MAGPIE'S MUMBLINGS

A blog about my interests, which include fabric landscapes and various and assorted other artsy pursuits and sometimes known to contain mumblings of a random nature.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

# 4





This one is much larger than I had hoped for, so I think I will end up keeping it for a new knitting bag.  It's far too large to be useable as a purse or even an everyday tote.  Having said that, I do like the colour combination I came up with and I think I will be repeating that on another bag in the future. 

The pattern is the 'Go Green Shopping Bag' by Kristi Holaas and for the life of me I can't remember where I got it.  I think it was a free download from Ravelry.  My apologies to Kristi for my lack of memory!

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Bag # 3


This one is from the pattern 'B-4 Bag' designed by Trish Bloom.  I made a couple of minor changes on this one, but basically stuck to the original pattern.  For some reason my handles turned out much 'skinnier' than the pattern shows. 

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Bag # 2





This one is the 'Americana Tote' (with some revision by me) taken from the book 'Pursenalities - 20 Great Knitted and Felted Bags' by Eva Wiechmann.  It was fun to make and I know I will do this pattern again at some point. 

I also have the 'Crocheted Pursenalities - 20 Great Felted Bags' book by the same author but have yet to play with any of those patterns. 

If you're interested in the books here are the specs on the knitting book:  ISBN 1-56477-565-8, published by Martingale & Company, c2004.  The crochet book:  ISBN 978-1-56477-750-8, also published by Martingale, c2007. 

Monday, May 28, 2012

As promised....

Today I will begin a short series of posts (which may, or may not, be interrupted with other things as I go along) showing you what I've been spending my evenings doing over the past while.  These knitted (and felted) bags are destined to be gifts - most probably for Christmas.

Here is bag # 1, which is probably my favourite colour combination of the ones I've done to date...

The pattern is the 'Southwest Style Bag' from a Patons booklet called 'Fabulous Felting'.  I made a few changes, namely by replacing some of the bobbles with beads - I found doing bobbles to be difficult with arthritic fingers. 

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Sanity day

Yesterday we took what we call a 'sanity day' and got in the car and went where it took us.  We ended up in Parry Sound, but on the way we lucked out and found an absolutely beautiful water wall in a small town called Bala.  Needless to say we took lots of pictures!

 Above is where the water first began to drop from the top level.  The sound and fury of the water was incredible. Below you can see under the bridge through to the upper level.
 The picture above was taken facing downstream with the main highway bridge above.  We then crossed the bridge and got the photo below, which was the final level before reaching the lower lake. 

Bala is a very small town but their main claim to fame is for the Cranberry Festival they host in the fall.  We're hoping we'll be able to go back then.   All in all, a beautiful day!

Thursday, May 24, 2012

TUSAL and mumblings

I know I'm a bit late in posting my TUSAL (Totally Useless Stitch A Long) for May, but better late than never...right?

 Above is the rather mediocre gleanings from the past month - obviously not much stitching was done!  Below is my jar of ORTS as it looks with the latest addition.
Go HERE to find out what this is all about!


- below is a gorgeous photo of Stewie, who was visiting along with our #2 son and DIL.  He is actually a Serengeti cat, long lean and full of muscle.  



 


Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Sad day, and flowers

This morning we said goodbye to our #2 son and our daughter-in-love and they left to drive from Ontario to British Columbia where they will be taking up residence.  There were tears. 


We will miss them tremendously.

- - - - - - -

On a lighter note,
they gave me this....

.... a belated Mother's Day present.

Now I just have to read up on how to look after it!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Blog break

I'll be taking a few days off from blogging because #2 son and our daughter-in-love are here for the last time before they move out to BC.  They'll be leaving on Monday and I already know it will be a sad day!

Feel free to chat amongst yourselves while I'm gone.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Our neighbours

Jack has been out playing with his new camera and he
took pictures of our neighbours...



Friday, May 11, 2012

Stitching

After leaving my comfy-cozy bed this morning at the unheard of hour of 4:30 am  in order to pick up my S-I-L from her medical appointment, it was nice to spend the afternoon sitting with my stitching.  I completed the next block for my white project and right now it's damp stretching.  Thought I would show you a close-up of one area...

In the centre is a covered button that belonged to my grandmother I think. 

Perhaps if you click on the picture below you can get a sense of how big our baby crows are getting.  They're doing their flight exercises and it's getting harder and harder for them all to fit in the nest.  


Thursday, May 10, 2012

Mothers day came early!


Look what I just got for Mother's Day
from my DH!!  I was wanting a plant for 
the corner of our balcony and he decided I 
'needed' this. 
Aren't I lucky?
Please don't look at the peeling paint -
we are told that will be fixed soon!

And...
while we were at the nursery,
we got this....

A very healthy and already in bloom
tomato plant.

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

The answer

Here you go, the answer to the big 'what is this' question of yesterday....it's a potato!  We ate it for supper and it was good and so sweet to have heart shaped slices of potato on our plates.  So romantic!

Monday, May 07, 2012

Mumblings....

I've actually been doing some knitting, and some stitching....but I don't have a single thing ready to show you.  Our baby crows are now flexing their wings and looking very much like they might topple out of the nest as they balance precariously on the very edge.  The parent birds are certainly getting lots of exercise bringing them food.

Today I started another huge project I've been procrastinating on.  Some of the long-time readers of this blog might remember me typing and having published the daily diaries of my great great grandfather which I finished a couple of years ago.  Since then I've been mustering my courage to type the diaries of my great uncle (son of above-mentioned gr gr grandfather).  These start in 1899 and most probably run for between thirty and forty years.  Lots of typing!!  The current diarist is a whole lot more 'wordy' than the previous one so I think I might end up having to break them up into two books.  It's fascinating, but tedious to spend so much time typing!

And....
what do you suppose this is?


Thursday, May 03, 2012

Nests

First of all, DH got a new digital camera last weekend and we've been playing about with it - definitely a huge learning curve.  It certainly has a lot more bells and whistles than my little one does! 

We have been lucky the past week or so to be able to watch a nest of baby crows in the tree outside my studio window.  The babies are getting to be quite a size and pop up with their mouths wide open hoping for food every time any bird flies near.  I think there are three babies.

See?



Wednesday, May 02, 2012

What`s for dinner and White

On the weekend we had visitors!
Our number 2 son and our d-i-l
and their cat, Stewie,
were here.

Unfortunately he moved before I could get a decent picture!
We had just finished supper and he was sitting there
every bit as if he was looking for his.

AND...
I finished another of the blocks for my white cloth!







The embroidered flowers at the bottom of the upper picture were done by my grandmother and came from what I would call a `tea cloth`.  The cloth itself was pretty worn so I didn`t feel
sad to cut it up.
The crocheted pineapples on the upper left came from a dresser scarf and I`m not sure of the origins of that.