Out with the old -

My new living room furniture is being delivered tomorrow - so today is out with the old so we can bring in the new. As a result, I have not done anything related to decorating for the holidays. Everything in the living room is being replaced with a totally different look and there is no reason to decorate twice. I'm so excited. We have been talking about doing this for at least a year and then we just did it. Walked in the store and said 'that's what we want.'

It is icy cold here this week. Our snow of Saturday melted overnight, but now it is even colder.

My book club gifts are all complete (except for hand stitching the binding on the final three). Now just to wrap and they are ready for the luncheon on Wednesday. I need to write a poem to go with my 'mug rugs'. I'm thinking they remind me of 'magic carpets' - that kind of goes along with reading.

I also need to put the prairie points and binding on my kitchen table runner. I pinned the prairie points in place and realized some were cut from 4" squares and some from 3 1/2" squares. I had to go back and trim all my squares to 3 1/2".

I also finished the shawl from the purple self-striping yarn. It made up very nicely. I had exactly 29" of yarn left over when I finished it. I was just a tad worried the last few rows. I am ready to start a long cowl scarf from the green/blue of the same yarn.

The question of the day is - how many napkins do I make? Big T has decided he does not want to use paper napkins anymore. Fine, but at one napkin per person per meal - realistically, how many napkins do I need to make. Say we have an average of three people for each meal and I do laundry once a week - that's 63 napkins. Hmmmmmm! I am thinking about picking a color and then lots of coordinating prints in a 12" by 12" square. I've decided, it's easier to make a quilt than this project.

(No pictures today - forgot to charge the battery on the camera).

Hugs - Marie

This and That

Last spring I did some extensive machine embroidery on a friend's hand made bedspread. It turned out beautifully. She decorates beautiful cakes and we agreed upon an exchange: the work on her bedspread for one of her cakes.

Last night was our monthly card group. She brought my birthday cake to the monthly gathering to celebrate my birthday.

Unfortuately, the photo does not do it justice. It was a lovely patchwork quilt hand-painted complete with fabric design in marzipan. The cake was a lemon poppyseed with a raspberry, white chocolate, whip cream filling. Needless to say it was delicious. I have never eaten such a large piece of cake in my entire life. Thank you, PearlAnn.

I love the way this yarn is self-striping. I have never worked with yarn that had such a definite stripe. This one is in shades of purples, blues and tans. Absolutely gorgeous.

I also got some in shades of teals and greens - it is stunning on the skein. I'm trying to decide how to use it.

I have 4 more mug rug gifts to make. Our luncheon is on the 8th. I should be able to be finished and get them wrapped.

One of our LQS is going out of business. I think it may be time for a trip over there to see is anything is left.

Hugs to all - Marie

Back to the Drawing Board

The second skein of yarn was not the same as the first - and so here we have a great beginning with no end in sight. Hmmm - now to see what I can make of this without unraveling it all.

I must admit that Halloween is not my favorite holiday - in fact it may be my least favorite of all. I love fall and all that it brings, I just don't care for halloween. It may be my years as a teacher when Halloween was the most disruptive holiday of the entire school year. So there are no cool, really neat and cute halloween decorations and/or quilts around the house or my blog. (I'm beginning to feel like Scrooge here - don't hate me.)

I'm off to see how to salvage my short shawl that I was knitting when I found my skeins didn't match - way off. I may be back later today.

Hugs - Marie