Tolentreasures

I was upstairs straightening my wool stash and getting ready to do some cutting of penny rugs, my favorite part. I love to cut them out, anyway I had decided to make a care package of wool for a friend of mine and I thought, "why not make one for a giveaway too while I am cutting" so here it is. I cut 7 inch square pieces of wool that have been washed and dried and felted, well some of them are not quite as "felted" as I would like them to be, but I still use them. They are all different weights and they are all from recycled clothing that has been washed many times. It is coming from a smoke free, pet free house. This would be a nice addition to your scrap pile of wool and they would be great for a scrappy penny rug (may favorite kind to do) There are 18 squares of wool. Please post to be in the drawing and I'll draw the winner mid January sometime.

Ok, I admit it, I am completely hooked on these hats and scarves and knitting. It has been way too addictive for me. It is such almost instant gratification that I cannot put down those knitting needles and looms and I have three and four of them started at once. I have to at least run the sweeper today and do some laundry and there is wool calling me to be felted and penny rug patterns and painting projects and all those beads that I have been picking up for the last three months and throwing on a shelf in my craft room need organized but first just one more hat and scarf and then I'll do something.... This was my fun find in the middle of the chaos of the tree falling on the house. My step daughter bought my old house and when she did we still had three more daughters at home and the house was full to the brim with the "baby" in the attic of our house. (she uses this when she wants pity that we put her in the attic but really she wanted to be there) We had everythin...

This is a pic of my Jenn's house with the tree. It was quite the sight. The tree just tipped over! The carpenter was there yesterday and everything is fixed and back to "normal" as normal as things get around here!

I know better than to say that I am going to have some quiet in my life. That always seems to bring on the most chaotic things in my life...or in this case my kids' lives and that usually carries over into ours, thank goodness that they live close. Yesterday brought a SIL #4 with a foot injury that required a trip to the emergency room, now while I felt bad about his foot, I was able to have some alone Grandma Spoiling Time with my granddaughter. I don't get enough of that alone spoiling time with her so that was good and my SIL's foot was not broken, another good thing. Today was to be a day of rest..there have been so few in the last couple of months, it was John's 50th birthday and we had decided on a quiet day at home, watching the Steeler game after church and eating leftovers. Well the saying "When we plan, God laughs" was certainly true here. At 9 this morning our SIL#1 called and with all the high winds, a very large tree had fallen on their house. Luc...

On Friday morning, the day that we celebrated Christmas, I finally finished these stocking that I had been working on. They were a bit of a challenge for me, and my sewing machine broke in the middle of them and had to be torn apart. No one could have been more surprised than me when I put it back together (the third time) and it worked. We had a fun, crazy Christmas full of lots of noise and too much food. I love having all the kids together at once. For as close as we all live, it does not happen that often. I look forward to January and February more and more each year. The shop is slower and there is more time to stay at home and nest/rest. I have tons of projects that I want to do and a few that I need to do. Mostly I like the rest and break from the busy time of the year which for us is March through December. This is a pic of my daughters and stepdaughters on Christmas Day in a break from being a rock band. What fun that game was for them...I just don't have th...

Merry Christmas to everyone, hope that your day and the days to come bring family, friends, rest and peace and that you also have time to remember God's greatest gift to us. Have a blessed holiday!

Ok, I am going to admit that all I want to do is work on these hats I love making them and the process is complete relaxation for me. It is almost like reading a book at bedtime. I start working on them and the stress of work and the holidays just goes away. (Several times I have fallen asleep with the loom still in my hands) I have another one started...now to find a donation spot for them. One stocking down and 2 more to go. The other two are well on their way and they should go easier now that the "prototype" is out of the way. That is one of the problems of not having a pattern, the mistakes that you make trying to figure it out. I am really happy with this, although I will be hitting the quilt shop soon for more fabric, with another grandchild on the way and the happy prospects of more in the future, I need to make sure that I have lots of this fabric on hand to make more each year. (Would it be too much to ask to have to make two next year?...c'mon girls...

I think that I have crafter's ADD. I got this bright idea that I wanted to learn to knit in 2009 and I bought this book, a kit and these looms at Michael's yesterday. Now that is all that I want to work on and I really need to get those stockings done before Christmas. Yes, that is a kid's knitting book but really it is always good to know your mental abilities and I felt sure this would be the easiest way to learn for me and I already made that dishcloth. A few mistakes, but I really like knitting. This wool was my "find" when I cruised Goodwill yesterday morning. The black is 100% cashmere and I have never tried that for penny rugs, but I love the feel of it. I have to cut these up today into something manageable. I wash them whole to felt them and then cut them apart. These are the stockings that I worked on all morning before church. I had the idea in my head and didn't have a pattern, so far so good. That does not always work well for me. The ...

These are three more items that have been on the to do list for an embarrassing long time. It really feels good to have them done and it is really starting to clean up my painting area. The sled is for my step-daughter, it was from her maternal grandmother's house. It was in such bad shape that I kept putting off what to do with it. The signs were for an order that I have had for close to a year. Why did I not do them in the middle of the summer? I was not as busy then. or was I? Procrastination!

and nothing like a little panic to throw me into high gear. I checked my list of what I needed/wanted to get done for Christmas and realized that there was a lot more than one project a day that I needed to finish. Wow, a lot more than actually two a day. So I guess it is time to eliminate the "wanted" and just go with the "needed" I had both of these projects started so I decided to finish them. They are both for daughters' Christmas presents. The tavern board is interchangeable. It was not made that way, I bought it at Michael's and had John router the other side so that I could paint both sides of it. I am such a procrastinator, I need to paint really fast for a few days.

Once again this winter I have been hit with the cold and flu bug. Our house just can't seem to shake it once and for all. I did manage to wrap a little yesterday when I could not go to work. In between medicine comas and naps I would wrap a few gifts here and there. I took some pics of my ornaments on my tree. I must confess that my Christmas decorations could border on kiddy middy...I love glitz and glitter for Christmas. After all the years of "special" ornaments, with our new family five Christmas' ago came a tree all done is red and white and silver. This year I received as a gift some beautiful hand-blown glass ornaments from my friend Linda. They are carefully placed out of the reach of our active toddler grandchildren. They are a perfect addition to our tree this year.

Double trouble is probably not the right term for this little guy. He is so absolutely loveable and this would just be double the loving on him. This is Logan, my grandson, and I snapped this as he was looking at me in the mirror last night. I loved the expression and I love this picture of him. He is such a little sweetheart. I finished this scrappy penny rug this evening. It is for my step-daughter Dianna. I love doing these but think that I have exhausted giving them away to family members. Maybe I should think of that for a giveaway....hmmm, something to think about!

These are my packages ready to go to the post office this morning. I had the best of intentions yesterday to have these out. Isn't it funny how you have your day all planned out in your mind and things can just go awry? I had planned to keep my granddaughter yesterday so that my daughter could meet a friend for the day and shop without diaper bags and car seats and of course my main motive was to spoil that little girl. I had plans to take her to work with me in the morning and come home in the afternoon and let her nap and I would get these boxes ready and then she and I would go to the post office. (Really no thought as to how I was going to get all of this and her from the car to the post office though) Well John is still sick with this cold and flu bug and could not go to work and that meant that I had to cover things there yesterday. So off to work Gracelyn and I went. She was so good though and thanks to Aunt Jennifer and Nana being there to help we actually had a functioning...

The winners of the giveaway are BurttBunch and PammyJo. Congratulations! The first one to contact me gets the choice so make sure that you indicate the choice of giveway when you email your address to me! Thanks for everyone for entering and for listing it on your blogs. It was very nice to see the response to the giveaway!

Yesterday was a very stressful day at work, DH was sick and we all know how men are when they are sick and he was just not the happy go lucky, caring guy that he normally is. Our three year old grandson had a bad experience at the dentist and we were all upset over that. (After a little close checking on the dentist we have found out that there are many complaints lodged against him) We had deliveries to be made at work and I decided that I would make them and then do my running and errands so that I would not have to step outside today. I was driving up Route 66 (not the famous one) to Clarion, PA and there out of nowhere was this quilt shop that I had not seen before. I passed it and tried to turn around and in my excitement just drove through the field to get there, (not totally uncommon in the area that I live) I walked through the door and there were women in there talking and laughing, fabric everywhere and a lovely gazebo type area in the middle of the building. It was clean, w...

I finally finished all these pieces last night and have them varnished and ready to be packed back into the box for transport to Jenn's house. Whew! Please excuse the painting counter background but I did not want to move them AGAIN! Jenn was here last night and I showed them to her and she was really surprised and excited. I want her to be able to display it this year and wanted her to help us (John) decide what to build for her for a display for them. I suggested plexiglas with those two precious, overactive, ball throwing, wrestling, little boys and John wanted to build it behind chicken wire like the band in the movie Roadhouse, but seriously, now he has to build something this weekend for her and then she can display it. One of those special moments when truly the gift is in the giving! Thanks everyone for signing up for the giveaway and for posting it on your blogs. It has been fun to "visit" each of you! Can't wait to see who the lucky winner is!

Ok, these are my two giveaways. This is fun to make up your own rules! I will enter you in the drawing if you add a comment and if you mention this on your blog, I will give you three more entries, but you have to let me know in a comment that you mentioned it otherwise I am not sure how I would know?? Hey, it's my first giveaway and I am not sure how this works. When I draw the winners, the first one to contact me gets the choice of which giveway they want and the second one gets the other one. I will draw this on Sunday? I hope that is enough time for a giveaway, I feel like such a beginner here. If I am not doing this right, please let me know. Oh and the quilt is not part of the giveaway and I have a few more items in the stash for a surprise!

Ok, I am counting my 30 Projects in 30 days as done...this backdrop for the Christmas play at the church is going to be #29 and I finished 12 of the pieces to my step-daughter's nativity so I am counting that as #30. I will take a pic of that later. This backdrop is 8 feet square...you can't tell that from the pic and we (the woman in charge of the play) and I painted it yesterday morning. These other pics are the cloths on the windowsills at the church. It was hard to get a pic of them. Now in celebration of that and one month of blogging I think that I would like to have a giveway...can anyone tell my the official "protocol" for doing that? Are there any rules for that, official or unofficial?

This centerpiece is Number 28 in my 30 day challenge, only two to go and if I don't make it at least I got this much done and it kept me from procrastinating everything that I wanted to get done. I painted this tray and put the pine cones in it, they were from a recent trip to a friend's camp. I had the the candleholders but decorated the candles with rusty tin snowflakes that I found in my stash. All of the other projects are things that I have painted in years past other than the quilted wallhanging. My mom made that for me last year. I painted the nativity wreath years ago and I still really like it, my kids don't like it so I hang it right inside the door that they use when they come here. It was so much work and I guess that I am going to have to will it to someone just so that they don't burn it or sell it at a yard sale for one dollar someday. The snowman collection is getting a little out of hand. I have them everywhere usually but this year tried to...