I know I haven’t posted much in the way of an update on the stitching. The time just seems to dart away with you. BUT I do have progress on the Rainbow Ripple Blanket… I am still in love with this project, though the orange in my third rainbow gave me all sorts of trouble. Progress has been spotty on it, thankfully I am not even close to out of time!

However, I did have OTHER completions come and go these past weeks. 13 Valentine themed tiny bags were done up in no time flat. Some for our family and some for the kids to gift. HERE thanks to Blackstone Designs.

I also finished some of the most adorable baby sweaters that were quickly posted in the mail to the newest twins of our acquaintance. I am making a third of this pattern for the county fair! I will share the pictures of that one too. HERE thanks to Sinead Deegan.

A one day free pattern from Snappy Tots HERE has me hooking up a Valentine’s themed scarf.

A special SUPER late birthday present was also completed and finally posted in the mail. A bag we (Ken and I) converted into a backpack. Perfect for toting a few things for school or home. HERE thanks to Red Heart.

What else, what else… well with the donation of yarn from a friend who was downsizing I was finally able to finish a shawlette I started ages ago. It reminds the girls of Frozen (colour scheme I guess). HERE thanks to Crochetspot.com … though NOT a free pattern.

The same wonderful gift has me FINALLY starting a cupcake blanket in baby pink. This is a classroom only project, for when I have down time between lessons or the kids are presenting or crafting. They love the cupcakes and I love the repetition. I have opted to have a single colour as the bulk of the blanket with the border in a second colour. Here’s hoping that there is enough of the colour in my stash now. HERE thanks to Roseanna Beck.

In honour of Chinese New Year (year of the monkey) I made a lucky orange tree. The pattern is thanks to Little Mee Creations. We made a few alterations… we put a plastic canvas base and instead of the suggested straw used a wider dowel with thinner dowels for the branches. This did alter my stitch count around both the trunk and branches but it worked. I also made mine a taller tree, which the kids LOVE. Either way… if you are a crochet enthusiast give it a go. So worth it! HERE

I have decreased my unfinished work pile and am staring temptation in the face to add more to it. 6 gifted skeins of a specific colour of Homespun sitting in a pile in my room… I swear it is taunting me… and I have, perhaps, found a pattern that I would not mind making… so let’s see if I can add that to my schedule!

That is not to say I haven’t been working on the rainbow. I am hoping to put some good time in on it during the second half of February. Short month, but lots of time to sneak away and stitch. If I am careful!

As a matter of fact, my Etsy store HERE has not been a rip roaring success these past months… I have done very well at Christmas time but not so much over the rest of the year. SO, my plan is to stop renewing my adds over the next few months and revamp my Facebook It’s a Hoot page HERE. Hopefully, over the next few weeks I can sort it out so you can view anything I have for sale there. Feel free to check it out, share the link… put someone who may be interested on the path… I would love to send some of these finished pieces on to a new home!!!

A little slow on the post but with Renee’s support (and ride to drop the items off) Emanuel and I entered our very first County Fair (well American one, I remember entering a fair way back in 4H as a child…). The Anoka County Fair. Very exciting. I entered 7 pieces and Emanuel one. There was no fee for entry (just if you wanted to come and see your entries while the fair was going on… we didn’t) and small cash prizes for placing. 

We didn’t expect much and were over the moon when Renee reported back that it looked like we had received some ribbons! In fact, what we thought was a participation ribbon for Emanuel’s was in reality THIRD PLACE !!! He did a unique creation… a Lego version of the Minecraft zombie villager. So very proud!!!

Yours truly entered (as I mentioned) 7 items, out of the 7 SIX placed either first or second in their categories! The only piece that didn’t place was my baby hat with beard and I threw that one in more because it was in my store and on hand than anything else! 

Now for the pieces that DID place! I have to give design credit for TWO of my first place ribbons – Rapunzel and the zebra were both designed by Kristen’s Kords. I love her designs and have had the great privilege to test many of her pieces. You HAVE TO check out her Etsy store… she also sells the amigurumi she makes herself there HERE.

My other two first place items are both up for sale CURRENTLY in my Etsy store! I was rather surprised that my baby sweater DID get such a high ranking, it is a relatively simple pattern. Ken says it was the adorable buttons… and the comments on the back of the card DID state that they WERE adorable! (Of course HE chose the buttons) The other is my lamb bag that I made a few months back as part of my stash buster attempt (successful I might add). I have multiple bags up for sale with differing flower colours. It was fun to make and I actually really love the final look! You can find the items for sale HERE and HERE. 

And now for my two second place pieces! First off my Blue, White and Red Granny Square. This was a bit of a surprise to me, a very simple single granny with colour changes. Though there was a suggestion to switch to a smaller hook size midway to keep the square shape more square that I need to research further (I actually like the pulled look. It looks almost 3D when stretched out). The other was a surprise to me as well – my dragon scarf… I have one up for sale in my store as well HERE and have made multiple versions of this. This particular scarf was Ken’s Christmas present last year! With how many scarves entered coming in second was certainly a bit of a surprise! Anyway those are my placers… next year I plan to enter more things!! Just… gotta think of them first…

February 8-9

And… Ted ALMOST gets on his plane and home on schedule. There is weather a coming apparently and it hit Toronto (his stopover) closing down the airport before he could get in the air here in Minnesota. So Ken and Sean dropped him off, got mostly home and had to turn around and come back. This is AFTER they had lunch, shopped a little more AND went to Top Gun in 3D at Imax! That left me and the kids home alone for the bulk of the day. So of course  there was school work to do…

Breakfast with Uncle Ted

Sneaking in an extra night

BOTH boys got 100% on their main words and Gavin even got Reinsch right. I am tossing it on the list but not counting it toward their totals as it IS tricky. So even if they get it right we do it the next week too, memorization!! In celebration of words well done they headed outside to play in the snow.

The tests

It was actually a rather decent day so the kids went out multiple times throughout the day.

The great white outdoors… American version

The poster was an all out success… we all had a hand in it. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed doing the Chinese Characters.

So proud of our work

We also assembled our fireworks. Note the characters on those too… Gavin helped Ken and I with those! You can find the instructions on Activity Village under Chinese New Year crafts (the link for the site is on right).

Gavin and our work

We also spent some time with a paper pack I got on sale at Michaels to make some special Valentines. Sadly the post office has been hard to get to so I have a bit of a stack of mail to add some of these too!

Special Valentines

A Saturday is always a bit slower, except when you add in even MORE company!

Best buddies

Teaching Quinn to play Skylanders

Bree and I worked together to create, from scratch, fortune cookies!

Finger burning perfection

I love it when Echo gets a chance to hang out with her American God Mommy! It was too bad Scott was busy. 

Snuggles

We actually had Steven here as well, he brought Quinn over and then Bree picked him up. So we had a full house! Of course the men were more… boring and thus no pictures… but the kids kept us entertained!

About the same size!

We finally got Bree and Quinn to open their gifts from Christmas! I promise pictures of Quinn in his scarf later!

Opening presents

So we had company coming and going… Now we are slowly slipping into real life – soon Sean will head home too and then… Ken goes OUT to work and it is just the 5 of us! Can we do it??? 

Why so serious???