another bear

 While knitting the teddy bears a couple weeks ago with darling daughter I thought I could knit a teddy bear in the round.  There are patterns out there but I made it up as I went.  I started by knitting a very small pair of socks toe up and turned the heel then knit long legs.  I  added a couple stitches in the crotch and knit the bottom of the torso just like the leg of one sock.  I even knit a heel for his little butt so the bear could sit.  Some increases for the tummy,  split the front and back for the arms, joined for the shoulders with a couple decreases and knit in the round for the head.  I picked up stitches for the arms and did some short rows to shape the shoulders like a sleeve then decreased the arms like the finger of a glove.  Stuffed him and did the kitchner stitch to close the head.  I'm not very good at that which is why I knit socks from the toe up.  I thought he needed a neck so I did a running stitch around and pulled it tight.  Stitch across the ears and added a face with black yarn.  It was fun to do but I'm not going to go into production or write out the pattern.  Just using up some leftover sock yarn.  --Ann--

progress on a quilt top

 I'm working with my pile of bright fabrics for a baby quilt and I am depleted of some colors.  Defiantly not the crayon box of primary colors here.  Maybe a more sophisticated color palette for a baby but still lots of contrast and bright colors.  Next to sew the segments together and add some strips to make it a rectangle shaped quilt.  Link to an earlier quilt of the same pattern. --Ann--

Fall is here

The calendar said the first day of autumn was Sunday.  My feet said today is the first day of fall and wool socks do feel so cozy  --Ann--

Reading list #4 2018

Someone asked me how I get so much reading done and the answer is dust.  I would rather read than dust.  We are moving again and just started the process of selling our house so it has to be show ready all the time.  So I cleaned and dusted and dusted and you know how when you are using a dusting cloth on the corners of furniture you leave a whole bunch of white stuff as you turn the corner........and you wipe and wipe and wipe some more before you finally get it all..........well if I would dust more often I wouldn't have that problem.  As I was dusting because it is such a mindless task I was thinking of things to blog about so disclaimer the photo was staged with flour not dust because I got rid of all my dust.  Ha

1. The Stranger from the Sea by Winston Graham book 8 in the series takes place in 1810-1811, ten years after the previous book. The Poldark children are young adults.
2. In Plain Sight be CJ Box more adventures of the game warden in Wyoming
3. What Will Be Will Be by Jean Grainger I have liked her other books better
4. The Paris Time Capsule by Ella Carey a contemporary setting and WWII Paris
5. The House at Riverton by Kate Morgan for book club but I missed the discussion
6. Free Fire by C.J. Box more murder and mayhem for the game warden in Yellowstone Park
7. The Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan taking chances and career changes
8. The Eagle Tree by Ned Hayes for book club about a boy with asperger autism
9. Blood Trail by C.J. Box yeah I'm hooked on CJ Box
10. The Knitters Book of Yarn by Clara Parkes. Everything you will ever want to know about yarn, the characteristics of yarn from different animals as well as different breeds of sheep, the way yarn is dyed, spun and plyed, and how the characteristics influence the finished product. Lots of things to think about when choosing the best yarn for a project.  Why some yarns are inexpensive and why the end result looks like it does. You get what you pay for. Never skimp on good quality yarn.
11. The Way Home Keeps Getting Longer and Longer by Fredrick Backman short story about aging and memories.
12. Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Greg Gilmore growing up as a preachers daughter and leaving home 
13. Below Zero by CJ Box book #9
14. A Sound Among the Trees by Susan Meissner Civil war and present day 
15. Big Stone Gap by Adrianna Trigiani about loss and family secrets and finding roots

Ready to start a new reading list until I dust again. --Ann--

Boxed In quilt top

Finally I finished a quilt top.   This variation of the tumbling block pattern was so easy by using 60 degree triangles.  I have been looking at them for weeks without any rearranging.  It was time to sew! And they just fit together so nice without Y seams.  Easy peasy  --Ann--

Deviating

Darling Daughter was home again for a girls weekend.  Hubby went fishing again.  We always watch movies and make pizza from scratch and tip a couple glasses of wine.  As she was flipping through the channels looking for something worth watching she came across The Lego Movie she said it was brilliant but it didn't make sense until the end.  She recorded it for me since it was in progress but would air again over the weekend.  I watched it the other night and can't stop thinking about it.  Its about life lessons, following rules and instructions like comb your hair and brush your teeth, smile when you greet people, return a compliment etc  but also about following instructions putting your Legos together and not deviating from the plan and about being an individual.  I had no idea there were so many designer collections of Legos, kinda like quilt fabric.
Are you one to make a quilt entirely from one collection?  Or do you add fabric from your stash?  I'm a deviator, sometimes I don't have much of a plan at all when I start a quilt I just see where the fabrics take me.  I like lots of variation in my blues and greens and reds and every other color on the palette because it adds interest.  I usually start by thinking I'll make a pastel quilt or an earthy colored quilt or a bright quilt and pull out a pile from the stash and pick and choose until I have a working pile of lights and darks and many values in between.
The movie was delightful and thought provoking if you need a little mental vacation watch the movie.  I'm not going to tell you any more.
I helped DD sew some new pillowcases to go with her quilts because they were starting to shred.  Then I helped her finish knitting the third teddy bear from the weekend before and I forgot to take pictures. The third was the cutest.  We watched The Ride with Helen Hunt and Luke Wilson as surfing instructor.  Helen Hunt does not make surfing look easy.  The movie is about her teenage son, a recent high school graduate, rebelling and finding his way.
There I deviated again from where this post started.  --Ann--

knitting bears

Darling Daughter was home for the weekend.  She wanted to go to Sioux Falls to look at pictures frames for a couple things she needed to frame and I needed to pick up my sewing machine after getting it serviced. So as we drove we were talking about where all we needed to go.  I said I didn't really need to go to the yarn shop.  She said this will be the first time ever we haven't stopped at the yarn shop.  She almost sounded disappointed.  Our first stop was to get my sewing machine and from the back of the shop I could see the yarn shop.  It was too early to get lunch but to go across town to the craft shops was out of the way for where we wanted to eat so we went to the yarn shop for just a few minutes.  She helped me pick out some more sock yarn and then we wander back to some knitted bears and I ask how difficult they are.  The shop keeper said they are really easy and the pattern is free on ravelry.  We pick out some yarn with the understanding that DD would knit the bears since its her friends that are popping out babies.  I had socks and sweaters to knit.  Saturday night we get started after brief refresher lesson on casting on, we each start one, when she makes a mistake we trade and she works on mine while I fix hers then we trade again.  By suppertime Sunday evening we had finished the front and back of the bears, they one one piece that is folded over.  Go out for pizza then pin and sew the bodies together, stuff and stitch faces.  They are so cute and I worked on a third bear which she is going to finish on her own.  We watched Letters to Juliet, the scenery of Italy was fantastic, I'm ready to go there again, and we watched Harry Potter movies.  It was a weekend well spent.  --Ann--