I couldn't wait!!!

My two dear friends from Iowa are coming up in two weekends and I can't wait to see them.  We're going to sew like the wind!  We will have three independent sewing machines stitching away on our table.  One of the items I suggested we work on was a chenille blanket as inspired by Aesthetic Nest. 

I sent the link to Brenda and she was all for it.  The project requires 45" of a cotton calico print and three 45" cuts of flannel.  Luckily Joann's was having flannels on sale last week so Brenda and I both cleaned up in our respective Joann's.  The flannels are chosen for the color and not the print because only edges of the flannels are seen once the project is finished.  I already know my mother would disapprove my choice of colors but I just love pukey greens!

Like I said, I couldn't wait to start this project.  I wanted to test run it too so I'd know what to expect if we tackled it as a group.  I am SO going to make many more of these.  You find the diagonal/hypotenuse of the fabric using a strand of yarn.  Then you stitch your layers of fabric together on this line along with thousands of other parallel lines stitched 1/2" away from this central line.  I always think everything is going to take just 10 minutes but I labored an entire afternoon stitching all those channels.

Here is the blanket all stitched and I think those simple lines look quite stunning!

Now for the cutting!  Dave quite pleasantly surprised me by going out and finding this tool and buying it for me for Christmas.  I'd hunted in Joann's, Michaels and Hobby Lobby and they didn't have it.  He ultimately found it in Hancock Fabrics.  I was impressed with his initiative.

This is the most ingenious little tool.  It is basically a rotary cutter combined with letter opener technology.  There are 4 different sized "feet" that you slide into your stitched channels depending on their width.  You could cut every single channel with a pair of scissors (I cut the smallest edge channels this way) but you have to be really careful not to cut through the cotton print.  This tool makes it effortless and mindless and ensures the cut is centered in the channel.

I used the 1/2" foot for my channels and it was slick.

Here it is all cut and waiting to be bound.  This is how I left it when I stopped to get ready for work yesterday.  I'd been thinking about it non stop until tonight when I got home to finish it.  I just love the look and feel of those cut channels.  It is quite sturdy too.  For some reason I thought the blanket would be quite flimsy once cut.  I did spend the money for a sturdy and supple cotton print which clearly made a difference.  You wouldn't want to use a gauze-y or cheap fabric for the base.

I originally bought 2 packages of satin blanket binding and was just going to do a mitered corner full on blankie binding.  I was thinking about this all day at work and instead decided to try for a narrower binding like the tutorial.  Plus I really liked the idea of curved corners.  I was too nervous to pin and stitch a folded binding to such a thick and textured blanket.  It is tricky enough trying to control one binding edge let alone two.  I thought I'd practice on some leftover binding in the stash and decided I liked that color better than what I'd purchased.  And since you cut it in half, I had more than enough to finish my project.

I pressed under 1/4" and then stitched the un-ironed edge right side down to the flannel side of the blanket edge.  Please excuse my skanky ironing board.

Then I folded the binding over to the other edge of the blankie, pinned it to death and then top stitched the pressed edge to finish the blankie.

Ta-DA!!!  Here it is fresh from the dryer.  The flannel strips have frayed and turned into chenille just like it's supposed to.  My favorite thing!  Melissa and Brenda and I always call this moment "the reveal" because it has done it's own magic.  The colors look absolutely terrible in this light but it is 0032 at the moment.  Most of my best sewing/knitting/crafting happens in the wee hours of the night.  I texted a picture to Brenda too.  She still works nights and some of our best conversations took place in the wee hours of the night when we were at work together or on the phone on a night off!

Christmas 2015

 

 We survived Christmas again this year.  On Christmas Day, we had 28 Andersons here instead of the 40 we'd had 2 years before.  Everything went well despite the fact that we didn't have our informal "program" where we all sing "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer".  I got to put up my "big girl" Christmas tree--this is the $300 pre-lit tree that I got on sale and with a coupon at Joann's for $85 dollars late last Christmas season!  The tree skirt was a lovely and classic gift from my sister, despite it being from the Sandra Lee Collection.  I don't like Sandra Lee but I love the tree skirt.

Dave's sister gave us 18 beautiful eggs produced by "her girls".  They are lovely to behold and delicious to eat.  The two light colored ones actually have a greenish tint to them.  I hope the hen had an epidural for that large egg that contained two yolks.  I just love these rustic simple gifts the best!  My sister's neighbor dyed eggs to look like this with onion skins last Easter.  I will have to try that in a few months.

We enjoyed a very warm December and it only froze up after Christmas.  We enjoyed our second annual Tveiten Christmas Skating Party.  Dave is the official equipment manager and he built a regulation size goal out of 2 x 2's and chicken wire.  Here is a picture of the "rink" cleared off for the first time this season.

The Johns were here for New Year's Eve and we enjoyed a bright night on the ice due to the overcast sky.  We even enjoyed a fire before retiring to the warm house for ginger beer on the stove.  We all stayed up and watched the ball drop before heading to bed.

My sister and her family arrived the next day and we had more fun on the ice.  Last year I think we had only 2 pairs of skates between all of us and she bravely tried some on and did quite well.  This year all the Johns and my husband had skates and Lisa talked me into trying on Dave's.  I last ice skated at least 25 years ago on West Twin Lakes with David and Alitza Rueber.  I wore second hand figure skates at the time and all I can remember about the day was I was black and blue because I fell on my knees about every 3 feet or so.  I have to say I didn't do too bad this time around.  David Rueber would be proud of me.  I remember too he laced my skates SO TIGHT I thought my ankles would break.  I did fall down on my right knee once but that was when I was wearing boots and slipped on the ice.  I never fell wearing skates.

You'll notice I'm pushing a metal folding chair around the ice to steady myself.  This is not crazy because our neighbors who are serious hockey people start their kids off on the ice pushing folding chairs around.  Notice my death defying move where I spin around AND the chair is actually lifted off the ice!  I'm wearing my husband's hockey skates which for some reason I found easier to wear than I remember figure skates.  It was amazing how you feel muscles you never knew you had in your feet and ankles.  Boot hockey is fun too but skating is effortless.  I pushed my nieces and nephew around on that chair and it was smooth and easy unlike walking/running would have been.  My brother bought his oldest daughter/my niece a new pair of skates while they were here and they gave me the hand-me-down pair.  Hopefully this will serve as a great and FUN exercise activity vs. crying on the treadmill.  Unfortunately, my brother in law and his kids brought strep throat and my dad brought a cold.  I am attempting to breathe and drain snot through some sort of infection I picked up during the holiday so skating will have to wait for a bit.  So far my tonsils are not involved and I'm drinking juice and praying like nobody's business.

As long as I'm posting videos, here is probably my favorite from the weekend!  Dave skated around our rink wearing the viking helmet/beard!  He looks like a big muppet!  But notice how slick he moves on those skates!  Even my niece Annika, who prior to this weekend was afraid to move away from the boards, was skating around like a pro by Saturday.

Even my 64 year old mother and 66 year old father got in on the action.  Here is mom playing goal in an action shot!

There was plenty of goofing around on the ice too as evidenced in this picture!  Skating and pushing a human on a folding chair takes no effort!

I just loved this shot of hockey fun from my sewing room window!

My big home-made Christmas gift for my nieces and nephew and husband was this knitted helmet hat.  These are the 3 hats that went to my sister's kids and the Gopher hat I produced for my father in law and husband combining 2 hat patterns.  This is an awful picture and I never got a chance to take a picture of the kids IN their hats.  I even sold one of these and a pair of mittens as a commission to a coworker of mine.

If this were Imgur, this would be the dog tax.  My brother brought his beagle Zeke for the festivities.  My sister brought her Jack Russel Terrier.  My parents brought their poodle Sparky and of course we had our dog Lopi and our foster beagle Zak.  We had FIVE dogs here for the occasion and Zeke posed so nicely on the back of the couch.  He just looks like a Christmas card!

Roosevelt Cardigan

So I finished my sweater challenge...on December 4th.  I totally could have finished it on time if I hadn't signed up for the hospital craft show.  I'd always been interested in it but never knew about it in time to have any inventory ready.  I took the entire contents of my Etsy shop and devoted a few precious November knitting days making bath bombs and knitting stocking caps and dish cloths.  I even delayed putting up my Christmas tree until today to try and make all my deadlines!

I finished the sweater but made an executive decision I now regret:  I didn't pick up all the stitches called for in the pattern around the neck and button band because I thought it would be too crowded and now wish I had.  If I hadn't been so pressed for time, I probably wouldn't have done that.  I always tell people to never bake bread in a hurry and I guess the same goes for knitting sweaters!  I love it for wearing around the house but I guess I won't be entering this one in the fair any time soon.

I hadn't sewn the buttons on yet for the picture because again I was in a hurry and we were losing the light...at 1530 in the afternoon.  Soon the days will start getting longer again.

I tried posing with Lopi for some pictures but she wasn't too cooperative.  She is always so cute though!

Here are my buttons!  I bought these in Iceland from Pall and Rita.  They're cut and polished from antlers and I got 5 others made from bone.  I've kicked myself ever since I bought them because I should have gotten more than 5 each.  This sweater was perfect because it needs only 5 to close the lower 2/3.  Hopefully some day soon I'll make the trip back.

NaKniSweMo 2015

I am frantically knitting on my National Knit A Sweater In A Month challenge despite yet again being off to a late start.  So far I have a sleeve and 1/3 done.  I've recently started receiving DVD's in the mail again from Netflix.  I've always had the service available, but it took me almost 3 years to send back the discs I had because there was so much on Instant Netflix to keep me busy.  I'm hooked on the FX series Fargo.  I have series 2 on my DVR and I have one more disc of season 1 to get through.  Great show and I'm weirdly proud to be a Minnesotan while watching it.  I also love love love the poster for the series made in knitwear!  And in the spirit of Minnesota, my brother and his family are coming down tomorrow and we're all going to the Minnesota Wild hockey game downtown!  Weeeeeeeeee!  I think I'm going to have to re-watch the series on the treadmill because I do think I'm missing a few details here and there looking down at my knitting.  It is such a good show that I won't be upset to watch it again.

Silver Service

On our last outing to Saver's, I picked up this beautiful silver tray for $8!  It was tarnished but not pitted and had a few light scratches but overall, it was in very good shape.  I polished it up and am so pleased with it.  My mother has one just like this and I saw it every day gleaming in her china cabinet.  She also has a full silver coffee service set that would come out at Christmas and luncheons and receptions.  They were wedding gifts and she can tell you who got her each piece.  When I was a kid, it was my regular task to polish the silver and now that job falls to my nieces.  I can't get this into my hutch so I will have to find a home for it.  It is so pretty that I wouldn't mind it sitting out on the hutch counter where I can see it every day.

And yes, I'm a nerd and had to put my teapot and some Polish pottery on it.  I got the teacups and saucers in Poland, the sugar bowl is from ebay, the cobalt creamer was made by a potter in York, the teapot came from Vermontcountrystore.com and the Polish creamer was acquired in Iceland.  Quite an international tea service!  Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a dorky tea party with myself!  I loved the movie Saving Mr. Banks and one of my favorite movie lines ever came from that film:  Tea is like balm for the soul.

Temperate Fall

We've enjoyed a beautiful and warm fall so far.  Today was another sunny day in the mid sixties.  Hard to believe it is November.  Here are some of the fall colors across our pond.  Those birch trees make me think of Dr. Zhivago.

We had maybe a dozen or so trick or treaters on Saturday.  Our front door is shown here in all it's Halloween glory.

My parents were here visiting this weekend.  Saturday we went and saw Bridge Of Spies (it was excellent!) and then did some thrifting at Saver's.  Dave reminded us that it was almost 5:00 and we needed to get home and get ready for Halloween.  He had hollowed out our pumpkin the night before and I carved it in record time.

I did some unorthodox knitting this weekend.  That is putting it mildly!  I'd been wanting to knit this for some time and what better time to own a viking hat and beard than Halloween?  The beard was made from yarn leftover from my nephew's vest and the hat used up some novelty yarn I had sitting in the stash.  Dad agreed that he could pass for a dwarf or a viking in this.  I think Dad already looks like John Rhys-Davies

My dad generously modeled and wore the hat for me while I attached the horns to make sure they were even.  Unfortunately, I never wore  it to answer the door for trick or treaters.  My parents and I had just sat down to eat at around 7 when the rush hour hit and I had to keep getting up for the door.

All this beard knitting got in the way of my Socktober knitting and I didn't finish my socks on time.  I started knitting these a week ago when I realized it was indeed Socktober.  Currently I am halfway through the first sleeve of my National Knit A Sweater In A Month Challenge so I will have to finish these here and there when I have the time but not the cumbersome sweater project in tow.

Stash Slimming

What you are looking at is my impromptu quilting area downstairs.  It is the larger of the two downstairs bedrooms and the only floor space large enough to lay out and assemble blankets.  The room has an added bonus of a door, so I can shut the dogs out when they decide they want to come and lay on my work!

I set my ironing board up in the downstairs hallway and my sewing machine on the table in the family room.  I got quite a lot of sewing done over the weekend and was happy about that.  Those dogs never cease to amuse me.  I was working on my first wretched seam of a jelly roll quilt and Zak was under the table.  He didn't seem to mind as all the fabric spilled off the back of the table and onto him.  His other trick is to lay on my pile of strips as I'm trying to feed them into the machine. 

I am happy to be the proud owner of two new blankets because the weather is getting colder and winter is the season for company.  This quilt was was pieced using up all the winter themed fabrics I'd collected over the years and backed with a cut of pale blue/gray batik purchased at SR Harris.  Everything I sewed this weekend was stuff I already had.  I used up 2 battings, about 15 yards of fabric and remnant spools of thread.

This quilt was a departure from all the other ones I've made.  It is certainly the most frilly and frou frou!  I had been collecting all these "shabby chic" floral prints for the colors because most of them are on blue backgrounds.  It is backed using a bed sheet my sister found for me at Saver's.  My grandma Joann made me a blanket for my bed out of the exact same fabric and I treasured it, more so after she passed away.  It was so worn out and the batting was totally gone in places.  If you held it up to the light, you could see through it, that's how worn out it was.  I painfully threw it away in the final frantic hours of packing to move to Minnesota and now I feel like I have a replacement for it.  Dave joked that he was a little scared to sleep with this blanket on the bed because it might reduce his sperm count.

The air is cool and crisp and it actually froze over the weekend.  I am proud to say we have not had the furnace on once yet this year but I did hang up the downstairs hall curtain.  We have electric baseboard heaters in the family room and this curtain confines the warm air to that room.  It is just a shower curtain rod with a length of fabric hung over it.  I actually hemmed it and made a casing for the rod whereas last year it was un-hemmed and safety pinned over the rod!

Dave's mother had knee replacement surgery and came home from the hospital on Friday.  We picked up her prescriptions and took supper over to his parents that night and on the way home, we stopped at the church jumble sale at St. Peter's.  I got a a Christmas ornament and centerpiece and Dave found this for $5!  He was so excited about it and insists that this go in the yard on Halloween so the trick or treaters see it.  What a nerd!  And of course the dogs are afraid of it.

Speaking of Halloween, I hung up the lights and the fake jack o lantern in the front window.  Once I saw it lit, I was horrified at how dirty my window is!  I will wash it after I take the decorations down.

This is my new favorite lunch!  Toast with mashed avocado, salt and pepper and topped with a poached egg.  Num NUM.  Today I've been doing laundry and cleaning and putzing around the house, but soon I will start cutting strips for a third quilt because I have one more batting to use up.  There has been some serious de-stashing around here of late!

Apples and Asphalt

Ok well maybe not asphalt but Dave and I seal coated our driveway 2 weekends ago.  We were at his parents' house the weekend before and his uber handy sister showed up with the supplies and equipment to treat his parents' driveway.  Most of the houses in our neighborhood have had their drives professionally done and of course it looks so sharp when it's done but I always worried about the cost and was afraid to tackle the project ourselves.  Theresa is absolutely fearless and had researched the project and watched YouTube videos and put us to work.  I kept telling Dave, "We can totally DO THIS!"

Here is our "before" picture on the sunny warm fall day we tackled our drive.  I used a Cool Whip bowl and a wide paint brush to pour and spread the seal around the edges and Dave used the squeegee mop to fill in the rest.  We have a wide and odd shaped drive because the sidewalk was poured and stopped 1/3 of the way down the lawn.  I think we could have just sealed over the sidewalk to make it easier on the eyes but that's just me.  There were 3 different sections of driveway too so the sealant really tied everything together.

We must have gone back to Menards six times that afternoon to get more and more sealant.  The drive was really rough and textured blacktop so the sealant just filled in all the gaps.  At the widest point, we were lucky to finish five feet of drive per 5 gallon bucket.

It looks so nice though and was worth every penny.  You can see where we slupsed onto the sidewalk there but oh well.  I really feel like we are keeping up with the Jones' now!

As for the apple portion of this post, it is fall and apples are in abundance.  Melissa has told me forever to get an Apple Master for peeling/slicing/coring and I finally broke down and got one.  I don't know what I was waiting for because it is AWESOME.  I picked mine up at Fleet Farm for $14.95.  While I was there, I was tickled pink to see all the lefse equipment on prominent display!  Those grills are manufactured in Cresco, IA.  Yay Iowa!  :)

Here is my Apple Master in action!  What did I ever do without this?  I drilled through BAGS of apples in just minutes.  My mother in law sent over 2 bags of Macintosh apples for sauce and this made quick work of them.

I love the thickness of the slices too because they are uniform and perfect for pies.

The Macintosh apples were cooked down, strained and canned into applesauce.

I used this Ball recipe and was very happy with the results.  The flavor, sweetness and color were all blue ribbon in my opinion.  It looked and tasted just like store-bought Musselman's applesauce and we will enjoy this through the winter.  Last year I had a terrible time sealing my applesauce because I'd made the sauce but processed it the next day and started with cold sauce.  This year I kept the sauce hot and canned it right away and had no trouble.

My brother came to stay with us for a few days while he is working here in town.  I cooked another roast chicken dinner but this time with an apple pie for dessert.  I love cooking big meals like that because then there are all kinds of leftovers and everyone is happy to fix their own plates the rest of the week!  See?  I'm always thinking!  ;)  I had some leftover pastry and some leftover honey crisp apple filling and threw together a rustic apple tart for my in-laws.  I delivered it to them and we sat and visited in their fragrant rose garden so it was a lovely afternoon.  My mother in law is having knee replacement surgery next week so this will fortify her for the coming procedure.  She called me later that evening and told me I could bring her an apple tart any time I wanted!

Finally, here is a picture of my brother carving the bird with Lopi looking on.  She was naughty the next day and got into the garbage and ate some chicken bones.  Of course I panicked but she is OK and has had 2 normal poops since then. 

I am loving my new job and the flexibility of my new hours.  I am scheduled only 3 days a week with some on-call here and there, no regular weekends or holidays and I can sign up for all the extra hours I want.  I love being able to be home and I'll be available to fuss over my mother in law next week.  I signed up for an on call shift last night and never got called in so I got to stay home and be paid to knit all night.  I'll post pictures of my sweater progress soon.  I'm also working on some fingering weight gloves.  It occurred to me today that it is Socktober so I'd better get busy and knit a pair of socks and next month is NanKniSweMo so I'd better be finding a project!

Tonight is the first game of The Minnesota Wild which is another sure sign of fall.  So far we've been blessed with beautiful foliage and mild temperatures.  I love this time of year because we haven't had the air on for weeks and we have yet to use the furnace.  I like to challenge myself to see how low I can get that utility bill!