Category Archives: Knitting

Juggling

Leave a reply

Right now I feel like a juggler, juggling several different things at once.  And it’s all my fault.  No one makes me do these things.

I am a creative person loving to sew, quilt, knit, embroider and do just about any handwork.  My problem is I love to start something, but I don’t always get it done.  Right now I can say  I have at least ten quilts that need to be completed.  Probably more.  One I just have a very little bit of quilting to do and it just sits there waiting on me.  Making me feel guilty.

Then there is the knitting.  I just started knitting after years of not knitting a thing.  Suddenly I am in love with yarn and the working with the two needles row upon row as a hat or a scarf takes shape.  This week I have made three children’s hats and a scarf.   I want to start another hat.  I’m thinking these hats would be nice to put in Christmas boxes for Samaritan’s Purse. I only knit at night right before I go to bed, but the problem is I don’t want to go to bed until I get a hat done.  I can knit one in an evening.  They’re small.

Then I decided I needed to make a couple of new ironing board covers.  That entails making almost a twin size quilt and cutting it down to size to fit the ironing board.  I almost have one done.  I don’t waste any time when I get an idea in my head.

Then I went to a fabric store last week with some friends and got an armload of felts and decided I needed to make needle holders right away.  Today I cut out two, plus a scissor holder.  They will be so cute, I think, if I get them done. Lots of handwork on these.  I will show them to you when I get them finished.  They are not the hand needle holders I made last week and showed you.    I bet you are wondering what I am going to do with all these needle holders.  I have a plan.

Now I am on a roll and want to get a Christmas quilt completed before gardening time gets here.  I almost have the quilt top finished.

Today it suddenly hit me I have way too many things going at once and need to finish a few and tidy things up a bit before Spring.  Plus I have been neglecting the pups and the chicks.  They demand my attention and I have given them very little in the past couple of weeks.  And I need to get to the beauty shop and get my hair cut or it is going to be to my waist before I know it.  Plus my “true” color is showing and I can’t have that.  But every time I think I will make an appointment,  we get another big snow and I don’t want to get out in it.

I need to plant tomatoes now.  Before we know it, we will be in garden planting season and last year my tomatoes were late getting out.  I had cherry tomatoes clear up to frost last year, but so many of them were wasted that way so this year I hope to get them out earlier.  The chooks really cleaned out the old garden and even flattened the compost pile so I won’t have much cleaning up of the garden before we till it.  I am amazed what good little dirt turners they are.  They have scratched up every inch of the garden area.  That is why you don’t let chickens into your garden when something is growing there.

I am sounding rather hyper here, aren’t I?  I said a while ago I have never been bored.  Now I see why.  I am where I think a boring day might be nice.  A long day of nothing. Maybe just me, a hot bath and a good book.  Sounds pretty wonderful.    But that isn’t going to happen for a while. Next week I start a new Bible study for six weeks.  Since it is going to be at my house this time I am going to have to do some cleaning.  And some baking.

Our Sunday school class is going to a dinner theater and I am so excited about that.  I love plays and musicals and things like that.  This is a special one for Valentine’s Day.

My chooks are doing well in this bitter, cold weather.  It doesn’t seem to affect them much.  We do have a heat lamp on in the sub zero temps.  They are still  laying from three to five eggs a day. I still have to give eggs away because we cannot eat them fast enough.   I notice someone is molting because I see a lot of loose feathers when I clean their coop. And it sure isn’t me!

DSC_0316

Finished my granddaughter’s book.  I find myself excited about reading the next one to see what is going to happen next to her main characters.  She is a really good writer.  As she matures I see her writing more and more and getting the public’s attention.  Her book is geared toward middle school aged children, but she used some big words I had to look up.

Another snow is expected this weekend.  Feed the birds.  They can’t find food under the snow.  I have the fattest birds and squirrels around because they are always feasting.  The squirrels just look at me when I go out to fill the feeder and just keep on munching.  I guess by now they know I don’t eat squirrel.

Here’s to sewing, quilting, knitting, reading and never being bored.  Bye.

Wonderful Winter Week in Weview

Leave a reply

I have to tell you something about this blog before you read it.  There is a picture that keeps showing up that I cannot get removed.  My husband tried also, but it is a ghost picture that refuses to be removed so when it crops up at the most inappropriate times, just ignore it.  Just think of it as the crazy uncle who came to dinner and never wanted to leave.  Okay, so here goes………

Even though it has been bitterly cold and even though it hurt to go outside for very long and even though you’d get frostbit if you spent much time outdoors, it was a pretty wonderful week.

I look back and see all the things I did and got done and I think it was a very productive week also.

DSC_0390

 

Every year about this time I get the urge to knit something.  I got some yarn last week and began two projects.

DSC_0392

 

This yarn is so yummy, but I can’t tell you what I am making because it will be a gift one day.  It has a wonderful texture and is knitting up so prettily.

DSC_0391

 

I have had this pattern for a turban for too many years and decided to try making it.  All it is is knit 3, purl 3 on one row and purl 3, knit 3 on the next until it gets to be about twenty inches long.  Sew the ends together. Then I doubled it together and this is how it looks:

DSC_0400

 

It is toasty warm and easy to get on and off.  In fact, I found myself wearing it all day when it was really cold to keep my head warm.

 

DSC_0395

 

Here’s another view of it.  Yes, I need a haircut and color, but I haven’t wanted to get out to the beauty shop.  Maybe this month I will change my look completely again.

DSC_0393

 

I baked eight little loaves of bread that was very good.  Sorry, it’s all gone now.

DSC_0403

 

Because it was so cold and the labs were in the shop keeping warm, I moved the shop into the house.  I was working on several projects here.  Despite the fact I have three quilts I want to make for Christmas presents this year, I keep finding all these little projects taking my time.  But they are so much fun.

DSC_0406

A pile of churn dash quilt blocks will become a new ironing board cover soon.

DSC_0409

 

Because I now have all my pins and needles separated, I now have to have something to keep my needles in so I made these cute hand needle holders.

DSC_0412

DSC_0408  This is what they look like when they are closed.

Because cabin fever was setting in, some friends and I and David decided to take a day out.  We drove to Indianapolis to see this sight first.

DSC_0419

DSC_0408 A beautiful ice tree that some people had made in their back yard.   They just used twigs and water from hoses with water from a pond on their property and began making this.  It’s been a very good year for ice trees and this year it is very big and so beautiful.  Their family has been doing it for years, evidently, but this is the first year I had ever heard of it.  My friends didn’t know where we were going when we were driving there.  They thought we were going to a quilt shop and thought we were taking a very strange route.

DSC_0415

Isn’t it a gorgeous sight?  The ice tree is pretty nice too!

DSC_0417

 

I think it’s worth the drive if anyone wants to see it.  The family just enjoys the smiles it puts on people’s faces and we loved it.

We did manage to get to a couple of quilt shops.  I had found one I had never heard of before on the internet called Crimson Tate.  It’s a wonderful quilt shop full of the most luscious fabric you would ever want to see.  I had seen some fabric on their website that I was hoping they still had that I am going to use in a quilt and they still had it.  Dance a jig.

DSC_0421

DSC_0420

Rows of these gorgeous fabrics.  I wanted them all.

DSC_0424

There was a wall of Love Indiana pillows.  Aren’t they cute?  I didn’t ask if they had a pattern for them. but they probably do.  They had so many cute patterns and if you like to sew clothes they have some dress patterns that are just darling.

DSC_0408DSC_0422

Everywhere you looked there was something pretty or cute to see.  Wouldn’t this be a cute quilt for a baby?  Have I used the word cute enough?

DSC_0423

There was this wonderful antique button display case(not for sale) as my husband quickly learned, but he sure liked it.  The owner of the shop was showing him some of her buttons.  Nice to have someone entertain your husband while you shop for fabric.  He likes to go into quilt shops since we use to own one and see what other shop owners are doing.

DSC_0425

This is Heather, the owner.  A really sweet and nice person.  Visit her shop. It’s at 845 Massachusetts Avenue in Indianapolis.  You will love it and she didn’t even have to pay me to say this.  It’s true.  It was a fun day.  We ate at Chick-fil-A one of my favorite fast food places that we don’t have in our town so I don’t get it very often.  Then we went to the Back Door quilt shop where I got a whole armload of felt to make things(I don’t know what, yet, but I like to always have felt on hand when the creative ideas start to come.)

Here’s to quilt shops, ice trees and good friends to share them with.  Bye.

 

 

 

 

Am I Obsessive?

Leave a reply

Obsess: to dominate or excessively preoccupy the thoughts, feelings or desires.

I believe I am rather obsessive.  I obsess about my grandchildren.  I obsess about my children.  I obsess about quilting.  I obsess about my chickens. I obsess about my two dogs.  I get on something and gnaw it like a bone.

Right now I am obsessed with knitting. Years ago and I do mean years, I knit a lot. I knit a little sailor suit for my oldest son and even changed colors and everything.  I knit a sweater with cables.  I knit baby caps and booties. I knit sweaters.  This was when I had three children and not nearly as much time as I do now. You see, I was obsessed with it and nothing could stop me.  But now, I am taking up knitting again and have found I have forgotten most of what I knew.  I have been watching internet knitting lessons.  Today I actually watched a woman knit a scarf on her arms.  Her arms!  She used really bulky yarn and the loops in the scarf were large and loose, but it was rather pretty.  Then I thought about trying it and wondered what would happen if right in the middle of the project I would get tired of it.  How would I save my work.  It’s on my arms!  What do I do with my arms.  Do I just keep the yarn on them as I go about my daily chores.  Yarn hanging down off my arms as I clean the chicken house or take a walk. Yarn dangling in the dish water as I do dishes.  If I do decide to try this one day, I will be sure I have plenty of time to finish it.  The video says it is a thirty minute scarf.  Okay.  Right.  It took the woman about ten minutes to show how to cast on the yarn onto her arm.

Anyway, today I went to Hobby Lobby.  I always ask myself every time I go there why I don’t go there more often and why I keep trying to find craft items at Wal-mart when just down the street is a store that has everything for crafts.  Why, why,why?  I don’t know.  I just know that every time I go into Hobby Lobby I get this whole crafty feeling and I think I could make anything.  Today I was in the yarn aisle. Omigosh, the beauty.  I started to grab skeins of yarn.  I had told David we didn’t need a cart and he went off to look at other things and there I was with an armload of yarn and knitting needles and I had to go to the bathroom!   So I began to  race down the aisles to find David to hold my yarn, but I couldn’t find him so I finally had to just lay it all down on a shelf and hope it would still be there when I got back.  It was and as soon as I came out the restroom, David was standing right there.  And he wanted to show me all the wonderful things he had found.

He had been looking at the stained glass making aisle.  There were all colors of glass and all the tools needed to make a stained glass project.  I said, “you need a hobby,” and he said it was too expensive and I said, “how much do you think we spend on my hobbies?”  Whoops, shouldn’t have reminded him.  I think making stained glass would be a great hobby for him.  We bought a stained glass picture of birds to put in our new window that is going to be put in this Spring and it was not cheap. I told David about all the money he would have saved if he could have made it.

Then he showed me the aisle where they sold all kinds of door knobs and handles.  We have looked and looked at Lowes for a certain handle we wanted for our kitchen window and could never find one.  We believe we have found one at Hobby Lobby, but we will have to do some measuring.

When we got home I could not wait to try knitting one particular yarn I got and I love how it is turning out.  It’s got a wonderful texture and is knitting up nicely into a scarf which will be a gift one day.  I will have to show you the yarn I got on my next post.

Here in our neck of the woods it is cold.  A real frigid weather system is locked on us right now.  The chickens have heat in their house and the dogs sleep in my heated shop at night.  They are beginning to feel spoiled as this is the first winter they have had the luxury of sleeping inside.  Now they feel entitled and look at me funny when I don’t let them in.  I am not use to dog hair in my shop and as soon as it warms up, out they go.  And don’t feel sorry for them.  They have a nice, warm doghouse and have a double layer of fur, so unless it is really cold like it is now, they are perfectly comfortable.

I have about five or six projects now that I am juggling.  In a couple of weeks I am starting a Bible study in my home so I will have to do some extra cleaning which is probably a good thing because when I am working on projects I have a one track mind. Obsessive, don’t you know.

Obsessive. Don’t act as if it’s a bad thing.  Bye.