It Feels Like Christmas

Hello My Friends,

I'm so glad you have been voting on my Poll. the results are in: one vote for the stable, 7 for the Baby Jesus, 1 for the Star, and 2 for something else. Nobody voted for the camels, funny how that goes... I wish there was a way to see who voted on what, unfortunately this program is not that sophisticated, so I guess I'll have to make due, with just knowing people are voting. Unless of course someone out there is voting multiple times...hey go for it, there are no rules in this game :o)

All this weekend, I have been working on Secret sewing projects for Christmas. It is so much fun to be doing something special for someone else, and imagining their surprise and delight!

Today, I continue working on these projects. This feels like Christmas, even though there is no snow, and my folks are far away. It really is the "Most wonderful time of the year"!

I heard this poem on NPR this morning, and it reflected my feelings on going to work. [ I get to go in two hours later than usual! :o)]

Dust of Snow

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

~Robert Frost

Let there be Peace on Earth

Hello My Friends,
This week has not been a crafty one for me. Busy at work as usual, and late hours too. So it has been one of those weeks, where absolutely the bare minimum gets done. Ya know, eat, sleep, shower, drive to work, and repeat as necessary. Not always in that order.
Well, now the weekend is here so we can relax. you and i, all of us together. With the snow falling outside, it gives a kind of wintery feeling.
Tomorrow I'm leaving the valley again, to see a long lost cousin, well not lost so much as not seen. Also I will go see "Savior of the World" a Christmas musical.
Next weekend I had hoped to go see the King's Singers perform with The Tabernacle Choir, but was not able to get tickets. I was really looking forward to the event. I had even signed up for two tickets and would have asked some guy to come with me, sort of as a date. (even though the last guy I asked sort of put of answering me until I had already left for the concert, by myself, and though i was mortally wounded, I healed quickly and was ready to ask some other nice guy this year) now we'll never know if someone would have consented to come with me.
And sometime during this very relaxing weekend, I also need to get my Resume all reworked and beautiful to a potential interviewers eye. All of the bosses and HR people who might do the interviewing have asked me if I was going to put in for the job. Of course I am. who wouldn't?

The Cat's name is Blackity

One thing you have to know about cats, is that you can only force them to do what you want for a few seconds. However, if it is something they want to do, then you'll have a hard time persuading them otherwise!



I like to put pictures up on my blog, they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Today the picture is an old one. From when my nieces and I were at my Aunt's house. And of course you can see from the subject in the picture, that somebody likes cats.

The other picture I am posting today is one of my earlier Mitered corner flannel blankets. One of these days when I don't have anything to do, I will sit down with my camera and sewing machine and do a step by step tutorial on how to make these blankets and post it here.

If you want your children to be intelligent,
read them fairy tales.
f you want them to be more intelligent,
read them more fairy tales.
~ Einstein ~

Pink Sky in the Morning

Sailors take warning!

This morning I woke up around 7:30, and found that there was a warm light coming in my window, not street lights and not daybreak light, but a sort of warm orangey and pinkish light. I was so startled that I made the effort to sit up and look out the window. Lo and behold, the sky was a bright pink color. Satisfied I let go of the blinds and rolled over and went back to sleep. Little did I know that the pink sky wasn't just a nice way to wake up. Two hours later, I did get up and went about my business, I glanced out the window, half expecting a brilliant blue sky as is the custom here in Utah, but no, it was sort of overcast, and I thought to myself, oh well that's alright. later I looked out the window and there was snow falling, I thought, hey that's great. A little bit of snow will be a nice change and it is winter after all. Well here I am several hours later and it is still snowing, there are two inches of snow on all the cars. How delightful. I hope it sticks around for a while. I well remember the snow storm of January 28th 2002 (maybe 2001) when we got three feet of snow over night. I can still recall the snowy days back in Vermont as a child, when we would spend the day by the wood stove toasting our bodies, so we could go out and play some more or help shovel the long driveway. Mmm... how nice. But I forget myself, today I am writing about flannel blankets.

I have finally taken pictures of the six flannel blankets I made some two or three months ago. The original idea behind these was to have a simple project I could do to make money online. But what happens quite regularly in my crafting/sewing/knitting world, I finish the project and it is too dear to me to part with. However, often enough, I able to give up the item, I should go through the pictures of all the quilts I've given away as wedding gifts and baby quilts etc. and upload them. The problem there, is that I'd have to find them first...
Each of these blankets are range in size from 34" to 37" square.
I may still try to put these up on KSL Classifieds. We will have to see.

Green Dishcloth

Hello All,
Today I am putting up an image of my first dishcloth. I feel certain I will make many more as time wears on.
This dishcloth is called The Idiot's Dish Cloth. I found the instructions online, and indeed it did turn out to be a very very easy pattern to follow, it takes almost no brain work to get it right. Hooray for easy things! The other perk was that I made it in just two sittings. about an hour each. While listening to an Elizabeth Peter's book on my iPod Shuffle. I would encourage any of you who are interested in a good book to pick up one of hers! they are worth it.

Ah, Thanksgiving...and Mittens

Thanksgiving week! Here we are again, it is the Holiday season, the time when you meet with friends and family and when people are a little kinder and a little more willing to give. Thanksgiving has always been a delightful time of year for me. I love trying new recipes to inflict upon my family. I love sitting around with everyone and catching up on the past year and watching football, and the wonderful crisp days and cool nights. the making of pies and the cozy fire in the fire place.
This year marks the first year with out the Grandparent generation. My Grandmother died this summer as did my Uncle Lester. So my parents are the oldest living generation. I will spend this Thanksgiving with Aunt Jessie, and my cousins and oldest brother and his family in Springville.
I look forward to the time when I will be back in Vermont, when I live in the place that I love. And Thanksgivings are spent with my folks again.
I think another year or maybe two, and I will head east.

In other news, I finished another pair of mittens. this was cream colored pair with a Twisted and crossed cable going up the back. the cable is quite nice, but the finished mittens leave something to be desired. I need to amend the pattern so that the top decrease a bit, and it doesn't have so much puckering. I have the next pair of mittens in mind already. It will be another cable mitten, I want to try and mimic this nice pair of horseshoe cable mittens, which has a simple cable running up both sides of the horseshoe cable.

I did finally take a picture of the first Mittens I ever made,
incidentally they happen to be the very first project I ever
finished in my knitting career. Not to be confused with all the many projects I have started... I have had three pairs of socks also started, but I frogged two of them, and now have only one pair started, that is, half of one pair started. The mittens shown at right are, probably the best mittens in the world! they are made with two yarns at once, making them a very solid and very warm wool mitten.
I have already had occasion to wear them and to be ever so grateful for their warmth. It was last week after work when I got to stand in the back of a refrigerated semi truck trailer for an hour and pass out the Thanksgiving turkeys at midnight! Yes I was very grateful to have my mittens then. I was happy that I was able to create such an item to keep me warm. What feeling of satisfaction and some other word I can't think of just now. To know that I had warm hands because of my hard work. This translates into the confidence that I will be able to one day keep my children's and my husband's hands warm too. Yes, confidence that is the word I'm looking for.

Ok, here is the picture of the Finished Cabled mittens :

Mini Mitten Garland

Mini Mittens for Christmas Garland

(by Megan Crossett)

With Size 2 cir needles CO 24 sts with White yarn of choice.

Knit first row flat, divide stitches in half and join by Purling the next row.

Knit one more row and then Purl once again.

Row 5: Change needle size to 6 and Yarn to red. Knit around

Rows 6-8: Knit

Row 9: K 11, pm, inc 2 sts, pm, k11.

Row 10: K

Row 11: K11, Inc in next st, K2, Inc in next st, k11.

Row 12: K11, place 6 sts on waste yarn, k11.

Rows 13-21: K (9 rows)

Row 22: K1, k2tog around, last st k1

Row 23: K

Row 24: K2tog, (8sts on needles)

Row 25: K1, k2tog, k1. do not finish row. Cut yarn at approximately 7 inches, thread yarn needle, pull yarn through all 7 sts. Draw tightly. With needle draw yarn into interior of mitten and weave into fabric so that it doesn’t show on right side. Cut excess yarn short.

With size 6 circs. Place 3 sts on each needle and pick up 3 more from the inside of thumb area. Be sure that you are knitting the correct side of the thumb so you don’t have to take it out.

1^st round: dec 2 sts, ( 1 of the original 6 and one of the 3 new for each dec)

Knit around twice more

Next row: k1, k2tog, k1, Draw up sts same as for top of mitten. Weave in ends an Tada, you have a cute little mitten in just over an hour.

A try

Hello all,
I want to try this out to see if I like the looks