The Power to Post

I realize I don't have oodles of followers waiting to hang on my every word, but there are SOME of you out there who may have wondered WHY I haven't posted since HALLOWEEN!!! and it's nearly ST PATRICKS DAY.  And the answer is - I guess there isn't any REAL reason.

I've been following blogs -loads of them.  I've been pinning away (click "follow me on pinterest" over on the right hand side of the blog to see) - 69 boards, over 3000 pins.  I'm kind of obsessed with the inspiration.  But, all that inspiring has been keeping me from the doing so I need a better balance.

Let's go back to a project I did back in October.  It was a gift for a friend who was turning 50.  She has a 1940s vintage kitchen accented with prints and decor of cherries.  SO, I made her a few cherry-themed gifts for her kitchen.  They came out pretty well and I do think she was pleased with them.

Here is the potholder/dishcloth I made.  I used a pattern I found on Pinterest  which I pinned from this site!  It's made with worsted weight cotton yarn.  The white is Thaki classic cotton which I LOVE and it's more of a dk weight.  I truly wish we had more DK cotton that isn't too pricey available here in the US.  And I do wish we had a line of crochet cotton in a better color selection.  The red is either lion brand or sugar and cream.  The green and brown are from Martha Stewarts new brand of cotton - quite pricey and in a limited color selection at my local JoAnns store.  I should have made a back side to the potholder so it was double thick.  I figured my friend could use it as a dish cloth but she decided it was too pretty to use at all and instead it is displayed in her kitchen as more decoration than usable item which is of course fine with me.

I also decorated some cherry patterned linen hand towels.  I thrifted the towels about a year earlier and saved them.  I knew she liked cherries and waited for the right opportunity to use them.  She's also a thrift shopper and would appreciate the 99cent cost of each towel!  I used a combination of pearl cotton and 6strand embroidery floss to decorate the towels.  With the one, I just embroidered.  With the other, I blanket stitched around the edge with the floss and then used cotton yarn to add a border.  Next time, I will double up on the floss or use a more sturdy stitch to hold on the crocheted border.

I used a border found in this book to create the crocheted part. 



My friend DOES use the towels in her kitchen and seemed pleased with the combination of thrifted item and handmade gift.  It's SO much fun to give a handmade gift.

At my friend's party back in October, we had our first snow.  AND...there hasn't been much more of it to speak of since then.  What a weird winter it's been here in the northeast.  I'm a die hard snow shoveler at heart and haven't had much work this season.

Here are some photos from our fall snow.   Her party was the evening of the worst part of the snow and it did prevent some of her friends from coming.  The party was supposed to be outside and she'd done a lot of lovely prep work in the yard to get ready -obviously, those plans were changed and she had to re-create everything indoors!  Fortunately, we only had to go a few blocks to get there.