Having to take a Break

Hallo my Bloggy Friends!

You have probably been wondering where I have disappeared to.

Well as it goes sometimes, live throws you a curve

and than you have to deal with what comes.

First my work load has doubled for the time being.

Second I have to deal with a few health issues of my own,

which will require me to visit the doctor's offices more often.

Plus all the things that happen on a daily basis in all of our lives.

So for the next few month, my time to be here in Blog land

has been cut down and my crafty time as well.

For a while I will have to cancel my regular features,

but I promise as soon as I can it will be returning.

I have not totally quit working on some woolly things.

Below you will see that I am working on another shawl.

The pattern came from Zooty Owls Blog.

All there is left to finish is the strings and some embellishments.

Loved the way this one is working up.

If you have a chance, give it a try.

For today I bit you adiou

and will see you when I get a chance.

"Happy Hooking" everybody!

My Hall of Shame Projects

Well my friends you will remember me talking about all my unfinished projects

around here......My Hall of Shame, I call it.

Today I thought I would show you what it consists of.

This is the first Afghan

 This would be Afghan #2

Afghan #3....The Granny Square

Afghan #4......The Ripple

Afghan #5.....plain striped (this is a request)

Afghan #6..... Granny Stripe ala Attic 24

My shawl Elise

What do you think? Is that not a Hall of Shame?

Will they ever be finished?

???????

Grumpy Kitty says:" Please don't look down on my mommy because

she has so many unfinished projects. She can't help herself. If she sees something

new and exciting she has to try it. I have been trying to keep her of Pinterest

so she quits finding all those exciting projects and finishes what

she has started, but to no avail. It is hopeless, I think.

Maybe if you all encouraged her to work on the old stuff first,

maybe I would get a Blankie to sleep and leave my hair on.

So would you please help me out? Pleaassseee!!!"

Reminder: You can all still sign up for my give-away here until Sunday the 16th of March and we will pull a winner on Monday the 17th of March. So please go ahead and enter.

Till next time my friends from my neck of the woods. Have a wonderful sunny and happy weekend!

While I was watching Downton Abbey Part #5 and a Finish

This last Sunday I actually got to stay home and not work, because we were pretty much snowed in. The roads in our area were plain terrible. So I got to watch my show at home, snuggled in bed, nice and toasty and with my doggies as companions. I had fully intended on finishing the border to my shawl, but as it goes sometimes, it was not to be. For some reason I could not understand the pattern and how it was to come together. I ended up frogging it a few times and was getting a little frustrated. So I decided to give it a rest and wait for the next day, better light and a more awake brain. Glad I did, because the next morning I understood the pattern just fine and I cheated and finished the border on Monday. I also got to sew in all the strings and yay I felled so accomplished.

I had planned on than finally posting on Tuesday, but when I went and took the pictures, they looked just awful because of the lack of light in my house. So yesterday we finally had some wonderful sunlight outside. Even so it was pretty cold still and Icy, I went outside and get the pictures taken. And what a difference the sun made. So pretty.

Looks like pretty snow, but is covered in a sheet of ice

Love this gnarly old tree. 

Had hoped you could see the ice covering it.

Here now for my reveal:

TaDa, TaDa

As you can see, I had to add a pop of color

by crocheting the border in my

favorite color "RED"

Light and Shadow

Doesn't it look pretty around all that snow?

Do love the way the red looks around the white

One last little look at the Border

I do love the way this shawl turned out and am looking forward to wearing it. I have a red and white skirt and a white long sleeve shirt to go with it. Might have to take another picture when I wear it, so I can show you.

Now what will I do next? Many things on my list of what I would like to make, but I have not quite decided yet. We shall see.

For now, wishing you all a wonderful and productive day from my neck of the woods!

Gone Visiting

It's been colder than a dickens in our neck of the woods for the last couple of days. We are so ready for spring. And we didn't even get it as bad as people up in the north and north-east. I think the older I get, the warmer I like it, but by no means temps in the 100's.

So what does a girl do when it is so cold outside and one has cabin fever? We go visiting. Today I went to see my friend Daniela (she also comes from Germany). She has her own store which is called Fabrics & Quilts, in Reyno Arkansas. If it wasn't a 45 minute ride one way to her shop from my house to her store, I would be hanging out there all the time. It's a place of Inspiration.

My Friend Daniela

Always smiling and always working on something

Here is a first look into her store.

The store itself is inside an old school that is now empty and being repurposed 

for other things.

Lots of yummy fabrics to be had

And lots of thread in any color you can think of

Another view

She also has other crafters, which includes myself, who sell their projects/crafts throughout her store. There are so many talented people out there. In a second room she has tables with sewing machines, so other people can come to sew right there in the store and also that she can have classes in all sorts of crafts. The room also contains a long-arm quilting machine to finish any quilt.

This is one of the talented people. She makes wonderful jewelry. Wish I could buy about 

half of what she makes. But than I would be in the poor house lol.

These are just a few of the beautiful Quilts Daniela has made.

The are all for sale.

Last but not least, here you can see a few of my things up for sale.

So I can say I had a wonderful visit out there, with good company, good coffee and lots of smiles and laughter. I would call that a good day.

Until next time from my neck of the woods I wish you a wonderful day!

While I was watching Downton Abbey Part 4

"Happy Monday" Friends!

First I would like to say Thank You to all the lovely participants in the "Grow your Blog" event who have stopped by my blog and have left wonderful comments, joined the give-away and/or became followers. It was quite a wonderful event.

It was a good thing that I had a day of Saturday during this event, because let me tell you, I couldn't stop browsing around all the lovely blogs on the list. I spend hours looking at all that loveliness. The only thing that kept me going was a cup of coffee or two. So many beautiful crafts and so much color. There will be quite a few new blogs that I will follow and enjoy. What a lovely way to get to know new and interesting people, and I am glad to be part of it.

So with that said, it is a good thing I got any kind of crochet done at all. But I did. I did cheat a little bit and worked on the shawl in between shows when I had a little time. Last night while watching Part 4 of the show, I finished the shawl itself. So now all I have left is the border and I hope I will be able to finish it during next weeks show and than have a big Ta-Ta.

This is the center of the shawl.

The shawl itself is crocheted in two directions, from the 

center out.

With that it gave this nice center affect. It looks

a bit like a flower.

There is quite a bit of controversy going on around my favorite show. Many people are complaining about the changes. I personally say, change is good. With one of the favorite characters leaving last season, it left a hole. They also brought in a story line that is not very popular. I don't want to say what that is, as I don't want to be a spoil sport to those who haven't seen it yet, but I think bad things happen to good people and it is interesting to watch how people will deal with these problems. Enough said. I will continue to be a loyal fan of the show.

As always wishing you a wonderful day from my neck of the woods. Until next time......

While I was watching Downton Abbey Part 3

     Hallo Friends, hope you all had a wonderful week and even better weekend. Mine was pretty nice, if busy. But I am not complaining, as I enjoyed every minute of it.

     From now on I will have to work every Sunday night, so I will watch Downton Abbey on Monday's. As always I just loved my favorite show. Every week it seems to get better and more interesting. Every week I feel transported back in time. Have I mentioned I love this show?

     Yes I also worked on my shawl. Sometimes it is not easy, especially when I get into the show, but progress needs to be made. It's coming along nicely, but I also ran into an issue. I followed the pattern in the book, using the kind of yarn called for and also the right needle. but as it turns out that if I stayed with the pattern the way it is called for, it would be a shawl for a child instead of an adult. So I am doubling up on the length and hope it will come out better. Has that ever happened to you? Or am I doing something else wrong? Any advice would be appreciated.

     Here now a look at how far I have come today:

     I am very much enjoying this pattern. Looking forward to seeing it finished myself now. Might get it done by next week.

     That's it from my neck of the woods today. Until soon!!

While I was watching Downton Abbey, Part 2

     Hallo Friends! I hope this finds you all well.

     As it goes with things in life sometimes, my plans didn't quite go as I had planned this week. First I ended up working on Sunday night and didn't get to watch "Downton Abbey" that night. Second I was going to continue working on the afghan that I showed you last week. Well low and behold, I did not have the color yarn I had wanted to continue with. This will mean a trip to Hobby Lobby, but that is not around the corner from my house, because I live in the country. So this will have to wait until I get a chance to go there sometime next week. Has that ever happened to you?

     So I went to plan B. On Monday I watched "Downton Abbey" from a recording. I also decided to work on a different project until the time I can get the new yarn. 

     Recently I got this new books on crocheted shawls. There are many lovely patterns inside and I will try and make each one of them as time goes by.

     I decided on this pattern, but not the same color and I chose white

Here is the beginning

And this is how far I made it while watching my favorite show

And now a little close-up

     Wow, "Downton Abbey" is going to be sooooo goood this season. I just love that show. Can't tell, can you? Are you watching? Are you looking forward to what is coming next? Personally I can't wait for next Sunday. Wish I could rush it along.

     Ok that's enough yapping about this show. What's happening in your neck of the woods?

Knifty Knitting

Over the last few days I decided to try something new and different for me. A couple of weeks ago, I bought myself the Knifty Knitter Round Loom Series while on a trip to Hobby Lobby to get some more luscious Yarn. I started simple with a child's hat. It is worked on the red loom, with two strands of yarn held together. It's not that it is hard to do or even very complicated, but to me it seems to be easier just to knit regularly. I think I am also faster knitting on a round knitting needle or two regular needles. The other thing I noticed is that my hands seemed to hurt faster holding on to the loom. Now that might just be me, maybe because it was more awkward to me. Well Uncle Arthur is letting me know that I might not want to do that again anytime soon. But here is the finished product. What do you all think? Did it at least come out ok? I call it Mr. Halloween (haha so original).

It got a little to stretched on the stayre-head, but I didn't have a child's size. I also think now that I should have made the bottom border wider. Oh well, it was my first try after all.

My second project for the weekend was another scarf. Once again knitted with Deborah Norville Everyday soft worsted, color "Moss". It took two skeins.

The pictures were taken outdoors in front of my employers house. Don't you just love the deer? Well it made a good model for the scarf and the hat. Even Deer need to stay warm, right?

I also did a little browsing through this book: 400 Knitting stitches. There are some very beautiful stitches in this book, but to me some look very complicated. I plan on trying out a few of them in the near future. Wish me luck. I might improve my knitting skills yet.

Well for today I bit you all Farewell. See you next time!

Happy Monday everybody. Are we ready for the week ahead?

The weekend was quiet around my house. The high and almost intolerable temperatures continued and nobody really wanted to leave the house unless they just absolutely had to. We had originally planned on going to Arkabutler Lake and do a little swimming, running our boats and have a little picnic, but did change our minds in the end and decided to postpone it to a somewhat cooler weekend, when the heat index is not 106F. The one thing we couldn't get out of, was to go and feed the horses in the barn, but we did that real, real early.

Now that isn't to say we didn't have a nice weekend, because we did. Cooking was done in the crock pot, as not to heat up the house. We also watched a variety of movies, one of them being "The Book of Eli", which we highly recommend. Personally I also watched a couple of nice German TV movies, which I enjoyed very much.

Guess what? I also got some hooking time in. Can you believe it? Well lately it always seems amazing to me when I can fit in some hooky time, but I am so glad.

Remember the project I was working on? The one, where I said I wanted you all to guess? Well, you all are never going to believe what happened. The ones who guessed it was going to be a purse, were correct. Now, I finished all the body parts and was working on the handle, when of all things, I ran out of yarn. The horror of it, lol. Me, actually running out of yarn? Never thought that would happen. I was also real sure that I had enough yarn before I got started, but you can all see where that assumption let me. So for now I have to put this project on hold and wait when I am able to get to the store with that particular yarn. The problem is, the only one of it's kind is 2 hours away and not exactly in a direction I go often. Well, hopefully I won't have to put it off for to long. Am trying to talk my friend into going on a little trip there with me.

Not to worry so, I had another project planned and have plenty of yarn for this one. I will be making a shawl for a very special friend of mine. When you see the following pictures you might think the yarn is blue, but it is actually turquoise. For some reason, not matter how I tried, the color was not coming out on camera.

Love the way this project works up and is moving along quit nicely. Think I will have it done within a couple of days. Will show it off at that time.

For now I will bit you all a great Monday evening and we shall meet soon again!