Beary Happy Holidays

Just want to show everybody right quick what my Mama made for the grand kids:

are they not adorable?

She's been making these bears for several years now. They are totally hand sewn.The head, arms and legs rotate.They measure 14 inches each and are identical except one has black eyes

and the other one blue and the paw and footpads are a little different in color.

I'm in love with the blue eyed one ,blue eyes turn me into mush :)These boys are super soft and sooo cuddly!

She made me one too but he is still in transit. as soon as i get him I'll post a pic.

The grand boys are going to have a fit over them.

Other than that it's been quiet at the home front. It's been soooo cold!! below freezing for about 6-7 days now and lows at night in the teens or even below zero when the wind kicks up. Horrible, and this is the deep, deep south mind you.

I've had a steady stream of custom sock orders coming in and i can just so keep up.

Now I'm waiting for the holidays to be over and everything calms down. Then I'm going to try my hand in bear making. Hopefully i can get as good as my Mom. I'd like to make them to sell.

So i wish everybody very Happy Holidays, and a Happy,Healthy New Year.

Some knit's and a couple of "Thank you's"

First of all i want to thank everybody for commenting here or e-mailing me with their thoughts on Star's passing. I really appreciate the kind words.

The first week was quite bad , i caught myself looking out the window several times checking on her until a split second later it hit me : not there anymore :(

It's better now , i think it finally sunk in. I never thought i would miss her so much, especially since i haven't actually used her in the last five years and she was just a front lawn ornament.

Now to other things.

My dear Mom send me another goodie box with lot's of knitted baby socks:

and some German chocolate (best in the world) but i didn't get a pic of that, ate it all :)

...and myself , i knitted these socks for my Daughter in laws mom for her help with putting Star to rest:

and these fingerless texting gloves for my step daughter in law for her birthday this last Wednesday:

I already started another pair of patchwork socks and after that i will make a pair of thick socks for my daughter in laws grandad for letting me bury Star on his beautiful pasture.

Star...

She liked Parades.
She would Dance and Prance and show off.
She loved drinking Beer out of the can.
She loved rolling in the mud after a good rain.
She loved Bread and Butter Pickles.
She loved trail rides in the woods.
She never gave me an ounce of trouble.
She loved chewing tobacco, and Pimento cheese sandwiches.
She was a Good, reliable companion. She carried me thousands of miles.
She brought me pleasure for 15 years.
She loved to run in the pasture, bucking , kicking with her head up high and her tail straight up in the air, trailing her like a banner.
She never bucked while ridden, never kicked or bit anyone.
She loved her sweet feed.
She was a McCurdy.
She never faltered, no matter where I pointed her nose.
She loved dogs, cats and goats.
She loved a good scratch under her belly.

She loved a good cooling off with the water hose when it would get hot in the summer.

She loved kids and was very gentle.

And I loved her…
She will be in my heart until I die and she will be terribly missed.

born late 70's, early 80's - died 10.29.2010

　
　

At long last, progress !!!

 I've finished a couple more socks and a pair of DK weight fingerless gloves (they're called 'texting gloves ' now), and I'm almost done with redoing all of my shop pics.

I'm suffering from insomnia for the last 8-9 days. i think i hadn't had more than 10 hours of sleep in that time. I walk around like a zombie all day , so very tired, but if i try to take a nap i can't sleep!! and am wide awake at night. it is now midnight and i am bouncing off the walls. what is wrong with me??

oh, look at this:

aren't they cute?! I looked up out of the window this morning and there they where, Bib half asleep and Jack watching over her with his paw wrapped around her, like he's saying : " your save , i'll look out for you ".

Disclaimer: No beer was consumed during moving of building and no animals or humans where hurt in said move.

Just a little knitting...

I have spend pretty much the last week and this one revamping my etsy shop, from banner to descriptions to pictures.Even at less than 30 items that is very time consuming and a lot of work, especially if you're on dial up. I try to get the pictures down in size as much as possible without loosing quality but it still takes several minutes per pic to upload.I think i took about 300 new pictures in all.

But now i'm almost done, i think i've got a couple items left to redo.

But i got a little knitting in.After all the black socks i knitted a pair of patchwork socks which i promptly sold and got a custom order for another pair.

After that i got a custom order for these cute fingerless gloves:

and then i made these and put them in the shop today:

and i already started on another pair, this time a DK weight, they should be done in a couple of days.

David Taylar Daniels is my Hero....

....and here is why:
Last week i had my etsy shop critiqued by several people and the biggest issue was that my pictures could use a major overhaul, mainly they where too dark and boooooring.
So after tweaking around the shop on some other issues i started taking lots of pictures , trying to lighten them up and make them more appealing.
Unfortunately the only program i have to work my pics on is the Microsoft program that came with the PC ( five years old). It was a trial issue and half of the features quit working after six month.
I've always loved how good Dave's pictures look, especially the ones without a background.
So i contacted him to find out how he does it.
I downloaded one program that will let you make your picture background transparent, well, that is everybody elses pictures, not mine. I could not get it to work right for me :(
So i tried to download a program that Dave recommended , but, i live in the boondocks, all i have is telephone dial up. Very, very slow. So after being informed that it would take 360 !!!! hours to download the program , i gave up. and I sure can't afford to buy Photo shop.
So, here is where Dave comes in:
When i went to the mail box this afternoon, i had a small package. At first i was stumped, i hadn't ordered anything!!
Then i saw the name of the sender: Dave.
now I'm even more stumped.
So back to the house i hurry, because it was one of those bubble wrap plastic envelopes and you just can't tear them open, you need a knife or scissors.
And to my surprise this is what was inside:



Oh, i can tell you: that was one of the nicest things anybody has done for me in a long, long time.
I immediately installed it and it works great!!! So now y'all watch out !!
I'll have some b*&%^ing pictures in my shop!!!
I'll be forever grateful.
Thank you Dave !!!

Updates...

This is just a short post , no pics.I 'd just like to update on a couple of things that have impacted my life in the past weeks and thank everybody ( here and in the homeland ) for their well wishes.

First my old mare: she has fully recovered from what I'm sure of now was a snake bite.She has lost quite a bit of weight during the first 4-5 days because she didn't eat. It takes many pounds of feed a day to keep a horse looking good. If they don't eat for several days they loose weight fast. Sometimes a hundred pounds or more in a few days.(boy, wish i could do that !!!)

But, she is back to eating everything i put in front

of her and asking for more.

So, hopefully I'll have her a little while longer.

Next, my ankles.

They are almost good as new. Well, not really. Both are weak and i wear braces on both of them ,especially when I'm outside wandering in the yard. I'm very careful where and how i step.I've always had weak ankles and unfortunately always will, I'll just have to be careful.

On the knitting side : I finished another pair of ( black!!) socks for a customer in Washington state, must be getting cold there :)

Also still trying to figure out how to get those holes centered in those beautiful beads.Any help or suggestion is greatly appreciated. Just be reminded that they are lentil shaped and do not lay down flat.
I started on another pair of patchwork socks last night. They should be ready to go in the shop by about Sunday.
I will put a picture in here after all. It has nothing to do with above story's.
These are my mother in laws African Violets that i inherited from her.

She had them for many years and tended to them with lots of love. They bloomed all the time and every time we visited her i admired the pretty little flowers.
So when i brought them home i got all the info on how to keep them off the Internet( i remember my mom had one for years and remember that hers was very fickle especially about the light it got) . I re potted them with new soil and tried to find them a good spot by a window, but after a couple of weeks decided there wasn't enough light and moved them to another spot and that's when the miracle happened:Blooms!!!

This plant has been blooming for about 3 weeks now.

I have one more plant and four cuttings. I hope they will bloom too once matured.

I wish i could tell mom-in-law but due to her advanced stage of Alzheimer's she won't understand :(

Well, this was not that short of a post after all and pictures too !!