Sunday, December 30, 2007

Gifts

Here are some gifts I wanted to share with you. One is beautiful and the other just surprised the heck out of me. I love them both.

This one is from my mother-in-law. It’s a sheep quilt that she made. It is so soft.


Some close ups of the sheep.

Aren't they cute? The flowers are little buttons.




Here is the gift that surprised me.


It is from Rudy. One of the reasons this surprised me is because Rudy has shown no interest at all in my spinning or knitting. I didn’t even think he knew what a drum carder was. I quickly thought my sister must have helped him out on this gift but when I asked her she said no. He must be paying more attention than I thought :).

One of Tyde’s friends was over and saw the drum carder sitting on the table. He ran up to it and said, “Oh, cool, this looks dangerous.” I think I better put it away some where when he is over.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Stockings

I figured I better post about Christmas before the year is over. We had a great Christmas and your not going to believe what I got as a gift but I’ll save that for another post.

This one is about the stockings. I will remember this Christmas as the Christmas of the stockings. It started when I wanted to give a little something to all my co-workers at school. I wasn’t sure exactly how many there are but I thought 40 was a good number. I was thinking of making some kind of felted ornament, maybe a sheep but then I saw these while looking for ideas. It came complete with a (PDF) pattern. I thought great, I don’t have to think about it that much, all I have to do is follow the pattern.

It took longer than I expected. I ended up making mine a little bigger so I could stuff candy in them. This took a little time to tweak. I also started off hand sewing them but quickly realized that I wanted to be done before the New Year so started machine sewing them. The hand sewn ones did look better but I was beginning to get in a time crunch. I finished them the morning before the last day of school, whew.


After getting those done I was about to go into relax mode, but then noticed the kids stockings got ruined from being neglected in storage over the years. So on Christmas Eve I got it into my head that we all needed new stockings. Into the fabric stash I went and managed to come up with these.


I had used a pattern that my sister in law’s mother gave me several years ago. I couldn’t find the pattern but kind of remembered how it went.
After making Rudy’s I started running out of fabric remnants that had a Christmas theme so Dax’s has more of a fairy theme. The sayings on it says things like dance like no one is watching, sing like no one is listening, never stop dreaming and love like you have never been hurt. I’m not sure where the quotes originated; one source I’ve heard is Mark Twain.


Tyde’s was the last one I made. I was really getting burned out by the time I got to his. I didn’t think I would have enough green fabric so started cutting the red fabric in much bigger strips. This was also less time consuming because I didn’t have to sew as much. He likes surfing so the fabric I used with his has sayings on it like, checking out the waves, shoot the curl etc.


When it came time to making myself one I decided it could wait till next year.
I hope everybody had or is still having a wonderful holiday break.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Random catch up

It’s getting a little busy right now so I’m just going to do a random catch up on what’s been going on around here.

We have received the box from the Hawaiian side of the family. Thank you very much! Amazingly the first three boxes of candy are already gone. Well maybe not so amazing when you think about there is a 12 yo, a 14 yo, their friends, Rudy and ah, me all feeding off it. I hid what was left so we could have some for another day.


My sister’s family came into town last weekend and what did we do. We went to Ikea. Boy was it crowded. I can honestly say I do not like Orlando traffic.
We did get some much needed shelves for Dax and a much needed loft bed for Tyde. Rudy had to cut the bed posts down a little bit because it was to high for our ceilings.



I currently have a major sore throat. I’m hoping it’s from the red tide and will disappear when the red tide leaves (whenever that will be). But I have a feeling I’m coming down with something. I shouldn’t complain, I work around 400 children and have not caught anything, until now.

I’m working on a project (gift) that I’m not loving. I love the yarn and I love the pattern but I don’t think they go well together. Regardless I’ve decided to finish it.

I’m so terribly behind on reading blogs, what’s new.

I have to work over the holiday break. It’s bittersweet. On the one side I’d rather be home with everybody else but on the other side I will be able to get so much done. The school is starting a new system using lexile numbers and reading counts tests. All 10,000 plus books have to be re-labeled. It is so hard for me to re-label the books and try to keep up with the kids so this will be my chance to get it done while school is out.

On a bad note, somebody stole Dax’s bike over Thanksgiving break. I was hoping to use Christmas to replace it but I couldn’t stand the drive to school to pick them up. Sitting in traffic is not where I want to spend my time, not to mention how much gas my truck sucks up. So we have already got her another one. I guess that would be a good note for Dax. She got a new bike. Although she says she doesn’t like it as much as the other one.

Dax and I participated in the 5k reindeer run. She finished about 3 minutes ahead of me. We also went to see the movie Enchanted, it was cute.

I just read about Terry Pratchett the author having Alzheimer’s. I haven’t read many of his books but the ones I’ve read I’ve really loved.

Dax’s class at school is doing a knitting project. I think it’s the coolest thing. Every 7th grader is supposed to knit a 7”x9” square and then they are piecing it together to make blankets for the homeless.

We went to the winter concert to listen to Dax play in the school orchestra.
This is probably the best picture I got of her. I had to play with it a good bit so she didn't look like just a shadow.

I hope everybody has a great weekend.