Secret Sister Strikes again!

My Secret Sister struck again. A package showed up in my mail with such a lovely little outfit. It's a dress made of pale pink cotton with a cherry pattern on it. There is a matching cream colored wool vest trimmed in pink embroidery thread with round 'pockets' made of the dress fabric. Also included was a real leather little purse-way super cute! There was also 4 pairs of hand crocheted socks. My secret sister must be paying attention on the lists and has picked up on my sock addiction. (I make socks constantly for my dolls-I know that seems strange but it's quite fun) My little Veronique just loved the outfit so she declared it for her own! Such a wonderful gift to receive out of the blue.

What a doll!

I recently crocheted the cutest little doll from a free pattern. A very talented Beth over at By Hook, By Hand has this cutie posted on her blog. It's her Free Spirit Amigurumi Doll and if you look further into her blog you'll find a huge variety of clothing patterns for her as well. Such a very generous gift to anyone that crochets.

Now, this dolly is to be crocheted from worsted weight yarn, and I'm more particular to thread crochet, so I thought why not? I grabbed some size 3 crochet cotton and a size 1 steel hook and out came this little darling.

Azure is about 7 inches tall. Just a petite little thing. My dear BFF suggested the blue tibetan hair for her and she was so right. it's perfect. Now, all the clothing patterns are for the bigger doll so I decided to suck it up and make another doll using the worsted weight yarn like the pattern calls for. Whoa! she's a MUCH bigger doll but WOW the personality. I LOVE her!! I've just finished up all her parts this afternoon so this evening I'll be sewing her together and deciding on her hair do. Next it will be time to work on a snazzy wardrobe for her. Crochet is such a soothing past-time when one is feeling oooogy.

ahhhhh, vacation

We just spent a glorious long weekend up in Wisconsin with my BFF Kate and her lovely, incredibly spry mom Phyllis. Two of the loveliest people you'd ever want to know. They certainly make guests feel very welcome and are fabulous Hostesses-and Phyllis is doing this while in a walking boot recovering from a bad boo-boo.

She taught me how to make her famuos Cherry-Rhubarb frigerator jam. boyohboy is it very YUMMY!!! She sent Kate and I to get cherries (the famous and oh so delectible Door County cherries) and we happened on the find of the year. Now, you know you can't send two young whippersnappers out for cherries and expect them to just come straight home. We got a little sidetracked. Ahem.....we saw some garage sale signs....and they were on our way....So, we decided to stop on the way back. At a garage sale someone had two ball-joint dolls for sale for $2 each. We bought them and then Kate looked them up after we got home. The one that she kept is worth over $300!!! now, that's a return on your money!! LOL. She also got a really wonderful wood doll cradle for her babies and a life-size Middleton doll for only $10!!! and he's so perfect!

Dear hubby went to Iola for the big Military Vehicle show. I stayed 'home' and played dollies and went treasure hunting at Goodwill and a HUGE antique mall. oh dear I had so much fun with my BFF. too bad it didn't last long enough.

so, this trip produced Cherry Rhubarb Jam, a crocheted doll, a sewn teddy bear (he was butt ugly and not even looking like a bear until BFF worked on him with me) and a really super-duper adorable baby doll. I'll post pics soon.

T.I.R.E.D.

.....T. toys,toys,toys, it looks like a toybox threw up in my house. LOL. there's toys in places that I didn't know toys would fit! (the VCR for example)LOL. I had forgotten how many toys it takes to make a baby happy. With a 30 second attention span, it takes alot.

....I. inquisitive. ie: gee, i wonder what's behind the doggies eyelids while he's sleeping? gee, I wonder what's behind his lips while doggie is sleeping? gee, I wonder what's inside doggies ears while he's sleeping? let's see, maybe I can tickle inside doggies ears while he's sleeping. Let's see, can I count how many teeth doggy has while he's sleeping?

....R. run. ie: how many times can I run around the doggy before he jumps up to chase me? How fast can i run from gramma as soon as she takes my diaper off for bath? (maybe grampa will save me)

....E. entertainment. This little girl has provided me with endless hours of entertainment. It is just pure joy watching all the fun new things she discovers. It's really funny to watch her shreik with joy and greet every male that walks through the door with a very loud "DAADDDEEEEEEEEE" LOL! grampa, great pappa, uncles, doesn't matter, they're all Daddddeeeeeeeee. LOLOL.

....D. delighted. How I feel about watching my grand daughter for the week.

now, put it all together and it spells how I am after just 2 days. and I only have 3 more to go! LOL.......

thank goodness for disney movies. she loves 'em and it gives me about 10 minutes of peace. She'll actually sit for 10 minutes to watch some of it.

I'm partied out

3 parties in one weekend. Whew! I'm pooped. I've been cleaning and cooking for a week. Friday the kids came in from out of town. Saturday was hubby's 60th birthday. He didn't want a party. He just wanted a small backyard BBQ with our kids. ....riiight..... Soon it was, "honey, did you invite @#%#?". two days later, "honey, did you invite %#$#^?" and it continued until I had 30 people coming. now, I have a tiny house so we had 3 canopies set up in the back yard. The day started with a fun surprise for hubby, he went out to walk the dog at 6am and was greeted with this:

he was quite tickled. He loves deer. We had to take all kinds of pictures of the deer and him with the deer. it was too funny. Everyone showed up for the party and we had a blast. Of course, right in the middle of the party we got hit with a fast but furious rain storm. Everyone dove into the house except me. I was at the grill cooking so I got soaked to my undies. I didn't mind thought because it was one of those really warm refreshing summer rains. It stopped after about 15 minutes so everyone came back out, we dried off all the furniture and went right back to having fun. It was a wonderful relaxing day. After everyone had left and I had the mess all cleaned up I got to work making a cake for the next day.

The next day I went to a 'Hitty Goes to Las Vegas Party'. I have my little grand daughter for the week so she went too. We both had a really fun time. She's only 18 months but very well trained and socialized so she was just as pleasant as could be. That was with 10 wonderful ladies and we shared party favors and exchanged a gift for Hitty.

Grand daughter and I left that party at 5 to run home, pick up Grampa, grandson, and a cake and go to the next party. That was a birthday party for my mother. I made her favorite cake-a made from scratch coconut cake. My dad was put in charge of getting one candle (a number 6-I already had one number 6 so we just needed the second one) and he got the ice cream. We all had a good time (a much smaller gathering of just 20-LOL!). Got home, gave baby a bath put her down and collapsed! LOL.

Mea Culpa and the missing camera

Mea Culpa Mea Culpa Mea Culpa, this goes to my BFF for being so slack and not updating my blog. I've had another month of insanity so this went by the wayside. She (ever so politely) pointed out my slackness (and then threatened to remove me from her favorites! LOL) GASP!!! I could NEVER let that happen so here I am.

to my BFF: PHHTTTTHHHHTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHH

Now, the missing camera. Day 5. It has got to be in my house somewhere. I saw it last weekend. Could my feeble mind remember where? no. was it in the case where it should be? yes. why is it so hard to find a black camera case with a pink camera? because it is. It was put away. it's that simple. I put it away. why? because that's what you're supposed to do. No. you leave it out so you trip over it or move it every time you want to do something. that way you can find it.
This has distinct shades of Gramma written all over it. She used to put stuff away 'for safe keeping' only to not find it for YEARS. LOL. OMG I'm turning into my grandmother.....

Monkey business, a new doll and Joey

I managed to finish crocheting all the parts for a new little monkey. After putting Joey to bed last night I was able to stuff and sew the monkey. I stitched his little face this morning and now he's done. Isn't he adorable!?!



He's only 3 1/2 inches tall. He's made of size 8 perle cotton with a size 7 steel hook. A friend of mine gave me a new book from Annie's Attic-Itty Bitty Animals. It's got a bunch of really darling, tiny crocheted animals. quick to make up (if you don't mind working tiny). I ended up making three ears because I think Joey ate one of the first two. when it was time to sew the ears on the monkey I could only find one-and that was on the floor-so I had to make a new one. I can't tell you how many times while crocheting these pieces parts I had to stop and make Joey "Leave It" and then go retrieve either the part he stole or one of the balls of crochet thread. LOL. He was just looking for someone to play with him-the poor bored puppy! LOL.


Sooo, this afternoon I wanted a little sewing time so Daddy had to watch Joey. I put the baby gate up across my sewing room door. (thank god for baby gates) I tried without it at first, but it was 'game on' with Joey. He decided that to get Mommy's attention, he would come in and look around and figure out what he could grab and run thus getting Mommy's attention really quick. Riiiigggght, that game only last for 2 grabs when Mommy declared it was done and put up the baby gate! LOL Mommy wins! Daddy now had to watch him so when Joey couldn't get into any more trouble he decided to take a nap. whew!


I actually got to sew and put together a new doll. I won the parts for a China Head doll when I went to a luncheon in May. She's so beautiful. She's 10" tall. I got the head, arms and legs. I had to make the body, upper arms and upper legs and put it all together. I used the last piece of drill for the body. She came out just lovely. Now I have to do a little research and decide what kind of clothing she'll need.


soooo, life with Joey is fun, unpredictable, constantly saying 'NO', "Leave It", "Joey Sit", 'No', 'No', "Leave It".....he's gonna think his name is "Joey Leave It". ! LOL....I think I've lost 5 lbs in 2 days of correcting him. It's easy to tell that he wants to be a good boy, it's just going to take lots and lots of love and training.....and Daddy loves him way, way much. .....life is good....sigh.....