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!  

A museum visit and some crafts (photo heavy)

Hubby and I visited the Nassau County Museum of Art located just over 15 miles from our home. Although we had visited the grounds for a hike with our son during the pandemic, we had never actually been in the Museum. The museum is housed in an 1862 Gothic Revival house built by William Cullen Bryant, a long-time editor of New York Evening Post. 

I got free admission passes from our library because I wanted to see the current Louis Comfort Tiffany exhibit. It was fabulous and very informative. Here is an overview of Tiffany himself.

There were many beautiful examples of Tiffany glassware and lamps.

This Apple Blossom table lamp below was actually designed by Clara Driscoll who led the Women's Glass Cutting department known as "Tiffany Girls".

  Wouldn't you just love to have one of these vases

....or glassware sets.

 I particularly liked the yellow on the right that had a swirled stem and the purple on the left. 

I do love beautiful glassware. 

What surprised both of us was that Louis Comfort Tiffany was actually a prolific painter. The painting below is "Cairo Travelers Resting" from 1869. This is an oil on canvas and the details of those birds is outstanding.

This is called "Water Carrier".

"Goat Herders" is gouache and ink on paper. It is a striking picture. Sorry about the glare.

Laurenton Hall was Tiffany's Long Island home in Laurel Hollow that has since been demolished. This is called "Fountain at Laurenton Hall". It must have been beautiful.

This is a window called "View from Laurelton Hall".

Now on to the crafts. My granddaughter's sweater is almost complete. I have seamed both pockets and the entire right side of the sweater. For some reason, sitting at my kitchen table and sewing the seams does a number on the left side of my neck so I haven't been able to have just one long session of seaming. I actually had to take a day long break from it. 

There is only one side and sleeve seam left. Hopefully I will finish that today. Of course, then there are many yarn ends to weave in, though I have done some of them already. I still haven't shopped for buttons. 

The Merry Christmas Snow globe has all of the creamy colored snow stitched. Some of the exterior of the globe has also been completed.

 Now I am just filling in the bright white snow. 

So far only part of Santa Noel's face has been stitched. Once I concentrate on this a little more it should go quickly. 

I baked this Apple Streusel Coffee Cake this week. It was a large cake so I shared half with my mother in law and actually froze some of it.

It is very tasty, but more of a cake than a coffee cake, if you know what I mean. Here is the recipe. 

Can you see the date? Yes, it is a Good Housekeeping clipping from 1990. Yes, this is the first time I tried it. No, I will not be making it again. We like it a lot, but it was somewhat time consuming to make and not worth the effort in my opinion. 

One of the new plants in our back yard is in full bloom. 

Imagine our surprise when we realized that we have daisies. At least, I think that is what they are. 

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 her site to see what other bloggers are stitching.

 Thanks for stopping by!  

Not quite sweater weather

  We survived the Nor’easter with just a few small fallen branches and a bunch of fallen leaves. No power outages, no water in the basement. Just a miserable rainy weekend. Today the sun is shining, there is a light breeze and we are in the high 60s for temperature. 

My granddaughter's sweater is finally looking like a sweater. After watching some videos on how to seam a raglan sweater, I finally felt confident enough to attempt the raglan armholes on this sweater.

I was mostly pleased with the final result. The seams aren't perfect, but for a first attempt at a raglan sweater they are just fine.

I moved on and added the ribbed collar and the button band. I am currently working on the buttonhole band. 

I will have to find somewhere to buy buttons. The local notions store went out of business and my local yarn store has a limited selection. I will check in Michaels or another yarn start that is farther from home.

Do you see the name on the knitting needles I am using? It is Grants. These were my mother's needles. Does anyone remember the Grants department stores? I did a little digging, because I remember going to Grants. I remember it as a lower end department store more like a "5 and Dime" though it did sell appliances too. It turns out they went out of business in 1976! 

I finally sewed a backing on Cinnamon House to make it into a pillow.

I also found yarn that I will use to make a braided edging around the seam. 

It will be finished similarly to Pumpkin house that you can see below.

Along with the pillows above, I started putting out some Halloween decorations. There is a collection of witches.

There is also this Halloween cross-stitch with glow in the dark ghosts and a cute little squirrel that I bought last year.

The Merry Christmas Snow Globe had only a few more stitches added.

I want to start stitching the Mill Hill Charmed Faces Noel Santa. I have finally sorted the floss. There is a lot of floss as I just added it to what I had left over from the other faces that I stitched.

The little Tupperware has all the beads in it. I normally sort the beads, but I haven't done so this time. I may in the future when I get to that part. 

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 her site to see what other bloggers are stitching.

 Thanks for stopping by!  

The Second September Stitch Along Update

I am still making steady progress on Three Boats. Thank goodness. Someone asked me when I started this and it is now 7 years in the making. Oh my! It is definitely time to be finishing this project. There are many more waiting to be made. I have to thank all of you for sticking with watching Three Boats for all those years. Though you may be watching this throughout 2027. There are still 11 pages to finish after this one. Hopefully I can keep stitching almost one each month. 

 This is where Three Boats was on September 6th. 

This is where I am now. I have made it to the bottom of the page, but there are still plenty of stitches to fill in.

I had hoped to have this current page completed by this update, but those palm leaves are heavy with confetti stitching. Some days my 100 stitches goes quickly and others they take over an hour to complete. 

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