Holiday Family Portait

Last year my employer offered all employees the opportunity to have a free 8x10 family portrait taken at the hospital by a professional photographer. I didn't take advantage of the offer last year but this year decided to have one done with Cowboy. This is the resulting photo which I've sent to my dad and stepmother as a Christmas present. Kind of weird to send a photo of yourself as a gift but I've never had a portrait done and my dad will be very thrilled I think. Of course I bought more than just an 8x10 because my guy is so handsome. So look out family!
LOL

And of course in true Cowboy fashion, there is more to the story. After taking this photo, the photographer asked if I would like a picture of just Cowboy so I of course said yes. Well I don't know what I was thinking but I took the leash off - didn't want it in the photo - and he was fine for the first few tries but then of course I took my hand off him and he was out of the door in a flash. So out I go into the hospital to catch him. I think everything is fine as he's heading towards the family waiting room into our special care unit which has a door. What I didn't know was that there's a door from that room into the unit (which was not supposed to be open but of course was). Of course my dear demon dog heads right into the unit and into a patient room which was thankfully empty. One of the nurses got the door shut and caught him but of course it was a bit of pandemonium for a few minutes there.

We went home right after that!

Chocolate Covered Cherries

Yum, Yum!! That is the name of this sock yarn which I bought from Spunky Eclectic, a Maine based yarn seller. This is the first of the 2 pairs of socks that I need to have finished by Christmas and I really love how it turned out. It's going to be hard to give these away! The yarn is great to work with and they worked up much faster using #3 needles and sport weight yarn versus #1 and fingering weight. I've started the second and am going to be knitting madly on the body any minute I get. I hope to finish it by Saturday so I can cast on for another pair with a different color of Spunky Eclectic.

I also hope to put a few starting stitches in a birthday gift that is due December 23rd. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be late in mailing it out but I'm gonna do my best!

Why I'm not a quilter

While I was working on exchange stitching, I also started this. The pattern is called Turning Twenty and for most people it's a very easy quilt pattern. Everything was going very smoothly until I realized, after sewing my last block together, that the yellow, pink and blue blocks in the layout corresponded to light, medium and dark fabric choices. In the Turning Twenty pattern, no two fabrics should touch each other. As you can tell, mine do - largely as a result of the light not dawning as to what the pink, yellow and blue meant. You can stop laughing now!

Oh well, it's my own unique creation. I still have to add a strip border on all sides and possibly an outside border depending on the finished size. The fabrics are what motivated me to make the quilt - they are different from my usual pallet but I really, really like them. And this is a very easy pattern to make - so much so that I will probably attempt another just to get it right! But I don't think I'll ever call myself a quilter.

Yikes it's been a while since I posted!

Sorry about the hiatus but things have just continued to be very busy at work and I have been madly scrambling to finish a few items that I couldn't show. I have been very, very busy the last six weeks. That means no blogging and virtually no blog reading as well. I really feel out of touch and I'm going to have to make a focused effort to catch up with all of my favorite bloggers and there are many of you out there!

I guess I will start my first December post with a photo of the wonderful Secret Santa exchange package I received from Danielle. She and I are part of a wonderful Yahoo group and I was lucky enough to have here as the person sending to me. She stitched the Country Cottage Needleworks ornament from JCS 2006. It is absolutely wonderful and she did a great job with the finishing. I think it's even prettier than in the magazine. She also included a wonderful little holiday note pad I'm hanging on my refrigerator and three GAST threads, Oatmeal, Cranberry and Pine - so Christmassy! She also spoiled me with two charts of my wish list, PS Winter Winds (I got Autumn Winds at Hershey CATS) and HIH's 2006 Collector's heart. Plus there was a yummy chocolate bar that won't last long around here!

Here is what I sent to my exchange partner, Peg. It is a freebie from Brightneedle and I stitched it over one on 28ct Water Lily and used a beaded edge finish and hanger. Peg seemed to be happy with it but one corner came out a little wonky because I think I left too much fabric in the seams - 1/2 inch vs. 1/4 which I think would have been better.












I have also managed to finally finish these socks - both of them although there is only one in this photo - and I've started another pair with a yummy hand dyed sock yarn from Spunky Eclectic. The yarn is sport weight and I'm using #3 needles so it's coming along faster. Think I can get two more pairs done before Christmas? LOL I'm going to try.