This and That and Some Knitting

Something new for fall decoration, cheap, colorful and making the living room smile with cheeriness: colorful plastic acorns.  Now really, don't they look like glass?  You, too, can have them for mere pennies and they are available at Michael's.

The Mr. and I attended two fun events this week. One was a picnic for Hospice of Western Colorado volunteers with a beach party theme.

And the pictures are of the Mr., and friend Mary who was a whiz at hoola hooping.  You can figure out who is who.

Libby Sweetpea is actually the Therapy Dog International volunteer for Hospice and I just drive her around to make her visits with hospice patients. It was the thought on the day of the picnic to leave her home because it would have actually been work for her to greet people, let them pet her, coo over her, and she would have had to be on her best behavior.  So she got the day off after working for four years for Hospice, and we allowed her to sleep in

while her driver enjoyed some picnic food of pork loin.

Then last night was the Gala Event for Community Hospital with the Moulin Rouge theme.  Proceeds ...errr...profits from the gala will be used to buy defibrillator units for our local schools.

On the needles this week is the Broken Rib Cowl:

and these baby booties (except my yarn is pink):

 with the pattern found here.

Thank you for reading my blog.  Thank you for submitting comments; they are very much appreciated.  And thank you all new followers. Please take a visit to these newest followers and say a friendly hello: The Shop Around the Corner, Merione, and Diana Evans.

Dragonfly Challenge

Every week, Inspiration Avenue has a blog hop where people post around a central theme, a theme that changes each Monday morning.  This week, it is all about dragonflies, those mystical, mysterious, marvelous creatures.  They are everywhere in the summer, and each time I see one I am mesmerized.

Go on over to this link and check out the posting, then follow along or even check back during the week to see others' posts about dragonflies.  The challenge lasts a week.  It is fun!

The Dragonfly Darlings Challenge shows a few of these creatures today:

You can just see the wonder on the little girl's face.  (She came from Lynne, a children's book illustrator, at this blog.)

Would you want this on your back?

source

Yikes!

Anyway, join in here!  I will be checking in on all participants' blogs and leaving a comment.

Yikes! My Blog was Attacked and Deleted

It is a scary thing.  Google would not let me into my account this morning, saying it had been "illegally hacked, misused or otherwise compromised".  It was down and off world radar for over 12 hours.

But luckily, the problem was resolved within a few hours this morning.  Whatever the problem was...who knows?

Here is a response Ann Althouse received from Google when her blog was deleted about a year ago:

Here’s what happened: during scheduled maintenance work Wednesday night, we experienced some data corruption that impacted Blogger’s behavior. Since then, bloggers and readers may have experienced a variety of anomalies including intermittent outages, disappearing posts, and arriving at unintended blogs or error pages. A small subset of Blogger users (we estimate 0.16%) may have encountered additional problems specific to their accounts.

So could be that happened to me overnight.  Welcome back, viewers.

Referencing a Multi Talented Woman Blogger

For art lovers and those who enjoy beautiful images, please wander on over to It's About Time.  This site will provide pictures and bio information about a variety of topics, including:

• flowers and gardens
• reading
• motherhood
• outside art
• boating
• the countryside
• folk art
• working with textiles
• Madonna and child
• and NINE other topics for you to investigate for lovely illustrations
• PLUS Four, yes four, other blogs Barbara authors, each in its own separate blog space, and each fascinating in its own right

Michael Peter Ancher (Danish artist, 1849–1927) Artist's wife Anna Ancher

This is just one of the pictures found on one of Barbara's blogs.  She entitled it Outside in the Hot, Hot Garden.

Can you tell I am very much impressed by this prolific blogger and researcher? In part, she says:

I am a historian, the images usually cluster around some social, cultural, or academic theme or a timeline. I try to choose works that justify their inclusion on aesthetic grounds. There is a little museum in each blog -- no travel necessary.

A blogging buddy who lives in the UK doing her PhD (The Domestic Soundscape) introduced me to Audioboo and provided the bird call. (It is one of Felix's top hits!)  Just click on the arrow and turn up your speakers and you will feel like you have a morning flower bouquet in your hand!

The picture of  the yellow flowers In Anna Ancher's arms reminded me to put this small work of sunflowers in oils that I have been painting for a few weeks:

The stems have not been started, and the centers have no definition yet.  We shall see.

Google Analytics

Thanks to the DH, some great information has been coming my way regarding traffic on this blog.  Google Analytics is a program that gives LOTS of statistics on who is reading the blog, from what country they are finding this blog, what the hot topics people are looking for, and other trivia which (more than likely) interests only the writer of the blog.

For instance, in the last year, looking at stats for this blog, here is a summary from Google Analytics regarding visits:

The chart above shows that over the last year, more NEW site visits originated from Canada (92%) than from the United States (79%).

And the pie chart shown above indicated that search enginges gave me 65% of referrals from key words listed in the post titles.

Lastly, to further belabor the point, one graph (above) showed that "Making Fabric Roses" was the leader in Google searches by topic, with "Sewing Prayer Shawls" coming in second.

However, the most page views came from "Making Neck Pillows", with the prayer shawl coming in second for most page views. 

Fun stuff if you like statistics, and worth checking out if you are curious about your blog traffic.

Blog Material: Blog Hunt

I saw this on Jane's daughter's website and decided to copy the idea. The concept is to share good writing in the blogosphere.

So after considerable thought and intense snooping, my listing of blogs meeting the criteria is below. Be sure to stop by each one and see for yourself what incredible writing there is to be read in cyberspace.

In My Humble Opionion (Peggy Hill's favorite saying on King of the Hill), links to a blogger who:

has an online shop: Sweet William

has flawless taste: Keep it classy

has admirable qualities: Too Jazzed To Sleep and Throws like a Girl (both inspirational)

has awesome links to other blogs: Tip Junkie

is an artist: dianes mixed art

is intriguing: michelle perkett

is a daily read: country pleasures

is an old favorite: cast-on

is creative: a year from oak cottage

is a designer: sew liberated

is wildly prolific: daily danny

features fabulous layouts: grimitives

features loveliness: cates back porch

features fantasticness: Indie Collective

lives far away: Craft n Cook (India!)

lives pretty close: living the grand life (in the next room)

takes fantastic photographs: robin's woods

tells great stories: Gaston Studio

crafts up a storm: knitted gems

writes about life: a second cup

gives fabulous recipes: the pioneer woman

gives fabulous tips: tip junkie

makes me want to be her best friend: Heather at Craftlit

makes me believe in the goodness of people: Proverbs 31 Living

makes me laugh: What I Should Have Said

Check out these blogs; play along, and feel free to copy this neat idea for your blog.

Inspirational Stories for Publication

A fellow blogger and author recently put out a call for inspirational stories that she will compile and publish in the near future. This individual, Jena Isle, has the website GewGaw Writings. Here is her banner:Ms. Isle states in her blog the term "gewgaw" ...

... in this site means " bauble" - "baubles" of writing....an attempt to write poems, short stories, essays, quotations and what-nots...

She plans to put together twelve inspirational stories which she has garnered for a book she believes will be a good read for a wide audience.

The oral story I submitted last August to the National Public Radio Story Corps was one about a moral and medical decision which was made almost forty years ago that has had far reaching impact. You can read it here at Jena Isle's blog. If you scroll through her blog, all twelve stories she has chosen can also be read.

When she publishes, she will send each of the contributors one of these books. Thank you, Jena, for selecting this story as one of the twelve you believe worthy of publication. Best success on your book, as well.

Sharing Good Blogs

Many thanks to Swapna at her Cook and Craft blog for sending me a blog award. And when I opened an email yesterday, Cathy at Cate's Back Porch gave another. Thank you so much, Swapna and Cathy.

Reasons to receive blog recognition are:

... blogs who receive this award are exceedingly charming. This blog invests in the PROXIMITY in space, time and relationships. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that even more friendships are propagated". The award recognizes the quality of the person writing the blog. I consider your blog to one of the best. You take the time to provide enjoyable tutorials. You are a giving talented person and I decided other people should know!

The Noblesse award is presented to bloggers who display consistency in any one or a combination of these conditions:

1. The Blogger manifests exemplary attitude, respecting the nuances that pervades amongst different cultures and beliefs.
2. The Blog contents inspire; it strives to encourage and offers solutions.
3. There is a clear purpose at the Blog; one that fosters a better understanding on Social, Political, Economic, the Arts, Culture and Sciences, and Beliefs.
4. The Blog is refreshing and creative.
5. The Blogger promotes friendship and positive thinking.

The Blogger who receives this Award will need to perform the following steps:

1. Create a Post with a mention and link to the person who presented the Noblesse Oblige Award.
2. The Award Conditions must be displayed at the Post.
3. Write a short article about what the Blog has thus far achieved- preferably citing one or more older post to support.
4. The Blogger must present the Noblesse Oblige Award in concurrence with the Award Conditions.
5. The Blogger must display the Award at any location at the Blog.

Nancy's arts and crafts is about creativity and making crafts. I try to research "how to" tips and give credit back to the people who have also found ways to use their talents in cooking, reading, crafts of all sorts, and artistic endeavors. I like to research the internet and give references to websites that are meaningful to the referenced subject.

Examples of some of my recent posts incorporating the above criteria are:

how-to-knit-moebius-scarf
paper-beads-used-in-earrings
how to make beads-and-sequin-ornamental balls
art-in-eye-of-a-needle

Thank you so much, Swapna and Cathy, for the awards. The deal is that I may now share the honors by linking to a few other interesting blogs. Just copy the pictures of the awards and pass along according to the rules to play in blogland. I'm passing the awards along to the following blogs written by the thoughtful, talented people:

freeprintablefun (Jamie Sue)
my_little_orange_kitchen
Cast-on blog
Mama Flo's

You Said Visiting Santa Would be FUN....

This morning I was reading blogs and came across Linda's Season of Life message and got a kick out of her memorable old photos of past Christmases with her kids and Santas.

It spurred me on to get out a picture taken of my older daughter Julie back in 1973 with a Michigan mall Santa.

Questions pondered over the years: Did Santa have a bit too much alcohol, and more than enough children that day? Answer: Yes

Isn't that picture priceless? It probably traumatized Julie for a lifetime. She does not see much humor in that picture now, but it has given me many smiles over the years.

One of my brother John's favorite irreverant films about Christmas is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I love this scene:

This Blog Promotes Mom-preneur Shop-a-Thon ! (moms who are entrepreneurs)

As a regular reader and contributor to The Tip Junkie, I came across her 12 Days of Christmas Give Away and am sharing what she has to say.

It's not too late to list your blog/site/shop in the directory. It’s easy! Just register and fill out the form to add your link. Each listing is only $5.45 and will be promoted until Jan. 1.

Disclaimer:
Only women are allowed to list their stores/blogs/sites in this Mom-preneur Shop-a-thon. I reserve the right to delete any stores that are not family-friendly or who are not owned and operated by women. No refunds. Need Help? Contact the Tip Junkie

This holiday season, the challenge is to buy your gifts from women & fellow bloggers. To help bring you some amazing products and gift-giving inspiration, Tip Junkie is hosting a Mom-preneur Shop-a-thon. I am so excited about our “created by women” holiday season. Your friends and family are going to be blown away by your thoughtful gifts this year! Please support these women with your orders, visits, and by blogging about your favorite products. With so many struggling with the economy, we have the combined power and influence to make a difference in these women's lives and give their families a wonderful holiday. All while enjoying their fabulous products in our own homes and those of our loved ones. {{hugs to all who participate}} Please note: most of these products are hand made and will require extra time for shipping.

So don’t delay and start shopping!

How to Get Free Pictures

Guests for Dinner

Just a Bunch of Clips

I just found out about a great website where you can obtain about any type of photograph you might want. This site is especially useful for bloggers looking for images to perk up their writing (remember the old saw of "a picture is worth a thousand words"). The photos above were grabbed from this free site.

Here is the website: Acobox. Just register with your name (and website, if applicable), and thousands of pictures are yours, royalty free and you do not have to worry about copyright infringements. Cool!

Thanks to busybeevillage for the heads up on this free service!

Vintage Patterns & Prayer Shawls Made From Quilts

One of my favorite weekly emails is from Debbie Colgrove, a sewing whiz with a company which someday might rival Martha Stewart, if given the right opportunities.

Here is what Colgrove said today:

I have a gazillion patterns.... so many that it's usually easier to glance through pattern books and buy a new one than it is to try and find the pattern I want...

And who hasn't wanted to go back in time and retrieve that classic pattern used years ago?

There was one particular dress pattern my SIL Charlotte and I used until the pattern was worn thin: that of a long jumper dress.

So I went on a search through vintage patterns on the internet. There are many listed websites for vintage patterns, but the site where I purchased this pattern from was Old Patterns. This is the pattern I purchased:

My favorite is the jumper displayed in the middle of the photograph (it uses 4.5 yd. of 45" fabric).

Reading emails and others' blogs is dangerous to my personal economy, but I did pick up another thread of conversation from the Colgrove email that was a link to a book titled Prayer Shawl Quilts.

This book piqued my interest, so I went to my blog sidebar (see the little picture of the book with AMAZON printed on top of the box) and ordered the book. It should be here by next week.
Making prayer shawls through the knitting and crocheting method is a lovely sentiment; the time requirement is intensive. My daughter Julie (in a nursing home and due for another surgery on Nov. 18) is always cold, so using quilts, blankets, fleece and other warm materials to make washable shawls for her will be my answer to keeping her cozy while in bed.

And I can sew prayers for her comfort into the shawls, as well. Look for a report on the book Prayer Shawl Quilts from me soon.

Free Backgrounds for Blogs: "Cutest Blog on the Block"

Wow! I got a facelift for my blog and it was FREE, PAINLESS, and actually quite a fun experience.

This site, called The Cutest Blog On The Block, has so much variety and choices that it will be hard to keep one blog style for long.

If you visit this site and decide to use one of the backgrounds, be sure and change your template to "Minima" so that your posts will go in the center of the formatting. Otherwise, the words shift to the far right and are difficult to read.

Kudos to this site for my new facelift!

Notes on Palin's UpDo Hairstyle

I've been curious about Sarah Palin's hair style. Did you notice that soon after the GOP VP selection, and when was starting receiving national media coverage, her bangs got a new slash cut? I did! Naturally, I wanted to figure out how she arrived at her current hair-do. Dumb me, I always thought women of a certain age did not wear their hair long....well, she does not! She keeps it up, usually.

But, wait, let's see what others think about Palin's new (old) "do":

The Roots of Sarah Palin's Hair talks about

… the iconoclastic updo of our favorite she-mav, Sarah Palin. But the true story of that hairstyle's humble beginning will move you.

According to The New York Times, "The ballerina-pink Beehive, in a 1,400-square-foot ranch house, is a cut-and-color shop. A haircut is $30, discounted to $20 if you get the $95 color treatment. In a downstairs nursery, the stylists’ babies play with mannequin heads. In a phone interview, Mrs. Steele, 37, described a kind of “Steel Magnolias” on permafrost, featuring Ms. Palin as a recurring presence."

What follows is a heartwarming and utterly pointless tale of one woman and the fact that she has a hairdo: "With more established salons throughout the valley, the Beehive would seem a surprising choice for Wasilla’s then-mayor. Mrs. Steele started the salon in 1997 when she, a recently separated mother of two, put a salon chair in her garage and painted the interior Barbie pink. The two experimented with full bangs, side-swept bangs, clips, curls, twists and blond streaks.

So that is how she and her hairdresser arrived at her look. And I would bet that when she is back on her home turf in Wasilla, the Beehive is buzzing with activity, including Palin's being there for a touch up.

You might enjoy this blog "Are You Having Trouble Understanding Sarah Palin's Hairdo?" It is complete with pictures that are worth a thousand words. Catch it here: Althouse Blogspot. (By the way, Althouse has taken a vow of cruel neutrality.)

Personally, I can’t wait to see Mrs. Palin’s hair put up in a French roll. Remember those?

However she styles her hair, I like her!

############################################

Now, for the next thought: Marie at Knitted Gems (a daily read for me) was sweet enough to mention my blog as one she recommends. She gave me this award button:

(Can you see me blush? Thank you, Marie!)

Now it is my turn to chose seven other blogs which I enjoy reading. It seems unfair to pick so few, but in no particular order, please go check out these blogs and have an enjoyable read from these lovely lady bloggers:

We Do Not Have A Knitting Problem

Giggle Face Studios

Lovely Sweet William

Imminent Metaphor

Little Orange Kitchen

Grace Beading

Loopy Lou's Adventures Into Handicrafts
and even though this makes eight:
Cindy Lietz' Beads

Blogger Follow Feature

Blogger is rolling out some great new features. Not available to everyone yet, mine just came available last week. "Follow" is a new feature, you'll see it on my left sidebar. If you're a regular reader, just click on 'Follow this blog" and your icon will show up once you confirm.

Also, there is a list of blogs that you follow and you can import those from your Google Reader or enter the url's. The list of blogs that you follow will show up on your dashboard below your list of blogs. Here's a blog post explaining Blogger's new features.

Etsy Blog Carnival: Brothers Then and Now

This month's Blog Carnival on Etsy, All Things Handmade requires that all Etsy bloggers submit an article on one of two subjects. The subject I chose to blog on was a childhood memory.

Many of my memories revolve around my brothers, Mac and John. Here they are back in the 1950's and a current picture is on the right.

This is one of the few photos where Mac, on the left in both photos, was pictured with a hint of a smile on his face.

A clear memory was when John buried some coins and a scarce dollar bill (maybe more?) in an empty mayonnaise jar. For years, and even into his adulthood, he tried to dig up those coins, but could never find them again. He even used a metal detector as recently as in the past decade, but alas, no jar ever was re-discovered. As far as I know, he is still on that treasure hunt. Is there a parallel biblical story here about hiding his talents?

If anything, it reinforced the teaching of using one's talents for the good of others. Both brothers are now generous men in many Godly ways, and I am proud to be their sister.

Tag: You're It!

I was tagged by Giggleface (Tracey) and am passing along the game to six other bloggers.

The rules of the game are:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you
2. Mention the rules on your blog
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger's blogs letting them know they've been tagged

Here goes with six unspectacular quirky things about me:

1. I like reading favorite authors’ entire works ( i.e., P. Gregory, J. Picoult, C.S. Lewis, etc.)
2. I can only eat corn on-the-cob which has been sliced OFF the cob by a knife
3. Crafting projects go in stages of months or years, then picked up again at a later time (knitting, sewing, painting)
4. If I had to make my living by my art, I would have starved many years ago
5. I hold only one grudge; all else is forgotten because of my bad memory
6. I think my husband and brothers are the greatest things since the invention of fat-free coffee additives and Maxine.

So here are the six bloggers I have tagged:

1. Knitted Gems (Marie)
2. ritazramblez (Rita)
3. Dragonfly Crafts (great background of dragonflies)
4. Apronista
5. SweetWilliam
6. The Felt Mouse

Read their blogs; creative souls writing there!

Blog Search

Yesterday, I went on a Blog Search and found a blog relating to one of my leisure interests. Lo and behold! I found that NeverADullMoment is having a contest. I responded to her request and sent her my calendar picture for June (a picture of a Tuscan Courtyard that is printed on my daily planner: see below).
Her blog is: "A place for knitting, stitching, quilting, rugrats and insane husbands". I came across it in a blog search using the word "knitting."

Reading the musings of others is fun, and I always pick up new ideas from crawling over different blogs.

It is interesting to observe others' calendars and see what they enjoy glancing at for a whole month...sort of a mini-intrusion into their thoughts. Voyeurism? Probably.

We'll see who wins the contest in a few days.

How to Get Your Own Word Cloud

The above is my "Word Cloud" generated free of charge from Snapshirts*.

You can get a word cloud generated from your personal blog or a blog that you like simply by clicking on "Custom" at their site (ignore the $18 fee unless you want something printed up using your Word Cloud). This company scans words from the url of the cited blog and alphabetically, but randomly, prints out selected words in different sized fonts.

It made me realize that the specific words in my cloud accurately express my interests since I frequently penned those highlighted words in my blog theme of arts and crafts.

For grins, I also tried out the url site of my husband's blog. And yep, but of course, his word cloud reflects what he thinks and writes about. I had to laugh, though, at some of the generated words he would not like to shout out to the world ("liberal" and "Hillary" to name a few). It got me thinking about other people and what their word clouds might look like...you get the drift.

And what do YOU mostly think about? What would your personal Word Cloud say? Pondering that thought might save you years in psychotherapy.

Snapshirts* even lets you "DESELECT" generated words, allowing for substitutions. What a kick that could be to start off with Snapshirt's selected words, and then come up with your own set.

I wish them good business off their innovative approach to the blog world; they certainly got a couple of my bucks.

Knitting Socks, Self Patterning Yarns, Blog Searches

I am excited about learning how to knit socks on circular needles. Tomorrow is my first class at the Tangle yarn store in Grand Junction, CO.

Take a look at the well organized Tangle website. Lots of classes are available for beginning knitters. Note the beautiful yarns, also. I had little trouble in finding a couple of skeins that just begged to be in lap and under my eyeballs for a few days while knitting socks.

Here is a picture of the colorful SELF PATTERNING yarn that I purchased for this sock class project:

What exactly is self patterning yarn? A bit of information from The Boston Globe explains it thusly:

self-patterning yarn is (sic) dyed at intervals so that different colors and shapes emerge automatically, without your having to change yarn or, really, do anything but sit there and mindlessly, happily knit.

Along with the advent of the self-patterning yarn, which arrived in American stores about four years ago, have come new techniques in sock knitting, using circular rather than the traditional double-pointed needles. The two developments have given new meaning to the phrase "foot fetish," sparking interest in both beginning and experienced knitters.

Stripes, zigzags, dots, Fair Isle patterns, or random smudges of color emerge effortlessly from under the knitter's fingers in a hypnotic progression, and the choices are nearly infinite.

A detailed blog site from a woman in France who wrote about her socks on April 3, The French Knitter, is fun to browse. Also, the Loopy Ewe has a complete site and shows fun socks on her April 2 posting. She even mentions Colorado. That is my residential state, and it was fun to read about her adventures in the car while traveling. And I found many more knitting blog sites by performing a simple Google blog search.

A quick lesson on performing a Google blog search for yourself:

1) open up the Google toolbar
2) look to the upper left; click on the MORE tab
3) scroll down to BLOGS and hit ENTER
4) type in your blog topic in the open window bar (example: “socks”)
5) All blogs recently written with that term (socks) in their headlines will be displayed.

If you are an experienced knitter and do not need instructions on making gussets, you might want to try making some socks without a teacher at hand. This link will take you to a free socks pattern: Socks

You can bet I will show you a picture of my finished socks in the near future, dropped stitches, warts and all.