Honey embroidery, Neck cozy

Hello Friends,
   Yea for me! Another UFO complete!
I purchased a wonderful embroidery pattern from Jenny of Elefantz called Honey. 

The pattern includes the embroidery patterns and instructions to make a large pincushion, a needlebook and a scissor fob.  I made one complete set to give to one dear friend and the needlebook and fob for another.

Closeup of the pincushion center.  I used a stem stitch for the flowers (DMC 4215) and leaves (DMC 4045).  Instead of French knots for the centers, I made candlewicking knots using 6 strands of (DMC 726) floss.  Do you know the candlewicking knot?  It may be called something else as well.  I like it because the knots are consistently very round and full.  My French knots are sometimes lopsided--of course, it could very well be just me.

I also made this neck wrap for a gift. 

The pattern called for super bulky weight yarn but I knitted it with 3 strands of worsted weight wool held together. (2 strands dark blue and one strand of light blue)  Toggle buttons keep it nice and snug around your neck when the fierce winter winds blow.  I found this pattern on Raverly.  If you are a member of Ravelry and would like to knit this neck wrap, it is called Pidge Podge.  You can also go HERE to get this pattern.

Merry Christmas everyone! Hugs, Rumi

Grandpet's Stockings

Another finish!

Stockings for granddog Walter and grandcat Jolly.

Less UFO's--Yea!

Been working like mad on these.

You all know how much I LOVE Messy Karen's wavy wipers.  I made a bunch to stuff in stockings and give out to co-workers and friends. I tied them up in pairs

Christmas colored wipers and

assorted colors.

I know my friends and family will love these and want more, but quite frankly, I don't want to make any more for awhile.  Other projects beckon. So..

The back of each gift tag has Messy Karen's etsy site.

Now onto other UFO's in my pile!  Talk at you later,  Rumi

New Toy

Hello Friends,

    I was sure getting tired of doing this:

Not having young children at my disposal, I had to call in the dining room chairs to do my bidding.

Amazon to the rescue.  What I ordered is in the skinny little white box.  The big box is what it was shipped in.  Really now, doesn't that seem like over packaging to you?  Well, guess they didn't want an angry customer with a broken item.

After a tiny bit of assembly, here is my new yarn swift.

Here it is in action.  The cross arms turn on it's base while I turn hanks into neat little balls.

So these lovely merino wool hanks become

Two little cuties like this.   Now the trick is to not start a new project with these until I finish up some more of my already overflowing UFO pile.

Talk at ya later,  Rumi

Gingerbread Bowie

Hello Friends,

     Are you like me, trying to get all the things on your Christmas To-Do list complete?  I'm trying not to stress myself out too much even though I have several unfinished Christmas gifts in my work basket.  I will finish what I can and leave the rest--Christmas will come again next year and whatever I do not finish this year will be under next year's tree.

While on the subject of gifts (and stressing out over gifting) I would very much love to exchange heartfelt holiday cyber greetings with all my blog friends.  However, at the risk of sounding Scroogy, on the slim chance that anyone was planning on sending an actual gift, please don't.  I promise to do the same. 

Ok, how about a Christmas table runner.

Cute huh!  When I made this, I was disapointed that I only had 3 blue buttons to use for eyes.  Daughter Lucky came up with the idea to have one Gingerbread man with one blue and one brown eye--like David Bowie--making him a Gingerbread Bowie.

Hopefully, I'm not the only one who thought this was brilliant. 

Paris

Sorry you haven't heard from me lately. 

I was at the Arc de Triomphe

Notre Dame

Eiffel Tower

The Seine

The catacombs under Paris

The Louvre

Whew! Now I need time to recoup!

Short attention span

Hello Friends,
    I've been very unfocused lately and have been prone to jumping from one unfinished project to another. Soooo...nothing complete to show you.  How about some UFO's today...

Wavy Wiper made from Messy Karen's pattern

Almost finished bookmark

A scarf to donate to a veteran through the WWII museum's Knit your bit program.

My daughter's quilt

Embroidery project from Jenny of Elefantz

More bibs waiting to be cut out.

I have a few other projects in the works too!  Better get busy!

Vietnam Wall

There is a striking wall in Washington DC honoring those in the US military who gave their lives while serving their country during the Vietnam war.  I was fortunate enough to see this memorial wall when I visited DC several years ago.  It is very difficult to view this wall without welling up with emotion.  So many names, so many grieving families. 
There is not a single name on the wall that I recognize.  The war ended a year or two before any of my friends and classmates were old enough to be eligible for service. And yet, unexpectedly, tears came.

A much smaller "traveling memorial wall" has been touring the country.  It is in my town for 5 days. I went to see it this afternoon.

Again, the tears fell.  This time, it was not unexpected.

Bibbies

Made some baby bibs for Touching Little Lives.  They still need snaps at the neck.  We have some volunteers that come to our monthly workshops that we affectionately call "Snappy Ladies" who man the snap attaching machines.  They will snap these lickety split.

Can you guess which ones are my favorites?

Yup! The froggy ones.

Thanks Stephanie for  dropping off a bunch of cute flannel fabrics for me to use for my charity sewing.  I have enough left over for many, many more bibs!  I try to sew a bib here and there between my other projects. 

Talk at you later! Rumi

Lazy Girl purse revisited

Hello Friends,
   Awhile back I made myself a purse using this Lazy Girl pattern.  Read post here.

   Well, I like it but felt it needed a couple of changes so I had to tinker a bit with it.

I decided the optional curved bottom was indeed nicer.

The pattern has just an open pocket in the back.  I hardly put anything in there since it doesn't seem too secure--I can picture things falling out when I lay the bag down.  I decided a zippered pocket was in order.

OK, changed up the inside.  Pattern had you sewing elastic directly to the top of the pocket.  I decided that making a casing looks much nicer.  Pattern has you attaching the strap by sandwiching it between the bag and front flap.  As you can see, some of the raw edges didn't get caught up inside the topstitching. In my new bag, I attached the strap early in the process and inclosed the raw edges within the bag--no chance of raw edges hanging out.  Again, I turned the flap at a seam and did not cut a turning hole in the flap as the pattern said--who wants a whipstitched slash in the flap anyways!

Inside.

This bag is a Christmas gift for a friend.  Hope she likes it.

Monkey Cake

Hello Friends,
    Whew! October sure was a busy month for me.  Our son got married on the 23rd and there was so much to do before and after.  We had several out of town relatives that came out  for the wedding and boy, it sure was great to spend time with them and catch up on family news.
    Now that the wedding is over, I can breathe a bit before I'm off and running again getting ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Haven't done any sewing but I did bake the most adorable cake to take to a Halloween Party.  I figured that even the dessert should be in costume!

One boxed cake mix made 2 of these cuties.  The monkey "fur" is chocolate rice cereal (in this case Cocoa Pebbles) and I used upside down Rolo candies for the eyes.

Would you like to make your own Monkey cake?  Watch the video on the Better Homes and Gardens site

One word of warning though.  Make this cake the day you want to serve it.  The cereal gets soft and loses it crunch if you make it too far in advance.

Talk at you later!  Rumi

DIY win!

Hello Friends,
    Bet you weren't expecting to hear from me so soon after I said I was not posting till November.  Well, I received the most wonderful box in the mail today so had to share!
Not too long ago Messy Karen had a DIY wavy wiper giveaway.  Those that sent in a picture of completed wavy wipers using her wonderful pattern were put into a drawing and lucky me won!  I was thrilled but I had no idea what fabulous things I would receive!

Wow!

Look at all this yummy yarn!  Enough to make a bazillion wavy wipers!

Karen included a nice big project bag. Don't you just love the cute birdies!

Also this great scarf pattern.  I REALLY want to make this great sampler scarf! May have to bump one of my current knitting projects aside to make this.

Karen also included some great bamboo knitting needles and a package of steel yarn needles.

My head is reeling just thinking of how wonderful this win was!  Thank you so much Karen!

Back in Ohio

Hello Friends,

     After spending a week and a half in glorious warm sunshine, I return to a cold, drizzly, gray Ohio. Sigh...

We spent the first couple of days visiting friends in North Carolina (yes, they liked the placemats and napkins), then headed south to Orlando, Florida.  I spent the first half of the week nursing a head cold so missed out on some of the festivities but felt good enough by the end of the week to venture out to Universal Studios park.  They just opened up a Harry Potter section in June.  It's not very big, but fun. Check it out HERE.http://www.universalorlando.com/Amusement_Parks/Islands_of_Adventure/islands_of_adventure.aspx#page=Amusement-Parks_Islands-of-Adventure_harrypotter_wizarding-world-of-harry-potter.html&expID=13-15522&contentID=13-13095&seq=1

Love the "snow" on the roofs.  It was really a very hot day! Most of these storefronts were just for looks. Those that were open did a very brisk business! (go check out the shops in the link above)  One could spend a lot of money in these shops--and people did!  I'm sure Mr. Lucky is glad I am not into "stuff".  There was plenty to be had! 

Hogwarts.

We drank our fill of butter beer (tasty butterscotchy yumminess) and tried pumpkin juice (pumpkin pie in a bottle), rode the fun rides and ate pasties.

HoneyDukes offered chocolate frogs ($10 each!) and assorted other goodies.

My only purchase of the day.  Lemon sherbet drops.

The rest of the day was spent enjoying all the rest of the park.

Of course, there was other vacationy stuff that we did but I won't bore you with those photos--I'm sure you all have loads of similar photos of your vacations.

OK all, now I must apologize for this will probably be my last post for a month or so.  My son is getting married soon and I must ready my house for out of town family (read between the lines here, that means, among other things, bringing in a bull dozer to clear out my sewing room so we can put a guest in there; and also evicting our spider friends from the guest room in the basement.)  I'll try to pop in and visit your blogs but I don't see much crafting going on here until November! 

Talk at you later,  Rumi