Camping

I went camping with my mom and brother and his family last week. It was so awesome. I love it. Sorry there's no pictures cause ... I didn't think to bring a camera. We put up one section of a huge o'army tent. (20ft X 8 ft) The kids were so much help with that monster. We only stayed for one night. Of course it was cold, but that was expected. I kept pretty warm, just couldn't sleep cause the egg carton padding was worthless. Boy was the ground hard! At breakfast, I couldn't help wondering why eggs, hashbrowns & sausage cooked on a griddle, eaten with dirt encrusted fingernails in freezing fall weather was SO STINKING GOOD! Must be the magic of camping in the great out doors.

About 2 Weeks ....

I was asked recently how long it would take me to make an afghan.

Well ... remember this?

This is what's left.

Where did it all go?

Colorful isn't it?

The Feel of Autumn

The mornings and evenings are chillier; the leaves are starting to change colors, a few are even falling; and Me? Well, Autumn weather moves me to start thinking about creating afghans; that way the blanket gets longer (and warmer) as it gets colder. Here are a couple I've made for myself.

Lighthouse - ordered online as a kit

9 Patch Scrappy

This was done in an effort to use up all the yarn scraps I've collected. This was fun, although on the short side. It doesn't quite cover from toes to shoulders. I do love it for it's using up odds and ends of yarn. I don't like having left over scraps of anything after a project but that's impossible to avoid. So these kind of projects really make me happy.

Side track: I remember a baby afghan I made this way. It had a picture of Piglet with a white background (same type as my lighthouse above). I was determined to only use the yarn I already had. I did pretty good until the last ten inches or so when I ran out of white yarn. All I had left was some off-white. My sister and mother who had been watching the progress of this blanket couldn't stand to see me use the off-white, so they ran and bought me a skein of white. ;) I laugh because there were threats used to get past my stupid stubborn streak. It was a good thing because the blanket looks so more complete with the same color background.

Anyway, this year hasn't been any different. I was itching to pull out my yarn stash with the first wet cold day. I had to restrain myself for two weeks cause of three sewing projects that were already spread out over the family room. (You can't play with the yarn until you've cleaned up this fabric mess ;) The sewing got done over the weekend; everything got put away yesterday morning; and last night I pulled out my boxes of yarn "orphans".

I have had an afghan pattern in mind for a month or so but with all the yarn spread out I couldn't decide what to do without also looking through all my crochet patterns.

This is where it started getting dicy. With the yarn spread out all over the floor, according to color. I found half a dozen projects that would be so much fun; baby stuff, Christmas decorations, as well as afghans. So......

My Chosen Pattern

The original afghan pattern I had already chosen.

It's the "Crochet Folk Quilt Throw" from the Redheart website. It has 6 different colors which I thought would be a perfect use of my "orphan" yarn.

Oh, yes! it's going to be a "make something with what you already have" project.

The Chosen ColorsI didn't have enough of one color to meet the pattern requirements but I did have enough color groups. So I have a couple of greens, purples, a white & tan, and 3 or 4 shades of pink. Total amount of yarn equals total needed for afghan.

Here's a Sneak Peak

Oh, ... I like it, I like it!

Here's to you Autumn!

Think about it

"Trials and tribulations tend to squeeze the artificiality out of us,

leaving the essence of what we really are

and clarifying what we really yearn for."

(Maxwell, Neal A. Things As They Really Are, pg.89)

3 in 1

Rather then writing three separate posts I decided to just combine them.

A few weeks ago I went to the library and brought home 4 different sewing books. Among them was one that I have to buy for myself. It's "Weekend Sewing" by Heather Ross. It's so full of great sewing projects. I spent the first few days tracing patterns. I would get one traced and go to cut it out of fabric when another awesome project would jump out at me and distract me. So before anything was ever cut out of fabric I had 4-5 different patterns traced. Now it's crunch time cause the book is due back to the library soon. (It's already been renewed once;)

In spite of all the inspiration distractions I have successfully finished two projects from the book.

Heather Ross' Town Bag (I just love how the top scrunches down)

The Fabric was a home dec sample an interior design roommate gave to me years ago. Those samples make great bags, I believe I've have at least two other bags made from them. I didn't like the length of the strap so I ended up doubling it and am now very pleased with the results. This may also be my first bag that made me really think of hardware. I had chosen silver clasps and d-rings. While I was matching thread to the fabric, I happened to place the fabric right next to the hardware. The fabric just screamed for "gold" hardware and boy does it look awesome. Considering how much time I spend matching lining and bag fabric, I wonder why I didn't think the same rules apply to hardware.

An outfit for a little Miss

(who is expected to arrive very soon)

So much fun. This is only the second outfit I have ever made for a child. I believe I have caught a bug, probably a good thing considering the number of little ones coming this year.

A closeup of the top

This pattern is from "Weekend Sewing" and I really love it. There is certainly more in the future. Hopefully the Little Miss doesn't mind having her aunt having a blouse from the same fabric. I had originally planned a nice summer blouse for this fabric. I wanted to make this Kimono newborn shirt so much that I used scraps and actually finished it before the blouse. (Told you I get easily distracted)

A closeup of the Bottom

Which was made from a Butterick pattern. The top felt so incomplete that I went searching for a pant pattern to complete the outfit. This was an easy sew being completed in a couple of hours.

Now I just need to mail it and impatiently wait to see if it actually fits, if the fabric is soft enough or not, whether the pants will be too large, or the shirt too small.... Although my second outfit, it's the first to be worn. Really my only experience in dressing a baby is as an Aunt, so I just used what the parents had already picked out. I'm sooo nervous ;)

A Riddle

Ever hear of the riddle about a farmer that had to cross a body of water with a chicken, fox and a bag of feed. And he can only take one at a time across. Well, just the other day I came across a similar experience:

A lone driver has to get two cars from apartment #1 over to apartment #2 which is located 3 miles away. It's 95 degrees out and there is only one driver to do this. How do you do it?

Well all I could come up with was the only driver gets into car #1 and drives it a block, parks and walks back to car#2 where she then drives it two blocks, parks and walks back to car#1. Leapfrogging the two cars every block or so, the lone driver finally arrives at Apartment#2.

So what do you think?

Thankfully, the driver had a sister and brother-in-law come to the rescue where they drove one car and she drove the other so technically the driver never had to prove whether this was the right answer to the riddle.

Book Challenge update

It looks like May was the "linking book" reading Challenge. The last book linked to was "The Vicar of Wakefield". That book led me to reading Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility. It's been awhile but I enjoyed the reread. I chose it cause characters in "The Vicar" reminded me of Marianne and her romantic "sensibilities".

So that ends my linking books for now. I'll keep reading but probably won't be able to do as much cause the summer just got crazy for me, at least June is that way.

I don't have as much access to a computer so I probably won't be posting as much either. I'll try to keep the reading list updated but that's about all I can promise. Hope you all have a fun summer.