January mini etc

 I have been busy--knitting-- rather than sewing.  I was preparing for our trip to help take care of our 3 grandkids in Virginia while my son does his marine reserve weekend.

I decided to knit hats for the kids.  I'm pretty sure I already showed you the pictures of the  2 Sesame Street hats.  My oldest, Eli, ripped off Elmo in about 2 minutes so that required surgery!

I finished the adorable baby hat for the 7 month old Leia.  And I'm calling that my January mini (I even cleared it with the "boss", Wendy...VBG).

My knitting skills really leave a lot to be desired and the baby's hat was too big and fit the boys whereas the boys' hats fit the baby.  :-(. I can't tell you how many sweaters I've knitted that are too short. I do enjoy knitting; I'm just not too great at it.  I will stick to scarves and washcloths I think!

Here are the 3 kids modeling their hats, temporarily anyway!

I did work on my first appliqué block for the Céçile challenge but I haven't pressed it so I'm not going to show you yet.  I sewed it on the plane to DC.  I'll share it once I'm back in California on Thursday.  I have done my pieced blocks already.  I prepped another block to sew on the plane going back to California.  Prepping appliqué work is always pretty time consuming!

Before I left, I was walking with some friends and took some pictures I thought were charming.  It was a foggy morning and the ducks were very happy!

Hope you're having a great week and staying healthy!

xxx

Time for a cleaning

 I think it's a sign that it's time to clean out a drawer when you can't open it, right??  So when our "junk drawer" in the kitchen got stuck, I emptied it all out and found the culprit (a rice server was blocking the drawer).  Well, that motivated me to clean out another drawer... and guess what I discovered?  

25 spatulas!  And another 6 in another drawer!  YIKES.  off to the Goodwill!

As for sewing, I have been working on my Jessica Dayon blocks, slowly:  They're going to be purple and aqua!  I intend to make them into the baby's quilt once I have enough.  I'm also using them for Céçile's sew along, in case you are participating in that project.

I have been knitting a bit.  We are going to Virginia next week to visit our son and their kids.  So I decided to knit hats for the boys and one for the new baby girl.  So cute!  These were "kits" and you sew on the Sesame Street "heads" after they're done!  It's pretty cold there now so hopefully they'll love them!

And the baby girl hat isn't quite done yet but it's coming out really cute; love that the yarn is striping!

My biggest news, though, is that I had to have my gall bladder removed!  YIKES!  I have not had surgery since I had a c-section 34 yrs ago!  And that was it.  It was relatively easy and I'm recovering quickly!  I went for a walk today and have been taking my pain pills to avoid being uncomfortable.  I figure it could've been so much worse!  It's not life-threatening, right?

Anyway, that's my news for 2022.  More to follow, and hopefully more exciting!

Stay well!

xxx

Randy

Be careful of grandkids~

 Happy New Year to you all!  I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and are looking forward to a superb 2022.  I certainly am optimistic!

I mentioned last week that I am doing the Jessica Dayon mystery quilt, which has 6" blocks.  It initially started off with blocks every day but it's now slowing down.  I was able to make a few more blocks.  I'm doing them in aqua and purple, which is going to be a quilt for little Leia in Virginia.  Here are my blocks that I've made here in California (I left the others in Oregon)

I'm having fun with these blocks!

We had our grandkids stay over this weekend, and that was of course fabulous.  My 12 yr old grandson loves to sew and usually grabs scraps and just starts sewing.  This weekend, though, he decided it was time he tackled my Accuquilt and he found a die with rectangles.  I showed him how to do it and then left him.  This morning, I found the remnants of his playing with other fabrics and the die!

I think he ran out of time so didn't have a chance to sew them together but I thought it was so funny to see which fabrics he grabbed.  Mind you, they were no where near each other in my sewing room!  Asian fabric and batiks??

My 9 yr old granddaughter doesn't sew but she's very interested in art so she draws constantly.  This weekend we had a project we'd been planning--we made a ModPodge box using horse fabrics (she loves horses).  I need to figure out how to get the fabrics to be smooth (I tried sanding with wet sandpaper but that didn't work too well!)  Any experience with these things so you can help me perfect it??

Hope you're having a great first week of 2022.  Today is my mom's birthday and she's 94!!  Pretty amazing!  She's grateful to be alive, even living in a memory care facility!  

Take care!