Blue Monday #21-Crafting with Blue

Time for Blue Monday again! Seems it was just here and now here it is again.

Where does the time go? Out the window probably. And taking me with it.

Thank you to Sally at Smiling Sally for hosting Blue Mondays for us. Go visit her to see others having fun with Blue Monday.

First up is the update on my cross stitch project for the Stitch Along Blog that I am a part of.

I am finally finished with the bowl and now I am working on the blue checkered cloth the bowl is sitting on. Hooray for progress!

Would you believe I am already hunting around for my next project?

I have a couple in mind I want to do next.

This paper has blue on it. This is my list of colors for my current project. I am actually done with a few colors. See? I have crossed some of them off.

That will help me to ignore those symbols because I am done with those colors.

Crossing off finished colors really does feel good.

The other thing I do is highlight my finished areas on the chart. There is a feeling of accomplishment to see what is DONE. Plus it really helps me to find my place as I am working on it.

I was at my mother's after church when I remembered my daughter suggested I post pictures of the painting project I had done there years ago.

This cabinet is above their stove. When they had the kitchen remodeled I was taking tolepainting classes at the time.
My mother asked me to paint something on that middle section.
This is what I painted. The flowers are blue.
Here is another view. I was trying to avoid the glare of the light.

This blue goose is a gift I painted for my mom. The cloth it is sitting on is a cross stitch my mother did years ago.
I think it has Swedish designs.

This is another gift I did for my mom. This was a class project. I made two of them.
The other one hangs in my house. Except the word 'Welcome' is in black on mine. And harder to see. That is why I did it in offwhite on the one I made for my mother.
She has this one hanging in her entryway.
Another gift for my mother.
Two Amish children. I think this was also a class project.
I always intended to paint another set for myself.
I hope I still have the painting pattern.
Lots of blue for my mother.
Blue is her favorite color.
She has it all through the house.

Happy Blue Monday to everyone!

~Linnea~

Whatcha Working on Wednesday-Last post of Stella on here.

I am getting Stella ready to ship off to the next person.

But before she leaves we fit in more craft time together

But before I go on, thank you to Leslie and My Country Home for hosting

Whatcha Working on Wednesday!

I have a new crochet book. I show the book further down.

Anyways, I decide to try making this flower motif.

Of course the girls Helmi and Stella are in the midst of things

helping me to keep track of my yarn here.

And telling me what to do when, as if they know how to crochet better than me.

Hmpf!

Here is what the finished flower looks like.

I think I still need to play around with it more and experiment with different sizes

of crochet hooks. Except I can't find them all at the moment.

They are temporarily misplaced in my mess.

Somewhere.

I wonder if Helmi and Stella hid them.

Here is the one I did next to the one pictured in the book.

This is my new book.
Lots of interesting things to try in there.

Oh dear, Helmi and Stella jump in to see what I am sewing now.

Girls, it does not work for you to be THERE while I sew.

I need you two to move!

How about off to the side here.

You can still see what I am doing and see how a sewing machine works.

What are you sewing?

The lining to the PLARN bag I made.

See this is how I stitch it in place.

I am using quilting thread because it is stronger.

There, see how the bag looks with the lining in it?

Hides all the fun fur that was poking on the inside.

I have already sent this off in the mail to its recepient.

I will post in a few days what I stuck in there before mailing and who it went to.

Bet you can guess!

Oh, and before Stella leaves my place for good :-(

oh I will be so sad....and so will Helmi....

I want to show you what else I added besides making a purse just for her.

I found this sticker at Snoopy's Gift Shop.

So I glued on on the corner of her skirt as a reminder of her trip to the museum

and gift shop and gallery.

What a day that was!!

Happy Wednesday!

Pink Saturday #20-In the Pink with Stitching Stella and Helmi

It is that time again! Pink Saturday!! I missed particpating last week, but I am back this week with my visitor Stitching Stella along with my pal Helmi.

Thank you to Beverly over at How Sweet the Sound for hosting this fun day for us every week.
Yesterday as I got home from work, I was greeted with the beautiful sunset. As soon as I got home I ran in the house to get the camera to get the pictures before the colors faded away.

We have had rain for a couple of days. I am very happy about that.
Mandatory 30% reduction in water use has already started here.
To get the rain is a blessing.
More is supposed to be coming. Hooray for the rain!

I love it when we get a pretty sunset or sunrise!

In my previous post Stitching Stella is wearing a wee little purse I made for her.

Of course Helmi wanted one too.

So I made her one also!

Here they are modeling their handbags next to a stack of pretty pink boxes.

Those boxes spell F U N. (you can't see the bottom N too well)

F U N is what we got planned for today to show Stitching Stella a good time.

The girls decide to help me with my next project.

They get themselves covered in pink ribbon while I cut the pretty pink fabric.

Happy Pink Saturday!!

Plarn project and something for Stella

I didn't like how the fun fur was turning out using the crochet method. So I undid that and decided to weave it though with a needle instead. Here it is after I did all the weaving. I liked how it turned out here. Hubby said he liked it too. Way cool!

And so did Helmi and Stella
But the inside looks like this. I think I will make a lining to cover that part up.

Helmi and Stella agree with my choice.

I found this piece of flannel in my scrap fabrics left over from when I made pajamas for my daughter one year when she was small.

But I interrupt the plarn project to make something else using crochet cotton and a steel hook.

Stella is wondering what I am making.

Surprise.... Stella!

I made you your very own handbag.

See Stella model her handbag. It even has a button closer. And yes the bag really does open.

Stella is ready for our outing on Saturday!

But now Helmi is jealous I have not made one for her yet.

Ok Helmi, you will get your turn.

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More adventures on my main blog.

Just click on the bear on the cake plate in my side bar.

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.

Stitchalong Update and Crafting with Helmi/Blue Monday #19

It is time for Blue Monday again. Yay!

I am combining this with an update on my cross stitch for the Stitchalong Blog.

My project has blue in it so it works.

Also as you browse the pictures you will see in the background my bible which has blue on the spine. It is sitting behind Helmi in some of the pictures.

Thank you to Sally at Smiling Sally for hosting this fun day for us. Go on over and check out what everyone else is posting for Blue Monday.

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Every Sunday the Step by Step Stitchalong blog members update on how much stitching got done since the last post.

I will be posting mine, but first I have to share with you what Helmi has been up to this week/weekend.

In my previous post or so, I shared that I was starting a project with PLARN.

Otherwise known as plastic bag yarn. Helmi was helping me to make the plarn.

On Friday, I took several plastics bags with me to work and had my patients help me make the plarn as part of our therapy session. I could do parts of it as a standing balance/tolerance activity as they folded the bags. Also it was good for cognitive issues to see if they could follow directions correctly. One person did have troubles with that area. It worked out really well. It was something different to do on National Do Something Fun At Work Day.

I did not plan it that way. It was coincedental.

Besides it helped to get my ball of PLARN much bigger!!

Helmi says "Hey, how did your ball get so big without my help? How dare you take it to work without me! Ack, now I am drowning under this ball of Plarn!"

Sorry about that Helmi. I just couldn't take you to work. People would really think I was off my rocker, probably. I think they thought I was crazy enough as it was making Plarn. Now let me show everyone what I am making.


Here Helmi, you can help me show it off. Now tell them this is the bottom of the bag I am making.

Hey everyone, Neabear says this is the bottom of the bag. Got that?

Helmie says, Oh look, the bag is growing. I can put my hands...I mean paws in the bag now.
Ooh, wow Neabear, it is even bigger now. How did you get it this high? I did not see you do this part.

That is because I took it to church and worked on in it the car and while we visited my parents a little bit.

Neabear, I am upset you didn't take me to visit your parents.

Ok Helmi, I am sorry. I will take you next time. Just make sure you are not hiding when it is time to go.
Uh-oh.....Helmi gets all tangled up in the plarn trying to help me make this cute little bag. Stay tuned for a post on how it turns out.
Helmi is guarding my hearts coffee mug while I do the stitchalong piece. I have managed to add quite a bit to it this week. Helmi is taking a closer look at what I have done this week. Looks like you got rabbits there Neabear. I can see them in that BLUE part.
Here is the official picture that will go on the Step by Step Stitchalong blog. I did not realize those were rabbits going around the blue part. I thought they were just blotches. But as I did more filling in I started to realize, Hey, these look like rabbits. I got to wondering if they were supposed to be rabbits. I checked out the picture in the magazine and yeah, they kind of look like rabbits. The rabbit or whatever on the left is all filled in now. With the different colors, it doesn't really look like a rabbit. Maybe they are supposed to be splotches of color. Anyways, you can tell it is a bowl now.

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The Blue Monday part. You will see of course that my cross stitch project has several shades of blue in it. And more blue will be added as I go along. The bowl sits on a shelf with a blue and white checkered cloth on it. Maybe by next Sunday I will have done some of that part.

This is another tole painting project I had done in the late 1980's when I was taking classes. I did that goose as a class project. But in the picture we also have a BLUE railroad lantern. This is another thing that was in my mother-in-law's things. Behind it is a kerosene lamp that was also hers. The sun shining through the blinds is casting an interesting shadow over the items.

Happy Stitching, Crafting, Sewing and Blue Monday!