Blizzard! Snow day crafting.

The school district that I work for closed early yesterday and today is a snow day. I love snow days because except for shoveling some of the snow, I can indulge in all the crafting that I want.
 I thought I would give you some idea how much snow we received here on Long Island. First, this is how Hubby's bird stake usually looks.

This is how it looked at 7am this morning.

By 10 am you could only see "Blue Jay Bites".

That is a hedge that sits behind the plaque. There are about 18 inches of snow on top of those bushes. We actually had a lot less snow than the east end of Long Island, but there was still plenty to shovel and snow-blow.
I finished crafting one gift early this morning. I can't show it to you until I gift it though. Soon.
I am almost finished with the other gift. Here is a little peek.

I will reveal each of the finished gifts soon.
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Almost there!

I finished knitting one of the armbands on my mom's vest and believe it or not it was easy.

This is the first straight-forward easy part of this entire vest. I am hoping that I can complete the other armband after work today. Then all that is left is the collar. Let's hope that is as easy to complete. 

I picked up this yarn on a trip to ACMoore a couple of weeks ago. Have any of you tried it yet? I saw it made into a had on a friend's Facebook posting and it looked kind of neat.

I also got it in grey. I have another secret project in mind for it. I will post when it is completed.

Speaking of that friend, she has just started a new Facebook page. Pop on over to Randi's Original's to see some of the great knits she has to offer. I only recently found out that Randi is an extremely accomplished knitter. 

I am joining Ginny for Yarn Along again this week. What are you knitting/crocheting? What are you reading? Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are up to.

As for reading, I finished The Quilter's Apprentice by Jennifer Chiaverini. I have definitely found another series that I will thoroughly enjoy reading. Now I have Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good by Jan Karon on my Kindle. I have only just begun to read it. No opinion yet.

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Stitching Away!

I am still trying to get my voice back, so I spent yesterday being very quiet and cross-stitching. I made a whole lot of progress on my undercover gift. I just have stem-stitching, back-stitching and a few French knots to complete. 

I am totally enjoying this stitching mainly because I am not thinking about any chores since I am trying to get over this cold. It helps that this is a three-day weekend for me too.
This will be my Slow Sunday Stitching for today. Kathy asked us to share a photo of our hand while stitching.....difficult to do when you are trying to keep the stitching secret. As you can see I am left-handed.

Pop on over to Kathy's Quilts to see what other bloggers are stitching.

This is also my son's birthday weekend. He turns 26 today! Wow those years have gone by quickly. Since he is living on the other side of the country, Hubby and I miss celebrating with him. We sent him a gift and some Kringle. For those of you who don't know what Kringle is, it is a Danish pastry in the shape of a large oval.

My Wisconsin aunt and uncle used to send it to our family at Christmas each year. My father grew up in Racine, WI. I love it. There are many different flavors. Now I order it from O&H Danish Bakery for my son for his "birthday cake". He can have some today and freeze the rest for future breakfasts. (Please note that I have no personal or financial interest in this bakery).


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Knitting again

I have had a real hard time getting back to my mom's vest....now a really belated Christmas present. I finally returned to it today.....mainly because I am home sick from work. I have no voice to speak of, no pun intended and felt really sick when I woke up this morning. Feeling a little better now, but I am still speaking in a whisper.

So if I am not at work, I decided it would be a good chance to figure out the buttonhole band. The pattern calls for only two buttons, but I know Mom would like to have buttons from top to bottom so I had to do the math to evenly space the buttonholes.

Once again, I found the directions confusing. It had you using the RS pattern on the WS in order to cast-off some stitches and then reverted to the WS pattern on the RS when you had to cast-on the stitches. I didn't like how messy the first two buttonholes looked so I ripped out 30 rows of 7 stitches. I did some research into buttonhole bands and started over. I am much happier with the way the buttonhole band is progressing now. I am 60 rows into a total of 110 so I hope to finish this today.

I still have to finish the armholes and collar, but that should just require following the pattern....I hope. 

I have missed Yarn Along with Ginny for the past few weeks so I thought I would use this post to update my book reading also.

I got these books as Christmas gifts. I love getting books as gifts as they can be gifts for a lifetime to be read and re-read over the years.

The top two books are Elm Creek Quilt novels. My daughter gave me these and the Kate Morton book. She didn't even know that I have been wanting to read the Elm Creek Quilt series. My mom bought me the Ina Garten cookbook. 

 I just finished reading The Quilter's Apprentice this morning. I really like the way Jennifer Chiaverini writes. I loved reading this book that combines family and friend relationships with quilting. This series reminds me a little of the Blossom Street series by Debbie Macomber that I really love. I am looking forward to reading many other Elm Creek Quilt novels.

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Christmas is finally put away

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas. Unfortunately, now that I am back at work, seeing the Christmas decorations hanging around all over the house made coming home a little stressful. Every day I realized that before I could sit down and craft, I needed to start packing up Christmas. As a result, no crafting was completed at all this last week. Each day I tried to pack up at least one of my many boxes of decorations. Yesterday, Hubby and I finally put away our village which was the last of the decor. Whew!

I sat right down yesterday afternoon and continued working on this:

 I know you can't tell what it is, but then neither can the gift recipient. This is stitching up very quickly. Yay! 

I am joining Kathy's Quilts for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are up to. Today I will spend my Slow Sunday Stitching working on my cross-stitch and shortening a pair of my husband's slacks. I also need to shorten a pair of pajama pants and two pairs of my own pants. I don't think those will be worked on today though. 

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Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2015!

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