Two Hearts

I managed to finish two of my heart coasters. 

I'm not sure whether I like them or not. I am going to bag up the rest of the yarn, cut-out plastic canvas and directions and decide later. 

I started working on them to have something that didn't bother my thumb, but these actually made my thumb hurt. I did come up with a neat way to thread my needles from now on. I can't hold the needle in order to thread it so I have started sticking it in a cork.

Holding the cork doesn't make me pinch my thumb and forefinger together which is what makes my thumb joints painful. This is not a needle that needs to be sharp so I don't worry about sticking it in the cork. I sometimes also use the cork when holding the plastic canvas. I still seem to pinch it too hard though.

My MIL gave my husband 4 seed wreaths for the birds in our back yard. Hubby laid the first one in the bird bath and it was quickly gobbled up. He hung the second one this week from a hanger on one of our plant hooks. It was quite entertaining to watch the squirrels try to eat the seeds.

Do you see the squirrel on the bottom of the wreath?

Here he/she is hanging from the wreath eating it prize.

The squirrel on the ground to the left ate what its friend knocked to the ground.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I am making good progress on my secret stitching. I have this week off from my public school job, so I should get a lot of stitching done. Fingers crossed that I don't get distracted.

Thanks for stopping by!

Ahead of my time?

A couple of big trends in crochet today are C2C (corner to corner) crochet and amigurumi. I realized a few weeks ago that I may have been ahead of my time when my husband spilled something on his fleece blanket late at night and I found an afghan that made for him years ago.

 

 I was sitting looking at this afghan and realized that I actually made C2C blocks in the 1980s and sewed them together to make this afghan. You can see the single block with red in the bottom corner and blue in the top corner below.

Here I am wondering if I will be able to figure out how to do this someday and I have already mastered it. 

I have also been looking at all the cute crocheted stuffed animals that have been touted as amigurumi (the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed creatures). As I was reorganizing my magazine basket, I came across this little guy that I made in the 1980s or 90s when I was selling at local craft-fairs. 

This is the only one I have left, but here is an old picture of a whole bunch of them in a basket for sale. I used up scraps of various yarns to make them which is why some of them have white muzzles and feet.

I guess I was ahead of my time then also. These always sold out because a little child always asked their mom for one. 

They were about the size of the popular Beanie Baby animals. 

Do you have any craft that you did years ago that is making a resurgence now? I would love to hear about it. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I spent about 2 hours yesterday working on my secret cross-stitch. I hope to spend at least another hour today. Sorry, but I can't share.

Thanks for stopping by!

One lonely heart.

So far I have only managed to complete one lonely heart coaster. Even that doesn't have any words on it yet. I do have another one barely started. 

I know Valentine's Day is close, but these are for me, so there is no rush. This year or next, I really don't care. 

I have managed over 2 hours of secret stitching so that is a big accomplishment. Of course I was home sick one day this week which is why I got so much stitching completed. Nothing that I can show any of you though. Sorry about that.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I just might finish that second heart today and maybe start another.

Thanks for stopping by!

How fast time passes

My son turned 30 last week. How did that happen? 

Wasn't he an adorable baby?

Here he is this past Thursday when we treated him to tickets to a Billy Joel concert at Madison Square Garden in NY. He has always loved Billy Joel's music even though the hits occurred way before he was born. He was so excited to be there.

We made it a celebration for all of us. We all know many of Billy Joel's songs. I think it is a Long Island thing.

We went to dinner at Casa Nonna. This was a restaurant that we hadn't been to before and we loved it. Good food and great cocktails.

I finally cut out all of the heart shaped plastic canvas for my coasters. I had to enlarge the pattern as it made really small coasters. As it is they will still be somewhat small. I searched through my yarn scraps to find a bunch of different colors. There is a yellow somewhere too. It is a great way to use them up.

 I started with the mint green. Not much progress yet.

 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. I hope to finish this heart and maybe one more today. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are up to.

Finally, I will leave you with a picture of my daughter's puppy, Ruby, from Christmas. 

She is so adorable.

Thanks for stopping by!

Valentines' crafting

I am trying to find crafts that I can work on that I can share with everyone. 

I was looking through my old Crafting Traditions magazines and came across these coasters that I have been wanting to make. I am hoping that I can work on plastic canvas fairly pain free. I have loads of yarn so I only had to purchase the plastic canvas.

It turns out that these coasters are quite small, so took out my graph paper and enlarged the pattern. I may not have enough plastic canvas to make eight coasters now, but I will make as many as I can cut out until I get some more plastic canvas.

I also made some other craft purchases as well. 

I needed two DMC floss colors that my local ACMoore has been out of for a while. I bought a needle minder, a glove to massage my hand (I figured I would try it) and a magnifier so I can work on 28 count linen. I have a project in the works that I keep making mistakes on, because I just can't see the threads. I hope this helps.

I have been adding one or two rows per day to my infinity scarf.

The lace weight yarn makes the progress look even slower, but I am loving the look of this light-weight scarf. I expect I won't get to use it this year, but that's okay.

Yesterday, I busied myself making Individual Chicken Pot Pies that can be frozen from America's Test Kitchen. They were somewhat involved for someone who really would rather bake than cook, but the filling is tasty and they look pretty good if I do say so myself.

Here they are all ready to be wrapped and frozen.

I am trying to find as many different recipes for one or two that can be frozen as my 91 year old mom doesn't really like to cook for herself anymore and therefore doesn't always eat well. These have to go into the oven for over an hour, but really that is all that needs to be done. The recipe makes 6 pies, so this time I am keeping two for Hubby and me, two will go to mom and two will go to my MIL. 

Today I will make a Beef Barley soup that Hubby and I like. I planned all this cooking in anticipation of the predicted snow storm, but thankfully all we will have is a whole lot of rain.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I will be working on my secret cross-stitching as well as my coasters. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Snowpeople and baking

When I was putting away all of my Christmas decorations I decided to leave my snowpeople collection out for the month of January.

As you can see, I have quite a few snow people. There is even another snow-couple that was already packed up when I decided to display these, as well as two snowman candles. I didn't intentionally try to have a collection. It all started with the four little guys up front and the one with the plaid scarf. There was a vendor at a local Christmas craft fair that made these snowmen and I would buy just one each year. That wood-worker stopped selling them and I just started finding others that I liked. 

This year my son gave me this cute little couple.

It is supposed to be a tree ornament, but it is much too heavy to hang on our real tree and is the perfect size to blend in with my other snow-people. I love it.

I know that many of you are dealing with quite a bad snowstorm today. We are lucky here on Long Island that it is passing south of us. Not that I wouldn't enjoy a snow day off from school, but I really don't want to have to shovel. Hubby did get our snow-blower fixed last week though as the threat of a storm was there. It stopped working at the end of last winter. I hope everyone stays safe, warm and dry.

It is very cold here today though and that prompted me to make some Cranberry Nut Muffins from a Taste of Home magazine from many years ago. I have many past magazines that I want to make recipes from, so I hunted through them this morning.

They are quite tasty with a cup of Stash Irish Breakfast tea.

That is all for now. There are no stitching updates at the moment. 

Thanks for stopping by!

One row a day

I am trying to crochet one row a day on my lacy infinity scarf. It is working right now. 

I complete my hand exercises immediately afterward in the hope of preventing any further pain. 

I have also started stitching my secret cross-stitch. This is the one and only picture you will see of it until it is completed and gifted. 

I have the piece on a double hoop that sits on my lap so that I can stitch with my left hand only. It is a slow process that way, but it too is working right now.

I am hoping to make some progress on this later today. My son is visiting again this weekend so I will work on in after dinner most likely. 

We took our Christmas tree down yesterday so that it can go out for recycling tonight. I also packed up some of my son's ornaments that he can take to put on his own tree next year. I am doing the same with some of my daughter's ornaments also. I will slowly take down the rest of the decorations over the next week after work. 

Speaking of Christmas, I realize that I never shared any photos from that time. Here is my daughter and her puppy, Ruby. 

Ruby settled in to our home just fine. Isn't she adorable.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!