Where did the last month go?

I am not sure where the last month went, but I have been very busy. I made lots of pillowcases and aprons for a craft show that turned out to be a bust. Here are some of the items I made.Lots of pillowcases.... (I made a total of 15 for the

craft show. And aprons---12 different ones.

The one thing that sold were thrown in as an afterthought--dishcloths!!

Prayer shawls

I have been very busy making prayer shawls. This one is for a relative of a friend at church. The recipient's husband recently died. It is a wonderful butterscotch yellow done in Homespun

yarn using the basic v-stitch pattern.

The second shawl was made by a member of our prayer shawl ministry at church, but it turned out to be too narrow. I added the border and it now works much better. I gave the shawl to Donna yesterday and she was speechless. She recently had emergency back surgery and is "flat" for 6 - 8 weeks. This should help her recovery. This shawl was done in Red Heart Soft yarn and truly is very soft.

The third shawl is the one I struggled with the most. It was given to a VERY close friend whose husband is in stge 4 of stomach cancer. He just finished radiation therapy and is now undergoing chemo therapy. He has to be fed with a feeding tube. The hopes of the doctors (and us) is to shrink the tumor (at the end of the esophagus where it enters the stomach) so he can eat on his own. Please pray for Steve and Jan and their beautiful family. Jan's favorite color is green, so I chose that for the shawl. It is knitted in the basketweave pattern. I used Vanna's new yarn and it is very soft. Jan loves her shawl.

Happy birthday!

There are 2 birthdays in our family today. Our wonderful daughter-in-law is having a birthday. She is a saint to live with our son (we love both of them dearly). Happy birthday Jenny.

Our grandaughter Elise turns 6 today. She is the princess in her family--she has 3 brothers; one older and 2 younger. Happy birthday Princess!

I made her this quilt that she can use on her bed or on the floor. My picture is not in focus, but I can't re-take it because the quilt was sent to Idaho!!

I also made a pillowcase (again, out of focus--I really need to slow down when I take pictures) for her.

I found this plate the day before I mailed the package, so that got included (with a monkey one and 2 frog ones for the boys). There were some other things in her birthday package (pjs and a book). She should enjoy them. Her party is on Sat.

Valentine candy bags

I made these 2 bags for our DGDs for Valentine's Day. They are just the right size to hold a box of conversation hearts. The girls love them (they hold "Little People" among other things). I made one earlier to hold a box of crayons for Elise.

I got this pattern here

vhttp://suzies-yarnie-stuff.blogspot.com/2006/07/crayon-purse-pattern.html and made the strap shorter. I used cotton ww yarn.

She has great patterns.

Baby items for Lil' Troopers

I am part of a Yahoo group that sends baby items to military hospitals for the newborn babies. In Feb. there was a contest. This is what I managed to make and send (had higher hopes, but it didn't work out). I sent these 17 hats

and this poncho set.

I purchased a rotary cutter type blade called a skip stitch (used in my rotary cutter holder) and made holes with it all along a piece of fleece cut to baby blanket size. Then i crocheted a border all around the blanket. I used DK weight yarn. I love doing this and it is easy. I found patterns on the internet by Googling "crochet baby blanket borders" or something similiar. There are lots to choose from. You can get the blade by contacting Joyce Middlebrooks at skipstitch@gmail.com . Her husband makes them and she answers her email promptly. Then I found a burp cloth I bought from hemstitcher.com many years ago. The holes were pre-punched, so I just added the border.

I then had a baby shower to attend, so I made another blanket, but used a different border. I plan to make many more of these. They are fun, easy and FAST!!

Dishcloths

2008 did not get off to a very good start for us. There were 3 funerals, and cancer diganosis (friend's husband) that sapped a lot of my energy. So I have been doing lots of small projects that I can finish quickly. It has been very satisfying, plus it has done wonders for my stash depletion!! I made these dishcloths as part of the Monthly Dishcloth KAL challenge. I already posted my first Jan. one (football). There are 2 each month. This is the second one for Jan.

These are for Feb. The blue and cream one was fun, easy and fast--my kind of project.

The valentine cloth is a box of candy with a bow on it. It took me awhile to "see" it!!

I also made some cloths for exchanges. These 2 were sent to Marilyn.

Marilyn sent me this great cloth.

Jean sent me these two clots in January. It is great to get puffies like these in the mail.

Best surprise in 2008 (so far).

For far too many years than I want to count, our dear son has looked like this. He is a great looking man (mother's pride) EXCEPT for his hair style (my opinion, but shared by some others aslo). One thing I have learned about kids is that if you keep harping about wanting them to change something, it doesn't usually happen. He is our "strong willed" child (and now he has a daughter that is even stronger willed than he!!), so I was VERY surpised when he sent me this picture. Much better now... Being the "concerned" mother that I am, I set out and made him a hat to keep his head warm. He hasn't
received it yet, so I don't know his reaction!

Monthly dishcloth KAL challenge

I am in the Monthly Dishcloth group on Yahoo. They have KALs twice a month. I have been a member of this group for almost 2 years and this is the FIRST KAL I finished. The first KAL of the month is a mystery cloth--I love the football (GO GIANTS!!) but just grabbed whatever solid color I could get to easily. That is why my cloth is a turquoise blue, but I still like it. You will have to click in on the cloth to see the "picture" better.
The group is having a challenge for 2008 to make all 24 of the cloths. I signed up for it. Cloth #2 starts tomorrow (15th). I will post about my progress. By Dec. I should have a great supply of cloths for gifts.....

Starting off 2008

I started off the new year with small, take-along projects DISHCLOTHS!! I love to knit these because they are fast, practical and fun to make, plus I have lots of cotton in my stash that I need to use up! They make great gifts and are usually well appreciated. I plan to make lots more this year.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2008! We did some traveling between Christmas and New Year's Day. We went to PA to see Mom and my brother. I also got to see some friends, my aunt and cousins. This is me with my 2 cousins. We grew up together until I got married and moved away.

After 4 days there we went to Baltimore to see "old" friends, Allen and Francine. I've known Francine since 4th grade. She was my maid of honor! We went to college together. Allen knew Keith from high school and "fixed us up" on a blind date. The rest is history (41 years of marriage). They got married 6 weeks after we did--she even wore my veil!! But with us living in different states we didn't see each other much at all. In fact, we hadn't seen them in over 30 years!! We had so much fun together, and it is amazing how much we still have in common.

From Baltimore we went on to Washington D.C. for 3 days where we played tourists! Parking is a real problem there, so we left the car at our hotel and walked everywhere. We did pick a hotel that was near what we wanted to see, so it wasn't bad at all. I loved seeing all of the Christmas trees from every state (near the White House). My favorite site was the WW II Memorial. It wasn't there the last time I was in D.C. (1995). Here are some pictures of just a few of the things we enjoyed. The weather was cold, dreary and some rain. So on Sunday we went to several of the Smithsonian museums so we could be inside. They are always so fascinating. All of these wonderful treasures for us to enjoy, and they were all FREE to see and appreciate! If there was a charge for admission, it was very reasonable. It was so great to see so many families there.

I was surprised to see Jerry Seinfeld's "puffy shirt" on display! We also saw the Lone Ranger's mask, Archie Bunker's chair, the MASH sign (pointing to different cities), R2D2, and lots more.

Nina would have liked seeing Dorothy's ruby slippers and the Scarecrow!

We went to Arlington Cemetery just before leaving D.C. (we drove, and did get lost trying to get to Baltimore--should have brought Keith's new GPS!!) The changing of the guard was different than what I had remembered, but I hadn't been there in over 30 years. It was as impressive as ever.

We visited the Kennedy family grave site with the eternal flame still burining. The last time I saw that it was still new. I remember walking on wooden planks to the grave site. It was 1965!

We did walk over to see the Iwo Jima memorial to the Marines. Having watched the PBS special about WW II made this even more impressive (and sad).

We spent New Year's Eve near the BWI airport and didn't manage to stay awake until midnight. Our flight home was delayed an hour and a half because of "weather" in Michigan. This is what greeted us when we got home

We had over 12 inches of the beautiful white stuff waiting for us (and more falling). It took awhile to get the driveway cleared enough to get into the garage. These pictures were taken on Jan. 2. We got home at night and it was too dark to take good pictures.

Happy 2008!!