Whatcha Working on Wednesday!

I have not been posting on this blog as often lately.

Time to catch up here.

Leslie of My Country Home is our host

for Whatcha Working on Wednesday!

Here is my cross stitch project to date.

Actually I have done more than what it shows here,

but this the picture I posted for the Stitch Along blog

on Sunday.

I had gotten two of this charm pack by Moda.

This one is called Oh-Cherry-Oh.

I realized the project I originally got them for was not going to work.

But then a new project came up on the Moda Bake Shop blog.

So I am making that one.

You can go here to see the project.

With the two charm packs I have,

I will be able to make two of them.

I plan to use one on my dining table

and one on my breakfast bar.

That should add some summer cheer to my rooms.

I have started putting the squares together

and got this far before I ran out of bobbin thread

on my sewing machine.

I have enough bobbins, so I decide to refill more than one bobbin.

That way I don't have to stop and refill as often.

I decide to keep them here on my thread tower next to my machine.
Handy for when I need the next one.

The first one has all the squares put together now.
On to the next step.

I have also been working on my Plarn bag.
Helmi tells me it is big enough to be a bed for her.
With a blanket or two, it would make a comfy bed.
So that is the latest in my craft/sewing world.
How about you?
~Linnea~

Whatcha Working on Wednesday

Today I am joining Leslie at My Country Home for Whatch Working on Wednesday.

Thank you Leslie for hosting this. It really does inspire me to work on my projects.

Today I was off work for a change during the week. Hooray! Been working Saturdays. So today is sort of my Saturday.

Here is what I have been up to lately in my crafting and such.

This is the progress picture I posted on the Step by Step Stitchalong blog.
Participating in this blog is definitely keeping me on my toes to finally finish this cross stitch project.

I am actually farther along than it shows here. I will post another progress picture on Sunday.

I definitely hope to have even more done than I do now. And yes I did do some stitching this morning on it.

I posted these fabrics earlier. This week I have been doing laundry and included these fabrics to prewash them. So one of my projects today has been ironing the never ending pile I can't seem to get rid of. That included ironing these fabrics to prepare them for my projects.

I have decided to partipate in the Block of Month project from Gail Pan Designs.

The same one our host Leslie is doing.

Here Helmi is helping me hold on to the muslin squares as I cut them.

Then I show her the red and green fabrics I am using for this project.

Note: not the same fabrics in the earlier picture.

Although I may be using them for this also. Because......

I am thinking of trying to make 8 sets. eeek!

Don't know if I am trying to bite off more than I can chew, but I want to do this idea as gifts for Christmas. So starting this early, hey, it is only March, I am off to a good start so far.

I show Helmi the first design I will be stitching on the muslin blocks.

But first I need to prepare the blocks. My machine does not have very good markings for the seam allowances. Cindy at Just Another Day in Paradise (her blog is private right now) had talked about this gadget for helping with sewing quilting blocks and getting the accurate seam allowance. I thought "How cool." At the same time I kind of thought I had seen it before. One day while searching for something else (isn't that the way it always is?) I came across this one. I had forgotten I had the same exact thing Cindy had. What a surprise that was!!

I show Helmi how it works on the sewing machine.

And now she is watching me stitch the strips to the muslin blocks.

Boy!! That gadget works really good for keeping the seam allowances to 1/4".

I love it! Thanks Cindy for showing it!!

Now I am doing some green blocks. Helmi really likes to get into the midst of things when I am crafting. Notice she is still wearing that purse I made her. She loves it!!

Here are the nine blocks I will need for the first quilt.

Now I need to start the embroidery part.

I checked and I have all the floss colors I need.

I guess I will do the stitching in 3 strands. The instructions don't really specify how many strands to use. So I guess it is up to each person's preference on that part.

I have also started a new PLARN project.

Helmi is checking it out here. She notices it is kind of big.

Yep it is kind of big. She can sit on it and it is still big.

Look at the size of the crochet hook I am using for this project.

Biggest one I have ever used. This is size "N".

Notice I ran out of PLARN there?

Helmi is going to help me add some more so I can continue to crochet.

I decided to just start crocheting instead of trying to make this huge ball.

This kind of project you can add as you go. Unlike with yarn.

Okay, Helmi, hand me another strip out of the bag.

See my angel peeking over Helmi's shoulder back there?

She is probably making sure Helmi is behaving herself.

So that is what I have been up to this past week or so.

Tonight our church has a soup supper then a service.

We do this during Lent every year.

I have not made it to a service yet due to getting home from work too late to make it for soup.

Plus being just plain too tired to be driving as well.

But today I am contributing one of the soups.

I will be making a Zesty Potato Soup I got from Jennifer over at Smelling Coffee.

I have made it once so far and it is yummy.

I will be taking my stock pot and the ingredients to my mom's and making it there.

That way it will be just a short drive to take the hot soup to the church instead of a 35 minute drive from our house.

Gotta pay attention to the time so I leave myself enough time to make the soup and get it to the church on time.

Happy Wednesday everyone!!

~Linnea~

Whatcha Working on Wednesday with Helmi

For a change I have managed to do some things to post on Whatcha Working on Wednesday.

Go and visit Leslie over at My Country Home for more Whatch Working on Wednesday posts.

I will start with Saturday.

I had to work Saturday and hubby and to tell me about what Helmi was up to while I was at work. Hubby was washing dishes for me while I was working. Hubby has been washing dishes for me a lot lately. Yay!

Anyway, Helmi decided to see what he was doing. She wanted to help, but Hubby told her that wouldn't be a good idea. She could get all wet.

So instead she hopped on one of my cookie jars to watch.

She is sitting on one that I painted years ago.

Hey, don't forget to wash this muffin pan!
Here she is continuing to boss him while he does the dishes.

Then she joins me while I make more PLARN. I have posted about making plarn before. This stuff is plastic bag yarn. I have found several patterns I am interested in making out of plarn. But first I need more plarn. A couple of my co-workers have brought me their plastic bags. That is how I got the green ones since I don't shop at a store that has green bags. Also since I took these pictures another co-worker brought me some yellow bags.

What fun!

As I was making the balls I realized I don't need to make all the plarn right away. I came up with the idea of storing each color in its own ziplock bag.

So I cut the strips and put them in the corresponding bag. Green, white with red and black lettering, white with red and blue lettering, white with red only lettering and tan bags.

I also will need to add a ziplock bag for white only bags with very little black lettering and one for the the yellow bags with red lettering.

This way I can grab a bag when ever I am watching TV or when we are driving somewhere and make the strips into the plarn.

I haven't decided yet which pattern I am going to make next.

But first I have to get size N and Q crochet hooks, since most of the patterns use those sizes.

I don't have those sizes in my crochet hook stash.

Next I go back to my Valentine's Day project which I never finished.

Sigh.......

Story of my life sometimes, not finishing things on time.

Oh well....

Anyway, Helmi helps me with this project too.

Notice Helmi is still wearing the crocheted purse I made for her while Stitching Stella was here.

Hmmm....I wonder what Stella is up to now.

Helmi has been missing her, so I better not bring up Stella in the conversation.

I don't know why Helmi has to get right in the way while I am sewing.

Helmi I need you to move. You might get your nose stitched if you don't watch out!

Now what are you doing Neabear?

Refilling my bobbin. I ran out of bobbin thread and this is where I refill it.

Oh.

Helmi had fun watching the bobbin spin real fast.

Now what are you doing Neabear?

I am pinning the ribbon trim on to the placemat.

Placemat, what is that?

You are sitting on it!

One finished placemat.

Helmi agrees with me that it turned out pretty good.

Now I need to finish the second one.

Better late than never.

As Hubby said, they are ready for next year.

I want to make a set of these for every season and holiday for our table for two.

Time to go and find some St. Patty's day and Easter fabric to make some more.

What are you working on this fine Wednesday?

~Linnea~

Whatcha Working on Wednesday with Helmi and Stella!

Leslie over at at My Country Home is the host for Whatch Working on Wednesday. I participate now and then when I have something I am working on.

Here is what I am up to these days.

I have been working on a project recently using PLARN. I have posted about this in my recent posts, but here is a recap. Plarn is plastic bag yarn. I got the idea from Suzie Button Creations when she did her one of her Weekly Side Dish posts. The instructions for the bag I got from myrecycledbags.com. The instructions for making the plarn is there too. So my projected started with bags like this one.
Here it is as plarn.

Here is Helmi holding a ball of plarn that is almost too big for her. I had patients at work help me make this plarn. Did it as an activity during my treatment sessions with them.

Helmi is trying to help me make my bag. But she got herself tangled up in the plarn.

Silly Helmi!

Then my new visitor Stella arrived.

Here they are showing off the bag so that I can get a picture of it.

You will have to read my previous post of them getting stuck in the bag.

Now I am currently adding this fun fur as a trim on the bag.

Helmi and Stella are trying to help again.

But their way of helping is getting themselves all tangled up in my stuff.

I never know what those two are going to be up to next.

After seeing me work with patients making plarn, I now have co-workers saving their plastic bags for me. What is cool, is that I am getting different colors that way. They are bringing me bags from stores I don't visit.

Now I need to plan my next PLARN project.

I am sure Helmi and Stella will help me pick one out.

Stella and Helmi Having Fun(getting into trouble)

If you have seen my main blog (click on pic of bear on cakeplate to see) you will know that Stella has arrived to visit me. And to visit Helmi too.

I have a feeling Stella is having more fun with Helmi than she is with me.

This morning when I got up, I got the sensation that someone was calling me. Did not have my hearing aids in yet so I did not hear them. But sometimes I will sense or kind of feel something needs my attention.

This is what I discovered. Helmi had gotten stuck in my little plarn bag I am making. I asked them what they were up to and they said they were checking out my new bag and wondered if they would be able to take a ride in it. I don't know how long Helmi was stuck like that, but Stella was unable to pull her out.
No sooner did I get Helmi out of the bag, she was really wedged in there, then Stella jumped in. These two are getting to be quite a pair already.

The girls decided they wanted to help show off my new bag. So here they are modeling the bag. Actually the bag is not quite done yet. But you can get the idea here.

Now girls, behave yourselves while I go to work. Ok?

We will find some other things to do when I get home from work.

Crafting with Plarn

Plarn.

What is that?

I learned about this from Suzie over at Suzie Button Creations.

Suzie is one of the first bloggers I met when I started blogging. She caught my eye because she is a live captioner. I was so surprised to meet someone who actually does captioning. As a hearing impaired person I rely on captioning to understand what is happening on the TV. If something is not captioned, then I am usually lost and out of the loop.

Anyway, Suzie is doing this new thing and posting about the interesting things she hears about while doing captioning. This week she told us about Plarn.

Plarn?

Using plastic bags as yarn. Suzie gives us a link on how to use plastic bags as yarn. I found a project I want to try. But first I need some plarn.

Here is a bag. I need to fold it lengthwise.
Here is the bag folded.

Then you cut off pieces about an inch wide or so. But discard the glued end at the bottom and the handles part at the top.

Oh uh, here comes Helmi! Jumping in to find out what I am doing now.

My plarn is growing. You have to loop it together like you would do two rubber bands to make a long string of rubber bands.

Helmi wants to help. So I give her my growing plarn ball and to keep it from rolling all over the place.

Uh....Neabear....I starting to get buried under this plarn ball.

That is ok Helmi. It is not heavy. Just keep holding it for me.