September Visit to Tennessee

I got a lot of sewing done and finally got to spend some quality time with my Step-Mom. Both of my parents have passed over so I usually call her Mom2 after her e-mail.

Since her surgery in February, when we almost lost her, she is doing much better. She's off of the feeding system and eating real food. She wasn't gaining any weight and we were getting worried, but now we know why. Her thyroid (?) wasn't cooperating. They don't think there's any cancer, but still need to do some "figgerin" to fix the problem.

I will have pics of the visit if I can find the Kodak easy share software or get them to send another copy of it. I suspect it's in Alabama in a box!

She's about 6' with shoes on and still hasn't broken 100 lbs. yet. It's not like she's not eating, her body just won't let her gain any weight. She has finally gotten her home empty of the free loaders (family of course) and it has made all the difference in her state of mind. Stress will keep you from gaining weight also. I discovered this when I was there five weeks out of eight earlier in the year and lost 15 pounds myself with all of the stress of caring for her stroke victim husband and then her too when she was able to come home after 32 days in the hospital.
Anyway, all is much better now :-D
Suphanna Allah!!

Gone Fish'n

Well we went fishing on Saturday and I thought it would be one of those regular fishing days. Get there before daylight and find bait and go find some to fish, then cruse on home around 3 or 4 pm.

Well oddly enough ,very oddly, Robert didn't get up when the alarm went off. I woke up and it was daylight so I jumped up thinking I'd missed something, I just wasn't sure what. Then, of course, I remembered and he was still sleeping so I woke him up and asked if the alarm had gone off since it was 7 am. He said that it had and he'd decided to sleep in for another hour.

We got to the dock about 8 am and got on with it. All in all it was a beautiful day. There was rain in the distance, but not any for us :)

Robert even took Michael and I out to Egmont Key. The water around that island is the color of the water you always see depicted in the Bahamas also around Bradenton Beach which happens to be a great deal closer :)

All day long they couldn't seem to get lucky and I was happily getting a sun tan and finishing off a really good book and doing a little knitting while I was there sitting on my bum. It turned out to be a 13 hr. day and my poor bum, which is very short in the cushion department, was quite bruised from all of the bumps on the way to Egmont Key and then to the south end of the Skyway bridge and then to the center, where we finally got some civilized sized bait.

When Robert decided we would head for the dock it was almost dark, that put us at 12 hrs., and between where we were and the dock were some grass flats he was going to make a short stop at.

Low and behold that is were we finally hit pay dirt. A school of reds were moving along right behind us and right into our reach without any effort on our parts. Needless to say we caught 5 and kept 3, being as you can only keep one each. WOW! That was fun. I'd forgotten how much fun it is when you are "catching" instead of just "fishing"

A New Blankie For Marcus

Since I was making a new blanket for his soon to be sister from his Dad and Step-Mom he decided that he wanted a new blanket also.

He is growing so fast that I decided to make it in a very large rib stitch. This way it will stretch width and lengthwise as he grows, at least for a little while and then of course I'll have to make another, I hope. :)

Chair Coverings

I finally got around to doing the coverings for the chair that I got from Art. It still needs paint and I have to hot glue the edges down to the bottom out of sight.

I used this pretty gold trim to cover where the back support had to be tacked down because it doesn't have a way to cover it up otherwise.

I got my Hubby to cut the wood for me to match the old decrpit pieces. The back support piece is slightly out of shape, but that's only because I'm an obssesive compulsive :)

My unfinished Noni purse

The flower is crocheted and I'm not really pleased with it so I'll probably look for better flower ideas and I think in the future when I do one of these I'm not going to join the straps in the middle as the instructions say to. I'll just make the strap and join it with the stitches the I'll reserve on a stitch holder at the base so there isn't such a noticeable bulg.

I still have to line it and then work on another way to camo the joining.

Not too happy with that part, but I'll make it right and update the image. :P

Another Noni Bag

I have done another Noni bag and it was at my daughter's request. I had expected her to request a bright or colorful color sceem, but to my surprise she requested Earth tones so we went with brown. This was a little hard at the begining until I caught on to what "Noni" wanted us, the knitter, to do, then it was quite easy.

I had Erica with me when we picked out the lining for the bag and she requested a little poket as you often see in purses for the "little things" that you don't want floating around in the bottom of your purse that makes them hard to find.

I used pattern #114 and Cascade 220 yarn, bouble strands in color #9408 with circular #11 needles.

This was so much fun that I have begun another for myself, slightly modified. I'm hoping to us it during my next trip to Tn. to visit with my Step-Mom, Rachel, henceforth refered to as Mom2, since mine has passed over, unwillingly.

The New Noni Bag #1

As you may have noticed by what I wrote I wasn't all together pleased with this bag. I tried using it and it kept sliding around, back and forth on the dowels. So....I removed the dowels and attached some hardy straps.

I also removed about 2 1/2" from the bottom because it was just too much. I was capable of carrying just too much, which means a person would FILL it up and when the S.O. said "would you put this in there for me?" there would be enough room. If any of you have a husband, you know that once you put anything of HIS in there, it will become a catch all in the future.

It's bad enough that bags this size become a chatch all for all of YOUR stuff, you don't need any help filling it up and if you have any younger children left at home, you WILL need the larger version because you DEFINATELY need to keep track of all of their STUFF!!