Weekends have now become much needed down time for me.  Prior to having back surgery I was regularly working 12-15 hours a day….which most likely had a lot to do with why I was having the back problems that I did.  After surgery, I made a promise to myself to keep a realistic lifestyle which was going to include taking the weekends off.  It's not easy for me, but I have to admit that it really feels good to have some time to myself.

As you may have noticed I have become reacquainted with my sewing machines again and have found the quiet time in my studio with some soothing music, an autumn scented candle burning while sewing to be good for my spirit.

The quilt that I showed you last week had to wait for a little more fabric, so I picked up a quilt kit that I picked up last year and attacked it.  The fabric collection is from one of my favorite lines, The French General… it was fun to pick up this easy peasy project to work on while waiting on the other fabric.  I have 2 more strips to sew together on this quilt and the top will be ready for quilting.

…..which I plan to do myself.  I have become absolutely fascinated with long arm machine quilting.  I have a dear friend who is always trying to retrain her muscles and nerves to keep them working and challenged and this has become a way for me to do just that..with something I love.  Ey yi yi……it is a challenge to translate what is in my mind to travel through my hands onto the fabric, but I am taking baby steps.  15 minutes 3 or 4 times a day….just enough to reinforce the process but not so long that I get frustrated.  I'm having fun!!

….and just in case you think I have fallen off the knitting wagon, no fear.  I will be finishing up my Fallberry Scarf while cheering on our beloved Patriots tomorrow in the Superbowl.  "GO Pats!!"

Accomplish your visions.
Persevere in your ambitions.
Only then can you negate
Visions and ambitions.
Deng Ming~Dao

Last fall I took a class at our local quilting store on piecing "flying geese" blocks using Eleanor Burns template.  I fell in love with a quilt that had these little flying geese in a puzzle block formation that was on display in the shop and knew I had to make one too.  The name of the quilt is Whist from this book.

I started quilting 25 years ago when it was pretty much all done by hand, so machine piecing has been a challenge for me.  Now to be honest with you, I am not usually a very particular person, but when it comes to quilting and points…..well, let's just say that bad points make me crazy.  Kind of like a squeak in a spinning wheel
(my spinning friends will all get this analogy.)

If you look at the above picture you will see all kinds of bad points….and this was the 4th one in a row that came out like this….aggghhh!  I love this Bliss line of fabric designed by Camille and her mother Bonnie , so I didn't want to continue with it until I figured out what I was doing wrong, because it is really hard to find more now.

I thought that perhaps I was not using the template correctly, so I watched a bunch of Eleanor's videos and that was not the problem.  I was just about ready to bring my blocks and fabric over to the quilt shop for some help, when Terry mentioned she had heard good reviews about this tool.  It not only is good for stitching triangles, but for also maintaining a good scant quarter inch stitch.  Hmmm….I was pretty sure that I had purchased one of those a number of years ago but never used it.

Sure enough, there it was nestled in one of my sewing boxes…..and viola!  What a difference it made.  I guess my eyesight is more challenged than I thought on many levels..LOL.  I had been stitching a quarter inch instead of a scant quarter inch and that little bit made all of the difference.

 

 
Now that I am back on track with these little blocks I am having fun.  Not all of them are perfect, but they are now acceptable…and when one does come out perfectly it makes me smile.  18 blocks finished and 30 more to go. 🙂

Now that the studio is finished it's time to work on the house.  We have lived here now for 16 years and have been doing little renovations here and there as we could afford it, but this year we decided to bite the bullet and refinance our house so that we could really take care of the things that need to be done and upgrade.

We are making some major changes like adding a bathroom upstairs, but Ken is starting small with our living room.  Living in and fixing up an old house has it's challenges for sure, but along with those challenges comes some charm that you don't always see in newer home.

We had to take all of the exterior walls down to the studs so that we could insulate the walls.  Yep, that's right, not one stitch of insulation behind the plaster and lathe walls. 

What you see in the above picture are the 4 new windows that will replace the old wavy glass windows.  While I will miss that lovely old wavy glass, I will not miss the storms windows that screw to the outside of the house, making window cleaning very difficult or the cold breeze that tickles our toes in the winter.

While I am very excited to get started, I have to admit that the chaos makes me feel very unsettled.  I know you have to rip down to build it up, but oh my my….what a mess!

Let us not be confused
With kaleidoscopic reality.
Using wisdom and courage to act,
Let us not add to the confusion.
Deng Ming~Dao

I mentioned last week that there would be a little more textile and fabric involved here this year and this little number is what I am starting with.  It is a needlepoint series called "Word Play", designed by Brenda Gervais from Country Stitches.

I purchased January and February's kits and decided to start with February so that I might be able to display it during the month. :-) 

….oh how the times have changed.  With aging comes all kinds of new challenges, which includes the ability to see these teeny little squares on a piece of 35 count linen.  Thankfully this pattern is worked one strand over 2 threads and with the aid of a magnifying glass I am able to do this. (even if I feel like an old lady with that around my neck)

Sadly I do not think I am going to be able to do this kit that I purchased last year.  It's called Feather Thy Nest and this particular design is worked with 1 strand over 1 stitch on a 28 count linen.  My eyes no longer have the ability to see that small which is disappointing, but there are enough designs that do not call for such small stitchery that I won't focus on what I can't do, but rather on what I can do.  🙂

I mentioned in my last post that I had found my word.  As I thought on it a little, I realized that choosing a word was kind of like making a resolution which I resolved not to do, so instead of embracing a word, I am just going to work towards that word (which is actually 2)
"Time Management"
I'll let you know how it goes…. :0)

To borrow Carole's phrase from our very favorite Christmas Eve movie here at The Woolen Rabbit, A Christmas Story, I won a major award last week…whoo hoo!  I am not usually a luck person, so I was tickled when Sherri emailed me and told me that I won the contest that she and the Quilted Garden were running.

7 beautiful fat quarters from the new Flora collection by Lauren & Jessi Jung for Moda.

I was over the moon to actually win something and even happier when I saw just how lovely and happy these fabrics are in person.  2012 is going to have a lot more textiles included along with the yarn, so this made me very happy.
Thanks girls!!  2012 is off to a good start. 🙂

Oh….and I finally found my word for 2012…I will share that with you in my next post. 🙂

Pattern:  Regina
Yarn:  Woolen Rabbit WW Kashmir
Colorway:  Chimney Sweep
Needles:  US 6 and US 8

Courtney really loved the Regina hat that I made for Ashley for Christmas, so she asked if I would make her one in a dark grey color.  She wanted a hat to wear to some of her more dressy occasions at college.  This is a pattern that I really enjoyed knitting, so I was happy to do this for her.

The weather has been incredibly mild for January, so I grabbed my camera and we went outside for a little photo shoot.  When Courtney was a little girl, we used to do the "Lets see you make a __________ face. (insert the word,ie;scary, sad,happy, etc)

So as I was taking the pictures, I said…let's see you make a serious smoldering face……well, she held it for all of 2 seconds before she dissolved into a fit of laughter….

I guess happy face Courney is what she does and always has best. 🙂
Thanks Courtney!

On another note, I have read on various blogs where people are finding "their" word/words that they hope will embody the new year.  I am going to have to think on this one a bit and see what I can come up with….hmmmm.
How about you….do you have a word that you are thinking about?

Moon above water.
Sit in solitude.
Deng Ming~Dao
This little reading from yesterday was a very good one for me to read on that day.

2011 ended with a flurry of hand knit Christmas gifts, which was a first for me.  I rarely put the gift knitting kind of pressure on myself for the holidays, but given that I could not do much other than sit after surgery, it kept my mind and hands busy, which was a good thing. 🙂

Pattern:  Windschief (Stephen West)
Yarn:  Woolen Rabbit ~ WW Kashmir
Colorway:  Man Cave Blue
Needles: US 6 and US 7

You haven't seen my son here too much on my blog….isn't he a handsome guy?  Ok, so I may be a wee bit prejudiced. ;-)  He had grown out a beard, which I loved, but alas his fiance was not a fan and it is no longer…LOL.

Pattern:  Autobahn (Kate Gilbert)
Yarn:  Woolen Rabbit ~ WW Kashmir
Colorway:  Enchanted Forest
Needles:  US 7

I chosed the Enchanted Forest colorway for Ashley's husband, Brian because of his deep love for the forest.  He looks pretty darn handsome in his hat too, if I say so myself. 🙂

Pattern:  Tabata (Anne Hanson)
Yarn:  Woolen Rabbit Pixie
Colorway:  Chimney Sweep
Needles:  US 2.5 and US 3

I love that Aidan loves handknits, almost as much as I do!

There is another hat for Courtney that did not quite make it under the 2011 wire, so I will leave that for another day. 🙂

2011 was a challenging one for me in many ways, but there were lots of high points as well.  Starting my own business and being successful at it and Ashley's wedding. 
I am looking forward to many things to smile about in 2012!

This is the moment of embarking.
All auspicious signs are in place.
Deng Ming~Dao

In the beginning, all things are hopeful.  We prepare ourselves to start anew.  Though we may be intent on the magnificent journey ahead, all things are contained in this first moment; our optimism, our faith, our resolution, our innocence.
(More Deng Ming~Tao)

I have made a daily commitment to reread my 365 Daily Tao Meditation and could not let the first day of the new year go by with out embracing everything about the first passage in this very dear book.

2012 is going to be a very good year….a very good year indeed!

Christmas part 2 comes next 🙂

This year for Christmas I decided to put a little more effort into handmade goodies and gifts.  Of course having surgery has created some forced time off, which gave me the time to do some small things for my friends and family. 🙂

Carole's post a few weeks back kind of got the creative juices rolling for me.  Who doesn't love real Vanilla extract?  Myself, I keep opening the bottles and sucking in all of the yummy good smells.  The extract really needs to sit for 6 weeks to be at it's full potency, so for now I just keep sniffing and smiling.

So following Carole's que, I purchased my 4 ounce bottles here and my vanilla beans here.  I went with the Madagascar beans, but next time I will experiment with a few others as well.
  Once everything arrived, I set about cutting my beans in half and then sliced them up the middle leaving about 1/2 inch.  Each bottle was stuffed with 4 halves and then topped off with Vodka….well a few of the bottles were filled with brandy and one with some rum.  It will be fun to see how the different alcohol flavors blend with the vanilla.

Then came the labels.  After reading Carole's post, I did a little blog surfing on homemade Vanilla Extract and came across this blog .  I love the clean simple lines of the labels that Elaine created, so I have to admit I copied hers completely, which she is ok with.  Elaine gave the type and sizes to a number of the people in her comment section. :-)  You can find the labels here.  Oh my…so much fun can be had with these different labels!!  I LOVE the Italian Dish's entire blog….such a great read!

Making the sea salted caramel was a bit more challenging the first time around, but once you get the right temperature it takes to get just the right texture it's very easy….and oh SO good!  My first batch came out so hard, it qualified as toffee, not caramel…LOL, but those will be used in toffee cookies later this week.  The key temperature is 250 degrees on a candy thermometer…not a point higher or lower and you will get perfect caramel each and every time.
I basically followed this recipe, except for one ingredient.

Lyle's Golden Syrup instead of corn syrup.   I had read on a few blogs that you get a nicer texture and flavor from Lyle's Syrup, but ey yi yi, finding it up here in this neck of the woods was not a happening thing.  I ended up ordering it online and thankfully it arrived very quickly.  You can also order it from King Arthur's Flour, but the turn around time was not quite as fast.

I had so much fun making these simple yet satisfying treats and I think that the recipients have enjoyed them as well. 🙂
~
The next post will be about the Holiday Knitting, which is a FIRST for me. 🙂

…to all of my friends both far and near…..

Wishing you and yours the very best Christmas of all.:-)