Happy Yule

In the northern hemisphere this marks the shortest day and longest night of the year.  The solstice occurs at 11:30pm cst tonight.  Tomorrow the sun will set one minute later than it does today.  Bang your drums and light your candles in the morning before the dawn to call back the sun.  It works.  Really.  Try it:)

I wish you all a blessed solstice.  As our days get longer, I hope that all our lives are also filled with light and love.

I have a few days left to spend here with my mom, then I'm heading back to Utah.  I'm going to take some time off blogging to get reacquainted with my sweetie, take down the Halloween decorations that are still up at home, squeeze my cat, and ponder the new year that awaits us.  Have safe and happy holidays, however you celebrate them.  I'll see you next year!

Frank Lloyd Wright's Park Inn Hotel

I took some really crap pictures yesterday of a very beautiful place.  I'm going to subject you to them anyway, because it's all I've got.

Mom and I went to visit the historic Park Inn Hotel, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

This hotel is an example of Prairie School design.  I love this style, with its clean, straight lines.  The orderliness of it is soothing to me.  It made me homesick for my Craftsman bungalow.

This furniture would look really good in my living room.

I love this phone.  I am not a phone talker at all, but I would talk on this phone just because.

Even the bathrooms were pretty:)

Wise words on the wall.

The ballroom.

Orderly rows of windows....

....squares and rectangles in the glass...

...and this fellow watching over all that happens here.

Knitting Discoveries

There is this problem I come up against very often when I find a new pattern I want to knit.  It seems I'm always wanting to knit in the round - socks, gloves, hats, but every pattern calls for just slightly different sizes of needles, and good knitting needles are expensive.  This is another reason I like to crochet; I already own almost every size hook!  What often happens to me when I find these patterns I want to knit is that I won't have the right size double point needles, and I will have the right circular needle size, but they'll be too long for the small project I'm attempting.

That happened to me again.  I brought with me, to Iowa, a skein of yarn to make my granddaughter some leggings.  On the way out, I grabbed what I thought would be the right size needle; I was in a hurry to get here, so didn't think this through much.  When I started the pattern the other day, I quickly realized this circular needle was waaaay too long for the itsy bitsy leg warmers I was going to knit!  The nearest yarn store is about two hours away from here.  How on earth was I going to finish these in time for Christmas?!?

Then I remembered something I saw mentioned in the pattern.  Magic Loop!  Have you heard of this?  Does everyone know about this except me??  I Googled it and discovered that it's a technique you can use to knit small projects, in the round, on long circular needles.  This means that all of those circular needles I have already purchased can do double duty for more knitting projects!  It took me just a little bit to get the hang of it; I kept stretching my side stitches out.  I quickly caught on though, and now I'm breezing through:)  And... I'd better go finish so I can mail them on Monday!  Have a good weekend:)

More Snippets from the Snowy Woods

Our days here seem to disappear as quickly as they begin.  We get up, turn around, and before you know it, it's dark outside again.  Even the daylight hours have been a little dark and gloomy.

I ventured outside to stage some product shots.  I may have gotten a little distracted:)

There was a train with graffiti.

And a mossy stump.

 (buy now)

I finally drew my attention back to what I was out there for:)  I've been working out some new crochet patterns for coasters.  I love these:)  I love the shape and the color.  I'm going to make many more; I want yellow and pink and green!  Something to brighten up the gloom!

 (buy now)

I did these first.  I imagine these with delicate white tea cups with a violet pattern.  I looked through Mom's cupboards, but didn't find that!

I've started crocheting hearts.  I know we haven't even made it through the December holidays yet, but when you're selling you have to plan ahead.  That is something I've actually found hard to do, make xmas stuff in July, etc.  I really only am in the mood to make seasonal items during that particular season.  So I thought what I should do is make things to sell the following year!  Except these hearts of course.  Love is good all year 'round;)

I see we've come to the end!  See you Friday!

Snippets of My Days

This is the first thing I see every morning when I wake up, the view from the window.

Jack Frost has been painting the windows.

He's been working overtime.

This was hanging from the ceiling in a little mall we ventured into.  Or to be more grammatically correct, into which we ventured;)

My sweetie has been missing me:)  He's gone so far as to get crafty and do mail art!  He's been making these little wooden postcards and sending them to me.  I think these have proven confusing to a couple of the hands they've passed through.  The one with the 3 hearts arrived in one of those envelopes that say, "we're sorry we damaged your item".  There was no damage to it.  I think that the postal carrier just didn't know what to do with a piece of wood with a stamp on it, so he/she put it in an envelope to make more sense of it.  It took these forever to get to me.  The first and third ones that he sent are still floating around out there someplace; I sure do hope they show up one day soon!

How is your week starting out?

Did I mention it was cold?

It's turned way cold here.  This thermometer lies; it was hogging heat from the house.

Still, every now and then, I pile on as many layers as I can and head outside with the camera.

These are the last four of my cardinals until I get home to my supplies.  They were so cute in the tree, I was tempted to leave them there.

I learned that fingerless gloves don't work here.  I couldn't feel the buttons on my camera to take the picture!

That's a cold bird bath!

I see a book and a snuggly couch calling me.  Happy Thursday!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

This is what the world looks like here in north Iowa.  I went for a little walk with the camera.  Mom thought I was crazy.  She's probably right;)

I loved the little spots of color against the white snow.

I was wishing I could find a pretty red cardinal out in this vast whiteness.  I've decided to stage my own.

This is how it all started Saturday afternoon.

Photoshop is fun, and helps that red pop!

Playing with ISO on the camera helped capture snowflakes falling.

Mom feeds a bunch of feral cats.  Most of them are cute as can be, AND extremely skittish.  This one wants to be everybody's best friend!

Those nekkid cherubs look cold.  Brrrrr!

I have cardinals to photograph and orders to package.  Happy Monday!

Saturday in the Snow

Already I've gotten behind on my blogging resolve!  Ahhh... oh well.  I've made several trips to the post office here, sending off Etsy packages.  Isn't this a beautiful bank of mail boxes?

I think I may have hinted quite awhile back about a collaboration I'm doing with another Etsy seller, Kimberly, from Embellishing You. 

She had this pack of rings ready to mail right when I was leaving Utah.  I asked her to mail them here instead.  We had quite a scare when a week after they should have been here they still hadn't shown up!  Finally they did and I breathed a huge sigh of relief, along with my ooos and ahhhs at how gorgeous these rings turned out!

I crocheted the rings and Kimberly embellished them with lovely Swarovski crystals.

I have tried on every single one, thinking, "oh I want to keep this one for myself!"  But I was good and listed them in the shop:)

Except this one.  I am still tempted to keep it;)

I've been doing some more crocheting here too.

Brooches have been selling really well, so I'm making more.

It's turning into a winter wonderland outside.  I have mixed feelings about that!  My brother and sister-in-law are on their way over and I'm not even showered or dressed yet!  I'd better get a move on!

Have a great weekend!