Thimbleanna – Page 9 – My little online diary.

Knitted Cable Hats

10 Comments / February 1, 2020 February 1, 2020 / Knitting

Happy February! January was just a big disappointment around here — if you’ve been around here for a long time, you know that I’m a snow lover and we’ve barely had any of the pretty white stuff. ;-( Oh well, that hasn’t kept me from knitting, and I made some little cabled hats for SweetiePie and our cute little granddaughters. I posted them the other day on Instagram and I wanted to post all the details here, so I’ll have a record, in case I ever need to make any more.

I made 4 different sizes, so I’ll call them Adult, Child, Toddler and Infant. The yarn is Big Bad Wool Pea Weepaca which I purchased at my LYS, Knitting Off Broadway. It’s a fingering weight really soft yarn and it’s fun to knit with. The entire hats are knitted by holding two strands together and, in order to get the variegated look, rather than a hard stripe, the colors are mixed for a few transition rows when the colors change.

The pattern is a set of free patterns that I found on the internet at crazyhands.net. The Adult hat is here, the child hat is here and the baby hat is here. I made the toddler hat first (which is why there isn’t much white yarn at the top, it was a learning experience.) I used the child hat pattern and got the hang of the repeats of the cables, etc. There’s also an option for a folded brim, but I opted for not folding the brim as I was worried that I would run out of yarn. I originally thought that this first hat would be for the child hat, but it turned out to be just a teeny bit short for FinallyAGirl, so I added ear flaps to make it the toddler hat for FinallyAnotherGirl. The Adult and baby patterns are a little different, so, I mainly just used them as a guide for sizing, but reverted to using the child pattern when it came to knitting the repeats on the cables. The child pattern is really nice and detailed — there are some good pictures showing how to do increases and the cables. Anyway, for my notes, here’s how many stitches/cable repeats that I did for each hat:

Adult: Cast on 112 stitches, increasing to 132 after the ribbing; two cable repeats before starting the decrease rounds
Child: Cast on 112 stitches, increasing to 120 after the ribbing; two cable repeats before starting the decrease rounds
Toddler: Cast on 100 stitches, increasing to 120 after the ribbing; one and a half cable repeats before starting the decrease rounds
Baby: Cast on 80 stitches, increasing to 96 after the ribbing; one cable repeat before starting the decrease rounds

I wanted to have fun with the pompoms, so, rather than make them out of yarn, I opted for the little fur pompoms that you see all over now. The Adult pompom is a Big Bad Wool pompom that I purchased at my LYS. Unfortunately, I’ve lost the tags on the children’s pompoms, so I don’t know who makes them, but I purchased them from Blazing Needles. I was going to buy all three pompoms in the same size, but, luckily for the hats, they only had two pompoms in the larger size, but they had that little teeny size. I’m so happy they didn’t have three pompoms in the same size — I love that little infant hat! All of the pompoms have snaps that are so cool — it makes it easy to attach the pompom to the hat AND you can buy pompoms in different colors and then just swap them out in a snap!

Here’s a picture of the two older girls out playing in the snow. This was FinallyAnotherGirl’s first experience to really play in the snow and she loved it! I hope we’ll have a few more snowstorms yet this winter so the girls can have some fun — and get a little more use out of their new hats!

XOXO,
Anna

Quilted Happy Flowers

25 Comments / January 20, 2020 January 20, 2020 / Chat, Quilting

Well, Happy New Year came and went and, canyoubelieveit, we’re more than half-way through January already! How’s it going out there? My January didn’t start off as planned. I thought it would be a nice quiet, clean-your-closets kind of month — hopefully one with lots of snow and beautiful scenes out the window while I was working inside the house. We did get started on a big clean out of our master bedroom closet. A job that should have taken 2, or maaaayyyybe 3 days if we took our time and enjoyed the process. But then, I screwed it up.

I ran over my foot with the car. All by myself. I told my son that the radiologist said “it’s not uncommon.” But then he corrected me and, what the radiologist actually said was “it’s not unheard of.” So fine. And, we like to be helpful and share here, so, I’ll tell you how I did it. Mostly so you don’t slip up and do the same thing LOL. I was in my car talking to TheFirstChild on the phone and pulled up to our mailbox to collect the mail. Normally, I have to put the car in park and jump out of the car to collect the mail. But I wasn’t done talking to TheFirstChild, so I sat there for a little bit to finish the conversation. When I hung up, I opened the car door, put my left foot out on the pavement and then took my right foot off of the brake. But, I hadn’t put the car in park. By that point, I had shifted my weight to my left leg, so, as the car started forward, I fell out onto the pavement. At which time, my right foot rolled into the path of the car. Luckily (or not), I realized the car was now heading down the street, so I had to jump up and run after it. I managed to jump in and save the car from going down a hill and ending up in a heap somewhere. By now, I know you’re probably chuckling at least a little bit, and, 10 days later, I am too. I kind of wish I had a video of the whole event. You know, for those times when the family is sitting around, “Hey, remember when Grandma ran over her foot?” I immediately called TheFirstChild back and he rushed over to assess the situation. The very worst part of the whole experience was that he made me put my poor throbbing foot in ice water for 2 hours. Ouch, Ouch, Ouch — that really hurt. After the swelling went down a little, he sent me for an x-ray, and fortunately, nothing was broken, which was really lucky.

So, I’ve been lame for awhile and not really able to do a whole lot. I’m just starting to be able to walk around without limping. There’s still some swelling and bruising and I’m sure it will still be sore for awhile longer, but it could have been a whole lot worse. But, silver lining — there’s been lots of knitting and a little stitching. Here’s proof:

I finally got the binding done on my Happy Flowers quilt! It looks a little crooked in the picture, but it’s really not. My hand-quilter had it for about a year and she did a beautiful job on the quilting. Here are a few of the blocks — she quilted them all differently.

I backed the quilt in the cute little Japanese cheater print by Atsuko Matsuyama and the binding is another Atsuko Matsuyama print with flowers and the cutest little deer.

So, all has not been lost with my January. One step forward, two steps back LOL. We’re still working on the master closet, but we’re getting there. If only it would snow a little so I could feel better about being cooped up in the house cleaning!

Happy January — and remember, Put Your Car In Park When You Stop!
XOXO,
Anna

Happy New Year 2020!

7 Comments / January 1, 2020 January 1, 2020 / Holidays

It’s that time once again — the ThimbleannaLand KittyCats would like to wish you all a Happy New Year!

Holy Cow. Can You Believe It? It was just so weird typing that 2020 up there in the post title — I’m still stuck somewhere between 2000 and 2010 — and feeling pretty good that I’ve moved out of the 90’s LOL. What happened to the last decade? Not even to mention the last year??? It’s my tradition here to do a little look back of the projects that I completed from the year, so here’s proof positive that the year was WAY too short and sped by:

What a sad showing of my makes and travels for the year. Or, probably more acurately, a sad showing of how much I posted about what happened last year. We did have two trips to Utah that were never posted. And only one quilt? That’s p.i.t.i.f.u.l. I did work on a few other quilts, but they’re works in progress and I didn’t really post about the progress, so there’s not much to show. I do have a semi-excuse — TheFirstChild and his cute little family moved here in July and I’ve spent the last six months adjusting to them being here. It’s been super fun to be able to play with the girls — we’ve had sleepovers, playground trips, cupcake making, shopping trips and even a trip to the zoo. Lots of fun never posted. And the end of the year even brought us a new baby who never put in an appearance on the blog (but I put her in the grid anyway ;-D). Naughty Naughty Grammy.

So, now to look forward to a new year. A fresh new slate! I have so much catching up to do around here and I’m hoping to spend the next few days cleaning up from the holidays and making a plan for cleaning and organizing and working on some UFOs. And, of course, a few new projects, because the new projects are what keep things exciting. I’m also hoping I’ll be better about posting here on the blog and on instagram — I love being able to look back and see what was happening.

Who knows what 2020 will bring? Isn’t it exciting (if not a little scary?) We joked with the kids last night — A New Year, A New Baby! We’ve had new babies in 2018 and 2019, so they’ve established a pattern, right? They didn’t think we were funny LOL. It’s funny though — you just never know what will happen — when we were looking forward at this time last year, there was no inkling of our newest little babe, but here we are! (And btw, thank you so much for all the blog baby name suggestions! After much consideration, I think I’ll go with Pam’s fun suggestion of HurrayAThirdGirl — Thanks Pam!)

HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope the new year brings you happiness, peace and contentment!
XOXO,
Anna

Gingerbread Houses 2019

15 Comments / December 28, 2019 December 28, 2019 / Gingerbread Houses

Hi There! Are you having a good week between Christmas and New Year’s? This is my favorite week of the year — lots of time just lying around relaxing, playing games and dreaming of plans for the coming new year.

As promised, I’ve returned for the Gingerbread report. All of the kids were home for Christmas this year, so we planned our gingerbread competition for the 23rd. As it turned out, CuteNephew didn’t make it home until the 24th, so we missed having him with us for the fun. We had a great time as always, and when we were done, there were candy and frosting and sugar ALL over the kitchen. I think that’s a sign of a successful gingerbread competition! We had five teams this year, so here they are …

Team 1: CuteNiece2 and her Boyfriend. First off, let me say, that two of the teams tried to garner votes by tugging at our heartstrings by bringing up memories of BigDaddy. (Everyone comes prepared with a plan, so they had decided to make BigDaddy houses independently.) They made us go “Awww”, but our votes weren’t so easily swayed LOL. Team 1 decided to do their rendition of BigDaddy’s favorite Mexican food hangout. Inside, they had the family at a big table, with BigDaddy at the head of the table with a giant margarita. There was a giant taco and burrito on the table and all of the family were wearing their “Bob” shirts. (One year for Christmas, we surprised BigDaddy by showing up wearing “Bob” shirts. They all said “Bob’s Daughter” or “Bob’s Grandson” or whatever was the person’s Bob relationship. It was great fun and made BigDaddy Bob cry.) On the outside, they included a cactus (very clever!) and had BigDaddy’s pink jeep parked in the parking lot.

Team 2: MyDadLovesMeBestSister and TheSecondChild. Team 2 decided to do their rendition of BigDaddy’s workshop. They spent a lot of time on the little details and it was so cute. They even left half of the roof off, to make it easier to see the details inside. They had BigDaddy hammering away at his workbench, a woodstove with a big chimney in the corner, and a table saw. (How cute IS that tablesaw???) They also had BigDaddy’s pink jeep parked outside.

Team 3: TheFirstChild and SweetiePie. Well. Not sure what to say about this house LOL. Their house was a rendition of a local business going up in flames. They went to a lot of detail on the people inside the building, but I can’t really elaborate on the details and I had to sensor the sign on the front of this building to protect the innocent. The outside of the building had a lot of flames and a basketball court in the parking lot. I was amazed that these two actually even finished a house — now that they have babies, they had to interrupt their decorating to take care of them several times — they did a great job!

Team 4: Crazy BIL and CuteNiece1. CuteNiece1 owns a small flower business in Chicago, and they created their version of her flower shop. They had great attention to detail with a little tractor in the back driving among the very colorful rows of flowers. I loved that they put skylights in the roof (to grow plants in the building, of course) and their use of the cute holly sprinkles on the roof was so clever!

Team 5: TheManoftheHouse, FinallyAGirl and Me. I was SO excited when SweetiePie said that I could have FinallyAGirl on our team, and since she’s Frozen crazy, I knew we would have to do a Frozen castle. At 3 1/2, FinallyAGirl understood what it was all about this year and she did a GREAT job. I had some little sugar cube snowflakes and I gave her the frosting bag and she squiggled frosting on those snowflakes and then covered them with blue sprinkling sugar. She did all the sugar sprinkling on the roof too — it was great fun and kept her busy when I had to jump up to get something for someone else. You could definitely tell where we were working though — there was sugar EVERYWHERE! She also did a great job placing all the little rock candies along the roof line — she was so careful and it was really fun to watch her. She also placed the Christmas decorations on the house all on her own when we were busy doing other things – I loved that she was brave enough to just decorate on her own.

When it was all over, it was time to vote! The Flower Farm and the Frozen Castle were tied for the most votes, so we had to have a run-off vote and the Frozen Castle narrowly squeaked out a win. Yay for FinallyAGirl!!!

And, there you have it for another fun year. I hope you’re having a fun, relaxing week — I can’t believe this year is almost over!

XOXO,
Anna

Merry Christmas!

17 Comments / December 24, 2019 December 24, 2019 / Chat, Holidays

Oh so funny — I thought I might have had a banner November and been able to post more than twice. I should have known better! Since that last post on November 8th, we’ve had a busy few weeks — a new baby, Thanksgiving, all the business of the holiday season, and a retirement. Merry Christmas to ME — as of the 19th, the day job is history — YIPPEEEEE! Now on to more quilting/sewing time, a clean house (haha), and most importantly, more time to spend with my adorable THREE little granddaughters. (Speaking of which, baby number three needs a blog name — I’m taking suggestions — just as a reminder, the first two are FinallyAGirl and FinallyAnotherGirl). It’s been crazy busy here and everyone is out running last minute Christmas errands, so I’m sneaking 30 minutes to post my traditional Christmas picture — Christmas Morning breakfast the way we’ve always loved it:

We had the annual Gingerbread competition last night too, so I’ll be back soon to post pics and tell you all about it. We had lots of fun — I’m such a lucky girl to have such a fun-loving family!
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas or Holiday season, however you celebrate — and that all your dreams come true!
Merry Christmas!
XOXO,
Anna