Thimbleanna – Page 13 – My little online diary.

Baby Makes

13 Comments / October 21, 2018 October 21, 2018 / Baby Oh Baby, Knitting, Quilting

In my last post, I mentioned that I had a few baby makes for our new little FinallyAnotherGirl. We’ve had such a busy fall, I feel lucky to have even had anything to give our new little cherub. We’ve been busy with house projects and they sure do take a lot of time. The past few weekends, we’ve been working on our garage. We’re finally done, and I think it’s cleaner than our house LOL. At least it’s all ready for winter.

Anyway, back to the baby makes. Long time readers might remember that new babies in our family get tied baby quilts. Our littles seem to like the tactileness (that’s not a word!) of those little ties. I squeaked out two little quilts — one just in time to be gifted at the hospital, and the other a few weeks later.

I used the pink Heather Ross Kindergarten print for the first quilt. I backed it with one of Moda’s Home Sweet Home prints and used an old Sarah Jane print from the stash for the binding. Then I tied it with a pink that, as it turns out, is too dark LOL. But, I still like it anyway, and when FinallyAnotherGirl isn’t in her crib, I think she naps on this little quilt. Yay!

For the second little quilt, I used my new favorite print, Happy Moons from Art Gallery. I LOVE those sweet little moons! I backed it with an old Sarah Jane print, again from the stash, and then crocheted a bobble edge. I’m not crazy about the bobble pattern I used — clearly, I need lessons from my buddy Ms. Cutting Cloth.

There was also a little knitting. I knit a little baby sleep sac out of a variegated pink yarn by Swans Island. The colorway is Cherry Blossom and it was a dream to knit. The pattern is from the Baby Collection book (not an affiliate link) by Kate Osborn and Courtney Kelley.

I paired this little sac with a cute little knit ruffle top from Janie and Jack. (Naturally, it’s on sale, now that I’ve already bought it LOL.)

It’s not a terribly practical design (especially if you want to go anywhere and need to buckle baby up in the car seat) but I just thought it was really cute. And I remember how much fun it was to pat my little babies’ behinds when they were wearing a cozy knit garment. Or, maybe it’s just me LOL.

I have lots of other baby things I want to make — baby makes are my very favorite. I just need more time. And with that C-word holiday looming, it doesn’t look like there will be much spare time to be had. ;-(

Have a great week!
XOXO,
Anna

The Princesses

17 Comments / October 13, 2018 October 13, 2018 / Family

Hi Hi! How is it going out there? Are you feeling fall (or spring) yet in your part of the world? We’re having psycho weather here — last weekend we were all hot and sweaty outside with temps around 85F and this weekend we’re freezing with a high of 52F today. I’m ready for the fall weather though, and hopefully we’ll have some pretty, cool days before it gets too cold.

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to have a fun three days with our little princesses. You may remember this picture we took of FinallyAGirl two years ago —

And last weekend, FinallyAnotherGirl had her moment on the princess bed. We decided not to go with the naked look this time LOL.

FinallyAGirl looks so much older — I thought they were both about three weeks old, but I checked the dates and FinallyAGirl was almost 6 weeks old for her picture. They also might look a little different because of their very different personalities — FinallyAGirl is a little tornado (as her mother calls her!) and always has been, and FinallyAnotherGirl is just the sweetest, cuddly little baby — you barely ever hear a peep out of her.

I spent most of the weekend trying to keep the little tornado busy in hopes that Mama and baby could rest a little. We had lots of fun making the rice krispy monster cookies. FinallyAGirl was in charge of placing the googly eyes. She seemed to love the challenge and ate a LOT of spinkles in the process. (Fun fact: the day after your monster cookie clean up, if you happen to have missed sweeping up any sprinkles, you’ll experience the momentary horror that you have mice in the house!)

We also had lots of fun playing with our babies and taking walks. Babies love walks, in case you were wondering – and FinallyAGirl loved pulling them around in the wagon.

We also stomped in lots of puddles, which was super fun. I think my very favorite moment was when she scrunched down to check out the inner workings of a particular puddle. She was down there for a long time, so I finally said “FinallyAGirl, what do you see down there?” She instantly replied “ME!” Well, Duh, Grandma. (It’s pretty obvious in this picture, but it wasn’t at the time LOL.)

Meanwhile, FinallyAnotherGirl, was unimpressed by it all.

Sorry for the baby overload. We can get back to regularly (sporadic) scheduled programming now. It sure is fun being a grandma — I’ve even had some baby makes that I’ll post before too long!

Have a wonderful weekend!
XOXO,
Anna

Three Things

15 Comments / September 22, 2018 September 22, 2018 / Baby Oh Baby, Travel

Oh. My. Gosh. September is almost over – and it’s the official first day of Fall! Summer completely FLEW by — someone should give it a speeding ticket!!! Anyway … here are three things. On a Saturday. When I can’t keep up.

Thing 1:
OUR NEW GRANDBABY IS HERE!!! YIPEE!!!

FinallyAnotherGirl put in her appearance on Sept. 16th (see? I can’t keep up!) at 9:38 p.m. Other than being an ALL day affair, it was picture perfect in every way. Everyone is healthy, which is the most important thing. FinallyAGirl was an absolute Peach all day. She spent most of the time in the hospital waiting rooms, with short visits to see Mommy. After the miracle of birth, the most amazing thing was seeing her Daddy (our baby) introduce her to her new baby sister. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room. And, she was SOOO excited! She had to tell EVERYONE “[name] Baby Sister’s Here!!!” It was the sweetest thing ever. And this is my favorite picture, caught by TheManoftheHouse on his short shift to see the two babies together (unlike last time when everyone was allowed in the room after the baby arrived, we were on a strict 2-visitor policy this time — {frown}). Anyway. I hope there will be many tender moments like this over their lifetimes.

Thing 2:
The whole baby event over the last few weeks has totally interrupted my review of my trip pictures (lots of weeding out going on over here LOL.) After Bonnie and I went to Edinburgh, we had our fun week in Shetland (pictures coming … well, whenever haha.) Then, we had a day in London before our hubbies joined us for separate London stays.

For our day in London, we decided to do a few things that hubbies wouldn’t want to do — quilt and yarny things. We started off with a big disappointment though — we went to The Antique Textiles Company. If you want to visit, you basically have to make an appointment (which is no fun.) I knew that, and had our time pre-arranged, but the owner had asked me to remind him shortly before our trip. I should have made a calendar entry or something, because I was so busy in those weeks leading up to the trip that I forgot. Therefore, he wasn’t there. BooHoo.

It would have been fun to see the quilts, but I heard later that the prices are higher than what we find here in the states, so that helped with the disappointment. Besides, the disappointment didn’t last long, because, next, we went here:

Ohhh Yes! And the very, very BEST part of the visit to Loop, was meeting THE Miss Julie herself! Bonnie and I have been Julie fans for years — I think I’ve known Julie since we started blogs over 10 years ago and Bonnie has made a ton of her adorable little animals. It was an afternoon I’ll never forget. We shopped at Loop, bought sandwiches and went to a pretty little park for lunch, shopped some more at Ray–Stitch, and then sat visiting in another little park for an hour or so until it was time for Julie to leave. What an absolute thrill it was to meet her after all these years of correspondence. And she’s just as charming and sweet and adorable as she is on her blog. Really, I just can’t gush enough LOL! Thank You Thank You forever for meeting us Julie!!!

Of course, in blogger-meet tradition, we exchanged gifts. Bonnie and I definitely came out way ahead in that department — we each received an adorable little bunny that will be cherished and loved. Julie very cleverly named my bunny Bonnie and Bonnie’s bunny Anna. Aren’t they just the cutest?

After we had to leave Julie, we decided to ride bikes in Hyde Park (because I love to ride bikes and I knew there was no way I was getting TheManoftheHouse on one haha.) It was SO hot — I don’t know about Bonnie, but I was soaking wet by the time we were done. It was so fun though — we took our new little bunnies to meet the young royals, but they wouldn’t let us in LOL.

And just like that, my fun time with Bonnie was over. The next morning, we split up and went off on our separate ways to meet our arriving families. It was hard for the bunny sisters to leave each other, but they sent each other messages on Instagram until we arrived back in the states. Anyway, it was a super fun trip and I’m so grateful to Bonnie for agreeing to go with me — I wish I could do it all over again!

Thing 3:
Over the last month or two lots of new fabric has arrived in my little etsy shop. The most exciting of which it Tilda’s new Bird Pond line. I rarely buy a whole line of fabric (as I like to pick and choose what I think are the best prints), but this line is so beautiful, I had a hard time excluding any of them. I REALLY want to cut into them, but you know. New baby sewing and that big holiday coming soon are keeping me busy for now. Fat quarter packs are here and half yard packs are here.

That’s the end of my three things — thanks for hanging out until the end. Have a wonderful weekend!
XOXO,
Anna

How I Spent My Summer Vacation …

17 Comments / September 1, 2018 September 1, 2018 / Travel

When last we spoke, I showed you a new travel bag that I made. And then I went on a long (3 weeks!) trip. And then I came home and have been too tired and busy to post LOL. Now, through the magic of a day off of work, I can squeeze out a post about our trip.

If you follow me on Instagram, you already know that I’ve been to the UK and back. The real purpose of the trip was to go on The Grand Shetland Adventure. I’ve wanted to go to Shetland for YEARS and finally, I begged my knitting friend Bonnie to go with me. I’d mentioned this trip two years ago to Bonnie, but nothing ever came of it, so this past year I must have cried or threatened or something, because Bonnie finally said yes. YAY! We had a great time, and for the purposes of posterity (haha) I like to keep records of such fun things here on my blog. Hopefully, in the next few weeks (or months or before I’m dead), I’ll write about the Shetland part of the trip and put it in the travel part of my website (the part that has been sadly neglected).

MAN IN KILT!!!

Bonnie and I flew to London separately and met at Heathrow. We were both worried that something might go wrong with our schedules, but everything was PERFECT. We met, right on cue — well, except that Bonnie was wearing glasses and I wasn’t really sure it was her LOL. From Heathrow, we went to Kings Cross train station and took a train from London to Edinburgh — my VERY favorite way to travel in the UK. It was so fun to relax and chat and catch up on the four-hour train trip — and get ready for our adventure. Bonnie had never been to Scotland, so we spent two days in Edinburgh, before taking another train to Aberdeen to catch the ferry to Shetland.

We stayed in a great little hotel, The Inn Place, right in the heart of Old Town. The location was perfect — just a short hike up the hill from the train station meant we didn’t have to drag our suitcases too far. It was also the perfect location for seeing all the sights — a short walk to The Royal Mile and all the Old Town sights, and a short walk in the opposite direction to New Town and lots of good restaurants. We lucked out and got a room on the top floor (the 4th floor), so it was very quiet (well, except for the garbage pickup early in the morning !) Here’s a rainy view out of our window:

The first day in Edinburgh, we went to the castle — a must for any first-time visitor to the capital city. Since I’d been here several times before, I only took a few pictures (and I didn’t get a good one of the whole castle, so I stole this first picture from a post a few years ago ;-P ).

After the castle, we grabbed a wonderful Sunday lunch — as the menu said, traditional Sunday Roast — in New Town. And from there, we went to visit my good buddy Pam. For me, no visit to Edinburgh is complete without popping in to see Pam and she was so sweet to take time out for us — she had a houseful of children as they were all leaving the next day for a family trip to Crieff. Lucky me though — I got to see my favorite non-biological grandchildren, and I got to meet her adorable newest grandbaby — YAY!!!

After our visit with Pam (or maybe this happened the next day? my days have run together LOL), I took Bonnie to visit Bobby. I love this sweet little story about the dog who spent 14 years guarding the grave of his owner. The grave is in Grayfiar’s Kirk, so we walked around the graveyard. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, this cemetery has lots of links to names in the Harry Potter books.

On our second day in Edinburgh, Bonnie cheerfully indulged me and we took a bus to see Craigmillar Castle, since I’d never been there before. It’s a beautiful castle ruin that I’d read about and, although it’s completely surrounded by city, the estate is so big, you feel like you’re out in the country. I loved poking around the castle ruins, but it was disappointing that we weren’t able to see the Great Hall, as there was a wedding in progress.

This is the view from the castle to Arthur’s seat. After we left the castle, we hiked two miles to the east side of the hill. We climbed up the hill a little way and then followed a road around to the west side. From there, Bonnie and I split up — she headed toward Holyrood Palace and I continued to climb up Arthur’s Seat. This was my fifth visit to Edinburgh and I’ve always wanted to climb to the top of the hill but there had never been time — finally, it happened!

The view from the top and looking out over the top of Salisbury Crags toward Edinburgh — Edinburgh Castle is the mass just to the left of the center of the photo.

By the time I hiked down from the hill, it was late afternoon, so I made my way up The Royal Mile and back to our hotel to meet Bonnie again. We walked over to New Town for dinner (and somewhere in here we made a trip to Cath Kidston!) and just like that, our time in Edinburgh came to an end. The next morning we took a train to Aberdeen to begin our Shetland adventure … but more on that later. Thanks for sticking with someone else’s boring travel pictures this far LOL!

XOXO,
Anna

A Travel Bag

15 Comments / July 17, 2018 July 17, 2018 / Sewing

WooHoo Boys and Girls! The summer travel season is upon us! (Well, it is if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere ;-D)

In preparation, I’ve been doing a little sewing and made a new travel bag.

After 12 or 13 years of faithful service, my long-time jumbo carry-on bag was starting to look a little frayed and worn, so, I decided to make a new one. I stuck with the same general pattern as the original (the ancient Simplicity 9779) and made some modifications. The travel fabric is a linen print from Rifle Paper Co. that I had in my etsy shop at one time and the polka dots are Moda’s Linen Mochi dots, also now sold out.

For the back of the bag, I used the same travel print, but I didn’t have a large enough piece of the panels that I wanted, so I ended up fussy-cutting little scenes of the fabric and sewing a patchwork panel. I also added a little sleeve to slip over the handle of my suitcase (and for size perspective, that’s my carryon in the picture, not a full size suitcase LOL). My old bag didn’t have that sleeve and I had many occasions of rushing through the airport having to make frequent stops to rescue my big bag that had slipped off of the suitcase. Hopefully, this sleeve will solve that problem.

Another modification to the original bag was to add this zipper gusset. (For the lining, I used the Amalfi Herb Garden print in mint by Rifle Paper Co.) My original bag just had a loop and button closure, but the button just couldn’t stand up to the pressure of all the ~~junk~~ important items I cram into my bag, so it popped off several times. I’m hoping a zipper won’t rip out LOL. (Of course, I could just not stuff my bag so full, but where’s the fun in that?)

I also changed up the handles from the original pattern and used leather handles this time. The fabric handles of the original bag frayed out after just a few years of use. Hopefully, those four little points of attachment will be able to handle the weight of the bag ;-0. And, in a nod to the jumbo monogram on the original bag, I included a tiny little one on this bag. That way everyone will know it’s mine LOL.

This big bag will be making her inaugural trip on Friday and I’m SO excited! (I’m going to a few places and one of them is on the bag — can you guess LOL? Wait — here’s another hint — I’ll be seeing at least three long-time blogger friends on my trip ;-) ) Btw, if you’re going to be in need of any Liberty or Christmas (Christmas-in-July-sewing!) or other fabric from my little etsy shop, you have until Thursday, July 19th to get your order in, before I’m closed for several weeks. TheManOfTheHouse will still be here, but I’m pretty sure you DON’T want him cutting your fabric LOL!!!

XOXO,
Anna