Giving Thanks

We have a lot to be thankful for this year. We are all healthy, have enough food to eat, have a warm home, and loving, and supportive friends and family.We are enjoying a wonderful family weekend without homework (M finished his homework Wednesday!) and the usual routine of lessons and activities.

Yesterday we had a lovely afternoon of food and games with friends. I contributed a couple of pies to the meal. The pumpkin pie was made with one of our pumpkins using the recipe found here. It was delicious!

We have been doing some crafty things too. I'll probably share some of that later.

Thanks to all of you who stop by and make this such a wonderful place for me. I hope you are also having a wonderful weekend of fun with your family and friends.

Six Thousand Days

Over the years we have tried to celebrate the 1000 day anniversaries in our family. It is sometimes hard to do as they are of course not annual events and always occur at different times of the year.  This also makes it fun.  Kids who have summer birthdays get to celebrate during the school year and vice versa.  Yesterday, M turned 6000 days old!

Also on the theme of celebrating at different times of year, we had our Thanksgiving dinner yesterday!  D will have his wisdom teeth out Wednesday so it was nice for all of us to enjoy the turkey with trimmings.

Really, can there be such a thing as celebrating too often, being too thankful or having too many wonderful meals together?

We also enjoyed a walk in the new county park near us where I took these photographs.

Thoughtful Sunday

"Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne, 1926.

At Least Ten Quilts

You  may have noticed that I really like quilts. I like making them. I like looking at them. I like sleeping under them.

I really like quilts that have a LOT of quilting in them. After washing they get very crinkly and drapey.  They make me want to snuggle up under them.

This quilt has a lot of quilting in a mix of traditional and modern designs. I put traditional feathered wreaths in the yellow blocks and then quilted all of the background white with a more modern swirl design. The animal print blocks were left free of quilting as were the triangle star points. This makes those star points float a bit on the design.  I like how the combination looks here.

I finished and washed it just in time for a show tomorrow. I love how it looks and feels after the wash. I would tell you how big it is but I forgot to measure it before setting up my booth tonight. If I still have it when I come home tomorrow I'll let you know.

My grandmother always said that you should have at least ten quilts in your cedar chest when you get married.  She also said that when she was first married and had a house heated with a wood stove she slept with five quilts on their bed in the winter.  Later, when I was grown and used to visit her in the winter I would sleep in her guest bed under two or three quilts that she had made.  We sleep under two quilts during our Michigan winters. I still have a lot of quilts to make if the next generation of the family is going to have the proper number of quilts.

I had better get busy!

Beautiful November

We have been having a beautiful November this year. We are trying to soak up the sun and enjoy the blue skies while we can.

I hope you are enjoying your November.

Gratitude

I am grateful for a lifestyle that allows me to appreciate the simple things around me.

Future Project

Every so often I flip through my old pattern books to get ideas. The latest perusal has left me with a 1945 Beehive pattern book open to this page.

I have put this little dress on my knitting list. I think it would make a cute top for P. I can see her wearing it for a few years over pants.

I have searched through the stash and don't have proper yarn for the project so the search is on. I think I know what I want but I am open to suggestions. The pattern calls for baby weight yarn.

The Magic of Lace

I really enjoy the magical last step of a fine knitted lace project. The project transforms from what appears to be a tangled pile of yarn to a gossamer web of lace.

Here it is, my finished Ishbel.

I knit it with Angel Face from Briar Rose Fibers. It is 100% alpaca and is super warm.

The shape of this mini shawl allows it to be worn in a variety of ways. I know I'll be knitting it again with some other yarns.

(Thanks to D for pausing to take this photo during the barn clean out and floor repair project. You can see that he was not overly concerned with the background of the photo.)

Thoughtful Sunday

"Nothing ever seems interesting when it belongs to you - only when it doesn't."

Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt, 1975.

Progress Report

I've been busy this week - really.

Do you want to see proof?

The Ishbel - one more row before the bind off! Then blocking. 

The Animal Crackers quilt - partly quilted.

Now, it is back to the grindstone. I have the last batch of applesauce for the season on the stove!I have a few more pumpkins to cook but I'll do those on chilly days to help heat up the kitchen. (We haven't had our corn delivered for heating the house yet.)

B has planted garlic and rye. After we harvest the carrots and beets and store them in the cellar the gardens should be just about ready for the winter rest. Whew.

Bambi

I have had this book in my mind ever since I read it to P last year. Ihave wanted to quote from it but was never able to limit myself to picking just a few sentences. All of it is fabulous. So,today I am giving you a reading assignment.

Bambi by Felix Salten, 1929.

I enjoyed reading this to P. It is very different from the Disney version of the story.

I do have to warn you that Chapter 8 had me in tears.

Chapter 8. Three pages. Life summed up in a discussion between two leaves.

Magic Science

When I was little I remember placing leaves between layers of waxed paper and pressing them with a warm iron to preserve the fall color a little longer. I tried this when my boys were smaller and learned that waxed paper contained far less wax than it used to. That little project did not work.

After posting many photos of fall leaves on flickr, Sarah pointed me to this website showing how to dip leaves in melted paraffin. Uh, why didn't I think of that? As soon as I clicked on the link P and I headed out for a walk to gather leaves.

We came in, dug some 30+ year old wax from the depths of the basement, and went right to work!

We had so much fun with these we had to go to town to gather different leaves!

One day later, here are two leaves gathered from the same tree at the same time. It's like MAGIC!

Thank you Sarah for giving me that link on the PERFECT day. We have since had a fierce wind and rain storm and all our fall leaves outside are gone.

Our next project is to figure out how to hang the dozens of preserved leaves in the window.

The Blink of an Eye

I didn't realize how much I was enjoying this fall until I was looking at my photos from the month. I have over 1000 photos saved in my October 2009 file. And yes, I have deleted hundreds that weren't that good. For example, I have twenty nine photos taken at this corner across the street from P's school. All taken the morning of the Halloween party. Twenty nine, that I KEPT, from one corner, on one morning.  I am really trying to savor the season.

Like raising children, it's all over too fast.

You can't stop it from happening.

Time marches on.

You just have to try to soak it all in, and watch from all angles.

In the end it all becomes a memory.

Lacy Rib Socks

I've finished another sock! These are adapted from Evelyn Skae's Lacy Rib Baby Socks pattern.  Adele chose Bare by Knit Picks for the socks. It is a very soft Merino wool and silk blend. (70% wool, 30%silk)I'll be taking a little break from the sock knitting to work on some other projects the next month or two.

I actually started a mini shawl - the infamous Ishbel - and found that I am very used to knitting in the round. Knitting rows in two directions took some getting used to. I am trying it in lace weight alpaca from Briar Rose Fibers.

More Fall Color

We've been out enjoying the fall colors as much as possible. They disappear so quickly!

Japanese Maple

Viburnum berries

Forsythia

Red Oak

The right light makes them even prettier.

This Japanese Maple stopped me in my tracks on the way to the preschool Halloween party today. It is right next to the school. Isn't it beautiful?

A Visit to the Farm

P's preschool class visited the farm yesterday.  I did notice a few differences from our place.  Look at those apples!

The trees were loaded.

I could make a lot of sauce from all those blemish free apples.

The farmer helped each child pick a few apples.

After looking at the beehives, learning about bees, and having a hay ride we went to the pumpkin patch to choose pumpkins.

It didn't take miss P long to find the PERFECT pumpkin.

Fall Fluff

Taking our cue from mother nature, it is time to prepare for colder weather. I am feeling the urge to get out the wool and start knitting mittens, hats, scarves, and more socks.

Goldenrod

Indian grass

Little blue stem

Milkweed

Switch grass

Thoughtful Sunday

"Often Katy would wish that she someday could be
Something quiet and simple like a lovely elm tree,
Or a ramshackle barn all alone on a hill
Where the noisiest thing was a squeaky windmill.
'It might become lonely,' she thought, 'way out there,
But at least there's a view with a lot of fresh air.'"

The Caboose Who Got Loose, Bill Peet, 1971.

Halloween Treats

Yesterday, P and I made the treats we will give out to her preschool class. If you are a preschool parent from P's class avert your eyes until a new post appears or the Halloween party has past.

P loves to have small tablets of paper with her when we are out. They are great for restaurants when we are waiting for food or any time when we need a quiet activity. So, we made small books to give out at the preschool Halloween party.

I wanted to make fancy fall covers for them and was inspired by this quilt, that Tia made. I love the way she quilted the veins on the leaves. I snitched her idea and did the same in felt for the book covers.

These books were pretty easy to make. We used the paper cutter to cut small rectangles of paper for the pages. After the covers were made we used the basting stitch on the sewing machine to sew the pages and cover together. Easy Peasy.

Apple Pumpkin Muffins

This is a redo of the Chocolate Chip Pumpkin muffins that we like so much. I had to take snack to preschool this week and didn't want to put chocolate in the muffins so I tried apple instead. They turned out super!!

Apple Pumpkin Muffins

1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon grounds nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
3/4 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup applesauce
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 cups cooked and pureed pumpkin (or one 15 oz can)
several apples cut in pieces (I used three apples of different varieties for a good flavor mix)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix flours, and other dry ingredients together in a bowl.
In a different bowl, beat the eggs and add oil, applesauce, pumpkin.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir in the apple pieces.
Bake 20 minutes.
Makes 24 muffins.