Sights and sounds of the Season.....

The big guy has come and gone and was very generous to my little ones.

Our "Elf on the Shelf" has completed his mischief mission for the year and hitched a ride back with Santa last night.

Christmas plays were performed.

Teeth were lost. Three in the last two weeks.

Stockings were hooked and hung. I made 26 of these little stockings from Sucrette and gave them out to classmates and students.

Gag gifts were given. I just love my favorite Sis-in-Law!

Presents were distributed, paper flew around, and squeals of delight were heard.

An afternoon horseback stroll was enjoyed (without the sleigh). This is my nephews horse, Cherokee, being led by my brother who celebrated his 35th birthday yesterday. Happy Birthday baby Brother, we love you!

A good time was had by all.

Our Christmas was

Merry and Bright,

and I hope you and your family

have had a wonderful day.

Much Love to each of you.

TTYS!

Christmas Hats

My girls were going to be in the Christmas parade in my hometown last week, so of course I had to make new hats for them to wear. Turns out they were not going to be in the parade (thanks Uncle Phillip for not registering in time :-D) but they got to wear the hats to enjoy the parade anyway. I used the Hat with Bow pattern I posted last year.

I love this picture! For once they are not fighting or pulling each others hair. Sugar and spice, HA! Everyday is like WWE Smackdown around here.

Snaggle tooth! The tooth fairy has made four stops here in the last month. Twice last week. If she has a tooth that is the least bit loose she will not give up on it until it is out. Thank goodness she has no more loose ones, Mama is broke!

I never get tired of looking into these baby blues.

I hope you all are having a good night wherever you are. Time to crack down only 10 more days until Christmas and I have hardly started shopping yet. On a good note, hopefully tomorrow I will have a ripple afghan finished for a six year old cousin. Hope to have a Ta-Da post this weekend.

TTYS!

Thankful

Wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving day! I hope you Gobble till you Wobble!

Aunt Alines Hats

Testing.

To Infinity and Beyond.......

Ok, so there is no beyond, but I have made a couple of Infinity scarfs.

This little one was made using one skein of Vanna's Choice in Mustard. The pattern I used was Caron's Bellflower Infinity Scarf.  I needed another skein to make it long and able to loop around, but I didn't have one so a short one it is. It's very warm and would have probably been too thick looped around anyway. Has anyone else noticed that Mustard is a popular color right now?

Now for my second one. I made this one in about 4 hours on Friday. The yarn I used is Lion Brands Tweed Stripes in color 206 Woodlands. LOVE this colorway! This was my first time using a self striping yarn and will definitely use it again.  

I started out similar to the patter for the Mustard scarf, and changed up the shells a little. 

Here's how I did it.

-2 skeins of Lion Brand Tweed Stripes

-H hook

Start with a chain of 34.

ROW 1-

DC in the 4th chain from the hook.

*Skip next two ch's.

2 dc, ch 1, 2 dc in the next ch.

dc in each of the next two ch's.*

Repeat from * to the end. Ending with dc's in last two ch's.

You should have 4 shell clusters and 5 two dc spaces.

ROW 2-

ch 3 and turn, dc in next dc.

*in ch 1 space of shell- dc, ch 2, dc

skip to 2 dc's and dc in each.

repeat from * to the end with a dc in the last dc and a dc in the top of the ch 3.

ROW 3-

ch 3 and turn, dc in the next dc.

*in ch 2 space of shell-2 dc, ch1, 2 dc

skip to 2 dc's and dc in each.

repeat from * to end with a dc in the last dc and a dc in the top of ch 3.

Repeat rows 2 and 3 until you reach the desired length. You could leave this as a scarf or sew the two ends together to make a Mobius or Infinity scarf.  I hope I explained the instructions well enough, but if not please feel free to leave me a message.

I have dinner simmering away in the Crock Pot, Beef Tips and Gravy. Pammy Sue at Scotty's Place posted the recipe a while back. This is always a hit with my family. Basically you just add a package of beef tips, (I use the large pack, got a lot of mouths to feed here) and 2 cans of Beef Gravy. Throw it in a crock pot on high for 4 hours. I am going to cook some egg noodles and add them to it. Perfect for a chilly day. I am gonna go now and make a Butter Pecan Pound Cake. If you would like the recipe let me know, I will be glad to share.

TTYS!

I've been in the ripple!

A yarn ripple, not the bottle. But then again the evening is just starting! I decided to join up with Heather and Lucy's ripple-a-long. Just in case you haven't see or heard about it, all the info is here and here.

I am using leftovers I already have. I am sure I will have to buy more of the Sea Blue. I am using it as a main color and will put another color in between with the hopes of not using the same color twice. The pattern I am using comes from Lemond De Sucrette. Here is a link to her pattern. It is a chart, but very easy to understand. Similar to Attic 24's pattern but with a little more ripple. There is also a Flickr group, go check it out, join up, and start rippling.

This is a pair of shoes I fashioned in my favorite college teams colors. Garnet and Black for the South Carolina Gamecocks. I found the shoes on sale for $10, brought them home, and added polka dot grosgrain ribbon flowers. Go Gamecocks!

Gonna run for now. Time to get in to the ripple for the evening, maybe both kinds!

Hope ya'll are having a great weekend!

TTYS!

I've been in stitches

 This is what I have been up to during the last month.

This was a freebie! Free pattern, used my free linen and free floss. My motto is "If it's free, it's for me!"

I found this pattern on Pinterest. Here is a link to it.

As I was going through all the cross stitch things I found a couple of things with the previous owners name on them. Come to find out I knew the lady that had these things. Her husband was the Optomitrist in the town I grew up in, and she was the sweetest lady. There are many started projects with the pattern, cloth, and floss all together in a ziplock bag. I found this one and knew it had to be finished and fast. She had completed the roof up to the top so I finished the rest.  I hope Mrs. K would have been happy to know her things are not going to waste.

This is the one I am working on now. I bought the kit on E Bay a year or so ago. I had started it in Aida but found this beautiful piece of Linen and decided to restart it. It is Dimensions kit #42455 "Apples and Berries". I think it will look great in my dining room and can't wait to see it framed.

Is anyone else having to wait forever to upload pictures? It took almost 45 minutes to upload these 4 pictures. Is it my computer or blogger? Today was a perfect Indian Summer kind of day. Nice warm sunny day with a slight breeze. Tomorrows forcast is rainy with a 30 degree drop in the temperature. Welcome to the South! I am ready for some actual Fall weather. Hope your week has been a great one!

TTYS!

Good Grief Ya'll!

So, Saturday morning I was enjoying some peace and quiet, coffee cup in hand, and enjoying a nice stroll through blog land. I was looking at this blog (go check out her Infinity scarf, gorgeous and she has a tutorial) when I saw my blog name on the side bar. Right under my name are the words "1 month ago". WHAT? That can't be right! I haven't blogged in over a month?!?  Bad Blogger, Bad! No excuses, I have got to do better than this!

Well, lets see, what have we been up to. Last time I wrote I was off on a vacay. We had a wonderful time at the beach, the weather was absolutely perfect, the girls and my Mom had a great stress free time. I love to watch the sunrises over the ocean. We began the September beach trips many years ago to take my MaMa Murry to see the sunrise on the ocean for her birthday, which would have been September 7th. It was bittersweet to see this sunrise, she passed away in March of this year. I think this is the prettiest one I have seen yet.

I got to see some friends who moved to Myrtle Beach a few years ago, and their children. I photographed their wedding 10 years ago, and while at the beach I photographed her Daughters Senior pictures. Here she is ready to take on the world.

This past Saturday we went to a birthday party for a very special lady.

This is my Great-Aunt Aline with her family. Happy 90th Birthday!

A couple of sweet little guys had birthdays recently also.

Caden Jacob turned one on September 20th. I introduced him in this post.

Thomas turned one on September 29th. Here was his debut on here.

Let me introduce you to Thomas' new little brother, Brayden.

Yes, Thomas and Brayden are less than a year apart. To be exact 21 days from being a year apart. Their Mother, my cousin Heather, would be very appreciative of any prayers ya'll would like to send up for her. :-)

Brayden was born on September 8th. The day after what would have been our MaMa's 90th birthday.

I think I will stop here. I have been up the last two nights with a sick 6 year old, sore throat, coughing, and fever. She has a doctor appointment at 2 this afternoon. We are hoping its not strep.

Look for upcoming posts with my crafty projects coming up soon. I promise it won't be a month before we meet again.

TTYS!

Working (on) the hooks

"New hooks" I made last night! I went to Hobby Lobby last night and picked up some Fimo clay and covered hooks I had at home. I have been seeing Debi's hooks she has been making and loving them. I have never worked with Fimo clay so I decided to give it a try. The red clay has a touch of glitter in it.  Now I want to cover all my hooks!

This is my new favorite color combo, red and teal! And who doesn't love polka dots. I did a happy dance when I took the first one out of the oven, then went and got a hook in sizes E-K and made a set. Maybe I will get back into a crochet groove with these hooks to use.

This very hungry caterpillar is getting ready for fall. There are about 10 of these on my tomato, cucumber, and hot pepper plants. I have never seen one starting to make a cocoon, and they are huge!

I hit the "Stash"pot this week. My seester works at a nursing home, when she got to work this week she found 4 large totes full of cross stitch materials and yarn. After she pulled out what could be used at the nursing home, and the other employees went through it, she gave me the rest! This is a dish pan full of nothing but floss. I think I have more floss here than Hobby Lobby.

Tons of material, Aida and Linen, patterns, books, started pieces organized in bags with the floss. I will take more pictures when I get it a little more organized. Oh the yarn, there was 10 skeins of Noro wool! I am thinking a felted bag. I will get more pics up soon.

We are going to the beach on Wednesday. I can't wait! I am ready for the salty air, sandy toes, and beautiful sunrises like this one I captured last year.

I hope y'all have a safe and happy Labor Day weekend.

TTYS

I felt the Earth move.....

So I am sure you have heard about the Earthquake already. Today I experienced it for the first time. I was in the pick-up line at school waiting on my Daughter to get out, cross stitching, and all of the sudden my Explorer started bouncing. I thought maybe it was the wind, nope just a slight breeze blowing outside. It lasted about 30-45 seconds. Weird, but not uncommon, for where I live. There is a fault line near me.  About 14 years ago we had a earthquake, I slept right through it. My ex-husband was running around like a chicken with his head cut off. He tried to wake me up. I had just got my nephew Tyler to sleep, after being up almost all night with him having asthma attacks, and threatened him with bodily harm if he woke the baby up.

We are waiting to see what Hurricane Irene is gonna do. We are in the projected path of the storm, don't I sound like a weather girl. My freshman year of High School we were hit by Hurricane Hugo. I remember being in World History when the announcement was made that school was cancelled the next day. I thought they were crazy, but hey it was a day off from school, so I wasn't going to complain. Yet. It was horrible. Our house flooded, trees were down all in my yard, we were without power for a couple of weeks. Horrible I tell you! So from then on I have paid attention to hurricanes and their paths. My ex in-laws lived in Mississippi when Katrina came through. We left SC the day after Katrina hit, headed to MS to go help them dig out, with a 6 week old baby. Longest trip of my life! Thank God they had a generator, and very little damage to their property. They were very lucky.

I thought about the fact that 20 years ago today, I was starting my Senior year of High School. Feel old much? Gah, where has the time gone?

Not much happening on the crochet front. I tested a pattern for Smooth Fox last week. It is called Tea for Two and you can get the free pattern here.

I hope y'all are having a great week.

TTYS!

Preserving Memories

One of my fondest childhood memories is spending time with my Grandma Carrie. Many times I would drive her home from Church on Sundays, this started about the time I was 9 or 10 years old. I would spend the afternoon looking through her shoebox of old family photos. I loved those pictures and seeing all the people in them, some I knew and had met and others I didn't. My Grandma was the youngest of 10 children. She had nieces and nephews who were around the same age as her. As the Preacher said during her funeral service, with 9 brothers and sisters, her parents, my PaPa and her in-laws having passed away, he was sure they had to shut down the Gates to Heaven when she arrived. We all laughed at this because it was probably true.

My family always grew very large gardens every year. I remember as a child running through rows and rows of corn stalks. One of the gardens was beside the house I grew up in, it was about 4 acres big. There was also a garden behind my Great-Grandparents house which was on the other side of my house, and another garden beside and behind my Grandparents house. We all worked the gardens, and harvested them. I remember my Aunts carport covered about knee deep in corn and the women sitting out there shucking corn. In the hot summer with long sleeves and long pants on, and we would still itch. I spent many summer nights at Grandmas helping her snap peas. Our fingers would be so sore the next day. Grandma would always can the vegetables, and her mud room shelves would be full of Ball jars. There is nothing better than canned vegetables. My Grandma passed away on May 22 of this year. I have lost both of my Grandmothers this year just 2 months and 5 days apart.

We have a Pear tree in our yard that is loaded down this time of year with the sweetest pears. Every summer I say I am going to make pear preserves and have never done it. I called Grandma a couple of years ago to find out how she made her Pear Preserves. It is a really simple process. Just pears and sugar.

Sticky sweet goodness.

So this year I decided to go for it. I called my Aunt Nett to make sure I remembered the recipe as Grandma told it to me. This was on the stove for about 7 hours today.

This is the finished product, my first attempt at canning anything.  I made seven half-pint jars today. Next weekend I plan on making more, I have to get up the ladder first to pick more pears. I was given a wonderful compliment on the taste. When my Dad took a bite he said "They taste just like PaPa's used to." I couldn't help but smile. Today hasn't just been about preserving the pears, I have also been preserving memories.

TTYS

Summertime Visitors

Mr. Bee

Beautiful Butterflies

They love the Lantana planted beside the porch.

Hello

Quit eyeballin' me lady!

Graceful little Hummingbird.

Now, I need some help with this one. I do not know what kind of insect this is. It has the coloring of bees with the antennae and sucker (for lack of the technical word) of a butterfly. I noticed these for the first time last year. Does anyone know what these are?

The visitors I haven't gotten pictures of are the black King snake that slithered up on my porch and scared the life out of me. I am afraid of snakes, poisonous, non-poisonous, alive or dead. I stepped on a black snake when I was a child and have been traumatized ever since.

This last couple of weeks we have a nightly visitor and I don't like him either. At sunset every night a Coyote comes out of the woods behind our house and runs around our back yard. He comes up close to the girls swing set and just stares at anyone who is outside. I know he is hunting the rabbits that live back there, and the Canadian Geese that are at my neighbors pond. I don't want him to get them, he needs to go terrorize some other yard.

I hope your summer is going great and that you are able to beat the heat. I am looking forward to a vacation at the beach in September.

TTYS!