Christmas presents

Now that Christmas has come and gone and my cousin has brought the kid's presents to their home I can post s couple pictures.

This summer when I learned of the coming family member and found out it would be a boy I started making an afghan and a sweater. The afghan for a "Welcome to the family" present and the sweater for Christmas. Well, as it turned out we haven't had a chance to meet the new little one so both presents were sent for Christmas.

For some reason I didn't get a picture of the afghan. It is turquoise blue with a bit a mohair halo and knit with a bit of a lace pattern. I knit it in the round and hope its nice a cuddly for our new little Jayden.

The sweater is off white cables. I designed it needed a bit of color but didn't want too much color so I added pale blue buttons.

Meanwhile for Layla I made a quilt she can sleep under or use on the floor to play on with her dolls. It's bright  and filled with as much excitement as Layla is. In the plain areas I designed a flower quilt pattern and this was the first time I tried designing and stitching with the embroidery unit of my sewing machine.

Again, I managed to not take a icture of the finished quilt. My new year's resolution is to be better at taking finished project pictures!

 

 

 

Chief has just crawled on my lap and typing has become impossible. Guess this post is over for now!

Sometimes Knitting isn't Easy

Today's a great day to knit. The weather is bleak and not inviting to be outside. There's an NCIS marathon going on. Perfect for knitting. Unfortunately, I have 2 problems....

I love that the boys love me but sometimes you just want a little knitting time with an empty lap!

Public Service Announcement

My announcement has to do with washing cloths napkins but - we'll get there in a minute.

I'm in the beginning of "Christmas at my house this year" count down and one of this weekend's projects was cloth napkins. For my birthday this year I bought the embroidery unit for my sewing machine. I say it was for my birthday but; really, I decided I wanted it and I got it. I don't have parents buying my presents anymore so I get to play the game of saying something is a birthday present for myself. I think most of us do this, or maybe I'm just crazy but- My life - my rules.

I have my great aunt's china.

It's beautiful and busy. Kind of old fashioned pink with a floral design on ivory background. Because it's busy I stay simple in my tablecloths. I have an ivory and a pale rose cloth depending on if I need 2 tables or not for larger groups. In all the years I've used these cloths I've never had cloth napkins that weren't Mom's leftovers or used seasonal paper napkins. This year I'm having family Christmas and, as I said before I now have an embroidery unit. So, I thought, wouldn't it be fun to make some napkins for Christmas.

I'm your basically cheap person. I like nice things but don't want to spend a lot of money on something that will only be used once a year so I headed to Walmart after doing some Internet searching. Walmart has cloth napkins for 2/$1.98, a wonderful price. They had a maroon that was kind of a brick toned maroon. I bought 16 of them and found a collection of small snowflakes to embroider on them. After getting them all done (ended up with 2 having snowmen on them for the kids) they needed to be soaked to get the wash-a-way stabilizer out. Here's where the public service announcement comes in.

WALMART CLOTH NAPKINS BLEED DYE - A LOT!!!

Be warned. I put 8 of them into a small tub of warm water to soak. After 10 minutes I went back to rinse, and hang them to dry and discovered the water is the color of cherry kool-aid. When I took one out and squeezed it, the water that I squeezed out was very red. I'm guessing I'll have to wash these 2-3 times to get the dye out. So far I don't notice the white thread on the snowflakes looking like it picked up any dye but, time will tell.

If all works out well, I'll have 14 snowflake napkins (5 different flake designs) and 2 snowman napkins for when there happens to be a couple little kids joining us, which won't be this year unfortunately. Once they're all washed and finished I'll post a picture.

It Makes me Happy

A little bit ago we got a new TV channel - Antenna TV. Checking it's website, it looks like this channel is available in several areas. What makes me happy about it is - I get to go back in time and relive some happy childhood memories by watching old TV shows I haven't seen for a very long time.

Tonight "It Takes a Thief" has been on.

The first time I saw this show I was in junior high and my older brother was watching it with his friends. I pretty much acted like a bratty little sister and pushed my way into the room to see what they were doing. In the process I fell in love. Robert Wagner was one of my first crushes (him and Davy Jones and Lee Majors and, well there were several crushes back then). One of the later seasons when Fred Astaire joined the show, my best friend got all excited. She was all over Fred Astaire at the time and for a show to have someone for both of us was great. The episode with Fred tonight made me a bit sad cause my BFF is no longer alive but, for an hour we were young again and watching "It Takes a Thief" together.

This made me think about other childhood memories. Sometime around my birthday (early November) the Sears and JC Penney Christmas catalogs would come out.

 I would spend hours and hours studying them to decide what would be on my Christmas wish list that year. I remember lists including Barbie doll stuff; games like Mouse Trap, FeelyMeely, Clue; books of all sorts; skis one year; of course, there was the year of the transistor radio.

This year my Christmas list would have different things on it. I'm more grown up. My list would have grown up things on it. (Hardly). My list would still have toys on it only my toys now are for knitting or quilting or the latest electronic gadget. Yup, this year's list would have bobbins for my Pfaff Creative 4.0; Free Motion Echo Quilting foot;  KnitPicks interchangeable needle cables; cotton blend batting; fat quarters; a new Windows Surface tablet; and so much more. Guess the kids get older but we'll always want our toys.

What's on your Christmas wish list?