My life, a patchwork quilt, filled with many loves and interests and you are a part of it.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Debi's Random Act of Kindness, Thank You
No one can imagine my surprise this morning when
my husband brought in the mail.
There was this manila envelope.
I could not remember ordering anything or
winning a giveaway.
Inside was this sweet little crocheted baby blue and
white doily, the center circle
looked to be started on a plastic ring.
And along with the doily was what looks to be
a fat quarter of a pretty blue print material.
Blue, my very favorite color ever!
And who was the mysterious sender but
Debi from Maryland here, be still my heart!
So totally unexpected and now
I am speechless,(which isn't often).
Such a random act of kindness it just blows me away!
If anyone would have asked me to describe her
I would say that from just following her blog she is
a total whiz with the crochet hook.
She can crochet circles around me, that is for sure.
While I am cranking away at 1-2 projects,
Debi has done several.
There just is no stopping her when she has yarn
and hook in hand.
And everything she makes is lovelier than the
project before.
She makes up a lot of her own patterns and
is generous to share them. If someone asks her a question
she is faithful to answer it.
I know she has even helped people find a pattern
they have been looking for.
She is interesting always, and is one of the blogs I look
forward to checking on often.
Not only does she love crochet,
she also loves her family and camping.
She has a lot of interesting reading and pictures on her site,
one being a neat crafty room with photos of it.
I could go on and on about her,
but go there and check her out for yourself.
I promise, you won't be disappointed.
So, thank you so much Debi!
You have brightened my weekend.
I will cherish these gifts and this selfless act.
♥God Bless You and Yours♥
~*~
Friday, May 25, 2012
Happy Holiday Weekend & Thank You!
I wanted to take a few minutes this evening to
stop by and wish all of my blogger friends a
safe and happy holiday weekend.
For those of you who celebrate Memorial Day I know
it means more to you than food on the grill
and a picnic with family and friends.
I also want to thank all of my blogger friends.
Some days I wake up thinking I don't know too much,
but I do know one thing for sure.
My followers and friends on here are the sweetest
and best people anyone could ask for.
Your words of kindness show me that even though you
don't know me personally, face to face,
you treat me as someone special and a friend.
I read every comment on my last post
and know that I am so lucky that
I have all of you in my life.
You are all a blessing to me.
God Bless You All.
~♥~
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
The Funk, The Slippers and The Hexes
It isn't easy to pull oneself out of a funk.
Three weeks ago this Monday my husband
received some bad news.
His cancer count is up again, and
the bottom line is that everything he went through
at Cleveland Clinic in December
through February was for absolutely nothing.
He was in a remission of sorts back in December.
His bone marrow biopsy showed he had 2% or less
of the cancer cells present.
He was on a maintenance chemo drug.
It was working good for him, and he was doing well.
Three oncologists were pushing for him
to have the transplant, so naturally we were hopeful.
Believing they knew best, we went with their advice.
There are never any guarantees, we all know that.
No one offered statistics of failure,
and we were so hopeful we neglected to ask,
after all, they were the experts.
Now the game plan is more chemo.
We saw the VA oncologist 2 weeks ago Monday
and will see another this Friday.
That is how fast the wheels of medicine turn.
Weeks of waiting for a progress note from the doctor,
and that paperwork had to be faxed.
It took several phone calls to push it along.
It is hard to be happy anymore.
It is hard to be positive when you feel like nothing is going right.
It is hard to wear a smile when you feel like crying.
But you know you are no good to anyone if you fall apart,
so you wear a smile when inside your heart is breaking.
And you keep yourself positive so that all hope is not lost.
My drug of choice is to keep busy.
Household chores, the tending to all the stuff
needing done for my husband has done that.
The new grandson has been a joy in our lives.
He has been a God sent blessing.
My crocheting and knitting has helped to keep
my mind off of troubles and I can loose myself in the
steady counting of stitches.
My blog friends and their selfless sharing of daily lives
has also been an escape for me.
I read at times of their troubles and
know we all have our crosses to bear.
I do not want to blog about sad stuff
and so I pull myself up out of the troubles and
tell myself to snap out of it.
Surely I can find something to write that might be
of interest to my followers.
And so the slippers.
They aren't too much to look at are they?
That hideous shade of orange rug yarn,
and what remains of a pink bow.
The first time I saw them years ago I was not quite sure
what my mil had in mind.
She had made all of us gals a pair and had sprayed this
rubber stuff from a can on the bottom of them
to prevent slippage and falls.
We all thanked her of course and
off we went with our heavy duty,
Aunt Lydia's Rug Yarn slippers.
Yet looks were deceiving, they fit like a glove and
they were warm, and I LOVED THEM!
I loved them so much that I wore the rubber stuff
off of the bottom with many wearings and many washing.
I wore them thin and then
I loved them so much I wore them out.
I loved them so much I searched
my eyeballs out for the pattern.
Never in a million years did I
dreamed I would be wanting another pair.
I got all of her patterns when she passed away,
yet I never ran across the one for these slippers.
Endless nights of searching the web and I did finally
find something similar on the Bernat web sight.
I had to tweak the pattern a bit to make it like the ones
my mil made all of us.
I had to grab a pencil and paper and start counting
the stitches and rows on my old slippers.
Then I had to use a double strand of knitting worsted
weight yarn because I didn't have any rug yarn handy.
(Do they even make that stuff anymore,
maybe I should have done a search on that too)?
And I whipped up these,
They fit well but something was missing.
The bows!
I tried using the matching yarn
but wasn't happy with that.
My husband suggested using ribbon, so here they
are with ribbons. I'm not so sure I'm
crazy about the ribbons either.
My last resort will be big ole buttons from my button stash.
And so that is how things are with me right now,
and that is the story behind the new slippers.
I continue to plug away on the hex blanket.
Presently I am not so happy with myself in regards to it.
I think I made it way too long and so now I have
to compensate by making at least another 50 hexes so it will
not look so disproportionate in width.
I don't know where my head was at when I made that
very first row so long, but I am sure it was not on my shoulders.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Singing the Blues & Granny Returns
It was an overwhelming vote that Holden's sweater
should have the blue buttons.
I got them sewn on last evening.
I promised info on this sweater pattern, so here goes.....
I found the pattern on Ravelry.
It is called BABY SOPHISTICATE by Linden Heflin.
(She also lists it under the name Linden Down).
It is a free Ravelry download.
I chose 1 skein of RH Super Saver
worsted weight in the color Blue Tones from my stash.
I picked this color because it reminded me of denim
and blue jeans, just right for a little boy.
I am a bit of a tight knitter and my gauge was a bit smaller
using the size 8 US 24" circular knitting needle. It also requires
size 8 US double point needles for doing the sleeves,
4 stitch markers, tapestry needle and 4 buttons.
I made the 6-12 months size and it required just
under 1 whole skein. Take it from me, this is a relatively
fast project. I am a slow knitter and it took
me 3-4 days to make.
There are also instructions for size 0-3 months.
Would I make this sweater again, YES!
Another plus is that there are NO seams
to sew up on this sweater. LOVE IT!!!!!!!
Then my friend Debbie asked me to make her a
large granny blanket trimmed out in gold,
just like the one I made about 2 years ago.
So the baby sweater was my "portable"
project and the granny was my stay-at-home
and "don't waste time while watching tv" project.
Once again I was digging around in my stash of yarns.
The pattern is your basic granny, 2 rows of each color,
till you have a total of 10 rounds.
Then go around each square with 2 rows
of the color you want as the border.
Make 25 squares (5 across x 5 down).
I then went around the entire blanket with a single
crochet border, putting 1 stitch in each double crochet and
3 single crochets in the 4 corners. Where the squares
are joined there are 2 corner spaces
butting up next to each other and I put 1 single
crochet in one space and skipped over the joining seam
and put another single crochet into the next space.
It is not rocket science, and you will not be
a drooling idiot when doing this border.
You can join the completed squares by several methods.
Myself, I prefer hand stitching using a tapestry needle.
I know this is the most time consuming way,
but I don't like having a seam that has a ridge.
I have done both methods and I am sure there are some join-as-you-go instructions out there as well.
My only flat surface to sew a large blanket together
is my kitchen table. It took me about 9 hours total.
You can believe me when I say there were times I thought
my hind end had adhered itself to the hard wooden chair.
By the time I had gotten 6 seams done I headed for bed,
only to start up again the very next morning.
This blanket may be going to Georgia.
My friend has not decided yet whether she will
give it as a gift to her dil or keep it for herself, lol.
All I can say is that there is more of where this came from.
I have made at least 6 of these large grannies
over the years and no 2 were alike.
They are a fast project and portable as long as
you are still making the squares.
It is a great stash buster and
uses up smaller amounts of yarns.
I can lay these 2 projects to rest, how satisfying
to have completed them.
My next project is to make Meghan's t-shirt quilt.
She has been patiently waiting.
Until then, I am off and running.
Hope all of you are well and having some fun.
Take care lovelies.
~♥~
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Sweater for Holden
Just ignore my less than perfectly centered picture.
My mission today is to decide which buttons to use.
Should I go with my originally planned idea of the
fun mix of colors on the left-hand side,
or do what my husband suggested and use 4 buttons
all of the same color like those on the right-hand side?
Choosing the buttons is taking longer than knitting the sweater.
Soon as a decision is made,
and I get them sewn on, I will share with
everyone all the info on this darling sweater
that I made for my grandson Holden.
So, any suggestions are appreciated.
I value all of your opinions and suggestions.
~♥~
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Button, Button, Whose Got the Button?
Ever since I was a little girl I always loved buttons.
I can remember sifting through mom's buttons,
and how she kept them in a tin container.
She would save all buttons from worn out shirts,
blouses, or whatever else sported them.
Back in those days a lot of them
were made from shells.
They had a pearly opalescence, of rainbow colors,
and they were a bit rough on their back side.
My mother was not a seamstress,
but she was a mender.
I had 5 younger brothers and they were typical boys.
They would often have a ripped piece of clothing,
especially at the elbows and commonly the knees on pants,
and they lost buttons!
Safety pins at our house were a no no.
Rips were sewn, holes were patched,
buttons were replaced.
If a button was lost, another took it's place.
There was always one to be found in the button tin.
There are those who actually collect buttons.
They don't throw them haphazardly in a container
but display them in cases, on walls in frames,
like butterflies to admire and see.
Mine are in glass jars.
And so the point of all of this is that today
I was on a bit of a quest,
searching for 4 buttons the same size,
only mismatched in color for my latest project
which I will share with you when completed.
Take care, and love you all.
~*~
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~WRITE IT ON YOUR HEART................
THAT THE ONES YOU LOVE ARE LIFE'S MOST PRECIOUS GIFTS~