High Energy

During this year,  I have gradually devoted more of my "knitting time" to quilting.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to confess that it is more like reading about quilting. 

I spend many Wednesdays with my quilting friends, so peer pressure has me doing some quilting. Plus one of these friends directs me to online sources of inspiration and patterns called Quiltville.com.

Bonnie Hunter is the mayor of Quiltville, and she is a whirling dervish of energy.  She must be to accomplish all that she does.  She sews, of course.  She travels and teaches, and yet she blogs daily---almost always once a day, and sometimes more.

Her specialty is scrap quilting, which is why I was so drawn to seeing what she does with her "leftovers".  I have drawers of bits and want to clear them out at some point.  Bonnie is encouraging me to sit by the sewing machine instead of the browser.

Obviously, this is a work in progress.  But at the end of 2014 I want to be able to say I've accomplished more than ever before because I kept at it.  And fasted from the internet sometimes.

On other fronts, as I summed up the year I discovered that instead of my usual 80 plus books, I read more like 60 plus books.  The most memorable book of the year was Gone Girl, and the most recommended book is Still Alice.

If I were a crusader, I would want society to learn how to relate to kids with autism.  If there are as many as reports say there are, it would be good for us to know.  I stay home so much, I'm not sure I know how to relate to anyone, much less people with even fewer social skills than I have.

Just in case I don't post again until 2014, I'll sneak in a Happy New Year wish for you here.

I wish you the very happiest, healthiest new year ever!

Cheers!

Sigh of Contentment?

T'was the day after Christmas,
And all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring,
Not even a mouse.......

I'm never quite sure what's afoot the day after.  Is it relief or is it just a big let-down?  I suppose it's a different thing for each person, and it's probably a different thing each year.  I am contented and feeling wonderfully blessed this year, now that Christmas celebrations are over.

I don't have a tradition of celebrating Boxing Day, so that isn't on my radar.  I do have one more box to send to someone who's in Europe over the holidays so I could legitimately send the gift late. My one last Christmas-related chore.

My Christmas with my sisters is also in the future, because one is out of the area to enjoy Christmas with her daughter and son-in-law.

In an unrelated update, I knit many pairs of socks for my kids for Christmas, but the piece de resistance was this pair of sneaker slippers which was a request from my grandson.  I think it was a request------he posted a picture on Facebook without any comment.  Could it be a hint?

I couldn't find a pattern for the ones he posted, but I did find another pattern on Ravelry for slippers that look like sneakers and I'll show you how they turned out.

The pattern by Joan Hamer shows longer legs which look like sport socks with stripes at the top, but the recipient lives in Florida, land of the flip-flop. What does he need with long warm socks on his legs?  (I said to myself.)  It wasn't because I was too lazy to knit them, either.  I had plenty of yarn, and time enough to do them.  It just seemed to me they'd be more useful if they were less hot.  

So I find myself without a knitting project.  I stashed away a baby sweater when I rearranged my project bag and it hasn't reappeared yet.  In the meantime I have another interest to pursue.

Good Guy fulfilled my only Christmas request.  I wanted a portable, reliable, light sewing machine which I could take to quilting events and retreats.  He got me this little beauty which gets rave reviews from my friends who own her sister machines.

I 

She's a lovely, light addition to my stable of useful stitching paraphenalia  (spell-check won't pass any spelling I come up with for that word.  Forgive me.)  I now have four sewing machines.  The one I've had the longest was a wedding gift in the early 1960's.  It's a wonderful machine still, from the days when Singer was the brand name to buy. 

My second machine was purchased at a yard sale and had been sitting in a garage for awhile with nobody to love it.  I parted with $25.00 and somehow loaded the piece of furniture containing a sewing machine into my trunk.  It was jammed full of lint. but after it was cleaned and oiled, it ran quietly and beautifully.  (It was made in New Jersey in 1947.)   It doesn't have fancy stitches, but it's perfect for piecing quilts.  Quiet and reliable.  

The third machine has been used a lot by someone, judging from the stuff that came along with it.  Good Guy went to an auction in town and came home with a desk full of sewing supplies and a "portable" sewing machine which had a service tag attached with this date on it.  7/17/90.

It's portable in that it is in a carrying case.  However it weighs about 40 pounds, at the very least and I don't think it's easy to tote around.  I have gotten it to stitch, though and it's usable, if not "friendly".

This new "Little Sister" is very sweet though, and I will love her.  I need to devise a good guide for a 1/4 inch seam and then we're good to go. 

So that's a little bit of what's happening here on the day after Christmas.  In the time it's taken me to write this and take pictures, check dates, etc. more is stirring.  Bacon is frying nearby and someone is making fried potatoes and eggs, so life goes on-------even after Christmas is over.

Happy New Year, my friends.  

Old Fashioned Christmas

Like a great many other retired folks, we have simplified and streamlined our Christmas preparations a great deal.  I zero in on the essentials and eliminate lots of cooking, baking, (eating), and extraneous decorating that used to stress me out.

I did, however, sign up for a swap on the website which is my online "home away from home" and it is a taste of the Christmases of the past.

My swap partner to whom I will send things is (conveniently) traveling to London for the Christmas holiday, so I can send her gifts after the rush at the post office.

 But the person who sent a gift to me went all out.

The crazy quilt patchwork sock on the left is the size we generally fill for each other.  The stretchy knit sock on the right is the sock my friend chose for me.  (Insert a gasp.)

Not only is the size worth noting, but it is also cable stitched and very pretty as a decoration.

It was enclosed in a box with--------brace yourself--------twenty-five wrapped items.

I have opened some of them to discover luxurious hand cream, Kona coffee, notebooks, beautiful soaps, chocolate covered caramels (!), little tissue packages with seasonal motifs, bookmarks, and a wonderful mug with cat cartoons on the outside.  That one has been in constant use since I opened it.  

I don't believe I've ever had a Christmas stocking with such generosity at work!  Thanks Michelle, you're a wonder!  It's inspired me to up my game----peer pressure at it's best.

Merry Christmas, everyone, in case I don't get back here very soon.  I have some more shopping to do.

Humility

 One of the things I've been doing in place of blogging is hanging out with Bonnie K Hunter of Quiltville.  She is a prolific pro quilter with blogs, classes, travels, and the whole magilla.

She starting a mystery project and the first directions were to cut what appeared to be equilateral triangles and the shapes which would adjoin them to result in a 3 and a half inch square.  Can't be hard, right?

I even have the template shapes to use which she recommends using to end up with a perfect result.

I am not proud to report that I grabbed another triangle and cut about thirty triangles wrong.  And I also managed to cut the wrong color.  I'm laughing at my own dopiness and happy that I'm using scraps and I'll be able to use them all in something else.

I am happy that one of the best things about quilting is that you can figure out a way to use almost everything.  It's sort of Goof Proof.  No wonder I like it so much.

Whoosh!

Hmph!

How in the heck did that happen?  Where did November disappear to?

Well, I'm reoriented to reality and November was taken up with sock knitting for Christmas gifts, and we had ourselves a little jaunt through the eastern mountain ranges of West Virginia and Virginia.

I am amazed at those two states.  Even though we have traveled there before, on this trip I was impressed with the mountains.  I'm not sure there's a flat place anywhere in either of those states.  While we were on a narrow mountain road in WV, traffic was held up on a curve at the bottom of a "holler" while a long-bed truck carrying a huge piece of equipment negotiated the turn.  It must be a logistical nightmare to build things there. I also can appreciate how happy the citizenry was to have some four-lane highways built!

But we found it very pretty even in November, and we saw some wonderful people.

My birthday is this month----along with a great deal of my family----in addition to Christmas and all the solstice celebrations, and the turning of the year.  I'd better not doze off the way in did in November!  I'll miss the whole thing.

I wish you joy this month.  I now zero in on the parts of the celebration that mean the most to me, and minimize the aggravating stuff.  It works out just fine.