Nocturnal Knitting

Syd is staying with us over Christmas vacation.  He got an invite to go sledding with his cousins, but he hadn't brought along a hat or mittens, so last night at 10:00 I cast on for the first one, finished it, then got up at 5:30 to do the other one.  Headed to bed soon, yawn!

He Arrives!

 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 

 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  

 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.

This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

Luke 2:8-14

Rejoice!

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
    Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
    righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
    and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
    and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
    His rule will extend from sea to sea
    and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Zechariah 9: 9, 10

I Might Make It!!

I have finished my Christmas sewing.  All the blankets are done and ready for a really big gift bag.

I love the effect, especially if a contrasting color is used.

Isaac is a Broncos fan, like most Montanans, although he has another reason-he lived in Denver for the first five years of his life, before he was adopted by Jim and Millie.

I have a fleece panel of the Coca Cola Santa that I've been trying to decide how to finish.  I think I've found my answer, but I'm giving it a break-this is really hard on my old arthritic fingers!

I have one other project, a stealth one, that I will blog about after Sunday.  As my mother-in-law said, "Little pitchers have big ears."

One More for Today.....

"Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care.

And take us to Heaven to live with Thee there."

Three Candles

“[Mary’s Song] And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name.” Luke 1:46-47, 49 NIV

Still Waiting.....

A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
    the way for the Lord;
make straight in the desert
    a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be raised up,
    every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
    the rugged places a plain.
 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
    and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Isaiah 40:3-5

Waiting....

The people walking in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
    a light has dawned.  Isaiah 9:2

And Today

I've been working a lot at Macy's, in fact I'm a little miffed at them.  They knew I didn't want full time, but I have it anyway.  I'm supposed to be able to schedule myself, but that's kind of a laugh.  If you don't pick a shift on a "key" day, they will schedule you and you may not like it.  I thought I had everything scheduled, but yesterday, after spending 45 minutes at the acupuncturist because of a devastating spasm in my neck, my boss calls and informs me that since I didn't schedule on the key days she did it for me.  Never mind that I had no clue when these days are-there is nothing on the scheduler that shows it.  I almost cried-I was in so much pain, which the acupuncturist attributes to the black Friday ordeal-she scheduled me to work at a time when I'm supposed to be at a luncheon given by a local charity in honor of all the city's church secretaries.  And the luncheon is supposed to be in my church!

She called me back and told me she had switched my shift with another girl's.  I can go to the luncheon, but now I have to work until midnight!  My family is up in arms-they want me to quit.  I think I will, I am too old for this, and my church job comes first.  Well actually, my health comes first and it is being compromised.  Millie is really urging me to give my notice-which I have made up my mind to do, just have to write up a resignation and deliver it.  I'm worried I won't get to go to the grandkids' programs, plus if I work all the shifts I have scheduled and my church days I will work six days next week!

My neck is improving but it's slow.  AI wants me to come back for another treatment, but I really can't afford it.  So far all the money I've earned has gone for acupuncture.

On the upside, tomorrow morning Millie and I are taking Grace and Sydney to a children's matinee of The Nutcracker.  Sam won't go, says he's too manly.  Sydney tried to talk him in to going and Sam tried to talk Syd into doing something "manly" with him and Jim.  These kids are too funny!  Then Stan and I have a Christmas party tomorrow night.  I love Christmastime!

Here and There, Bits and Pieces

Boy, working a second job keeps one busy!  Let's see-what have I been up to.  Well, first I've been working quite a bit at Macy's-last week was 30 hours in addition to my work at the church.  My knees are complaining loudly so I'm not sure if I'm going to make it through Christmas or not.  Don't think I'm going to go on after that, I have too many fish to fry.  I did buy some support socks yesterday from the "As Seen on TV" shelf at Walmart.  I put them on when I got home just to see how they would be, and I think they'll be a welcome addition to my work wardrobe.

There is some sewing and knitting going on.  I'm still working on Stan's goose decoy bag, can't forget to take pictures of that, plus I still have the Christmas blankets waiting to work on.  Then yesterday Stan asked if I would make him a polar fleece stocking hat for goose hunting.  I got the fabric out, but after black Friday weekend at Macy's I was too wasted to whip anything up.  Hopefully today.

I did make the treat bags for the church Christmas program.  I took over for the elderly lady that did them for years.  I wanted them to be done early just in case I got backed up, which is pretty common for me, ha ha!

Fun and quick!

Trying again to finish this post-I got rid of some pictures and resized the ones I wanted to share.

Uno before Thanksgiving dinner.

A beautiful place setting!

 

I finished the hat order.  I made five and my friend picked out two.  I have three left that I think I'm going to post on our town's Facebook page.

I got the goose bag done, but the straps aren't long enough, so alterations are in my future with that one, and I made him a reversible hat-one side brown and the other snow camo for when he's goose hunting with snow on the ground.  Not the prettiest but he says it works very well.

I'll finish this post and move on to another.  Still haven't decided what to do about the picture thing, but I'll figure it out.

Winter Came!

It started snowing yesterday, and by 4:00 this morning we had 14".  Why do I know what it was like at 4:00?  Because a transformer blew (loudly) and the power went out-for 5 hours!  It bumped first, and I decided to get up and make coffee, then the power went out for sure.  The coffee was just done brewing so I put it in a carafe to keep it hot and waited....  The nice thing I found out is that my Kindle Fire makes a great flashlight-better than regular flashlights!  Came on at 8:00.  Stan went out at 6:00 to start shoveling.  It took him a while what with resting and eating and breaking the shovel handle!  The neighbor finally came over with his little tractor to help him finish.

Enjoy a little Montana snow:

6:00 in the morning.

8:00-after the power came back on.

I'm done already-I sure wish I could talk my winter loving hubby into moving south!

Another Halloween Bites the Dust

Just popped in to apologize for not posting.  Not sure why-I've been sewing and knitting-but life seems to get in the way these days.  Just thought I'd drop off these shots of some curtain climbers in costume.

The ninja. (With a dog sniffing the candy in his bag.)

Butterfly

Sam spends all his time crawling on the ground, throwing toy grenades and rolling for cover!

I start working in earnest at Macy's on Saturday.  Not too many shifts yet, it's still early in the season.  I could have worked there tomorrow and Friday but those are the days I work at the church. 

Wow, I'm tired.  I can't believe tending to trick or treaters could be so tiring!  We set a record this year-114 kids.  The weather was so nice-70 degrees F-everybody took advantage of it.

Family Fun

Our nephew Paul was here from Seattle with his daughter, Julie.  So we had to cram as many family members as we could into my sister-in-law's house yesterday.  All four of Stan's siblings were there, plus a couple of my kids and some cousins and second cousins.  We had a great dinner and a good visit.  But the fun started after almost everybody had left:

Stan, Steve and Paul hanging out and catching up around the fire pit.

Paul's daughter Julie.

Sydney and Julie playing ball.  It was nice that they got to play together, last time Julie was here she was only one.

Then the cousins, who hadn't seen each other in three years, decided to get crazy and play war with the kids on their shoulders.  We laughed so hard!

The daddies "riding" on the kids' shoulders.

 Paul's dad got involved in the game, but he won't let me share his pictures, he was a bit embarrassed!  But we had a ball watching the hijinks!

In other news, I have an interview at Macy's tomorrow.  You may remember that instead of doing the sick time paperwork over and over, I just resigned with the idea of returning.  Well, I should never have gone into the store!  I was kidnapped by a couple of managers and asked if I was ready to come back to work.  (Puleeeeese!)  So I did the online application and scheduled an interview.  I'm going to have to be firm-I don't want full time and I don't want to give up my job at the church-that's my retirement job.  Besides, my Social Security starts in February and I don't want to earn so much that it cuts my payments.

I have a ton of sewing to get done before Christmas, so I really have to budget my time.  I'm almost finished with the hats I've been knitting, so that will be out of the way.  The kids all want fleece blankets instead of pajamas so that's on my list.  I'm hoping to pick up the fleece for them tomorrow after my interview.

How About a Little Montana Beauty?

Stan came in the house after a trip to the bank and told me to grab my camera.  We drove a half mile down the road to get a clear shot.  So cool with the new snow on the mountains.

Bikers for Jesus

The sewing I did today:

 

The neighbor lady just got married.  Her new husband is a retired minister, and now the two of them, both in their 70's, hit the road on their Harley and minister to bikers.  Darling couple, and I'm so happy for her.  She's a longtime friend and has worked way too hard her entire life.  You have to go through the Christian Motorcyclist's Association training to earn these patches.

I barely got the patch on the right in, but I couldn't sew down the one on the left, not even my old workhorse Viking with the low gear would penetrate all the layers.  I got the rest on fine, though.

They spent a week in Sturgis, SD, where they have the big international Harley Davidson convention.  They visited hospitals and ministered to the hurting and injured.  LeRoy said she is a natural-I'm not one bit surprised!

Hats

Got on a hat kick, and made some for the younger grandkids:

Put a picture up on Facebook, and now I have an order for three of them in Manhattan school colors!  It's sure a good thing I have a lot of orange yarn I want to get rid of!

Sewing, Some for Me.

Yesterday I finished Gracie's outfit.  I'll wait for her to model it before I put up pictures.  Then I sewed patches on six American Legion Auxiliary vests.  Did my own acupuncture on those-the patches are pretty tough and took a lot of pushing to get the pins through, and of course they would come through unexpectedly and bloodletting occurred!

Then I rooted through my stash and patterns and found this fabric:

Stan's mom gave me this fabric from her stash, actually she gave me her stash, since she couldn't see anymore.  It's a nice flat cotton knit.

Made a cowl top for winter.  It's an oversized pattern-I haven't tried it on yet-hopefully it works.  I've made the pattern before so it should be fine.

I cut down the cowl a bit-it just looked better and I can't stand a lot of fussy stuff around my neck.

This is the pattern-printed in 1995-timeless!

It's still too warm to wear it, so it will hang for a bit.  It's been in the 80's and still so smoky here.  I keep praying for rain, but so far my prayers haven't been answered.

My Baby

I promise I will get around to posting my work, I've been productive but haven't taken the time to sit down with my laptop.

The baby I'm talking about?  I've been looking for a realistic baby doll to use in my Etsy shop photos, and I stumbled across a nice one at Walmart yesterday.  When I pulled it out of the bag, both dogs went nuts.  It looked so much like a human baby they had to examine it closely.  They finally decided it didn't smell like a human, but I put it up in the sewing room, just in case they decided it was a toy.

Chloe is worrying over her new baby!

Now I just need to make some baby things to photograph for my shop!

Finally Done!

I finally got the log cabin blanket finished!  It got so hot this summer, I didn't work on it much, and I kept running out of yarn, which kind of defeats the purpose but there ya go!  It's 10:00 PM and I just finished it-no sunny picture but I did snap it on the floor of my office.

I stuck my foot in there so you could see the true size.

It kind of took on a personality of its own-I didn't plan on it being so bright-but I have a ton of bright orange and bright yellow that I've had for years so more bright yarn went along with it!

And since a couple in our church just had a baby I decided to tackle one of those baby slings.  I like it-wish I would have had one like it for my kids!  We did have backpacks, but nothing that a tiny baby could be carried in, and nothing cuddly.  Sydney was with me when I picked out the fabric, so:

I had a terrible time finding the rings they use for these.  I thought I was going to have to order them, but someone suggested the local farm supply store, and voila-hog rings!  There isn't a baby born that could break these things!

I'm working on an outfit for Gracie.  She is hard to fit, so I'm tweaking a leggings pattern for her.  I have some things ready for a fitting-tomorrow is Isaac's birthday party so we'll have a little fitting party too.

Now off to put the afghan on Stan's chair so he'll be surprised in the morning!

Purse

I made a new one:

It's quite big-I like to have room for everything!  This side has two pleated pockets-one for keys, the other for my phone.

This side has two pockets, too.  The last purse I made, I didn't divide in two-it was one long pocket.  This time I sewed it down almost in half.  Now my Kindle Fire will fit on the outside as well as the inside.  Much happier with this than the long pocket.

There are pockets on both sides, one has three, the other has two.  My Kindle will fit in the larger of these two pockets, too.

 I found the fabric at Jo-Ann's on the clearance table.  It's a Christmas print, but I don't think it really looks like it.  I lined it with some sunflower fabric I've had for over 10 years.  I close it with a button and loop.  The last purse I made I used heavy interfacing throughout, but it just wasn't stable enough, kept collapsing into a lump.  So this one I used lightweight fleece.  And I interfaced the handles, something I didn't do with the other one.  I love the colors and I think I'll love carrying it around.

Productive

I've finally been able to get some sewing done.  First a tee out of a 1 yard remnant.  I had to fudge a bit with the neckband to have enough fabric (didn't quite cut it crossgrain) but it worked out okay.  Then I made a pleated skirt with a yoke to go with it.  Only thing was I wanted inverted pleats so they wouldn't bubble over my tummy, but I was working on the wrong side of the fabric and got it backwards.  I wasn't about to rip it out, so I'll just live with it.  I'm not normally not very comfortable with skirts this short, but I thought it might be a cool thing to wear in the summer.

I cut a strip crossgrain of the knit, fold and press, then sew into the neckline, stretching slightly.  I serge off the excess and then press the seam down and topstitch on the blouse side close to the band.

Then, in the process of some digging and cleaning, I found this blouse that I'd cut out a couple of years ago. (Don't judge me, sewers will understand, LOL!)  The pattern is from 1986, believe it or not, and this is the first time I've used it.  Not wild about women's blouse patterns.  Men's shirts are pretty straightforward, but women's shirts can take some strange turns, which this one did.

Alice's hips are slimmer than mine, and her shoulders are more rounded, but you get the idea.

Because I have the dressform, I was able to do some shaping on the collar and neck.  Made it a lot easier.

I got a corduroy dress/jumper done for Gracie, too, but I'm kind of hoping she'll model it for a photo,  If not, I'll show it on a hanger.  I want to make her a couple more outfits-tops and leggings-but I want to take some good measurements for the leggings, the girl is a bit hard to fit.  (Kinda like her Gramma!)

And I'm really ready for a new purse.  Hopefully tomorrow I can get one cut out.

Really hot here-100 degrees today.  A big fire started 30 miles south of here, in an area we camp at often.  I was in Bozeman tonight to meet a senator (yay!) and the plume was huge.  I hope it is controlled soon.

The bulk of the grandkids start school tomorrow.  I went to Back to School Night with them the other night-what fun!  And talk about deja vous-I walked into Syd and Gracie's 3rd grade classroom and was immediately transported back 55 years-it was MY 5th grade classroom!  Grace and Syd are in the same class-the principal called and asked if it would be okay.  Sam is bummed, he's in 2nd grade and is in another building.  Which is where I had my second deja vous experience.  I asked him to show me his classroom.  We trotted up the stairs and right into-my junior high library!  When I told the teacher, she was tickled.  She asked me why there was a window and door into the next room.  I had the answer-the other room was the study hall!  They were glad to have that information, although there are still a lot of locals around who should know that.  Great experience!

Big day-time for bed-here's to a good school year for the munchkins!