Holidays – Page 3 – Thimbleanna

Whoa!

9 Comments / April 16, 2020 April 16, 2020 / Bunnies, Chat, Holidays, Knitting

It was Easter. Then it wasn’t! What the heck happened? I seem to have lost the last few days — well, as you know now, they all seem to run together. I hope you had a nice Easter even though it was so different this year. Ours was quiet and very uneventful. The highlight of our day was to facetime with the kids while the girls opened their little Easter gifts we had dropped off the previous day. They were so cute when we stopped by — they were jumping up and down in the window screaming and laughing — I wish I’d taken a picture!

Anyway, after years of dreaming, I finally knit some of Julie’s Little Cotton Rabbits. They were such a fun project, but boy oh boy, are they ever time consuming!

Or, more likely, I’m just a slow knitter. In either case, Julie is a genius. Her instructions and pictures are so thorough — it’s as if she’s sitting next to you while you knit. I had so much fun deciding on the dress patterns, color combinations, leg styles, etc. I can’t even imagine how Julie has knit so many — it must be a case of practice make perfect. I’m hoping that with these first ones under my belt, the next ones will be a little quicker.

I can’t wait to make more bunnies – not to mention some of the many other patterns she has developed. And I know this sounds like some sort of an ad, but it’s not. I just love these little patterns and I think they’re so cute. I’m not the only one either — I was goofing off the other day on the internet and came across this post of quintuplets who received some Little Cotton Rabbits in their Easter baskets. It made me wonder how many other children around the world received some of Julie’s little animals. We Love You Julie!!!

I had to put the little rabbits on the rocking horse before they went to their new home. Horsey is sooo lonely these days without his girls around. He’s counting the days until the quarantine comes to an end.

Back to Easter – in addition to the bunnies, I gave the girls each a storybook and the traditional Grammy Surprise Boxes. I struggled a little coming up with things to put in the boxes, since shopping was limited to what I could find in the grocery store while grocery shopping. I ordered some little Meri Meri hair clips and decided to make some felt finger puppets. I forgot to take pictures of all the little puppets ;-8. FinallyAGirl received Little Red Riding Hood with her Grammy, the woodsman, the big bad wolf, and a tree (to represent the woods.) FinallyAnotherGirl received Peppa Pig, Mama Pig, Daddy Pig, her brother George, and the sheep.

So, that was Easter. The other highlight of the week has been that FinallyAGirl has learned how to call Grammy from her ipad all by herself. (WooHoo!) The first time it was such a fun surprise! I answered the facetime call to see this:

Then I heard this whispering little voice: “Grammy. We have to be very very quiet. Daddy doesn’t know I’m calling you. I’m in our secret clubhouse. Tell Grandpa that he and Ma (that’s what she calls MeMum) have to be very quiet too!” Ohmygosh. Be still my little heart. The secret clubhouse is under her Daddy’s desk – that’s the underside of the middle drawer behind her head in the picture above. Since that first call, she’s called almost everyday and cheered us up. We’ve done puzzles, read books, had tea parties — all the usual stuff we’d do if we were actually together. How lucky are we to live in the age of facetime? I love our afternoon visits and I know I’ll miss them when life returns to normal and she and SweetiePie are too busy with real life for these calls. I suppose they’ll be replaced with real life visits though, so all phases have their benefits.

Ok, enough chitchat from me. Thank you for all your lovely comments — sorry if I haven’t responded to them — they haven’t been forwarded to my e-mail account. I think the last comment was forwarded though, so I’m hoping the problem has been solved.
Hope you’re having a Good Week!
XOXO,
Anna

Happy Valentine’s Day!

8 Comments / February 14, 2020 February 14, 2020 / Holidays, Knitting

Happy Valentine’s Day Lovelies! Have you had an action packed week? It’s been a quiet week here — I’ve been hunkered down, not doing much really. Cleaning a little here and there — really not sure where the week went. I did make two of the Little Cotton Rabbits mini bears for my little human grandbabies. Here’s a shot of the finished bear heads — no bodies yet.

I love making Julie‘s little animals SO much, although, I’m really slow at it. And I struggle a lot with choosing yarns. Julie is a genius though — her patterns are SO thorough and well thought out. I wanted to put little hearts around the bottom of the dresses, but they’re knit top down, which puts the “v” in the stitch upside down for making little hearts. So, I tried to knit the pattern backwards, bottom up, turning increases into decreases. It was ok, but it just didn’t look right, so I ripped it out and followed her pattern. As it should be. I could have done bigger hearts out of several rows of stitches or done some duplicate stitch magic, but I was running out of time, so I ended up just doing little x’s and o’s. And doh, I did the x’s on one dress and the o’s on the other one. I should have mixed them up! Grammy is slipping in her old age LOL.

These little mini bears are the perfect size for the little boxes I like to make for the girls once in awhile. FinallyAnotherGirl is only 17 mos. old, so it’s still a little hard to find things for her box — I’ll be glad when she’s old enough to not choke on small things and able to eat candy LOL. FinallyAGirl is 3 1/2 now, and she’s into all things crafty. Plus, she can eat candy, so her box is a lot easier to fill.

I hope you have a good day and a wonderful weekend. I must run and get ready for my afternoon at the endodontist — ’cause nothing says Love like a root canal!!! ;-D
XOXO,
Anna

Happy New Year 2020!

7 Comments / January 1, 2020 January 1, 2020 / Holidays

It’s that time once again — the ThimbleannaLand KittyCats would like to wish you all a Happy New Year!

Holy Cow. Can You Believe It? It was just so weird typing that 2020 up there in the post title — I’m still stuck somewhere between 2000 and 2010 — and feeling pretty good that I’ve moved out of the 90’s LOL. What happened to the last decade? Not even to mention the last year??? It’s my tradition here to do a little look back of the projects that I completed from the year, so here’s proof positive that the year was WAY too short and sped by:

What a sad showing of my makes and travels for the year. Or, probably more acurately, a sad showing of how much I posted about what happened last year. We did have two trips to Utah that were never posted. And only one quilt? That’s p.i.t.i.f.u.l. I did work on a few other quilts, but they’re works in progress and I didn’t really post about the progress, so there’s not much to show. I do have a semi-excuse — TheFirstChild and his cute little family moved here in July and I’ve spent the last six months adjusting to them being here. It’s been super fun to be able to play with the girls — we’ve had sleepovers, playground trips, cupcake making, shopping trips and even a trip to the zoo. Lots of fun never posted. And the end of the year even brought us a new baby who never put in an appearance on the blog (but I put her in the grid anyway ;-D). Naughty Naughty Grammy.

So, now to look forward to a new year. A fresh new slate! I have so much catching up to do around here and I’m hoping to spend the next few days cleaning up from the holidays and making a plan for cleaning and organizing and working on some UFOs. And, of course, a few new projects, because the new projects are what keep things exciting. I’m also hoping I’ll be better about posting here on the blog and on instagram — I love being able to look back and see what was happening.

Who knows what 2020 will bring? Isn’t it exciting (if not a little scary?) We joked with the kids last night — A New Year, A New Baby! We’ve had new babies in 2018 and 2019, so they’ve established a pattern, right? They didn’t think we were funny LOL. It’s funny though — you just never know what will happen — when we were looking forward at this time last year, there was no inkling of our newest little babe, but here we are! (And btw, thank you so much for all the blog baby name suggestions! After much consideration, I think I’ll go with Pam’s fun suggestion of HurrayAThirdGirl — Thanks Pam!)

HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope the new year brings you happiness, peace and contentment!
XOXO,
Anna

Merry Christmas!

17 Comments / December 24, 2019 December 24, 2019 / Chat, Holidays

Oh so funny — I thought I might have had a banner November and been able to post more than twice. I should have known better! Since that last post on November 8th, we’ve had a busy few weeks — a new baby, Thanksgiving, all the business of the holiday season, and a retirement. Merry Christmas to ME — as of the 19th, the day job is history — YIPPEEEEE! Now on to more quilting/sewing time, a clean house (haha), and most importantly, more time to spend with my adorable THREE little granddaughters. (Speaking of which, baby number three needs a blog name — I’m taking suggestions — just as a reminder, the first two are FinallyAGirl and FinallyAnotherGirl). It’s been crazy busy here and everyone is out running last minute Christmas errands, so I’m sneaking 30 minutes to post my traditional Christmas picture — Christmas Morning breakfast the way we’ve always loved it:

We had the annual Gingerbread competition last night too, so I’ll be back soon to post pics and tell you all about it. We had lots of fun — I’m such a lucky girl to have such a fun-loving family!
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas or Holiday season, however you celebrate — and that all your dreams come true!
Merry Christmas!
XOXO,
Anna

Happy New Year 2019!

10 Comments / January 2, 2019 January 3, 2019 / Holidays

Happy New Year! It seems impossible that we’re here at a new year again– 2018 whizzed by — at breakneck speed! I guess that’s a good thing — at least we weren’t bored and wondering why time was passing so slowly. I could do with a happy medium though.

The normal custom here in ThimbleannaLand is to have a Kitty animal greeting and then look back on the year of travels and projects. The cats are just recovering from a major trauma — Winston AND his favorite two-year-old-tornado were here for the weekend. It’s funny — the cats tolerate Winston pretty well now — they’ll even lie down beside him. But the 2-year old? No Way! They hear her voice at the door and dive under the bed. She’s never hurt them or anything, I guess it’s just her volume that scares them LOL. Anyway, I decided not to bother them for a New Year’s picture this year so that they can recover a bit.

Here are my 2018 pictures in review:

It was a good year here in ThimbleannaLand! Our biggest excitement was the arrival of FinallyAnotherGirl. She’s three months old now and is the best baby. She’s MUCH easier that FinallyAGirl — she hardly ever makes a peep. Both babies are just happy as can be and SO fun to be around. FinallyAnotherGirl was preceded by my fun trip to Shetland and London — definitely a highlight of the year. There was some knitting (all baby!), sewing, and quilting (technically those folded memory quilts were made in 2017, but they weren’t posted until 2018 and they didn’t make it into the 2017 round-up, so I’m counting them this year LOL). It wasn’t all fun and games here this year though. Part of the reason blogging has been fairly light is because we’ve spent the year cleaning out MeMum and BigDaddy’s house. It’s been a huge job and tons of work. We started in February and spent a lot of weekends going through papers and closets and dishes and fabric and papers and more papers and … you get the idea. It’s been the worst thing I’ve ever had to do and I can’t even describe the sadness. So, that’s about all I’ll say about it ’cause I’ll start crying. This blog has been a record of our little family for quite a few years and the clean out has been a major part of our 2018, so I didn’t want it to go unmentioned. {Sigh.}

Anyway, you might have noticed some quilts up there that haven’t been posted yet — that’s because they were Christmas gifts and I didn’t want to spoil the surprise. I broke into my hoard of Cat in the Hat fabrics (and didn’t make much of a dent LOL) and made FinallyAGirl a quick quilt. It was a last minute decision and having that big center panel made it go much more quickly. Hopefully she’ll have fun with it when she’s reading her Cat in the Hat books — it’s a great snuggle size — about 56″ x 70″. (It’s so hard to get quilt pictures this time of year — pretty gloomy and dark and too windy outside. So, I had to randomly stick them up around the house, but you get the idea.)

And then, the Christmas quilts. I loved the retro Santa by Urban Chiks from the moment I saw it and knew I had to make some. I actually made three of them (two kits plus an extra Santa panel will make three quilts, fyi) but couldn’t get them all together for a photo. I made them for MeMum, MyDadLovesMeBestSister, and SweetiePie.

These quilts were super fun to make. And, for the first time, I rented time on a long-arm to do the quilting. It took a day and a half (with the lesson), but so worth it — I’m thinking it would have taken me 2 or so days each to quilt them on my regular machine. I did an overall stipple on the log cabin blocks, and then did a few different things on the Santa. Everyone seemed to like the circles on the cheeks the best.

Now to plan for the new year. Are you a resolution maker? I’m not really, but I do like to plan my next quilting and knitting projects. Hopefully, between a little cleaning and organizing around here, I can do just that.
Happy Planning and Dreaming — I hope all your New Year Wishes come true!

XOXO,
Anna