Good morning

Good morning everyone. It is a beautiful day here. The sun is shining brightly and all is well with my world.

Just came on to post a few words before going off to work. I thought if I tried to make it a daily habit to post on here maybe I would do so more than twice a month. LOL

It is 8:12 and I really should have been out to the office 12 minutes ago but I am nursing a throbbing headache and am waiting for the meds to take effect and make me all better. HMMMM, I think I will need more than Excedrin to make me all better, I am told by my family that I am a little bit loony. Can you believe that my loving family would say such a thing about me?

I started a sweater for my nephew's soon to be baby. The pattern has you start by knitting the sleeves first, so I did. They are done and are on stitch holders and I have cast on for the body of the sweater. Maybe I will get some pics at noon and add them to this post. The pattern is a feather and fan and really goes fast. It is a 12 stitch and 10 row repeat. I made some pretty stitch markers so that if I mess up a repeat I will know which one it is.

Well, guess I had better get off of here and get on to work.

You all have a great day!!

Sissy, have you come and had a look see yet? Leave a comment if you have. (Sissy is my older sister that I am not allowed to call anything else but Sis or Sissy. If I call her by her given name she just ignores me until I say the magic name. LOL)

A few pictures and a few more words.

Geez, it has been almost 2 weeks since I last posted. I have read others blogs but have not had the time to attend to mine.
So much has happened since I last was here. Most importantly I had a birthday!!Yay!
It has been really hot here. So hot that I called our boys out in the field to make sure that they were drinking enough water and being careful. It really surprised them that I did that. They are all around my son's age so I guess I just mother them.

The bags that I showed awhile back have inspired me to do more. I have a "sister" in PA that has a birthday next month and she loves hand made things from me. I went the other day and got some floral upholstery material and a satin stripe upholstery material and I am going to make her a bag for her birthday and a pair of socks if I can get them done.

On the sock front I am finished with the first sock of the August sockamania and have turned the heel on the second and am ready to pick up the gusset stitches. Five days have passed since I tried to post this and the socks are done. As you can see I have quite a bit of the yarn left over. Maybe enough to make a pair of socklets. I have to do some weighing and see. This yarn is a silk and alpaca blend and is really sock feeling. I love it. It was made in Springfield, Ohio which is not that far from me. Maybe I can get some more.
Hmmm, same socks just different time of day and look at the difference in the color. The one on the bottom is most like the socks really are.



I have started a baby sweater for my nephew and his wife's expected baby. The baby girl is due in September so I had better get cracking on it. It seems to be a pretty easy pattern. It is a fan and feather pattern and those go pretty fast.


It is 4:01 in the morning and I can't sleep because of an upset tummy. Must have been what hubby and I had for dinner as he just joined me downstairs and said that he is sick also. At least I did not cook dinner, LOL. We went out to eat.

Tracy, I had a snake visitor also. Back in July I took pictures of this little garter snake. Of course I live out in the country so snakes are expected. He was just crawling down our deck. I had not seen a garter snake around here in quite a long time. When our son was little we had them a lot, or maybe since he liked snakes he would just find them. And yes we taught him early on how to tell a poisonous snake because he was not a bit afraid of them and if he saw a snake he HAD to pick it up and bring it to show to his Daddy and I. Gotta love the little booger. He is now 30 and still likes snakes and loves to aggravate anyone who is afraid of them. Such a lovely child, LOL.

I think I have mentioned in the past that I have a commercial embroidery machine and had a business for about 10 years. I was trying to do some much needed embroidery work about 2 or 3 weeks ago and I broke a belt on the machine. I ordered the piece, got it in in about 3 days and then had to wait on my hubby to install it. He did after about a week, only thing is, he put the machine back together backwards. So I had to wait until he had time to fix it again. We finally did it tonight so I am back up and running. Now I need to get a bunch of shirts for our workers done. I plan to start on them tomorrow afternoon.

Did anyone miss me? LOL

You would not believe the past two weeks that we have had here with internet and computers. On July 31 our internet went totally out. We use it in our business so we really needed it. We were told by our provider that it would be 3 to 7 days before anyone even called us to set up a time to come and fix it and then 5 days after that before they came out to do it. To say the least, that was not acceptable. So we called another provider to get it from them and they could not come until the following Monday (we did not call them until Friday, DH spent 3 days arguing with our provider before he just said to heck with them.)
They came on Monday and started the install but the installer had an appointment at the VA hospital and had to leave before he finished. So he was back Tuesday morning to finish the install. Okay, now we have internet but our email is not set up to come through the new provider so we have to keep the old until it is.
Then, low and behold, Tuesday afternoon our network started acting up. DH could not print to any of the printers in the office and some of the other offices could not print either. So we had our computer person come out to check things out. He was here until about 10 that evening and did not know what to do to fix things. So he called another man who is said to be a real whiz at networking and they came out around 1 on Wednesday. They were here until 7 that night and still did not have everything up and running, so they were back out here Thursday morning at 8:30 and stayed until sometime after 5 and so far things are still not fixed. It has been a real madhouse around here. They even took DH's computer back to the shop to try to fix things up. He was in a real bind today without his computer. So he and I more or less shared mine.
I hope they get everything fixed up soon. We can't get all of our work done. Of the 5 computers in this office, mine seems to be the only one that is really working ok. Let's just hope that it doesn't go blooey too. If I dissapear again, you will know where I am, in computer limbo!
Things have been so hectic around here that I have not had a whole lot of time to knit. I did manage to finish the baby afghan for DD's friend and I finished the July sockamania sock with a very short top. I am almost to the heel of the first August sock. I like this pattern a whole lot better.
We have been in a bit of a heat wave also. So we have been spending evening out in the pool. Yesterday evening the kids, MIL, DH, and me all went swimming. The pool was 90 degrees!! It was almost like bath water. It has been so hot that the water level is down and we need to put some water in so it will cool it down. Since it is supposed to be hot until sometime late next week we may have to add water again. Oh, well.
Hope to have some pics to add before the weekend is over and I hope to not be gone so long again.
Everyone have a great weekend!

My sewing pictures at last

I did a bit of editing this morning (Fri) and it looks better but I am still not happy with the breaks. I'll just keep trying.

Can anyone tell me how to avoid all these spaces left in my post? I can't seem to get rid of the dang things. I tried "help" but could not find what I want. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

I know I said that I would have pictures to post over a week ago and I have not come through with them yet. Well, the projects are done and I have taken the pics and now if I can get them to upload they are here.

I told you about the skirt and bag that I made for "adopted" son's wedding. Well, when I made the bag it was such fun and so easy that I decided to make bags for my girls as well. My DD has a thing for turtles so when I found this print with turtles I knew I just had to make something for her and a bag it is.

It is really cute. I don't know if you can see the beads around it or not, but they are there. I guess if you enlarge the picture you can see them. I showed it to DD this afternoon and she went, "Ahhhhhhhhh." So I guess she likes it.

My DDIL is very into camoflage, so when I found the dessert cammo I decided that would be her bag. I got it all cut out last week and was ready to sew but life got in the way and I did not get around to sewing it until Saturday. (I was out here in my shop doing some embroidery work so I sewed the bag between shirts.) I haven't shown it to her yet so I don't know if she will like it or not. If not, oh well. LOL. Her bead are black. I bought some brownish ones but they really clashed with the cammo colors so I had to go shopping again and find something else. I know that beads and cammo don't really go together but I wanted to add a little bit of a feminine touch to it. DDIL can just live with it, hehe.

And last but certainly not least is my first bag, the one I made for myself. I really love it. I am thinking of taking the flap off and just putting a snap on it. The flap just does not lay correctly. It wants to roll up and I don't like that. I do love the beads that I found for this one. I think they would make great stitch markers. What do you think?

Now that I have started sewing again I want to do some more. I don't have anything cut out but I do have fabric for 3 more skirts. I guess I just need to cut them out.

Yesterday we took my dear MIL and her sister and BIL to cut walking sticks. Uncle D makes them and sells them and dear MIL just makes them. We had a wonderful afternoon. It was not too hot and the walk up the mountainette was not too steep. They both got some nice sticks and were happy with them.

I am going to post this before I lose it again.

Everyone have a great evening.

A little bit of knitting and a little bit of sewing.

I started this post a week or so ago and was having connection problems so I saved it and never did get back to it. So now I will try to finish and publish the post.

Thanks to Pink Purl I have gotten into the notion to do some sewing again. I haven't really made anything in a long time. My second son (my son's best friend who calls me Mom) is getting married today so I decided to make a skirt and matching bag for today. They are finished but so far I have not taken a picture of them. Maybe I will have DH take a picture later this afternoon, and maybe I will just take a picture on them on the hanger. (still no picture, maybe later this week)

Here is some fabric that I saw and just had to have. The floral on top is the one I made the skirt and bag out of.

I have almost finished my first Tofutsie Sock club sock. Haven't started on the July sockamania yet. Maybe tomorrow. I really don't like to have two pair of socks on the needles at the same time, too much chance of mixing them up, lol.

Thanks to Tracy of HeritageCrafts I have joined the MS3 knitalong. Just joined today so I don't have the pattern, yarn, or beads. Well, I have the yarn in my stash just not sure what beads to get to go with it. Well, I may have joined but the site keeps telling me that I am not a member of the group and cannot look. Hmmmm, what should I do?

Hubby and I took a weekend trip to Cincinnati this past weekend. We left home around 8:30 Friday morning and came home last evening. We had a nice weekend. We had not taken a pleasure trip since last November when we went to Richmond VA to see my nephew get married. We were past due.

Sorry I don't have more pictures, I have been so busy that I have not had time to take any. Besides, hubby just bought me this laptop yesterday and I have not had a chance to put my camera software on here so that I would have pictures. I will try to post again in a day or so and have everything set up.

You all have a good night and week until we chat again.

Feeding the babies

I have an 8 year old Saint Bernard, a 6 year old cranky momma cat, 2 of her boys who are 4 now, a beautiful long haired black stray cat that is 3 and a stray mutt that showed up last summer and belongs to DH ( yes, she is the one of the mulch fame, and the sweater fame which I have not told in here yet).

Used to they all got canned food for breakfast and then dry food in the evening. When they had all that scare about the pet food I took them off of the canned food and put them on home cooked food for breakfast andFlintRiverRanch food for dinner.

Their morning food is a mixture of boiled chicken, rice, and mixed vegetables. I start out by buying a whold chicken and boil it for about an hour and a half. Then I add the rice to the broth while I am letting the chicken cool enough to pull from the bone. When the rice is almost done I add the vegetables and let them cook then add the chicken and voila' we are ready for the week.

They all love it. The dogs just wolf it down and Belly one of cranky momma's boys would rather eat the chicken and rice as to eat his dry food.

How can you even suggest that my babies are spoiled! LOL, they are just very well loved.

Socks, what else?

Finally finished my June Sockamania socks. They are neat. They are huge, but that is ok. Now I am working on the July/August Tofutsie socks. I need to do a bit of work on the chart to make it easier for me to follow, but other than that the pattern is fun.

I think I need to start working on the baby afghan again. If I don't work on it occassionally I will forget all about it and I really want to get it done.

I bought some material yesterday to make a couple of skirts out of. I also bought two skirt patterns and two bag patterns. I haven't had time to do much sewing in quite a while but decided that I was just going to have to find the time. I'll keep you updated.

It is Sunday morning and I am going to go wake hubby from his nap and see if he will go out and help me get the vacuum for the pool set up.

Maybe more this evening, if not everyone have a beautiful day.