Pressed Leaves

Until this year I never knew that I hadn't experienced a real fall season. In Wyoming the leaves go from green to brown, then get blown off of the trees. That all happens in the span of about a week. It's pretty much the same in Colorado and Montana.

Well I've got to say our first fall in the Pacific Northwest was amazing! The leaves turned so many different colors: red, pink, orange, rust, bright yellow and chocolate brown. We took several walks around the neighborhood to look at all of the color. To our amazement the leaves stayed on most of the trees for atleast a month, and some even still have their leaves. There are so many trees here the ground was just carpeted with color when they started to fall off.

On one of our walks we picked up some different leaves and pressed them in the phone book. Finally got around to taking them out last week to see how they turned out. They kept a fair amount of their color, so we put them in floating frames so that light could get through.

Christmas time

I've been doing a lot of work trying to get Christmas presents done, and of course working on some other projects. Right now I'm working on a throw pillow, for some reason I'm obsessed with the idea of having a couch full of pillows. I've also made a few coffee cup sleeves that I will get posted soon, I just have to go get a coffee, so I can get a picture of them.

In the mean time I'll share some of my Christmas decorations. I don't really decorate the whole house for Christmas, but we will actually be here this year so I wanted to do something. We still have our tiny apartment sized tree, which I will be replacing before next year I hope. But this year we do have a fireplace and mantel, so that was exciting for me.

I'd seen glass ware filled with ornaments on Pinterest and loved the way they looked. I almost want to leave them out year round. My mom made the chain of bells for me a couple of years ago. I usually put them on the tree, but the mantel was looking kind of bare and they're so cute and colorful I decided to use them as a garland on the mantel. Also before next year I hope to knit some stockings for us, the store bought ones just aren't doing it for me.

This is my favorite ornament. My sister gave it to us for Christmas 2009, which is the year Josh & I got married. I wore white Chucks for our wedding, so this ornament was just too perfect!

Husband Beanie

Well I've gotten my second (for the public) pattern up on ravelry. I've decided to call it Husband Beanie, since it's more universal sounding. Plus when I was looking for a pattern for Josh's hat I totally would have looked at a pattern with that name. Josh picked out the yarn, go figure it's grey. It's Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash Wool.

The sun was in his eyes, and apparently made him a little
cranky. I got one picture where he looks super p.o.'d
and he's looking directly at the camera, but I've been
forbidden to post it. (It's hilarious though!)

It was a gorgeous day here yesterday (and it is again today, yay!). We went for a little drive to this scenic outlook, and then went up to Nooksack Falls on Mt. Baker. You can see Mt. Baker in the photo, it's the snowiest peak on the far left.

Kind of hard to believe it's December.
I love the weather up here!

Nooksack Falls

Been trying to come up with a new idea for a pattern, but I think that well is dry for the time being. Guess I'll have to finish some of the projects in my bin...

PICC line covers

When I was in the hospital a few years ago I had to have a PICC line put in. Now it definitely wasn't the most pleasant experience in the world, but it sure did beat getting poked repeatedly in the same spot. To cover the tubing coming out of my arm, they gave me a flimsy gauze sleeve which functionally did the job, but did nothing to hide it. Now that's all well and good in the hospital, but I still had my PICC line when I went back to work, and people commented on it constantly. Anyone that's been in a similar situation knows how annoying that is. Well today on ravelry I found this great pattern for a PICC line cover. Just a simple knitted tube, but holy cow would that have been nice to have! This is a great way to use that leftover yarn, I'm definitely going to start making these. They would also be cute with stripes or cables to make them a little fancier.

Here is a website with some more information about these http://findingjennproject.blogspot.com/2009/02/original-picc-cover.html

It does look like the website is a couple years old with no recent updates, so if you're planning on doing these you might want to check with a hospital about donations. For CF specifically you can visit http://www.cff.org/ to find a CF center near you.

Whew

Been juggling projects these last few weeks, but I've gotten quite a bit done. I finished my Hermione Hearts Ron hat. Turned out really cute I think. I really liked the yarn I used (even though I may be slightly allergic to Alpaca).

Used Cascade Yarns Alpaca Lana D'Oro

Really like the way this hat finished off!

I also got Josh's new beanie done, which I'm working on writing up the pattern for. Thought this one turned out pretty well too. Hopefully he'll wear this one! Should hopefully be getting this pattern up on Ravelry here in the next week or so, after some careful double checking of the pattern...

This one is Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash

In between hats I started a scarf just as an easy project while watching tv at night. This will also be for Josh. Got the pattern from Ravelry, it's called a waffle scarf.

Patons Classic Wool

Wow my last few projects are lacking color! Will have to something bright for my next project. Also I found out that my Alaina Beanie pattern had a few errors, so I got those changed. Guess that's about all, I have a bit of a headache so I'm not feeling to chatty today.