Queen Elsa

Grace, along with every other girl in the United States, is nuts about the movie Frozen. So Gramma had to crank up the sewing machine so she could have a dress for Halloween. She wanted to sew it herself, but she just doesn't have the skills yet to do a project like this. Heck, it gave this seasoned veteran a few headaches! We're leaving for Mazatlan on Saturday and won't be back until late on Halloween so the pressure is on. She's hard to fit but I took copious measurements and it fits really well. The only problem is, even though I enlarged the sleeve pattern, they are still snug. She's going to be cold trick or treating. I might make her a cape-right, like I have time! I did line the yoke with flesh colored swimsuit lining to be warmer and hide her bra.

Just have to hem it, hopefully tomorrow morning. I have to work two days, pick up Sydney from school, go to my naturopath today followed by last minute purchases, and pack. Guess I'll sleep when we get there. And I had a bunch of stress last week, so my shoulders are so tight it's excruciating. I'll get there, I'm sure. One nice thing, after Friday I'll be completely retired.

Following in my Footsteps

Grace has been bugging me since school let out to give her some sewing lessons. I've been MIA all summer because I made the dumb decision to make my gluten free cookies and sell them at the farmer's market. The market was successful, but just took too much of my time. With working and baking and selling the summer flew by and I never had a free minute to sew, let alone teach someone. But Grace is an extremely creative person and I knew she should be taught.

Our schedules finally meshed and she came over Saturday. I set her up with an easy project-a pillowcase. I first showed her some of the equipment and explained what it was for. When I introduced her to the seam ripper I told her to get to know it intimately because even good sewers make mistakes. She was excited and really eager to learn. She did everything I told her and was super careful. I'm impressed with her talent, she will definitely follow in Gramma's footsteps.

Here she is at the machine. I had to keep reminding her to relax, but she is a good listener and did what I told her to do. She worked on the serger too, she thought that went awfully fast!

Ta da! Finished and looks great!

Then we went out for lunch and I took her home. She immediately raced across the alley to fetch her best friend so she could show off her project. Sierra was almost as excited as Grace. Who knows, maybe next time I'll have two little girls to teach!

Yoda

My adopted daughter-in-law sent me a picture of the cutest Yoda hat and wondered if I could make three for her youngest boys by Easter. I found the pattern on Ravelry and set to work. The pattern was written by a gal in New Zealand and she used a DK weight yarn. Not finding what I wanted I went with worsted and made some pattern adjustments. One is finished and I'll mail it today. I made the newborn size for her six month old and if it fits him I'll know where to go. If it fits the two year old I'll reduce the stitch count even more. Then from there I can figure out what the six year old needs. Sure glad I have time!

It's a fun pattern to do and sewing on the ears was a lot easier than I expected. They are stiffened so they stand out a bit.

While I'm waiting I'd better finish some WIPs that are nudging me. Have a stole almost finished and I'm experimenting with a sweater for me. If you're interested in the pattern just go to Ravelry and do a search. I love Ravelry! Oh, and while I'm sharing the love, I have to thank The Yarn Box for putting up a link to my crochet Swiffer cover. That was so nice!

A Great Day!

Christmas day was a blast!  Lots of food, family and friends-noisy with lots of good smells.  And all the gifts I made were loved, yay!

Millie was happy to get her Montana State colored fleece blanket.

Syd got a stuffed spleen from Uncle Dave in Texas.

Dog photobombing.

One reason for the good smells.

The other reason for the good smells, Christmas smells.

Some of us took the dogs for a walk and got in on a fantastic Christmas sunset.

Happy birthday, Jesus

I think she liked her pillow bed!

Today I called in tired, I'm glad I have a job like that.  I'll work a little longer tomorrow.  Right now I feel like I got beat up, didn't sleep much Christmas Eve-had a food reaction that kept me up way too late, then lots of work yesterday.  Fun work, but I was dozing in my chair watching the kids play a game.  I feel blessed that I have so many great people to share the day with.

Merry Christmas to All!

Here is a small sample of why I haven't been posting lately. That and I've just been slacking.

These are pillow beds, kind of a long quadruple pillowcase, just right for sleepovers or movie watching. The three youngest grands are getting these.

PJs for the older grands and the adults.

Made a bunch of these and filled them with tiny candy canes and kisses to give to friends.

Made a few of these, some are a gift for my new friend Sherry.

My health is great, trying to stay warm. It's not as bad as it was a couple of weeks ago. On my birthday it was colder in Montana than it was at the South Pole!  But Montanans are tough, we still went out to dinner and to a local production of "White Christmas."

I'll post more pics after gift opening. Gracie and I made something special for her mom-actually I made it, she got distracted by all the fabric in my sewing room so pretty soon it turned into a sewing lesson for three kids. I ended up teaching them how to sew on fleece and they made little scarves for their stuffed animals. Grace even put "To Rosetta from Mom" on the gift tag. Too precious!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Lots of stuff going on, not sure why it's so busy but here we are at the end of summer.  How did that happen?

I took Sam to Starbucks for his birthday coffee.  He's playing a game on my Kindle.

Started a pair of socks to keep in the car.  It's been just too hot to knit something big, even though I should be. 

I love the colorway in this yarn.  I love this yarn, it's 50% Merino wool, 25% nylon and 25% bamboo.  Soft as a baby's bottom!

The blanket is growing.  I decided to make it for a friend who is due to have a baby next month.  Except she told me that she's been having contractions all day.  I might have to burn some midnight oil!

It's so cool how you just pick up the stitches instead of sewing the squares together.  I think I'd like to make one in two colors and do an even pattern instead of the random I'm doing here.  Gotta get this one done, first!

Still going back and forth to the doctor, but I think I'm on my way to recovery.  By replenishing my potassium I've pretty much stopped the afib and SVT.  But I was having a hard time finding a blood pressure drug that didn't have terrible side effects.  Gotta love allergies!  Anyway, I decided to completely wean myself off all blood pressure meds and control it with diet and exercise, with the blessing of my doctor.  It seems to be going well, it's only been a couple of days but I'm okay.  The doctor prescribed a pill that is half the dose of my current one, so when I started cutting it would be easier.  They are triangular shaped and halving them is fine, but quartering them makes crumbs.  The half dose will cut just fine and will be the equivalent of a quarter of the larger pill.  My acupuncturist is working to help the transition too, and has ordered some Chinese herbs to go along with his work.

I am starting to feel great, so grateful for that!

Happy Birthday, Grace Catherine!

Grace was such a tiny baby when she was born, she needed help breathing from the beginning.  It was really scary for a long time-we had lots of scares and said lots of prayers.

She went directly into the NICU from the delivery room.  What a tiny thing she was!

And here she is at nine.  So glad we have this girl!

We had a great party at a local restaurant today with tons of gifts and all the trimmings.  She's into horses and dolphins and got a couple of those today, along with the requisite Barbies.  Hard to believe she is almost done with the third grade.

Score!

Sam and Grace spent Sunday night with us, Jim and Millie went on an anniversary mini-trip.  So Grandpa took Sam fishing and I took Grace to Jo-Ann's to pick out pajama flannel for Christmas since it was 60% off.

We had to stop at Starbuck's for a little refreshment.

This is what Gracie picked out.  The scotties are hers, the black & red guitars are Isaac's, the footballs are Chris's, and the race cars are for Syd, Sam and Daniel.  Now take a look at the racecar flannel, and then look at the blankets below:

It's hard to see, but the bottom left blanket, Sam's, is the same racecar print!  That little boy is going to be so happy!

After a day of ice fishing, Sam dug into the little cooler Grandpa had filled with his food.  He ate just about everything in the cooler, then fell asleep with his hand in the cooler!

It was a good day, Mom and Dad had a great stay in Chico Hot Springs, and came home refreshed.  I had a little relapse of the flu and spent the rest of the night on the couch.  This stuff is mean and keeps trying to come back.  I've had one acupuncture treatment and will have another on Thursday, so I think I will eventually get over it.  I bought a cool vapor humidifier and run it 24/7 to counteract the dry, dry air here in the mountains.

Next Kid's Mittens

After Sydney's mittens, Stan's mom's words rang in my ears, "You can't make stepchildren!"  So I started on mittens for the rest of the kids.  These are Sam's and they match a hat I made for him. 

Love that face!

Just good old Red Heart yarn, but when you're dealing with kids you want something inexpensive that will hold up.

And here is our last Christmas celebration for the season.  We met at Stan's sister's house for food and a white elephant gift exchange.  What a hoot!  Even the teenagers got into it!  Then after everybody's kids left, the brothers and sisters lingered to play a round of "Greedy, Greedy!" which is a lot like Farkle.  A nice way to usher out the old year!  The actual ushering at midnight went on without us, we were home and in bed by 10:00.

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!

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!

The Four S's

Stan, Steve, Syd and Sam went fishing today.  Our four S guys!  They had a great day!

Excited about the day!

Best buds-they are going to be inseparable growing up.

The catch-they each reeled one in.

I'm glad they had the chance to do a last fishing trip before school starts-a week from Wednesday already!

Birthday Sewing

Monday is Sam's 7th birthday and he is crazy about cars and racing.  He goes to the stock car races every Friday with his family and can rattle off names, stats and owners better than kids lots older than he is.  He especially loves it when his Uncle Steve is there because they really get into the game together.  Sam's mom and dad go just because they love him and want to encourage his interests, but Uncle Steve is an ally in the Friday night routine.

When they were staying with us a couple of weeks ago and I was sewing for Gracie, Sam spied a piece of race car print flannel.  He begged me to make him pajamas for his birthday.  I was noncommittal (tee hee!) but of course I made them.  Only thing was, it was the end of a bolt that I got a good price on but not enough for a top and bottom.  That's just fine with him-he only wears the bottoms-just like his 16 year old brothers.

I had seen a cute thing on Pinterest-a Matchbox car wallet.  It was for sale on Etsy and was really nice, but it only had places for cars on one side, so I set to work making one that would hold cars on both sides-a total of 8.  I had enough scraps from the pajama bottoms to make 2-one for Sam and one for Sydney-Stan's mom always said, probably in Dutch, "You can't make stepchildren!"

I bought 8 Matchbox cars and put them in the wallet.  Then yesterday I was walking through Walmart and spied this:

It was only five bucks so I've added it to the gift.

Eight nice compartments for cars.  Closed with my best friend, Velcro.

I can't wait til the kid see this!  He's going to love it!

What sold me was the tiny signs.  These are all Matchbox-sized cars.  His folks are going to be thrilled with 17 new Matchbox cars for the boy!

Sam's party request is a camping trip to Hyalite lake, a few miles from here.  Stan and I don't have a camper right now so we'll go up in the afternoon and come back home to sleep.  Gotta love an air bed and indoor plumbing!

Kiddos

Millie had another heart cath procedure in Salt Lake City today, so we've  had the two youngest since yesterday.  Chris is in Wyoming and Isaac has a new job at Pizza Hut so it's just the two little ones.

Stan took Sam fishing today, along with his friend Anders.

They had a really good time, Grandpa even let Sam "drive" the boat for a while.

The catch of the day-five walleye and a trout.  We had trout and walleye for supper tonight-yum!

Gracie and I went to town to get some sewing supplies.  We were just starting lunch when I realized I had left my phone at home.  Since I didn't want to miss Jim's call about Millie, we cut our time in town short and came home.  It gave us some time for some sewing.  I gave Grace a sewing lesson, and she watched while I made her a new dress:

A nice summer frock, cool and airy!

Millie is doing great-she was even alert enough to call the kids tonight.  They think they hit most of the damaged spots this time.

Summer Stuff

It's been pretty hot here.  We've had a couple of storms that actually brought some nice rain, but then it warms back up again-so not like Montana.  Usually it's hot for a few days, then rains and gets chilly.  I don't mind this one bit!

Took the grandkids to the Bogert pool, but it's an outdoor pool and the thunder and lightening hit, so the pool was closed.  They played in the playground for a while and then Millie stopped by and picked up Grace and Sam.  Syd talked his dad into staying for the farmer's market and concert, so he was with us all night.  Mostly he played on the playground-we positioned our chairs at the concert so we could watch him all evening.  He had a blast, and we heard a nice concert.

His dad gave him enough money to go on the bungee bouncer:

We celebrated Independence Day by going to the fairgrounds to take in the Bozeman Symphony's all-American concert, followed by fireworks.  The Symphony even accompanied some of them.  The best fireworks evening I think I've had.

Since Syd had to go back to his mom's soon, he, Stan & Steve took the boat out fishing.  They had a ball!

A beautiful Montana sunrise!

 Yesterday we took our Costco rebate and a World Market gift card to town-time to get them spent.  We made quite a little haul-I got a new vacuum cleaner, a small TV for the kitchen, a 16G memory card for my camera, and ribeye steaks for two meals at Costco.  At World Market I found a new outdoor rug for my deck.  When Stan and my cousin built the deck, my cousin talked him into leaving a gap between the floor boards.  The only problem is, the thin legs on my chairs fall through, so I put a rug over it to prevent that.  The old rug was bad enough to make it into the trash.

Chloe and I both think it looks snazzy-kind of tropical.  It's quite a bit larger than the old one.  This one is made from plastic, so maybe it won't rot quite so quickly.

We assembled the vacuum and I took it for a test drive in the living room.  I was astounded to see how much dog hair ended up in the dirt cup!  Plus a lot of dirt-and I thought my old vac was working!

Now that my deck is spruced up, I'm headed out there to catch a cool breeze and eat ice cream with fresh strawberries from the garden.  Can't beat that for a summer evening!