YES!

Something got done today I have been meaning to do for a looooong time.  While hubby was finishing up the house cleaning, I holed up in my craftroom.  My buddy Enrique came in with me to help.  While in there I pulled out EVERY skein of sock yarn I own.  Even partial skeins were pulled out.  I should have taken a photo but I was on a roll and did not want to stop.  I separated the yarn into groups.

1. skeins that will be socks

    a.  Wool socks

    b. non wool socks

2. skeins that will become shawls

   a. shawls for me

   b. shawls for gifts

3. skeins that will become charity items

   a. shawls for prayer shawl ministry

   b. lapghans for prayer shawl ministry

   

Hopefully, this will help me when I find a pattern I just HAVE to make.  My next area to attack will be my DK/sport weight yarn.  Although, I do not have as much of that yarn.  When I started Year 9 of YOP I added up all the fingering yarn I owned (at that time) and had almost 22,000 miles of fingering weight yarn.  Naturally, I added to that amount this year when I went on my "Since my fiber fest got cancelled, I will purchase yarn from vendors who would have been there" shopping spree.

No, I did not take a tally of how many miles of fingering weight yarn I have at present time.  Let's just say...........it is A LOT!  So, my goal now is to find a lot of patterns for this yarn that, is not socks.  Preferably shawls and lapghans.  That will sure help with my charity knitting/crocheting this year.  

You know what this mean?  I need to go through my printed patterns again to see what I have that will work for some of that yarn.  Oh my, I can see where I am going to be quite busy for a while.  But then, what else do I have to do?  We are still being asked to stay home as much as possible.  Might as well make the best use of this time.  

On top of this.............I was asked to make face masks for a good friend's daughter.  The daughter is heading to college this fall and would like to have fashionable masks other than the 'medical' type masks her parents have.  Of course I said yes.  UGH!  No is just not something I can say when I know this will help protect someone from a deadly virus.

Besides that, my Cricut and I are going to be busy in the next couple of weeks.  The local Grand Daughter is turning 15 in a month and wants to have an 80's themed party with 7 of her closest friends.  She has neon colored tumblers purchased for each girl and would like me to do their names in permanent "neon" vinyl.  We ordered the vinyl yesterday.  Now I need to find a font that meets her approval and then get everyone's name ready to print and cut.   I have not used my Cricut since before Christmas last year.  Hope I remember how to do this.

So it seems, my next 4-6 weeks are pretty well filled up with projects.  When I retired, I dreamed of having as much time as I needed to fulfill my crafting dreams.  Never did I think it would take a pandemic for me to finally fulfill that dream.

Tonight, I am making Hatch Green Chili Meatloaf.  I made this once before and hubby and I loved it.  I will say, it has quite a 'bite' to it.  I do change just a couple of things in the recipe.  I use all 90% ground beef and instead of corn flakes I use oatmeal.  Other than that, I follow the recipe.  

We have already laid out ribs for hubby to smoke up tomorrow for the 4th.  We do not go anywhere on the 4th.  Our neighbors love to shoot off fireworks and our dogs are not fans.  They tremble most of the night even when we turn the TV up to drown out the noise of the fireworks.  Poor little things.  Enrique will bury himself under hubby's arm and Luna will curl up in my lap so I can wrap my arms around her.  Thunderstorms, wind storms and New Years fireworks do the same thing to them.  

What's for dinner at your place tonight?

Until next time...................happy crafting & stay well!  

Thursday's Treasures

Today was the day I got treasures.  Both in the mail and also some finds at Walmart.  Yes, I finally ventured out of my house today.  I stopped over at our son's home to deliver him an extra large mask (it fits!) and to deliver a book and bookmark to our grand daughter.  While I was there, the grand and I decided to head to Walmart to see if we could find some fun material for face masks.  If she does go back to, in classroom school this fall, face masks will be required.  She would like to be able to change her mask twice each day.  I don't blame her.  They get so wet from breathing.

We did find some fun material at Walmart.

The space themed one is all of our favorites.  I am hoping to be able to get 5 masks out of it. (I got 2 fat quarters of it)  The red tractors is for my son and the yellow/gray one is for the grand.  She seemed to like it a lot.

The black plus signs I thought would be good masks for either male or female.  The middle material is muslin.  The light was shining on it making it look more like satin.  The bottom material is, again, something the grand wanted.  I think the bottom one will be hard to breath in and out of.  It has a very tight weave.  We will see.

It was kind of nice to be out of the house for a little bit with the Grand Daughter.  We so seldom get to do that anymore.  Thank you Covid19!

I got more treasures in the mail today too!

Now, I can read about our candidates and also all the other items on the Arizona August ballot.  I do like to be informed.

The Tupperware Silicone Doughnut maker arrived today too.  I am quite excited to try it out.  I might need to do that this weekend since I am expecting hubby's sister to come in then.

I have dinner in the crockpot.  It is a chicken/stuffing/green beans and cranberry recipe my Son in Law gave to me.  I have wanted to make it for several weeks but had a hard time finding fresh green beans.  He says they have it twice a month and love it.  Since we have Adoration tonight, I wanted something easy for me.  Crockpot for the win.

it is the time in the afternoon I normally get started on my fiber arts.  I am almost done with what I started yesterday.  I already have another project lined up once this one in finished.  Actually, I have several other projects lined up but am trying to only start one at a time.  We will see how long that lasts. LOL

Oh, this was something that just came across my news feed a little while ago.

This town is about 9 miles from my house.  If you have never been to Phoenix, let me tell you......there is no break between cities.  The only way you know you have gone from Mesa to Tempe is a sign on the road that says "Welcome to Tempe".  Anyway............I was incensed when I saw this article.  Doesn't anyone have any respect for others anymore?  Even my 14 yr old Grand Daughter told me, "I wear my mask because I care about other people.  I love you MiMi and would be so sad if you got sick and had to go to the hospital".  She GETS it!

Finally..................what the heck is going on with blogger?  I reverted back to the 'old blogger' format but...........when I load multiple photos into the 'insert image' file.....if I do not load them all onto my blog page itself, they will all disappear and I have to go back and get them again from my files!!!!  It used to be, I could put all the photos I wanted in there and then pick and choose the ones I needed to go with the story as I typed.  Anyone else have this issue or is it just me?  Did I explain that well or is it clear as mud?

Until next time......................happy crafting & stay well!

GOOD ONE

Today is the official start of YOP year 10.  I will not post my list until Sunday.  Nor, will I post anything related to YOP until Sunday.  I did start on some of my YOP projects today though.  It made me so happy 😁😁

Today I have some things to show you.

Hubby brought home these flowers yesterday.  He picked them up at the grocery store while shopping for us.  He is so considerate.  If he sees flowers that make him smile, he gets them for me to make me smile too.

Have I told you how much I love my air fryer?  This was the first batch of bacon I cooked in it today. (there were 4 more batches cooked)  I love the fact I can make that bacon nice and crispy and do not have a greasy mess all over my stove top to clean up.  Cleaning the air fryer is super easy too.

One of the reasons I was working on bacon is:

Hubby and I wanted to have jalapeno poppers for lunch.  This is the before photo.

And here they are, all nice and cooked up to perfection.  They are so good and so easy to make.  Much cheaper than buying the frozen ones or getting them from a restaurant.

Since I cooked all that bacon up (3 pounds of thick sliced), we are going to have BLTA sandwiches tonight for dinner.  The A is for avocado.  So glad I made a loaf of bread yesterday.  I will toast up a few pieces of it for the sandwiches.  Mmmmmm......my mouth is already watering just thinking of it.

Other than that, I finally put away the laundry from Monday.  The dishwasher got emptied, I polished my stove top, and have worked on some knitting and crocheting.  

There were treasures in the mail today.

This is my second book in the Southern Sisters Mystery series.    They were recommended by a fellow blogger.  I am looking forward to getting into them and seeing if I want to keep ordering them.  The first one I received, I have already started it.  As soon as I get the characters straight it should read a bit easier.

This is the other treasure from today.  Plastic pie servers.  Actually, these are the first pie servers I have ever owned.  Love the colors.  They should be easy to spot in my cooking utensil drawer.

Hubby has been working on the pool today.  Our automatic fill seems to have a glitch in it.  We think the fill line is clogged.  He was able to clear part of it but, it got too warm for him outside so, he will work on it again tomorrow morning, when it is cooler.  In the mean time, we have the garden hose running to get the water level back up to where it should be.

Hope your day was a great day.

Until next time.................happy crafter & stay well!

Only Tuesday

It really feels like this has been a long week and it is only Tuesday.  Maybe, because I got most of my housework done yesterday.  Since our Governor shut some businesses down again...............now I am trying to find things to keep me entertained at home.

When all the protests started two weeks ago, I told hubby "Just wait, in 2 weeks our COVID19 numbers are going to skyrocket".  And that is exactly what has happened.  Yes, peaceful protests are protected in our US Constitution.  I have no problem with that.  What I have a problem with is not wearing a mask and being 2 inches away from each other.  That is just plain silly with a pandemic going on.  By day 3 of the protests, people started wearing masks.  Too little, too late!  So now businesses are being closed again and this is going to cause a huge financial impact on our state and on the people who are unemployed AGAIN!  (SMH)

I had my telemed appointment this morning with my RA Dr.  She has not been into her office since March 11.  She has been doing telemed since then and is glad she is.  Most of her patients are pretty well controlled on their meds so she just needs to keep tabs on blood work and RX refills.  It was nice to be able to really talk with her and not feel rushed.  Also, I discovered she has a little dog that was happy she was working from home.  LOL

While I did that, hubby went to the grocery store for me and got our 10 day supplies.  One of us will need to go back for buns this weekend.  I didn't want to get them today as they dry out so fast.  We buy the ones from the deli as they taste better than the packaged ones.  Not to mention, I don't need 8 buns when 2 will do.

I have a loaf of bread in the bread machine.  It has about another 1.5 hours before it is done.  Did you know you can remove the paddle out of the bread maker after it's last 

"punch down''?  That way there is only a tiny little hole in the bottom of the bread when done baking.  Otherwise, you have a HUGE hole where the paddle was baked into the bread and you have to work it out and half of the bread comes with it.  Amazing what you learn from Pinterest.

As for the apple pie I made..............................so yummy!  We finally had a slice of it last night.  We both agreed it was perfect.  Not too sweet and not too tart.  I look forward to another piece tonight.  My mom always put a piece of cheddar cheese on top of her apple pie and would warm it in the microwave a bit to make the cheese soft.  That is quite yummy too.

I am going to head into my craftroom after I post this and start bagging up my Year 10 YOP projects.  Hopefully, if I bag them up, it will cause less stress as to what to work on next.  Since I have several patterns already matched with the yarn I want to use, this shouldn't take too long.  Maybe I can make this activity drag out for 5 days!

Can you tell I am going a little stir crazy?  I so want to head to WalMart for some sewing supplies but.............I don't feel like fighting crowds.  I would order it online, but what I want is not available for online ordering and curbside pickup.  JoAnna's was my next choice but, if you read my blog regularly, you know they require you to buy a certain amount of material if you do it online.  I do not need 5 yards of muslin or 2 yards of any one material.  I need fat quarters and they make you buy a bundle that is almost $40!  I don't need that many fat quarters either.  UGH!  Maybe, by tomorrow I will feel more adventurous.  

Have you learned anything new today?  From where did you learn it?

Until next time......................happy crafting & stay well!

Just Stuff

OK, so on my post yesterday, several of you said you loved The Child I made.  Therefore, I used the photo of it for today's header.  It is not that I did not like this project.  It was interesting but....................I do not like sewing little tiny pieces together.  There were several pieces to this project.  So, feast your eyes on the photo and hopefully, it brings a smile to your face.

Today, I am trying to get a bit of knitting done on these:

Hubby's socks in the colorway Butterbeer.  This is not my favorite yarn at all.  It is quite rough for being a superwash yarn.  Hopefully it will get softer with wear and washing.  They are not that far from being completed.  I told hubby I would knit them until the yarn ran out.  Since they are already a 3x1 rib, I am not going to do anything different for a cuff.

Today saw me doing 3 loads of laundry.  Not very exciting but it had to be done.  I still have a dishwasher to empty, but later on.

We received a call, today,  from hubby's sister.  Looks like she is going to come here this weekend.  She is on her way to Las Vegas to visit my MIL.  She plans on staying up there for about a month.  Being retired is such a wonderful thing!

The facility where my MIL lives is still on lock down.  What they are doing is allowing visitors to drive up in their cars and then they bring the resident out and you have 10 minutes to talk with them with about 15 feet distance between them and masks on.  I think hubby is going to go up and stay with his sister for a few days too.  He hasn't seen his mom since the first of the year.  He does call her every other day.  But it is hard and with her being 93.......well, you get my drift..

Tonight, hubs and I are going to our favorite Italian place again for happy hour.   We like it there as they practice distancing and everyone wears masks.  They have 1/2 price appetizers during that time and a couple of shrimp appetizers works just fine for us for dinner.  Then we will come home and try out my deep dish apple pie I made yesterday.  We were both too full from our dinner last night to have a piece.

The shiny top is from the honey it was coated with after baking.  Looks pretty good, huh.  The recipe is called "honey roasted apple pie" from Betty Crocker.  It uses honey instead of sugar and there is no lemon juice in it.  I will let you know tomorrow how it is.

Time to get back to my knitting.  I want to get those socks off my needles before I dive into  YOP 10 on July 1.

Until next time...............happy crafting & stay well!

WEEK 52, THE WRAP UP

This is my favorite post of the year.  Make that, my second favorite post.  My #1 favorite will be posted next week.................."THE LIST".  

After adding up all the items I completed this year, the total came to 165 items.  Unbelievable, right?  There still remains 4 WIP's waiting to be completed.  Let's take a look at what was accomplished. (No, I did not post 165 photos............that would have just been too crazy)

YOP 9 GOALS

Finish Boxy Sweater started in 2015   ZERO WORK DONE ON IT

Finish Eva Shawl started in 2011  FROGGED

Finish Forrest Path Shawl started in 2018  Completed 

Summer Top for me  Decided to use the yarn for next years project

Cardigan for me  HAVE 1.5 SLEEVES AND BUTTON BAND LEFT TO DO
  It Really Fits  Cardigan 

Short Socks   5 PAIRS COMPLETED

Regular Socks  2 PAIR DONE AND 1 PAIR ON THE NEEDLES

Project bags/totes  ZERO

Market bags  ZERO

Produce Bags  ZERO

Tissue Box Covers  ZERO

Plastic Canvas Nativity bought in 2009  CUT OUT A FEW PIECES

Bookmarks  ZERO

Shawls for both Prayer Shawl and Personal  9 COMPLETED AND 1 ON THE NEEDLES

Blanket/Throw  40 VICTORIAN LACE SQUARES DONE

Dishcloths  22 completed

Doilies/Table Runners  ZERO

Baby Items
Wee Sherlock  4 COMPLETED
Little Boy Blue   4 COMPLETED
Easy-Peasy No Sew, Stay On Baby Booties  2 PAIR COMPLETED

Purchase of yarn is prohibited!!!!!  I have over 21,000 miles of yarn to play with this year.  (38,481,140 yards)  BECAUSE MY FIBER FESTIVAL WAS CANCELLED, I DID A SHOPPING SPREE WITH VENDORS WHO WOULD HAVE BEEN THERE.  SO, I BOUGHT LOTS OF YARN BUT......I HAVE ALREADY STARTING TO USE IT.

Any other project that falls into my lap.  2 BABY BLANKETs AS WELL AS 2 BABY YODA'S AND A BABY LOVEY.  

Here is an actually accounting of what got made.

SHAWLS- 9
WEE SHERLOCK BABY SWEATER - 4
LITTLE BOY BLUE BABY HAT - 4
BABY BLANKETS - 2
BABY BOOTIES - 2 PAIR
SHORT SOCKS - 6 PAIR
REGULAR SOCKS - 2 PAIR
VICTORIAN LACE SQUARES - 40 - WHICH BECAME 2 LAPGHANS
BABY YODA (THE CHILD) - 2
HATS - 1
DISHCLOTHS - 22
BUNNY EASTER BASKET - 1
KITCHEN TOWEL - 1
SEQUIN HANGING - 1
COUNTED CROSS STITCH - 3
FACE MASKS - 64

WIP'S STILL HANGING AROUND
BOXY SWEATER (MY DESIGN)
KIDSILK HAZE SHAWL
IT REALLY FITS CARDIGAN
BUTTERBEER SOCKS (MY DESIGN)

As for my favorite item made this year.....................I would say it is the first Wee Sherlock Baby sweater with matching hat and booties.

My least favorite item?  The Bunny Easter Basket.  It was a pain in the neck to put together.  Not to mention, I only had an already made bunny basket to figure out how to make this.  I am not very proficient with trying to copy already made items.  Must be all those years of being told 'no cheating'.

The face masks were the most pressing item to make the last couple of weeks.  I feel we will be wearing face masks for the foreseeable future.  Until there is a vaccine for this deadly virus, we will all need to be taking extra precautions.  Right now, Arizona is a  hot spot for cases.  We have gone from #23 to #10 (out of 50) in case numbers, just in 2 weeks time.  With the way our numbers are growing, we should be #9 by the end of this weekend.  Not really something to brag about.  I just happen to live in the county with the largest number of cases and the largest population.  (lucky me)

I have been in this YOP group since it's inception.  The people I have met through this group has amazed me.  I have met people from all over the world.  What amazes me the most is how crafting can bond so many diverse people together.  Maybe that is what this crazy world needs........more crafters.  

If you are a crafter of any kind and have a blog or podcast, we would love to have you join us.  Next week, most of us will be started a new year of YOP.  It will be the 10th year this group has been around.  Here is the link of where you can go and see if this group would be fun to be in.

Tune in next week when I post a 'list' of wishful thinking LOL.  The one thing I have learned over the past 10 years is.............the list posted is always subject to change.  The other thing I learned is not to make the list so huge I feel overwhelmed before I even start.

Until Next Time.....................Happy Crafting & Stay Well!