WEEK 25 of YOP 10

 

Hello again from Sunny Arizona.  Time for my weekly crafting update.  I am happy to report I have another finish this week.

My "It Really Fits" Cardigan is finished, washed and ready to wear.

I like my sweaters big so I can 'cuddle' up in them.

This was made longer than the pattern called for.  Our weather here in Arizona does not normally require a true winter coat.  This will be perfect for our cool evenings and mornings, during our winter.  I changed a few things about the pattern.  I made cuffs for the sleeves instead of letting them be open.  I did not do the lace section for the 'waist'.  I made it longer to hide my ASSests. (Yes, I capitalized the first three  letters for a reason LOL)  The bottom and front/neck bands are done in garter stitch, which was on the pattern.  I did extra stitches around the hip level to accommodate my curves there.  

This morning I put it into the washer and dryer and it really opened up the fibers and made it so nice and soft and cuddly.  It was made with discontinued Debbie Norville everyday anti pill acrylic yarn.  Premier now carries that yarn and has removed the Debbie Norville name.  It is in the color Aubergine (eggplant).  I am looking forward to seeing how well this wears.  I opted not to add buttons.  A dear knitting friend and I discussed whether to make it with buttonholes or not.  Her advice was, "How often do you button up your sweaters?"  Well, almost never!  I usually just grab the fronts of the sweater, wrap it around me and call it good.  

Would I make this pattern again?  Probably not.  Even though I love the fit of this, I was not thrilled with the instructions.  It is a Knit Picks pattern too, so was surprised at some of the count mistakes made on the pattern.  Thank goodness I have a knitting buddy that I can call and get help from.

Now that the sweater is completed, I am turning my attention to the Havana blanket.  I want to complete this WIP before the weather starts to warm up again.  That will leave me with 2 WIPs in knitting and 2 WIPs in cross stitch.  A much more manageable number of items.  Truth be told, one of the knitting WIPs may go into the frog pond.  I am still debating on that.

That is all for today's crafting update.  Not much else to talk about so.................................

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

Thursday

Do you remember what life was like last year at this time?  Do certain songs or smells bring back those lovely memories of past Christmas' or Chanukahs?  Isn't it amazing how things have changed over the past 9 months?

I do not consider hubby and myself big social people.  Yes, we like to have dinners with friends and family.  Yes, this time of year we normally would be making lots of plans for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as well as New Years Eve and New Years Day.  Not this year.  We will attend Mass on Christmas Eve and have a small family dinner (6-8 people) on Christmas Day.  Nothing special will be happening this year on New Years Eve or New Years Day.  

It is kind of interesting though.  It is not bothering me to be scaling down like this.  So many things in my life have changed over the past few years, I feel it is good for me to be able to take this time, slow down, and count my blessings.  

Speaking of blessings.............................................Here are 2 of my blessings.

This is not a normal occurrence.  Normally, if Enrique tries to lay next to Luna, she immediately leaves the area.  This tells me one of two things.  One, Luna is cold and is using Enrique for his body heat.  Two, Enrique snuck up there and laid down so quietly that Luna didn't notice (not likely).  I am betting on #1. (Enrique is the one in the blue collar)

I am just finishing up a load of laundry and getting ready to eat lunch.  The cardigan is still the only project I am working on at the moment.  The body is completed and the bottom border is being done right now.  That leaves the front/neck band to do and then it will be completed.  These last two parts are slow going.  There are a multitude of stitches being worked and it takes me almost 30 minutes to do one row of the bottom border.  The neck/front band will have even more stitches as well as M1 and K2tg thoughout.  So that will take me even longer to do.  I had hoped to have this completed by Christmas.  I now am hoping to be able to have it off the needles before 2021 starts.  

That is all for me today.  

Until next time.....................................................................

 

Tuesday

 Another day almost over for me.  Did your Tuesday turn out the way you expected it to?

Mine went well.  My virtual Dr's appt was great.  I even got 'seen' 45 minutes early!  Since I don't have any real complaints, it is just a matter of going over my labs and making sure my meds are still working for me.

I got all my plants watered, my clock wound, banana bread made and even got to do a little straightening in my craft room.  It seems, that is the room where things just get 'dumped'.  Right now, Christmas gifts are in there and need to be wrapped or bagged.  That might be what I will do tomorrow while hubby is in his virtual class again.  He only has a half day tomorrow, so that will be perfect timing for me to wrap things.

My Thanksgiving cactus is going to town in the bud department.

I do not do anything special for this plant.  I water it every 7-10 days and turn it a quarter turn after watering it.  That's it.  I wish I had known how easy these plants are to take care of.  I would have had one a long time ago.  I am kind of keeping my eyes out for a white one now.  

It is just about time to put Arthur back in the fridge.  He got fed today (sourdough starter) but I am not ready to use him yet.  Maybe next week will be his turn to shine.

Until next time..............................................

Monday

 

Hi.  It is late Monday afternoon.  I am finally finding the time to sit down and relax before I start our dinner.  Yesterday, I did absolutely nothing other than knit all day.  I was not feeling well and decided to take the day off.  That meant today I needed to do yesterday and today's daily chores. 

It all worked out well.  Hubby is taking an online class for the next 3 days.  This means, I have all day to do what ever I needed/wanted to do without any interruptions.

Here is how the day went. 

Two loads of laundry done and even put all of it away.

Got rid of boxes from deliveries and the new light fixture.

Made out menus from now through Christmas Eve.

Made out the grocery list

Picked up my medicine.

Ran to 2 grocery stores to get groceries.

Emptied the dishwasher.

Made 2 different types of bread.  

It was time to make another loaf of my sandwich bread.  We love this bread and it is so easy to make.

 

I finally got a chance to make a loaf of sweet bread in my fancy bread pan I purchased from King Arthur Flour Company.  The bread was made from a Krusteaz mix.

The flavor is Cranberry Orange.  I dusted the top with powdered sugar to make it pretty.  I love the decor on the bread.

Here is a look at the pan I used.  It is a Nordic Ware pan.  Let me just say, it was interesting greasing it.  I do have several other sweet bread mixes and am looking forward to making them in this pan.  

Tonight's dinner is coconut shrimp.  I will steam some veggies to serve with it as well as some of the sandwich bread.  I have a fantastic air fryer recipe for the coconut shrimp.  It is not hard to make at all and our store had raw shrimp on sale.  Win win!

After dinner, I am going to work on my cardigan.  Both sleeves are no completed.  I need to add 36 rows to the body and then I will be on the button band/neck band.  Wish me luck as I have never done bands before.  If I am figuring correctly, I should have this completed before Christmas.  🤞

Tomorrow should be a much quieter day.  I have a zoom Dr appointment with my RA doctor.  Hubby has another day of virtual class.  Other than that, no big plans.  I am sure I will figure out a way to fill my day.

Remember this?  I have decided to put it on hold until January.  There is a group I have been a part of for 2-3 years that starts a decluttering on January.  The person that does it has an actual schedule on what room to work on and what area of the room to work on each day/week.  It lasts for 90 days and manages to go through an entire house including garages and basements (If you have them)  I do much better with a schedule and more detailed instructions.  Here is the link to the group if you are interested.

OK, About time for me to go and peel shrimp.

Until next time........................................................

WEEK 24 OF YEAR 10

 

Hello everyone.  Welcome back.  It is time for me to once again update y'all on my crafting for the week. 

Let's start with my FO.

Reyna was completed on Tuesday evening.  Wednesday, she got a good blocking.  I am so glad I added the beads to her.  Even though it is a slow and tedious process, it is well worth it in the end.  Otherwise, this yarn would have had no weight to it and would not have laid very nice when being worn.  I have been asked how I add the beads.  I use a teeny tiny crochet hook and slide the bead on it, pick up the completed knit stitch with the hook, slide the bead on the stitch and place the stitch back on the knitting needle.  

I wear my neck shawls in two different ways.  It depends on my mood and the effect I am going for.  This is the 'over the shoulder' style I wear most of the time.  It is not for warmth but for fashion.

If I need warmth, then I wear it like the above photo.  The pattern was pretty easy to follow.  I was able to work on this while watching TV too.  

Once that was off the needles, it was time to pay attention to another WIP that has been waiting in the wings to be worked on.  The "It Really Fits Cardigan" got brought out of hiding and is now receiving my love.

I completed the first sleeve this week.  The sleeves on this cardi are quite generous and even with me decreasing 2 stitches every 5 rows, it was still large at the wrist.  I like my sweaters to be snug at the wrist so the wind can not go up the sleeve and give me a chilly arm.  So, I ignored the instructions and made my own cuff.  It fits perfectly now.

Sleeve number 2 is under way and I am hoping to get it completed this week.  Since this is all just knitting in the round (magic loop style) I can do this while listening to my book or watching TV.  Nice relaxing knit.

After sleeve two is done, I will try it on to see how much more of the body I need to do.  I am not going to knit the waist that is in the instructions.  (I don't have much of a waist anymore LOL)  So, will just continue on until I get the length I like and then will do the neck/button band/bottom of the sweater.  Those three items are all knit at one time.  Since this is my first cardigan to knit, I am looking forward to learning how to do the finishing bands on this.  It is chilly enough here now to wear this so I am hoping to get it done before we warm back up.

That is it for crafting this week.  Yesterday, we went to our BFF's house for a tamale making party.  It was the first time for any of us to make tamales.  Hubby and I made green chili corn and my BFF made chicken and beef tamales.

This is 4 dozen of the green chili corn tamales..............before steaming them.

Here is 2 dozen chicken before steaming

Here is the group (minus me) spreading and wrapping the beef tamales.  It was quite a learning experience.  It took almost 2 hours of steaming them to get them cooked through.  So, from start to finish it took about 4 hours total.  We did buy premade masa which helped cut down on prep time.  My BFF had all her meat cooked and shredded the night before which also cut down on prep time.  We spent about 30 minutes watching various videos on spreading and wrapping before we started too.  Would we do it again?  You betcha!

I leave you with some photos of our inside Christmas decor.

This is just inside our entry way that leads into our family room.  This will be the last year for this tree.  We will never buy a flocked tree again.  We spend most of our time cleaning the flocking off the floor, our clothes, the dogs etc.  It gets everywhere all the time.  The lights on the tree are supposed to do several colors and functions.  At the present time, the only thing it does is warm white on a steady glow.  Kind of disappointing.

Since we can seldom use our fireplace because of 'no burn' days.  We use it to display some of our various decorations throughout the year.  I love my 'flameless' electric candles. 

 

The cross stitch nativity is one my mom made years ago.  After she passed away, I was pleased to be able to showcase this each year.  Before she passed, we would hang this over her bed in the assistant living home she was at.

This is the fireplace (a fourth of it) showing the needlepoint stockings she made for us too.  My mom was a whiz with a needle and floss/thread.  I felt sorry for her when her hands got to the point where she could no longer cross stitch.  She was still able to do needlepoint though and had a partially finished Christmas stocking when she passed.  It was given to someone who could complete it and use it for themselves.

We got the privilege to do a little home improvement project on Friday.  The light fixture in our main bathroom decided it was time to quit working.  Off to Home Depot we went to get a new fixture for that bathroom.

This is the fixture we put up.  Normally it takes about 30 minutes to replace a fixture.  Well, not in our house.  The ground wire was only about an inch long, so we had to elongate that.  Then the junction box was really loose, so we had to tighten that.  This is all done in a room that has NO natural light so we were working by flashlight and at the top of an 8 foot wall.  Neither hubby or I are tall so this required ladders and step stools.  After 2 hours, we had a new light fixture and it looks quite nice.  This is what happens when you live in a 48 year old house.  Things start to quit working.

Today will be a day of rest.  There is NFL football to be watched, a book I would like to finish listening to and a sweater begging to be worked on.

What is on your agenda today?

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

  

JUST DROPPING BY

 

I didn't want any of you to think I had disappeared.  I am still here and doing well.  It is that time of year when little things happen that are not expected and it makes your schedule go out the window.  After this many years on this earth, I have learned not to have a 'set' schedule for the month of December and the first half of January.  

So, what has been happening?  Monday I spent the day trying to catch up on a couple of my shows that were recorded.  Hubby has stopped watching "The Good Doctor" and "Bull".  I still enjoy them so when he leaves the house I watch them.  Monday was his day to go and get his allergy injections.  He also got our water bottles filled for our water cooler.  He also went to Sam's Club and got our Christmas ham and delivered it to our son's house.  (They host all the holiday meals and we buy the meat for all of them)  There will only be a total of 8 of us this year.  Another small family gathering for this holiday.  Hopefully, next year we can have a large family gathering.  (That would be between 15 and 20)

Our daughter came over Monday night for dinner too.  I was glad to see her as it had been almost a month since we had been face to face.  I had some Pampered Chef for her (She had it delivered to my house as it is a Christmas gift for her hubby) and some other yummy goodies I had made for her and her hubby.  Unfortunately, my hubby did not get to spend time with her as he had to go to church and do one of the Bible readings.  That's ok, we got to have girl time.

Tuesday I had an appointment for blood work.  When I got there I was informed they did not have my faxed order.  I called the Dr's office and asked them to refax it to them.  They got the fax but all that was on it was my name.  Called the office again and asked them to refax AGAIN!  BOOM!  They got it this time and then said I needed to be fasting for the tests.  I had to inform them I had NEVER fasted for the tests in the 20 years I had been having my blood work done for this Dr.  (I do not have blood sugar problems or cholesterol problems).  The blood work is to make sure my RA is under control and my body is responding well to the medication I take.  So, my 15 minute appointment took an hour.

From there I went to Hobby Lobby to look at Christmas Trees.  (We need a new one and are just trying to get an idea of what is out there).  HL was a zoo as usual.  I did, however, pick up a couple of embroidery hoops.  I left there and went across the street to At Home to look at their trees.  That store did not have hardly any customers!  They also did not have any trees that really spoke to me.  OK, I take that back, they did have one I liked but it was out of stock and the price was WAY more than we want to spend on a tree.  I am sure we will look harder after Christmas, when everyone has theirs on sale.

Tuesday evening, I finally finished my Reyna Shawl.  Come back on Sunday for the photos of it.  SO that meant I needed to find another WIP to pick up and work on.  I decided to get back to work on my "It Really Fits" cardigan.  There is no reason this has not been completed.  Well, it might be because I keep finding pretty shiny patterns that keep calling my name.

While working on my Cardi, Tuesday evening, my BFF called and wanted to know if we wanted to get together on Saturday and have a tamale making party.  Heck yes!  We have been talking about doing this for a couple of months now.  Have either of us ever made tamales?  NOPE!  But we have been watching YouTube videos and have found recipes.  We figured even though we are novices, we will be proficient by the time we have made almost 100 tamales.

Wednesday was a crazy day.  I was planning on just kicking back and working on my cardi as well as doing some decluttering.  That didn't happen.  It was "Go and get tamale making supplies" day.  Hubby was kind enough to go with me as the two stores we needed to go to gear towards the Hispanic community.  Since he speaks Spanish, it sometimes helps so he can explain what I am looking for.  We were able to get everything needed in just over an hours time.

Here is the steamer pot I got to cook the tamales in.

Yup, that is a 40 quart pot.  Since it takes an hour to steam/cook the tamales, I decided I did not want to do it in small batches.  This should hold all the tamales we are going to make.

Since my BFF and myself are newbies at this, I decided it might be smart to get masa spreaders to help us get the masa onto the corn husks evenly.  She and I are very excited to do this.  She is making red chili pork and chicken.  I am making green chili corn.  I will let you know on Sunday how it went.

When we got home, I got busy and blocked my shawl, got food vacuum sealed, put the dogs chicken breasts in the crockpot and finally collapsed.  Good thing I had plenty of leftovers from Monday's dinner.  Made it much easier that night.

I am so happy we went to the store yesterday.  We have been having rain most of the day today.  We have not had any rain here in 110 days!  Needless to say, the rain is a blessing.  I went through my recipes today and culled out the ones we have tried and did not plan on having again.  I must have gotten rid of over 50 recipes.  It sure helped slim down my notebook.  (Does that count on decluttering? LOL)  Since I did not sleep well last night I did take a little 30 minute nap this afternoon.  There was a load of laundry completed, the dishwasher emptied and we finished up the leftovers for dinner tonight.

In about an hour we will be heading to Church for our hour of adoration at our Cancer Shrine.  I look forward to that hour of complete quiet all week.

Tomorrow, hubby is going to clean the last part of the house and I am going to do some baking and finish up the laundry.  The rain has left which means I can take a little walk tomorrow and enjoy the fresh crisp air too.  Just walking without a mask on will be a joy.  I will take one with me incase I do come upon other people, but from what I have seen, not too many people are taking walks in my neighborhood.  

How are you handling the upcoming Holiday season (Christmas & New Years).

Until next time........................................................

WEEK 23 YOP 10

 

Hello.  Welcome to my weekly YOP update.  Here is what happened this week in my craft universe.

Here is Reyna.  The green progress keeper is where I was last week.  This is the only project I worked on this week.  I am so close to finishing it.  Do you see the beads I have added to it?  This was a last minute decision on my part.  Since this is knitted in one color, I thought it might need a little 'interest'.  The beads also will help it have a bit more drape. The down side of the beads is the time it takes to do one row.  I timed it last night and it takes me an entire hour to do one row with the beads.  I calculated how much time it will take to complete the shawl and came up with between 12-14 hours before the bind off.  Looking at the yarn I have left, I now have a feeling I may be playing yarn chicken by the end.  My goal is to have this completed by the end of this coming week.

Once the shawl is completed I am going to work on other WIP's.  After looking at my knitting journal, I realized, I have way too many languishing projects hanging around.  It is time to start to clean up some of them so I don't feel so guilty about casting on new projects.

On other crafting fronts........................Josie came over on Friday to work on some Christmas projects for her parents.  While she was here, I asked her to make labels for my hubby and my earbud cases.  She was more than willing to do it.  Here is mine.

I was impressed.  As you can see, the earbud case is not very big.  She still managed to make a name small enough to go on it.  That kid is good.  

That is all of the crafting for this week.  In other news, I made a loaf of pullman loaf bread yesterday.

I love the fact this comes out just like store bought sandwich bread.  I am able to get 20 slices out of this 1.5 pound loaf.  It is soft and yet dense.  It holds together so well for sandwiches.  Much better than the loaf I make in the bread machine.

I leave you with something I found yesterday.  Hopefully it doesn't offend anyone.

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