Finished!

Yep. It's finished. What I'm talking about is the baby quilt for little Austin Littau. He's two months old now so it's time that he gets his quilt before he's too big for it. I'll package it and the books today and take to the UPS store tomorrow. I can hardly wait to see what mommy and daddy think of the quilt. And I know Austin will like the books. Here's a photo of the finished product.
It turned out really nice, don't you think?

The quilt is not the only thing that has taken up my time. I mentioned earlier this summer that I was working on a surprise for a friend. I gave this witch wall hanging to a fellow SWAN who very nicely gave me a quilt hanger. I felt moved to make something for her. Here it is the way she has it hanging in her house.The one I made is on the left and seems to go quite well with the other door decoration she uses.

And, of course, I'm always working on knitted items. I have been experimenting with knitting scarves lengthwise instead of crosswise. Does that make sense? In other words, each row I knit is on the long side of the scarf instead of the short side. The problem with doing that is you have to estimate during cast on how long the scarf should be. Since I'm not using a pattern, it's been a bit of trial and error. Here are the two scarves I've finished so far. The white one is a gift for my sister-in-law. The multicolored scarf is made of mohair yarn that I bought on a whim a few years ago...then didn't know what to do with. They both turned out nice, I think.

Now, I'm working on a pair of socks...and another surprise wall hanging. (That's all I'll say about that!) When the socks are finished, I'll post a photo of all the socks I've made this year so far. I've ordered more yarn so I suspect more socks will be constructed this winter. For some reason, it just feels right to knit socks when the temperatures are a bit cooler.

So, now you're up to date. I hope you have enjoyed looking at my projects. It seems there are always more projects rolling around in my head that I would like to do than there is time to do them. And for some reason it seems like I accomplished more when I was working than I do now that I'm retired. Go figure!

As always, thanks for reading my ramblings.
Amy

Welcome 2011

Yes, I know I haven't posted anything in a long time. I'm sorry about that, but the end of 2010 was not a very good time for me. Things are looking better now and it's time that I update my blog.

When I look back at 2010, one of my major accomplishments was finishing my whirligig quilt. I have more quilts than I'll ever need so I gave whirligig to my good friend, Pat. Here's a photo of it. Frankly, I'm glad it's over. Working with all that black got tiresome. But it's finished and Pat seems to really like it.


Our family had a nice Christmas gathering at my brother's house on Dec. 18. We always gather on some day other than Christmas. It was great, as usual. Lots of good food and even more conversation. I took along a bag full of things I had knitted so everyone could take their choice. The best part is I came home empty-handed! :-)

So far, 2011 has been good to me. I have tried off and on for several years to learn how to knit socks. Up to this point, my efforts were not successful. However, after Christmas, I pulled out some sock yarn I had on hand and my needles to see what I could accomplish. I found a sock pattern on the Internet that made more sense than the patterns I had tried before. And now I have completed two pair of socks. The first pair was definitely a first effort! One sock is a bit bigger than the other so I've been using them for my bed socks and they work great. Unfortunately, we have had a lot of cold weather so having warm socks to keep my tooties warm has been wonderful.

After my first so-so
result, I tried again to make socks and came up with a better result. At least these two are both the same size. That's progress, I think. :-) They're still not quite what I'm looking for, but they definitely are wearable and will be used -- either by me or someone. I'm now working on another pair of sock. I made a few alterations to the pattern and I think these will fit better. We'll see....


I haven't been to stitch group for a while. We met only once in November because the second meeting would have been Thanksgiving. The group had a Christmas party in early December, but I wasn't feeling up to par so I didn't go. Then last week, the weather was too cold for me to get out. I'm holding out hope for next week's meeting. The forecast...at least at this point...says we'll be in the 30's so there's hope that I'll be able to make it. I sure miss those evenings of stitching and talking.


Well, this is pretty much my life in a nutshell. I'll try to be more diligent about posting this year. I'm pretty sure it won't be on a regular basis, but I think I can do better than once every 3-4 months!


Until we meet again, stay warm and stay safe.
Amy

Welcome

After retiring in the spring of 2009, I find I am searching for who I am. In other words, I guess I need to redefine myself. For 40+ years, I was somebody's employee. They were good years. Crafting has always been part of my life. Now in my retirement years, it has taken center stage in my life, but I still have time on my hands. Friends have asked me for a long time if I have a blog. I never felt I had anything important to say so I never attacked blogging. I'm still not sure if I have anything of import to say, but I've decided to join the blogging world. I hope you will bear with me through my ramblings. Please feel free to add your comments thoughts, ideas, suggestions, brickbats or whatever as we journey down the blog road.

My blogging will most likely focus on crafting, family, friends or getting things off my chest. My favorite crafts are knitting and quilting and I almost always have at least one project of each kind going at any given time. To be honest, I have a host of UFOs (unfinished objects) that I hope this blog will help me get motivated to finish. From time to time, I will post photos of in-progress or finished projects to give you an idea of how I fill my time.

Don't expect posts from me every day. I'll be lucky if I can come up with something to say once a week. I do hope you will check back from time to time to see how my world is going.

Until the next time,
Amy