Day 366 of 2020

All dressed up with nowhere to go. 

There's nobody I'd rather have nowhere to go with. 

Waiting for the New Year.

 

Day 365 of 2020

It felt like magic tonight.

It won't last long so I'm soaking it in.

 

Day 364 of 2020

This recipe and I had our moments. 

We didn't seem to be on the same page, but I hung in there. 

I'm glad I did.

Day 363 of 2020

It's hard to keep track of the days sometimes. 

Today is Monday, I think. 

Monday is laundry day. 

The red load is always the last load of clothes for the day.

 

Day 362 of 2020

I know I'm being repetitive but the majority of my time today

 was spent knitting on this hat. 

I have finished the chart portion of the hat 

and am ready to begin the crown decreases.

 

Day 361 of 2020

Today's caption was going to be something about how my cables

 have turned the other direction,

 but as soon as I took the picture,

 I discovered that I had done almost the entire last row wrong.

 I undid the row and have now fixed it. 

I'm really enjoying knitting this hat

 now that I am familiar with what each step looks like as it comes up.

 

Day 360 of 2020

Merry Christmas! 

Fireball and I were not with family for Christmas

 for the first time since we were married. 

We did though have a lovely family text conversation going on throughout the day

 sharing food and thoughts, much like we did on Thanksgiving. 

In the afternoon we did our gift exchange via Zoom meeting. 

It was so good to see everyone and hear their voices.  

Thanks to M for setting the meeting up. 

Thanks to everyone for showing up and making our day.

 

Day 359 of 2020

Fireball made the salads. 

I made the sweets. 

And of course I'm still crafting. 

We are ready for tomorrow. 

"After all there's only one more sleep till Christmas."

 

Day 358 of 2020

What is it? 

It's a hat. It's a Christmas tree hat. 

In the original picture the colorful yarns showing are the tails from all the bobbles

 attached to the outside which still needed to be woven in and tied. 

I made two of the final star I tested and stitched them together, 

stuffed them a little and sewed them to the top of the tree. 

We sent the hat home with family tonight for someone's first Christmas.

As it turns out it fits the intended recipient (GB#5) fairly well, 

and she seems pretty happy about it. 

To be fair, she always seems to be smiling in the pictures we receive. 

We can't wait until it is safe to see her again in person.

 

Day 357 of 2020

Tools of the trade. 

Where am I?

 

Day 356 of 2020

The tree is up and decorated 

with just a few handmade ornaments and a new garland.

 

Day 355 of 2020

I've been making lots of things lately. 

This is one of the things I finished today. 

Any guesses? 

What Is It? 

 

Day 354 of 2020

I finally labeled and washed the quilt. 

It has gone home with R. 

I think she likes it. 

Please excuse the charging cord.

 

Day 353 of 2020

This is my first time trying this in the Instant Pot. 

It certainly LOOKS like stew.

It was really good. Fireball went for seconds.

 

Day 352 of 2020

The glue on the first circle ornament is drying. 

I think that means it's a good time to start cutting circles 

out of the first stack of older Christmas cards. 

And why not try out a couple more crocheted star designs? 

I still need to find different yarn.

 

Day 351 of 2020

First snow.

 

Day 350 of 2020

I'm making something that needs a star on top. 

I made a test star today that turned out pretty well except for the size. 

Tomorrow I'll see if I can find some smaller gauge yarn to make a smaller star.

 

Day 349 of 2020

Fireball installed a new light fixture in the big room where the longarm lives. 

This is the first time I have seen it from the outside at night. 

Wow, that's bright.

 

Day 348 of 2020

Since things are not normal this year and we will have no guests for Christmas, 

we will probably only get out the small white tree. 

I think I'm not even going to have Fireball go up to the attic

 to bring down ornaments. 

He did find a good stack of greeting cards

 from past Christmases somewhere in the house,

 so I think I'll see how many of these ornaments made with circles I can make. 

It will be nice to have family and friends represented on our tree. 

(These circles are not from cards

 but from leftover pieces of that calendar I was cutting.)

 

Day 347 of 2020

I made paper bag snowflakes. 

Did you guess? 

I have made four and there are more to come. 

I'll post full photos when I get a grouping together. 

These things are huge. 

The largest one measures 20 inches in diameter.

 

Day 346 of 2020

I've got my craft supplies. 

I hope to get to the crafting tomorrow. 

Does anyone know what I'm going to make?

 

Day 345 of 2020

Afternoon walk.

 

Day 344 of 2020

I forgot to take a picture where I had planned

 but I'm not unhappy about that.

 

Day 343 of 2020

I'm definitely obsessed with these little soft peppermints.

 

Day 342 of 2020

I'm sewing secret stuff and knitting the same thing I was yesterday

 so there isn't much to photograph. 

I did embellish my grocery heading on the chalkboard though.

 

Day 341 of 2020

There is new knitting on my needle.

 

Day 340 of 2020

I'm changing the dishes today. 

My colors are going to be very traditional this year. 

They will include Scarlet, White, Black, Meadow and Evergreen.

 

Day 339 of 2020

We were about to throw out our last pumpkin this week

 to make way for the next holiday

 when it occurred to me that if the squirrels love to eat our cut pumpkins every year,

 they may very well like to take advantage of this uncut one,

 so I suggested that Fireball take it to the back yard

 and place it under the bird feeder. 

I guessed that the squirrels and the birds might both enjoy it 

and so far this is proving to be true.

 

Day 338 of 2020

Well, I finally got the quilt outside for some pictures. 

The details are all over on More Curiously along with lots more pictures.

 

Day 337 of 2020

I've finally devised a way to get quilt pictures 

without having to stress out someone's arms and possibly grab a neighbor to help. 

In the process of installing the new system, 

I found that our shed is not level and plumb. 

I debated for a bit as to whether I install the hooks along the planks (not level) 

and risk each quilt hanging wonky because it's not level 

or installing the system level 

and risk the whole picture looking askew because of the shed. 

In the end I decided to hang the hooks level 

and you just may see that our shed has a lean to it. 

Next spring this poor shed will get some long awaited TLC.

I'm afraid she'll still be wonky though.

 

Day 336 of 2020

These little clothes, in the sweetest colors, need some little fixes. 

I sure hope I get them done before GB#5 outgrows them

 without a chance to wear them. 

 

Day 335 of 2020

I ran into an issue with my gauge but did a quick fix that I think will work. 

I've moved on to decreases. 

It looks like I will be needing to add a DPN soon.

 

Day 334 of 2020

I'm working on some knitted colorwork. 

I find the backside fascinating.

 

Day 333 of 2020

I finally finished my truck the other day. 

For those of you who were wondering about my last What is It?, 

I painted it green. 

 

Day 332 of 2020

Replace the vases and pumpkin decoration with this sweet little tree and,

 boom, you have Christmas. 

It actually feels more like winter and will probably stay this way until spring.

 

Day 331 of 2020

So thankful. 

Happy Thanksgiving.

 

Day 330 of 2020

For several years I bought the Paper Source wall calendar which, 

when the year is over, 

becomes many note cards, file folders, gift tags and bookmarks

 when you cut out the templates printed on the backside of each pretty month. 

Today I finally cut out the pieces from the 2017 calendar.

 

Day 329 of 2020

One thing old, two things new.

 

Day 328 of 2020

I just realized that there are only a couple days until Thanksgiving. 

Since we are not hosting family, 

I totally lost track of time and haven't even written down a menu yet, 

let alone shop for food. 

I hope something is still left at the store once I finally go. 

 

Day 327 of 2020

I found a couple little cross stitch  patterns that I thought were cute 

so I thought I would raid my stash of embroidery floss 

to see if I had the colors to make one of them. 

After I finally got the numbers more or less converted to the kind of floss I own, 

I looked in the three-drawer container of floss and 

this is the only color I had on the entire list.

 

Day 326 of 2020

Today I made my floors shine.

 

Day 325 of 2020

Just for you -

This beautiful sky.

 

Day 324 of 2020

As you know when I am looking for something, I often don't find it. 

Sometimes, like tonight, 

I find one thing I have been looking for on another occasion

 but couldn't find then. 

I also tend to find things I forgot I had, 

forgot what I was doing, or just have no idea. 

This would be an example of that. 

At first I couldn't even figure out what it was. 

It's on the design wall now and I can see what is going on better. 

I'm sure I was waiting until I decided on a border fabric

 to finish all the outside edges of the blocks.. 

I can also see that there are seams that I have taken apart. 

Now I remember there was some issue that was going to result in missing points

 that I could not immediately remedy. 

This is probably the reason it had to go to time out.

I have no idea what pattern this is or how I cut the pieces. 

The result is likely to be a fairly small quilt. 

Now that I know sort of what is going on here, I'll probably put it away again. 

I need the design wall for a top I'm currently working on, 

I really prefer to make larger quilts right now, 

and I have way too many projects that come before this one.

 

Day 323 of 2020

You may be thinking that I got a new refrigerator. 

I did not, 

but I think it looks like new after a much needed deep clean.

 

Day 322 of 2020

Is anyone else ready to skip right to decorating for Christmas? 

I have been thinking about how to make it simple this year. 

Here is one of my favorite Santas. 

He lives in the china cabinet all year long.

 

Day 321 of 2020

Earlier this evening I had one side of binding to finish. 

Now it's done. 

Pictures will come when I can get outside and get some nice light.

 

Day 320 of 2020

It has been extremely windy all day. 

We lost power before 10:00 this morning due to a downed line. 

The temperature dropped all day. 

By dinner time we still had no power, the house was cold, and I couldn't cook dinner.

We opted to get take out. 

We decided to eat it in the car to give ourselves time to warm up 

and charge our phones in case we were still without power when we arrived home.

This was the scene as we turned the corner onto our street. 

There were no less than eight utility trucks lining the street 

and we were afraid we would not be able to access our driveway. 

Luckily we could and power was restored shortly after we arrived home. 

All is well. 

 

Day 319 of 2020

I usually do handwork at night and machine work in the daytime. 

Chain piecing is my favorite. 

This is my happy place.

 

Day 318 of 2020

The binding is going well. 

I have completed four corners and one side. 

Three straight sides to go.