Knitting - Socks

It's been decades, literally, since I've knitted socks. It just never seemed important enough to take the time to knit those when one can buy then and I figured I'd rather spend the time knitting for the boys when they were little and lately knitting scarves and mittens and goodies like that, but the wanting to knit socks again has been lurking in the background so at the end of last year I bought some yarn from Michael (Sock-Ease) and figured I'd give it a go again. Never got to it though until February!

First time doing toe-up. I like the idea of simply dividing a skein of yarn in 2, then start knitting and stop when the yarn runs out at the leg. I hate the idea of knitting a sock only to run out of yarn a few rows from finishing the toes.

I used a pattern for a basic sock. Nothing fancy while I figure out the sizing. I used this pattern on Ravelry as my starting point and am pleased with how it turned out. However it is too big for me so I did not cast off at the leg. The yarn did not turn out looking as nice as I had hoped. But it isn't exactly ugly either.

Next I decided to knit a 12 sts swatch just to see how that would look and what the gauge difference is. I do like the resulting weave I got so am thinking of changing the needle size first.

Here is the swatch on top of the sock, The yarn wrapper calls for 2.75mm needles. The sock was knitted with 2.25mm and the swatch with 2mm. That is quite a difference!

Anyhow, I'll make comparisons and careful measurements and see how it goes. I do have a ball of beautiful purple sock yarn waiting for me too...

Tiny Treasures

Tiny Treasures are all around us and never more visible than in the summer!
I love to take the camera and see what I can find among the flowers and plants!

I used Cathy Krenek's Woodland Spring Kit for my page. Aren't those critters just adorable? This kit would be perfect for making sweet cards as well!

It's been a long time since I've offered a scrapbooking freebie here on the blog. Funny how easy it can be to break a (good) habit, right?

Enjoy!


Download your freebie HERE (4 Shared)

Vintage Roses - Birthday Card

I love flowers, all flowers, any flowers. Needless to say I was pretty eager to get my hands on some of the Altenew layered flower stamps. I got a couple sets on sale via Blitsy towards the end of last year. Too bad these stamps are pretty pricey as I could have every single set in my collection. No Problem. This is the Vintage Roses Set. These images recall childhood fabrics that make my heart very very happy.

I have not played with this nearly enough, but this is a start. After stamping an entire sheet of cardstock, I cut pieces from it to use for cards. The ink used is from my older - and sadly coming to the end of their ink- ColorBox pads. The colours are so pretty and worked so well for these roses. For the final detailed layer I used an embossing powder that I've had around for many years, called 'Hidden Satin Pearls' which I bought from a local, privately owned store. The embossed results are gorgeous!

a die cut and Stampendous stamp for the sentiment finished this one off.

And another quick card - the lace border is by Penny Black. No special embossing powder on this one, just some gold paint splatters.

The grey weather is making picture taking such a hassle. I may have to resort to a photo box one of these days.

Yearbook 2001

Building a shed in a packet - we knew we would need a shed immediately upon moving into this house, so hubby produced this pre-fabricated version with the help of the boys. Once at the new place they had it up and functional in no time at all.

I used Cathy Krenek's "Mud on the Tires" bundle for my page. 

The kit is available seperately

Yearbook - 2017 December

Lots of snow in December meant a lot of photo opportunities and a white Christmas. A little disruptive maybe, but oh so beautiful!

Yearbook - December 2017

Cathy Krenek released her Winterberry Frost Bundle early in January, which was good timing for me to scrap these pictures. There are so many fun elements in the kit too, perfect for scrapping those fun-in-the-snow pictures!

The kit and the Add-Ons are available separately in Cathy's store.

Thank You Cards

Last year I bought one of those little books that consists of a bunch of postcards to colour. One of them featured snowflakes and although I think snowflakes are pretty, I do not like to colour them. So instead I thought I would see how my homemade alcohol inks perform on the paper. It worked really well, but now what do I do with the postcard?

Move it from here to there.
And then from there to here.
Am I the only one who does that?

Eventually I decided to use it for making some Thank You cards for beautiful Christmas gifts received. Very appropriate, I thought, to our White Christmas.

I die-cut snowflakes from the postcard as well as white cardstock to create the inlaid look

The snowflakes cut from the postcard worked well as accent pieces on their own card front.

The background paper is a piece of gift wrap I had from a previous Christmas. I really like the foiled details on it!
A few clear gems in the centers of the snowflakes finished off the cards.

The 'Thank You' stamp is from BoBunny 'Sentiments Stamps'

The Smith Family - Family Photobook

The Smith Family - I think these pictures are just too precious for words! They date from the 1920's and 30's.

Cathy Krenek's "Formal Night" Mini kit was perfect for the page. I did have a problem choosing papers though. I wanted to use them all, which is why I decided to layer them onto the background with just little strips peeping out from beneath each other. One of the big advantages of digital scrapping with and endless supply of papers.

My other great treat with digital kits is that I can use as many elements as I like and that I can resize them. Not to mention the lack of any bulk in spite of the dimension.

I have a bookshelf full of paper scrapped photobooks and am building my collection of digital ones. I must say that the paper ones have a charm, but I could never go back to scrapping all my memories that way.