Knitting the Blues

Ten on TuesdayThe Vacation Edition

Lagging a day behind on NaBloPoMo I am glad to have a meme-ish kind of thing to get me through some of these days.  So this week was Ten Dream Vacations.  I sometimes like to change things up a bit, put my own little slant on the lists because really, I'm not that different from everybody else on this earth and would love to go to most of the same place you all want to.  Some of them I've been to and would love to go back.  To be honest, if I could only go to one place ever for every vacation it would be

1. Maui.  Got that out of the way.  Every year for Christmas.  It is my goal.
2. Australia.  For me: wool.  For Pete:  Great Barrier Reef.
3. Thailand. 
4. The Valley of the Kings.  Blame Amelia Peabody.
5. I'd love to spend a meaningful amount of time at an ashram or someplace for spiritual growth and meditation.  Maybe Tibet.  We could go and Pete could climb to base camp at Everest while I.....Don't.  I mean, I love a good hike, but I'm happy with Mt. Washington.
6. I'd love to do one of those hiking vacations of the Swiss and Austrian Alps.  I love to hike, but I don't necessarily love to backpack.  That could be a problem.  I'd need a sherpa.  I mean, I'll carry a little backpack a sock in progress, a snack and my thermos of tea.....
7. Until it was condo-ized, we used to rent a cottage in Falmouth Heights each summer.  I loved that place, right on the ocean, a short walk from the beach or the ferry to Martha's Vineyard, a great porch (we first read Harry Potter aloud on that porch), great biking....  I really miss that place.
8. Sometimes I love going off all by myself to a cottage on Martha's Vineyard or a bed and breakfast in the mountains.  Just me, my knitting, books, needlepoint, thoughts.  I do love my alone time.
9. Holland.  Just thought I'd throw that in there.
10. These days, with the girls grown up and busy and spread out I really love any place that the five of us can go and be just us, be it hiking or biking, swimming, sailing, beaching, skiing, reading, relaxing, doing puzzles, playing game, watching movies or just hanging out.  It is sort of sad that we have to get away to make that happen, staying home and they are all off and doing their own thing.  Getting all of us together at one time is nearly impossible.  We are lucky though, we have never had a kid not want to be with us and still love vacationing with us.  Of course, it could be because we pay......

2010.  Seventy-six.  NaBloPoMo. 9/9.  Well, now my head is spinning with vacation ideas.  I have way more than ten.  I am usually influenced by something, a movie or book or travel show.  Books are the worst, I always want to go to the place I have just read about.  In the case of  A Prayer for Owen Meany it was easy.  Twenty minutes up the road.  The Hobbit?  Not so much.  I did make it to Hogwarts last summer, though. 

It's Bloomin' Amaryllis-y!

It looks like I'll be boring you with Amaryllis news for a while longer.  They look AWE!some.  Someone asked me if they were real!  I wish I got that question in reference to something other than my flowers, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

If you've been following the Amaryllis action around here, the first plant, the one my mom gave me, is all spent, the flower stalks have been trimmed away and I'm letting the foliage soak in as much sunlight and energy as it can.

You might remember how these charmers looked a few weeks ago.  Now look!  The plant in the foreground is the one I planted a week or so after Thanksgiving and the ones behind it were planted Christmas weekend.  Of the three, the one on the left has a bud stalk that hasn't bloomed yet.  Any day now.

And the flower in the dining room window is unbelievably prolific.

It really just makes me happy to walk around my house and see all of these gorgeous flowers, especially since most of them were what I like to refer to as "rescue" bulbs.

If I had taken the time to set up the tripod you'd be subjected to a lot more close up shots.  As it is, I don't have a very steady hand.  (Note to self:  Gotta cut back on the vodka!  At least until after the photo shoot.)  There is still time.  See, the one plant that I was sure was sending up only foliage is turning out to be just a late bloomer.

2010.  Twenty-eight.  Milk-a-WHAT?!

The One In Which She Drags Out Those Silly Super Cute Pillows So She Doesn't Actually Have To Write Something

A few shots of the quilt and pillows in their new environment. 

 

So cozy.  They look comfy and happy, don't they?

It does a mom's heart good to see her little creations making it in the world.

And because I know y'all like your kitty photos:

 

One hundred thirteen.  Or day FIFTEEN!  Half-way there! 

A Tale of 20 Fat Quarters(Plus 2 and a Backing and a Binding)Part Four orOver How Many Posts Can This Project Be Dragged orYou're Back For This AGAIN?!

Well, I guess you want to see what the backs look like, right?

There are so many ways to put a pillow together, the easiest is to cut a square the same size as the front, sew around leaving an opening for the pillow form and then hand sewing the opening closed.  It has it's drawbacks:  the hand-sewing for one (if you don't care for it) and the pillow is not as easy to remove as if you put a zipper there instead.  I mean, I would have no  problem picking out the sewing and re-doing it if I really needed to launder the pillow, but how often do people really launder these things anyway?

Another way is the way that Allison suggested in her post, make two sides to overlap, you have to hem the pieces, put them together and size them to the front, but then you just sew all around the pieces and stuff the pillow form in the opening.  All done.  The buttons to hold the opening closed are optional.  It is a little more work, not much, and you can always just pop the pillow form out and back in with no additional handwork.

I did both.  Why?  I was not offered choices.  The piece of zebra fabric I had was not big enough to cut, make hems and then overlap to leave the opening.  The rest of my scraps were not big enough to cover the back of the pillow all by themselves, so necessity being the mother of whatever it is, I had to make do and make up.  I totally love that I was able to center that forward facing zebra.  I didn't think it would make such an impact centered, but that zebra totally looks like he is gazing right atcha!   Either one of these pillows could be shown backside out, but the fronts are so cute, I can't imagine wanting to.

Why is it that you never see those stupid threads until your camera battery dies and you are so.over.taking.more.photos!

Closer-ups, you ask?  Here you go, stupid thread and all:

 

Oh, you must click to make them big (on my computer the big pictures are much better for some reason, always click here, always).  They are too cute!

Don't they look sweet with the quilt?

 

 

More photos?  Oh, Heck yeah! 

 

Prinna checks it out, because the old lady takes care of her Gillian.

 

The old woman approves.

Would you just look at the cute label I made?  More scrap usage!

So, whaddya think?  Am I finished with these scraps yet?  Do I have any left?  Well, yes I do.  Some with Wonder-Under and even more without.

Oh! The things I can do! The ideas that pop into my head! I am a woman obsessed, I have thought of a couple of things, but I have more than one kid and the others are starting to think I'll never do anything for them. I just cannot decide, keep? Chuck. Keep? Chuck.

KEEP! You might not have seen the last of these scraps yet.

One hundred eleven.  Or day THIRTEEN!  Seriously, I think I may need an intervention, I half expect to walk out of the sewing room into a gathering of my closest friends and family, there to force me to face my addiction.

It's Thursday and I am Thankful....

Carole suggested (I think she got the idea from Kate) that for the month of November we set aside a little bit of our post and list three things that we are thankful for.  She might have a real name for it, I'm not sure, but I think I'll post a few things that I really ramp up the appreciation dial:

1. Babies.
2. Especially now that they belong to other, younger people than I am and I can love them and coo over them and remember how wonderful it was to have them, really miss that time in my life and still be
3. Thankful that I am not there now and in another way, not miss it at all. 
4. Friends that know me and love me anyway.
5. Electricity.  Seriously, we just don't even think, but I am happy that while I don't mind treadling a spinning wheel I totally don't want to treadle my sewing machine.  Can you imagine how fast you would have to get going?
6. That people still stop by and check in on what I am doing and.....
7. So many of you will be happy with a photo of a cat.

This is Princess. You should click to make big, she really is a beautiful old woman.

One hundred three.  Or day five.  I'll bet there is a majority out there that is surprised to learn I even have a cat.  Well, I have this one and a grand-kitten who has moved in as well.  Those who know me will wonder why for a nano-second I considered taking in another when you all know that my house, in my opinion, has two too many cats as it is.  Gillian will love this photo though, won't you hon?