quilting love - busy Sunday

What is great about having 2 quilting daughters?? You get lots of good quilty things!! Sara stopped by the other day and had made this table runner for me. The colors in the picture are not great but they are creams, burgundy and blue - which are the colors I have in my living room. Fits just right on this table to!! Next up is a small charm pack quilt that Kris made for me some time ago for Halloween. Its been sitting in my to complete basket waiting for the binding to be sewn so it can be used. I think I should get on that as Halloween is fast approaching.

Next is a quilt that I had a hand in. When a quilt shop first opened in our town I thought this would be for me. I cut out the hearts and sewed them with blanket stitch to larger blocks and that was as far as I got. I tried other quilting projects, quite a few but just couldn't that sewing machine love going. I still like to do hand sewing but knitting is my thing now and has been for a couple of years. That's probably why I knit by daughters sweaters and they make me quilted things.

Both Kris and Sara have stuck with the quilting and they both are excellent at it. I just love getting things like these.

We went to see Kris and her family this morning and took their lawn mower back that Tom had been fixing. There is always a man selling wood on their road so we stopped with the trailer on the way back and loaded it up. We are going to try heating with wood this winter and we need to get a good supply in. We got a load of slab wood back in August - this is a little bigger pieces but hopefully all will keep us nice and warm this winter.

From the very beginning I had wanted black and white or black chickens, which I was unable to get - so Kris and her family gave me 2 of their chickens today. We have had a lot of fighting going on today but hopefully they will calm down soon. We are up to 5 eggs a day so I need to find some new ways to use them up.

Tom is working nights this week. I'm planning on a night of knitting and watching some of the new shows out. Hope you had a good weekend.....

Belated Friday post!!

It was a gorgeous Friday. Good day for hanging out clothes on the line. At the very end you can see the Cartharts getting ready for the cool weather that is coming. Gotta love and enjoy these days. I will be back later today with more from the weekend.

Dish-rag tag

Yea for our team, Rag-Taggers!! We finished second in the dish-rag tag contest. I can't remember when we started but that little box just kept traveling and traveling. Actually our box seemed to like disappearing and staying at a post office in some secret place and then just showing up to our surprise. So much for tracking numbers and how they are updated. Definitely has been a lesson on how the post office works. We had an awesome team with everyone getting involved and knitting as fast as they could. One member even got a dead battery sitting in her car at lunch trying to knit that dish rag. Lots of people got the box in the morning mail and had it back out by 5:00 p.m. mail. I will look forward to doing this again next year - Great Fun!!

Enjoying these days of Fall!!

Just wanted to say thanks for your concerns and prayers for my grandkids. Kids usually pop right back up and that they did. Hopefully they will stay healthy for awhile.

Below is a picture of my cropped cardigan. I haven't had much time to work on it lately but hopefully tonight. I am down to the last sleeve. Then its on to blocking. If any of you have any ideas on this they would be greatly appreciated. It is 100% wool so I know cold water but really have never had to block anything before.

My LYS has some great classes coming up. I think I am going to take a mitten class and am thinking about a felted pumpkin. I have made fingerless gloves before but never with a thumb, usually just a slit for your thumb - thus why not try mittens and learn how to do that.

This is the last corn from our garden. During the winds that we had over a week ago all the corn was knocked down. We just decided to leave it and see what happened. We have gotten about 3 doz since then. Due to our crazy summer weather we did not have a bumper crop of anything but what we did get sure did taste good.

Tomorrow I have some plans for a big bag of apples.

Until next time.....

Prayers for Jessica

Please say a prayer for my granddaughter Jessica who was hurt in a 4-wheeler accident yesterday. She does have a broken arm that could possibly need surgery and a possible head injury. They took her to a local children's hospital last night and I have not heard anything yet in this early morning hour. Her brother Tyler faired much better and only had a few bumps. Our family could use a couple of extra prayers today. Note: This is Kris at Quilted Simple kids.

Its beginning to feel like Fall!!

We have been having some cooler nights and warm days - which means the seasons are a changing around here. I love this time of the year. I was putting out some Halloween decorations today - thought you might like to see this one. My grandmother made this for me in 1971. She had just moved into a senior citizen apartment and was taking ceramics. You can't tell by the picture but it lights up. She made this in 1971. I was just married, didn't even have any kids yet. I love putting out old things that have been saved over the years.

These are a few things I like about this time of year -- cooler days, pumpkin anything, changing leaves and hopefully soon sweater weather - and the cropped cardigans will be done.

Until next time......

Where did that week go??

I can't believe that week went by so fast. I have been knitting in my spare time trying to get the cropped cardigan done. Almost done with #1, only 1 more sleeve to do. I actually started the #2 sweater, in dark brown, as I was getting bored with the sleeve. Maybe they will all be done this fall yet.

Yesterday we got the end of Ike!! It was so windy. We didn't lose our power but lots of people did. We picked up lots of branches today and one of our trees split down the trunk. Hopefully we will be able to save it.

I'll be back later this week with pictures and hopefully more things to say.

Until next time.....

Dishrag tag

The box finally came for dishrag tag. These are the things that were inside. The dishrag of course, which is beautiful knitting, a Loopy Ewe clear bag (Loopy Ewe is a favorite of mine), a dog tag that teaches you the Kitchner stitch and some mints. I'm not sure but isn't that how you bind off a sock?? - which I hope to get back to as soon as the weather turns cooler and there is not so much to do. Also was the yarn that I was to knit a dishrag with and the instructions. I got started right after I got off work and was done around 5:30. I had hoped to be done sooner so I could get to the post office before 5:45 but that didn't happen. Tonight I will pack it up and take it to the post office on my lunch hour tomorrow.

Hopefully the box will move along at light speed to the next participant. Beth - your up next!!

This has been great fun - a little crazy when your box is heading east, goes to the Pennsylvania first, then back west to Ohio.

Good luck to everyone on our team!! YEA!!!!

Fair and 4-H

We were off to the fair today. Two of my grandkids are in a different county then we are and so we went to see their fair and enjoy the afternoon with them. It was busy, busy as usual. Here is a picture of Jessica and Tyler with 2 of their feeder calves. They are in 4-H but a younger group that doesn't show at the fair. They have 2 friends that are showing these calves though so its a hectic week for them. Jessica and Tyler love it though, lots of things going on, Grandma and Grandpa by you fair food, plus you get off school Monday and Tuesday this week for the fair. What could be better!!
When we got there they were participating in the kiddie tractor pull. You pedal a tractor with this sleigh hooked to it that gets heavier as you go. I think Tylers was around 50 pounds by the time you got to the end, but Jessica's was 200 pounds. (the older you are the heavier it is). They both did good, got ribbons and a ride ticket.

Kris entered one of her quilts in the fair and got 3rd - so she was pleased since there were quite a few entered. I couldn't find the building that the quilts were in though - so no pictures.

I thought for sure my dish rag tag box would come on Saturday. It left Chicago early Friday morning, it was priority mail, should be here in Ohio on Saturday. Wrong!! It went from Chicago to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Makes no sense, if you line things up east to west Ohio is before Pennsylvania. Hopefully it will be in my hands tomorrow. I will have lots of fast knitting to do.

Until next time......

My first sweater....

I made another sweater about 2 years ago - it was actually called my first sweater. I can see now why things did not go well for that sweater. I probably did not have enough knitting experience under my belt - I made a lot of scarves when I first started knitting after a 20+ break. Second, I took a class and there were 15 people in it - all of varying levels. More than half of us struggled along and to this day several of the girls I still see and we all laugh about that sweater. Third, the yarn. It was nice yarn but not like the yarn I am using for this sweater.

Regardless, this sweater is going along beautifully. I bought the yarn at the LYS, Studio Knit. The owner and the 2 girls that work there have been so helpful. Each time I go in with a question they are more than willing to sit down and give me a mini lesson in what is supposed to be happening in the pattern. The pattern has been simple to follow and it is going really quick. I probably would have been done a week ago if I would have not had questions. If anyone out there is wanting to make a first sweater my choice would be this one.

I could not resist yesterday and tried it on. The first was perfect. Now the only problem will be is letting Kris (Quilted Simple) take it when I'm done. She has been bugging me for months that she wanted a sweater. At least twice a week she would E mail with go look at this blog, go here, look at this sweater. So all her persistence in getting me to do this has paid off and she will get the first Cropped Cardigan off my needles. I will be making one for myself right after this one and one for Sara (Quilting Bookworm). I hear the weather is turning cool by the weekend - perfect knitting weather. Today was 91 - not so perfect -that yarn was hot.

Hope you all have a good rest of the week.........

Long weekend---

Today I got up all ready to go back to work, but I had just checked some E mails on Monday and saw that the people who were working the holiday were running out of work. Well, I got lucky and there was nothing for me to do. You actually have to wait for a half hour before you can call it quits for the day and by the end of the half hour I was free for the day.

This is the park that I walked at today. I am participating in a walk that our local parks are sponsoring. You have to walk 12 parks, certain trails by the end of of November. I didn't finish last year in time but this year I am determined. This is the first one on the list, closer than most and only 1.2 miles. I thought that was a good way to get started. My pictures are flipped and before I went walking I did this. I sat on the patio, ate breakfast, read a magazine and knitted on the cropped cardigan. This sweater is turning out great. I love the yarn, love the pattern. Second sweater I have knit, the first was not even fit to wear to the barn for stall cleaning... I am really encouraged on how its going. More on this tomorrow.

The rest of the day was spent doing errands, cleaning up some areas that needed attention and more knitting. I wanted to work in the front yard - it needs some help - but it was 87 degrees and decided it could wait until another day. Nothing exciting for this evening. Tom is still working on the hay field.

Tomorrow I only work until noon - wonder what the odds are that we will have no work tomorrow?? One can only hope!!

Until next time.......

Is Labor day a holiday or laboring day??

Hope you all had a great holiday weekend. We did do a bit of laboring over the 2 1/2 days that Tom and I had off. We cleaned up our picnic area that we have at the edge of our property - it really needed it. We actually got up early, Tom starting burning the trees that we had piled up back there and I went to McDonalds and got breakfast. It was so peaceful sitting back there. After we got that done Tom started plowing and disking up part of an old pasture to put in a hay field. We have baled this little piece for years but its not very good, just grass. We do get a little over a 100 bales off of it though so if we lose the hayfield we have presently we have a back up plan.

I made some progress on my Cropped Cardigan. I could see a mistake about 7 rows back and new it would bug me - so I ripped it out to that point and started again. Its looking much better and I think even at this point it looks like the beginnings of a sweater. I'm using Reynolds Lopi, which so far has been just great to knit with. I have 2 more of these to make, this one is probably going to Kris, Sara wants one and I have my eye on a blue Lopi. I should be really good by the time I get 3 done. Hey Kris and Sara - we will have to taking matchy-matchy photos when they are all done!! HAHA!!

Today we went off to Amish Country to look at wood stoves. We are going to heat our house mostly with wood this year we decided. We really didn't find much that we liked though, but then a lot of places were closed due to the holiday.

This is a picture of one of my flower beds , behind that our garden, and if you can see that cloud of dust at the very back of the picture - thats Tom trying to get the hay field ready. We need rain and as you can tell by the dust its very dry. He wanted to get it leveled out though today and planted before Thursday as we are supposed to get some rain by then.
I think I mentioned I joined dish rag tag - the box should be coming to me by the end of the week. I'm already, just waiting for it to get here.

Enjoy the rest of the your weekend........