Winter Holidays

I can't say that I was looking forward to the holidays this year. I cried a lot and was depressed often. I celebrate Christmas with my family and Yule with my friend, and I could have passed the month by without them this year. With Dad gone almost three years now and Grandma gone this past October, the holidays just seemed like more effort than they are worth. but I sucked it up and did my best to gather gifts.

Let me add here though that working retail has helped to derail the holiday spirit. There is nothing more depressing than having to endure two months of Xmas music and the grabby, spoiled actions of my fellow human beings.

But I digress. I did the holidays and am glad in the end that I did.

I celebrated Yule on the 21st with my best friend Kindra and her daughter, Toria. It was an understated affair, consisting mostly of gifts and a trip to the park so Toria could show me how she rides her bike. We ended the day with homemade Ice cream and episodes of Ghost Hunters. It was a good day.






My Mom tries really hard to make the holidays fun. She wants fun decorations up and to do activities. Traditional for us has changed and I will admit that part of that is me, I like to do things different and unusual. For example last year we had two real trees to decorate and my little fake one. One of the live trees was covered entirely in hand-made ornaments. This year we went a different direction and did a table of small decorative trees.



We decorated gingerbread men (mom loves gingerbread men and it is a given that my sister and I will give her many as presents. Her collection is on the verge of outgoing the kitchen where it spends every holiday).




In the end our very untraditional Xmas included sitting around all day in PJs, having tacos for our early meal (my sister works nights and had to be in bed early), and watching old movies on TV (Little Women and Sherlock Holmes, yes, really). And frankly it was the most relaxing Xmas we have ever had.

I made mom some Xmas themed trivets to go along with the other things I bought her. I would have made gingerbread one as well if I had found some gingerbread colored cotton yarn. Maybe next year.



I would love to get the ornament rounder if I ever make another one, but other than that I was very pleased with how they turned out. Mom liked them and put them on the table with the trees. Here's to life not living down to expectations.

Making lace and pictures

I decided to make some washclothes, but I'm not your usual square cloth kind of girl. I can do one that way, but then I've got to change things up. So I did. I wanted a sort of lacy look, without having to spend a lot of time on a complicated pattern. I wanted fast too. I can't spend too much time crocheting because I'm doing National Novel Writing Month (Almost 25,000 words so far!) so a fast pattern waas a must.

I have one trim pattern I can remember with little effort and I knew it could be used in different ways because I made a scarf with it once, by connecting rows of it as I went. The picture shows a close up of that trim.



So with a little bending and experimenting I figured out how to fold this trim on itself and create a square fabric.



I'm not sure it will work as a washcloth, but I really like the results.



I have plans for more including a spiral and maybe a granny motif. They are part of what will be a colorful Yule gift, especially since I am using only the cotton I already have. The person getting them will appreciate not only the color palette but the interesting pattersn as well.

I have mentioned it before, but I love my camera and I take it everywhere. I thought I'd show you a few of the subjects I've found to photograph. Oddly enough the pretty white roses and the tree are from the parking lot in Roseville where my job is located.

Goodbye Grandma

On October 1 my grandmother, Alma, died. I took care of her the past few years and I find it strange for her to be gone. Even though I had to go to the nursing home to visit her since we had to move her there in January, I can still feel the hole in my life her passing has left.



I did however, deal with her death better than my father's. She was 91 years old and I did as much as I could to make her last years good ones. I wish I could have extended her independence more though. I think, in many ways, the loss of her independence aided her decline, but she also had alzheimers and there was no way around it. When we realized she would wander away from her apartment, we moved her into my mother's house, but with the tall steps into both front and back doors, Grandma couldn't go out on her own. She couldn't see well enough to do the dishes. She felt very useless, I think.



And then there were her seizures. We never did find out what exactly caused them, but they were getting worse and she wasn't recovering quickly. The last one she had at the house was so bad I was faced with the fact we could no longer care for her. So we had to put her in a home. It was a nice place, not the horrible kinds where there is neglect and abuse, Live Oak Manor had kind and loving CNAs who took care of her, encouraged her to walk when she didn't want to, put up with her ornery behavior, and cared about her when we weren't there. But at the same time, she lost even more of her own decision making rights and I watched her decline in spirit.

She had another seizure a few weeks before she died, and at first she was responsive, would eat and talk a little though she didn't open her eyes. But eventually, she stopped eating. We had made the decision, based upon an the Power of Attorney, my dad had for when he cared for her, not to have feeding tubes or extend her life beyond what is natural. We saw her a few hours before she died.

My Grandma was raised by a strong mother who worked hard to support not only her many children but their deadbeat father as well. She loved to travel (I wish I could have taken her to New York, it was one place she wanted to see, but never got to) loved fishing, her house in the mountains, sewing her clothes (she made my eighth grade graduation dress) her flower garden and the deer that ate her rasberries. She liked cowboy movies, Walker, Texas Ranger on TV, and Louis L'Amour books. I was "her girl". I miss her so much.



To cut funeral costs we did a lot of things ourselves, including designing her folders (those little handouts you get at funerals) with two pictures of her on the outside, instead of the generic choices we had at the funeral parlor. She was cremated and placed into a box my sister had covered with brocade fabric. We even put together our own sign in book for the funeral out of a pretty scrapbook, papers, some stamps with copper ink, and as many My Mom and sister were apprehensive at first about this DIY form of funeral, but in the end it was something we were not only proud of, but Grandma would have appreciated as well.



I honored her on Samhain and I remember her here where anyone can see it.



Happy Journeys Grandma. I love you and miss you. "Your Girl" Mindy.

Picture details:
*Grandma's 91st birthday. I crocheted her that cupcake, she loved sweets a lot.
*Grandma and mt Grandfather, Mervin, who died about ten years ago. They are buried together in Colusa now.
*This was the last picture I took of her. We were watching TV in the day room and she was sipping the milkshake I'd brought her. We had a good time that day. Here, she had fallen asleep. I wish I had gotten one of her awake.
*Grandma hunted, but I don't think she liked it as much as fishing, she did it because Grandpa liked it.
*This is a picture of the things we made for her funeral, set up at the building where her wake was held. On the left you can see one of the folders on top of the sign in sheet that I later put into her book. The little wooden box is a memory box I put together of all the things she like (flowers, bingo, cowboys, etc).
*This picture was taken the day my parents got married, it is on the back cover of the folders.

A Bluebird Purse and fall projects

I haven't been crocheting a lot lately because my hands have been hurting some, but I did get a few things completed. The first item, and most fun, is the purse I made for my friend Rebecca. She likes birds, a lot, so I thought a crocheted bird purse would be perfect for her. I was going to felt it, but when I couldn't find a wool in a blue that I liked, I decided to just use acrylic yarn and ended up with a blue from the Vanna White yarn from Lion brand. I used an I hook, which gave me a tight enough stitch that I didn't have to line it. I don't like lining my purses.

I freeformed the bird. The first side of the purse was so much easier than the second. I had to not only match it to the first, but I had to do it in reverse. I spent a lot of time holding it up to the first side to get a match as close as I could. I was also trying to get the impression of overlapping feathers on the tail and the wing by crocheting in the back loop on certain rows.



The beak is made of two pieces crocheted into V shapes and sewn, overlapping, into place.


I crocheted the wing separately and sewed it into place. It covers the pocket which is shaped like an egg and crocheted in another Vanna yarn.


I started to run out of time (I finished it the day of her party) and decided not to make a second wing, but I didn't want to leave the back unfinished. I decided to be a little cute and embroidered "Tweet!" onto a piece of blue felt and sewed it onto the other side of the purse.



I really liked how this purse turned out and so did Rebecca, but it may never get used. She thinks it should only carry special things, not the everyday. Ah well, I am getting used to that.


I did do a little more crochet. I have written an article for Associated Content on easy crochet projects for Fall. Go read it here: Fall Weather Crochet Projects

Toria's Fancy Birthday Dress

Dress is made party is over and both were a success!

I spent a lot of time procrastinating over this dress. making scared the hell out of me so I did a lot of practice projects. The wallet mentioned in a previous post, a big purse, and a laptop sleeve so I can carry my laptop in the big purse. They all turned out well, but they aren't clothes. So finally, with only a week to spare, I got to work on the dress. I never use real patterns, so figuring it out was my first problem. Then I realized the pattern was going to be a bit too big. So I made the elastic that went around the back smaller, there was a waist tie already. To solve the length problem I added ties to the inside of the dress that created gathers at the bottom and could be tied to just the right length (I figured out that a couple more ties would have made it look better, but the four I did do worked). So here it is.



She's not really posing, she just had her nails painted and is trying not to touch anything. The wind was blowing a lot that day.

I even made her a matching purse out of the remaining fabric with regular leopard print cotton as a lining. I used it as her gift bag.



It was a tea party for princesses so all the little girls were dressed in their best.



They all got their own teacups and saucers (but the real tea didn't go over well)



They decorated their own gift purses, made beaded necklaces and played Mother May I. And fancy dresses did nothing to hinder the mad rush for candy once the pinata was broken open.



Oh and everyone loved the cake my mom decorated.



Toria's mom was feeling crafty too. Check out the teapot!



(This was the healthiest party you've ever seen. Watermelon, catelope, apples and grapes. Even the cake was gluten free due to Toria's strict diet. Gluten makes her sick)

This was a fun party and I am so glad Toria loved her dress. What a relief.

Mom's Day

Well, Mother's Day is approaching and so began the rush to figure out the perfect gift. Or at least one that makes her feel good. I finally decided on a wall hanging. I would have liked to make it from my stash (stash busting being a goal right now), but her favorite color is blue and I just don't have that much on hand. So off to Jo-ann's. I am sewing this project because I am using it for sewing practice too because the next project is Toria's Dress and I need to have this machine figured out.

I chose a selection of blue and white fabrics of varying shades and pattern sizes, mostly floral, and then a piece for the backing.



I decided to make a version of a log cabin block. I don't know if its technically correct but I am satisfied with the results. You might notice that the strips are different widths, I did that deliberately. I cut two strips from each fabric, one at two inches, the other at somewhere between one and a half to one and three quarters inches wide.



I decided to applique a heart from the white material in the center of the block. Here it is before stitching.



And here is a close up of the stitches I used to applique it. I love the pattern on that white fabric, you hardly see it all until it is backed by a darker fabric.



Pretty soon I will sew the backing on, but first I've got to find the extra batting I have. It's probably in my storage unit, but when I went there today to look it began raining as soon as I drove into the lot. Hard raining. Soak everything in the front of the unit hard rain, so the backing has to wait a bit longer. I haven't decided if I will do any embellishing. Hand-needle work is not easy for me right now, but I might try a little. I know she'll like it, she my mom and usually does, but I hope she likes it enough to put it up somewhere too.