February Doings

February has been a beautiful month, for the most part.  We've had more sunny blue sky days than I can count.  Some of them were below-zero cold, like the morning this picture was taken of the trees shrouded in hoar frost.  The last several, however, have been above the 40-degree mark and still sunny; which is pretty unusual for this time of year.  Warm days in February are typically cloudy ones.

The first Saturday, we had a full house.  DH, DS1, DS2 and Honorary Son made about 45 pounds of sausage--breakfast, chorizo and Italian--while all the grandkids played together.  During the couple hour break while the sausage meat soaked in its seasonings before grinding, the guys got out the snowmobiles and ran them around the field.  The grandkids got to go sledding behind the 4-Wheeler.  Even Faline bundled up and went for her first sled ride, securely held by K3!

My mudroom was full of boots, coats, and cold-weather gear.  Overwhelming, but also a good full-heart feeling.

Some of the Italian sausage was made into links.  About half was packaged in bulk, for using in spaghetti sauce and on pizza.

With all the sunlight, my chickens are cranking out the eggs.  They're averaging 8-9 a day, but I've had as many as 11 in one day this week.  They are keeping the whole family well supplied, and I think I'll even have enough to sell a few dozen a week this Spring and early Summer.

Over several weekends, DH and I pruned all the fruit trees in our little orchard, as well as the trees in the yard (any low-hanging branches that were nuisances while mowing the lawn), the bushes around the house, and a large majority of the wild apples and crabapples along the north fence line and where the field meets the woods.  

I found some grapevine growing in one of the lilac bushes near the house, and pulled it out. As I was winding it to better be able to throw it onto the brush pile, I had the thought to try to make a wreath out of it.  Twisting and turning the length of the vines around the original loop I made was incredibly easier than I'd thought it would be.  And just like that, I have a free grapevine wreath to decorate with!

On Wednesday this week, I went out and tapped some of the maples in our woods.  The extended forecast is for just right temperatures for the sap to begin running.  I hereby declare maple syrup season to be underway!

Next comes Mud Month (March), and you can tell that Mother Nature is getting ready to transition to Spring.  In the last week we've seen many robins and bluebirds, as well as flocks of starlings (DH's nemesis).  We've also, in the last two days, lost the majority of the nice snow that had finally built up to a useful (ie sledding, skiing, snowmobiling) amount.  Our driveway and all the plowed areas around this little place here are down to bare earth; bare muddy earth.  

Time for me to get my tender veggie and flower seeds started indoors!
 

February Sewing Update

 I'm going to try something new, and on the second Wednesday of each month, post about what I've been sewing lately.  I joined a group doing a quilting UFO challenge this year, where each group member makes a list of 12 unfinished projects or projects they've been wanting to sew, at the beginning of each month a number is drawn, and you work on whatever is on your list under that number.  So, hopefully, I will be doing more sewing than I have in a few years, and therefore, have something new to talk about here on a regular basis.

For January, my project was a paper pieced wall hanging that I'd bought the pattern for at least 5 years ago.  At that time, I didn't realize how tiny the pattern pieces were, and I got rather overwhelmed at the thought of tackling a paper piecing project that was so intricate.  Add in chaotic family changes over the next few years, and this became a UFO that was never even started.  

As fate would have it, the number drawn for January coordinated on my list with this fearsome little wall hanging. This year, however, I was determined to get it not just started, but also finished.  After making photocopies of the paper pieces in case I really messed up, I jumped into sewing little pieces of fabric to little pieces of paper in numerical order.

I messed up alot.  As I kept sewing, I eventually got the hang of lining up my fabrics with the lines on the paper in the correct manner.  However, every time I took a break, say from one day to the next, I had to teach my brain all over again.  There was lots of seam ripping, repositioning, and resewing just to get the first little section done.  The next section was a repeat of the learning process.  And the next, and the next. . . 

As you can see, my stitching didn't always make the colors join smoothly.  But, for a first (and second and third and tenth. . . ) attempt at paper piecing on such an intricate scale, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

This little guy wasn't too bad.

It took me probably close to two hours to do each of the three penguins.  And they are small.  The tallest one is about 6" tall. 

This was totally a love-hate kind of thing.  I love the end result, but the process itself I rather hate.  Yet, as a perfectionist, I know that this probably won't be the last paper piecing project I ever do. It's challenging, and the end result is rather pride-inducing.

Speaking on end result, this is the completed wall hanging.  It is slated to be given later this year as a birthday present to my penguin loving daughter.

There was also some embroidery involved (French knots for the eyes, back stitching for the skate blades), which has me itching to do some sort of needlework--either embroidery or counted cross stitch--in the near future.

February's official UFO number matched a bunch of blocks from a 'south-west color' Jacob's Ladder swap I did back in 2013.  I had 14 blocks from that, and had decided last summer that I wanted to use them to make a throw-sized blanket to have picnics with the grandkids or to take to the beach. I would need 2 more blocks in order to make a layout of 4 blocks by 4 blocks.  Those, I whipped up a week ago.  A few days later, I came up with a layout that was not perfect, but would do.  Interpretation of 'south-west colors' kind of varied from block maker to block maker, so it's kind of a mish mash quilt. 

 As I write this, the quilt is a completed flimsy, awaiting sandwiching and quilting (hopefully this coming weekend).

February Knitting Update

 Sadly, Ginny is not doing the Yarn Along this year.  She has an excellent reason for that decision, but I'll definitely miss the monthly link ups.

I've decided that I will continue to post the first Wednesday of each month with an update on what I've been knitting and reading.  Mainly because I love a schedule, and the Yarn Along has been one of the few scheduled things I've been able to keep up with in the last couple years despite all the twists and turns that life and family have thrown my way.  I need to be able to keep to a schedule and cross things off my to-do list.

So, for February's knitting post, here's what I'm currently working on:

The pattern is Vertex by my favorite sock designer verybusymonkey.  The yarn is Knit Picks Chroma fingering in the coloryway GoGo Boots.  I do have to say, as far as the yarn goes, I like the in-your-face brightness, but it is definitely not (so far) producing the color changes shown on the website. Disappointed about that.  The pattern, I love! It is super simple to follow, yet like so many of verybusymonkey's designs, looks very intricate.

Completed knitting since January's post: 

Elevation socks for my Mom. 

Two dishcloths, which, like the ones I knit in December, were made with scrap yarn.

Icicles

Michigan

I managed to read two books (woo hoo!  My reading has been much less than I'd like).  

The Stone Wall by Beverly Lewis is her latest novel.  I'd been waiting quite a while to get it from the library, and I did like reading it once I got my hands on it, although I have to admit it seemed a little predictable.

The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel was tough for me to put down.  I'll be seeking out more by this author.

Currently I am reading Dressage Riding by Richard Watjen. While I've had this book for years I've never actually read it.  So, this year is the year I'm going to read it cover to cover.

A Quilt For The Quilter

 I think the very first homemade pieced (versus stamped, embroidered) quilt I ever had was made by my Mother-In-Law.  Waaayyyy back, more than 29 years ago now (this past week was the 30th anniversary of the night DH and I met), she gave me/us a quilt that she had made.

Since then, I've received a couple more quilts from her, as well as quilts from two other people, before I started quilting myself.  She has made quilts for each of my kids when they were little, when they graduated from high school, and when they got married (for the two that are married, that is).  She has also made quilts for other members of her family, as well as for family friends.  As far as I know, however, she hasn't made herself a quilt in a long, long time. And I don't think she's received a quilt from anyone else (afterall, she's a quilter, why would someone make her a quilt?) since her own mother got too old and gave up quilting.

At family Christmas in 2019, as I watched 4 members of our extended family unwrap quilts from her in varying sizes, I had an idea.  I would make a quilt for the quilter.  A lap quilt that Mother-In-Law could have for herself, because I knew that she would never think to make such a thing to keep.  Not only would I make her a lap quilt, I would make a lap quilt about her.

Using the books Farm Girl Vintage and Farm Girl Vintage 2, I made a list of blocks that represented facets of Mother-In-Law.  From that list, I made a preliminary sketch of a layout of the blocks into quilt, using both 12" blocks and 6" blocks.

An idea

I ended up changing a few of the 6" blocks that were traditional quilt patterns (meant to represent quilts that she's made for others), moved the row of chicks and eggs down closer to the hen block, and I adjusted colors on pretty much all the blocks to fit her.

A black and white cow to represent all the Holstein cattle she's worked with on the dairy farm.

A red tractor to represent her Farmall (little) A and (Big) H tractors

 

A pink pig, in the back of a black truck, 

for all the piglets she's hauled in that old truck

 and raised into pork for our freezers

Skeins of yarn and a crochet hook,

reminding us of all the afghans

 and baby clothes/blankets she's crocheted.

Hard to see, but the chick blocks have embroidered legs and eyes.

When my kids were little, there were always new spring chicks at her house.

Ta-Da!  A Quilt for The Quilter

The blocks, from upper left corner:

• the family cabin, in the blue my children remember (before a bunkroom addition was put on in the late 2000's and the cabin was re-sided in vinyl.
• Old Glory
• (Holstein) cow
• Sawtooth Star
• Pinwheels
• 9-Patch
• Churn Dash
• Maple Leaf
• Haystack
• Spools (of quilting thread!)
• Pickup with pig
• Yarn Skeins
• Chicks
• Eggs
• (More) Chicks
• Red Barn (in her backyard)
• Hen (For the 1-3 chickens she's always seemed to have)
• Tractor

I bordered the top in X's representative of the many cross stitched designs she's done on quilts and pillow cases for others. For the backing, a farm themed print fabric I found at Hobby Lobby last winter. For the binding, a red and white checked fabric (I think from Lori Holt's Farm Girl collection) from my local quilt shop this past summer that makes me think of plastic table cloths on picnic tables used by Mother-In-Law.

Backing and checkered binding

Due to Covid precautions, Mother-In-Law wanted to space out visits from each of her children this past Christmas. DH & I were finally able to get together with her last weekend, so it wasn't until Saturday that she received her quilt.

She loves it.  And, as DH was told in a phone call on Thursday evening, it works very well--she sat down in her chair Thursday afternoon 'for a minute', and ended up falling asleep under the quilt!!  I take that as a huge compliment.  A nap-inducing quilt is a cozy thing indeed. 

Yarn Along: January '21

 It's a new year, new month, and the first Wednesday.  Time for a Yarn Along post!!

Hoping to join with Ginny for the Yarn Along; I see that she doesn't have it posted on her site yet, so I will go ahead and link in later once hers is up.

There are some December projects to show, all of which were finished in time for Christmas, as well as some January knits all ready.

These socks went to Surprise for Christmas

The pattern is Branching on Ravelry.

I also made, but didn't get a picture of, a pair of Lego man mitts for Toad in the 6-9yr size.

Once the Christmas knits were wrapped up (pun intended, LOL), I made another dish cloth for myself using scrap cotton yarns.  This one is much prettier in real life.  It's the Copycat pattern that I made another scrap yarn dish cloth out of on last month's yarn along.

Right before Christmas, my Mom asked me if I would  to knit her a pair of socks, using yarn she'd bought for that purpose,hopefully in time for her birthday in February.  She dropped off the yarn to me, and I started them on Dec. 30th.  I am using the pattern Elevation, and making the leg the usual length rather than as a short sock.  I think it shows off the color changes of the yarn really well.  Currently, the first sock is knit through the heel turn and ready to pick up the gusset stitches.

Also in the above photo, you see a very purple dish cloth done in the Honeycomb pattern, as well as a light blue dish cloth that is using the Michigan pattern.  Both are using leftover cotton yarn.  I'm hoping to use up my stash of scrap cotton yarns this month.

Reading in December was squeezed in around work, holiday prep, and making presents. According to my reading log, I read the newest Sloan Krause mystery, Without a Brew, by Ellie Alexander, and that was it.  After waiting a long, long time to get my hands on this through the local library, I read it way too fast for the hectic time that is late December.  It was a 7-day checkout through the library so I had to churn through it and finish it on time.  Even so, I really enjoyed the story and can't wait for the next one in the series--which apparently is in the work but not due to be published until October 2021.

Your Kids Will Remember

 When my kids were little, DH and I tried really hard to live on just his income so that I could be home with the kids.  Sometimes this didn't work, and I would take a job for a while. But often, the cost of child care took the vast majority of my paycheck, and when DH would be traveling for his job and I not only needed a day time babysitter, but a second (typically teenaged) babysitter to pick up my kids from the normal babysitter before 6:00 p.m. so I didn't get charged exorbitant late fees for not getting there on time we questioned the sustainability of that system for our family.

So, for the most part, after DD2 was born, I was a stay at home mom. Money was tight.  We were creative.

One thing we did, several Christmases running, was to make homemade gifts for the kids to give to their teachers, both at school and at Sunday School.  If the kids could participate in the making, they did.  This was, afterall, their gift to their teacher(s).  It was cheaper than buying a token gift, and we didn't even have to leave home to find the right thing. 

Cookie in a jar mixes were quite popular back then (late 1990s- early 2000s), and I found a lot of them by searching online and through borrowing recipe books from the local library.  My kids would choose a recipe or two for that year, we would make sure the ingredients were in our pantry, and then they would get to work reading recipes, measuring ingredients and packing them in the jars in the correct order.  Then they would hand-write labels for the jars with instructions on how to make the cookies.  We even had a catchy name we'd put on the labels:  Four Kids in the Kitchen.

Years later, when I would run into my kids' former teachers who had been recipients of these gifts, they would mention how much they had appreciated the jar mixes (which they could make any time, not have to eat right away at Christmas), and what a unique gift it had been--obviously something the child had put time into.

Fast forward to Christmas 2020.  DS1 and his family arrived to our (pre-quarantined so we could safely pull it off) family Christmas gathering at this little place here with a box full of jars.  Each jar had a printed label on it, signed by K3, Toad, and Rascal.  Together with their dad, those three grandkids had made cookie in a jar mixes for DH & I, DS2, DD1 & Honorary Son, and DD2.

It was a touching gift for me, who was happy to see that DS1 had drawn on that part of his childhood and passed the experience on to his own kids.  And my other kids all had fun reminiscing about when they were little, making the jar mixes themselves, and whose hands fit into the mouth of the jars therefore making them the designated tamper when the ingredients threatened to not fit.

Introducing: Faline

 Our fourth grandchild, and second granddaughter, was born in mid-November. For a variety of reasons, including deer hunting season, some complications DD1 had during labor, and after giving birth (which included sepsis and an emergency hospital stay only 6 days after being released from the hospital postpartum), and of course the craziness that is pre-Christmas, I am finally just now getting this post written.

When DD1 announced, in April, that she was approximately two months pregnant, we were ecstatic.  This daughter has always wanted to have a family of her own.  In her late teens, she was told that she has PCOS and might not be able to conceive/carry a baby to term.  So, nearly two years after she and Honorary Son were married, to be expecting a baby of their own was wonderful!  I had some trepidation about the viability of the pregnancy, given DD1's gynecological pronouncement some seven years earlier, but thankfully everything in that department developed normally, and DD1 is now the mother of a healthy baby girl.

Early on, when DH heard that there would be a new grandbaby with a due date of firearm deer hunting season, he insisted that no matter what DD1 and Honorary Son chose as a name, if it was a boy DH was going to call him Buck.

As you read above, baby is a girl, so Buck isn't happening here.  At least not this time around.  I, however, have chosen to give her the blog moniker of Faline, who in the movies is the name of Bambi's doe friend.  Interestingly enough, when I look up the origin of the name Faline, it means 'like a cat', which to me is hilarious as Honorary Son and DD1 have two cats all ready, whom they both spoil and adore.  So it's sort of ironic that in this space, I'm going to refer to their daughter as Faline.  So far, she's very cat-like in that when she isn't eating, she spends much of her time sleeping.

Anyway, Faline is growing well.  She looks very much like DD1 did as a newborn, and we are all absolutely in love with her.

Before Faline was born, DD1 asked me if I still had the baptism gown that DD1 herself had worn for her own baptism.  Being that my mom had made the gown, at my request when DS1 was a newborn, and I had used it for all four of my children to be baptized in, I of course had saved it.  I was thrilled at the idea of my granddaughter also being baptized in that gown.

As you can see, it's nothing fancy. Simple, white batiste fabric that is both gauzy and durable.  Pin-tucks on the front bodice, with a small ribbon bow and lace sewn on the hem.  There is also a plain white slip (also made of batiste) that goes underneath the gown. Traditional, for babies of either gender.  Being that it's been worn by babies in two generations, I guess it is now a family heirloom.