means the next time I sit down to work on this I should be able to finish this side and move to the other side

I'm feeling much better now about actually being able to get this done in time to enter it in the challenge

and I'm very pleased with the way it looks

because I don't do a lot of detailed drawings before I do a piece (that post it note doodle for the quilt is about as complex as it gets usually), its always a great feeling when the piece actually resembles what I see in my head!




last night I finished the straight knit rows on this project

so when I pick it up again I will be doing the decrease rows that form the shaping at the top of the head

nice, very nice






yesterday afternoon we took advantage of the nice weather to do some clean up work in the back yard -- we had a lot of wind the last couple of weeks, so the leaves are pretty much all off of the trees -- a good time to rake them all up and haul them up behind the garden fencing -- where they will keep the weed growth down and they will become part of the compost that will get turned into the soil in the spring

today we will be "butchering" a pumpkin so there will be prepared puree for Thursday's pies -- because my daughter has pumpkins of her own that need to be prepared too, I'll be taking photos as we move through how we do this to be posted over at Hattie's Kitchen -- and I'll post a link here when I get that post up

time to get busy

orphan yarns and persimmons

yesterday I was back in one of my favorite little yarn stores

the original plan was for us to go to the alpaca holiday festival, but somehow we got that all confused (yes, it is this weekend, but the flyer I saw said Nov 18 & 19, but it is actually on Saturday and Sunday -- the 19th and 20th -- go figure!)

anyway the yarn store had a basket full of "Orphan yarn" -- I'm hoping there is enough of that great black and white to make a hat for my Etsy store -- and the rainbow yarn will make very attractive mittens!

on the way back from that excursion, we stopped off at our local Sunflower market to pick up the pre-ordered capon that will be Thanksgiving dinner

and found these too

right now they are very firm -- sort of like an unripe plum

I've put them in an aluminum tray on the counter where for the next week or 10 days they will slowly ripen to the point that I can cut an "X" in the top and squeeze the pulp out like toothpaste to make us one of the winter treats that we had every year in California -- persimmon bars! yummy!!

I'll have to make sure some of them go into the freezer to be taken to my daughter

just a little sneak peek at the blue flannel yardage I
"created" from the scrap pile in my stash

I will not reveal what I've now finished creating out of this until after Christmas, but I thought it would be fun to show off the fabric

(and for those of you who do dressmaking, no, I did not use my serger to put the pieces together -- I stitched the pieces together and flat felled the seams to reinforce them)

it's been fun playing with these fabrics and remembering who I made the original items for

and Mammy would be proud of this "re purposing"

work continues on the bead piece

here is a close up of one of the side portions of the piece that shows the little "x" marks that are areas that I plan to leave as cut out areas -- when the piece is finished those will be open areas, giving the piece a sort of lace like look

I hope

it is going very well now that I've finally figured out where I'm heading!





the hat is growing

last night I finished the ribbing and started into the crown of the hat which is just row after row of knitting around

the DH said he could tell when I reached that point -- the knitting shifted into "auto pilot"

since this is the 8th of these hats I've made in 2 years, uh, yeah, it's definitely auto pilot!


today I hope to finish the other "patchwork flannel" project and do some rearranging in the family room as well as working on a couple of new drawings for two new quilt projects -- things are hoppin'!