Full and Fun

I didn't get to finishing 'Promise of Spring' into a framed picture yet. Last week was even busier than I thought it was going to be. My daughter and I had 3 (!!!) 4-H events - a 4-H Sunday/meeting, a Jr. Leaders meeting, and the county-wide 4-H Carnival event. Lots of errands, dd's first class of the semester and dd had 3 days of work. We went to the city (bigger town an hour away) to get taxes done and a second trip to sign on them. And finally, on Sunday Hubby and I went to Cirque du Soleil!! That was an amazing show. I've never been to see anything like that and was really impressed by the production. Hubby got free tickets through his work and we sat up in the box seats so we really got a birds eye view of the stage...

The whole stage was covered in tarps/fabric that they moved back and forth and projected scenes onto - very much like the opening ceremony of the Olympics. It could be dizzying if you were trying to walk and look at the stage at the same time...

Blurry picture, but you can see how dramatically the stage changed and most of this was projected. 

Hubby wasn't as impressed with the show, but this isn't really his thing anyway. He was happy that we got out together and had fun:)

I did get 'Promise of Spring' stitched and decided that since I got a WIP finished that I should start working on another WIP. So I looked through my pile and decided to work on Spring Snapperland from Bent Creek...

Hmm, this picture is blurry too. I'll try to get a better picture next time. I had the last two blocks done and most of what is done on the first already. I only worked on the house and roof since picking it up this time. So one more block after the one I'm working on and then the boarder. It should be a pretty quick project to finish up.

Tomorrow I will post my knitting updates:)

I Need More Needles!!!

Like I need another hole in my head!! My resolve to finish up projects and only start new ones as I get others done has flown out the window, so to speak. I wanted something different to show off this week that was small and quick because I have been working on a large-ish cowl and a lap blanket for the past couple of weeks and they are becoming boring to show off and going so slowly, so I cast on a couple wash clothes. They are small, quick and brightly colored which is a big change from my previous projects...

Also, my daughter asked for another KitKat Hat (not politically motivated, she just really likes cats:).
This time she wanted one in brown and since I already had the yarn for it, I cast it on right away. THEN I went to the craft store, not for yarn, but you know I had to at least look and I found some really fun yarn that I think will look great with the Knit Night Hat. I was going to go ahead and cast that one on too, but I found out that the needles that I am using for the ribbing on my daughter's hat are the same needles I need for the beginning of this hat. Hmm, good thing I don't have a good yarn store close or I might have needed to get more needles too!!

On top of this, I am set to take part in a MKAL by Helen Stewart of Curious Handmade that starts next week. I am all ready with needles and yarn, and while purchasing the yarn for that I decided that I like it for Celes wrap by Jared Flood too. I had started a couple years ago and then changed my mind on the yarn. AND I really want to re-cast on Project Peace (in which I will use the yarn I pulled out from Celes to use on this:).

I was doing so good, keeping myself from a huge 'Cast On ALLLLLL the pretty little things' party, but now, not so much. We will see how this plays out:) Besides, this is the fun part anyway!!!

Reading: I finally finished 'Rent Collector' by Camron Wright. It was pretty good, but really slow. The end was moving and I am happy I forced myself to finish it. I also listened to 'To Die For' by Alice Clark-Platts. It was a short story and very different from the other. It was kind of dark and not great, but a good change of pace. (Some cursing, a suicide, an attempted rape - just so you know before you 'read' it).  I am getting ready to start 'From Sand and Ash' by Amy Harmon and I really don't know anything about it. Hopefully it will be a good one:)

Linking with Ginny of 'Small Things' on her Yarn Along/Read Along blog hop and with Nicole of Frontier Dreams and her 'Keep Calm and Craft On' blog hop. 

Weekend Stitching

I really caught the stitching bug this past weekend!! I just almost got a finish to show for it, but not quite, darn 4-H meeting got in the way:)

Actually, the total progress I have to show is a bit more than just from this weekend, but the progress from 'Promise of Spring' is mostly just from the last 4 days or so.

I am just about ready to start on the boarder section for 'Tis the Season' sewing bag from BBD and then I'll have to decide what to do about what will be the back side of the bag. The design has an alphabet with 'Merry Christmas and Happy New Year' at the end. I'm thinking I want this to be a reminder of my 'word for this year' which is 'Simplify' and maybe a quote using that word, but I haven't picked anything out yet.

I'm hoping to have 'Promise of Spring' from Silver Creek Samplers done by the end of the week and maybe frame it. This should be pretty easy to do as all I have left is the snow, a date stitched into the snow and a bit more greenery, but this is going to be a busy week too, so we shall see.

FNSI

Last night was the first Friday Night Sew-In of the year!! This sew-a-long is hosted by Wendy over at Sugarlane Designs. I will state right here, I'm not much of a sew-er. At least not with a sewing machine. I have lots and lots to learn, first off patience. ;-)  But I figure if I keep trying and working on it, I'll get better with time.

I had posted earlier this week that my hubby had gotten himself a food dehydrator for Christmas. He asked if I could make a simple cover for it to keep it from getting dust inside of it as it is sitting right next to our pellet stove/heater. So I bought a big piece of fake leather...

cut it up and sewed it together. This was a bit difficult as I didn't want to pin it together in order to avoid any extra holes in the material, but it came together okay. I'm not super happy with the corners, but I did get them better than my first attempt. Also I haven't put a back on this yet as I wasn't sure if my hubby wanted to cover where the cord comes out or not. He said to go ahead and make the back a bit shorter to keep from pinching the cord area, so I will work on that today.

Next I decided that I would try and finish the zipper pouches I started a couple months ago. But as I sat down to work on it, the next instruction seemed off. They said to place the zipper along the top edge of the exterior fabric, making sure the start and stop points were 1/4 on the inside of it. But my zipper is a 9 inch (I checked and that's what they called for) and my exterior bag dimensions were 8 1/2 inches (again I checked to make sure I made it correctly), leaving me with this...

This clearly hangs over by about 1/2 inch - and yes, I checked AGAIN to make sure my measurements were what the instructions said. Not having much experience with zippers, I didn't know if I could sew over the back side of the zipper (before the stop point) and only have it open so far, or if I needed to make a wider bag. I decided to try a wider bag.

I got the material all cut out and the interfacing cut and fused on before it was time to make dinner. I'll get back to it soon and hope that this solves my zipper problems. If you know what I could have done different, please let me know:)

I have some fabric I bought last month that I really want to play with for our next FNSI!! I can't wait to turn it into some more project bags:)

Yarn Along - Just Plugging Along

Linking up with Ginny at Small Things on her Yarn Along. This is where we share what yarn-y goodness we are up to along with discussing what we are reading. I'm afraid my posts here lately have been a bit of a repeat, but I am really trying to get more done on the projects I already have going before giving in to a new project. It's been a struggle, let me tell you. I already have 2-3 ideas in mind for what I want to cast on next. One is a small crochet project, so that would probably be okay to go ahead and start, right????

For this week I did manage to stick with what I have been working on for a while now....

Reading: No, this does not mean that I finished Rent Collector by Camron Wright. I am almost done with it. I don't know why it is taking me so much time to finish it. I guess it just isn't gripping enough to make me want to see what happens. I think it has more to do with the voice of the narrator than the story itself. But after I force myself to finish it I have 'To Die For' by Ralph Fiennes all lined up. It's a short story and a thriller. I hope the change of pace will get me back to 'reading'. 

Knitting: Still working on Tidal Sands Cowl from Anne Hanson. I am about 1/3 of the way done with this and you can really see the pattern in it now. I even have the 12 line repeat just about memorized at this point which makes it go a bit faster.

Crochet: And still working on the lap blanket. I'm also about 1/3 of the way done on this one. I was at 13 inches last week and just measured it this morning and am now at 22 inches. So it's coming along pretty quickly. It is taking SOOOO MUCH YARN though. I think I have 2 skeins left and every time I sit down to work on it I am going through a whole skein. Thinking it's time to get more yarn for it:) 

Question: My oldest cousin (she is 5 years younger than I am) just had her first baby and I am wanting to make something for them, but not sure what yet. I had bought a pattern to crochet an elephant as an elephant painting was the only decoration that I knew they had for her room - and her colors are pink, gray and turquoise so that seemed fitting. But I found out just about everyone picked up on the elephant theme - which wasn't the intended theme, she really wanted all kinds of animals - so, now I'm thinking that might not be the best idea. I'm guessing that an aunt made a blanket, so I don't want to do that either. Any ideas? A cute hat, another animal? Just not sure here, but I need to get it started soon. 

Anyway, I promise I'll at least have something new to show off for next week along with these two projects:) Off to see what everyone else has been up to. :) 

Or Maybe...

I'll post on Tuesday:) This weekend really could not have worked out better for me. We did get the ice that was predicted...

Our storage building/rabbit barn - was probably a one car garage at some point.

But not so much that we lost power. It was just enough to ice us in and make all the activities that we had planned (youth group, church, 4-H, daughters class, vet appointment) get cancelled. To me, that is a good weekend!! :)

So I had plenty of time to get my 'Finish It Friday' projects done, and I did...

Winter Snow by Heartstring Samplery was a Ladies Prim Society club piece that I stitched a couple weeks before Christmas. Crown the Tree by Blackbird Designs is one I apparently stitched back in 2012, though it doesn't seem like it was nearly that long ago. They will both make great additions to my tree for next year.

While I made good progress on these projects and also on other knitting and stitching projects I'm working on, I didn't get back on the computer all weekend. Why? Well, I always forget that my hubby likes to stay busy:) And this weekend was the first time he got a chance to play with his new 'toy' that he bought for Christmas. He got himself a dehydrator...

On Sunday he decided he wanted to set it up and get it going. However we didn't have anywhere to put it. Not only did we not have a place to store it (the box had been setting on the couch for over a week), there wasn't anywhere to put it while it was running - for upwards of 7-10 hours at a time, that had a good plug in available. *This house was built in 1920 with power not coming to the area until around 1945~ish. Most of the electrical in this house is still from that time. We have done some improvements to the electrical system, new lines from the poles to the breaker box, a few new lines run to good outlets that can handle heavier loads, etc. The older outlets can handle a normal load, but we only trust a couple of them for things like electronics, a/c, and such.*

He decided that there was just enough room between the fridge and pellet heater to put it if he built a table and moved the fridge over a couple inches. If this is starting to sound like a 'IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE' story, then well, welcome to my life!! :) But by the end of Sunday we had a table, a newly cleaned off fridge, a floor that was vacuumed in areas that we haven't seen since we moved here, and a dehydrator that was ready for use.

And on Monday - he had the day off - we got busy slicing and drying apples and bananas...

They turned out really good!!

So we had a productive long weekend and didn't even have to leave the house:) Perfect!!

What did you do this weekend?

A FINISH IT Friday

I used to have a section on my old blog that was titled FINISH IT Friday where I showed off my 'FINISHED' finishes. That means that not only had I finished the stitching, but I had also sewn it into something useful:) I have piles of stitching projects that are all stitched up...

I have many, many more than just these!! :) 

but I've never done anything with them and now they sit in a cabinet where no one can see them. I plan to remedy that problem by choosing one Friday a month to work on FINISHES!!!

Last week I took my sewing machine in to get some TLC and fix the bobbin winder. My machine is a Bernina 830 Record, I am guessing a late 1970's model, though I haven't done much research on it. It was my husband's grandmother's machine that was given to me when she passed away. She was a seamstress and sewed lots and lots so she bought many gadgets for the machine...

And look at these variegated threads on wooden spools!!

Okay, the point of this post wasn't my sewing machine, but my finished pieces. What I was trying to get at was that I didn't have my machine available to me until yesterday, so I'm going to focus on a couple of projects I can sew up by hand. I started earlier today by cutting these out and getting the interfacing ironed on...

But then I needed to go to town and get a few things before the supposed "ICE STORM" gets here:) Hopefully it won't be as bad as they are predicting because I really don't want to lose power!! We are prepared for if we do, but it's never fun. So the rest of my evening will consist of watching a movie with my hubby and sewing these pretties up:) I will give an update later this weekend, or Monday depending on if we have internet when this is all over.