Another baby blanket

This baby blanket is for DH's new niece, due early next month. It is crocheted in a shell stitch that is fairly simple and makes a nice feminine style. I made a similar one for my nephew's baby, Mayda, last fall. The yarn is Caron's Simply Soft. It was so nice to work with and it has a little bit of a sheen. I would like to make others using it - and if I make the afghan for the co-worker, I will suggest that yarn. I used the Orchid and White.

I did not make my first row long enough and the blanket was pretty tiny when I finished so I added several rows to the border. It took me a while to get the corners the way I wanted them but I am pleased with it. I added the row of white to make it look like the larger border was 'planned'.

DH's youngest sister and husband have tried for many years to have a baby and then adopted an infant almost 3 years ago. They were debating about trying for another adoption when she became pregnant. She has miscarried several times so we were all praying that this one would be different. The adoption is a great story! They were approved to adopt through a local agency and the next day they got a call that there was a young lady who was in labor and wanting to give her baby for adoption. She was a single mom to a 2 year old girl and the new baby was from a one night stand relationship. They went to the hospital met the mom and then went home to 'think about it'. It took them no time to decide that they wanted the baby. So the next day they went back to the hospital and he was theirs. Of course, they had to wait to make it official after the waiting period and making an attempt to notify the father. They brought their son home when he was a day old and had absolutely NOTHING! At least this time they have had 9 months to get ready :-)

Freezer meals

My sister introduced me to Saving Dinner. You can purchase menus complete with shopping lists at a very reasonable price. My favorite Saving Dinner product are the Freezer Meal packages. Each one has 5 menus that can be put together and frozen - then assembled and cooked in short order.

In 2007 my sister was undergoing chemo and radiation for breast cancer. I went to her house and we made up a bunch of freezer meals in duplicate so we each had 25 meals all ready to go. A few of the meals were not so popular at our home but for the most part everyone liked them. Here we are in her kitchen slaving away. It was really quite a production!


My sister got the idea that we needed to do this again - except now she is in a 3 bedroom apartment and has a kitchen about half the size of what she had before. So she will come here next weekend and we will do another bunch of freezer meals.

Of course, that picture was pre- Weight Watchers online and losing almost 25 pounds (and keeping it all off over the holidays, even losing a pound or so from Thanksgiving to New Year's!). A nice thing is the saving dinner menus include WW points. I purchased some new menus for this round - and one is the Healthy Heart menus. My sister started Weight Watchers online this week so we will be using the chicken, fish and healthy heart plans this time.

Here is a picture from Christmas of the three sisters.
I am the middle one. One sister is 15 years older than I am and the other is 19 months younger. The younger sister is the one who is coming to make the freezer meals. We have 4 brothers (the youngest is deceased).

My weight loss is not so obvious in that photo but I can sure tell by my pants! Some of my pants are so baggy I look like a clown. Just a few more pounds and I am going to buy me some new clothes - I have less than 10 pounds to lose to meet my goal but I may try for more just to keep up with my sister :-)

First square of 2009

This is my first charity square of 2009. It is for Cristina through Quilts for Older Children. Her theme is 'Religious'. I chose the verse from a leaflet I have and combined parts of 2 borders to make it larger. (The design is really straight on the fabric, I just had it on the scanner a little off kilter)

I should memorize that verse to remind myself to rejoice. It is so easy to moan and complain or worry about the future that it takes real effort for me to think back on what God has done and rejoice.

I'm back in the cross-stitching groove. I completed this square in one day (I stayed up until almost midnight to finish it since I was so close). Now on to work on my EMS Baby Chipmunk and the other

Finished blanket and Menu Monday (late again)

I finished the baby blanket last night. I did it in 5 days which is longer than some. One I finished in 2 days as I had a business trip to Chicago and I knitted the whole 10 hours I was riding in the back of the van :-) The baby shower is next Tuesday so I made my deadline easily.

I used Homespun yarn by Lion's Brand. It is varigated so it makes a natural striping to the blanket. It is knit on the diagonal, beginning with 5 stitches and increasing every row until you reach the middle, then decreasing every row. It is a plain knit with the 'yarn over' to create an eyelet type edging. One of these times I think I will run a silky ribbon all the way around through the eyelet openings, tying bows at the corners.
I love how this photo shows the striping. I did not plan it when I placed it on the chair but the stripes are almost lined up perfectly. You can see the eyelet edging where the one side is lapped over the other -looks like a design right down the center in this photo.

Now, I will get busy on some charity cross-stitching. I need to get a religious square done and mailed before 2/1/09. I have started another that is due on 2/1/09 but it is for the Yahoo group I moderate and that deadline is flexible - so I will put it aside and get the other one done first. One of the charity groups has started a Stitchers' Challenge. Six themes are posted for a six month period. Each stitcher does one square per theme with the option to trade off one theme. The themes are sport, dog, cat, houses, in the mountains and flower/gardening. I have enjoyed looking through my pattern books (I have a full 4 drawer file cabinet of them!) and pulled some that I think will be fun to do and please the recipients. These will all go to senior citizens. I will post them as I get them done - or maybe post them when my group of 6 are done. It is just one way to 'enable' our addiction (like we need that ???)

Today is an icy day - no school and I am working from home. DH tried to go into work this morning and had trouble getting up the hill in our subdivision so called and told them he would be in later. He left about 2 hours late - after the salt truck made it around the cul-de-sac. DD17 is still asleep but I have some jobs for her later. DD19 is north of us at her cousin's house and will be traveling on to Chicago with a friend and one of her cousins today. The weather up there is better - just a light dusting of snow. She will spend a couple days with my sister and then head back later in the week when it will be springlike again.

All in all it is a good day to settle in and cross-stitch. I have the "So you forgot to defrost" chicken in the crockpot and will put some Honey Grain Rolls in the bread machine later. That will make a nice hot supper for tonight. I have to get serious again with my Weight Watchers as my sister has decided to join too so there is a little competition now :-)

Here are the menus for this week:

Monday -
Ham and Beans
Corn Muffins

Tuesday-
So You Forgot to Defrost Chicken
Honey Grain Rolls
Twice Baked Potatoes (I made extra baked potatoes on Sunday so I could have these today)
Mandarin Oranges

Wednesday-
Italian Beef Sandwiches
Salad

Thursday -
Spicy BBQ meatballs
Broccoli with Orange Sesame Sauce
Honey Grain Rolls

Friday -
Herbed Cheese Stuffed Shells
Honey Grain Rolls
Asparagus

Saturday -
Crusty Grouper with Cucumber Salsa
Parmesan Pea Risotto
Cooked apples

Sunday -
French Onion Soup

Charity Cross-stitch

For several years I have been cross-stitching for charity through several organizations. Most use counted cross-stitch squares to make quilts for sick or terminally ill children. Others make quilts for senior citizens to let them know we haven't forgotten them. I am moderator for a Yahoo group (CSFC) that enables stitchers to contribute to a number of charities and we have also made a few quilts within our group to give to relatives or friends of our members.

I have posted my final squares for 2008 in my webshots album, 2008 Cross Stitching.


This cherry pie will be part of a quilt for Jake at Love Quilts. He is a young boy who wanted 'fun foods' for his theme. This is a Mary Engelbreit kit that I found on E-Bay and added the border to make it large enough for the quilt square.

This is the same chart done for Quilts for Seniors who makes lap quilts for senior citizens. This is for their teatime theme or it could be used for the kitchen theme. They use smaller squares so I did not have to add a border but I did the background grid to personalize it.

This Care Bear will go to Cuddle Cushions who makes pillows for sick children. One of the groups I belong to (Quilts for Older Children) has ongoing signups for Cuddle Cushions. The moderator posts scans of fabric squares that she has to donate to Cuddle Cushions and the stitchers sign up to do squares to match up to the fabric. This will go with a fabric that has a blue background and smiling stars scattered around. It is perfect for this chart.
This is another Cuddle Cushions donation. The fabric for this one is lime green with pink and purple accents. It has Care Bears scattered on the fabric as well.

If you would like to see more of my charity stitching, you can use the link on the years below.
This year I did 68 items for charity (5 of the photos in my album are gifts I made so they don't count as a charity). In 2007, I did 123 charity items which also included bookmarks and ornaments. In 2006, I did 114 and in 2005, I did 66 (I did not start stitching for charity until April of 2005 or I would have hit 100 then too). I slowed down in 2008 because of other craft demands, like a scrapbook for DH19's high school graduation - and knitting about 8 baby blankets. Well -back to the most recent baby blanket. I am anxious to get it done so I can get busy on some cross stitch squares that are due by 2/1/09.

Christmas is officially past- plans for January

Christmas is officially past - the tree is down and packed away. All the other Christmas decorations are packed up - a few gifts still need to find homes - but all signs are gone. I still need to dig out the usual pictures and knick knacks that sit on the shelves and end tables. The snow village and all my snowman decorations are still out. They will stay out until close to Easter.

It feels so good to have the open space in the living room. The tree takes up one whole corner and becomes the focal point. Now we are much more comfy.

DD19 is heading to Chicago to visit my sister on Monday and will not return until Thursday, so it will even seem like she is back at college for a few days.

DD17 of course will be back at high school and taking the semester final that had to be re-scheduled due to a snow day in December. She will be happy to be done with that too. Of course, it is the class she dislikes the most (she dislikes all of her classes at times) and the one she struggles with. Thank God it is only one semester so she is done with it after tomorrow.

We have some big plans for January. My sister is planning to come visit and we are going to make Freezer Meals from Saving Dinner
We did that in 2007 when she was preparing to undergo treatment for breast cancer so she would have some easy meals in her freezer in case she needed them. (Fortunately she did not need many of them as her church family kept her in meals and one friend in particular brought her something every couple days). But they are really convenient and we are going to do some again.

And also in January is a marriage retreat that we are attending. I am on the committee and will be in charge of the registration so we will both take off a day for that so I can be there earlier to get things set up. This is the first marriage retreat led by our church so we are trying to "talk it up" with the other couples. So many are afraid that they will be forced to talk about things they don't want to or that by going it tells everyone they have marital problems. They don't realize that everyone has marital problems of some sort. The retreat is meant to encourage the couples and focus on what God has said about marriage and our roles and responsibilities in a marriage.
DH and I attended a Weekend to Remember a couple years ago and it was great for our marriage - of course, we still have problems and we don't do everything we planned to do for ourselves at that retreat, but at least it made us realize that we have the same goals and need to work together not pull apart.

Well, back to knitting until it is time to leave for church. I am about 2/3 done with the baby blanket. Will post a picture when it is completed.

Alone again and knitting

The guests are all gone and it is just the 4 of us again. The house seems so quiet-- mostly because DH and DD17 are napping, DD19 is reading and I have been knitting. It is so nice to have company and also nice to get back to normal.

I am knitting a Diagonal Baby Blanket for the youth pastor and wife's new baby which is due the end of this month. The shower is 1/13 and I started the blanket yesterday. It is a simple pattern and can be knitted or crocheted. It is made using Homespun yarn by Lion's Brand. I have made so many of them that I began purchasing the yarn on E-Bay when I could find it at less than what it is in the stores. I was fortunate to find the yarn at $3.99 at Michael's last week (usually $5.39).

I am about 1/3 done - and should be over half done by the end of the day. I do mine on a circular needle and make it larger than the pattern (at least 144 stitches across the middle row but sometimes more depending on how the yarn goes). I use 4 skeins of yarn and increase until I am almost at the end of the second skein - then start decreasing. I like this pattern because it doesn't take a lot of thinking and checking the chart - and it is a nice soft blanket when done. The Homespun yarn gives it a varigated/striped look too. I am doing this one in the Waterfall color. It is one of my favorites. I think I have made about 8 of them this year.

I also started making lists of what Christmas decorations I have - going from room to room. I got the kitchen and dining room done this morning. My plan is to put it all in a home inventory and also indicate in which box (the storage boxes will be numbered) the item is stored so I can keep better tabs on the decorations. I realized that I did not get out 2 of my snowmen decorations out this year so there must be a box that DH missed when he brought them all out of the basement - most likely a Christmas tin and not a box as I use a lot of the empty popcorn tins to pack away the items and then sometimes sit the tins around the house to 'decorate'.

I decided to make the Ham Lasagne (asparagus on the side) tonight because I did not get the chicken in the crock pot early enough. I can put the chicken in the crock pot before leaving for work and then cook some rice when I get home. Sometimes I remove the chicken from the sauce and stir in Minute Rice into the sauce but the family doesn't care for that (sure is easy though). The girls have left to get together with some other church camp friends who are home from college for the holidays - so DH and I will be eating alone. Sure will be different than the last week or so :-)