knitting a shawl with beads

It snowed here in Utah over thanksgiving.  The snow and Christmas coming up made me want to knit something that reminded me of both.  So I started knitting this shawl with size 10 thread in white  and size six seed beads in red size 1 knitting needles.  I know it is not anything fancy but I just have not made anything in so long just to make something I was going a tad stir-crazy.

I hope everyone had a nice thanksgiving with family.   We celebrated a little one this year with just my immediate family.   It was nice to have food we liked and not what others liked it was quiet sweet and nice.   My youngest daughter got into the act of cooking.   She loves to cook and this was her chance.  I made the ham and she and her sisters made the rest from scratch.

In other fun stuff my middle daughter is learning the ukulele.  Her older sister is helping her to learn how

Happy thanksgiving

Hope your day is full of joy, friends and family.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope you day is full of family and friends.  May you have many happy memories from today!

Belt Fall Harvest Dress

So as I said I wanted a belt for the dress I was modifying for my daughter to wear to the fall harvest formal.  I decided on a cumber-bun belt that was in a pattern I have from the 1950's Simplicity 2089.
I had a  size 13 pattern which is a 25 inch waist  in the 1950's my daughter has a 26 inch waist plus we wanted a little growing room as the dress has a bigger waist than that too.  Since my daughter is just a little bit bigger than that pattern I added an extra panel at the center back where the snaps are located to lengthen it.  All the belt truly is, is a very large rectangle with soft pleats that is cut on the bias thus it can stretch and fit the couture of the body better.  Did not need a pattern to make it but always nice to have one so I do not have to figure it out all the time.  Belt looks twisted in the top photo but the wrinkles will lay flat I just did not play with them before the photo.  Also this belt took about 10 mins to make from start to finish.  Made out of bright orange poly satin, seam binding, and 4 real large snaps.

Fall Harvest headpieace

 

I have wanted to make beaded flowers, berries and things of that sort for a while.  When I was modifying that dress the other day I got the idea that this would be a good time to experiments with it.

So I got out some floral wire beads and sequins and set to work.  First I made all the large pumkinesque shapes and wrapped them all together.  Then I made the orange berries and attached them to 1 side then the other.  Lastly I made the clusters of sequins and attached them.  I attached a few sequins early to see if I would like them in the finished product.   Finally all this was sewn onto two hair comes for placement followed by E6000 to make sure it stayed in place.


I have a few photos of what I did but this really is not a tutorial on how to do this but if you know anything about wire-work and beads you could do this easy enough.  I might make a tutorial later of how to assemble the pieces of this.  But I am not sure on that yet time may not allow for that.  Sorry I did not take any photos while doing the pumpkinesque shapes as I was making them while sitting at piano lessons with my children.

You can see more photos of this project in my beadwork set on flickr.

For a first try not to bad next time I will make the wire match better I wish the wire had been copper or brass in this case. I think the children will enjoy wearing this for Shakespeare week but first  it was made to match the dress I am working on and will be worn to a fall harvest homecoming dance.  Maybe it will be worn at Thanksgiving too.

I am thinking of doing another with snowflakes for winter.

Fall Harvest Ball dress

My oldest daughter has a formal to go to soon so I am working on a dress for her to wear to it.   The dress is deep chocolate brown hard to tell in the photos.  Also it has tulip sleeves which I for got to take a picture of from the side so you could see that.

I have sewn on to it lots and lots of leaves  and little circle burnt umber sequins. The leaves are supposed to look like they are swirling and falling into a big pile of leaves at the hem I hope I achieved my goal and that is doesn't just look sort of weird to people.I still have yet to steam the dress from having sewn on the sequins most of these wrinkles will go away at that time.

 I plan on making an orange satin sash to go around the waist that ties in the back  of the dress with a large bow and either has pleats or gathers in the front.  So if you were wondering why the gap in the sequins at the waist that is the reason why there is going to be a belt there that I have yet to even buy the fabric for.

Wish me luck on finding something that will match so to speak either the orange crinoline or the burnt umber sequins.  We do like the look of the crinoline peeking out the bottom of the dress that is not a mistake.

The brown dress was an $8.00 thrift shop find that I am revamping.

I also think I will be making a choker to go with this dress with a  few of the leaves on it as well.

Thanskgiving Greetings

Hope everyone is having a lovely day with family and friends. Take care and many happy returns of the day love wendy

How to Make Krissy's Cookies

This recipe came from Krissy she said all could share it and that it was a good recipe. Good I think meaning rich in calories. Haven't made it before but looked good so I thought I would give it a whirl . Not for those on a diet or afraid of butter, sugar or chocolate.

Supplies

• 2 cups butter
  
• 24 oz. chocolate chips
  
• 4 cups flour
  
• 2 cups brown sugar
  
• 2 tsp. soda
  
• 1 tsp. salt
  
• 2 cups sugar
  
• 1 8 oz. Hershey bar (grated)
• 5 cups blended oatmeal
  
• 4 eggs
  
• 2 tsp. baking powder
  
• 2 tsp. vanilla
  
• 3 cups chopped nuts (your choice) (I hate nuts in cookies I will skip this part)

Makes 12 cookies can be halved if you want less

Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Steps

1. Measure oatmeal, and blend in a blender to a fine powder.
   
2. Cream the butter and both sugars together.
   
3. Add eggs and vanilla, mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and soda.
   
4. Add chocolate chips, Hershey bar, and nuts.
   
5. Roll into balls, and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet.
   

Bake for 10 minutes -Makes 12 cookies.

Happy Thanksgiving my gift to you happy holidays

I am having a happy holidays sale on my patterns at Ravelry.  If you buy anything from black friday till Dec 25 you will receive a 15% discount. This is only good in the Ravelry store not etsy.  Not sure if ravelry requires a code but if it does it would be happyholidays.

This is the first time I have done this on etsy so I think to get the discount on my etsy store items you will need to type in happyholidays in the code area at check out.  But it may just happen on it's own please let me know so I have reference for the future.  It will also be a 15% discount on items in that store doesn't apply to shipping special orders and things of that sort.    All PDF's through etsy will be shipped through email after the Holiday ( Monday the 29th) as I am having fun with my family hope you are to.

Pumpkin...Big Tree...

The project is done the pumpkin has been cooked and processed by hand and put in bag to freeze till use.  I have roasted the seeds and there are about 3 cups of them for the kids to snack on.  Yes that is the inside of my side by side fridge freezer.  Not much space in there.  I will take these bags out latter to the big freezer in the garage once they are frozen all the way.  The seeds will not stay in the freezer that was just for the photo.

In the process of making the pumpkin seeds my oven decided to play mean for some reason the door decided it didn't want to stay together all the way.  Guess add that to the honey do list.

 

(the red hat is my father-in-law the person up in the tree is my husband can you find him in the top photo and the last photo he is hidden pretty well)

I have the best husband in the world no kidding the at man can do anything he puts his mind too.  A few weeks ago to help out our extended family he and eight other relatives and friends  made a 60 foot tree into a 30 foot tree at the cities requests.

He strapped on his rock climbing gear and up he went into the tree.  I think I would have had some trepidations on this.  I don't talk about him much on here.  He usually isn't involved in most of my craft things but he is very much a part of my life for many many years now.

I could not ask for a more wonderful man as a husband he is caring, loving, silly, responsible  and most important of all very very patient with me and the children.

Is it Halloween or Thanksgiving

Two of my children drew and painted on their pumpkins at Halloween.  Because they wanted to be able to have pumpkin squash for dinner around Thanksgiving.  So the destruction of their Halloween pumpkins has begun this morning to make room for their Thanksgiving squash.  After these are dismantled they will go into the crock pot to cook the whole day away.  Then tonight soft squash will be mashed and some had for dinner like mashed potatoes with butter and sour cream and the rest will go into the freezer for future dinners, cookies, and bread ideas. 

If you notice the stems are set into a separate bow.  I want to make some velvet Thanksgiving pumpkins if they dry well that is.  You make crushed velvet pumpkins (use your favorite pattern for this)  then you attach the dried steam to the fake pumpkin ( E2000 just do it neatly) for a nice effect.   This will not happen this season, but maybe for next year they will be done.

 

Roasted pumpkin seeds will be made today as well.

Peppermint, Vanilla and Dark Chocolate

What do all of these flavors have in common they are all different fudges I made on Sunday for Thanksgiving.  I got up at 4 am and couldn't get back to sleep so this idea came to fruition I had been thinking about it for the last two days.  The top one is vanilla, left dark chocolate the bottom is peppermint candy cane,  I substituted 3/4 cup of crushed peppermint candy cane for 3/4 of a cup out of the four cups of sugar in the recipe.   Wasn't sure it was going to work out but it did.  The color in that one is from the red and green stripes of the candy cane mixing together.  Sort of a pinkish with a hint of brown actually a nice color in real life.  The original recipe is from here I already explained my changes to the recipe if you want to do it that way.  All the batches I made I doubled that is why I had four cups of sugar as opposed to the two in the recipe.

halloween mitts finished

I worked on these in the car over the weekend during a road trip to and from California.  My children had a golf tournament in Long Beach so we went and visited family and went tot eh tournament.  While traveling there I worked on these and finished the set.  I started and frogged about 5 projects on this trip my hand just wouldn't work right and it kept frustrating me.  But this one got doen and one other got closer to compleation.  these are made with a self striping yarn but I also used a solid black to divide did up more.  I think I did pretty good at lining up the repeat in the sock yarn fairly well.

I will post the other set I worked on later. Had a few issues with it.

Fall Mitts Fingerless

I made the right hand on Sunday now I need to do the left hand I like this pattern it calls for striping of two yarns.  But I also used a yarn that stripes plus a solid black yarn to add more definition to the stripes.  I like the way the first one has come out.  Will be nice for this time of year with Halloween and Thanksgiving in these colors.  Pattern is here if you are interested.

Kid fun... Happy Thanksgiving

The kids had fun picking out some buttons for the scarfs the oldest daughter and I made. These are for the kids teachers at school. Well some of them as we ran out of yarn in this color and definitely only the girl teachers I am pretty sure the guys wouldn't be caught dead in these. May make more or something else. As there are 12 female teachers and only 8 scarfs here plus we have 2 male teachers too. Candy is always good for a guy teacher in my opinion anyway. The scarfs all have their own personality even if they are very similar. The colors shapes and number of buttons on each one is different all the buttons are vintage the yarn is all new. The scarfs came out in thanksgiving colors funny as that is the day we finished them but they are for Christmas.

Carved Turkey

Here is her finished product with some help from mom as the pumpkin started to have issues with her cutting skills.

Carving Turkey Day Pumpkin

If you remember my middle daughter did not want to carve her pumpkin at Halloween. The reason was she wanted to carve it for Thanksgiving instead. So at Halloween she just poked in plastic Mr. Potato Head type stuff to decorate hers. It has been sitting on our front porch all this time with snow and the like. So the weird face you see isn't because it is slimy it is because it is screaming cold inside that pumpkin well probably a little slimy too.