Annual Cousining

The mittens are finished!  I kitchener stitched the thumbs in place after removing the waste yarn-simple!  I am ready to try the two color pattern from the top down again! 

Mom got an Accuquilt and we dug right in to make some blocks!

We will be doing some sewing on Monday! 

All four of my cousins, with spouses, met us at Lake Ontario at Oswego for lunch and a good catching up.  It was wonderful. 

The shore is all rounded , washed rocks.  My sister-inn-law, Shelly, is a wonderful artist who uses these rocks for painting critters.  I have painted rock frogs and turtles from this exact spot! 

Today the water had a beautiful turquoise hue.  It was hot out but the lake breeze made it a perfect temperature.  I love to visit here!

Being Northern Again

 I had a good flight to Syracuse;  it was good flying for knitting and reading!

 The scenery was brilliant.  Full of clouds and sunshine.

My sister and her daughter had time off from work so we could play!  We made bracelets from soda bottle plastic and painted them with fingernail polish. 

Another project was a beginner watercolor class to make a card!  We're all Rembrandts! 

Here's a close up of the bracelet I made. 

And my card.  We sure do know how to laugh while we play! 

I have a pair of.........no, not socks.  I am learning how to make mittens from the tip down to the cuff.  I will add the thumbs today.  It is going to be a good exercise for me.  Now that I have an idea of size, etc. I can work on fancy two color mittens this way.  (I am being inspired by Magnificent Mittens by Anna Zilboorg's book!) 

Up, Up and Away!

The little baby set is complete!  Felici yarn looks good no matter what you make with it! 

I have been busy filling this.  I am leaving for 9 days to spend time with my parents and family in NY.  Bill will be holding the fort here. 

I have packed the essentials.....!tr

Studio Saturday Pre-Recliner

I started with this little pile of shapes and did a bit of piecing this morning! 

I only need 12 blocks so I am getting close! 

This is a finished project;   

we bought this fabric yesterday and I thought of Will for when he gets a big-boy bed!

I am going to look for more fabric to make pillowcases for the other grands.  I forgot what fun it is to make these! 

Here is another fabric we bought yesterday.  I couldn't wait to turn it into a table runner for Marsel.  I cut out the triangles to make the ends all fancy but it didn't look right.  Then I ripped it all apart and sewed it again!  Fourth time's the charm!  How long have I been sewing?!!!  I blame it on the angles but I have the bugs worked out of this now!  I tried this before but didn't have the patience to work out the problem but I was determined to find the solution today!  Ha!  Conquered! 

I have to work on the backing but that will wait for me!  I ran out of gas! 

I knit the cats some wool mousies to  play with!  Even Big Grey played like a kitten with them! (pattern from Wendy Johnson here)

(I will let you in on the secret ingredient but don't tell Nyki I cheated!) 

One wee sock finished!  It is so soft and just right for his little foot!  Now to find the right spot on the skein to make the second sock!

Shop Hopping Day

When I mentioned earlier in the week that I wish I could take part in the Shop Hop-a marketing idea targeting quilters, Bill designated Friday adventure day again and we mapped out our zone of attack!

We decided to start out in Orange City, then New Smyrna Beach and here in Daytona where we decided to stop for lunch!   

We had a great shrimp po' boy  which fueled us on to our next stop! 

(Isn't this a fun restaurant?  It is built over the water so the view is perfect for viewing ocean and surfers.) 

We visited 6 shops, almost running out of time with our leisure and a minor distraction with a flea market!  lol  We did learn one thing-these quilt shops were very friendly and encouraging people! 

We traveled from Orange City to St. Augustine, visited some shops I knew about and some that were a great, new find!   

This was my knitting project for the car ride.  With my leftover skein of sock yarn, I made a little newborn hat......I have another grandson due in December!

And there was enough left to get a good start on this little sock to match!

Let me just say, I am so tired tonight but it was a wonderful day and a great gift from my husband!

(I am not a shopper in general but it was such fun to put the address in the Garmin and take off together to explore and laugh and conquer!  I said it was so much fun we should do it every Friday but we decided that maybe our budget would benefit from a bit of less than a weekly adventure!)

It's a Wrap...Almost

 I have been working every morning in the  studio completing the RSC2015 Quilt requirement for August! I cut a bunch and then I sew a bunch.  It works for me.

I finished the top row and then I sewed the two rows together;   

I found there were a LOT of seams that had to match so I had to resort to pins!  I don't usually use them but these rows have an intersection that must match every 4".  It was much easier to sew once I took the time to put the pins in first. 

I now have all of these rows sewn together!  It is actually the bottom of the rainbow! 

Here is the top...waiting for the orange row and the other side of the red will have brown and beige blocks! 

Here is the order from KnitPicks........it is a Felici Fix!  (and some Hawthorne Bare and some more superwash roving to dye and spin because I used up all the reserves during the TDF!) 

This is what I did with the first two balls of Felici!  Here's to many more!

Possibilities

I came back from my golf cart run to get the mail in the rain when I saw this! 

I couldn't believe there are four blooms on my Cereus Plant! 

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This is going to go through an amazing amount of growth to fill out to deserve the nickname of Queen of the Night! 

Ahhh, the contentment that comes with a pair of self-striping socks on the needles!  These are just a pair of vanilla socks (no patterning;  just full out knit foot and ribbed legs) which just fly from the fingers to your feet in KnitPicks Felici in Glacier. ( I ordered a bunch!)

De-Framing

The Hawthorne socks in Laurelhurst are finished!  They were set aside to knit the kids snuggle dolls but now they are on my feet!  I love the color! 

Millie's quilt number one is off the frame!  I only had 12" left to do but just couldn't get to it until today! 

I loaded her second quilt on, picked out a pantograph and got to work.  It was raining out and I had the usual Monday chores but I kept coming back to it all day. 

The panto was a nice primitive looking shape that covered 12" each row.  It was nice to motor through with the pretty purple thread! 

And somehow, it was onto the border and off the frame!  So nice to make the queue empty for a bit! 

None of the cats are impressed with rain, not to mention thunderstorms!  Nyki likes to help in the studio;  she asked me to hold her but I was standing at the frame or the dryer or the washer and wasn't in a sit down mode so she made herself a bit of a home! 

She gave me the 'look' when I took her picture!  "Sure, you have time for cameras but not for me!"