New infinity scarves in my Etsy Shop

Today, my hands were too sore so I decided to pull out my sewing machine and start restocking my Etsy Shop "Calicreative"

Www.etsy.com/shop/calicreative

Christmas day in our house...

Right, it's Christmas Day and I had these great plans to work on my poppies wall hanging, relax etc..but...nope, not yet so far.

Since we moved last month into this apartment, I kinda put some in places and said to myself that I would make it work better soon. Well, today was the day!

I was so fed up with looking at some bags with fiber in the dining room that I knew that I didn't have any space in the guest/design room to put it. So the only solution to put my mind at ease was to tackle this problem right now big time! This includes moving furniture, reorganizing the transparent big plastic boxes (in the hope some will end up being empty LOL) etc...

First thing to tackle was to unpack the 3 piece large bookcase in the guest room...ugh...I moved the 2 side pieces by myself to the dining room but I needed my hubby to help me with the big piece that goes in the middle. That done, I had to reorganize the bookcases and walk back and forth with stacks of books from one room to the other.

In the mean time, my hubby and the dog decided that they would be better off to go have a coffee at Starbucks instead of staying around in the house...:) which was fine with me! More "freedom" to move things around and less watching out that I don't trip over the puppy. He likes to know what's going on and check everything again which is very challenging to not step on him.

Now 5 hours later, I am kinda satisfied with final looks of the guest and dining room. Let's see if it's also pratical in the next few days. Here is the (temporary) end result picture:

We didn't exchange gifts this year because we decided that moving back to living at the beach was our Christmas present. It's so good to be back and being able to hang out with friends, visit the beach and enjoy our lives out here. I am pretty sure that our puppy Dr. Snuggles thinks the same.

The Verizon Unit (cable/internet provider) is still peeping it's head off since Christmas Eve, screaming that it needs a new battery, that will be fixed hopefully tomorrow by one of their tech guys that will come out and fix it.

From all of us here:

Have yourself a merry little Christmas...

First of all, I like to say to everyone and your loved ones:

 



 

 

 

So we have that out of the way :) let's get back to creating beauty again...

Besides that I love fiberart, I also love sewing. Not so much clothing but quilts/wall hangings etc., smaller projects so I don't get bored that fast :)

Today I went to Joanns since I have this poppies wallhanging quilt in my possession forever and the Christmas coupons from Joanns made it possible to buy the materials.

It was published a while ago in Sewing Savvy 2008 (discontinued) but if you are interested, thanks to the internet, you can still buy the pattern here for $3.29 free shipping PDF file.

So with the batting I already had in my stash, these are all the materials you need besides some embroidery floss (yellow) and your sewing tools.

• Top green is for the backing
• Dark green is for the outer border and binding
• Yellow is for the inner border
• Off white with a little gold in it is for the background behind the flowers
• And the two packages of yellow/red and light to dark green are for the leaves and poppies.

 

So this is what I am going to be busy with over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Most likely I will not finish it in 2 days but that's ok :)

 

Again, Merry Christmas everyone!!! Be safe!!! xoxo

 

NEW SEW ALONG and update on Christmas lights CAL

I have been contacted to hold a sew along here on my blog.

And since I have been looking around to start sewing again without starting on a whole big quilt...

I just want a small project but easy and useful I came up with this.

 

The idea is to do a sew along with MUG RUGS.

What is a mug rug?

As it says, it's a "rug" for your mug...like a blown-up coaster.

You can do all kinds of things with sewing/quilting techniques to your mug rug to fancy it up!

 

Well, it requires probably me writing a tutorial soon to show you how easy it is. Yes, pictures included but I have to go dig up my fabrics and see if I have to go "shop" to be able to make some.

 

I don't wanna get in trouble with ownership of certain pictures so you Google "mug rug"

or just click here for examples.

 

* * * * * * * * * *

 

Next thing on my list:

 

the daylight pic of the Christmas lights CAL

I think it looks great!!! :)

 

 

* * * * * * * * * * *

 

I had so much spinning around in my head to share but I am probably too tired cos I can't think of it now... :)

Well if I do I will write another post again soon, sorry

 

But do let me know if you want me to post about the mug rug tutorial!!!

 

 

I finished the CAL for the Christmas Lights and much more...

Okay, here we go....

 

TAATAAAAAA...I finished our CAL today and it's hanging from my covered front porch/entrance.

Simple, easy and fast crochet project to whip up in a few days. Don't forget it is PERFECT to use up those small amounts of yarn that we all have laying around somewhere...

FREE Pattern by Jean Herman

 

 

My friend Tina finished hers too and send me a picture to share. Thank you Tina for sharing!!!

I love hers too, such a rewarding instant Christmas feeling these lights...

 

 

We picked up our first white (flocked?) Christmas tree ever and we love it!!!

BEFORE:

 

 AFTER:

 

 

 

Now I am in the "Christmas" mood :)

 

 

And like I asked in my previous blog post that I was looking for ideas for my windows for you all? Well I got what I wanted...so many responses and emails with pattern (links).

Finally I decided to make the ones pictured below for the kitchen windows.

Pattern is free from Bernat

I will start them soon and I will keep you updated!

 

LOL

 

 

 

Almost done with my Christmas Lights CAL...

Today I have planned, in between errands and wife duties (laundry, cleaning etc), to make the "cable" for the Holiday Lights from Jean Herman's free pattern that you can find on Ravelry and hang them by the entrance of our front door under the covered porch :)

 

It's so great to see that a lot of you joined this CAL and I am looking forward seeing more pictures showing up in our Ravelry group.

 

And we have to start looking into our next January 2012 CAL/KAL.

 

Before I forgot someone asked me if I would consider doing a SAL (Sew Along) too...

I think that's a great idea so some of you can take a little break in between our CAL/KAL/SAL.

 

I made an adjustment to the pattern by crocheting the connectors on the lights instead of making them seperately and sewing them on later. I just dislike hand sewing...LOL

 

12 lights with connectors:

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I met my knitting/crochet group at Starbucks for our weekly get-together to have this time a secret Santa game. And yes, they stole my presents twice but I got to steal back and ended up with a little Christmas sock (see pic below).

Below is a picture of all the Christmas ornaments that were made for the Secret Santa game: 

 

 

 My Secret Santa Christmas Sock ornament:

 

So this was it for today...I will be diving into finding new patterns for our projects so we can start voting :)

Still I hope I am not boring you all with my blog...

 

Again a beautiful day in my life...

This is the view from my window where I write on my computer the blog posts almost every day. It's in the guest bedroom where all my fiber is stashed in boxes too. Little cramped since I still have to organize it from the move. I know it's been a month but still I like to "live" too and enjoy my life here :)

The beach is only 3 blocks to the left and about a 5-10min walk. We have a doggy beach here too and our puppy Snuggles loves to race next to the boardwalk in the sand to the puppy beach.

 

 

 

Here is the little sand monster (Dr. Snuggles) in his doggy sweater (it's only 55F degrees today), watching the birds at the beach

 

See in the sand NOT on the boardwalk cos you don't get dirty (sandy) on there...LOL

 Here we are on the way back from the doggy beach...

the pace is much slower cos he's getting really tired...little "strikes" every so now and then or as we call it "flat tires" :)

 The locals are playing beach Volleyball so the puppy had to watch for a few minutes :)

 Another beautiful view on our daily beach walk...

Here is a picture of the few homemade blueberry muffins left of this morning...wow they go FAST!! I don't think they will last till tomorrow...hahaha

 

 And a little puppy fight with my mummy on the guest bed...puppy life is soooo COOL!!

 

 This picture I took last night after he walked his last round in the rain. Asked to be put on the bed and dug himself a cozy warm spot under his blanky, while I was reading my book (Nora Roberts - The Search)...

 

So this was a little story about my day, now I have to get cozy and work on our CAL (Christmas Lights string)

I have so far 10 light bulbs ready and I want to do a few more before I start on the connectors and the "cable"

They look so pretty...what do you think we should do at our next KAL/CAL for January?

Crochet Along Christmas Lights update

Today I went to Starbucks for my daily coffee fix

I could feel yesterday that I must have forgotten my coffee fix since my speed of moving around was like ZERO. So today that had to be on my schedule LOL

I took our puppy Snuggles to the veterinarian Monday for his Bordetella shot and today the vet calls me to check in if the puppy is doing fine. How nice is that?

Meeting with my knitting/crochet group yesterday was fun as usual and we are doing a Christmas ornament exchange on Sunday so more fun is around the corner

It’s hard sometimes to slow down and enjoy being retired but more and more I’m allowing myself to relax and do the things I love the most besides taking care of my hubby and puppy.

In a few hours I will be attending another yoga class at my local gym.

So back to last night: I managed, between the laughter and talking, to finish 3 more light bulbs for the CAL.

So here they are:

 

The total light bulbs I have ready is NINE!!! Woohoo!!! I wanna make 2 more and than I will start making the connectors and the “cable”.

I hope that you are enjoying this CAL as much as I do but don’t forget to share your string of Christmas lights too!

How about we do every month a project KAL/CAL? You will have a whole month to finish it

Help me with ideas for patterns crochet or knitting….just leave a comment with a the link to the pattern you would like to see as a KAL or CAL.

Next one will start in January and I will post the pattern link last week of December so you have enough time to get your materials together