Beginning of November Stitch Along Update

I finished another page! Happy, happy dance! Now there are 14 of the 24 pages completed. This is how Three Boats looked at the last update. 

This is last week when I finished the page. I celebrated by taking a day off from working in it.

This is where I am now. 

I would love the finish this page and the next by the end of the year, but I have to be realistic with the holidays coming up. So, I should finish this current page sometime in December. Any stitches worked on the last page of the column will be a bonus. 

This Stitch Along is hosted every three weeks by Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea who kindly sends us the needed posting reminders. 

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. There is a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world, so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Avis, Claire, Kathy, Margaret,

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Daisy, Cathie,

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen, Sharon

Thanks for stopping by!

Another finish!

 Those pesky Santa slippers are finished. The knitting on these was easy. The construction was NOT! Yet, I muddled through and they came out just fine. I hope they fit my grandson. 

Being a glutton for punishment, I decided to follow my original plan and make the similar snowman slippers for my older granddaughter. I started them this morning.

I’m definitely in a Christmas mode right now with my crafts. The base of the Merry Christmas snow globe is slowly being filled in. There are a lot of stitches to do! 

Santa Noel’s beard is growing.

So are the socks. The striping matches! 

I made a classic White Bread from my grandmother’s written recipe.You may be able to decipher her handwriting. I had to look up what was meant by a dessertspoonful. It is the equivalent of 2 teaspoons.

 

The crust came out a little thick and the taste was good but bland. I think I will use it for French Toast tomorrow and maybe a grilled cheese sandwich. It would probably make good stuffing bread also. Hmm....

I cleared out another lingering craft project. This is The Wine Enthusiasts’ Cork Trivet craft that doesn't seem to be available for purchase anymore. I was lazy and didn't want to cut corks for this project so the design is quite simple.

 Yes, we drank all those bottles of wine. I had many bags of corks to choose from. Currently I like Gascon Malbec and Hubby is on a Poundcake Chardonnay kick. Most of the corks were probably from Chardonnay bottles. 

I cleared out 4 old magazines before I went back to book reading. My current book is Between Sisters by Kristin Hannah. 

So far it is an easy and enjoyable book to read.

The Blogger comment problem seems to be fixed. I followed some varied advice from the help community and one of them must have worked. 

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Take some time to relax with a cup of tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

 Thanks for stopping by!  

Another new craft.....well two

Yes, if I didn't already have too many crafts in progress, I started two more. I did finish one of those already though. First the start and finish. We are hoping to visit our California grandchildren next month. I know that they have Go Fish, Old Maid and other card games so I decided that the grands needed cardholders.

 You may remember that I made one for my MA granddaughter. They are easy to make, just 2 CDs, some batting cut to the same size and fabric cut 1.5 to 2 inches larger and two buttons each. I prefer the 2" larger size. You do a running stitch around the outer edge and gather it like a fabric yo-yo around each CD. Then just place the two CDs with the fabric on the outside and sew buttons through the middle. Easy. 

Well now the CA grands each have one of their own to use. I have enough CDs from old computer installations that are now obsolete to make 3 more so there are card holders at my house at the holidays when everyone visits.

Now for the new start. I saved this pattern to make for my children over 30 years ago.

 Needless to say, I didn't really knit at the time, so I never made them, but I did keep the pattern. This year I decided to attempt the Santa slippers for my grandson. The knitting is very easy. The assembly....not so much. The seam up the back is fine, but the Santa is a knitted extension of the toe that you fold up and applique onto the front. It is awkward and confusing to seam and you have to complete the facial features before you sew it on. I embroidered the eyes as I don't like to glue googly eyes to something young children use. I found safety eyes today in Micheals, but I had already embroided these. I still have to make the second slipper and add the pompoms. I almost chucked the first slipper when I was trying to figure out the applique. One is done and the other is now started. 

The surrounding stitching met up on the Merry Christmas Snow Globe base!

 The motifs on the bottom are stitched. I believe they are supposed to be poinsettias. All that is left is to fill in the base and complete the back stitching. It looks like it will be finished for this Christmas.

The socks that I am knitting two at a time are coming along nicely. 

I have mastered the magic loop and this sock pattern is quite easy. I am not sure how the heel flap will be done, but I have 60 rows to complete first. The striping seems to match. So far it is mostly green and blue though there are other colors still to come in the yarn.

Santa Noel has a little bit more of his beard stitched. I have not been spending much time working on him yet. I am not exactly sure how I messed up centering him, but there is only one more row needed on the left for beads. Whew!

 

Is anyone having trouble with Blogger Comments? Your comments used to be sent to my gmail account. That is no longer happening. If I don't have your email saved from previous comments I will reply on my blog. I tried the online fixes, but the dasboard does not allow me to make changes. I was hoping it would fix itself, but it looks like I will have to contact support. 

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Take some time to relax with a cup of tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

 Thanks for stopping by!  

Learning curve

 Do you like to learn new things? I always loved learning in school…..well, except science. It never interested me like math, history and literature do. A couple of years ago, before our European river cruise I decided that I wanted to learn another language and brush up on my French. I had seven years of French in school, but I am not at all fluent. I can read it pretty well, but I can’t think it to speak it. I hope that makes sense. I am always impressed with people who are fluent in more than one language. I’ve have been using the Duolingo app on my phone and was happy to be able to read both French and German on our trip. I continued with both languages for a while, but have now switched to Spanish. Yes, there is another trip in our future. I am really enjoying this learning experience. 

You may remember that I said I wanted to start another yarn craft. Now, I am learning some new knitting techniques also. When I purchased the yarn for my granddaughter's sweater, I also bought a skein of sock yarn. I want to make a pair of socks for my daughter. The pattern uses a German Twisted cast-on that I had never heard of before. So I headed to YouTube and found this wonderful video of the method by The Unapologetic Knitter. I like that the method is taught without any superfluous talking and very, very clear instructions. The pattern also uses the Magic Loop method. Not only did I want to try this method, but I wanted to knit both socks at once. Well, The Unapologetic Knitter has an excellent video for that too! It took two tries to cast on and get the first row started, but I have now completed 5 rows of the rib and I am happy with how theses socks are looking. 

I am hoping that I separated the yarn correctly so that the stripes are the same, but if not I will live with it.

The Merry Chrismas snow globe is starting to get its base.

 The outline of the base requires very precise counting. Wish me luck in getting the outline to meet in the correct spot. 

I added the seventh log to 16 of the 64 blocks.

 It is the blue log on the left. I have been trying to work on either 8 or 16 blocks each time. There is no deadline for this quilt so I don't work on it as often as other crafts.

I finished reading Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts. This is a wonderful book. So easy and interesting to read. Now I am trying to catch up with some of my old magazines. I have a backlog of them that I would like to whittle down. I only subscribe to Country Home now, but I have old Better Homes and Gardens and Good Housekeeping.  

Last week I donated a whole trunkful of items to my local Savers (a thrift store chain). You get a 20% off coupon when you donate. I decided to browse and found these 5 books.

You get 5 for the price of 4 and then I got the discount so all 5 cost me just over $12. Woohoo! I have been wanting to read the Book of Lost Names for quite some time so that will be the first that I read. 

Hubby and I finally took a walk in the local preserve again. Some of the trees along the trail are starting to change color near the very top, but most of our walk looked like this. 

The water in the lake was very low. I was sad to see a goose that was all alone. (zoom the photo). There wasn't a flock of geese in sight, just ducks.

There were a few trees starting to get their autumn colors along the edge of the lake. 

Another project I have in the works in an attempt to get rid of some of our basement clutter is having my mom's 4 reels of slides made into photos. I had done one complete reel while she was still living and realized that some of them had already been made into photos so I was more discerning this time. In total, I had a local camera store turn 126 of the slides into photos. 

These were all from the 1970s and included photos from my Sweet Sixteen and also of Hubby and me when we were just dating. I love this photo of the two of us taken so many years ago. 

I hope I haven't bored you will all of this. It is quite a long post.

I will be joining Frederique at the Quilting Patch on Saturday and Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Take some time to relax with a cup of tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

 Thanks for stopping by!  

October Stitch Along update

In the last update from September, I was hoping that I would be able to finish another page of Three Boats. This is where Three Boats was at the time.

 A week after our last update, I finished the 13th of 24 pages the following weekend. Oh, it feels so good to have more than half of the pages completed.

I have been continually stitching 100 stitches a day since then and this is where Three Boats is now! 

Can you see that the palm trees are all completed! I am almost halfway through with this current page also. I believe I can complete it by our next update. A lot of the stitching is large swaths of one color floss. Wish me luck!

This Stitch Along is hosted every three weeks by Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea who kindly sends us the needed posting reminders. 

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. There is a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world, so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Welcome back to Sharon, who has rejoined the Stitch Along.

Avis, Claire, Kathy, Margaret,

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Daisy, Cathie,

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen, Sharon

I need to start another yarn craft

I know, I know, I have plenty of crafts in progress at the moment, but most of them are cross-stitch. I finished my granddaughter's sweater. I decided to look in my button box to see if I had a set of five buttons that would work. What good is having a button box, if you don't use the buttons. I had 3 different choices! I chose the middle one that you see below.

The ones I chose are basically the same ones shown on the pattern pamphlet. Now the sweater is drying after being blocked. 

Before, I go any further, I want to know if anyone knows what these items are and what they are used for? 

I was cleaning out a storage box while looking for another item (which I haven't located) and came across these tools. I believe they belonged to either my Wisconsin grandmother or aunt. They have been stored for 30 to 40 years and I have never used them. I think it is time to donate them, but I would like to know what they are first. 

I think I will start a pair of socks next to get my yarn fix. First I have to wind the yarn into two equal size balls. This will be my nighttime TV watching project.  

Since the sweater has been completed, the Merry Christmas Snow Globe has been steadily progressing. I am almost done stitching the snow.

Santa Noel's face has been stitched and I am starting on the beard.

There is a whole lot of beading in that beard after the cross-stitching is complete.

I did add the 7th log to 16 more blocks. 

Next up is a blue log. Once I sit down at my sewing table, this goes quickly. I don't know why I haven't been working on it much. 

I baked again. This time it was Cranberry Orange Nut Muffins from the Taste of Home Magazine issue of December/January 2001. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be available on their website.

 These are very easy and tasty muffins that I have made previously. They use orange juice, orange zest, cranberries and pecans without any extra spices. 

I stopped reading The Housemaid, but Freida McFadden. I was bored and didn't really relish being scared. I am not a fan of thrillers usually. I also have an issue with authors who write about Long Island and state that a character lives "in Long Island". You might live in a town here, but you live "on Long Island". Just a pet peeve of mine that an author should research and use the local expressions. I was surprised also as this author is supposedly from NYC. 

Nevertheless, I am now reading Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts and breezing through it. 

I will be joining Frederique at the Quilting Patch on Saturday and Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Take some time to relax with a cup of tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

 Thanks for stopping by!