WEEK 31 of YEAR 8

Greetings all.  Another week as flown by.  It is amazing how quickly time is passing.  Everyday, I thought about doing a personal blog post, yet here it is Sunday and time for a YOP post.  Lucky you!  I will be doing both crafting and personal post in this one.  

I have a finish for this week.  

My Snoqualmie socks came off the needles Monday evening.  So nice to have them completed and ready to wear.  That meant my sock needles were naked.  Can't have naked sock needles, now can we.  So I started another pair.

Hello Car Socks with my self striping Diversity Yarn.  These will be quite bright as you can already tell by the first 4 colors.  There are 2 more colors that have not appeared yet too.  These will be made with the FKL heels again.  Right now, they are the only thing active on my needles.

Oops, I have another completion this week too.

The "To the Point" shawl for the prayer shawl ministry.  I have no idea what yarn this is as it was given to me without a ball band.  It is a heavy worsted so this shawl is a tad bit bigger than the ones I do in Caron Simply Soft yarn. Also, I add a 2 row half double crochet edging to it.  I do know it is 100% acrylic and therefore can be machine washed and dried.  A very important fact when sending prayer shawls to very ill individuals.

Since it is the last post of the month, I will show you the dishcloths I have completed this month.

Nine cloths completed.  A few already have a home to go to.  The rest of them will be put in a box for emergency gifts.  I love this pattern.  It is so quick and easy to do.  It is the only one I use now.  After completing the cloth and before I cut the yarn, I crochet a loop so if someone wants to hang the cloth to dry, it is easy to do.  My mom always hung up her cloths under her sink.  That is where I came up with the idea of it.

So, that is all for my crafting this week.  Hubby and I are still working on decluttering the house.  We have not been as active with it this week though. I did a little in the kitchen but that is all.  

Hubby leaves to visit his mom tomorrow, so, I will be bringing all the Christmas boxes in and going through them while he is gone.  That should net a few bags of donations.  Not to mention, clear up quite a bit of room in our shed.

I am on travel stand-by also.  My niece called me on Friday morning to inform me my brother had been airlifted to a hospital with what appeared to be a stroke.  He is still there and maybe there for a while.  Seems he had a clot at the base of his brain (It was removed) and also has endocarditis. (Infection of the heart's inner lining).  I do not have any details yet, as to if there was any damage to his brain from the lack of blood flow.  We will find out today if there is any damage to his heart valves from the infection.  So things are kind of up in the air as to if I need to go or not.  My niece has been a blessing in keeping me informed of any and all updates.  She is flying in to see him today and to help out around the house.  

Other than that, things are going pretty good.  I have laundry going today so hubby can pack for his trip.  There will be beef stroganoff tonight for dinner.  And of course, there will be some knitting done today too.

Until next time..............Happy Crafting!!!!

WEEK 30 of YEAR 8

Sunday mornings are so special. I get out of bed, turn on my coffee, feed the dogs, grab my breakfast and sit down with my computer.  For the next couple of hours it is all about blogs.  Both composing and reading.  It is my favorite day of the week.  I am able to connect with other people all over the world who, like me, love to play with fiber, cloth, thread and recipes.  My hubby doesn't understand my glee about this time of day, but has learned to respect it and leaves me in peace for those few hours.  (smart man!)

This week ended up being both productive and destructive.  So here we go.

I do have a finished object:

Sock #1 is completed............finally!  Or is that 1/2 of an FO?  Sock #2 looks like this:

It is coming along quite nicely.  I am hoping to complete it by the end of the month if not sooner.  Then it will be time to cast on another pair.  I haven't decided if they will be plain self striping or a special pattern sock.  I have thinking time.

Remember this?

It has now taken residence in my trash can.  I finished the first point and started the second one.  There were holes between them that needed stitching and it was so fiddly. I finally just said 'forget it'.  It was not bringing me joy at all.  I did love making the centers but the points were not going to do it for me.  It was a great learning experience and I did 'meet' some lovely people from Germany and other parts of Europe during the KAL.

Wanting to feel accomplished, I went on a dishcloth making craze.  I have finished 8 or 9 cloths which I will photograph for the end of the month. (good idea Becki)  They are all the same pattern but I messed with colors while making them to mix it up a bit.

There was a bit of mail for me this week too.  No, not yarn, but things to make my yarn happy.

This pattern holder is marvelous,  I own the 'big' one and it is nice because you can actually put an entire magazine in it's pocket.  The above holder does not have a pocket but is perfect to hold my pattern repeats such as sock patterns have.  I also got extra magnets to go with it.  They seem to disappear at times for me.  Don't you just love the knitted stitches for the background?

Here is another happy little toy I got.

A 'fix it" tool on a key ring.  I have another one that is in my notions box.  It is not on a key ring but just floats around on it's own.  I have 'lost' it several times so thought it a wise move to have an extra one hanging around.  BTW, I do not call it a 'fix it' tool.  I have a much different name for it.  It is the phrase I use when I drop a stitch.

The only other acquisition from this week were these:

New glasses!  Last year I allowed the optical lady to convince me how wonderful I looked in pale peach frames.  I hated them the entire year I wore them.  This year, I picked out my own pair.  I like fun glasses and with these being blue and purple, they fit the bill.  Plus they are my favorite colors. (Don't mind the bags under my eyes.....this was taken about 5 minutes after I woke up.) 

This afternoon we will be attending a special celebratory Mass for one of our favorite priests.  It is the 15th anniversary of his ordination.  The Mass will be in Vietnamese, but that is OK.  The Mass is the same no matter what language it is in.  Afterwards, there will be traditional foods from Vietnam and lots of fellowship.  We love this priest and are so blessed to know him.

The rest of the week is pretty normal.  Monday, is a holiday for us.  (Martin Luther King day)  Tuesday is a quiet day per my calendar.  Wednesday, I take my BFF, again, for her MRI (She has the correct meds this time), Thursday is Prayer Shawl group and Friday there is a HUGE sale at one of our family run quilting stores here.  Looks like there will be plenty of knitting/crocheting/sewing time this week.

Until next time...................Happy Crafting!!!

SuperWife

This is what I have felt like today, so far.  I hit the floor running this morning.  Hubby was even smart enough to just go into another room while I tackled the items on my to do list that have been languishing there for a few days.

First up:




This is in my bread machine as I type this.  My favorite spelt flour bread.  It is light enough to use for sandwiches.  Most spelt flour loaves are so heavy, they really only seem good for toast.

I also have this going on:



Hubby loves cinnamon raisin bread for breakfast.  This is a lovely tasting loaf too.  At the moment it is rising for the last time and then will be baked in the oven.

There are also 2 loads of laundry that are done with a third on the way to the washer.  I love multi tasking.  It really makes things get done faster and I don't watch the clock so much.  Everything that is running has a buzzer to let me know it is finished.  This afternoon, I plan on working on some project bags and starting a new prayer shawl (since prayer shawl group is tomorrow morning). Hubby said he will start pulling in the boxes from the shed sometime this week or next.  Then I can start going through those to declutter that out so he can get into the shed to work on his part.

I just heard the washer buzz.  Time to switch loads around.  The cinnamon bread should be ready to bake by the time I have done that.

Until next time..............happy crafting!

SHHHHHHH

I have been up for a couple of hours now.  It is so quiet and peaceful at 5 in the morning.  At least it is in my neighborhood.  It is now 7 and I just heard the first car of the day going down our street.  I love mornings like this.  It makes me feel like it is just God and me (and the dogs) having a nice morning chat.  Hubby will be rousing in about an hour so I decided to take a little time and post on my blog.

The past 2 days have seen me knitting away on dishcloths.  What a great project to do for a while.  They are usually quick to do and make me feel so accomplished as I see the pile of cloths rising.  In past posts, I have talked about making a box to hold 'gifts' for those unexpected occasions when a gift is needed.  That is where some of these cloths will be going.  My goal is to use up as much of my cotton yarn as possible.  I am even making 'scrap' colored clothes.  Those will go into my kitchen drawers though.  

I will also be making more project bags to put into the gifting box.  They were so well received this year by everyone......not just knitters/crocheters either.  I have plenty of material to make A LOT of them.  I am hoping to split my time between the two activities.  So far, I have just been working on the cloths.  oops!

Yesterday, all the bags and boxes of donations were picked up.  So nice to have that out of the house.  We have not started on any other areas as of yet.  I am hoping this afternoon, I can get hubby to bring in some boxes from our shed for me to go through.  Our shed holds ALL our Christmas items. We have over 20 plastic storage containers out there and do not use even half of the items.  I am sure there is someone that would benefit from it.  We used to put up 3 Christmas trees and decorated 5 rooms of our house for Christmas.  Since the children have gone, we have scaled back to 1 tree and just the main living areas with decorations. (2 rooms)  We do the front yard too.  So much easier to put up and take down now.

Today, hubby and I have our annual eye appointments.  I don't think my vision has changed in the past year and hubby thinks his is pretty much the same too.  But......we have great vision insurance and therefore we will use it.  We both have 'daily' glasses and also 'computer/work station' glasses.  Last year I got prescription sunglasses and love them!  Our sun is quite intense in the summer.  It reminds me of sunny days when there is snow on the ground.  Quite blinding!

The rest of the week is pretty normal..............so far.  Fingers crossed it stays that way.  Getting more areas decluttered is my main focus right now.  

Until next time.......................happy crafting!

WEEK 29 UPDATE

Happy Sunday to all of you readers.  Thank you so much for stopping by today.  I hope your day is wonderful and filled with sunshine and calm winds.  We had a nice rain last night and it sure did clean the air around us.  Today our sun is shining and we are in the mid 60's.  While doing my grocery shopping today, I actually had the window in my car rolled down enjoying the fresh air.  Lovely!  My errands for the day are done and it is now time to relax a bit, update my blog, do a bit of knitting and then do a bit of sewing.  A wonderful day for sure!

Here is my FO for the week:

The Advent Scarf 2018 was completed last week Sunday evening.  I have not blocked it yet.  All the ends are woven in though.  This scarf is over 5 feet long and about 8 inches wide.  I can imagine how big it will grow when I block it.  Hence the reason it is still not blocked.  Not sure I want it wider.  Longer would not hurt my feelings though.

Another item worked on this week was this:

The Star Pillow.  Front and back pentagons are completed and I am working on the first point.  It is really very fiddly with all the needles sticking out every which way.  I do not think I will make another one.  I have enjoyed the learning process but it is just way to fiddly for me to just have it sitting around on a bed or sofa.

The socks got a little bit of love this week but not enough for you to really notice any difference in them.  That is all the yarning crafts I have today.  I want to get back to my sewing of project bags.  I have plenty of material now and am ready to start.

This past week saw hubby and I continuing our decluttering of some of our home.  We have completed 2 bedrooms, the hall coat closet, the linen closet, and part of a third bedroom.  We have quite a bit of 'stuff' to put our tomorrow morning for Big Brothers Big Sisters charity.  I am not even able to get a photo of all of the bags and boxes we have piled on top of our pool table.  I posted one last week ↓↓and it is twice that size as of today.  

Otherwise, last week was not too busy.  I did take my BFF to her MRI appointment but she was not able to do it.  She takes meds so she can go into an OPEN MRI and the Dr did not give her the right dosage.  She now has the right dosage and we will attempt this again in a couple of weeks.  She is super duper claustrophobic.

I have the menus planned for the week and all the grocery shopping for the week has been completed.  My pot roast is in the crockpot for tonight's dinner....YUM!  My newest love is my air fryer.  It is being used 3-4 times a week for our dinners.  Hubby found a nice big one on sale at Costco before Christmas and I am now getting the time to play with it.  There has only been 1 dinner I cooked in it we were not happy about...........hamburgers.  They are so  much better off the grill.  

Do any of you use Pinterest?  Oh my, I seem to spend quite a bit of time on it.  It gets used for recipes, hair styles, knitting ideas, fingernail ideas, journaling help, exercise ideas, camera help etc........ It has been a real time saver for me.  It is usually looked at in the evenings.  That way, I can save what I want/need and it is there for me when I am ready to make/do it.

Did you all get your Christmas down?  I just noticed I have 2 wreaths still hanging on my front doors.  I will pull those down today and that will complete our decorations.

That is all for this week.  Time to do some kind of crafting.

Until Next Time.....................Happy Crafting!!!!

Week 28 & Epiphany

Today is Epiphany.........also know as the feast of the Three Kings.  This is the traditional day when we Catholics take down our Christmas decorations.  Most of mine will be gone by this evening.  The outdoor lights may not come down until tomorrow as we are getting quite a nice rain here.  Inside will be down and in their boxes waiting to go to the shed once the rain stops.  The house will seem so much bigger once the tree is down and all the decor around the house is put away.

As far as knitting goes.............there has been a bit of that going on the past few days.  Since I had company from last Saturday until Wednesday morning, I was not able to do as much knitting as I normally get to do.  Here is what I did accomplish this past week.

Four dishcloths completed!  My BFF will be receiving them this week.  It is the DW pattern and is about the only one I do anymore.  They do not take long to do and I usually can do one to two in an evening.  Doing these cloths made me feel like I was accomplishing something.

Then there is this:

The everlasting Advent Scarf.  See the progress keeper?  That is where I was last Sunday.  As you can see, not as much got done on it as normal.  I am on day 22 of 24.  My hope is to have this off the needles by the end of this week.  It is one of the most intricate items I have ever knit.  Would I do it again?  Sure would.  In fact, now that I have the Japanese stitch bible, I plan on doing some socks and fingerless mitts using some of these stitches.

That is all of my crafting this week.  I was very focused on decluttering some of my house this week.  Why?  Well, when I went into the craft room closet to get down some tissue paper for Christmas, I had a landslide of 'stuff' fall on my head.  That did it.  Time to clean things out that are not being used.  I am 3/4 done in my craft room.  So far I have 5 magazine holders full of patterns to go to the prayer shawl ladies.  Then here is my donations for Big Brother Big Sisters:

I don't want you to think I am a hoarder.  Believe me, I hate clutter.  My craft room was holding all the craft items from my mom too.  There were 5 suitcase type boxes of her beading materials, alone!  I went through every box, item by item.  I kept a few things and my Grand Daughter kept some things too.  I have been storing her stuff for over 18 months now.  It was time.  Hopefully, the remainder of the craft room will be completed this week also.  The picture above also has items from the Grand Daughter's room.  She has outgrown all her clothes we had here.  She also decided to go through all her toy bins and donated quite a few toys also.  Her room is almost completed too.  I need to go through the top part of her closet where I have stored a few items and get those out of here too.  It feels so GOOD to finally start to get this place in tip top shape.

My children have told me if we do not get things cleaned out they will just blow the house up when we die.  LOL  I know they are just kidding................at least I think they are.  We have lived here for over 30 years, so there is quite a bit of 'stuff' that needs to go.  I have no problem giving stuff away.......hubby on the other hand.......well, it is harder for him for reasons I will not go into on a public forum.  But I understand it and gently guide him as he releases items.

Speaking of Grand Daughters......my youngest one turned 13 the end of last year.  I now have 5 teenage grands and 3 twenty something grands plus a 7 month Great Grand!  I am truly blessed.  But I digress.  This seems to happen more and more the older I get.  Anywho......We were lucky enough to have a sleepover last night with the local Grand Daughter.  Since she has become a teen she seldom comes to our house to hang out. ( I get it......I may not like it, but I get it. )  While she was working on cleaning out her bedroom here, she ran across some fun things.  We laughed quite a bit and took several trips down memory lane.  She even found her Uncle's 7th grade year book and had a lot of fun looking through that.  She found a pre-schooler etch-a-sketch that had been forgotten about.  We had the most fun with that.  Drawing pictures and sending written messages on it to each other.  Here is the last message she sent to me:

What a wonderful way to end a fantastic evening!

Until next time...................Happy Crafting!!!!

Clean Start

Everyone else has said it so just be nice and accept my saying it!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

OK, that is done so let's just talk a little bit.  I love new years, new months, new weeks, new days.  It seems to me, God's way of giving us a clean start.  I would sure hate to waste that opportunity to start clean, wouldn't you?  Anyway.............enough introspection.  Let's talk about some fun stuff.

I have my first FO of the year!

 A DW dishcloth.  This is my favorite pattern to make.  This one has a home it is going to.  My BFF told me her 4 year old dishcloths were getting a bit raggedy so I took the hint and started making one for her.  I will make a few more for her also.  A person can never have too many dishcloths.

Many of my fellow blogging knitting/crocheting buddies, make items for charities or gifts that they keep stored until needed.  What a wonderful idea, right?  This year, I would like to start a box in my craft room, to hold such items.  Dishcloths will be one of the items to go into the box.  I have not decided what other items will fill it, but will work on it throughout this year.

Winter has hit my neck of the woods!

This was my weather info when I got up this morning.  Don't any of you laugh at this.  I realize there are many of you in sub freezing temps.  But do you reach 115F in the summer?  It is all a matter of perspective.  We even had areas in the valley that got snow 2 days ago.  All I can think about when I see our temperatures this low is:  The bugs are going to DIE!  We have not had a good cold winter in 6 years!  Do you have any idea how many crickets, mosquitoes, sewer roaches, scorpions and spiders we have been dealing with?  It has not been pretty.

Yesterday, hubby and I went to a football bowl game.  It is the Play Station Fiesta Bowl in a neighboring town.  It was an early game (11 am) and since we tailgate with a crew of about 20, we needed to get up and moving early to meet them at 6:45am!  Needless to say, it was a bit chilly when we arrived to party with the gang.  I wore leggings, jeans, thermal shirt, blouse, coat, fingerless mitts, and a slouch hat.  I was still chilled to the bone by the time we returned home late afternoon.  We started at 37 degrees and only made it to 50 for the day.  BUT.......................I enjoyed the whole day with friends and family.  Take a look at where we were sitting.

Pretty good seats, huh.

All of our company left early this morning.  My home is quiet again.  My to do list is as long as a sheet of paper.  Yet, I am not panicked or worried about getting everything done all at once.  It will get done when it gets done.  I am going to enjoy my day and do what I can.  

I hope you all are healthy and enjoying your day also.

Until next time.............happy crafting!