It's a little bitty bunny

A week ago Friday evening we were invited to a birthday party for a 1 year old boy.

The party was the next evening. 

Well, as most of you know, we live in a tiny town with minimal shopping.  Certainly no gifts for a 1 year old.  And I wasn't really in the mood to drive 60 miles for a gift.  And so the next best thing...

Get out the yarn and find a crochet hook!

And a little bunny was born. 

He was fairly quick to do.  I started him at about 10 a.m. at our Saturday morning Knit & Purl at the local library. 

I started really disliking him at around 3 p.m. though.  Those ears and arms were quite annoying.

But...

look at that cute tail!  It's what kept me going and I finished him at about 4:30 p.m.  In plenty of time to get him into a gift bag for the little guy...

I think he turned out kinda sweet.  But the toys that had flashing colored lights and played music were the hit of the night for the birthday boy.  

That was as expected.

Details here on Ravlery. 

Pretties

My birthday gift from 2nd DS & DDIL. Are they lovely?! Tulips are the best.

If the tulips and daffodils that I planted a few years ago hadn't been eaten by gophers I would soon be growing my own with the way the winter is disappearing.

It actually was the "winter that wasn't" and is continuing to be unusually warm...upper 60s for the weekend. I think we are breaking temperature highs almost every day now. Nearly every speck of snow has already melted. As a farmer's wife it freaks me out a little wondering what the weather will bring for this summer.

President Clinton will have super weather to visit Grand Forks on Saturday. He will be here for the ND Democratic Convention. He was here in 1997 when Grand Forks flooded. It will be nice for him to see the recovery and see how much his efforts helped the town get back on it's feet.

It's my birthday!

And so we celebrated it yesterday with homemade ice cream cake (1st DDIL made it. Scrumptious!) and presents.

I hated cropping the grandkids out of this picture. They LOVE birthdays and they LOVE blowing out candles but their mom & dad don't like their pictures on the web so you'll have to imagine a very excited 5 yr old boy, 6 yr old girl and 2 yr old girl, all with brown hair and brown eyes and big smiles helping Gramma blow out the candles and open a package or two. It was FUN!

This isn't a birthday picture but I love it and since it's my birthday and I want to, I'm adding it too. It's me and my older sister...can't you just see the love?

Have a wonderful day everyone! I hope your day is as good as mine.

Sewing completed and loved!

I'd been thinking about sewing DGD a "play dress" for quite some time. I thought I'd have to go with a Halloween costume pattern and so I was really pleased when I found the Disney Tinkerbell pattern. I altered the kind of fabric used to what I could find at Walmart and the tulle didn't have to be hemmed. Bonus! It was relatively easy to sew but took much longer than I expected...of course when I sew that is always the case. I cut it out one evening and the next I thought I'd just whip it together. 6 1/2 hours later I was finally done with it and was able to go to bed at about 1:45 am. But she loves it and that is all that counts! Yay! These are the alterations to the prom dress I talked about before. I had to take out some of the beading and take it in about 4". Because of the way the dress was contructed I couldn't do a typical seam...I did everything from the outside. And so there is topstitching that looks a little unprofessional...but then I don't claim to be a professional seamstress...just one that can do enough to get by! The gathering was done to make the top edges come out even. The gathering wasn't there before and since the other side has the zipper there isn't any gathering there but there was no other way that I could think to make it come out. If anyone is checking out the sewing on the dress during the prom they have other issues that need addressing! The zipper is an Invisible zipper but I couldn't do the usual installation, again because of dress contruction, and so there is top stitching here too and this is how the zipper turned out. Not too bad...there wasn't room for the hook and eye so I left it off. Does anyone use that hook and eye at the top of a zipper anyway? I shortened it and added a few more tucks to make it look the same all the way to the bottom of the dress. For some reason in this picture it looks shorter on the sides. I truly hope that that isn't the case! She tried it on and said it fit perfectly! Yay again! Weather update: We were forecast for up to 6" of snow for today. I am pleased to announce that so far we haven't gotten any. What a relief! Yay yet again! I heard geese honking their way along this morning. There must be spring somewhere south for them to be here already. They are in for a surprise the first time they try a water landing. Everything is frozen yet! I don't know when I've been more frustrated with blogger. I can't get the pictures to stay in a row and there aren't any paragraphs because I can't get them to stick...it keeps changing back to one long run-on mess. Augh!!

Happy Birthday

To me!

My 2nd birthday.

I've still got this dress... although the belt is missing. Mom saved it for me. The dress is red organdy with white dots...dotted swiss I suppose you'd call it. My Grandma Dahl gave it to me.

I must have been told to say "Cheese"! Look at those teeth!

My 5th birthday.

I remember the poodle skirt. It was grey and kind of felty material. I couldn't understand why it had a poodle on it and Mom told me that it was in style. At 5 I didn't really understand but I accepted it. Now I wish I still had that skirt.

Same chair in both pictures. Just located in a different spot in the living room. It was red too with blond wood. Blond was very popular at that time.

No smile here. Just a "when is this going to be done?" look.

We've been invited out to our 1st DS & DIL's for carrot cake and ice cream this afternoon. It'll be a good day! :)

I'm baaack!

It's been a long time since I posted. My bad? But I haven't been hibernating, I've gotten a bunch of things done.....

DH & I drove* to Minocqua, WI to visit 2nd DS & DDIL and our granddog Aida. Well, they have no kids...you have to take what you can get.

We had a great time. We talked and talked some more and then ate and ate some more. Good times! Good food!

One afternoon we hopped on golf carts and took a tour of 2nd DS's golf course where he is superintendent. It doesn't look very green in the picture but it is greening up. And lookie....no snow! We got home to snowbanks yet. Augh!

I also had a birthday. Not telling how old. But I had a fun time!

And! TaDa! I finished DH's Christmas present. And ah, yes, that means this past Christmas not the one coming up in several months. a little slow...

When I washed it up it bled about as much as the red did on 1st DDIL's scarf. It's Great Northern Yarn. 70% mink and 30% cashmere. It seems nice but since I was so exceedingly slow and it is now spring, DH hasn't had an opportunity to wear it except for picture taking and I have no idea if it is itchy or not. Time will tell?
*Actually DH drove. I didn't drive a bit.

~ 48,090 stitches later....FINISHED!

Teddy says "Doesn't it feel good to be so close to being done?" I say "Yeah!"

BTW, this is as close to the real color of any of the pictures that I've taken.

I gave it a good soak in Soak.

I thought blocking might be time consuming and difficult but this was a breeze.

Dried and released from the blocking wires.

All it needs now is to be packaged up and sent .

The info:

Early birthday gift for 2nd DDIL. Hope she likes it! And more importantly...uses it!

Pattern: Upstairs Shawl (Ravelry link)

Dye Dreams Sox Luster. A little over 2 skeins. Color: Brick

Size 7 needle to cast on and cast off.

Size 5 needle for everything else.

14 repeats instead of 10.

Unblocked size 13.5" X 49".

Blocked size 18" X 67".

The yarn is very soft. I learned to live with the striping/pooling.

The pattern is super easy. I'd make it longer another time though.

Yippy Skippy. I'm done!

It's cold here....

Look at what fell from the sky this morning! Brr.























Today is 2nd DS's birthday. I hope he has a good one. :) I'll have to give him a call this evening. Maybe I should sing to him? Umm, maybe not.

It's my birthday!!

So I was born many many years ago on this day. Love to have me tell you how many, wouldn't ya? I suppose I could say that I can now eat for senior discounts at certain restaurants. Gee that's horrible sounding. I just don't Feel that Old. I'm like, um, maybe in my 30's on my insides. Of course then how did I get kids in their 20's?? Ha!

It's cold here again today. Wind chill is at least. Computer forecast says -41 wind chill. Brr. The upside is that by the weekend and early next week it's saying 40 as in, yes can I believe it, 40+ degrees above zero. A veritable heat wave. Snow will melt and maybe some of the extremely icy cr*p on the driveway can be scraped off. Yahoo. So easily pleased. Just some warm temperatures.....

I finished the chemo cap last night. Extremely quick knit, lots of fun to knit and to pick the right button(s) for it but it is really not for me. Not the right look at all so that convinced me to donate it somewhere. I just have to find out if there is a place in the tri state area that takes things like that. I'd like to help our area if I can. There are lots of cancer patients around. I just have to find the place to give this to and then maybe I'll knit more to donate.....but not out of cotton! Ouchy hands.

Well, I've gotta have some breakfast and do a touch of cleaning around here. Birthday party at my house tonight. 1st DDIL is making a carrot cake and 1st DS family and 3rd DS are all coming over. DGD and DGS can help open packages. :)

Over the weekend....A Birthday!

The sweetest little boy in the world had a birthday over the weekend. There was cake...as you can see...and ice cream and more presents than any 2 year old will know what to do with. But it was fun fun fun and so I say Happy Birthday DGS!

And now I have a miserable cold with a very painful sinus thingy going on. I'm going to try some Benydryl or something like that but I'm afraid I'll be napping on my desk today. I'm not even in the mood to knit and that is a dangerous thing. There aren't that many days left and I have lots of it to do!

Winter is here and it is a COLD one.