happy holidays

This holiday printable is available free here. Maybe I could get it printed and framed in time for Christmas 2012!

nearing solstice

As our hours of sunlight grow increasingly shorter, we are all wrapped up in the Christmas holiday festivities. This made me wonder if there was any direct connection between these 2 significant events, so I looked it up to try to figure it out. But the explanation didn't really clarify it for me, a lot of references to really ancient times, actual number of days in a year (more that 365) and variations in calendars. I did learn that Leap Day helps correct for that fracture of a day greater than 365. That happens to be the expected date of the appearance of my little grandson, so I'm wondering if we are looking at a lifetime of adjusted birthdays for the little guy!

We have trimmed back on the trimmings this year, guess we are going the minimalist route. A little greenery on the stair rails, ascaled down tree, and of course, stockings hung by the chimney with care. I did get a package shipped off to #1 son since he won't be traveling home for this holiday. I only hope that it gets to him and his housemates before the 25th, so they will have our presents on the appropriate day.

Still working on a few little gift things--Brita had asked for some of these zipper bags to replace the old ones I had made, they are great for travels. The white mesh can be purchased at fabric stores like Joann's. The red mesh can be purchased at your local produce market, along with fresh fruit or vegies! I hadn't sewn on it before, and found it less wonderful to work with, but as long as it holds together I am happy!

A little knitting has been snuck in during a few hours on the couch, continuing with a baby afghan that had been on a break while I searched for some more of the gold yarn. It is Cottonease and that happens to be a color that is either being phased out or just plain unavailable in the stores around here. I tried something new and searched on Ravelry for someone wanting to sell it from their own stash. I lucked out and connected with a nice woman who sent me 2 more skeins, so I can make this blankie big enough to last. Also starting a new scarf from the Noro Silk Garden Sock yarn purchased last summer in Bishop, CA, at Sierra Cottons and Wools.

Baked scones for the first time from this recipe-

Not 100% sold on them, although you would think there is enough butter and sugar and spice in them that I wouldn't be complaining! I guess they just aren't as good as some others that I've had.

This brings me to the subject of Pinterest. Because I have that recipe on my food board there. If you haven't heard about or visited or tried Pinterest, check it out. But I am warning you, it can suck up some time! It is like a bulletin board of my favorites and bookmarks, sorted into categories, and accompanied by a visual cue to remind me what my bookmarks are! There are a ton of interesting ideas that can be gleaned from one another's boards, all with a link back to the origin. Kind of cool.

My family has been asking me what I want for Christmas, and all I can come up with is a new bathrobe since the one I am using is a raggy hand-me-down from my daughter. I think it was a gift to her for a Christmas past and wasleft behind on a hook in her bathroom so I claimed it! Not a very excitingwish list, so I think I will add something else that I want:

a lovely tattoo! Which, by the way, I found on Pinterest!

fancy pants sweater

I have been very bloggy lately over on the Bear Patch blog, so a bit absent from here. We are working on a 12 Days of Christmas promotion that involves daily emails, blogs, facebook posts and website updates. It is all a new venture for us and more successful than we had anticipated. Very good news, but keeping us scrambling to keep up. FYI, if you still want to get in on any of the deals, you can go back through the days on the blog and email or call us with your order. How fun to stuff your own stocking!

I encountered a very fun video that I have inserted for your viewing pleasure--

This looks like so much fun to make!

works in progress

Time to share some things I have been working on! You can see from these pictures that very few things are actually done, but mostly they don't have to be done in the near future.

English Paper Pieced blocks from Patchwork With Busy Fingers in 2 different fabric groups. I am preparing these for a class for Bear Patch starting next fall, which might seem like a long ways off, but I need to get a lot of these done BY HAND and put together before then.

More little hexagons, reconstructed from an antique quilt. 4 of 100+ blocks. Long term project!

Even more hexagons, this time sewn by machine and using a special ruler that I will incorporate into a winter class at Bear Patch.

And a little gift for our employee Christmas party last night, a table mat that I made to go with the candle wreath and battery candle. I decided that since not all people like a scented candle and the hazards of a burning flame, I would go the safe route with this one.

What have you been working on?

holidays and health

It seems like we talk a lot about how much we have to do and how busy we all are during this month of December. Often I think we have an attitude that it is just all too much, and we get very little enjoyment out of what is intended to be pure enjoyment! So I am focusing on the big 4: family, friends, faith and fun! I do what I can with what I have, and keep reminding myself that it is all good.

We always do some outdoor lights, but simply done. A couple strings on the front porch, maybe a small tree near the road, and that's enough. Then we light up the tree in the house, and depending on my mood and time, we might wrap the log beams with garland and lights. Altogether, they create a nice glow and a noticeable bump in our electric bill! We have decided to convert over to LED lights for their low-energy consumption, but we don't want to shell out the money for a total light makeover. So we started with 3 new strings for the porch lights this year, and will add more as we go. They do seem to have more light output, I hope we don't have any wandering aircraft mistaking our front yard for a landing strip!

We had a little excitement this week and a reminder of how lucky we are to be living in the 21st century. My sweet parents had a bad scare when my dad's heart started acting up a bit. Here's my mom and dad from about a year or so ago--

Normally healthy and happy, this pair just seems to keep on ticking. They really are those people who are "young for their age", and although they have slowed down a bit over the years, they keep plenty active. This really is the first experience of this type for him, and was distressing at times, but overall things went smoothly. He developed a very slow heart rate, which brings with it additional problems. A heart rate of 35 might be desireable for a marathon runner, but not so much for an 85 year old guy! A quick helicopter ride from Worthington to Sanford Medical Center in Sioux Falls, pop in a pacemaker, and voila! Looking and feeling much better! These little devices seem routine and commonplace to someone like myself who has worked in the medical field for many years. But when I step outside of that perspective, this can seem much more amazing. And if this had happened 50 or 60 years ago, my dad would not have had such a good outcome from this heart problem. In fact, his life would have suddenly become severely limited and shortened. So THANK YOU to all those medical researchers, past and present, who work continuously in some lab somewhere, doing a job that might be considered boring and tedious.

When we found out early Tuesday that we would be taking an unplanned trip to Sioux Falls, I needed to quickly get not only some clothes packed, but a project or 2, of course! I had started out a pair of socks not so long ago, using the technique that lets me knit both socks at once, so I tossed that in the car to keep my hands busy. I am using a nice yarn called Noro Silk Garden Sock, which I purchased early in 2009. I would have liked to work on it sooner, but ran into a little problem. To make these socks, I needed to divide the one skein of yarn into 2 equal balls. But then one ball disappeared, and I had no idea what happened to it. I looked high and low, and resigned myself to the fact that it was permanently gone. I occasionally looked at the one sad ball remaining, and wondered what to do with it, but never was able to pick it up and do anything with it. Lucky for me I didn't! Because 2 years later, when I am removing couch cushions to clean underneath (yes, I know I should do that a little more often than once a decade) I find that missing ball of yarn way smooshed down in the crack! So I finally was able to cast on for those socks, and was making a bit of progress during waiting room and drive time this week. Until I looked more closely at what I had been creating, and realized that the cuff was going to be too small to fit over any ankle that is not emaciated! So time to rip back, and recalculate. These socks are a long time coming! Maybe I will eventually have enough to take a picture of and share, but no guarantees!

triangles galore

The fibers were flying in the sewing room when I got started on cutting a few triangles for a new project--

Those triangles evolved into blocks like this:

Which turned into something like this:

This picture was taken while I was working on rearranging the colors on the design wall. The finished product will be a couple days off, I'm working on sewing the rows together. Some of the seams require careful matching and pinning to get the corners and points to line up correctly. That's something I require of myself and try to teach in my classes without becoming abrasive because I have come to realize that others often have a better tolerance for mismatches than I do! I mainly want people to enjoy the process of sewing, and if that means doing it the way I do it, or varying from that somewhat, then so be it. There is room at the sewing machine for all!

Back to this quilt--it is a pattern from a book titled Strip Smart Quilts by Kathy Brown. It is cut using a special Creative Grids ruler called the Double Strip 90 Degree Triangle ruler. The fabrics are designed by Denyse Schmidt and are called Hope Valley. This is all in preparation for a class/demo that I will be teaching at Bear Patch Quilting sometime this winter--schedule not yet determined!

And here's an image of another quilt that I worked on for a customer. The fabrics she used were all similar shades of off-white. The backing was a "corduroy" plush fabric.

This type of backing can be a little tricky to work with, mostly because they are stretchy. Mounting the selvage edges to the rollers and keeping the backing slack prevented any puckers/distortion. And a loose, curvy stitching design was needed. Close quilting and points would not have worked well. The customer was happy, and she is taking it to Baltimore for Thanksgiving to give to her lucky family there. And that's what it's all about!

Here's a chuckle from the Mark-B-Gone fabric pen that I have:

"Please try with a waste cloth cutting before use. Please take off a cap with hands, not with a mouth."

Important words to remember!