Thimbleanna – Page 19 – My little online diary.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

20 Comments / February 20, 2017 February 20, 2017 / Quilting, Store

Just checking in around here because it’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted. How are things going out there? Not much excitment around here — which, I suppose is good. Even Valentine’s Day was pretty uneventful this year. I can’t believe I just said that either — how can Valentine’s Day be over already?

It’s mostly just work, eat, sleep, repeat around here, but we have had a little fun. We visited our cute little FinallyAGirl yesterday. She’s growing like a weed and cute as a button. No pictures though — we were too busy just playing with the baby. The weather has been amazing the past few days too — we’ve set record high temps and the kitty cats are loving all the fresh air at their screen door.

The other fun has been the arrival of the Goldilocks fabric by Jill Howarth. I first saw this line at quilt market — I think a year and a half ago — It was a LONG wait for it to finally be released.

I was so excited to get this fabric that I got the whole line for my little etsy shop — oops! Here’s the feature print — isn’t it cute? I LOVE those adorable bears.

I’ve been having fun playing with it and I’ve started a little applique project. I think it would have been easier to just cut the bears out of the feature fabric and applique them, but where’s the fun in that?

I plan to add some embroidery to the little bears too — to show some of the finer details that would be really hard to do with applique. We’ll see if this project goes according to plan LOL.

Hopefully I’ll be back soon with a finished project. In the meantime, have a great week!
XOXO,
Anna

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Irish Chain on Repeat

38 Comments / January 29, 2017 January 29, 2017 / Quilting

It’s been a quiet, although sad, weekend here in ThimbleannaLand. TheManoftheHouse left on Friday afternoon to be with his mother and, luckily, he was able to be with her before she passed away yesterday. We’ve been so lucky to have all four of our parents be with us for so long, but having them leave us so close to each other sure hasn’t been fun. ;-(

While I’ve been waiting for news and receiving updates, I’ve been hanging out with MeMum and working on the binding for my Bliss Quilt. Remember this one???

My archives show that I finished piecing her in 2011 and, after some debate (machine or hand quilting?), shipped her off to our hand quilter. In 2013, she returned, but didn’t have enough quilting. I waffled about what to do and started to fill in the quilting myself, but finally decided I’d never get it done. So, in early 2016, I took her back to the quilter to fill in the gaps. Our quilter has done a beautiful job, and I’m so happy that I sent her back to the spa for a second treatment.

When she came back from the spa the first time, I commented that the quilter probably didn’t do much quilting on it because all that red and aqua made her sick. Jan then commented that the reason was probably more likely that she hated quilting across all those pieced intersections. (Which I can totally relate to, now that I’m quilting an Irish chain quilt.) Interestingly, when the quilter came to those intersections, she only quilted them on the top of the quilt. I would never have thought to do that, but it’s a great solution to not quilting through all those layers of fabric. You’d think it would look bad on the back, but it looks like a series of dashed lines — very cool and certainly acceptable. You can bet that I’ll be using that little trick in the future!

All the fabrics are from Bonnie and Camille’s Bliss line, plus I added a solid red and aqua. The quilt is backed in one of the bliss prints and then bound in the red honeycomb dots (I probably should have used a stripe — the dots look a little wonky in places). This is a big quilt — 88″ x 88″ — nice and big for tucking in the sides on a double bed. And a perfect surface for a big fat kitty (who got kicked off right after this picture ;-D).

So, that’s all from here. I hope you have a good week — I’m looking forward to our family gathering, even if it’s for all the wrong reasons. ;-(

XOXO,
Anna

Stripey Socks

27 Comments / January 22, 2017 January 22, 2017 / Knitting, Socks

And just like that, January is almost over. Time is flying by here in ThimbleannaLand, and it hasn’t been very exciting this month LOL. I’m still working on the hand quilting for the baby quilt now and then — boy, is that ever slow work! I’ve also finished a pair of stripey socks — progress mostly due to a little travel during the Christmas break.

I seem to have lost the yarn band, but I think the yarn is an Opal sock yarn. I’m trying to use up the yarn that I have in my little stash and this yarn has been hiding there for quite awhile.

I used my standard sock recipe with no pattern on the legs — it’s nice to just sit back and let the yarn do all the work.

I like the colors in this yarn — particularly the blue which goes so well with my jeans. Here’s what they look like with my shoes — I like that the stripes don’t match. ;-D

I’ve started a new pair of socks now. I definitely prefer to knit two socks at once on a long circular needle, but for this yarn, I want to try and make the striping match on both socks. We’ll see how that works out LOL. Do you seasoned knitters recognize this yarn?

Ok, off to watch Victoria. Are you watching? MeMum and I are loving it!

Have a good week!
XOXO,
Anna

Happy New Year!

19 Comments / January 4, 2017 January 4, 2017 / Holidays

Well, Happy New Year!!! As is our tradition, we like to have the animals appear in their Happy New Year portrait. This year, Scruff (aka TheEmptyNestChild) is the star of the show. (Mostly because I can’t find Paul — he’s been hiding because we’ve had so many “visitors” in and out in the last few weeks.)

The other tradition is to look back on the previous year in sewing, knitting and travel. It was a rough year here in ThimbleannaLand boys and girls, so there’s not a whole lot to show for it. ;-(

Luckily, we had our new little FinallyAGirl make her appearance in June, which cheered up the whole sad year! Most of my sewing and knitting centered around our sweet little cherub. The only travel was three trips to Utah last year — sadly, one trip was to take our beloved BigDaddy back home for the final time, and the other two trips were for quilt market and just a fun family get-away.

Have you seen these fun Letter Folk Co boards? They recently posted this picture on Instagram, and with the exception of the arrival of FinallyAGirl, it pretty much sums up my feelings about 2016:

I’m really looking forward to 2017 and hoping it will be a whole lot less busy with mundane responsibilities and a whole lot more fun with lots of sewing and knitting. Crossing fingers! I suspect Utah trips will continue as our FinallyAGirl will be moving there later this year and this Grandma will be distraught! I must sharpen my facetime skills LOL!

Now I’m off to contemplate projects for this year. Have you noticed that Meredithe and Anne are having a 17 UFOs in 2017 challenge? I’ve been reading about it on several blogs and smugly thinking that I hadn’t let my UFOs get THAT out of control. But, silly me — I was tidying up a teeny bit in the sewing room this morning and several UFOs that I’d forgotten about were lying around — who knows how many I would find if I really cleaned up down there??? It’s a very sad state of affairs!!! Must. Get. Busy.

Happy New Year — May 2017 bring you lots of love, happiness and time to do all the fun stuff that you can dream about!
XOXO,
Anna

Merry Christmas!

24 Comments / December 24, 2016 December 24, 2016 / Holidays

Oh Boy! Can you believe it’s here already? It’s been three weeks since I posted and I just can’t believe it – time is flying by!

Our rough week after Thanksgiving got even rougher — the Grandmas in Thimbleannaland haven’t been doing very well. MeMum has had pneumonia and was in the hospital for a week. When she came home, we took the opportunity to move her into our house — we’ve known it’s been coming for a long time, and this seemed like a good chance to make the move, since she’s always vowed that she’d never live with either of her girls. So, this is just “temporary”, but it’s really not. ;-8 TheManoftheHouse has escaped the fun for a few days to go and be with his mother who is gravely ill. Today is her birthday and she has her three boys with her and I’m hoping that they’ll be comforted by having their family all together.

So, not much decorating or baking this year and … gasp … wait for it … no Gingerbread Houses either. In over ten years, this is only the second time we’ve missed the fun — hopefully we’ll be able to pick back up next year. The boys and MyDadLovesMeBestSister are having an “in-law” year, so it’s blissfully quiet here. The Grinch tried to sneak in, but, as you can see, Grumpy Monkey and Luna Lapin are having none of it!
;-D.

I asked MeMum, if she could only have one cookie for Christmas this year, what would it be? I knew she would say our beloved Angel Slices, and she did. So, I squeaked out a pan of them on Thursday night (along with the best caramels) and made a batch of sugar cookies last night. After all, we had to have our traditional Christmas Eve morning breakfast — even if it didn’t have the variety this year that we usually have.

I also found some knitting time and made one of Julie’s adorable little stocking ornaments. Won’t it make a fun gift with a penny or two from this year tucked inside?

Now, I’m looking forward to a VERY relaxing Christmas Day — watching movies and quilting — it’s been too long since I worked on FinallyAGirl’s baby quilt and I’d like it to be done before she goes to kindergarten!

Wishing all of you a very, VERY Merry Christmas – I hope Santa is oh-so-good to you this year!

Merry Christmas!
XOXO,
Anna

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