Completed Project

I promised pictures of the upright bass, and of the cover when I finished it. Here is DH playing and talking at the same time. (He's so talented!)

Here is the bass in all its uncovered glory:



And here is the cover. I wanted it to blend into the background, so I made it as plain as possible. It does need a couple more stitches, where I got my seam allowance a little too narrow, but I am very happy with how it turned out. The outer layer is cotton duck... which is why it looks a little wrinkled, and the inner layer is a tan fleece, to protect the instrument. It is much easier to slip on and off than the gig bag, which takes two people.

On my way to an appointment yesterday I passed Tomorrow's Heirlooms, a very nice needlework shop in the Chicago area, that I have not been to in years. I decided to stop there on my way back, just to see if anything would grab me, not thinking that I would find too much... maybe just a gift for my secret stitcher. Well, I should have known better.

They had balls of DMC #5 pearl cotton! Drawers of them! DMC stopped selling #5 on balls several years ago, and now we have to depend on skeins. Each skein has less thread than a ball, and the skeins tangle. I went a little nuts. Still, I got less than 1/2 the colors she still had in stock, even though I wanted one of each.

When the shopkeeper saw me loading up on these, she asked "Do you make temari?" Umm, yeah! You need long threads for stitching temari, and these are fantastic.

If you would like me to pick some up for you, let me know! The shop is not too far from DD2's house, so I will be back there.

A beginning Stitcher

I have time each Sunday morning to stitch on my Advent Calendar. It has been several months now that C has been referring to it as "our" sampler. I usually let her pick what I will stitch on next, and she can follow along on the pattern what I am stitching.

This past Sunday she plopped down on my lap, and took over (most of) the stitching. We had an area to fill in, so it was straight stitching. She would take each stitch on the top, and pull the thread through on both the top and the bottom stitches. She stuck with it for almost an hour!

In the car today I was stitching on a different project, and she was very curious about it. She studied the pattern and approved of it: "It has lots of pretty colors!"

I think I will have someone to eventually take over my stash! I'm so happy!

Beautiful Autumn Day in Michigan

We (DH, DD1 & her SO, DD2, P & C, and me, all in one car) took off bright and early on Saturday morning to spend the day in Michigan. The sky was perfectly clear, the sun was bright, and the colors were awesome! I took many, many pictures of the trees, but I am only sharing two. They were all out the window of the car, so may seem a little blurry. It was gorgeous!

We had our annual family get-together, unfortunately without my baby sister, who had thrown her back out earlier in the week. Missed you, Val!

Everyone else was there, and we had a very nice time. Since it was such a nice day, we sat on the veranda of the center where we had our meal: chile con carne con pan de maiz, (chili with corn bread, a favorite when growing up). There was a kids playground, corn-hole beanbags, shuffleboard, croquet, and just sitting and visiting in the lovely breeze. My SIL was very wise and picked up battle tops for all the kids. They were all able to interact, and break the ice by playing that together, a great success! Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of this part of the day. I was having too much fun visiting and finishing this:

I think it turned out great! and mom likes it. This is not the handle the instructions called for, it is just an inexpensive set I got from JoAnn's , but I think it fits the mood. All I had to do was stitch the loops down that hold the handle, and add the zipper. The zipper is a little uneven, but it works. Now I just have to finish the green bag!

Later on in the afternoon, I had the chance to go to the open house for my uncle John's 90th birthday celebration, and visit with 3 aunts, and see three cousins I have not seen in years and years. From left to right, this is mom, Aunt Jo, Uncle John, Aunt Flossie, and Aunt Sylvia.

(You can really tell they are related, can't you! LOL)

On Friday morning, I had another finish as well. DD2 had requested a hat with a brim. I found a couple of free patterns, and she picked this one, and requested the colors to match both her winter coats. The band is crocheted sideways in a ribbing stitch, with the crown and the brim added to the edge of that. The pattern in the crown is very subtle, but really pretty. I was very, very pleased when I finished stitching that.

The little flower turned out cute too.

I would not mind stitching this hat again one bit! It was a lot of fun.

Day off from school: MSI!

Last summer, when we went to the Museum of Science and Industry, the only way we got the kids to agree to leave, was to promise them we would go back on their first day off of school. That fell on last Friday, and we were true to our word. (Since we have a membership this year, we can go back all we want to!)

We started the day by spending some time in the "Idea Factory," a hands-on room for kids with all sorts of things to play and experiment with. There is a river with balls floating on it; you can send the balls "up-river" through a pneumatic tube, and splash them; you can spray water and work propellers, and see how river locks work, and play with pulleys, and scales, and gears, and conveyor belts, and refraction, and it was fun!

Then we went and checked out Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle. That is one of my favorite things, and I always try to at least walk around the room, even if I don't stay for the whole audio explanation.

After that we went to the show on the digestive system. C helped make the presentation on the small intestine. It's 22 feet long!

There was a new OmniMax show, so we got (free!) tickets for that: a train trip across the Canadian Rockies. Here are DD2, and C & P waiting for the show to start.

C requested this picture. I love the expressions!

We had a quick, good lunch, and then kept on going. We checked out the hatching chicks:

We had our fingerprints taken, and discovered that P, DD2, and I all have arched finger prints; only 5% of the population has that pattern. C has whorls and loops; those are also the more rare patterns.

P got to calculate the flight path of an airplane from Chicago to Buffalo. He stuck with it, and flew the shortest route!

One of the exhibits P wanted to visit was the You! exhibit, all about the body. Here are P & C filling the wall with their shadow outlines. Both of them got to walk on the "hamster wheel" and discovered that it takes quite a bit of effort.

We also went down another long hallway with one exhibit after another: Networld, the earth revealed (different satellite pictures of the earth, projected on a globe, very beautiful), the whisper gallery, and a whole area on imaging which was also a lot of fun.

Next week, a new Dr. Seuss exhibit is opening, and during the holidays there is an exhibit on all the different Christmas trees from around the world. We will be back!