Knitting for Christmas

 Getting a few things done for Christmas  here are a couple of fun project for some of the ones I love. This hat  and some fun leaf shaped dish cloths- great stocking stuffers

working on getting some other projects done so that each one of my family have something hand made by me for this Christmas. Which I try and do every year.
how about you do you have a hand made Christmas rule?

Gifts

A gift for my sweet Aunt Janet.  I really wish I would have taken a better picture, anyhow this is a fun knitting bag that I made for my Mom to give to her Sister as an early Christmas gift.
Love the fabric and I had a set of great stitch markers that my daughter made that went perfectly with the set.
Are you thinking about Christmas yet?

The Door

A few weeks ago I saw a picture of a kitchen door painted with chalk board paint   since then I have run across several other kitchen spaces painted with chalk board paint  so I thought I'd give it a go.

 At first I wasn't sure about the whole Idea I kinda like things abit more tidy and the door was looking a little messy at times  but  I have to say that I love seeing what my family has to say.  This is after a weekend of having the kids stop in both while we were at home and away.  oh yeah and the door is metal so the chalk holder that I think was an old Match holder is just hung on the door with magnates

Autumn and JT after a full day of canning goodness!

now for the fish taco's

( and yes I'm looking at new wall color options for this winter )

Canning Tomatoes

what to do with all those cherry tomatoes

there is no way that we can eat all the cherry tomatoes that we have in the garden .

then I remembered a recipe that I have for roasted tomato and basil soup .. perfect no blanching and pealing of the tomatoes  just stick them on a cookie sheet with onion and garlic salt pepper and olive oil and roast at 450 for 30-40 mins.

 then transfer  the whole wonderful smelling lot into 3 quarts of chicken stock that is simmering on the stove top  add fresh picked basil and blend with and immersion blender...   yum-O 

 now for the tricky bit I wanted to cann it so that I could have the soup this winter, so I treated it like salsa and canned according to my salsa recipe since it has alot of the same ingredient in it.  All the jars sealed perfectly.  These last for jars of soup have an addition of grated zucchini as I was grating some zucchini for freezing while I waited for the first batch of soup to process.  A good  addition to the soup, it tasted great and thickened up the soup too.  Yeah another way to use up all that zucchini.

Why I love Sundays

This is why I love Sundays

Especially Birthday Sundays

A typical Sunday is spent getting ready to have this kids over for Sunday dinner  but this day I had the whole day to  just sit and enjoying spending time and knitting and visiting.

this is to me is a gift greater than anything that I can think of,  spending a day " My day"with my Family and look we had a little knit along as my oldest learns to crochet and is now working on a blanket for JT. Yup it was a good day

my family all under one roof just spending time together.

I didn't get a picture of Son Shayne he spent his day sitting on the computer putting tons of pictures on a memory stick for a digital frame that I got as a gift from my Daughter Autumn.

 Hubby was manning the grill making a great birthday dinner ( Steak a Shrimp )

yeah it just doesn't get any better than this

Sun Pickles

Have you ever made these?

They are sun pickles we were given the recipe last year and were so excited to make them again this year, they are super simple to make and so good. I like to use the bigger pickles that are too big for my regular canned dills.

The Recipe

6 1/2 Cups water

3 1/4 cups vinegar

1/4 cup canning salt

1 tsp. alum

a couple heads of dill

a few cloves garlic

Stir all ingredients together until salt is dissolved and pour over gallon jar of pickles.

Set in sun for 3 days and your done.

Store in refrigerator and enjoy.



In the Garden

 We have been busy in the garden.  since we live about 10 miles away from our garden its been a bit of a challenge getting there as often as we would like
 
 so things get away from us very quickly.   when we are there we have a great time chatting with chickens that provide us with eggs and

 harvesting all that we can get into the truck so that we can get it put up.
I've done quite abit of canning this year already and I haven't even started with the
Cucumbers and tomatoes

 these pictures were actually taken about a month ago.  The garden is quite a different place now.
I'm  always amazed at how quickly everything grows!

Looking forward to getting back there in a day or two.
How is your garden growing?

Summer!

A Busy summer finds us in the garden often weeding and havesting with help from littles JT loves to pull weeds with Grandpa!

we have lettice that is comming up great for us

I found a new canning book/magizene that I'm having a great time with. It has so many great and different recipes in it along with some great gift giving and packaging idea's

and a simple summer knit that I work on inbetween all the rest of the summer fun.

Have a great week!

Well I've finally taken pictures of a top that I finished up a while back I was having a hard time finding a top that went well with the necklace that my daughter made for me.

so I descided that I needed to knit one up.

Its perfect for summer and Im haveing a great time wearing it!

Details are here

Have a great weekend

Summer Knitting

Along with all the other things that go along with summer fun I'm working on a summer top that Im hopping will be as pretty as the picture also did up a couple of dish cloths with some left over cotton linen yarn that I have

Hope to get pictures of the garden soon

Finally Finished

Well, I finally finished that sweater that I started last June I'm happy with the way it turned out and think I will have fun wearing it this next fall

I love the different textures in the piece. The original pattern called for a button band down the front but I decided on a belt instead as I know that I would not take the time to button up all those buttons. A belt is just so much quicker.

Details for this sweater can be found here

Have a great weekend!

This Week

This week I got a couple of things done I took the red off this wall and replaced it with white (I know Mom, you don't like it white) and you would think that with all the snow that we have seen this winter I wouldn't want it white either but I was just feeling like it needed to be white right now, clean and fresh. Oh yeah and the paint was left over from another project so it didn't cost anything. I also picked up this set of wall words at JoAnn's when I was there picking up some items for a client. They were 19.95 but I had a 50% off coupon so for $10.00 I've got a new wall.

and I'm finally getting to a project to use up all my little left over yarn bits Its a little Blankie for JT. I think he will like all the bright colors for when its nap time. It's also something to keep my hands busy til my yarn shows up for my next project!!!

Have a great weekend

Finding Summer

Thought I'd share one of our projects from last summer ... since I'm missing it so much! this is what we started with, its the space in front of and under our three season porch its always been an eyesore stuff just piled there because its a good storage space but it looked like Hell!

I came up with a plan ... complete with a drawing for hubby and we went to work. This part was my job. I spent a week making a path by digging up and seperating 30 years worth of rock and dirt to make a path that I we could line with plants and lighting .

Hubby made some removable panels according to my drawings and then I painted them and he hung them up

and there you have it and I love love love it its clean and pretty and I can wait to see how the Hosta's ( the plants that line the path ) do this summer when they fill out a bit more. oh and I should have taken a picture at night when the light's are on.

yup I'm ready for summer !

Hats

Getting a few more things finished up for Birthday gifts. I thought some fun hats for my niece that just turned 7 ... one for summer using this pattern and one for winter using this pattern both were fun and easy to put together. for the knit hat I used sock yarn from my stash two strands held together. for the summer hat I used a fat quarter bundle that I found at Wal Mart
and something fun for mom this hat I made using an old hat that I took apart to use as a pattern and the scarf I found a tutorial here

Yup I'm still stuck on the whole hat thing... I'm having one problem with them though for some reason I cant seem to get the brim on straight and I don't know what I'm doing wrong!!!

if any one out there has the answer I would love to hear from you.

have a great weekend.

Who Knew

Who Knew that an old wash stand would make a perfect little entertainment station.
yes it's drawers fit two row's of CD's perfectly! a perfect place.

now I'll tell you a little secret ..... the rest of those drawers and the cupboard behind the curtain are fill I mean STUFFED with yarn! I spend a lot of time next to this little wash stand.

Ahhhh simple pleasures.

a Week of Finishing

I 've had a week of finishing projects and boy does that feel good. I finished this scarf. I found the pattern here and just love love love it

I finished my honey's "Christmas" socks ... yes they were suppose to be a Christmas gift!

and I finished one more section of my kitchen cupboards!!

I'm lovin the knobs and drawer pulls

Now on to the next list of things to get done.

Have a great weekend

This Week

This week I am..... working on hats again really trying to perfect a pattern that I'm having trouble with but this one is getting close

I learned how to make yogurt at home!!! using the method here I added blueberries and sweetened it with Auave Nectar

Yummmmmm and am working on the third section of kitchen cupboards

Have a great rest of the week!

Progress

Something new and something old. the new are the hats that I am trying to make with some success but mostly.... well lets just say they are a bit more challenging than I thought but I'm still trying and then their is the something old this is a sweater that I think I started last winter

I finally drug it back out along with the dress from from the studio ( so that I would have to look at it every day) and I have gotten as far as I can because you see I have run out of yarn with only the collar to finish

and of course since I started the thing over a year ago they no longer have this yarn at the store I purchased it at so now I begin the hunt.

Have a great rest of the week