Easy Street, Part 5

Part 5 was quick and easy, we needed 64 3 1/2" squares of turquoise, and 128 2" squares of  purple. The purple  squares were stitched diagonally on the two top corners of the turquoise squares, giving a house shape. If you want to see more progress from Easy Street, check out the Mystery Monday Link-Up HERE

I finished up my last bit of knitting for Christmas, a dishcloth and dishtowel that are going to find a new home with the next door neighbors.

We had our big turkey dinner yesterday with my daughter and 4 grandchildren. Christmas Day we are heading to our eldest son's home for Christmas dinner. Our other son is spending the holidays in Alberta, as it is just too expensive to travel home for a few days, especially when he just left a few weeks ago.

A Few More Finishes

I've been busy today whipping up these cute little snap bags.

I am putting gift cards in them, but you could use them for any little thing at all. If you'd like to make one of your own, the tutorial can be found   HERE

I also finished up another little gift, a pair of fingerless mittens.

I finally took some pictures of a few things that I made last winter.I plan on listing these for sale on Etsy. This is a baby quilt, size 40 x 48.5.

Next up is a couple of baby bibs

And finally, a table runner, size 18.5 x 45.5

For a little bit of fun, here's a picture of my chair hogs. They know how to improvise when there isn't enough room in the chair. Double decker dogs!!!!

Easy Street Part 4

Have I told you how much I do not like making flying geese? For this step I tried starching my fabrics to hopefully get more accuracy, but I'm still not happy with my flying geese. The first wing seems to go on with no problem, but the second wing for some reason doesn't seem to want to co-operate and turns out a little wonky.

I have been making extra geese, and picking out the best ones. Maybe I just need more practice? If anyone has any secrets to making perfect flying geese, please share with me. FYI, I am using the easy angle/companion angle rulers to make mine.
Don't forget to check out everyone else's progress at Bonnie's Mystery Monday Link-up  HERE

Progress on String Quilt

Well, I got to spend the morning quilting today, and managed to get another 2 rows added to my string quilt.

I am making it bigger than I originally planned, so I have run out of string blocks and need to make more. I am also making 6 inch cheddar bowties as my leader-ender project. Aren't they cute?

Our next door neighbour is an artist, and brought us an gift that she painted. It is a picture of our house, complete with chickens and a turkey in the front yard! She did a beautiful job.

Easy Street, Part 3

When I saw what we had to make this week, I was a bit worried, as they looked complicated to me, but to my surprise I had no problem at all with this step. Had them all finished by Saturday morning. Feel free to check out everyone's progress HERE

We had our first snowfall of the season today. Too bad it is going to get warm and rain tonight.

I am working on a string quilt for my husband. Most of the blocks came from block exchanges on Swap-Bot. Here is what I have done so far. I don't have quite enough blocks to finish, but they are easy to make. I'm hoping that he will take it with him when he goes trucking. Right now he just has an ugly old grey comforter!

Canning, Knitting, and Company!

A few months ago, I bought a couple of mature chickens on sale and stuck them in the freezer. Yesterday I took them out of the freezer and today I did some canning. I started out by putting both whole chickens in the pressure cooker and cooking them for 30 mins. at 15 lbs. pressure.

When they were cooked and cool enough to handle, I separated the meat from the bones and filled my jars with the chicken and added chicken broth, leaving a 1' headspace.

I ended up with 7 pint jars, and processed them for 75 mins. at 10 lbs. pressure. Here are my finished jars of chicken.

This afternoon I had time to do a little knitting. I made a dishcloth, which is going to be a Christmas gift for someone, but I can't say who.

My mother-in-law, age 91, is also making dishcloths. These ones are for me, to replace my ratty old falling apart ones!

I also had some company this afternoon. My daughter and grandchildren came out for a visit and stayed for supper.

Look what I picked up at the framers today

Took a drive to Charlottetown this morning to pick up my 2 cross stitch pictures from Michael's. This one is called Tribute to Ackworth, by designer Barbara J. I belong to a Yahoo group called Sticklounge. It is a stitching group where we receive one part of a design, and have to stitch that part and send in a picture before we can receive the next part.

This one is called Dog Lessons for People by Lizzie Kate

Our son Ryan left yesterday morning for the long drive to Grand Prairie, Alberta. He is heading out there to work for the winter. He is driving out there all by himself, and I will worry until he gets there safely. So far he has been very good at keeping in touch, texting me 2 or 3 times a day. This is him and his son (our grandson) Teigan, the night before he left.

Easy Street Part 2

I'm not quite done my flying geese yet, but I think I only need another 20 or so. Should be no problem to get them finished before the next clue comes out on Friday.  I think I will make a few extra, because a few of mine are a bit wonky!        

                                                                                                                   

Head on over and have a look at what everyone else has accomplished this week

                          
http://quiltville.blogspot.ca/2012/12/mystery-monday-link-up-part-2.html

Giveaway Day!

It's finally here! Giveaway Day! Giveaway Day is a huge biannual event where everyone with a shop or blog can give something away. It is sponsored by SewMamaSew 
http://sewmamasew.com/blog
Grab a nice hot cup of tea, coffee, or whatever, and head on over there to see all the great giveaways and to visit all the wonderful blogs.
This is my very first giveaway on my blog and I'm so excited to be able to participate! The giveaway will close on Dec.7 at 5pm PST. Here's how I will pick the winner. I am going to call my daughter and ask her to pick a number between 1 and however many comments there are, and whatever number she picks will be the winner. I am willing to ship internationally, so everyone is welcome to join in. Please leave me a comment  letting me know where you live and what crafty things you are making for the holidays. Good Luck!

And now for the giveaway.......I have up for grabs a kit to make a microwave potato bag. It includes everything you need to sew a potato bag. I just love the potato fabric! These potato bags make great gifts, and if you haven't tried one, they really do make potatoes turn out nice and fluffy from the microwave.

Congratulations to KRubin, the winner of the potato bag kit.

KRubinDecember 7, 2012 3:13 AM

I have never heard of this before! I love baked potatoes, but don't usually make them because they are a hassle to make. I bet this potato bag would make it much easier! I live in Pennsylvania and just learned how to sew in October, so I am trying to sew everything that I am capable of! Quilts, pillowcases, valence curtains, etc.

A few finishes

It's a chilly day out there! I've got pork tenderloin cooking in the slow cooker and the house is smelling so good. Our son is staying with us for a few days before he heads out to Alberta for work. He is looking forward to some good home-cooking while he's here, and I'm happy to oblige. Hubby is due home from Toronto sometime today too. Mother-in-law is occupied for the afternoon. She has a hairdresser here at the house to give her a perm. I have finished a few knitting projects.

 This is a pair of wool socks that I knit for my husband.

 Dad's Christmas socks, all finished.

Honeycomb mittens, finished.

Thought I'd share a picture of each of our furbabies.

 This is Abby. She is a Himmydoll, which means she is part Himalayan and part Ragdoll.

 This is Lacey. She is a Maltese.

This is Buddy. He is part Maltese and part we don't know what. As you can see he likes to help with the knitting!

Lets start with Easy Street and go from there!

Well, here I am after a loooong absence, trying my hand at this blogging thing again. My goal is to post once a week. Lots of changes at our house. My husband has gone back to work after 5 years of being home with a back injury. He is a truck driver, so this means he is gone for 4 or 5 days at a time, leaving me with lots of time for sewing and knitting. It also means that I am home being sole caregiver to his mum, who lives with us. She is 91 years old and has dementia, so looking after her is a full time job. She can be left alone for short periods during the day, but she's scared to be alone after dark. She goes to a day program twice a week, so those are the days I do my shopping and such. She is keeping busy knitting, mostly dishcloths as following a pattern is very difficult for her. Anyone needs dishcloths, she has tons!

 I have been busy sewing this week-end. Got a good start on Easy Street. For anyone not familiar, this is a mystery quilt from Bonnie Hunter. The first clue came out on Friday.You can check out other peoples start to this project by going to Quiltville's blog post linky here:http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2012/11/easy-street-monday-link-up-1.html

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 These are my first 100 4 patches for Easy Street. I need a total of 192.I have the rest cut out and ready to sew together. The clues come out once a week, every Friday, for the next 6-8 weeks.

This is the machine I am sewing on, my 1947 Singer Featherweight. I bought it on Ebay, and it works like a charm. All I needed to do was put in a new needle and a new lightbulb.

 A pair of Honeycomb Mittens I am working on. These ones are knit with 100% MacAusland's wool. The pattern is available on Craftsy http://www.craftsy.com/pattern/knitting/accessory/honeycomb-mittens/25158

 This is a pair of socks I'm knitting for a Christmas present for my dad. The yarn is Patons Kroy.

 Last night Michaels had a 70% off sale on their Craftsmart yarn from 7 pm until 10 pm. I bought 27 balls of yarn for $1.04 each. That is enough yarn to keep me knitting hats and mittens until I'm at least 150 yrs old! My husband calls me a hoarder, and I.m beginning to think he is right. I did not need more yarn.

This is a quilt I finished up last winter. The pattern was in a quilt magazine, but I don't remember which one.