Sunday, May 27, 2012

Memorial Day Weekend


WE CHERISH TOO, THE POPPY RED


THAT GROWS IN FIELDS WHERE VALOR LED,


IT SEEMS TO SIGNAL TO THE SKIES,


THAT BLOOD OF HEROES NEVER DIES.

~♥~

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. 

Saturday, May 12, 2012

~***~ HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY ~***~
~***~ WEEKEND ~***~
♥♥♥

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~