Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Late Night Friday (and a few other things)

I haven't checked my reader since Monday morning and tonight, since I am late (I know, what else is new) in getting a post up, I'm delaying looking at my reader now until tomorrow! Risky business doing that as I have no clue how many posts are there, just waiting for me to start scrolling down and reading to my hearts content. Notice -I said nothing about the issues this may create for my poor old eyes though! Hope everyone has posted nothing but the most scintillating of reading material so I don't get drowsy while reading and fall asleep with my hand on the mouse wheel, ya know!

Because it is late and I am trying to revamp my sleep patterns just a tad, this is going to be a short post. Yeah, I can hear ya'll mumbling already that you've heard me say that before and ended up with a mini-version of War and Peace to read, but really, I am going to try to keep this as short and sweet as is humanly possible for me to do without running the risk of exploding from words left behind in me.

First up -I told you last week I was working on a sweater for Kurtis. Well, it's done! It is the same pattern as the one I made earlier for Maya -just a different size -and because the animal faces, like the teddy bear that I made and put on Maya's sweater didn't exactly thrill me because it was a whole lot of extra work and I am so NOT about any thing remotely related to being "extra work" so I decided to design my own thing for Kurt's sweater. I did it in blocks of five different colors. Mandy wasn't too sure how she would like this when I started on this project but once it was done and we got Kurtis to model it, she decided she liked this sweater just fine and dandy.

TA DA! Here it is!

The color is actually a little darker green than it appears in this picture. I adjusted the sleeves a bit on this one too since the sleeves on Maya's reach well beyond her fingertip line and I don't really like when that happens, so I made his sleeves a tad shorter than it called for on the pattern and it fit him beautifully!

If you recall, back in January or February a lady from our church contacted me about sewing four aprons for her. It was decided she would get the fabric she liked, drop it off here and then, after winter ended, I would sew four aprons then for her. I had told her I wouldn't do any sewing during the winter months because the heat supply in my room -which is the location of my sewing machine, is too poorly heated for me to try to do any sewing during the winter months and she was fine with that.

But she called me Saturday asking if I might be able to get the aprons done this week as they were going to be visiting her sister this weekend and she was kind of wanting to give her sister one of these items.

So, as a result of that, I spent the bulk of Sunday re-arranging my room, somewhat, or as much as one can considering it is very small and I have a lot of junk. And I do mean a lot of stuff -fabrics, yarns, more clothes than I can wear mostly because many of them are now to small for me. Big surprise there too! Well, the main reason I was re-arranging my room was because I kind of had to do that ino order to just locate what pile of stuff my sewing machine was hidden under!

Finally got that done and I then got all four aprons cut out Sunday night. Ended up having to call my next door neighbor to borrow her iron and I probably should have asked if she had an ironing board too but I used the kitchen table in place of an ironing board.

Monday afternoon, I got started sewing and after a lot of diddling around with the pattern stitches on my machine, trying to figure out which buttons to push to make the stitch appear correctly -stitch length, stitch width, stitch balance, etc., I finally was able to dig in and start putting these aprons together.

Last night, after Maya fell asleep in my roon, I stayed up working to get the third of the four completed. By this time, it was nearing 2 a.m. (yeah, my prime time normally) and I was working away when I heard some odd noises.

It sounded like there was something outside, bumping up against the house and was near to the area where my room is located. At first I ignored it, thinking it was the cat inside here knocking something or other over but then, I heard it again and I stopped, listened and heard this noise even louder and what's more, it was evident it was something by the window of my bedroom!

I looked up and just about jumped out of my skin at first -just the sheer shock of seeing something there -but then, when I realized what it was and how foolish I was to have been afraid, I just had to giggle to myself.

You see, it was Chino, our small gray cat, who had snuck outside somehow and wanting back in apparently she had not received any reaction when she used her normal method -throwing herself against the screen of the back door of the house that goes out to the deck. She normally leaps at the door and lets her claws sink into the mesh of the screen and then, hangs there till someone comes and lets her in.

Well, last night, because I had the light on in my room, of course, she spied my windows and was doing the same thing to my wondow screens as she likes to do to the back door!

After that little scare, and my eyes were getting way too heavy to see well enough to risk sewing, I hit the trail to dreamland.

Got up this a.m. and finished the third and fourth aprons and then, I called the lady I made them for to let her know they were completed. I had planned to show you a picture of all four aprons but I screwed up and lost track of the time and after she'd been here and gathered up three of the four aprons (I still have a little trim work I want to put on the one she left behind) I then remembered I'd planned to post the pictures of all four aprons.

However, I did get this lovely shot of this one apron. When it is fully completed, it will have two medium sized red buttons at the shoulder straps and a red matching button in the center of each of the two pockets too! Should look really cute on that fabric which is a green cotton with red and white peppermint stick type stripes.


Last week, my favorite online crafts store -good old Herrschnerrs - had a big sale, lots and lots of stuff I wanted to buy but I tried to curb myself a little bit. I ended up getting a 50x70 tablecloth, 3 tabletoppers, a pair of hand towels to embroidery with a strawberry design, and four pair of pillow cases to do up. I also splurged and got a Christmas sampler type picture to do up in the lovely Counted Cross Stitch stuff too! Then tonight, the same company had a one day only sale open to members of their "Stitcher's Savings Club" and I ordered four more embroidery project thingys! Just what I really need, I know!

And for a little humor as to what the kids have been into, I give you a look now at what may possible someday be a podiatrist of world renown.


Then, after Mandy took that picture of Kurtis, here's the next shot she got of him. Guess by the looks of this one, we can forget the idea of him becoming a podiatrist as he's giving us a peek I think of the beginnings of a foot fetish. You tell me what else you think this might indicate!

And to think how I used to bribe my kids with everything and anything I could think of to get them to just simply massage my poor aching feet and to rub a little cream on them. I never even thought of getting any of them to suck my big toe, although that seems to be a favorite expression of one of my daughters when she is a bit peeved with someone.

And finally, here's Maya's reaction to the whole foot in mouth thing with Kurtis. By the look on her face, I'm wondering if she probably is the one who put him up to doing that with his mother's feet!

Ah the joys of having small children for entertainment, huh?

And now, I'm off to beddy-bye! See,that was sort of a short post now wasn't it? Well, short for me, anyway!

Peace, all!

18 comments:

Rune Eide said...

They probably thought you were good enough to eat :-)

Thank you for the comment - I hope we get to keep it in a way that shows it off properly.

Maggie May said...

Not really short, Jeni!
Loved Kurtis's jumper. Great colours and design.
I would have gone insane if I'd had that amount of pressure on me to sew the aprons! Glad you finished them The one you showed on the post was very nice.
Hope they are really appreciated. I am sure they will be.

Sandee said...

Well, the foot in mouth thing is pretty cool. If you can do that you are physically fit. You are agile. I can remember being that limber. I'm working on getting that way again.

Have a terrific day honey. Big hug. :)

none said...

Sounds like you worked really hard on those aprons. The one in the pic looks really classy. The only ones I see around here have dumb slogans and jokes on them.

Suldog said...

How odd. I used to love smelling my uncle's feet. Kids have very strange sensory input at times.

Berni said...

Short post?

Neat little sweater and making your own patterns is way more interesting and like the aprons, I should make a couple myself they are so useful.

No comment on the feet, sucking someones toes is very low on my totem pole, like NOT

Linda Murphy said...

Love the photos of the kids, especially little Maya's cute expression at the end. Send Kurtis over here! I adore foot rubs! Ian will examine my feet (I have bad calluses) but no actual foot massages.

Love the sweater-you are one talented lady!

Dr.John said...

A foot in mouth and he wasn't even talking.
Your sweater and apron look great.
This did turn out to be a less that short post.

Cheffie-Mom said...

Happy Thursday! Great job on the apron and sweater!

Dianne said...

the sweater looks great!!

Kurtis and the feet made me laugh

Diva's Thoughts said...

I wish I knew how to sew.

Linda said...

I shudder at opening my Google Reader after only two days away from it never mind longer than that!

The sweater looks fantastic and the pictures of the kids are great!

Hope you have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Jocelyn said...

I'm sure the toe sucking was his way of letting you know he appreciates the sweater.

Hee.

Travis Cody said...

Good luck adjusting your sleep patterns. I can't seem to fall asleep these days before midnight and my eyes pop open at 5am.

**sigh**

Rick Rockhill said...

Hey that sweater turned out really nice Jeni, looks great. you are talented!

Debo Blue said...

Adjusting sleep patterns? I have only one pattern...closing my eyes for longer than 10 mins(giggle).

How r u?

... Paige said...

A new fangel way for a pedicure...lol

Supercool Hotmama said...

Gorgeous! I want to learn to knit sometime. (You know - really knit, not just my super-slow version.)

You could soooooo do smocking and tatting. The smocking is just embroidery on the tops of the pleats, and tatting feels very similar to crochet. You just need someone to show you how.

If you want to try smocking sometime, just let me know and I'll send you a piece of fabric, all pleated. You could use your finished product as in insertion in the bodice of a little dress or something.