Jan 20/19

The dish cloth adventure continues on my knitting needles. The fella' just shakes his head as the pile grows beside me in the livingroom. I do not really have a selling strategy just yet although one of my girlfriends saw me knitting them at book group and she is going to buy some because she loves homemade dish cloths. I have been monitoring online sales groups to see what other people are using for pricing and I have a pricing strategy in my head. The patterns are made up by me so that is one angle that I hope to promote because my cloths are not like everyone's cloths. Also, I am making them a little bit bigger than the current popular patterns because the fella' wanted a slightly larger cloth. My camera settings need some tweaking to better photograph the twists of colour in the yarn that I am using because it is hard to tell that the top two cloths are red, green and white and the bottom one is red, navy and white. 

A messy weather system of snow and heavy rain has churned up the Eastern Seaboard and we have been getting heavy precipitation for over 12 hours now. We have had 15cm of snow followed by ice pellets, freezing rain and now rain. The lawn is bare again and houses are started to flood because the ground is frozen. Since I was housebound today, I figured it was a good day to paint this cute little bench that my mother gave to me a few years ago. This piece is the first of 3 pine pieces that I want to paint. Another one is peeking in the left corner of this photo. Chalk paint goes on so easily with good coverage and the slathering of wax gives it a rustic finish. I used Folk Art chalk paint that I bought with the gift card for Michaels that my brother gave me for Christmas and Annie Sloan wax leftover from another piece of furniture that I painted three years ago.

As you can see, I had an inspector. The cat loves to help by getting in the way as much as possible. Our Lab kept her shepherded out of the way most of the afternoon. The fella' kept me going with questions and food all afternoon. He is not much into crafting, but he did take the hard drives out of the two non-functional lap tops that we had had stashed on the bottom of this bench. The lap tops will go to the recycling depot and the drives will go to the destruction box where he works.

The bench has been painted, touched up and waxed so now it is curing over night before I take a hairdryer to it to even out the wax coat before I put it back in its place in the living room. The lighting is so poor in our living room that I am waiting until tomorrow to take the final photo. All in all, a day well spent doing things I love to do while casting an eye out the window at the ever changing weather system. I hope that all of you were having as much fun during your Sunday afternoon!

Jan 1/19

Happy New Year! Where, oh where did the Christmas holiday season go? I begin 2019 with lots of ideas, plans and peace. There may also be some exhaustion after a busy month at work and lots of fun with family and friends. Migraines are ever present because of the constantly fluctuating weather here, thanks to the Gulf Stream, so we missed a few parties and I struggled to get things done in time (2 Christmas parcels have yet to make it to the post office!). I am not a Christmas perfectionist and my mantra is "the 25th will come whether I am ready or not". I had time with family and friends and that is all that matters to me.

On the crafting side, my mother asked me on Christmas morning if I wanted to make a blanket. I said no. I am not convinced that her hearing aids are working well because she immediately went downstairs and dug out two pieces of fleece. Arguing was not going to get me anywhere so I sighed and went to help her because it was do it then or that evening after the family dinner. She then announced that she was going to take a shower after she handed me the tools. While she showered, I measured, calculated and trimmed the fleece to size and started to cut the edges so that they could be tied together. Mom returned in time to help tie the blanket together. My brother had better love this blanket when he gets it for his birthday in a few weeks!

Recent road trips have allowed me to knit up several dish cloths. I have spent about 15 hours as a passenger in the car in the past week so I took advantage of that time to knit away. Ron thinks that I am nuts, but I think that I have a chance at selling these as I have been looking online at local markets to see what other people are selling and at what price. My colours and pattern are different so I think that there is some appeal in that. Perhaps I should do a little testing with trying to sell them online myself before signing up for any craft sales this year. I would love feedback from my readers about selling handmade items, if you sell your items.

I have decided to do a rotation of crafts. Last week was knitting week, this week is cross stitch week and next week will be pattern development for another idea that I have as well as selling some more of my patterns. By focusing on one thing at a time, I feel less scattered or frantic because that is how my brain works when I make of list of things to be done. Giving each thing a time of its own is making it easier for me so far.

Happy stitching!

Dec 16/18

My current obsession is the knitting of dish cloths. These ones are being knit up with Lily's Sugar and Cream Vineyard Twists. I have given some of the Christmas coloured ones away as Christmas gifts to neighbours and friends and I am trying to decide what to do with these ones. I may try my hand at selling them at a craft sale or online or I may keep them for those moments when I need to quickly find a gift for some occasion. I am considering some other ideas for possible selling of crafted items and I have even come up with the perfect business name for me! The business name is still floating around in my head, but the moment I thought of it was a BINGO moment for me. The thing is though, I feel paralyzed by the thought of putting my work out there on the market. Giving it away is one thing, but asking for money, for the worth of my handiwork is scary. How do you do it? What drives you to sell your items?

My phone photography is not great and here is a close up attempt to show the lovely colours in this twisted yarn.

I like to do seasonal displays on our front step. This is our current display. The chair has seen better days and was found on the side of the road during a Spring clean up. The frame was found on the side of the road during the recent Fall clean up and decorated with a recycled ribbon clump and some plastic bulbs. Cheap and cheerful for the holiday season!

Happy stitching!

Nov 25/18

My current philosophy about Christmas is to do a little bit every day and eventually, it will all come together. I stitched away at this ornament yesterday evening. The fella' went to bed early with a headache so I watched the first two episodes of the most recent season of the "Great British Bake-off" and stitched. 

I have been working on more dish cloths as I am thinking of gifting them in bundles of two, one with the variegated holiday yarn and one white cloth. So far, 5 white ones are completed and a sixth is on my needles. The other women at my book club meeting on Friday night were fascinated by watching me knit while we all talked. They found it freaky that I could knit while talking and looking at them because my fingers know this pattern so well now. Truthfully, I found it freaky that they were all watching me so closely! It is interesting to me because I grew up in a rural community where every one knits, sews, quilts, etc. The women in my book club are 15-20 years younger than me and so many of them wish that they knew how to do these things, but have never learned whereas I learned because my mom and her friends were always working on such projects. While I certainly appreciate the convenience of mass produced items, I feel sad that so many people have not known the joy of sewing or knitting or making things by hand. Thoughts from anyone else?

Well, back to hauling laundry to my neighbours' house because our washer is making some warning sounds. Thank goodness for kind neighbours who are allowing me to traipse through their house with my laundry!

Happy stitching!

Nov 6/18

There are days when I wonder what the heck I have been up to because it is the end of the week, I am exhausted, my house looks like a bomb has gone off and I feel like I have done nothing except work and vacuum up pet hair. Apparently, there has been a little bit of this

and a little bit of that 

and a few other things going on around here. Hallowe'en is a favourite night of mine with the kids out and about in costume and I go a bit nuts with carving jack'o'lanterns.

For good measure, there were chocolate chip cookies made as well.

The jack'o'lanterns have been chopped and roasted. Pumpkin soup was made yesterday, muffins will be made today and the rest will be frozen for treats for the dogs. The dish cloth pattern has finally morphed into something that I am quite happy with. There have been a few adjustments made to the size and the number of rows within the pattern to where I am quite happy with it.

One of the downsides of the Hallowe'en decorations would be this fright I gave myself the other night when I walked by the front door during the wind storm. Our peeping tom was dealt with ASAP after I got over my scare!

Happy stitching!

October 16/18

There has not been much crafting going on here because of arthritis in the baby finger of my left hand. The arthritis flared recently while knitting dish cloths and while not debilitating, I am reminded of it while typing or doing anything that involves my baby finger. Ugh. This getting older thing is a learning curve of what body part is going to ache next. 

We had a beautiful day on Sunday, in between rainy days thanks to the tropical storms sweeping up the eastern seaboard, so we packed up the dogs and headed to the South Shore of Nova Scotia. Here they are having some fun in the ocean before a woman yelled at us for having our dogs off leash.  Yes, we should not have had them off leash as there were signs at the park entrance, but there was no one around when we let them go to enjoy the ocean. There were several other dogs off leash in the park and we avoided them when we spotted them because our Lab goes snaky when she sees another dog while she is on a leash. We are responsible dog owners, but unfortunately, our puppy loses all sense of recall when she gets excited. I suspect that the woman must have been afraid of dogs which would explain her reaction. 

The cooler temperatures have brought on the annual flare of colour as all of the hardwoods turn brilliant colours before the leaves drop. Here is the view I have from my spare bedroom where I have placed my reading chair by the window. The winds today are pulling off many of the leaves and I see a carpet of leaves forming on my lawn. The drive to and from work is a delight of orange, red and yellow splashes of colour along the highway. Sadly, it also signals that cold and snow are around the corner. Brrrrrr!!

I have done some cross stitching in the past week. Here is a kit of Ursula Michaels ornaments that I had in my stash. I am not sure who they will be for just yet, but it will not hurt to have the designs stitched up.

Happy stitching!

Sept 23/18

The weather has been glorious recently, beautiful days with cool nights and lower humidity. We spent last weekend at a rental cottage and this was my view for 4 days. I spent alot of time sitting on the deck of the cottage with a book in hand, looking up on occasion at this view. We could not help but relax!

The fella' spent alot of time getting into the lake with the dogs where the water was still warm enough for swimming. We had a great time throwing sticks into the water for the dogs to retrieve and horsing around in the lake with the dogs. On day, Tillie went walkabout on us and wandered into a seasonal trailer site that is rented by a guy that has worked with the fella`. Despite the naughtiness of our dog, he let us use his kayaks and dock to enjoy the lake even more. There were few people at the campground because the summer camping season is almost over so it was glorious to be the only people out on the lake with the heron that hung out nearby.

Crafting wise, not much cross stitch has been done recently as my attention has been turned to knitting up dish cloths to replace the ratty and unraveling ones in our linen drawer. Bernat has a wonderful collection of free patterns for dish cloths so I am merrily knitting away while watching the new Sons of Anarchy show, "Mayans MC". I also altered one of my favourite dresses today to make it much more flattering and work appropriate. The dress had an oddly placed tie on it that made it unflattering and caused a big display of cleavage. The removal of the tie makes the dress more like a tunic and I am much happier.

Another project that has been keeping me busy is something I call my Positivity Project. I recently did some therapy to deal with some post traumatic stress that had reared its ugly head  and one of my healing strategies is to journal about 5 things for which I feel grateful at that moment. I am trying to build more positive pathways in my brain so that the negative stuff has less influence and I can better cope with stressful bits in my life.

On that note, I hope that all is well with you and Happy Stitching!