Coffee Cozy and Votive holders

June is chock full of birthdays! My Aunt Polly starts out the month on the 1st, my dad's is the 7th, Aunt Mary on the 14th along with Whitney. Mine on the 15th along with fiber friend Duffy, friend Lisa on the 16th, my nephew Keefe on the 17th, more friends along the way and my mother on the 24th, three friends on the 25th and there's still more birthdays showing up on my Facebook calender.

Danna invited us to her birthday party BBQ this last Saturday. It was a popular day to have a BBQ because we were also invited to one for Barry. Yes, they have the same birthday! The 25th. :-)

While camping at Grand Thing VIII we found that there were three French Press pots in use. I thought it might be nice to have something to help keep the coffee warmer and to also help differentiate them. Susan's birthday was in May after Grand Thing, but was sick so she'll have to wait to see if she gets one. ;-)

I had found several possible patterns, only problem is mine is packed away in the trailer and Brandon wasn't willing to half unload the trailer to get it for me. So I'm having to knit and guess that it fits. (Insert eye roll here.)

I'd recently gotten a bunch of yarn in a Goodwill auction, I'd been trying to get the Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool for projects, so all the Paton's Chunky was a bonus. I thought it would make a good one for Danna's cozy, machine washable, so didn't need to worry about an accidental felting.

Danna's is the Frenchy French Press Cozy pattern. It doesn't look like it from the pics on the blog, but looks like stacked owls to me:

Brandon tried out a couple different attempts at making a votive candle holder for her. These are the ones that he ended up being happiest with:

Will have to see if he plans to make a few more for camping. Danna loved them as she loves votives she said.

Rus Hats or Viking Fur Hats

I have accumulated a collection of fur collars from some Goodwill auctions. They've been put to use on a cloak, and I had tried to make a hat with one. Dawn-Marie had a fox fur hat for herself that she made off of my idea last year at West War.

I wasn't happy with how mine came out, so while helping another friend find a pattern for the Rus Hat, I found this one.  I also knew that Whitney's birthday was coming up and thought she might like to have a hat for camping and winter events. Her birthday is the day before mine. ;-) I also know her favorite color is dark forest green, but I had a nice olive green velvet and some pretty black mink. With all the supplies gathered, I just needed her head measurement. Thankfully she came with the family to a Revels night so I was able to get that. We have the same head size, so that further made it easier for construction.

With Brandon's help, he created the pattern template piece, I was able to create a mock-up. Figure out that I needed to round out the top a bit more and then go on from there. I was going to use silk as the liner but Brandon thought that linen would be better. I had some scraps from Will's tunic from last year that worked. Then cut out some red velvet that was a short curtain panel or something that Brandon had brought home from a sample sale at work. Just enough to make my hat!

I had sewn the linen pieces together and the velvet pieces together and before we left for Grand Thing VIII had sewn those together. I just needed to sew closed the turning point and then sew on the mink that I was using to band it. The mink collar piece I had was a few inches longer than needed, so I was going to have to cut it or do something with the extra. I really needed the extra though for Whitney's hat. The collar piece for her's was just a bit short.

Brandon took a video of me petting the collar before I could cut it while in court. I imagine its something similar to getting ready to steek a sweater, but that's another adventure I still have to face! I did make the cut and put the bit in my basket to go for Whitney's.

Later while stopping in to give personal congratulations to Sara and Mike on their engagement, Lonnie asked to try on the hat and immediately wanted one of her own. I think I'm lucky I got it back! LOL

You can see the join in the back, maybe should have cut a smidge longer.

Isn't the mink gorgeous?

Me in the hat

Whitney's hat. The extra was a smidge long, so I tucked and hide. Just a little blood  from stabbing my finger while sewing. 

Whitney had her birthday party a week early since they were planning to go to Honey War. With mine, I didn't add any decoration to the top of the hat. It's not really visible while wearing, so wasn't sure how necessary? If anything, I might have added a few pearls to the center of the points for Whitney. She was very happy with the hat too!

I brought my bag of furs and let Lonnie go through and find the one she wants to use. It's also black and furry, but I'm not sure its mink. Dawn-Marie had also gotten to go through the furs so she could make a new hat for herself and for Larissa. So lots of Rus hats of this style will be showing up at events. ;-) I also had some blue velvet that Dawn-Marie could use. Can't wait to see how hers came out!

I can see that a few more hats will be made for the other ladies of the household once they see them at An Tir-West War. ;-) Andrea already has one out of faux fur, but I think some white rabbit might go her way to make a new one?  We'll see.

Hexi-puffs, Blocks, Bunnies and a Snood

So I tried knitting Carina's qiviut into a wimple for her. It was a nice knit, but I didn't totally bind off and let it sit for two weeks and tried it on again. I don't have a picture of it on me. It was very snug and felt kind of short. I like the pattern, just not happy with it for this yarn.

I think I'm going to try out Ice Queen and see if that comes out better. It's a larger needle size and I'd do it without the beads.

So while I was letting the wimple ruminate, I opted to do some hexi-puffs and sock blanket squares:

Almost two puffs out of the red sparkly I picked up on the yarn crawl, had to use a tiny bit of the paprika to bind it off. The others were some Abstract Fiber Matisse samples I had gotten during last year's yarn crawl. I had thought to make them into a pair of fingerleI have ss mitts or something but like that they will be in blankets. The block with the green stripe took a few attempts to get a version of the leftover that I liked. I think I made it four times. I have 33 of them now.

There was a bit of the paprika left, but nothing that I could make for Carina, so it went into a block. I had differing amounts of the Matisse, so one complete block and had to dip into one to finish the second block. I have 15 blocks done.

I kind of slid into a bit of a depression. We had learned that Brandon's Aunt Debbie had advanced ovarian cancer that had metastasized. We found out a week before she was going in for surgery to remove organs and parts of organs. After the surgery we found out that it wasn't ovarian cancer but pancreatic cancer and the surgeon was telling Uncle Dave and Judy that she only six to eight weeks to live. What the heck?! So reeling from both news.

His Aunt Mary Lou flew in to visit a few days after the surgery and we had dinner with all of them. I made chicken curry and they had planned to make some cream of broccoli soup, but didn't get to it. Debbie really enjoyed the chicken curry and ate more than she thought she would. She raved about it. She was looking really good after the surgery but still getting used to less energy and how much you really do use your stomach muscles to do a lot of things. It was good to see her.

I have been working on a snood out of a gold lace cone that Judy (MIL) gave me. I've used bits of it for other projects and still have plenty! Andrea used it in my braid at Carnevale. It's slippery even on my Knit Picks Harmony needles, so I was only doing a few rows at a time and putting it down.

Saturday I was home alone, the boys were off doing various gaming activities and I was watching movies and working on the snood. During one of my breaks with it, I was trying to find a quick project to do for the kids for Easter. I thought about doing a different bunny pattern that was in my queue - Knitted Bunny. They lost me when I had to apply knitted ears when I remembered this Knitted Bunnies and how fast it knit up and was finished.

I remembered that I had used my Lion Brand Jiffy for the last ones and that I had some yellow scraps, so it was the perfect one to start out with. Then I found the Fisherman color leftovers and knit one in that and a bit of Camel color. I had two and a half of the squares knit Saturday night and finished the Camel Sunday on the drive to Judy's for the Easter family get together.

Sunday morning I was sewing and stuffing the yellow one. Brandon made me the bunny tails for all three of them while I was sewing and stuffing. I was also making deviled eggs and kind of made my own version of some 'crab puffs'. I had a can of crab meat, took some neuchatel cheese (low fat cream cheese) and cut some garlic chives out of the yard into the mix. Then put the mixture into pre-baked phyllo cups. Super easy!! So I ended up finishing the last bit of knitting on the Camel square on the way to Judy's and actually did the bind off a block away from her house.

I snuck upstairs and put the finishing touches on the bunnies - sewing the square up so it was a bunny on the Camel, putting ribbons on, sewing tails on. I came prepared with my handspun, Kool-Aid dyed Easter Egg in case Corbin wasn't interested in a stuffed bunny. He's seven and a boy after all. ;-)

Little Alyssa picked this one as hers

Madi likes purple, so I wasn't surprised that she picked this one

Kaisha picked this one

Jenna picked this one before Kaisha, so she really did like that it was different from the others

This is the camel one that came back home with me

We were the last ones to leave and so were able to talk more about the latest news on Debbie from Judy. They had a follow-up visit with someone from the surgeon's office and that person was surprised that they had been given the six to eight weeks. They are referring her to an oncologist to talk about chemotherapy and even that is changing from the type that they were originally given. Makes sense since the diagnosis changed. That appointment is this week, so won't know for a bit what the outcome of that is. They did up it to at least six month to a year, but with chemotherapy she could have longer. Yes, its still kind of stage four pancreatic cancer but there are survivor stories of people that with various treatments have lived longer. She referred us to the PanCan site for more info. So I'll be studying that. It was really great to hear though that we wouldn't be losing her in a month, unless she opts to do only palliative care. She wants to fight this as much as she can so unless the oncologist visit is really bad I don't think that will be her choice. I have her in a friend's healing circle but any wishes or prayers you'd like to send her way will be appreciated.

I was working on my gold snood and was re-looking at it and found that something horrible had happened a couple inches down. Normally I would just drop down to those stitches and fix them, but this yarn is so weird that it really wasn't an option. Ugh! So I had to frog that and start over. I have three inches back and really it looks much better of a cast on. I have a goal. We are currently planning on attending an event on Saturday up in Kelso, so I would like to be able to use it there. So I need to get it done by then. Knitting it would actually accomplish that! Haven't knitted any today, so I'll have to make up for it.

Today Andrea came over to use our washer and dryer and so we've been watching season one of The Borgias. We've been noticing that Lucrezia is wearing a lot of different snoods.  I'll have a plain gold one, but I would also like to have one with pearls. I think I'll have to sew those on. Yes, trying to end this on a positve note!

My daffodils

Spring has definitely sprung!

Yule Gifts

I had hoped to do a bit more than I did for the Yule gift exchange. I still think what I gave was nice. I knit a little soap sack and included three bars of home made soap - Castile and Vanilla scented. Then I sewed the red bag that I put it in. Red was the color for gifts for ladies, green for men. So a reusable bag that they can give as a gift or use for other items.

The two little bars of castile soap are inside the soap sack

Ignatius made a hammer as his gift. Walnut head and turned/carved handle in oak. He carved the three phases of the moon. Its a substantial hammer. Funny thing is, our friend Finn picked it. He picked the wooden box that Ignatius made last year. ;-)

Ignatius picked out a box that turned out to be a hibachi that folds down. He's inclined to give it to Will to use in a future apartment. I don't know, I think it might be cool for camping and steaks. ;-)

I picked out a tissue wrapped package that turned out to be a hand made basket. It kind of looks like a basket that might have been made at the Embellisher's College we went to earlier in the year.

Its very nicely done and I look forward to using it!

We'll have more Yule gifts to make for the upcoming Dragon's Mist Juletide event.

Monday quickie

I have not been knitting since I finished my dad's fingerless gloves. He loved them too. My sister was happy to see her own pair of fingerless gloves. She had apparently 'borrowed' her husband's that I gave him last year because she loved how they kept her hands warm. Logan loved his hat and mittens too, so more happy knitting gift recipients.

I did some spinning Friday and Saturday and have more to do on the purple merino/tencel I picked up at Woodland Woolworks. I may be able to be plying for Wednesday knitting/spinning at Haggen's.

Sunday and today I've been out of commission from a right sided migraine. Mine are usually left sided. Might also explain the awful nausea that I woke up with.

I really need to do a couple of online classes tomorrow so I have my fingers crossed that I will be migraine free to get them done. Send healing thoughts my way please.

January knitting plans include a pair of socks and doing the mini ornaments that I didn't get done before Christmas. I can then store them away for next year. I have tentative plans for next year's gift giving and if I follow the plan, less stress will happen.