Thimbleanna – Page 2 – My little online diary.

Happy New Year 2023!!!

3 Comments / January 5, 2023 January 5, 2023 / Holidays

Happy, Happy New Year!!! Paul Kitty has returned to wish you a Happy New Year!

I’m a little late with my annual New Year’s greeting, as we got out of Polar-Vortex-Dodge and spent the holidays in warm, balmy Florida with TheSecondChild. It was heavenly! It was a little chilly (in the 50’s) for Christmas, but that was when it was below 0 degrees fahrenheit in the northern plains, so we happily suffered LOL. By the time we left to return home, winter crowds were blissfully sunbathing in 80+ degree weather. It was my first taste ever of a bit of winter in Florida, and while I wouldn’t want it full-time (I do love me some winter and snow), it was a really nice change of pace.

In grand old blog tradition, it’s time to look back on the past year.

It was another good year here in ThimbleannaLand but boy, my posting here on the blog was less than stellar. A quick look at my Instagram page, shows a few (mostly smaller) projects that I never posted here. Which is a little sad, as the blog offers a lot more opportunity to keep track of project details for future reference. Lax posting aside, the year was a good mix of travel, family and crafty bits. I’m happy to say that there was more family time than ever gets recorded, I probably should work on that a little. It’s so fun to look back and see what we were doing “way back when”. I think I did a little more quilting this year than in years past — definitely more piecing than I’ve recorded. And more sewing for the girls (I spy one up there that still needs to be posted), but less knitting overall. And there wasn’t much travel, but the West Highland Way hike in Scotland was spectacular, so that more than made up for the longer stretches at home. Aside from Scotland, there were several trips to Florida to help TheSecondChild get settled, and in the process, I discovered an obsession with iguanas LOL. Because they are Every.Where down there!

So, now to look forward! Are you a goal setter? New Year’s resolutions? I’m not much of either anymore — I just hope to have lots of time to quilt and sew, knit and travel — and, of course, spend time with the babies (big and small). Wishing you all much of the same — or whatever it is that your heart is dreaming. HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!
XOXO,
Anna

The Cat in the Hat

5 Comments / December 30, 2022 December 30, 2022 / Quilting

Happy In-Between Week! Hope you’re having a good week with lots of down time. We’re having a relaxing week with MeMum and TheSecondChild – we haven’t accomplished much of anything other than a tough jigsaw puzzle and a walk to get outdoors every day. It’s such a nice time to re-group and think about nothing much LOL.

Since there’s been no sewing this week, I thought I’d post the Cat in the Hat quilt that I made for HurrayAThirdGirl last month for her birthday. It was a fun, fairly quick project.

This is the third Cat in the Hat quilt that I’ve made — one for each of the Finally Girls. I don’t think I ever posted FinallyAnotherGirl’s quilt which I made for her third birthday over a year ago, so here it is:

And, just to post them all together, here is the first quilt which was posted a few years ago:

The second and third quilts have a similar feel, as I didn’t have a big cat panel like I used in the first quilt. The quilts are all roughly 58” x 72”. They make great tv throws and they’re also good for building forts!

So … that’s it for this year — 2023 is almost upon us. Happy New Year’s celebrations to all — stay safe out there!

XOXO,
Anna

Merry Christmas 2022

3 Comments / December 24, 2022 December 24, 2022 / Holidays

Merry Christmas! It’s time for the annual Christmas Eve breakfast post — and a record for me of the Christmas cookies I made this year. We’re having a low-key Christmas this year – just TheManoftheHouse, The SecondChild, MeMum and me. Everyone else is with their in-laws this year.

I made my traditional favorite three — sugar cookies (I’ve started using the recipe in Jenny Cookies sugar cookie book), Angel Slices, and Grandma Hill’s Browned Butter Cookies. I also made my favorite salted caramels – yum, yum! And then, I decided to try my hand at Peanut Brittle. I Love peanut brittle – my mother-in-law used to send me a bag every year for Christmas and I hoarded it. She used a microwave recipe and I tried it years ago to no avail — microwaves differ and I ended up burning the batch and never trying it again. But recently, I was looking at recipes in a Southern Living Favorites Collection that I have and ran across a traditional recipe and decided to try it. And, I’m soooo excited that it worked and it’s really good! At some point I’ll try to get the recipe posted in my recipe section — it’s a keeper!

I hope you’ve had a wonderful month of holiday preparation. Everything has gone smoothly here. The advent calendars kept us busy — there are always a few activities with Grammy and Grandpa tucked into the pockets. One of which is Christmas cookies with Grammy — we always have a great time. And the kitchen always needs to be cleaned the next day — there were sprinkles and icing everywhere LOL!

Anyway, enough for now – wishing you a Wonderful Christmas and holiday season!
XOXO,
Anna

Gingerbread Houses 2022

8 Comments / December 19, 2022 December 19, 2022 / Gingerbread Houses

It’s that time of year again! (Not sure exactly how that happened — we’ve blitzed through 12 months in 2 1/2 weeks as far as I can tell!) We’ve had our annual gingerbread competition a little earlier than usual this year with an abbreviated crowd. Of the five kids between MyDadLovesMeBestSister and I, only 1 could be here this year. And lucky for us, that 1 was TheFirstChild, because he has SweetiePie and the FinallyGirls. So, this years crew was The Finally Family, MyDadLovesMeBestSister, CrazyBIL, TheManoftheHouse and me. Since we were such a small group this year, we decided to divide the three FinallyGirls between the three couples so that each girl would have a house.

Team One: TheFirstChild, SweetiePie and FinallyAGirl (now 6 years old). These guys came with a plan! And for the first time in our gingerbread history, SweetiePie brought some fondant and it was such a success that I’m thinking we’ll be using it a lot more. FinallyAGirl wanted to do a grinch house and it turned out so cute. FinallyAGirl placed all the candy on one side of the house while SweetiePie drew the grinch on the other side. (And TheFirstChild watched a lot of football LOL.) I love the giant grinch on the roof and the fun Whoville tree in the front yard. The fun hearts on the back of the house were an afterthought, but they work so perfectly with the theme!

Team Two: MyDadLovesMeBestSister, CrazyBIL and FinallyAnotherGirl (now 4 years old). This team decided to make a fun Candy/Soft Serve Ice Cream shop. CrazyBIL very cleverly fashioned a soft serve ice cream machine out of an ice cream cone and hung it from the front gable. FinallyAnotherGirl had lots of fun putting candy all over the sides of the house.

Team Three: TheManoftheHouse, Me, and HurrayAThirdGirl (Just turned 3!) HurrayAThirdGirl LOVES CocoMelon, so we did a CocoMelon house. This was HurrayAThirdGirl’s first big year working on houses and she seemed to really enjoy it. She worked really hard on placing all the green M&M’s on the roof panels. She licked the M&M’s a lot in the process and ate a lot of candy too LOL. We made a little JJ with a blue suit, but, turns out it’s really hard to make a cute little baby out of gingerbread and they don’t look anything alike.

After we were all done, we had a little voting. It was so cute to watch the little girls decide if it was ok to vote for themselves. TheFirstChild voted for all three ’cause, as he put on his note “I love all my girls!” Anyway, The Grinch was the clear winner, so FinallyAGirl won for the third year in a row! The houses have now been placed outside, in the cold, to feed the birds and squirrels. Of which, there seem to be no takers LOL.

So now, on to the big event — hope your plans go smoothly this week!
XOXO,
Anna

Little Pinky the Third

7 Comments / November 28, 2022 December 1, 2022 / Quilting, Sewing

Well, hey — I made it back before spring LOL. All the usual excuses and a busy fall. And, boy, was it a beautiful fall here. It’s just barely getting cold now, and on a sunny day, it’s still pretty nice outside. I’ve been busy sewing and playing with the grandbabies — lots of fall school activities which have been really fun. Plus, I stayed with the girls while their parents had a week’s getaway in October. It almost killed me but it sure was fun and I loved every minute of it. And then I slept for two days when it was over LOL. Oh, and TheManoftheHouse had his right shoulder replaced in early October — that was NOT fun, poor guy. It’s a pretty painful recovery, but he’s doing well now. It creeps me out to even think about it.

Since I posted about FinallyAGirl’s birthday dress last time, I thought I should post the birthday dresses for the littlest two cherubs. (Excuse the poor cell-phone photos!)

FinallyAnotherGirl (on the left) turned 4 in September, so I made her a little fall dress. The pattern is the Back-to-School free dress pattern from Classic Sewing Magazine and the fabric is Belle and Boo’s Autumn Ditsy. I worried about making a seasonal dress that wouldn’t get much wear, but she wore it a lot (Grandparents Day and Thanksgiving among them), so it was well worth it. HurrayAThirdGirl turned 3 this past weekend, so I made her the Wiksten Baby + Child Smock Dress out of a cute little floral print by My Mind’s Eye. The girls all love pockets and the smock pockets are big enough for her beloved little babies. ;-D

But enough of the fall chit-chat, because …….. TA-DA:

I’ve finished HurrayAThirdGirl’s baby quilt! Better late than never!

I LOVED every minute of making this quilt. This is the first lone star quilt I’ve ever made and I was a little worried that it would be really time consuming, but the star went together more quickly than I expected. I used the method outlined in The Lone Star Quilt Handbook by Blanche and Helen Young. It’s an old book that I’ve had in my stash for years, but surprisingly you can still get a copy on Amazon. I got the Star pieced along with the background fabric behind the star, but I didn’t have enough of the little Le Creme Swiss Dot background for the borders, so I had to order some more and wait awhile until it got here.

When it arrived, I finished the borders and then, I took it outside to baste it on the driveway (because it was during the time when I forgot we have a basting frame {doh!}) and LOOK what the sunlight showed! Can you see it?

Ohmygosh! LOOK at the difference in the dye lots of the background fabrics. The older Le Creme dot fabric was more yellow. The astounding thing was that when the quilt was in the house, you couldn’t see the difference at all — the first picture was taken inside and the second picture was taken outside. What a difference sunlight makes. Or maybe it just doesn’t say much for the quality of the lighting in our house! Anyway, I was having a cow and briefly thought I’d just go ahead and quilt it like that, but I just couldn’t do it. I knew I’d never be happy with the quilt like that. I suppose I could have told SweetiePie that the quilt could never see the light of day haha. Anyway, I spent a few days, carefully unpicking each of those eight background sections by the star points and then replacing them with the new fabric, one section at a time so the whole thing didn’t fall apart. Then, in the summer, I put the quilt on the quilt frame and spent most nights for the next 2-3 months quilting. And just like the piecing, I loved every minute of quilting this quilt. Here’s a picture of the ceremonial last stitch.

The fabrics in the quilt were all from the stash (well, except for the new dots LOL) and I used a little pink and white baby print from the stash for the backing.

I debated how to quilt the star points — most of the quilts I looked at online quilted through the middle of the points. I briefly considered that, but then opted for quarter inch quilting around each diamond, which took a lot longer. I’m so glad I did though, ’cause I love the result.

This is the third of my little pink baby quilts and I loved making each one of them. I didn’t mean for the last quilt to be so much bigger than the other two — it just happened. I guess, if you have to wait so long for your baby quilt, you get a little extra prize. ;-D SweetiePie noticed that the star quilt is bigger, with more quilting, and she thought maybe it was the difference between working and being retired. But, I was retired when I finished the smallest quilt too. I just picked what I wanted to make in each case, and this is how they turned out! The family reunion shots:

And here’s our little sweetheart in the bright sun, noticing the flowers on her new quilt.

It’s such a nice feeling to have their baby quilts all finished! Whatever will I do with all my time now haha? I guess I should start thinking about their wedding quilts.

XOXO,
Anna