Christmas is for family

This year Christmas was for family is a big way. We had family come from all over - LA, Arizona, Chicago and here in the Twin Cities. This is the first time all 6 cousins have been together for Christmas since the 70s!! But, it almost didn't happen. My brother missed his place yesterday and had to wait another 3 hours to get a flight out of LA and head to Minnesota. Finally he made it here and we all spent the evening together catching up on things. The Chicago part of the family was not going to be here but one cousin insisted on them staying at her house so the group was complete.

There was playing with new toys and learning to be a princess........

 

There was a little bit of Mom cuddle time.....

 

 

There were several family pictures taken with different generations including the 2nd cousins.....

 

 

But not all the pictures turned out the way we expected them to. Sometimes sisters have jokes about the silliest things that other people don't understand! (unless you're their Mom)

 

The day ended with a little Grandma story time before bed. 

 

All in all Christmas was a great day for being together with family!

This is just a test

I just downloaded the Blogger apps on my iPad so I decided to try posting to see how it goes.  In the meantime, Bert has been helping with quilting.

Thank You whoever you are

Every Veteran's Day I like to post about the family's Navy history. Grandpa was a Chief Petty Officer and had originally joined the Navy in time to be part of the shore patrol just after the great San Francisco earthquake in 1906. He was in China, Panama, Japan, his ship brought supplies to Hawaii just after Pearl Harbor. His tour of duty was long and amazing with time at home to own a gorcery store, run for councilman and spend tie with his family.

His son, my Uncle, joined at the beginning of WWII and served throughout the war and then again for Korea. This year my dear, sweet Uncle left us after living over 90 years. It was sad to think of the last of this amazing group leaving us but what a great legacy they left.

My "part" of this legacy was Dad. He also joined at the beginning of WWII and again for Korea. He served on the same ship as my Uncle and ended up being brought home with my uncle where he met Mom and, well, you can figure out the rest.

There were other veteran's in the family - Dad's brother in law on the other side was also on the ship; my cousins served in Viet Nam; a cousin's husband was in the Navy reserve; Dad's father was in the Army. So many family members heard their nation's call and answered.

I'm proud of every one of them and I'm thrilled to know they helped us have a free country where we can rejoice on our freedoms or complain about anything and everything without fear of the government. We can decide what we want to become and try to attain it. We DO have the freedom to pursue happiness which isn't there for many people around the world.  So, all the members of my family and everyone else's family - THANK YOU!!!!

Confessions of a Wrong-handed Crocheter

Once upon a time there was a knitter. She was what was called a thrower, using the right hand to hold the yarn and throw it over the needles to knit. One day she went to college and met another crafty student. They both decided to learn to crochet and went to Ben Franklin to buy yarn, crochet hooks and a book on how-to. The book they bought only showed pictures of the hook and yarn so the knitter did what she knew best. She held the yarn in her right hand and threw it over the crochet hook.

As time passed the knitter found out she was supposed to hold the yarn in her left hand. She didn't want other crocheters to think she was doing it wrong so she tried to learn the "right way". It just didn't work. So, the knitter only crocheted in private, away from other people so they wouldn't see her and her wrong way. She made beautiful things. She even taught crocheting which worked well because she had to crochet so slow the right way her students could see exactly what they needed to do.

More time passed. One day the knitter met another right handed knitter who complained about not being able to learn how to crochet. The knitter got brave and told her about the way she crocheted. Intrigued, the other knitter asked for a lesson. There was joy in the other knitters heart because suddenly she could crochet. This made our knitter happy and a bit brave. She started to crochet in public occasionally and ended up teaching throwing knitters to crochet with their right hand - just like they knit. Many were happy and many finally learned how to crochet.

And they all lived happily ever after. But this isn't the end.

I've decided its time to admit I don't crochet the way the books tell you to crochet. I'm happy with my own method, others I've taught are happy to be finally crocheting and maybe by telling this silly little story I can let other throwers who can't crochet know that there is hope. Hold the yarn in your right hand just like you knit. Hold the project in your left hand. Give it a try.

Watch here and I'll try to get some pictures up to show you how I crochet.


Just a few samples of what crocheting the wrong way can make.

Rust Goes Green - my design that's been downloaded almost 10,000 times so far

 

 

Fall Colors

Sometimes I'm so busy looking for fall colors and sights by going out driving that I forget to look in my own back yard and enjoy the sights right here. Every year my maple tree gives off the best colors.

 

Top that off with some final bright greens and some late fall flowers and I have a pretty nice view from my windows.

 



This weekend was the Quilt show of my guild (Women of the West). It's a medium sized guild that does a show every other year. There were many quilts including some challenges. This year's special theme was Stars. For some reason I didn't take any pictures except for 1 of the special speaker. Gudrun Erla of GE Quilt Designs. She spoke for over an hour about her quilt designs and books. She is best known for quick, quilt as you go designs. Several of her designs have a very Scandinavian feel which makes sense because she is originally from Iceland.

 

Going to quilt shows or knitting shows is always such a treat. Getting to see the creativity of fellow crafters always recharges my creative battery. If I knit, crochet, quilt or whatever craft I'm currently into but spend no time with other people sharing this love, I tend to lose my creativity. Or as many say - lose my mojo. But- get my backside off the chair and into a room with other people of my interests and its like going to a revival meeting. After spending a few hours at the guild show I came home and worked some more on my Shoo Fly quilt. It WILL be done for my guest bedroom by Christmas when my brother comes home for a visit.

Catching up

It's been a little while since I posted anything but life goes on at the house and the boys have been busy trying to keep me in their control.

They seem to think by guarding my purse I can't leave because they've both figured out I pick up the purse before I head out the door and disappear. So, they came up with a plan during my last week off - one of them guarded the purse at all times.

 

 

When I did manage to get out of the house I picked up the package waiting for me and Chief was thrilled. There's nothing more fun than getting a big hunk of plastic bag to chew on!



 

 

Of course life lately has not been all guarding the purse and chewing on plastic. It's been having important discussions....

 



and quilting and some knitting (no pictures of knitting).

Christmas placemat. Just a bunch of leftover material and this is what I came up with.

Wallhanging. I made this about 10 years ago. I made the top. I did buttonhole stitching around the flowers. I sandwiched the top, batting and back. I stitched around the houses and I put it away for 10  YEARS! Why do we do this?

 

 Today is sandwich the churn dash quilt I made almost a year ago. It just isn't magically getting quilting together my itself and I really want it on the guest bed for my brother when he comes to spend his first Christmas since 1971. Yep, he hasn't been home since then and so far it looks like he'll make it home this year. Cross your fingers!

Searching the Web

I can always tell when fall has come by looking at the number of views of my blog. Come fall, the numbers really rise because knitters are visiting the Reversible Cable Scarf page (Which Way is Up Scarf). The scarf has been #1 or 2 frequently on some of the free pattern search sites so a lot of traffic comes from those websites. Last week I had a major change in the numbers so - it's official - fall is here.

Since I don't have any pictures to share with you I thought I'd spent a little time talking about one of my favorite topics - researching on the web.

I love to go hunting through other people's blogs and websites to find pictures, inspiration and how to's for my current interest. Right now I'm back into quilting; so, many of the websites I've been hanging around are about quilting.

My favorite research tool is Bing.com. One of the things I like to do is type in something into Bing and click on the Image button. Try going over there and typing something like "Blue quilts". Suddenly you have many, many pictures of just blue quilts. If you find one you like, click on it to get a bigger image. At the bottom right of the bigger image window should be the link to the source and you can go over there to see the full blog post or shop website where the picture came from.

My latest search was Native American Quilts. Whenever I do a search on this I notice the Star of Bethlehem/Lone Star is a very popular quilt design. From what I understand when the missionaries first came to the different groups, they women taught quilting to the Native women and the star was popular because of its symbolism. I live in an area with Lakota and Ojibwe and I've noticed may of the quilts are the Star.

Through this searching I found an artist named Gwen Westerman. Her quilts often include the Star with a contemporary look. Search Gwen Westerman Quilts and take a look. I think you'll enjoy her work. Check out her quilt - Night Wind. I'm not going to link to it so you'll have to have a little fun and do some searching.

If you want to have a little fun - search "Tristan Quilt" and click on Images. This quilt was made in the 14th century and is quite an amaing quilt.

Maybe next post will have some pictures of what I've been working on lately. Stay tuned.