Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Today, Yesterday, and . . .

Howdy and Hi :)

It's been a busy couple of days.  I was out of the house most of Monday with a ACBC Women's Ministry Meeting and a CGB PTO meeting as well.  Both meetings involved planning events, so they were jam packed with information.  I enjoyed both of them :)  For the PTO I will be volunteering, but not heading up anything.  They are planning on a bowling tournament to be held at the community center (aka bowling alley/bar/pool table place) here in town.  You can see more details on their blog.  For the ACBC thing, I'm actually going to be leading the planning for a Keepers At Home group to start March 7th and be the 1st Wednesday morning for a few months before Summer, and then hopefully continue as park dates this summer and picking back up in the fall.  Contact me if you are in the Belgium, WI area and would like to attend. 

The other day when Seth made his corn cake, Joel baked as well.  He made a Devil's Food Cake from scratch and added a few secret ingredients to it.  The one I remember is Root Beer Extract.  I actually didn't taste anything different.  It was just plain good devil's food cake! :) Yum!  Thanks Joel!

 This morning as I was rushing around trying to get things done before heading off on errands, I saw this chickadee outside.  I love these little birds, but they hardly ever sit still for long so it's very difficult to get a good picture!  This was the best I could take at the time.
 Last night I finished these two hats (below).  They are both crocheted.  The one on the right I had actually started the brim and the colored part quite a while ago.  I had run out of that particular white and couldnt' find anything to finish off the hat with.  I ended up using a white sport weight yarn and just using it doubled.  I don't think the difference is all that noticeable.  I was glad to get one more item finished :)
 One of my errands today was to drop off the red scarves that I had made in January.  I dropped by Aurora hospital in Grafton, WI and dropped these off with the Director of Volunteer Services.  We had a nice little chat as well.  I think she was very pleased with these and said the scarves were timely as they have a few people ready to graduate their cardiac rehab, and so they need these scarves in the next week or so.  :)  I'm so glad they will be used!
So on to another project :)  The Grafton hospital is starting up a chemo wing in the coming months, so they will have an increased need for prayer shawls.  Perhaps I'll try to quilt a few prayer shawls as well as knit or crochet them.  My goal for 2012 is to seriously decrease my stash so it doesn't take up so much room in the bedroom.  Here's hoping anyway!

Monday, February 6, 2012

More Progress

A couple of days ago I finished this .. using just small balls of scrap yarn . . . a baby hat. knit on #7 dpns from the top down.

Over the weekend I also finished this hat from sock yarn and #7 dpns from the top down.  Different style of increases ...and then I increased too much and had to do a drastic decrease .. but it's kind of cute.  I really like the blue / green varigation.


I have enough yarn to do another slightly smaller hat.

I was also able to sew block #24 on the Three Cords quilt yesterday ..

I sewed it together with 5 other blocks to make the 6-pack that goes inthe upper left corner of the quilt ...
I think it's turning out quite well! :)

Yesterday I also laid out block #20 . . .
And this morning I sewed it together ...

I will be laying out block #3 yet today before I go to the CGBSD PTO meeting. Maybe sew that block tomorrow.

I wonder if dh will let me buy a mid-arm quilting machine so that I don't have to struggle to get this quilted.  It's coming along so nicely that I'd love to be able to do the quilting part justice instead of having to struggle with rolling it up and doing such small sections at a time.  I can hope, right? :)

Friday, February 3, 2012

Three Cords - or Celtic Knot Quilt

I actually finished sewing block #16 today! yeah! :)  Here is a picture of it attached to block #2 that I had sewn previously. You can see only part of block #2 on the left.
 Below is the layout for Block #24 which will go to the left of block #2.
As you may see there are 3 holes that I need to fill with a 2 1/2" white square.  I ran out of what I had cut, so I will have to go find more white fabric in my stash and cut some more.  It's amazing how many creams I have instead of white/off white ... and this quilt needs white/off white.  I'm using the back side of some fabrics, but in others, that doesn't work so well.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Supper's Ready! :)

Supper tonight has been cooking in the crockpot.  Potatoes, Carrots, Smoked Sausage (brats), along with some water, garlic powder, black pepper, and marjoram.

Smells delicous.

Dessert is Snickerdoodle Rice Krispie Bars which Seth made. (Seth will have the recipe on his blog later today.) They are delicous! :)  Should make another batch tomorrow after this one is gone! lol.

Who's coming for supper?

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Progress . . Step by Step

Sometimes progress is by tiny steps, but with each step you move forward .. so here are my baby steps towards getting things made ...


Here is block #16 (according to the pattern, but not the 16th block I've made for it .. more like the 6th .. ) of the Celtic Knot or "cord of three strands" quilt that I got from Lynne's blog ..

 You can see the pieces were all laid out.  I took this picture last night.  I got the pieces laid out yesterday afternoon.  I sewed a seam or two last night .. also got this little baby hat completed yesterday afternoon.....
Pattern for hat here.
 This morning/noon I spent a little bit more time working on the block.  Getting more pieced together ..
 Peaches wanted to help take pictures.  Actually, I think she just wanted to play with the wrist strap on the camera! :)