January 2019 – Thimbleanna

Brace Yourself, Effie!

15 Comments / January 28, 2019 November 1, 2019 / Knitting, Sewing

Or Batten Down the Hatches. Or something like that! It’s going to be brutally cold this week — I sure wish I didn’t have to go to work — I’d love to just hole-up this week and stay in front of the fire all day in my jammies. Our HIGH on Wednesday is forecast to be -9F (that’s -23 for you Celsius people) and very windy, which puts the windchills well below -40F (which just happens to be -40C). OUCH!

It’s been a busy winter here in ThimbleannaLand. We’re still working over at MeMum’s and the light is finally at the end of the tunnel. A few more months should do it — I’m looking forward to checking that BIG job off of our list. In the evenings I’ve been working on an old UFO sweater, and I’m hoping to wrap that one up in the next few weeks. I also recently finished a few more things for our little cherubs. I made them matching little pink dresses. It was a fun, quick project. The pattern is The Karina Dress from The Freckled Pear and the fabric is a cute little floral that I have in my etsy shop. I made sizes 6 months (which is currently drowning FinallyAnotherGirl) and a size 3 (which is almost just right for FinallyAGirl.) (Sorry for the terrible, dark pictures — it’s winter, you know. ;-( )

I also made a fun little coordinating mustard colored sweater for FinallyAnotherGirl. (FinallyAGirl already has a cute mustard colored sweater, so I made her the sheepie sweater that I showed in the last post.) I loved knitting this sweater and will surely make this pattern again. It’s the Norwegian Fir Top Down Cardigan from OGE Knitwear Designs and I used Cascade 220 from my local yarn shop. It has a little button at the neckline, which was added after I took this picture ;-D.

And here is the cardigan with the little dress. They were made for each other — meaning, I actually planned it this way LOL. I’d decided to make the little sweater, and then I went shopping in the shop and I loved the little pops of mustard in the floral print. I like pink and gray and mustard together and I actually had several other fabric choices in that color combo, which was a little surprising.

It does seem like this blog has just turned into baby makes, but that’s the stage we’re at now. I love (LOVE) sewing and knitting for babies (in particular little girls) and, as you know, they won’t be little for long. Before we know it, they’ll be too old or sophisticated for Grammy’s makes, so I’m making hay while the sun shines (or something while the snow flies LOL.)

Have a great week — February is almost here! Stay warm out there (or cool if you’re down under!)
XOXO,
Anna

Sheepies

13 Comments / January 14, 2019 January 14, 2019 / Knitting, Store

Well Hello — is your new year off to a ripping start? It’s busy, yet slow here. I guess that’s another way of saying that it’s busy, but nothing much going on to write home about. It’s all good though — we have snow on the ground and a working furnace, so we’re happy campers!

Last summer, during my trip to Shetland, I was working on a little sweater for FinallyAGirl. I finished it shortly after I returned from our trip, but couldn’t post it because I was saving it for a Christmas present.

The patter is Sheepish by Alana Dakos of Never Not Knitting. The yarn is a variegated gray yarn by Swans Island with some scraps of a darker gray for trim and some cute fuzzy mohair yarn for the sheepies. (I used this same yarn on the little pink sleep sac that I made for FinallyAnotherGirl in the fall — warning! — the yarn says it’s washable, but it WILL shrink. ;-8 ) This was a super fun knit and it worked up pretty quickly. I made the 2 year old size (the largest size on the pattern) and it fits our little cherub just perfectly right now. She’s 2 1/2 and, although the pattern calls for size 6 needles, I went up one size to a size 7 and it worked perfectly.

Many thanks for Ms. CityHomeCountryHome for helping me find those adorable little sheepie buttons. I think they’re just perfect for this little sweater!

In other news, Tilda’s BEAUTIFUL new Apple Butter collection of fabrics have arrived in my little Etsy shop. I LOVE this sweet collection! Tilda kind of went off on a little tangent of more modern designs for the last few years, but with her last collection and now Apple Butter, she’s returning to her sweet floral roots. These little retro-chic flowers are just SO adorable!

Ok — must run and cut some fabric. Happy Monday — I hope you have a fun, productive week!
XOXO,
Anna

Happy New Year 2019!

10 Comments / January 2, 2019 January 3, 2019 / Holidays

Happy New Year! It seems impossible that we’re here at a new year again– 2018 whizzed by — at breakneck speed! I guess that’s a good thing — at least we weren’t bored and wondering why time was passing so slowly. I could do with a happy medium though.

The normal custom here in ThimbleannaLand is to have a Kitty animal greeting and then look back on the year of travels and projects. The cats are just recovering from a major trauma — Winston AND his favorite two-year-old-tornado were here for the weekend. It’s funny — the cats tolerate Winston pretty well now — they’ll even lie down beside him. But the 2-year old? No Way! They hear her voice at the door and dive under the bed. She’s never hurt them or anything, I guess it’s just her volume that scares them LOL. Anyway, I decided not to bother them for a New Year’s picture this year so that they can recover a bit.

Here are my 2018 pictures in review:

It was a good year here in ThimbleannaLand! Our biggest excitement was the arrival of FinallyAnotherGirl. She’s three months old now and is the best baby. She’s MUCH easier that FinallyAGirl — she hardly ever makes a peep. Both babies are just happy as can be and SO fun to be around. FinallyAnotherGirl was preceded by my fun trip to Shetland and London — definitely a highlight of the year. There was some knitting (all baby!), sewing, and quilting (technically those folded memory quilts were made in 2017, but they weren’t posted until 2018 and they didn’t make it into the 2017 round-up, so I’m counting them this year LOL). It wasn’t all fun and games here this year though. Part of the reason blogging has been fairly light is because we’ve spent the year cleaning out MeMum and BigDaddy’s house. It’s been a huge job and tons of work. We started in February and spent a lot of weekends going through papers and closets and dishes and fabric and papers and more papers and … you get the idea. It’s been the worst thing I’ve ever had to do and I can’t even describe the sadness. So, that’s about all I’ll say about it ’cause I’ll start crying. This blog has been a record of our little family for quite a few years and the clean out has been a major part of our 2018, so I didn’t want it to go unmentioned. {Sigh.}

Anyway, you might have noticed some quilts up there that haven’t been posted yet — that’s because they were Christmas gifts and I didn’t want to spoil the surprise. I broke into my hoard of Cat in the Hat fabrics (and didn’t make much of a dent LOL) and made FinallyAGirl a quick quilt. It was a last minute decision and having that big center panel made it go much more quickly. Hopefully she’ll have fun with it when she’s reading her Cat in the Hat books — it’s a great snuggle size — about 56″ x 70″. (It’s so hard to get quilt pictures this time of year — pretty gloomy and dark and too windy outside. So, I had to randomly stick them up around the house, but you get the idea.)

And then, the Christmas quilts. I loved the retro Santa by Urban Chiks from the moment I saw it and knew I had to make some. I actually made three of them (two kits plus an extra Santa panel will make three quilts, fyi) but couldn’t get them all together for a photo. I made them for MeMum, MyDadLovesMeBestSister, and SweetiePie.

These quilts were super fun to make. And, for the first time, I rented time on a long-arm to do the quilting. It took a day and a half (with the lesson), but so worth it — I’m thinking it would have taken me 2 or so days each to quilt them on my regular machine. I did an overall stipple on the log cabin blocks, and then did a few different things on the Santa. Everyone seemed to like the circles on the cheeks the best.

Now to plan for the new year. Are you a resolution maker? I’m not really, but I do like to plan my next quilting and knitting projects. Hopefully, between a little cleaning and organizing around here, I can do just that.
Happy Planning and Dreaming — I hope all your New Year Wishes come true!

XOXO,
Anna

Month: January 2019