Snow, Snow, Snow

Here are some photos from yesterday afternoon and this morning. It is very cold again, I guess this will stay around for a while.

Sewing

I am determined to make all the things this year that fell by the wayside last year. These are two of them, a dish mat and new oven mitts.The oven mitts were a new experience for both me and the sewing machine, I have never worked with that insulation material before. I used a jeans needle and Lily did just fine. I need to work a bit more on getting the thumbs a little bigger and the top not at quite such a sharp angle. But for now they will do.

Both are free patterns/tutorials and can be found here:   Dish Mat  Oven Mitt

Monday

Monday is usually my housekeeping day. So today I changed the bed linens, washed and hung a load of laundry, folded another one, flushed the kitchen sink and cleaned the bath room. Thanks to warm temperatures and sunshine I was able to let the cats into the porch for a while and air out the front room that has been closed off since the cold snap. It really helps keeping the rest of the house warm. The weather is nuts, we are at 58 degrees at the moment and expect 17 tonight. No wonder people feel exhausted and get sick easily, the body does not have a chance to adjust to these temperature changes. We might even get snow.

After all the chores were done I tackled a small cross stitch project while watching "Cranford". I plan to frame it with fabric and quilt it. The pattern is a freebie and can be found here.

And just after I finished my post yesterday I decided that it would not do that I don't get anything crafty done on weekends and cast on a new pair of socks.

Now it is time to bring in the laundry and start dinner. It was a good day.

Weekend

Another weekend has come and gone and it was a good one. We slept in, celebrated Burns Night and Australia Day with some special treats, enjoyed some sunshine on Sunday, watched movies and did a bit of reading. And once again, all my creative energy was used in the kitchen. I don't know what it is about weekends that keeps me away from my crafty projects.

I made a pavlova for dessert in honor of Australia Day.

We had some freshly baked shortbread and a wee dram in honor of Robert Burns' birthday and 'mock' haggis for Sunday lunch, I don't care much for haggis from a can, so I made a meatloaf look like the real thing and served it with mashed potatoes and turnips.

Robert Burns

It is the birthday of Robert Burns today, the great Scottish poet. We will honor him with a wee dram later in the day (it might be five o'clock somewhere but here it is only 9 am). Here is one of his lovely poems.

A Red, Red Rose

1794 

O my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
O my Luve's like the melodie,

That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Tilla' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile!

More Socks

The second pair from the fall colored yarn is finished. I think I might have enough yarn left over for a third one. As you can see, I had a photo assistant who insisted on being in the picture.

Feline Friday

Sewing is not the only thing that gets interrupted around here.

Boo!

My "Halloween" socks are finished. That was the thinnest yarn I have ever worked with.

Festive Flock

These pretty birds have been languishing in my UFO stash long enough. They are meant to be Christmas decorations but I think they make lovely Winter decorations as well.

Weekend

Saturday was grocery shopping day, not too bad, got everything I needed and stayed within my budget. We spent the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday doing stuff around the house, watching movies and eating cake.

I made lasagna for lunch on Sunday, only the second time ever and it turned out pretty good. Sometime in the middle of putting it together I decided that it is my lasagna and I can make it any way I want to and so I did. It does not look picture perfect but tasted really good.

I seem to do most of my creative work in the kitchen on weekends, did not get anything crafty done. Del has tomorrow off so we get another day of weekend, sleeping in, weather should be nice and we might even do some stuff around the garden, like picking up all the fallen branches and cleaning up around the beds.

Chocolate Cobbler

A lot of recipes that are floating around on Facebook could kill you just reading them, but every so often one shows up that uses real ingredients. We found our new favorite soup this way and the latest such recipe is this: Chocolate Cobbler. I made it this week and it is delicious, not as sweet as I expected it to be, nice and gooey and very chocolatey and really easy and quick to put together and it tastes even better the next day.

Feline Friday

First Finish of 2014

My little wall hanging for January is finished.

What I am working on - Knitting

I am knitting the second pair of socks from the fall colored yarn.

I have also cast on a pair with the halloween colored one, this one is very thin even for sock yarn and I had to change the number of stitches which brought about my least favorite part of knitting - math! But I managed to figure it out. :-)

Just in case anyone wonders, this is my laptop in the background. I do most of my knitting while watching movies on Amazon.

Reading

I am currently reading "Charlotte Gray" by Sebastian Faulks, one of the many 'yet to be read' books on my shelves. Although the description sounded very interesting it has so far failed to grip me. But since I am only on page 30, I hope it will get more interesting.

Monday

I woke up all stiff and achy from sleeping too long in one position. But after washing and hanging three loads of laundry and cleaning the bathroom I was as good as new.

The weather is sunny today and much warmer (in the 50s) so I could let the kitties into the porch for a much needed snooze in the sunshine.

I think I did enough housework for one day and will now spend some quality time with my knitting needles until it is time to fix dinner.

Hope your Monday was a good one too.

Weekend

Our weekend started with a thunderstorm on Saturday morning, accompanied by really weird orange light. I think it was caused by the sun rising behind the fog. It rained heavily for most of the day so all outside plans were cancelled.
So was my plan to baste and quilt the January wall hanging. :-)

But there was chocolate cake for consolation. I also baked bread.

Sunday dawned bright and sunny and luckily the temperatures are quite nice now, we are thawing out, but the garden is a big swamp, the water has nowhere to go, the ground is completely saturated. Since I plan to have a container garden this year, we must come up with some plans to ensure proper drainage for the containers.
We are having a 'lazy' Sunday, just hanging around the house, playing games, reading and after lunch we will be watching movies.

Hope your weekend was a nice one too.

Friday Night with Friends

I need a little extra motivation to get me going on my projects every now and then, so I decided to join "Friday Night with Friends" hosted by Cheryll.
 Tonight was the first time of 2014 and I worked on the border for my January calendar wall hanging. Got it all finished and ready to be basted and quilted.

Feline Friday

Baby, it's cold outside.

Pay it forward 2014

I promise to give something handmade to the first 5 people who comment on this post to be delivered sometime during the year. If you leave a comment, please offer the same thing to 5 other people.

Only comments left here on the blog will count.

What I am working on - Sewing

These are the first three blocks from a 2013 BOM. Rather than putting all 12 together into a big quilt I will make small individual calendar quilts. I plan to make a border for each one that mirrors the pattern of the heart. I have not added any of the beads and sequins and I did all the applique by machine.