And The Trees Come Down

When we first moved here 20 years ago, (I know!), there was a little sprig of a tree in the backyard that the previous owners had planted. Over the years, it grew big and bushed out. It was so pretty and was giving us lots of nice shade in the yard.

One spring, we noticed these little “porcupine balls” as Hubby later begin to call them. Yes, we realized that we had a Sweet Gum tree. It was so pretty and full in the Summertime and the leaves turned a beautiful shade of yellow and red in the Fall that we decided it was worth keeping even though it kept producing more and more of the “porcupine balls”. Hubby would diligently pick up balls all winter long.

One day while Sis and I were out running to estate sales, we came to a house that had one of the biggest Sweet Gum trees that I’ve ever seen! It’s trunk was huge!! And the ground was covered with so many balls that we could hardly walk through them.

I told Hubby about the humongous tree. He’s been getting more and more in the mood to get rid of our Sweet Gum tree because just keeping the yard picked up of the balls “was getting mighty old.”

We had an old apple tree in the backyard that has been needing to come down for a while as well. So we call Ryan’s Tree Service, the one who cleaned up our mess after the storm we had come through in 2017.

While they were here, we had them trim the other trees as well.

Here’s the remains of the apple tree. It’s just a small stump in front of Hubby’s new shop.

Here’s the guys working on the Sweet Gum tree. One guy just shimmied up to the top and started cutting off the limbs. Wow, I was hoping he wouldn’t fall out!

We had them cut the stump to three feet so we could put a plant or something on it.

They trimmed the big bushy tree in front and when lunch time came, one guy just stayed in the tree and had lunch! These guys must be tree monkeys. Ha!

They were here for five hours, but had a lot to do, got the messes cleaned up, and were out of here pretty quick, I thought.

Hubby went out and picked up the last few “porcupine balls” that were scattered around. NO MORE BALLS TO PICK UP NOW!

Horsing Around With Snowmen

Last week will probably be the last time Sis and I will get together until this virus thing calms down. Here we are at Sis’s house.

Yes, we were making quite the mess.

We finished painting all the horses that we had started the week before.

This is just my portion of them. She kept hers so we could drill a little hole at the top to run a little hanger through so they could be hung on a tree. I still have mine to do.

After working on the horses and while they were drying, we pulled out the little disk ornaments that we made a couple of years ago. They haven’t sold very well as little disks, but the snowmen have. So we decided to “repurpose” the disks into more snowmen.

Sis didn’t have any “show and tells” this week to show, but she’s working on one and will hopefully have it finished by the time we can visit with each other again.

I finished the little sunflower that I mentioned in the last blog entry.

These vests were in my UFO pile, but not really my UFOs.

I bought these in a package of material at an estate sale. They were already cut out and ready to add a lining and finish up. One was cut from the medium size and the other one was a small. Since that’s the sizes that my Sis and I wear, I thought “it was meant to be.” We’ll probably wear them at the craft show this Fall.

I’m slacking up on the UFO pile as you can see. Too many other projects have been coming along. It’s not because I’m not working on them, however. About five UFOs have been updated to WIPs (works in progress). I fizzle out on one and pick up another one. Maybe I’ll get a bunch of them all finished at the same time this way. Well, we can only wish.

I finished the LONG scarf I started knitting in Feb. It seemed to take forever, but I actually knit on it a little almost every day. Since it’s 92 inches long, knit with size 1 yarn with size 3 needles, you can see why. I still need to block it, so hopefully it will be in a picture for next time.

I also have three other “new” projects I’m working on. Since we have to be home-bound now, I’m hoping that a lot of these will be finished soon.

Until next time, everyone stay safe out there.

 

Horses Of Different Colors

Sis and I finished all of the little bear totes, finally!

They were fun to make but we’re both glad that they’re finished.

A few weeks back, I bought some unfinished wooden rocking horses. Those would be fun to paint, I said to Sis and she agreed with me, and they would be something else we could add to our ever-growing stash of Christmas ornaments to put in the craft sale.

We couldn’t start on them until we finished the bear totes which was taking a little longer than I thought they would in addition to the fact that we couldn’t get together every week for some reason or another.

However this week, instead of going to estate sales, we spent some time checking out a flea market. I found a neat tatting shuttle and a little piece of pottery. Sis just enjoyed looking at everything.

Finally back at my house, we started painting on the little horses. The first thing we had to do was  base coat them, so we chose colors that horses would be and finished all eleven of them.

This is about all we accomplished this week. Sis took hers home after we came up with a design to add to them for the details. Hopefully she’ll get the designs drawn on and maybe a few of them painted before next week. As you can see, I’ve started one as well.

Since I haven’t posted for several weeks, I’ll bring my UFOs up-to-date.

This is a little doll that I’ve been sewing on a little almost every day. She had A LOT of ruffles in her dress and apron. She’s supposed to have wings and be an angel, but since I’m keeping her myself, I think she’ll just be one of my babies.

This little fellow almost didn’t get finished and was going to make it into the sack to take to the thrift store. He was a little stinker to make. But I persevered and here he is now. How cute is this?

The puppy is separate from the box. But for a decoration, he’s cute sitting in the box, I think.

This little gal was finished a while back, but I’ve been looking for a little basket to put in her hands. Last week at an estate sale, Sis spied this little basket just begging for me to take home for my gal. Could this be more perfect?!

I ran to Joanne’s Store in between walking at the mall and doing some shopping a while back and found another book on Amigurumi that I just couldn’t pass up. It’s called Whimsical Stitches  by Lauren Espy and it was on sale!

I couldn’t resist the temptation, so I started a couple of things right away. This is one of them. Isn’t he just too cute!?

I have another one crocheted, but still need to put the pieces together. Tune in to see what’s next.

Bear Totes and My UFO Update

This is getting more and more difficult for me to maintain — finishing my UFOs, that is. I’m itching big time to start some new projects. It helped a little to start a new project a few weeks back, but even the scarf is getting a little boring. (I’m still working on it, however.)

I was able to get another Emoji pic finished to send to another Grandson for Valentine’s Day as well as the first pic I finished a few weeks ago.

I’m “making memories” as I call it when I make things for the grandsons. One of these days when I’m gone, hopefully they’ll still have a few things I made for them and have memories of Grandma giving them a little “I love you”.

Looking through new magazines and even some of my older ones always gets me excited to make something new. So when Sis came over this week, we started a new project that we could both work on.

We didn’t have any sales to go to this week, so we were able to spend most of the day in my sewing room. Of course not seeing each other for a couple of weeks, we had some “show and tells” to show and a lot of gabbing to do to catch each other up on family goings-on. Of course our coffee and goodies took top priority as well.

But we did finally start on some little plastic canvas totes from a pattern that I had purchased a while back. These will be little Christmas ornaments just 4″ high including the handle.

There are six designs with the bears all in different positions. We’re making them on 14-count plastic canvas and using embroidery floss to stitch the designs.

We were both having some problems getting them stitched, but I was able to finish one before we ran out of time for the day. Sis decided to take the one she was working on plus another one home with her to work on during the week. Hopefully we’ll get them all finished this week so we can start something else next time.

Sis brought a show and tell and, darn it, I forgot to get a picture of it. She had made a little doll out of a pre-printed fabric panel. It was really cute.

My “show and tells” were a few more of my UFOs. This picture of butterflies is a project I started — whenever. It’s cross-stitch so it’s time consuming. But I would work on it a little most evenings when I took a break from knitting on the scarf. Now it’s finished!!

I bought this frame at an estate sale for one dollar. It’s a weird color but I was thinking since it’s wood, I could paint it any color I needed depending on what I wanted to put in it.

When I put the butterfly fabric in it to see if it would fit, WOW, I couldn’t believe how the color in the one butterfly exactly matched the color of the frame. So I used it “as is” and I’m so happy with the way it turned out.

This patchwork afghan was started last year after I looked at the huge pile of left-over yarns that keeps getting higher and higher. I really like making patch-work afghans especially when I can use up left-overs.

This pattern I chose would use the smallest of the smallest balls of yarn, but oh my! What a lot of cutting and weaving in yarn ends.

It’s very pretty, but I became bored with it after a while. I put my big girl panties on and went after it. I didn’t make it a full-sized afghan, however. Since it’ll probably be donated to a nursing home I made it lap-size. Finished! Hubby modeled it for me.

It doesn’t look like very many of the balls of left-over yarns were used, so I’m searching for another pattern for yet another patchwork afghan. I have an idea bouncing around in that vacant space in my head, so another afghan may be started soon.

Plus, I’m still working on the UFOs that have become WIPs. More progress next time, (I hope.)

Uh Oh, I Caved

I’ve been a really good girl since the 1st of the year. I was determined to get some of these UFOs finished up. And for the most part, I’ve been doing pretty good.

My list of 50 (was 44, but I found a few more) UFOs have about 16 marked off now. And a few more are just in the process of being finished up.

The big white lap afghan that I’ve worked on for almost the whole month of Jan. is off the needles! It still needs to be blocked and the fringe put on. So not officially finished yet.

BUT, I’ve had to force myself not to start anything new during Jan. So now that it’s Feb., and I’ve been so good to finish what I have, I thought to myself that I needed to be rewarded.

Sooooo, I picked up one of my wannabes and here I go.

This will be a scarf when it’s finished. Isn’t it pretty? Lots of different colors and I love the pattern. It’s pretty easy knitting so I like to pick it up when I just need to relax a while.

But I’m still working on UFOs. Here’s a list and some pictures of some of the ones I’ve finished.

This one is another felt stocking that I cut out several years ago. Wasn’t sure how to decorate it until I came across this cute reindeer pattern. I had to enlarge the pattern to make it look better on the stocking.

I bought this doll kit from an estate sale and started it last Fall. Isn’t she cute? She’ll be joining the rest of my babies that sit all around in the Livingroom. Her hands are pinned together right now while I look for a little basket to fill with yarn and place in her hands.

This vest has been finished for quite a while, but I still had some trimmings to add to it. The Santa’s mustache and the stars on the trees were to be made separately. I also added buttons on the Santa and the snowman (and a scarf) and some other things, then I used my glitter fabric paint and painted the “joy” and the “noel”.

The back with the snowman.

Here’s a couple of boxes that were started before Christmas. The base of them are cardboard and then wrapped in yarn and finished with a felt bottom.

This fingerless gloves were started at least a couple of years ago. I had to use a technique that I’ve not done before, so you know what happens to my projects when that comes around. But I followed the pattern line by line and they went together a lot easier than I thought. (And all that time I just let them sit!) I love the colors.

This little Humpty doll was finished just a couple of days ago. He has a little block that goes with him. It was just a pre-printed panel of fabric that I had already cut out and I thought, “yeah, this will go together quickly.” Ha! A little more time-consuming than I thought it would be.

That’s it for this time. I’m still working on several other items so hopefully I’ll have a few more to show next time.

Sis didn’t come over again this week. The weather again. Sure will be glad to see Spring again.