Thimbleanna – Page 4 – My little online diary.

Gingerbread Houses 2021

6 Comments / December 28, 2021 December 28, 2021 / Gingerbread Houses

Yipee! After last year’s Gingerbread House Competition Cancellation (say that in a hurry!) we were lucky enough to get together and have the family contest this year. We were originally scheduled for the 23rd, but a few members had a little stomach bug, so we thought it might be best to wait a day in hopes that it would be less contagious to the unafflicted. Creating our houses on the 24th isn’t my favorite thing to do, as it competes with our other traditions, but we had a great time and we had lots of frosting and candy everywhere. This year FinallyAnotherGirl was old enough to participate and she was so excited and just cute as could be. So, here’s the team line up for this year:

Team 1: SweetiePie, TheFirstChild and FinallyAnotherGirl. FinallyAnotherGirl LOVES the color lavender and unicorns, so they decided to do a unicorn house in her honor. Sadly, one of the roof pieces buckled halfway through making the house, so it sort of caved in. FinallyAnotherGirl seemed unfazed and she jumped over to another house to help for awhile. Then, awhile later, a few of her older cousins rescued her house and made a tee-pee sort of house. It was a valiant effort and very cute considering it wasn’t completely finished.

Team 2: TheManoftheHouse and Me. (And a lot of help from FinallyAnotherGirl ;-D). We decided to commemorate the fact that we decorated the girls’ backyard playhouse with a Snoopy for Christmas this year. (I need to find a picture to post — it’s so cute and we had lots of help from my good quilty peep Junie and her husband.) The nay-sayers didn’t think Snoopy would stay on top of the gingerbread house, but, even though his foot is leaning a little, he held firm. But. Do you see the Snoopy problem? We forgot his ear! No one even noticed until the day after Christmas — or, at least, if they did, they were too polite to say anything.

Team 3: CuteNiece1, her newly minted husband, and TheSecondChild. This funny team decided to celebrate the release of the new Matrix movie (and the fact that CuteNiece1 and her husband decided to watch the first Matrix movies on the 10-hour drive home for Christmas.) I don’t even pretend to understand the symbolism in this house — all I know is that black box with all the white spots on it is the main computer. The mess on the “tower” on the right is some sort of helicopter crash and sadly, I didn’t get a good picture of the guy climbing down the tower on the left — you can sort of see him on the right side of the tower in the bottom picture. CuteNiece1 was very detailed with the black frosting and TheSecondChild was very proud of his Shredded Wheat/Fruit Loop cars.

Team 4: {Le Sigh}. As you know, we rarely let a year pass without some sort of naughty or political house. This year, CuteNephew and CuteNiece2 just couldn’t let the Capitol Riot pass. Considering we’re a split family politically, it always amazes me that ugly discussions don’t ensue. But there was lots of fun and joking around about this house. They did a great job. CuteNiece2 spent a lot of time on that very clever rotunda and CuteNephew made a great American flag. The MAGA hats and the little guy with the horns were also really fun — very clever!

Team 5: MyDadLovesMeBestSister, CrazyBIL, and FinallyAGirl. Last summer, MyDadLovesMeBestSister organized a trip to the American Girl Doll store in Chicago, so they decided to remember that fun trip. It was so cute to watch them all working so hard on all the details of this little house. CrazyBIL created a ladder out of a fruit roll-up to go from the second floor to the third floor. They also made lots of cute furniture for their American Girl dolls. Those pink balls on top of the house were originally destined for the unicorn house, but after the cave-in, the vultures swept in and found lots of fun candy!

After all the houses were done, we had our traditional paper ballot vote. We briefly discussed whether we should change our methods to have categories — you know, best design, most creative, etc. but we’re a cut-throat group and that idea was loudly voted down. Everyone can’t be a winner LOL! So, this year’s winners???
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Team 5 – The American Girl Doll House! FinallyAGirl wins for a second competition in a row!!! Congratulations Team 5!!!!!

I love that my family are all so fun and that they love to show up and make a big mess! So that’s it for this year — another really fun Gingerbread year. I hope you’re relaxing this week and catching up from all the holiday rush.

XOXO,
Anna

Tonie Bags

4 Comments / December 27, 2021 December 27, 2021 / Holidays, Sewing

Ohmygosh! It came and it went. And it’s over so quickly! It all happened so fast, I didn’t even have time to hop on and post my traditional Christmas morning breakfast. I did take the picture, just didn’t get it to the computer. So Sad.

Nothing new really. Just the traditional big three cookies — Angel Slices, Sugar Cookies and Grandma’s Brown Butter Cookies. This year I added Snickerdoodles to the mix because TheManoftheHouse loves them, although I don’t really consider them a Christmas cookie. Darn, I should have used red sugar — maybe that would have made them more festive. And, once again, I didn’t get caramels made. I love to make them, but oh, how we don’t need them! Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We had our whole family here and we had a great time — we’re so lucky to have such a fun group of kids to play with!

There was also some sewing this year. My favorite project was the last minute bags that I made for the grandbabies. About 3 weeks before Christmas, I was discussing Christmas gifts with another Grandma friend and I asked her if she had any great ideas. She said her grandkids’ other grandmother had bought her grandson a Tonie Box but the oldest granddaughter loved it so much that she was using it all the time. So, I decided to investigate, and we ended up getting them for the girls. They’re sweet little devices that play stories and songs — all audio, no video. I think they’ll be amazing for bedtime. Anyway, I decided to make them each a little carrying case for their boxes and the little “tonie” characters that are used to play the stories and songs. I raided my stash of story fabrics and started piecing.

It was so fun to choose all the fabrics, but I was in a hurry (by now it was only a few days before Christmas) so the stitching seemed a little tedious. I tried to get all the characters for the tonies that I gave them. I think I was successful with the exception of Peppa Pig.

Each tonie comes with a little piece of paper that lists the stories/songs on that tonie, so I put a little pocket on the inside of the lid where those papers can be stored. I’m sure they’ll get lost though LOL. (Hopefully the tonies won’t get lost or end up at the bottom of a toy box!)

The boxes are all the same except for the binding color. I also embroidered each of their names on the front of the lid, just above the handle. Just to be sure there’s no arguing over who owns each bag ;-D.

So, that’s it for the Tonie Bags! I also made one other project for a gift, but I’ll save that for next time.
XOXO,
Anna

Little Buds

10 Comments / December 13, 2021 December 28, 2021 / Knitting

Well, I’m back as promised, with tales of a little sweater for FinallyAnotherGirl. It took me longer than expected to get pictures together — I guess it’s the time of year. I really should be posting something festive, but the few projects I’m working on can’t be shown yet. Hopefully after Christmas!

FinallyAnotherGirl is 3 now and this little sweater was for her birthday in September. Better late than never! Our little Miss loves purple and turtles, so Grammy did her best to deliver.

The pattern is a loose rendition of Little Buds by Alana Dakos of Never Not Knitting. This is the third children’s sweater I’ve made from her and all three have fit beautifully. The original Little Buds pattern had buds and vines forming the pockets on the front of the sweater and more buds and vines running up the back. I chose to leave them all off and just knit a plain sweater. For the pockets, I used the instructions from the Sheepish sweater (also by Alana Dakos) and I lengthened the sweater by a few inches.

The yarn is Rowan baby cashsoft merino, color 114 lavender, and it was a dream to knit. I’m a little worried that it might pill, but it’s too soon to tell. My local LYS had some cute little turtle buttons that I thought would be perfect for our little turtle lover. I only bought 5 buttons though, so I need to get another one. I’ve been back to the shop twice since I finished the sweater, but they’re keeping weird hours these days and I can’t seem to catch them open.

FinallyAnotherGirl came to visit the day that I had her sweater ready to give to her, and just my luck, she had a pretty lavender bow in her hair.

She calls it her turtle sweater and I think it’s been a hit. Also, pockets in sweaters never hurt!

At the beginning of the year I decided that I wanted to make each of our little granddaughters a sweater for their birthday. I’ve been consistently late on all of three of them. Our littlest just turned 2 a few weeks ago and her sweater is almost done — just a little more work left on the sleeves and then the button bands.

I’m off to get crackin’!

XOXO,
Anna

A Marker in Time

6 Comments / December 3, 2021 December 3, 2021 / Scruff, Travel

Oh dear! How can we be on the cusp of Christmas already? October and November have flown by and, apparently I was too busy to post about it. Actually, I was only too busy in October and then, halfway through November, I had a little time, but the blog was on vacation. I hate it when some of the many tools used in the process of keeping a blog get updated, because something is always out of sync and things get broken. Hours on the phone to support people and many weeks later, a solution was found and, crossing fingers, we’re back in business. ;-D

We had an especially exciting October. I had a plan to visit TheSecondChild in Peru during the third week of October, but then, his plans changed and he wasn’t going to be there the third week of October, so with only a day notice, I had to move everything up. I was amazed that it was even possible to arrange a trip on such short notice (in this day and age of Covid and required Covid tests), but everything worked out and I suddenly found myself in Lima the first week of October. We had a great time and managed to see Peru’s star attraction along with a few other interesting sights.

I LOVED Peru! It was a really interesting trip and everyone was so friendly and helpful. I’ve written all about our week in Peru and posted it HERE. If you’ve ever thought about going there, now is a good time as the crowds are smaller than normal. You have to wear those pesky masks everywhere now, but I’ll gladly trade crowds for masks, any day!

Since the trip, I’ve just been busy catching up, wrangling the annual leaves (thank goodness for leaf blowers), and sewing and knitting a little. I finished a sweater for FinallyAnotherGirl (which should have been done for her birthday in late September {sigh}), and as soon as I get some pictures, I’ll post them. I also made a Christmas gift, but, well, pictures for that will have to wait until after Christmas. After all of that, Thanksgiving was upon us. Ours was quiet this year — TheFirstChild and his family went to the in-laws. And MyDadLovesMeBestSister and her family went out of town. We were invited to go with them, but luckily we declined, thinking it might be hard to travel with MeMum. It turned out to be a good decision, as they all ended up with Covid (they all seem to be doing well).

So, it’s been a good two months although, we did have a little sadness the week of Thanksgiving. Our little Scruff (aka TheEmptyNestChild) passed away.

I would say our sweet little Scruff, but I don’t think anyone (except maybe TheManoftheHouse) would have described Scruff as sweet. I think he bit everyone he ever met — except the grandbabies (we were always very careful when they were around him). He was 17 1/2 and I’d say he had a pretty good life. He was a fun cat and he kept us entertained. I was surprised at how many pictures I had of him (thank you blog). And also surprised that they were all before the grandbabies came along. I guess between the time the boys left home and the grandbabies, the only thing I did for fun was to take pictures of the cats LOL. Anyway, it made me happy that I had a few good ones so that I could give TheManoftheHouse one to put on his phone — he’s missing that grumpy old cat terribly.

On to the next big event. Are you getting ready? I’ve started shopping a little and hope to decorate this weekend. Always plenty to do — which is a good thing!

Have a great weekend!
XOXO,
Anna

Playful Stripes

6 Comments / September 27, 2021 September 27, 2021 / Knitting

It’s sweater weather – Yay! I can’t believe fall is here already, but I’m ready for it. We had a wonderful summer — it went by in a flash, it wasn’t too hot, we had lots of playtime with the grandbabies, and we had some fun family time. But now … falling leaves, pumpkin everything, cozy sweaters and lots of project planning. The change in weather (and ok, the looming holiday haha) always make me want to plan new projects — especially knitting projects. Before I run to the next project though, here is the latest little sweater that I made for FinallyAGirl:

It’s the Playful Stripes cardigan by Alaina Daikos of Never Not Knitting. I love her children’s sweater patterns. This is my second Never Not Knitting pattern — you may remember when I knit Sheepish for FinallyAGirl a few years ago. The yarn is Merinoull, a superwash yarn by Sandes Garn, and it’s just the right weight for this sweater. Choosing how often to change the stripe colors was a little stressful, but I loved knitting this sweater. It was a fairly quick knit and it just felt so cozy while knitting.

I changed the button band a little after looking at other Playful Stripes cardigans on Ravelry. The original pattern called for a 2×2 rib button band, but someone on Ravelry did a garter stitch band and I think it looks better on this cardigan. I backed the button side of the button band with the Acufactum Children and Sheep ribbon to give the buttons some extra stability. FinallyAGirl really likes the cute ribbon too!

My favorite part of the cardigan is the sweet little scalloped hem on the sleeves and main body. It was fun to knit and I think it’s just so pretty.

FinallyAGirl is 5 now and I knit the size 5 which is just perfect — it’s a wee bit big so it should last for a year or two. She’s such a little pill — the years are flying by and it’s hard to believe she’s old enough to wink back at me!

Next up: a cardigan for FinallyAnotherGirl. Luckily for me, a Grammy’s work is never done!

Have a great week!
XOXO,
Anna