just enjoying fall

The weather is still nice, so we want to be outside...but I have lots of orders and my own Christmas gifts to work on, in addition to all the regular stuff that needs done. After a very timely bible study week about balance and our responsibilities, I am having to remind myself to slow down and enjoy this season. (Psalm 127:1-2 Unless the Lord builds the house, it's builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat- for he grants sleep to those he loves.) So here we are enjoying fall.

There's been a lot of animal watching. We added a corn holder for the squirrels.


We pick up the left over corm from a field after it was harvested. Here it is out on the patio to dry out a bit. This squirrel hit the mother load!

Another lucky squirrel found that we left out the bird seed. He climbed right in and out of the bag to get his treat.

I thought the squirrels were going through the corn like crazy. Turns out they just take a few nibbles and go on to the next piece.

A fresh pile of wood was delivered last weekend. We have been enjoying fires in our fireplace and eating 'fire cookies' (smores). We also discovered that our fireplace has a trap door in the bottom, so when you want to clean it out, you just let the ashes fall down the door. The door leads to under the house where there is a large holding area of sorts. That was a smart design!

Hubby raked a bunch of our never ending leaves into a pile at the bottom of the slide. The entire neighborhood has been over to slide, kids mostly.

Who knew the pile of corn would be a hit with more than just the squirrels.

How are you enjoying fall?

Thanksgiving name cards

Grandma, we're bringing the name cards for Thanksgiving! I have been hanging on to this idea for preserving and decorating with fall leaves for awhile. The kids and I have been collecting and pressing leaves to be ready. We finally decided what to do with the leaves, name cards for the Thanksgiving table.

First all leaves are pressed in a book or in between layers of newspaper. They don't have to be pressed completely flat, they just need to dry out and not curl up. This takes a week or at least several days. Then they all get a nice layer of modge podge on both sides. Finally, add names of your guests with a paint pen or metallic sharpie.

We are taking ours in a little box so they don't get crunched. I am not sure how they will save for the next year, but we added a few blank leaves just in case our thanksgiving family grows.

knitting a felted wool bag- #2 It's DONE

I finished up the bag some time in week 4 I think. There was a car trip involved. Here is first post about the bag.

I ended up casting on 120 stitches. Then adding a total of 78 rows, best I can count. 21 rows of brown, 7 cream, 4 grey, 3 cream, 9 black, 5 grey, 3 brown, 6 cream, 7 black, 5 grey, 9 cream, 2 brown. The cats seem rather fond of 100% wool.




Once the bag was done, it was time to start on the handles. I cast on 7 stitches of two threads and made an I (eye?) cord. I chose grey and made the handles about 33 inches long, a total guess, since I have no idea how much these are going to shrink up. A book I got at the library suggested knitting up a sample, measuring it, felting it, and then comparing the old size to new size for a ratio on how big to make the actual project. That sounds like wasted time and yarn to me.

I was told I would need 3 skeins. If I had done a solid color, that would have been true. I wanted 4 colors in my bag so I went with 4 skeins. During the making of the handles, I ran out of grey. I have to buy a 5th skein. I would have had plenty of yarn had I chosen black or cream for the handles. I have both of those left and will just have to make something else... when my wrist is better.

Time to felt! The finished bag pre-felting was 13 inches wide at the bottom and 16" wide at the top. This is because of the corners I added to give it some width. It is about 15 inches tall. I felted in a pillow case in the hot cycle of my washer. I was told to add a few drops of dish soap. I am not sure of the reason, but think it was something in common with the few drops of dish soap I added to the cloth diapers in the wash when they needed 'stripped.' It took 1 and 1/2 trips through the wash cycle before I was happy with the result. The pieces were then laid out and stuffed with towels to dry. I stitched up a pocket piece at some point too.

It smelled like a wet dog... or sheep, I don't know. It took FOREVER to dry. More than 2 days!

The finished bag was 12 inches wide at the bottom (that's -1 inch), 15 at the top (- 1 inch) and 10 inches tall (-5 inches). The straps are 36 inches long.... they grew 3 inches? The white did not felt as well as the other colors. I stitched the inside pocket on by hand, sewed on the straps by hand since they wouldn't fit under the foot of my sewing machine, and added a 2 stitch I cord and button for a closure.

I am really enjoying my new bag! I am excited to have a very neutral bag that should not need changed out all winter long.

My new bag and I went to the yarn shop (heavenly angels singing.....) today and bought really nice yarn (my bag was jealous) for the next bag. This yarn was so fancy (to me- who is a cheap shopper) that it wasn't bound, they had a big wooden spool thing that they used to spool it up for me. The kids and I were rather impressed. They had a big sign by the white and cream colored yarns that said "does not felt well". Guess that answers that. This one needs to be done by Christmas, so I'd better get at it!

just don't say cauliflower

When I saw this recipe for cauliflower fritters from Recipe Journal, I suspected they might be pretty tasty. I knew that they were going to need another name at our house though if anyone was going to eat them. I threw in a little bit of Parmesan cheese and renamed them parmesan cakes. Yummy. Even the kids gobbled them up. They tasted oddly like potato pancakes. Bee added ketchup and Lou liked them plain.

cauliflower fritters:
1 large head cauliflower, trimmed and chopped
1/2 cup flour
1 large egg, beaten

(I added 1/4 c Parmesan cheese)
extra virgin olive oil
steam cauliflower until tender, 10-15 minutes. transfer to large bowl and mash. let cool for 10 minutes. stir in flour and egg and season with salt and pepper. refrigerate for 15 minutes.
heat two tablespoons extra virgin olive oil over medium high heat. roll 1/4 cup portions of cauliflower mixture into balls, then flatten into patties. working in batches, fry the patties until golden brown, about 4 minutes on each side.

The cheese helped them get a little extra toasty. Toasty cheese, yum.

meeting Jan Brett

Sunday evening, we had the pleasure of meeting the well known children's author and illustrator Jan Brett. Ok, so we and 300+ other people met her. Jan is the author and illustrator of The Mitten, The Hat, The Umbrella, Annie and the Wild Animals, The First Dog, Gingerbread Friends, Gingerbread Baby, Christmas Trolls, and 21 other beautifully illustrated books.

She came on her book tour stop to a book store in our area. We arrived about 40 minutes early, just because Lou fell asleep in the car and we didn't want to do our other planned errand. It was lucky that we did because the table passing out tickets was already set up. Each person could receive one ticket, and each ticket was one signing of a book. We brought our own books with us. We were surprised when we found we already owned 5 of her books. When we arrived, the folding chairs that were set out were all full so we had a seat on the floor near the front. After about 20 minutes of waiting, I realized that others were forming a line all around the different sections of the store. I asked the organizer what the directions were and she said that the line was for the book signing and the seats were for Jan Brett's speech, but that the seat people got to get their books signed first. I said that we did want to hear her speak, but thought we should go get in line then, since the kids wanted her to sign their books and I knew the line was going to just get longer (and boy did it!). One of the fine people from her publishing/tour team over heard and 'found' me a seat in the chair section, in the second row too. How kind.

Here is her 'opening act', Hedgie, from her books. You can hardly see Bee in this picture. The lady sitting next to us took her up to see Hedgie since Lou was attacking my neck and shoulder saying, "NO, NO, I SCARED!"

She told about her book, The Mitten. She did a little illustration lesson and demonstration. She said that she spends at least an hour per inch of artwork in her books!

She talked about how she got the idea, where some of the characters came from and how she did her research.


When we were almost up to meet her, I went to get everybody their book and ticket ready and one of the tickets was lost! We had 4 books to be signed and only 3 tickets. I search and search with no luck. It must have been dropped and picked up by someone else. I grabbed Bee's hand and walked over to the kind person who helped us earlier. I was hoping that having a sad child in tow would help our cause. She said she had one emergency ticket on her and we got it. What luck again.

Jan (because we are on a first name basis) was so sweet as she met with each person. She talked with the kids and let them help stamp little pictures in the books by where she signed her name and did a little personalization. She even had pre-signed stickers if you had more than one book, since she was only doing one book per ticket.

I think tonight was the most fun for me, but Bee did seem excited to have her book signed. Lou was pretty excited about a large poster all the kids received. It was rolled up like a weapon. Hubby was just happy to have his favorite people enjoying themselves, and was pretty pleased with the inscription he asked Jan for. But, that's a secret.

brown paper package exchange

I am participating in the brown paper package gift exchange. I have my persons name and some information about them, now I just need to decide what to send! I have until Christmas, but things get so busy in my shop at Christmas time, so I need to have it done before Thanksgiving.

Here's what goes in the package: (from Max and Ellie)

What Goes In The Package:
--A little something for the taste buds: a traditional holiday treat and the recipe if you go the homemade route. I am of the opinion that homemade is preferable, but if you don't cook, feel free to buy something special. Also keep in mind that whatever you make/buy has to travel well.
--A little holiday something for the home. Some ideas include decorations, ornaments, candles, soaps, etc. Again, handmade would be awesome; store-bought can be awesome too.
--A little something for your partner. See above for the handmade vs. store-bought scale of awesomeness.
--Anything else you want to include!!
--Wrap the individual items beautifully. Beautiful doesn't have to mean fancy.
--The outside of the whole thing has to be brown paper. Interpret as you will.

I know what homemade treat to include, but other than that, I am clueless. I know that I'll come up with something. I am a little nervous about the packaging since that's the theme of the exchange.

I have a link to her blog and etsy shop and while I am not suppose to reveal who it is until after I have sent it, I see that we have a few things in common, one of those being a love for a certain vampire.

unrelated photos: Here are the pretty trees on a recent road trip I took with the kids to see an old friend and a new baby.

One of the trees in our backyard: The big trees are one of the 10 things I really like about our house. The neighbors say I will be cursing the tress when the ice comes and we have branches and sticks everywhere.

problem solving

I had this great book that I used when teaching second and third grade. It was called "Read, Draw, Solve" and had the students do just that, read the problem, draw it out, and solve it. I made Bee a little book in the same style. I can't believe the problems that she is able to figure out by drawing out the problem. My 4 year old is figuring out addition, subtraction, and even multiplication problems without even realizing it.

The best part is that she thinks it's fun. Lou thinks it's fun too. He sits with a blank tablet and solves them with us. He repeats parts of the problem over and over and draws little scribbles. It's so funny.

2 easy cut kid projects

These two projects were made in the same day at two different events. What a funny coincidence.

At library time, we made this 2 cut cat:
1. start with a folded piece of paper that is slightly narrower than a sheet of paper
2. Draw an oval at the open side and a smaller shape at the bottom (see pic)
3. cut on lines
4. Glue on head and tail
5. Draw on face
He could also be a fox, don't you think?

At preschool Ee week, Bee brought home this elephant:

1. start with a piece of construction paper.

2. Cut a strip off the long side about 1 1/2 inch- fold in half

3. Cut the same oval out of the open side

4. Cut long strip in half. curl up strip. Glue on for nose and tail

5. decorate face and toes