New pattern

Here's the August selection for the Light & Dark Lace Club: Wandering. This is a charming scarf with lots of patterns and a border that is not never-ending. A bit of neat shaping, and some cute knitting tricks, but basically not very difficult to knit at all. And the bonus is that you get pretty patterns that you can use elsewhere!

Menu change

I just found a crock pot recipe for potatoes and fennel. Takes about 3 hours on high. My crocks cook very quickly, so I estimate about 2-2.5 hours. I can do that and not worry about the oven. Yes, indeed.

Scrabblequeen - The potatoes and fennel were pretty bad. Not disgusting, just not good. We tossed the leftovers, and we never toss leftovers. Nice try, but no cigar.

Happy Thanksgiving.

A day early, but hey, tomorrow I'll be too busy to blog.

Just a small intimate turkey day with best friends and eldest DD and the Hubs and me. Perfect. Easy? No. Still gotta do all the cooking, but compared to the big crowds I used to have, 5 people is a piece of cake. I don't have to cut up veggies ad infinitum, or make any recipe in quadruplicate. Sometimes I miss the family crowd, but given that I did 99% of the work, I don't miss the exhaustion any more. I can sit down and eat happily with everybody, they all arrive on time, they help out. What could be better.

The menu?

Cheese and crackers and veggies for starters.

Turkey, stuffing, cranberries, brussel sprouts (a new recipe this year. I got so tired of haricoats verts.), sweet potatoes with pineapple, roasted red-skinned potatoes, pickles, olives, all the other stuff.

Dessert? Whatever Judy is bringing, plus we bought (gasp!) an apple pie from Trader Joe's, and I will probably make some meringue kisses. Coffee, tea, the usual.

BTW, Trader Joe's apple pie is wonderful.

And that's it. Lots of stuff, but pretty simple. All checked out to not mes with Judy's allergies. Relatively low sodium and low cholesterol for those of us at that stage of life. Probably not too too caloric. OK, caloric, but it could be a lot worse. We never did the green bean casserole, mostly because it's dairy and doesn't fit in with a kosher meal. I think I'll cook up the sprouts, halve them, and then mix them up with sauteed and browned onions. Or something like that. The sweets? Cut up, mixed with some pineapple tidbits, and baked. Regular potatoes? Roasted with rosemary and garlic, just cause we all love them.

Any how, you get the picture, and I'm off to the icky part of the day's work: Putting away all the sewing stuff that lives on the dining room table.

Have a lovely Thanksgiving, be grateful for what you have, and don't eat too, too much. And stay away from the malls on Black Friday.

Projects!

All of a sudden, I have pics to show you.  Moms of grands who are getting Chanukah presents from me, do NOT show your kids.  Or else!  I'm the Gram; I rule.

A pink and white doll quilt for one of the grands.  Moms, you know which grand I mean.  Don't show it to her.

As you can see, it is in progress.  I'm attempting to hand-quilt it.  I have to tell you that half-square triangles are really hard for me, with my wonky cutting and sewing.  I did trim the blocks a bit, and starched the fabric, and that helped a lot.  I think that doing these things in miniature is a lot harder than in full size.  But what do I know?  I'm so new at this that I have very little sense of what is hard and what is easy.  It's all difficult for me.  So?  I like doing it.

A Dresden Plate quilt for the other grand.  You know who she is, too.  The one who is totally done with pink.

Ignore the bad picture-taking.  The light was weird this morning.  I've sewn down the circle, and am now appliqueing the blades.  Then, I'll make my quilt sandwich with batting and some neat backing.  And then, I'll hand quilt.

Knitting news:  Yesterday I blocked the second Petticoat Shawl.  I am not happy with the edging on the first one; but I really don't want to redo it.  It's find for me to wear.  But in this shawl, I made sure I did that center point correctly.  So, now I'm writing up the instructions and will send out to a tester.  When we have it in good order, then I'll sell project packages for it.

Here's the original Petticoat Shawl. I love the color combination, but as you can see, that center spot is not wonderful. I'll wear it anyhow.

And that's the story, Morning Glory.  Off to actually sew a doll outfit.  It's been ages since I was motivated, so I have to grab the moment while I can.

Wall-to-wall books - It was very pleasant to knit, even twice.  I think I have to explore this kind of shawl more.  It's not as lacy as most of mine, but lacy enough and does give a bit of warmth.

scrapperjen - Thanks.

knitting kitty - Hang in there. I've charted only a bit of it. I need an 8-day week.

YES!!!!!

Feast your eyes on this, oh great quilters!  I actually made a Dresden Plate.  Whew. What a relief.  I may do nothing but DPs from now on.

Even the ugly colors don't look too too bad here.  Now onto doing some cute ones for a doll quilt.  I'm thinking that for the little quilt, I might want to make them a bit smaller, maybe from 4" squares.  I don't know.  I can practice on more of these charms.

Now to set it onto a block and sew it down.  What do you think?  I haven't the foggiest idea on how to put in the batting and backing.  All at once?  Gah.  Knitting is so much easier, but I did it.  Happy Dance around the house.

CarolynJean - They're growing on me.  My mother likes olives and browns.  Maybe I'll put it on a creamy piece of fabric.

beebee   - I think it'll become an addiction!

Wall-to-wall books - It's actually much much prettier in real life.  I think I'll keep it and make a little wall hanging out of it.  Or something.

Grace - Thanks.  I do too.  ;-)

2nd post today!

It's either feast or famine here.  So, here's a thought about quilting.

I need a group of newbies who can't sew straight seams or cut perfectly.  My eyes simply don't see the wonkiness until I try to put things together.  That's what turned me off from sewing way back when.  I can thread a needle without magnification or a needle threader.  I can embroider very well.  I can knit very very well.  But I cannot sew.  Please tell me why!

Are there any crummy sewers out there who want to form a support group?  Our motto can be:  "Piffle upon experts.  We revel in our clumsiness."  Am I the only one in the world who has trouble with this?  And I really want to be good at it.  Hah!

Good Grief!

I've been gone so long I practically forgot how to blog.  I'm fine, just haven't been in the mood for my scribbles.

Knitting news:  All secret.  Yawn for you, but I'm loving it.

Mommie news:  She turned 97 on Nov. 4.  She's in remarkably good shape for such an old lady.  She's very fuzzy until after she eats, and then the brain totally kicks in.

Kiddle news:  Elder DD turned 41, SDD turned 40 and so did her hubs.  The grands had no birthdays.  They are, of course, more fun than you can imagine.

Sewing news:  I've lost my doll-sewing mojo, but I think it might come back.  I pieced a doll quilt for one of the grands and am attempting to hand quilt it with pretty decent results (for me.  not for the rest of the quilting world.)  No pics because it is a gift for someone, and I don't want the little twerp-ette to see it yet.  So, mom of kid, do NOT show her this post.

I started a disappearing 9 patch for another doll quilt and I really hate it.  I'm not going to finish it.  So there.  I think that these little patchwork pieces are much harder than those with larger blocks.  My wonky cutting and sewing shows up much more on them.  Still, I like playing with them.  It's just that this particular project is ugly.  Sometimes ugly happens.

So, today I'm stitching a Dresden Plate made from charm squares, and if I like it, I'll do one a bit smaller for the next doll quilt.  I'm doing it in some batiks I bought from ConnectingThreads.  I'm not fond of them; most are way too muddy for my liking, but they were soooo cheap, and I added them to another order.  Perfect for experimentation, I think.

So that's it.  Boring, no?  And that's why I haven't blogged. 

Thanks all for any comments you've sent since the last post.  No answer 'cause I lost my blogging mojo.  Maybe now it'll come back!

And what's new with all of you?