Happy Easter!
Happy Spring!
Yipee! It’s the first day of spring! We love the first day of spring here in ThimbleannaLand because it’s the day our beloved little SecondChild was born and we LOVE him to pieces. (Except, we wish he lived closer {sniff}{sniff})
I’m hoping Spring will bring lots of energy around here and help me get some projects done. I have several on-the-go, but progress appears to be at a snail’s pace. We did complete one big project this week. On Friday, TheManoftheHouse and I went to visit TheFirstChild and SweetiePie, and SweetiePie and I made curtains for the new baby’s room. She’s almost ready for the baby — just a few baby showers and 12 weeks to go!
Here’s the nursery before curtains …
And after. I love that happy pop of pink!
SweetiePie has done such a beautiful job on this little room and she’s given a lot of thought to every little detail. I should have taken more pictures! There’s another window with the same pink curtains to the left of the picture (behind the glider) and some adorable little book shelves (that used to be spice racks — SweetiePie is SO clever!) The C on the wall is a hint as to the baby’s probable name. I was thinking they’d have an “F” on the wall — I’m happily naming her FinallyAGirl because, FINALLY, we have a girl on the way! I checked the family tree, and going back along the male side of the family, there hasn’t been a surviving girl for 150 years — the last one was born in 1865. So, needless to say, it’s going to be all about the PINK around here for awhile!
In other news, while I’ve been working on random projects, lots of fabric has arrived here in ThimbleannaLand. A few random bolts — the top two are from Sweetwater’s Mama Said Sew Volume II. I love the super cute little flowers and, of course, I had to have the text fabric. All my favorite Quilt Shops LOL! Then, there is a PINK bolt — just because. It’s from one of my all time favorite fabric collections — Fresh Cut by Basic Gray for Moda. And, the bottom bolt is just a great neutral, also by Basic Gray.
Then, a few little Easter chicks helped me welcome a few bolts from Blend Fabrics. This is Born Wild by Ana Davis. I love these sweet animal prints and I think they’ll make wonderful baby gifts.
And, finally, for more baby gifts, three new double gauze plaids. Baby Swaddles coming right up!
All these prints are available in my etsy shop and hopefully soon, I’ll be sewing with all of them. FinallyAGirl will be here before we know it!
XOXO,
Anna
Lorna Strikes Again
Awww, thanks for all your sweet comments about BigDaddy. You are all so kind and it’s very much appreciated. We’re trying hard to find our new normal, although, we’ve been so busy, we’re not even close to being there yet. TheManoftheHouse had been scheduled for a knee replacement surgery right around the time that BigDaddy passed away, and it had to be postponed. He was put on a cancellation list, and they called him in two weeks ago. Everything has gone very well (but what an uhhhgly surgery that is — lots of pain and rehab!) and he came home from the rehab hospital a few days ago. I think it’s safe to say, I’ve had my fill of hospitals for this year!
As you might imagine, all that hospital time allowed for lots of time for handwork. I finished a pair of socks.
I’m officially naming these the Fugly Socks. Oh the FUGLY. I seem to have a penchant for picking yarns that have somewhat pretty colors, but then they knit up to become butt. ugly. (It’s happened before.) See? Look. These colors — blue, green, gold, pink, and purple. Is that sooo bad?
Apparently yes, because … Fugly. Experienced knitters can probably tell me right away who made this yarn. Here’s a hint: Notice the pooling. When the colors pool together, it’s just not pretty. The yarn is Lorna’s Laces and although I think they’ve solved the pooling problem (these were ok) in their more recent yarns, apparently I have some of their older yarns still in my stash .
Once again, I used my old favorite Mockery Socks pattern (free Ravelry download here) with an eye of the partridge heel. It’s so easy and I needed easy knitting this time around. I have quite a few pairs of Mockery Socks by now — I really need to be a little more adventurous with the pattern next time.
It’s nice to have a finish. I’m working on a few other projects, but I can’t really show them yet — they’re surprises!
XOXO,
Anna
Absence
Boy, Oh Boy. That was a bit of a gap in posting, wasn’t it? I certainly didn’t mean to be gone for so long. Thank you so much for all the e-mails of concern and worry — you guys are all so sweet. Many of you suspected that something must be wrong here in Thimbleannaland, and sadly, you were right.
We’ve lost our BigDaddy.
Long time readers know how we all adore our BigDaddy and we’re heartbroken. (I’ve posted about him a lot before, but the best are here and here.) In the aftermath of his little fender bender, he came home from re-hab with a cold and it slowly morphed into pneumonia. He’s been so amazing at fighting off big health issues over the years, that it just seems impossible that a nasty little cold would ultimately claim him.
We managed to get all the grandkids home on very short notice and we were all with him, holding hands when the time came. He surely must’ve known how very much we all love him. After we left the hospital, we went to dinner together and shared some memories. It was so heartwarming to hear the stories, both sweet and funny, from the grandchildren. I think we all parted company that night, thinking that we must be the luckiest family ever to have had such a wonderful father and grandfather.
BigDaddy had a great life. He’s been such a rascal (doing things he shouldn’t) these last few years, that it often made me think that he must’ve been a handful for his mother. He’s the little guy on the right in the above picture — isn’t he cute? Can you see that mischievous twinkle in his eye? I think he carried that with him through his whole life. I think his favorite thing must have been to make people laugh — he had an amazing sense of humor. Oh how he made us laugh — always with a corny joke, funny story, or prank. (He thought the sign in the picture below was hysterical — did you know that they have disabled toilets at Stonehenge???)
BigDaddy taught us many things, but, I think the biggest was the value of kindness. He was kind to everyone and it showed — for as long as I can remember, people have always told me “Your Dad is such a great guy”. And he was single-minded in his devotion to MeMum. She’s been a bit of a rascal herself these last few years, but BigDaddy told us many times “I promised her Dad that I’d take care of her”. They set such a wonderful example for us kids — as impossible as it sounds, I don’t remember them ever arguing when I was growing up. They always had so much fun together and MeMum is lost without him. Here’s one of my favorite pictures of them, taken last spring on their 60th anniversary. This is sooooo them — always having fun together.
A day or two before BigDaddy died, the pulmonologist was showing TheManoftheHouse an x-ray and basically telling him there was no hope.
“And look how enlarged his heart is” the Dr. Said.
No Surprises There.
We always knew BigDaddy had a huge heart.
One that we will miss and love forever.
XOXO,
Anna
Un-Productive
OhMyGosh. I need to post just to get that Happy New Year greeting by Winston to move down a bit. Holy Smokes — the year is getting away from me already, and we’ve barely started.
To be fair, our year hasn’t started off great. BigDaddy had a fender bender just after my last post. He’s fine and was lucky to land with only a few broken ribs and a broken nose. I know it’s awful of me to say it, but the raccoon look was kind of cute on him! He was in the hospital for a few days and now he’s in a rehab center — mostly just to learn how to get around a little better and to help the soreness wear off. It’s meant a lot of time shuffling MeMum back and forth and visiting. Good thing I have my Trip Around the World to keep me busy — I toss it in my little basket and it’s a great portable project — even though it’s getting big now. I’m on row 36, but these last rows are so slow, I’ll be lucky to be on row 40 by this time next year!
My basket makes me feel like Little Red Riding Hood, which is perfect since a bunch of Little Red Riding Hood fabric has arrived this week. I’ve started a little project featuring Little Red and Grandma — that Grandma is just too darn cute! It’s the Little Red line by Cori Dantini and I love it! I have big plans for her, but I’m waiting on some more of the fabric before I can keep working on this little quilt.
And there’s another Little Red fabric out — Moda has a new line called Lil’ Red by Stacy Iest Hu.
Look at that cute wolfie. He’s just full of love, isn’t he LOL??? I don’t have a plan for this line yet, but I’m sure something will happen sooner or later. I do have one fat quarter pack left though, and it’s in my etsy shop, in case any of you are interested. Lots of cute coordinating prints!
And finally, I was very sad to read that Alan Rickman passed away this week. So many of you posted on Instagram about his movie Truly Madly Deeply and now I really want to see it. I can’t find anywhere to rent it though — if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them. I also saw this picture on a blog — even though he never really said the “Always” quote that so many people attribute to him, I love the sentiment. If only it truly could be 1946 – Always.
Ok kiddies. I hope your January is proving more productive than mine. At least our days are getting longer, right?
Have a great weekend!
XOXO,
Anna