Giving Thanks, and Thanksgiving!

Hello my friends!  I hope all of you had as wonderful a Thanksgiving day as I had.  I was very lucky to have my daughter and her hubby, and the Grand Girl down for Thanksgiving.  It's a bit of a trip - yeah, in the same state, but still, when you have a little one, you work full time, and you have so much of life going on, it's hard to pack everyone up and get to Grandma and Grandpa's house!  I know, I've done it - always from another state - just as much work....and still not always easy.  So I'm grateful they got to come.

Me and the Grand Girl! 

 

 

 

 

The hubby, daughter, son-in-law, and furry kids

I really enjoyed having the Grand Girl.  It had been a long time since I've seen her.  She has lots more teeth, and she's almost walking! She can walk behind a little walking toy.  It's SO cute!

Walking!

We had a nice dinner.  Chicken, dark and light meat, baked in the oven for 2 hours.  We had Cranberry sauce, gravy, roasted sweet potatoes, potato salad (for the SIL), stuffing, broccoli, and desert - apple pie!

Apple Pie

Thanksgiving Table

First Thanksgiving Dinner!

Hubby is going to take time off in December.  We are going to clean out the office and paint it.  Do some reorganizing.  We also need to clean and reorganize our closet.....it's a mess.  I have a bunch of clothes in there that don't fit anymore (wish it was that they are too big, but it's not...sigh). 

For Christmas I think we are just going to buy some new things for the house.  We really need a new t.v. stand.  And the paint for the office.  I don't know what else we will do.  This is going to be a tight year for us - between the medical bills, property taxes, Christmas, putting up hay that will only last a few months, etc. it's been a bit tight.....I'd love an Ipad.....or a laptop (have I mentioned this a few times before?  I keep hoping a little elf will tell Santa and magically something will appear under my tree - hey, a girl can dream, right???).  But I'll settle for getting the house in a bit better order.  I wish I could get the energy and do our basement...it's just so overwhelming.  I have a hard time letting go of some stuff tho. 

At any rate, thanks for letting me share my Thanksgiving with you all.  I hope the coming holidays bring you all your wishes!

Always,
Martha

Ruffled Endless Scarf

Here is the Ruffled Endless Scarf I spoke of in my last post.  It's actually really growing on me and I'm going to try it again, with some tweaks....
Here, it is wrapped twice around my neck.  I was afraid it looked a bit like a collar on a clown, but I actually like it - it's kinda fun. :-)

 

Below, you can see the scarf with it in single form - just wrapped once around the neck.  Sorry for the blurry photo - I had the camera set with the timer, and had it on the correct setting, but the photos all came out blurry...not sure what the issue is but maybe I need a different setting.  I guess reading the manual would be good, but who has time?  I'm busy creating!  :-)

The fringe is where the 2 ends are connected and where I tied the fringe together.  Have I mentioned, I LOVE my new fringe twister????  YES!

Today was a lovely day. I  spent it with a friend I always feel good about being around, and we chatted from 11:00 till 3:20!  Amazing.

I need to spend some time cleaning the house tomorrow.  Hoping the daughter, son-in-law, and grand baby come for Thanksgiving if all goes well.

Leave me comments on how you REALLY feel about this scarf.  I'd really like to hear what you think - honest!  Good or bad.

Fun stuff

Right now, I have some muffin tops waiting to go into the oven.  This is a Whoopie Pie pan I purchased from Bed, Bath and Beyond with a coupon.  I tried making Whoopie Pies in it - and I overloaded them, and they stuck.  So it didn't work for that.  Honestly, the Whoopie Pie batter is so thick, if you use a mellon baller/small ice cream scoop, it works great on a cookie sheet.....but I digress.
I just popped these in the oven.  Instead of an entire muffin, these should come out just as muffin tops, the nice, slightly crispy top part of the muffin - the best part in MY opinion!

On another note, I have another new toy.  This is a Lacis Fringe Twister.  It is battery operated and I ordered it from Amazon.  It came in just a couple of days.  I had a scarf (see below) that I had made.  I got to use the fringe twister today.  There was a small learning curve, but that's because I haven't done a lot of fringe to begin with, then I added a toy that goes zoom!  So I had to undo a couple of the fringes and re-twist them, but that's ok!  They came out really nice and I'm pleased.  This was a really good purchase!

Here is the scarf.  I know, weird photo.  It's sitting on an oil heater to dry the rest of the way.   This was an experiment.  I call it a ruffled never-ending scarf.  It started out off the loom to be about 120 inches.  It was VERY long.  It is made out of 8/2 black cotton warp, and 8/2 gold cotton weft.  I finished this scarf last week, but I let it sit for a week because to be honest, I was nervous about doing the gathering.  Today, I decided I had to get brave and try it.  Well, it went ok.  See the solid looking gold stripes?  That is where I gathered it.  The outside solid gold is actually because I used gold warp there.  The inside stripes are where I gathered the black warp threads in order to get the fringe.
I gathered, and gathered and gathered.  It was quite the workout!  When I was done, I was NOT happy!  It kind of looked like a clown collar!  Oh gosh..........
So I tried to ungather some of it.  I started pulling it out so it wasn't quite so gathered.  It is better.  The scarf really shortened up a LOT.  I'm glad I made it as long as I did! 
I tried to decide how I wanted it to look - just a scarf with 2 ends hanging (with fringe, of course!), or would I sew one end to the side of the other end?  Or, I could try weaving the fringe of one end into the other....but that takes a LOT of work, time, and it doesn't usually look very good (at least, when I do it). 

I decided I would put the 2 ends, one on top of the other, with a twist in it.  The fringe was all together.  I took fringe from the top part (3 or 4 threads at a time) and the same amount from the bottom part.  I knotted them so they would be attached. 
Then I took the fringe twister, and put the 2 sections of fringe in, one in each fringe twister holder.  Pushing the button up, the fringe twister twists the fringe one way, without the entire head of the fringe twister going around.  When you have enough twist in the 2 sections, then you push the button down, and the head of the fringe twister goes round and round.  It twists the 2 sections together, and viola!  You have beautiful fringe!  :-)

I love the concept.  The scarf itself is too short to really wrap round my neck twice.  It really is too tight and looks like a clown collar.  If it just hangs, it's kind of pretty but not really what I was looking for.  I dunno.  Maybe someone will like it.  I have some more experimenting to do.  LoL

Well, my muffin tops are out of the oven.  I will have to take a photo and maybe add it in later.  They came out "ok."  I dislike my oven immensely and will never ever buy one like it again.  But that's another story for another day.  They came out a bit overdone on the bottom (dark pan) and it's my fault, so next time, I'll lower the oven temp.  I also had to make sure that I didn't leave them in as long as regular muffins, since they are so thin compared to a regular size muffin.  These are chocolate chip, and anything chocolate is wonderful!  lol.  I'm seriously thinking about putting Nutella between them, and eating it that way....yeah, I'm bad!  Ha!

More another day.  Hope your life is going great for you and you're doing what you love to do.
Always,
Martha

Whoopie!

I made my first whoopie pies today.  I have a recipe from my mother, that I copied onto a 3x5 card.  I didn't keep the original.  I should have....just in case.

At any rate, I made them. I had bought a whoopie pie baking pan and I thought, even if I don't make whoopie pies, I've wanted a pan that makes muffin tops.  Do you know what muffin tops are?  When you bake (or buy) a muffin, I always think that the best part is the somewhat crunchy top. I've been looking for a muffin top pan forever.  When I saw the whoopie pie pan, I had to have it (from Bed, Bath and Beyond, and I had a coupon).

Well, I filled the pie pan too full - they all have big tops on them, and these little funny bottoms (which end up being the center of the pie when you put the filling in, and then squish two together to make the pie).  I had leftover batter, so I made the rest on a cookie sheet.  They at least came out flat.  The ones in the baking pan wouldn't come out - so all the bottoms stuck!  It's a non- stick pan.  The recipe doesn't call for greasing the pan....but I think I might next time.
Along with the pan came a recipe for Whoopie pies.  I didn't look at that recipe or compare with the original.  I must do that.
I don't think the pies came out quite right.
And the filling - while it's good and what I remember, it really isn't healthy at all............3/4 cup of shortening and 2.5 cups of sugar, and you add flour to milk and cook it till thick - picture paste....yeah.  But it tastes good - must be the vanilla and pinch of salt I added. LOL

At any rate, I think the newer recipes call for marshmallow fluff filling...might just try that next time.
The cakes came out.........ok.  So next time I will try the newer recipe and see if it comes out better.  I think I over-baked them too......that could be part of the problems I had.

I don't know why I make these things.  They'll go bad before hubby and I can eat them.  Sigh.  But I love to bake.  Not so much in my tiny kitchen, but I make do....

I got a bunch of yarn from a friend who was cleaning out her stash.  I had to bring it home and put it on the porch.  She likes to put smelly soap in with the yarns when she stores them, and the smell is making me cough up a lung.  Ever since the heart attack in 2007, I am VERY sensitive to scents and I will hack and cough forever.  I hope the airing out works.....I can't leave it on the porch for long - bugs, weather, etc. It's not a screened porch (and don't EVEN get me started on that!). 

Anyway, I'm grateful for the yarns, and I could just picture myself making all kinds of cute scarves to sell with it.  Nice................

Today it was 74 degrees.  Good Lord, it's Nov 14th!  It's not going to last tho.  We really need to get the leaves up.  The riding lawn mower is on it's last leg.  The sweeper isn't doing much better and you do one pass and you have to go empty it.  The walk behind blower won't start this year....dunno what's wrong with it and hubby is not a small engine repair guy.  The leaf blowers are just not good enough....and take forever.  And one is electric so you can't get far with it anyway!  I keep trying to get hubby to buy (yeah, spend $$$) for a larger, better mower, and one that has the box on the back so it can mulch and dump and then we can dump the box in the corners.  Yep, it would take a ton of dumping but hey, it can't be worse than what we are doing now.............did I mention we have 5.5 acres with over 100 oak trees?  Yeah, and if we leave the leaves on the ground, it kills what little grass is out in the pastures (with all the trees)......

Anywho, that's about it for me.  I'm off to make dinner...........chicken tonight.  Just not sure what to have with it.  Maybe baked potatoes...white and sweet and we'll share half of each...yep, I think that will work. 

Martha

WIPs

So I have a couple of projects in the works.  One is a scarf that I'm trying out - I had an idea, and I went with it.  Once again, my math was wrong (this is an on-going issue for me) and I ended up with waaaay too much yarn for the warp.  Geesh.  (rolling eyes here)

But, I got what I needed (and probably still too wide) on the loom.  I tried black for the weft, and didn't like it.  So I went with the gold.

 

I've got about twice this woven at this point.  This is 8 inches wide...and I made it really long.  I am hoping to be able to make this a ruffle scarf............we'll see how that works out....it may be too long but I'm gonna give it a shot!  If it ends up too long and it doesn't work the way I see it in my mind, then I will cut it up and make something smaller out of the long scarf. :-)

The other project is for Christmas.  I found these panels in a quilt shop last year when my cousin was here visiting from CA.  I fell in love with these......but didn't have a chance to do anything with them last year.  So this is a project I want to get done this year.  The panels will get cut up and sewn and quilted and given as gifts. 

I've only gotten as far as pulling them out of the closet.....but they are out in the open where they can call my name.  This way, I'll have to get to them!

My calendar is suddenly filling up.  I went for a long time with nothing on it....empty dates for an entire month or more.  July, August, September and October were not good months for me, in more ways than one.  But I have lots of dates on November and it feels pretty good.  Now I'm thinking.....uh oh, maybe I'm making too many dates and not getting the stuff done that I NEED to be getting done!  LoL  If it's not one thing, it's another.

I went today to have my mammogram.  I was not looking forward to it - because the tech that used to do them, was not a very nice person.  She was harsh, and rough.  And she didn't care that you had tears coming out of your eyes and couldn't breath because she had to squish you.  Well, they have a wonderful, young new tech, and she's an angel.  She is VERY sweet.  And caring.  It makes all the difference in the world.

So in one of my prior posts, I went on and on about what I want for Christmas.....and I'm really still not sure what I'm going to ask Santa for.  But I have decided that if it's a techie gift, it'll have to be a laptop computer as opposed to a tablet or reader.  Mostly because I have an old Ipod and I want to be able to download music and I can only download from Itunes (at least, I think that's all I can do with an Ipod).  I can't do that from my desktop because of Hughesnet and their stupid bandwidth restrictions - oh sure, if I wanna get up at 3 a.m. I can do it...but that ain't gonna happen.  Ha!

I may ask for some stuff to go with my loom.

But I don't know what I really want.  I do know, money is tight and I can't ask for much.  Well, I can ask....but then I'll feel guilty.  There are lots of things I'd like to have - like a smart phone....so when I see something in a store, and I think it would be good for my grand baby, but I'm not sure mom and dad will like it, I could snap a pic, and email it to them.....and get approval ( or disapproval).  But that's an extra expense every month.  I could just carry my laptop with me and my camera, and at least then I could snap a photo and then go someplace to hook up online, then send it.  Of course, the smart phone would be SO much more convenient.  Sometimes, I really feel like I'm behind the times...........sigh. 

Anyway, that's it for my WIPS - the weaving, the quilting, and the wishing...............
So long for now.
Martha 

Log Cabin Update

Here is the log cabin scarf/table runner.

Cotton yarn.  Sugar and Cream.  Denim (light and dark).  Turned out pretty well I think.  It's not as soft as I'd like, I think I used a smaller reed than I should have.  I used an 8 but I think a 6 would have been better.  I don't have a 6.  I have a 5 I'm borrowing.  But that was way too loose....
Anyway, I like it. It's a gift. 

I don't have anything new on the Baby Wolf - yet.  We went to Joanns today (big sale) and I bought 3 giant skeins of boucle (like the yarn I used on the shawl/mobius scarf).  The colors are beautiful and I can hardly wait to use it. When the smaller skeins go on sale, I'm going to buy more in other colors.  The larger skeins are limited as far as color. 
I also bought 3 yards of black fabric to go with some Moda Charm Squares Reindeer Games that I bought the other day.  I am going to make a Christmas quilt for the house.  Hubby thought I was making it to give away.  Nope.  Not this one.

I also have some Christmas panels upstairs that I'd forgotten about.  I bought them last year when my cousin was here and we visited a quilt shop in Charlottesville.  Well, I am going to cut them out and stitch them up for wall hangings to give as gifts this year.  I have lots of fabric I can use as backing upstairs....so I didn't buy anymore fabric for the backing for those.  I spent enough money today. 

I also bought 2 spools of quilting thread (100% cotton) in black and red while there, to use on the Christmas projects.  They were the only things not on sale, but I had 2, 40% coupons to use on those. 
I also had a 25% off coupon to use for the total sale.
All in all, I saved $27 with the coupons and sales.  I thought I made out REAL well. :-)

I haven't quite decided what the next weaving project will be.  Towels?  Scarves with the boucle'?  I just don't know!  lol  So for now, I'm at a stand still till something comes to me and I decide what I want to work on.
Meanwhile, I have a warp on the big loom and I am procrastinating about weaving on it.  I shouldn't be...but I am!  Bad me..............

I am also still debating on whether to sell the big loom, and buy a smaller loom.  Sigh.  So many decisions!

I did a lot of running around yesterday.  I was beat last night.  Today, we went and got hay really early, brought it home, unloaded it and stacked in the barn (it was only 20 bales).
We changed our clothes and left again, went to town to the library.  It wasn't open yet so we had to waste some time.  Hubby was hungry so we went to Subway and he got a breakfast sub.  Then we looked at some ads and decided to go to the city after the library. 

We went to Toys R Us and I could NOT decide on what I wanted to get.  So we left empty handed.  This is the third time in a row that I've gone there and left without anything!

We also went to Penny's to return a sweater I'd bought yesterday but didn't like very much once I tried it on.
Then we went to Joanns. 
Then we stopped at Wendys to eat lunch.
Then we stopped at Giant to get carrots for the horses (they sell 5 lb bags for just under $3.00).  Yes, the horses are spoiled.
Then we came home.  Dear hubby went out and swept up leaves with the tractor and leaf sweeper.  Lots of work. 
I hung out on the computer but the dogs were starved for my attention, so I gave up and sat on the recliner and they both landed on me and snuggled.  Awwww....needy little brats!  LoL.  No, not really.  I love my dogs.  But they ARE needy!
I made dinner.  It was good.
Now, I'm back on the computer.
So there it is.  My last couple of days...busy, running here and there and shopping and spending too much money.  Sigh.
What is on your wish list for Christmas?
I can't decide.  I want an Ipad.  Dear daughter says no, you don't.  WHY????  I want one badly.  I would settle for a Kindle Fire e-reader, but I don't really want one.  I don't buy many books, but I do get them from the library.  I do think it would be nice to have just a small thing to hold for reading, but I'd probably miss my books.  The Kindle Fire has internet access too.
I'd settle for a laptop computer.  I could still download books (I think?) and I could download music if I went somewhere I could download stuff for free.  See, I have Hughesnet, and they charge for bandwidth usage....if I download ONE single You Tube video, I go over the bandwidth.  What a crock it is.  This is SUCH a ripoff.  None of my friends have this restriction with their internet services.  It pisses me off.  Really.  We didn't have this restriction till dear hubby decided to upgrade.  When he called, they came out with a new dish that looked exactly like the old one, and got put in the exact same place as the old one.  And yep they made him sign a new contract.  DRATS!  So now, I can't watch anything, I can't see videos my friends put on FB, I can't download music - unless I do it between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.  Yep, not gonna find me doing that!

So yeah, a laptop would be nice too.  But, all of these things are expensive and I don't want to really ask for one because it has been a tight year, and next year isn't going to be any better.
I need to make lots of scarves to sell at craft shows and fiber shows.  Lots of them.  So I can make some money.  Then I can get what I want.  Of course, winning the lottery would be even better.  Since that hasn't happened yet, I guess earning it would be the next best thing.  LoL.

Ok, enough whining.  I'm outta here.
Over and out.
Martha

A new project

I've started a new project. It is a scarf made of cotton.  It's narrow compared to what I've been doing lately! 
I started threading the reed, and decided that I needed a reed where the dents are closer together so got the 8 dent out.  Perfect!
Then I looked in my pattern book and I wanted to try log cabin - which I've never done before.  (there are a LOT of patterns I have not done before - I'm big on plain weave!).
I thought I had everything threaded right.....but I didn't.
I had to unthread about half the heddles and take them out of the reed.  I re-threaded like the pattern actually SAYS it it is supposed to be....which I missed the first time.

So while dinner was cooking I rethreaded.  I did it correctly!

Then I had to figure out the weaving issue.  One line of each color...hmmm.   I got it figured out and it's coming out REAL nice.  :-)
I'm using dark and light denim cotton from Peaches and Cream.  It looks nice.
I want to try to make a scarf a day for 30 days.  We'll see how that goes.  LOL
No pics.  This scarf might be a gift, and I don't want the giftee to see it!  Maybe a tease when it gets done....

My car is in the shop.  The Check Engine light came on while I was driving.  Turned around, came back home, and took the pickup which stinks! Whew. 

Hubby took the car in and I went and picked him up.  Of course there is a part that needs replaced.  The car is only 18 months old.  26,000 miles.  Geesh.  They just don't make them like they used to.  Sometimes I wish life were MUCH simpler.

So I'm off for now.  Gonna go watch a couple of shows we taped.  Then we'll watch Dancing with the Stars and 19 Kids and Counting, and The Little Couple (finale is tonight - geesh, it seems it just started!!!).  Yeah, um, can you tell I'm a reality show freak?

More later!
Martha