Book Mark Making Time (again!)

Twice a year, I make book marks that we give away at our library book sale in the spring and fall.  Over the years, I've made different book marks...some bland, some colorful, some just so so!  HA Here are some I've done in the past.   I'm sure this was from one of my first years making these!   

I'm not sure the year for these...

I think these were from our last fall sale.  

 I thought I best get started on making bookmarks for this coming spring sale in April  You know how time goes by so fast and before you know it we're setting up for the sale. 

 I started  about a week ago for the stamping process.  Which is done on the rough side of the poster board using acrylic paint.  

I got out some of my rubber stamps  I made a few years ago.  You can see in this piece and above the large square stamping - this was one stamp I carved.  The large leaf is also another one of my carved stamps.

I stamp like crazy...but there's always white area ready for the dye to paint on!

Next up, I found some dyes I had mixed up from working on a class with Hilary.  I use fiber reactive dye mixed with plain water.  Actually, this color is called Robin Egg Blue!

I just use a soft paint brush and cover the poster board.  I'll also take a paper towel and blot up any puddles of dye. 

Yes, it does look greenish here and actually looks greenish in person too!  HA

After slicing up  2"x7" pieces, I place 2 wrong sides together, a little stitching around the edges and 40 book marks are made for the April spring book sale to give away!  

All Finished for the next sale!

Now back to sewing hex pieces!!!  

Wednesday Library with some 'friends'

Cheryl, Amy and me

There are four of us (from our Friends of the Library group) who meet at the library on Wednesday's.  We arrive around noon - 2 or 3 in the afternoon.  We sort and put away on shelves or sorted boxes any donation books we've received through the week.  We like to keep up with donations so it's not a crazy time for our spring or fall book sales.  

Amy is currently in Florida for the winter and Chery (pic below)l is also in Florida for the week celebrating her 60th Anniversary!  

This is Beth displying one of her embroidery pieces she's working on!  Beth has so many she has completed and continues to work on!

Cheryl is also prolific in producing embroidery pieces!  Her Chickadee is amazing!  You have to enhance the picture to see the detail of this bird!

This is another current piece Beth is working on!!  I can't imagine trying to embroider in this small cloth!

And this is one of Cheryl's current completed embroidery pieces she had farmed!

It's beautiful isn't it!  Again, enlarge the picture so you can really see the workmanship.

This is another piece Beth completed this last month.  She's looking to find just the right frame for it.  I love this piece too...

When we're finished doing any sorting/shelving, we'll sit and 'stitch, knit, embroidery, sew'..whatever project each of us are working on.   

Here are the ladies working on their project(s).  It's such a nice seating area.  

Actually, our Friends of the Library group purchased this rug and seating area along with end tables and lights.  Any funds from our books sales, we use to support programs or needs of the library.  

This area is also used for tutoring students.  Nice and quiet and perfect for other group meetings as well.

We do work  hard, although by the pics above of us sitting, you might not believe it!  HA  Some days we are bombarded with donations.  I mean boxes and boxes of donation books.  Some have to be discarded because of torn pages, mildew, dirt, etc.  But for the most part, we are fortunate to have great patrons who provide us donation books for our yearly sales.  And our Goodrich library is also great at donating books that are no longer in circulation for us to sell.  

So, I'll be at the library later today!  

Hex and BD update for 2026

 

Well, we finally did get to my favorite Mexican restaurant a week after my birthday!  I love Mexican but weather wasn't co-oporating for us!  We invited Donna as our guest.  We always celebrate her BD and mine.  Donna is 10 years older than I am...so next year we'll be celebrating our 80th! and 90th! birthday's!  This is SO hard for me to believe.  Neither of us feel our ages.

  I am fortunate to have the friends I do as they keep me busy and engaging. Look at all the wonderful cards I received.  Some actually made me shed a tear...they were so sweet!! 

Our backyard for girls

This was taken a week ago and we've had more snow since that picture was taken.  

Fortunately we don't need to go anywhere, therefore, I don't mind staying home!

Part of our deck and woods behind our house

The poor kids in Indiana had 15" of snow!  It was hard for Ron to 1) get the snowblower out of the shed and 2) to use the snow blower as the snow was over the top of the machine!  

So what else to do but cook and sew!  I'm making ham and scalloped potatoes tonight for dinner along with roasted veggies.  And now to sit and stitch...I save sewing the hex fabric to paper for nighttime  watching football or while Bob is watching basketball.  

I decided to start on green for awhile.  I get tired of the same color fabric after awhile!  HA

I found some of these blue hex pieces I've already sewn together.  I have a feeling I'll be 'unsewing' some of the rows so the colors are more in line with what I may need.  I have lots of blue fabrics from light to dark so shouldn't need to go fabric shopping (I know a shame, isn't it Susan! - my quilt shopping bud from Florida!).

These 3 triangles are finished.  I start with 1 hex and add each row up to 8 rows ...but I'm still playing around with a layout when I finish more triangles.  I won't know or decide layout until I have a lot more triangles made.  I'm actually thinking of a table runner???  

Or will it be a quilt???  Who knows.  Until then....

I keep on stitching hex pieces!  These are all ready to start to sew together.  This should keep me busy since we're housebound!  HA

I have a piece of batting on top of a piece of poster board.  I can pick up the piece and move it and the pieces stay in place. 

Hope my readers are staying warm and enjoying the winter of 2026!

Now What!

  

 I finally finished my 2nd Iceberg sweater!   I have to say it's quite comfortable and warm.  Especially when our temp is still 1 degree!

this was a quickie picture...Bob and I were heading out for errands so a quick snap!  I have to say it's really soft and a comfortable sweater.  I used Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash.  

The pattern is called Iceberg by Hinterm Stein  and can be purchased on Ravelry.  

I made this same sweater and finished it back in January of 2024....but started it in 2023.  It turned out really nice BUT guess who forgot and put it in the washing machine with a load of laundry.  Then it went in the dryer!  

Well, it turned out to be a cute little sweater for a 10 year old!  I was so mad.  I really liked the pattern so decided to remake it.  

What's really interesting is I'm looking at the wrapper on the yarn I purchased for the current sweater...and guess what!  I can put in washer and dryer.  

For the pink sweater, I used Snuggly Cashmere Merino Silk DK...guess what...you can't put that yarn in washing machine and dryer!  DUH!!!

I decided in Janary/February 2025 to remake the sweater.  

As usual life go in the way.....making book marks for our book sale, making my Christmas cards, yada....

So January 2026, I decided to pick up the sweater and just get it finished.  I started on the sleeves after the first of the year (2026) and finished this past weekend!  

Thank goodness it's done and no longer hanging around like homework I have to finish!  HA HA

So now what!!!  Oh yeah!!!!  The PUZZLE FROM HE__ is still in process of sorting puzzle pieces via colors!

I'm still trying to decide if Susan really likes me or not!  Would a friend send a 'friend' this 1000 piece puzzle!  HA

Birthday weekend continues! 🎉

My birthday weekend continues! On Saturday, I stopped by Donna’s and was greeted with a birthday cake—and even singing from Donna! How sweet of her.

She also prepared for me my Solar Return for 2026!  And I have a little angel to look over me.   Thank you, Donna!

Sunday, Darrin and Dawn picked me up for breakfast at a local diner. Such fun—great food and even better conversation.

After breakfast, we stopped at a local bake stand, BobbieBakes who has a bake stand open year-round. 

You can pay by Venmo or I think they take cash.  It's a cute stand.  Air conditioned in summer and temperature controlled for winter!  How cool is that!

This was the treat I took home!!!  Can't wait to cut into it!  Saving it for after dinner treat.

My great kids....Darrin & Dawn

And I had more gifts!  Both kids got me my favorite yellow roses!!!  

These are sitting in my kitchen area...

And these are in the dining room.  I've always loved yellow roses. They just make my day so much brighter...so lovely.

Dawn also brought me my favorite Jalapeño/cheddar sour dough bread!  I love, love this bread...toasted for breakfast is sooooo good.

I really enjoyed spending time with Dawn and Darrin today. They truly helped round out my birthday weekend. Love you, kids! ❤️

Oops..she did it again! YIKES!

 

Back in 2017, my Florida 'Q' Bud, Susan, gave me my first BD puzzle while we were in Florida.  I don't remember how many pieces in this one.  I do remember I had it set up on the coffee table in the living room so everytime I passed by the bugger I would try to find a piece.  About drove me crazy. The last puzzle I did was with my kids when they were putting together their ABC puzzle!

Last year for my BD, my Q Bud, Susan, gifted me a 500 piece puzzle!!  I worked on that bugger for months!!  It was frustrating at times and at times satisfying! It was a really pretty puzzle and I was so relieved/satisfied to finish it.  I don't like unfinished projects - especially if you can't stash them in a drawer!  I had this puzzle set up on my dye/painting table downstairs.  Whenever the dogs went outside, I would pick up a piece or two (if I was lucky!).  I did finish it and I even gave to my bud, Donna, who also finished it!

But look what Susan sent me this year for my BD!  It's a 1000 piece puzzle!!!!!  OMG...I about passed out looking at the cover then at the number of pieces!!!

I found the size, which is 29" x 20" so back downstairs to my dye room table!  I'm actually thinking of setting up a card table in that room.  I need to make bookmarks for our book sale in April, which means I have to stamp/dye/print on poster paper which means I need my table! 

Susan said the yarns made her think of me!  I'm not sure if that's good or bad!  

Yes, the pieces are in a nice zip lock bag!  So I'm grabbing pieces and putting all the border/edges in one small box.

Now I'm trying to organize by color and by that tiny brown/bin border each color of yarn sits in!  

This WILL NOT be done by the end of the year!  Susan can change the gift from 2026 to 2026-2027!  

So now I have my knitted sweater to finish; my color wheel hex quilt, book marks and this to finish!  Oh dear, which should I work on first!  THANK YOU, Susan, for the gift!  I think...Bob will let you know if he has to commit me to the local psych ward!  HA

Busy Hex Weekend!

  In between my normal cooking, cleaning doing laundry on the weekend, I actually made more hex pieces for my color wheel hex project!  I worked last night while watching TV.  Easier than trying to  keep track of knitting while watching football...I lose track of my stitches when the announcer is calling 'only 3 more yards' or '52 yard field goal'.  Can't tell you how often I get lost listening and trying to count...especially lace patterns.  HA

I've been working on 'reds' so  I separated by 'light', medium and darks.  I need quite a few for the start of this piece but I'll also need some (red) for outer border along with all the other colors.

I think I have an idea for the border but who knows until the project is further along!  You never know if you're designing your own quilt...Do you always know????  Wish I did! 

Anyway, I started to play with the color pattern for the red pieces...and after I had the reds 'kinda' in place I started taking apart some of the other hex pieces I've had sewn together awhile back.  I need 8 rows of hex's starting with the first row of '1' up to '8' hex's in the bottom (or top! depending on the placement). 

 I came up with a few more triangle hex patterns. 

 I'm going to start sewing the hex rows together because I am lacking some yellow's, pale greens, yada, yada. This way I can see what colors I'm missing or decide what I want to keep or remove.  I may need a stop at the local quilt shop (yes, Susan, I may be going without you!! HA).  I figure I can pick up some fat quarters, which should give me quite a few hex's.  

I'm also still knitting away...I have 72 more rows decreasing every 12 rows; then knit 12 more rows and binding off the sleeve!  Woohoo!  I'll be finished by February...I hope!  Still knitting after dinner/dishes until 6:30...then I get to work on hex pieces.  HA  So good to have a plan, right!