Acknowledge the Passing

You have been a hard task master 2014 but we are looking forward to your replacement!
Happy New Year!

Knitting and Birthdays...

I'm hoping this is the last post without a camera- UPS delivery tomorrow is anticipated!

 We took the long drive to Live Oak to see Ella's second birthday, I took knitting for the drive...

 Ella was very cute and appreciative of each gift.  It was so much fun to watch her open them and squeal with delight.

 She took her new Little People right over to her castle to play.

 She wanted to try on or check out each new present.

 She is trying on her dress-up costume here over...

 her new Syracuse University shirt from her family there!

I have a new project on the needles-another entrelac blanket for Elijah-I have a month to knit this so the crush is on!  I love extreme knitting!

(I knit one of these for each of the three new babies when they all made their arrival 1,2,3 a few years ago!  Here is Ella in hers.)

Imagine That...

I haven't been blogging because I haven't a camera.   My camera croaked!  It takes pictures but the pictures look like they are in the middle of a dust storm...
I have been taking a few pictures with an old camera and then I couldn't find a USB cord to fit the camera so I could download the pictures!  So I have used my phone but that is not a smart phone and the photo capabilities are miniscule!  What a minor problem in the scope of things, right?  Enough fussing.    (I have the opinion that a blog post without a picture is a terrible thing  :O  so I have waited to post to this blog until I could produce a few pictures!)

 This is the promised picture of Ella with her 'castle' for Christmas.  She is so cute while playing!

 I received my own 'princess' video!   I saw this presentation of Cinderella when a child and this year the DVD was re-released for the 50th anniversary of the Rodgers and Hammerstein version for CBS...I love to knit and sing to this and now can watch it with Abigail when she comes here, too!  (It has been our tradition to knit and watch it at her house but now we get to have it in both places!  Yippee!)

 

 The Calliandra is in bloom!  Caleb missed seeing it by a few days because it waited until the 25th to bloom;  he loves this plant and I completely understand why!

 Isn't it so pretty?!   The bloom is about 4" across to give you an idea of size.

 I had a little problem with my sock knitting.   My  nieces wanted a pair of sports colored socks and I almost made the deadline but instead I did something I have never done before.....I trimmed the tail after burying the end for my ta-da moment but I cut the knitting instead.  A.big.hole.resulted.
Have I mentioned I am having vision trouble?!  I am having blurry vision and also depth problems.  I will not cut another yarn tail unless it is magnified by my new lamp.  I never want to do this again!   I had to undo 4" of ribbing and reknit it.  Misery.

 But I did what I had to do to get the socks made!  One pair for high school team colors ....

and another for the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Ugh.  I pretended it wasn't for sports teams! lol

I knit another pair of boot toppers for a reward!  These knit up quickly with number 9 needles and chunky wool yarn!

Happy Day!

 M & M's are always a welcome treat but especially when they are in a fun dish-

 a Snowman dish!   This is just a knitted cuff over a globe dish!   (Allfreeknitting.com)

 Matthew, Ashley and Will stopped by for a visit.....

 Because today is my birthday and my sons treated me to the latest Hobbit movie at a theater ...together!  The daughters gifted me by keeping the babies home and giving up their Saturday!
When the boys were boys, we used to go to each new showing of Lord of the Rings.  We haven't made it to one Hobbit movie together but this time it was a hit!  A homerun.......just wonderful to share it with them!  I am ready now for a LOTR marathon on tv!

 Once we got home (we went to an early show) we had birthday presents and then a Christmas party!

 The kids got into the gift thing much better this year!

 Will knew just what to do after his birthday last week!

 Caleb got the job of putting Ella's princess castle together.....I will get a picture of her playing with it later.

 Will was patiently waiting for Dad to undo all the anti-theft wrapping......

 so he could get his hands on the helicopter set!

 After a delicious dinner, we had my favorite birthday cake-angel food with strawberries and Cool Whip!  So nice to hold the babies, too!

Can I mention it was an utterly perfect day!

Round and Square

 If you have never tried a 'in the hoop' sewing project, this month's Creative Machine Embroidery has a very cute chapstick keychain idea!  I cut out piles of coordinating fabrics with the bit of ribbon and hair elastic for a closure to assemble....you guessed it, in the hoop!

 I removed basting stitches and carefully removed the finished embroidery each time...

 so I left a hole but did not disturb the whole piece of stabilizer.

 This way, I just added a piece to cover the hole and then made the next one....

 I did this over and over this week!  By cutting them out with pinking shears, I also cut out the curves so they require no 'clipping the curves'!

 This is a view of the hair elastic placement after the pocked has been basted in place.

Then the top fabric goes on the whole thing right side down and it stitches leaving an opening for turning.

Thankful I remembered to use my tube turners because trying to turn the first few without it was a misery!  (made worse by the diminished hand strength!)  I cannot tell you have many hours this tool has saved me!

 After poking all my corners and sewing on the button-voila!

I just kept making them ....

 and making them.......

until I had enough for all the kids at church!

I also have enough eyeglasses for all the ladies, too!

 I finished the grout on the last windowsill!!!!!  

When it was dried this morning, I put all the decoration back in place and smiled!

 The quilt is getting near the finish line!  If I stop playing with other things, I will get back to it!

 I made a loaf of banana bread with some of our own bananas....this is an experiment in using whole wheat and and the bread machine.  I must admit-it turned our yummy!

This is what kept me busy today!  The top and focal point of our chimney outside on the porch!
(No, the chimney is not crooked, the photographer is leaning from exhaustion!  lol

On the Square

 I have one of the five window sills completely finished!

 The other four have the tile adhered but not yet grouted.

 The cutting of the tile is done for now!  Phew!  The marble tiles look great but they sure did crumble easily!

 Here is the cutting station!  Bill did a ton of cutting for me when I wore out!

When I needed a break from the tough stuff, I spent some time in the sewing room.   I saw this link for a YouTube video on a blog friend's post and

decided to tweak it a bit to make these.

A whole bunch of these!   About a dozen I think!  I made all kinds of mistakes on the first one but they are cranking out pretty easily now!

 I am doing a row of quilting blocks a day on the flower basket quilt.   It is progressing nicely!

 I am outlining the flower basket blocks and adding a pretty free-form feathered wreath in the plain blocks.

It gives this quilt the illusion of tradition with a bit of a modern flair.  Perfectly complimentary!

 I am hanging in there with the nieces socks.  I am working a bit on each sock....

But the boot cuffs keep calling my name!   Two pair done and I am almost done with a third pair!