Just a Few More Days~~~~~

Just a few more days and it really will be Christmas.  In fact, right now it's snowing great big wet flakes in our backyard! But all my projects are done, done, done. ( However, there's no rest for the weary around here as there are a couple of birthdays coming right up, too.) In the mean time though, it's time to kind of kick back and relax, whatever that means. A few packages are waiting to be wrapped and some cards to address, in case the relaxing gets old. Tee Hee!

I liked the first pair of these mitts so much that I did another pair in Malibrigo Rios and have decided I really like that yarn.  Recently I saw a pair of mittens from this pattern that had been embroidered in the area by the thumb and want to try that sometime using  a plain-colored yarn.  BTW, the free pattern is Maize and available on Ravelry. It's quick and easy.

This prayer shawl isn't a Christmas gift, but it's headed off to a friend who's having cancer surgery tomorrow.  I hope she knows how much we love her and wish her the best!

We were the lucky recipients of two beautiful floral arrangements for our table. Aren't they nice? Nothing like flowers to brighten up our gray and mostly days here.  Have a good week!

Goodbye, Cherry Tree! (And a couple of finishes)

Our poor old cherry tree has been ill for a couple of years, and we finally had it cut down this past Friday. It was always so pretty in the spring when it blossomed, and we will miss that.

All that's left is a pile of wood and lots more light in the backyard! Maybe now we can keep a clematis alive on the wooden arch?

This week had a couple of finishes also:  a Seahawks hat and a colorful headband.

I was a bit surprised how much the yarn pooled!

I hope this will help a certain someone keep the hair out of her eyes!  So many people commented on the slippers that I am including a link to the pattern on Ravelry. (Thanks you, Kathy b, for finding this pattern! It's fun and pretty quick.  Now I need to get busy and make some spiced nuts for the holidays.  Have a great week!  PS If you want to listen to our choir program, here's the link.

Off the Needles and a Christmas Surprise~~~

Phew!  The days are flying by, aren't they?  It pays to step back once in a while and look around.  Very quietly our very old bromeliad was busy producing a flower for the first time in ages, and we almost didn't notice. Each day it gets a bit bigger and reminds us to slow down and enjoy the season.

My needles have been busy, too.  I've made a few themed projects as well as 

things for hands and feet.

Last night on the way home from choir, we sent off some packages, so we're about done with our gift projects. That's it for now. The tree guys are here to take down our cherry tree.
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A Couple of Finishes!

Last summer this little lady started learning how to embroider with the help of Hoop-a-Loops, and when we were visiting last fall, she finished her second piece of stitching which I brought home to make into a pillow. And finish it  I did finally this past week with the help of some perfect fabric that I found at one of the quilt show boutiques and a great button and some dark green piping courtesy of JoAnn's. 

Said pillow is winging its way to the Midwest.  I hope she likes it.

The fabric! (The bow below is the correct color.)

Can you see the turtle button?  This project was more difficult than the first one, and I think she did a great job, don't you?

Meanwhile, I finished another hat which should fit the intended recipient much better than the last one!  Hope you all had a great holiday weekend.  The countdown to Christmas begins tomorrow, so I need to get back to work. Ciao!

Busy! Busy! Busy!

This time of year is always a bit crazy, isn't it?  No matter how early I get started, it seems like the calendar speeds up faster.  We've been preparing for a special choir presentation, doing some unplanned for baby sitting, volunteering, lots of stuff,  including holiday knitting....... And so it goes. Each day is gone in a blink of the eye. On Halloween, we always celebrate our first meeting in 1964. The flowers Dick brought me are still nice almost a month later! (Lots of interesting plant painting in this bouquet, eh?)

This hat turned out way too big for the person it was for, so I'm making another smaller one.

When the youngest grandson saw the rainbow socks, he asked for a red pair.  Hope these fit!

I was in the midst of holiday projects, when DD#1 requested hats and socks for a teacher's baby.  This little infant is facing lots of challenges at birth, so these projects come with lots of good thoughts and best wishes.

A couple Fridays ago, Becca and I went to the annual Block Party Quilters show.  Most of my photos didn't turn out because I was using a different camera, but luckily these two did:

The Camp River Ranch blocks on this t-shirt quilt brought back lots of fun memories of Girl Scout campouts with the daughters.  They both enjoyed summer camp there, too.

This was my very favorite quilt of the whole show.  It's been years since I put on a pair of skates, but I sure had fun when I did!

Yesterday when we were coming home from volunteering at the hospital, the moon was just rising. Close to the horizon, it looked huge.  This photo doesn't beging to capture its beauty.

Tonight the moon will be full, so I hope you can take time out from the season's busyness to enjoy it, too.  And most of all, have a very Happy Thanksgiving! 

A Weekend at the Beach~

Since our choir didn't sing on Sunday, we went to the Tolovana Inn in Cannon Beach, OR, for the weekend.   The weather for our drive down was pretty good, and we had a  tasty lunch at our favorite restaurant, Cousins .  We also love to stop at the viewpoint above the Columbia River where you can see for miles.  Once in a while you can even see Mount Hood, but not that day.

We should have gone walking on the beach the minute we arrived, but by the time we were unpacked, it was already starting to get dark.  That white spot in the grass is one of three wild bunnies that roam this part of the property.  We also saw a black one and a white one  from our window before we walked across the parking lot to dinner at Mo's, a great spot for chowder.

On Saturday morning we woke up to rain and lots of wind.  After breakfast, we decided to go into town and get some Haystack bread.  Of course, we also had to stop at Coastal Yarn and Center Diamond, the quilt shop.  Then we decided to go to Ecola State Park and saw a couple more wil bunnies en route.

The park is on a bluff above the ocean, and wow! It was incredibly windy. We could hardly open the car door.  In the past we've seen elk there, but those animals have more sense than to come out in that kind of wind.  So we went back to our condo and spent the afternoon reading. By then the rain was come down sideways, and these sea gulls kept the bunnies away.

I also did a lot of knitting and finished a couple of projects, a pair of socks and a holiday hat.

Of course, the rain quit on Sunday, since that was when we had to leave.  After we packed up the car, we took a short walk on the beach to see Haystack Rock where the Puffins nest in the summer!  (The hill in the fog is Ecola Park.)

Apparently, Bunny was feeling better about the weather, too, and made an appearance to bid us farewell.

S/he even let me get pretty close but was much more focused on munching the tasty grass than worrying about me.

Now we're back home, and surprise, surprise, it's still raining!  Enjoy the week even so!

We All Survived!

Precious little in the way of any kind of crafting, except for a few unsuccessful attempts at drawing monster trucks, happened this past week.  We were babysitting these two while their parents rendezvoued  in Hong Kong over the weekend after Mommy's business trip. We were well occupied from Thursday evening until mid-Sunday when the other grandparents took over.  (Good thing!  We were pretty tired by then.)  Mama should be done with Customs and on her way home by now, and Daddy gets back this evening.  What an adventure it was for everyone!

Strawberries were a big hit, and we even managed to get everyone, including me, dressed and off to preschool on Friday.

We are back home now, and the cats are happier even though we made trips back to care for them.  Little Miss and Big Brother don't believe we have cats as the two of them are gone as soon as the kids set foot inside the house.  Even we don't know where they hide. As you ponder this mystery, I hope you all have a very Happy Halloween!

It's Getting Longer!

The scarf is almost twice as long as it was! With the exception of the game on this past Sunday, the Scoreboard Scarf is up to date! (Each game is separated by a grey row, the dark blue represents our score, and the green is our opponent's score. Each row = one point.) It's about time for more yarn!  I'm thinking there's way too much green, and I need to get crackin' as there's another game on Thursday and 50 rows to add before then.......

Here I am working away before the game turned "sour".  Dee asked for a photo of the cats, and you can see how excited they are by football.

Not only did I catch up on the scarf, I completed two Christmas stockings for our local Ronald McDonald house.  Each year our group makes over 80 stockings, so my contribution isn't much, but at least I do something.  Right in the middle of this project, my sewing machine started making horrible noises and quit stitching correctly.  I fiddled around with it, but it wasn't till DH watched my fiddling that it started behaving.  Guess that's what happens when you're confronted by an engineer!?

The other day when we looked out our bedroom window, we saw this wonder.  Spiders must be the ultimate lace makers!  It's more filled in now and reminds me of a lace doily.

We are going to be spending time this weekend with these two.  Don't you just love how they are concentrating?  

Hope everyone has a great week, too.  Happpy Stitching!

On the Needles and More

One of the projects on my needles is going to take a while to finish.  It's the Scoreboard Scarf where each row represents one point scored by one's favorite team and its weekly opponent.  Can you guess my team?  At the moment I am very behind......and hoping to catch up before the next game. Wish me luck!

Instead of spending all day knitting, on Wednesday my friend Becca and I went out to Carnation to visit the Tolt Yarn and Wool shop. What a lovely place!  Look at this photo Becca took! Isn't that a pretty and tempting display?  (Just what we all need for our fiber diets right?)

After a nice lunch, we headed over to the nearby  Remlinger Farm and found it all decorated for Fall!

Doesn't Becca take great pictures?

Back on the home front, a couple of my indoor plants are going crazy!  The goldfish plant is blooming like never before. It has lots of little "fish"!

The flowers do resemble tiny goldfish, don't they?

Then, just before we left for Chicago, my orchid surprised me with this thing.  It's a baby plant, a keiki, Dee told me.  Some day it'll be in its own pot which means I'll probably have two orchids that don't bloom....... LOL

Have a great weekend everyone, and don't forget to check out Patchwork Times to see what others are knitting!