Happy birthday, Faroe!! I'll be 60 Thanksgiving week.... I can't figure out how THAT happened, either! Good grief, time flies!!
I wish I could get back to sewing and knitting... but I just finally got the Brussels Sprouts harvested, trimmed and frozen last night (every year I do a big bunch, I wonder why we grow them... but they're really my favorite vegetable, it's just that the cleaning and trimming has to be THE fiddliest job ever... heck, I swear they make shelling peas look efficient! LOL!) Anyway, there are still the 5 bushels of tomatoes in the freezer that must get thawed, run through the Squeezo and turned into soups and sauce, and then the gardens are *finally* done.
But... in the meantime, we're having Thanksgiving here (we trade off Thanksgiving and Christmas every year... we'll probably have a family Christmas celebration here as well, but not on Christmas. This gives the kids a chance to spend every other holiday with the inlaws, and everyone seems happy with the arrangement). And I swear, we haven't done a single big of housecleaning except for basic sweeping, etc since Spring. And it looks it!
So... after I make my major fall shopping run today (leaving in a few minutes, because I have to be back by 3 pm to help load 6 steers to go to the butcher), I have to get all my sewing stuff gathered up from around the great room and put away, and then get to organizing and scrubbing! Thankfully, hubby is always willing to help, however, his priorities tend to be different than mine... left to his own devices, he'll scrub away at one corner of one room until it's perfect and sparkling... but that means half the house doesn't get touched! LOL! And he also has a tendency to grossly underestimate the time required, so will say "Oh, I'm just going to go to the woods and cut wood this morning... we'll have plenty of time to get XX done this afternoon".. and then he can't figure out why "XX" actually needed about three full days to get done properly! Sigh...
Men and women really ARE different species. God love them!
So, I guess I'm just going to have to put the projects on hold... I've got a baby quilt to make (second granddaughter was born in September, but quilting this summer was NOT happening). A king sized quilt for my daughter that MUST be done by Christmas.... supposed to be a wedding quilt, but the pattern she chose... well, lets just say that by the time I got it pieced, we both "outgrew" it, and I may end up just tying it and donating it somewhere, sometime! Anyway, they're moving into their "dream house" by the holidays (at least that's the plan!) and I desperately want it done for that. I have an Amish lady all lined up to do the hand quilting, so I just need to get it pieced... big job, but doable in probably a week.
I've got several wool knit turtlenecks for myself (my "go to" base layer from early November until usually around April) cut out and ready to sew. Three pairs of long-johns for the toddler granddaughter in the same shape. I'm planning on making her a couple of fleece nightgowns, and also making some warm sleepers for her younger sister... because the babies were born at different times of the year, the warmest sleepwear for the oldest are going to be too big for the younger one... unless she keeps growing at the rate she is right now!
I also need to make a couple pairs of fleece boot socks for hubby... while not nearly as sexy and gorgeous as Melodi's hand-knit socks, he prefers them even to good quality store-bought wool knit boot socks. They are thinner, yet at least as warm, and since I make them from the best quality Malden Mills fleece, they hold up for longer than you'd believe... his current pair is getting thin and the seams started tearing out, but they're at least 3 years old. He wanted me to resew the seams, but I told him the soles were wearing so thin it wasn't worth it... and honestly, the pattern is SO easy to make that it doesn't make any sense to mend them.
If anyone is interested, it's a Green Pepper pattern...
https://www.etsy.com/listing/589058...MImf3My4rP3gIVCJyzCh3YEwgYEAQYAiABEgLoX_D_BwE
You need a sewing machine that will sew zig-zag (are there any that don't, these days?) and it takes a little practice in the beginning to get the seams to lay perfectly flat, but even those with "sensitive" feet (hubby is terrible...he still remembers his feet "hurting" from home-knit socks his grandmother used to make for them) have no problem wearing them.
Oh, yeah... hubby needs some new nightshirts, too. I think I'll try to get a couple made from a wonderful, silk jersey knit I've got. I found some a few years ago for $7 a yard, and grabbed 20 yards, which seemed like a ridiculous extravagance at the time. I looked recently to see if I could find any for sale, and the cheapest I could find anywhere was $45 a yard!! OMG... I should have bought a lot more! (yeah, right) The stuff holds up even under repeated washings better than you'd think, although it does wear out faster than a similar weight of wicking polyester or 100% cotton knit. It was a lifesaver during the first menopause years, as even when I'd get drenched with night sweats, I wouldn't wake up shivering. Silk and wool seem to have similar properties in terms of wicking and keeping you warm...
Melodi... your friend's loss is heartbreaking. Unfortunately, I think during my last major clean-and-organize of my sewing and craft rooms, I cleared out my old beading stuff... it was just gathering dust and taking up space. I'll check, though, but I don't know if anything would be worth anything to him.... just basic inexpensive seed beads. Having lost everything in a house fire once years ago, I completely understand the gut-punch that sort of loss is... but at least we still had the land and there was an intact community for some support. I truly can't imagine what it's like to have an entire town gone. Even those whose workplaces didn't go up in smoke aren't really going to be able to easily start over... just the lack of rental housing in the area is going to have a huge impact for a long time to come.
I find myself grateful to have a snug house that needs major cleaning!
Summerthyme