Gone So Long...

I have been away from my blog for a long time. Lots has been going on. But mostly I have just been neglecting this. What HAVE I been doing? Hmmm.


Last month I started walking. I am trying to get myself in better shape physically. I have surgery coming late this year, or early next and I need to seriously lose some weight. I don't think I have lost any, which depresses me, but it must be better for me physically, so I will keep doing it as long as I can talk someone into going with me. Jacob usually goes, and Sandy K. and her son Matt. Sometimes Cindy, from church, and her girls, Courtney and Tori. We have a regular gang! It is really not too bad, aside from the heat, we have a great time talking about our day and what is going on. It is extremely hot, however, and that makes it rough.


I have done some knitting and have a few items to add to my projects. Mostly just more coin purses. I don't seem to knit very much when it gets hot outside. I don't have an explanation for that. I have not been taking many pictures either.


Kim is healed and back at work. I am praying he stays out of trouble. Jacob is mowing, and mowing and mowing. He is talking about getting a real job. His first one. That will be nice. I think it will be a good experience for him.


Some big things have happened that make me sad and happy at the same time. Isn't that just the way life is? I think it is referred to as bitter sweet. Amy has moved to Bartlesville into her own home. That means no more local buddy to go junking with. :o( We did make one trip since I last posted and I can add some of those pix.



Jacob is growing up.... that makes me happy and sad. There are other things too, but not much I can post about.




I think one of the great mysteries of life is how it changes and how we feel and react to those changes. It is so hard, but I am trying!

A New Week

This has been a busy week. Kind of crazy at work. I got in trouble from my boss, and that was hard to take. Since I was a little girl in school, I have been the good kid, the teacher's pet (with the exception of one teacher) and I loved it that way. Same thing at work. It used to be that I was the good employee, the one they could count on. I guess I feel like I have lost that for some reason. But I sucked it up and got over it. It sure felt like a long week.

On a happier note, I am making a scarf for my friend Sheila. It is a soft suede yarn. It is wonderful to work with. Sheila is trying to decide if she wants fringe or not. What do you think? The scarf should be done in a few days. Thank goodness I have knitting to keep me sane! I sure wish I could knit full time. Maybe in heaven!

Oh, Baby!

Fun new project! this is a baby hat, not a toilet paper roll cover! It is for baby Ivy. I hope it fits, and I hope she likes it.

January Blah!

I sometimes find the end of January to be a very boring. Early in the month is time for a fresh start. By this time, my fresh start has run out of gas.

I am fighting off the January Blah's with a new project. :o) Happiness! I have added a twist to my coin purse. I added a liner. I went to Hancock's on Saturday and found the most adorable fabrics, along with a new source for happy wool yarn. I found a beautiful yellow wool. I don't currently have any yellow, it all looks too gold in the store, so this was exciting for me! Here are three of the most adorable fabrics I found Saturday.

I only let myself get three this time (along with two remnants) because I was not sure if I would like putting linings in them. It was a lot more work. Still not really sure how I feel about it. The other"issue" is that I decided ahead of time, that for once, I wanted to make one for myself. That is right. I don't have one yet! I wanted this to be my camera case. And there was the rub. Adding the liner, tightens up the opening. There is no "stretch" or "give", and my camera won't fit! So I will be using this as a coin purse, My credit cards and drivers license fit perfectly. And will make another, slightly larger one for my camera! I was thinking about making it black with dots so that it coordinates, but is still different than this version.

Have a happy week! Blast away your "Blah's" with a fun project.

New Year, Back to Work.

Back to work today. We finished the year at work with only very slightly better numbers for 2009 than we had for 2008, so at least my boss had to give us props for finishing strong. Oh how I wish, I wish, I wish I could make a good living at home. I so want to be a homemaker. However, we have bills to pay, and we do like to eat, so to work I go. Today was not too bad as far as my job goes, I had a life application that I had saved from last month that I submitted today, so that starts the month and the year off on a good note.

Here are some pictures that I took during December and never posted.

Abbey's birthday gift, commissioned by Jacob (above)

A gift for a friend.

These are from inside the house on Christmas day. I have to tell you I was thrilled to have a white Christmas. A serious, real, white Christmas. Not a whimpy dusting of snow thingy. The real deal. Loved it. I had no where I had to be, so I stayed home and knitted, read and cooked my favorite things.

This was an awesome sight! Beautiful!

Bonnie and Clyde loved playing in the snow, as long as they got to sleep in the garage.

Hope you had a good day if you had to work, if not, well, I still love you. Now I have a serious problem. My decorations are still up and I dread taking them down. How trashy would it be to leave them for next Christmas? Trashy, or forward thinking?

Begin Again in 2010!

I have been gone too long! But as an excuse, I was very busy, knitting, felting, embellishing, burning, staining and cooking. I also have this little thing called a day job that keeps interfering in my fun. I think I would be a fabulous rich person. I would get to have so much fun knitting, with never a worry about paying those pesky bills. Alas, God has something else in mind for me. He knows best, so the pesky day job is back for the new year. Joy.

Here are some of my projects, can't show you all, because some people have still not received their gifts!

I also forgot to take pictures of the gifts I gave Gina and Amy, so I will have to ask them to send me pictures so I can post them since those gifts are something totally new for me. Gina has still not gotten hers, but Amy got hers tonight. So excited to give Gina hers so I can talk about it. :o) I am not so good with secrets.

I hope you had a very peaceful fun and exciting New Years Eve. I helped out at the teen lock in at church for a few hours. Then came home for the last 15 minutes before the ball dropped. Then I went straight to my nice warm bed. I am not such a great night owl.

Tonight was Bunko, and Amy came along to fill in for one of the ladies who could not be there. Of course she won... sort of.... she lost the most games so she got $10. Woo hoo Amy Loo! She also helped wash dishes and clean up afterwards. What a great friend. I was the hostess tonight, and I had to provide a gift for the last Bunko of the night. Here is what she got, along with a vanilla scented candle.

I am sleepy again, so I am signing off and praying that all 2 of my blog readers have a wonderful, blessed and successful 2010! Just in case there are more than 2 of you, I wish it for all of you! Crud, I just remembered I have to wash the dishes before I go to bed. Ugh!

Burn Baby, Burn!

Here are pictures of my burning project. Kinda fun!

Finito!

Project finished! This is another change purse. It is long over-due. This is a gift for Aunt Mary's birthday, which was back in August! Gasp! How tardy am I? Oh well, at least it will arrive in the same calendar year.

In need of inspiration....

So my big project is done. Now I am stuck. I just dont know what to do for Christmas gifts this year. I have been surfing the internet and thinking and thinking and all I get is the stuff I have already been making. I can do a few of those too, but I need a new, quick, easy, fun, felting idea. I think maybe tomorrow night I need to go to a few craft stores and breeze throught the books for some good ideas.


I did finish the changing pad tonight. I started quilting it Tuesday, and had to pull it all out Wednesday, because it was terribly crooked. I had intended to make a diamond pattern. But was having trouble figuring out how to make the stitches straight. Gigi suggested masking tape, so tonight I tried that, and it worked great! Here is a picture of it with most of the masking tape on. I just sewed in the narrow space between the pieces of tape. Gigi is brilliant!


This is how it looks after the diagonal quilting was done. As I went along the fabric must have stretched some because it ended up a little bit "wracked". Not too bad though. I hope Zoe wont mind!

So here it is all rolled up so it will fit neatly into the diaper bag. I even found my courage and crocheted this sweet little chain out of my tiny ball of left over yarn so that it can be tied up and kept in place. It took courage because I don't crochet!

Ahhhh! Happiness is a finished project! Now, what's next?

Project Complete!

Last night I finished The Diaper bag. I think it turned out rather well! I made the lining out of chocolate brown pinwale cordoroy. I added two pockets, one for a bottle, and one for the wipes. I am also making a changing pad out of the lining fabric. It is mostly done, but not quite finished. I took the project to Gina, who will deliver it to Trish tomorrow. I hope Trish and baby Zoe get a lot of use from it! Here are some pictures. The first picture is before I felted it. So you will get an idea of how big it is before it is felted.


This picture is the finished project! Ta da!





Here it is turned inside out, so you can see the pockets. I put hairspray in the bottle pocket! No baby bottles at my house! And one final picture of the results! It makes me smile. Next project?? Gifts! You know what is almost here!!! Christmas!!!

What have I been doing?

Yes, it has been quite a while since I posted, but here I am. I have been busy finishing up a knitting project, and starting a new one! I finally finshed the knitted silk purse that i was working on for months for Samantha. I am so glad it is done and i hope Samantha really likes it. Maybe you are like me and you are your own worst critic. Anyway, when it was finished I kept thinking of things I meant to do, or should have done that would have made it better. I was even tempted to take it apart and fix part of it. It was fun and different from anything else I have ever knitted. I am still basically a beginning knitter and the pattern was not hard, but I have mostly been knitting items that are straight with no shape to them. The pattern is called "Unbiased Bag" and was designed by Stephanie Shiman.

My new project is a felted diaper bag for my friend Trish, who just had her second child, an adorable baby girl named Zoe. I am knitting as fast as I can so it can be finished before she is out of diapers! The yarn is beautiful! Trish bought it at a yarn shop in Kansas City ( I think). The color is one of my favorites, Cranberry! It is such a pleasure to work with that yarn. It is much nicer yarn that what I usually knit with. :o)

Since the last time I posted, Jacob had his sixteenth birthday. His Grandma came to visit for that. It was nice to have her here from Texas. Fall has arrived and I am so happy that it is here! Kim is back at work. I am so thankful for that! He was home for 2 months on disability. Now Christmas is right around the corner. As soon as I finish the diaper bag project I have to move fast to get some Christmas gifts made! Wow! It will be here before I know it. I dont even know what I am going to make. I guess I better get busy finding some fun ideas!

Have a great weekend!

Lazy day...

I had fun last night visiting with the SMORs last night (minus Sammy :o( ). Too bad the weather cut our fun short. Amy did not get to stay too long, that was a bummer. Anyway, I got in some good work on my coin purses/camera bags... what should I call them? Felted bagettes? LOL! I don't know. Maybe we need a naming contest. All four of you who read my blog could decide what to call them. Here is what I got finished to sell. I have not heard yet from Becky how many if any of them sold. I still say, no big deal either way. I will find something to do with them, regardless. Here is what I took her. Some of these you have seen before.

There is no way I could have gotten as far as I did with these last night without our "crafty night"! I still stayed up till 3 AM putting the zipper in the red one and adding the button. I should have gotten advice on what buttons to use on it, it left here with a double stack white and red button. I think Amy and or Gina would have chosen something more creative.

I just finished knitting a red and black striped purse. I still have to sew up the sides, felt it, and add the zipper. I should be doing that now, but I am taking a break! I dropped the purses off to Becky this morning at 9:30. I have not left the house since I got back from Broken arrow around 10:15 this morning. I had a terrible headache. Probably stayed up too late.

Happy Saturday!

Mother's Day!

This is my special Mother's Day blog entry. The day is basically half over, but it has been quite nice so far! Kim and Jacob took me to dinner at Napoli's my new favorite Italian restaurant. Yum! When we were walking in, we ran into a friend from church. He was there alone because his wife is visiting her mother today. So we invited Jerry to eat with us. Of course, as always, the meal was wonderful, and I ate too much. Ugh! Jerry insited on picking up the tab. We tried to resist, but he was insistent. That was a nice bonus for Jacob since today was going to be his treat.

So then Jacob said that I could go to Loops and pick out a present. You know what that means! Wool! Colorful, awesome, beautiful wool!! It was so hard to chose only 2 colors, but I managed, then I walked around and explored the store. They have some awesome buttons. So many and so fancy! The store them in tubes. This is so different from where I usually buy buttons! So amazing! They have a really nice childrens play room too. I guess the only other time I went I did not look around much beause I had two kids with me. Today I was alone so I looked and looked!

My sister has made a special request that I post a picture of the black with roses coin purse, so here it is. No bobble on this one because I messed up and got an invisible zipper and the pull on the zipper foot does not have a hole in it to thread the bobble through. I thin it looks ok without it though.

I hope you had a great mother's day! I did! :o) Being a mom is great.

Tuesday, today...

I don't have much to say about my day. So I will show you one of my new projects. I think it turned out well. I still need to install the zipper and attach the bobble, but I like it. The more I look at it, the more I like it.

My next one, partially completed, is a all black with a red rose embroidered on the front. I just have a few more rows to knit. Then I will have to stitch it up, felt it and embroider the rose. The zipper continues to be the most challenging part. If I could get someone really smart to help me with that, I could whip these out really fast. I just don't know how much longer I will be infatuated with these. The best part is the embellishing. So the plain one above is fun, but I miss getting to decorate it.

Bye, have a nice Wednesday.

Since I've Been Gone...

OK, so I have not blogged in a few days. I have been busy shopping for yarn, and finishing my most recent project. First, the yarn. I had 2 coupons to use at Michael's, so I snuck over to the newly opened Michael's at 71 & I-75 on Thursday and Friday. OH. MY. WORD. It was so cool. Well, mostly just for scrappers or beaders. The yarn department was well stocked but tiny. I was able to get two more yummy shades of wool. I purchased a variegated (spelling??) and another solid. I need one more shade, but I will try to get it tomorrow. Then I will be set for a while. I also had to make a pit stop at Hobby Lobby for a few zippers for my previously felted coin purse. It had been sitting, waiting for a zipper for a few days. When I got home from Bunko last night I put the zipper in. It was actually easier than the first one. I guess I am starting to get the hang of it!

I decided to give the completed striped purse to Emily for her 13th birthday. Today we celebrated her birthday with about 17 of her closest friends. It was a scavenger hunt at the mall. What fun! Chasing 5 girls around the mall while we look for miscellaneous, mysterious things, pose for kooky pictures, and generally run ourselves ragged. I am sure the girls are fine. I am wiped out. It was a lot of fun. I have not spent that much time at the mall in years. The girls were a lot of fun too.

Happy Birthday Miss Emily!

Because I FELT like it!!

Sorry, I know that was a silly pun for the title of my post today. I just wanted to share my latest project with you. Yes, once again I am felting. Another change purse. Still purple. I did manage to sneak off to Michaels last night to use my 40% off coupon and got a very reasonable price on a skein of leaf green wool to trim my purse with. I also used one of my new buttons, thanks to Grams and Aunt Mary. This time I used velcro instead of a zipper. Here are the results.

I may decide to add a swirl of green on the back of the purse too. I am undecided. What do you think? I am a little unhappy with a few things. I followed the pattern carefully and it did not quite felt to the right size. So I adjusted the size so that credit cards can slide in sideways. It was too narrow for them to fit lengthwise. Also, I had not used the blanket stitch around the edge in a while, so it starts off sort of rough. The bottom side (in the picture right above this paragraph) is where I started, and I finished at the top. The finishing stitches are much more even and uniform than the beginning stitches. I took it out and started over once, and I am debating weather I should do that again. Of course it will never be perfect (same as me), but I would like for it to look nice. I have not decided what to do with this one yet. The first one was a gift for a relative.

So that is my latest project. All in all I like the first pattern better. I think next I will try to make another purse from the first pattern, but with varying green and purple stripes. I am kind of excited to start that. I have everything I need, except another blasted purple zipper!

Stormy Thursday!

What a day! I love the way the sky looks as a thunder storm rolls in! I noticed at around 4:00 that the sky got really dark. Our office is surrounded by windows, floor to ceiling on 2 sides facing North and West. Around 4:30, my boss said we could go home early. He seemed to think maybe we could beat the storm home. Well that did not happen. I stepped out the door and took this picture before dashing to the car, just as it started pouring rain. As I drove north down Harvard from 81st street towards 21st it poured rain and hailed on and off. The largest hail was probably marble size and most of it was only pea sized, so it was not too bad. The traffic was terrible, though and it took forever to get home.


By the time I was close to the house the sky had cleared and it looked like this.















While I watched I finished up my felted coin purse. I installed the zipper. It was a little tricky. After two tries I finally got it right, or as close to right as it will ever be. Here it is. Finished. Now that it is done, I am anxious to try something else. I hope you were not too bored with my project. It was exciting for me, but I am totally enraptured by knitting and felting!

Project Day!

So the project is has begun. I am going to show you how I knitted and felted an adorable little change purse with a zipper on the top {gasp!}. Yes, that is right an actual zipper. To be honest the zipper bothers me more than any part fo the project!

I bought the yarn and started knitting on Saturday. I could hardly wait to start! It looks kind of blue in these pictures, but it is a beautiful shade of purple. I finished the knitting part of the project late Sunday night. I just could not stop till I was done. I was so tired I was nodding off while I knitted, but I managed to finish just before midnight. I am not too much of a night owl, so that was late for me.

I was surprised at how large it was. I know the idea is that it will shrink or felt, but it was hard to imagine how much it would change. I also had to knit this adorable little 'bobble', it will be attached to the zipper pull as an embellishment. Fun!

When the knitting was done I forced myself to stop for the night with plans to felt the project Monday evening. Monday, I went back to my directions and re-read the felting guidlines carefully. The water in your top-load washer has to be very hot. So I started the washer, and dropped it in as directed as soon as the washer started agitating.

I checked it along the way, at first nothing was happening, then... excitement! It started transforming! I checked it several times and when I was satisfied I took it, and the bobble out and rinsed them in the sink in cold water. This stops the felting process. As I reshaped it, I noticed two problems. First, that it was not as small as I was expecting it to be, so I suspect I stopped too soon. Then I saw that one of the side seams had pulled loose. I think it looks fine and fun as far as the texture, but I am not satisfied with the size. So, my plan is that tonight I will fix the side seam and put it back in the washer for another round. If it felts further, I will finish it as directed, if not, I may cut it down to size and re-sew it. I have some interesting ideas about that too.

There are just so many directions I could take this tiny little bag. I had so much fun with this that I can't wait to finish it and try again! Maybe something larger next time! Of course I still have to conquer the zipper closure and attach the bobble. I will post a final picture of the completed project in a day or two when it is complete, but I could not wait until then to share.

I think the whole process is very interesting. It seems almost scientific! I can't believe I just figured this out. Where in the world has my mind been for the past 10 years? How did I function without my knitting and now felting?