I'm Still Breathing!

Hi all. It's been an age since I have posted. I will soon post some photos.  Remodeling is keeping me from quilting, but I have been steadily, but slowly, cross stitching on a simple fairy pattern.  On the next rainy day, I'll be working on redoing squares on a crochet afghan that stalled.  Otherwise, now that the snow is nearly gone, yardwork will be taking over for a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, if you cross-stitch, you might want to visit this site. Lots of patterns, but if you are particular about copyright, don't go there. That said, many of the patterns there have been out of print for ages.
CatDragon invite you to Cross Stitch
Ch Crossstitch

That's it for now! Oh.. what do you think about using these for my summer curtains?  I made two sets. One was slightly too small. The second set went astray in the mail so never arrived for the swap.  They arrived about a month ago having been sitting in a Missouri post office (they were supposed to be in Tennessee, I think). Anyway, I've already completed the quilt top that they were to be used in, so I thought..huh...curtains for my bedroom. What do you think? They are 6x8 inch finished.

Housesitting and Crochet Progress

Housesitting for my sister and BIL while they visit BIL's son. It's been pleasant and then a front came through. Got about 1.5 inches of snow and the temp dropped to the teens during the day and about zero at night.

So, what have I been doing?  I decided to focus on finishing a friendship afghan that has been waiting for awhile.  I got my last friendship square about 3 months ago.  So, I spent a few days enlarging some squares so that they went together well.  Kitties wanted to be on my lap, but not crocheting, so I did a lot of reading too (love my ebooks).  Today though, I spread out all my squares.  NOW they are interested in the crocheting. Now that I have my project all laid out, Huff came along to make sure that it didn't move.

Huff keeping everything straight....sortof

Spitty came along to help too.

Her Highness, Miss Spitty assists.

Enjoy your turkey at Thanksgiving?  Here's some wild ones that showed up in my sister's backyard looking for any spilled seed from the birdfeeder.

Not exactly the birds we intended to feed sunflower seeds.

Ravelympics Day 2

Working on ladybugs. Here's the one that I finished last night.


How tired is that kitty in the window? This is her favorite spot and she is currently baking in the sun.

Ravelympics Begins!

I am grateful that Blogger heard my crankiness and has now added a light gray to the background where you do all the workings of your blog. SO much more readable. Thanks Blogger.  However, I must point out that I am NOT RESPONSIBLE for any of the ADVERTISEMENTS that you see.  I knew eventually Blogger would need to generate money somehow.  Maybe I can get crafting ads, you think?



Again, it is the Ravelympics and I of course will be participating.  My plans include completing the crocheted ladybug afghan, making a toy and a tea cozy.  Not huge things, but getting that afghan done finally will be PROGRESS!! I had planned to include a pair of socks in there somewhere, but couldn't find the yarn - it's in a box safe from the cat, but alas, I don't know which box.

Why join one thing when you can do two? I am also participating in the crochetville.org celebration by working on the afghan. 

All that is left for the afghan is the sewing and final rounds. But, as we all know, finishing takes a long time.  Therefore, I have several audiobooks to listen to while doing so. What? Not watching the Olympics? Can't.  140 countries can stream the Olympics for free, but not the US. We gotta pay.  I'm not going to.  I don't have an antennae hookup for the TV that I use to work on my projects, so I'm out of luck. I hope that eventually, I will be able to see the Opening Ceremonies on YouTube or something.  If I can remember how to change my IP address, I can confuse my computer enough to watch volleyball from British Television.

I haven't posted because I haven't been doing any crafting. My hands are finally not giving me too much trouble and I just started sewing a project yesterday. It's a repeat of the Triple Irish Chain and it will be once again in white and scraps.

That's about it. Progress photos in a day or so! Oh, and btw, buying an Itouch can seriously cut into your knitting/quilting/crocheting time.  You get sucked into a game and boom, you've run out of time.

I Detest The New Blogger 'Look'

I plan to complain to Blogger about their 'new look'. It is SO unfriendly to those of us with vision problems. Seriously, did these folks even bother to look at this and think 'huh, this is an awful lot of white space.  I like the features in Blogger, but if they don't change, I will be going elsewhere. 

Anyway, haven't been posting much because I haven't been doing much.  I think the allergies are beating me down, but I'm trying to make myself overcome the tiredness and get stuff done. At the very least, I have to get ready for a garage sale.   I finished a swap and sent it out into the mail before remembering to take a photo. Darn it.  Hopefully more to post this weekend.

Catching Up

As soon as I get done with my swap and the QATW BOM, I'll be working on an old, old BOM. Back around 2002, I bought a bunch of Joann's Holiday Tidings quilt blocks from the clearance box. This was a BOM from 2000. Over time, I've acquired other packages of this project so that I now have enough fabric to do all the blocks. Joanne's QuiltBlocks Dept. (1-866-784-5825) will send you copies of any missing instructions, which is great. While I know I will have to substitute a little fabric for the bottom quadrant, I think the result will be great!

Apps and crafts

I am a gadget person by nature, but not with a lot of money. I have been perfectly happy with my Nano to listen to music and audiobooks while quilting, knitting, crocheting or cross stitching. But, the temptation of apps finally suckered me. I didn't need an iPhone so bought an ITouch. Love it. Love my gadget devices. Will your world be less if you don't have these apps? Nope. Stick with your Nano. But, if you already have the gadget, here are some apps you may find useful.

Block Tool is perfect for a quilter. Has 102 common blocks in 5 sizes. Worth the $5 if you commonly struggle with figuring out what to do in a hurry for that next baby blanket or gifted lap quilt. If you already have Electric Quilt, the app is redundant. Quilt Block is by C&T Publishing.

Sewing kit is an app created for sewers. You can store your inventory of patterns to take with you. Each pattern has a place to keep yardages. While it can be used for quilting, it is clearly designed for garment sewing. You can create projects linked to pattern and fabric as well. I loaded it with 42 garment, accessory and household patterns. If you load the manufacturer and pattern number, the app searches a database for current patterns, and adds photos if there are any. If not, you can take a photo to add to the pattern.. I had a few crashes when taking photos of patterns not in the manufacturer's database, but it was still fast. I did it while watching 2 episodes of a Brit crime drama on Netflix.

Finally, many cross stitchers and other crafters like to keep track of the time worked on a project. If you charge $$, then you certainly need to do that. Hours tracker is intended to be used by jobbers. At $5, it's a good choice for cross stitchers as well. It runs in the background, so uses less power. It will also keep a history of your job. Do you need it? Nope. There's a free stopwatch as part of the programming even on a nano. Gadgets. I love them.

As I find other apps that are useful, I will tag them. Ok, well Polly is knocking over everything so that I will go to the quilting sewing area, so I will post another time. But, not by ITouch. This took forever to type.