Kousa

Happy Spring/Summer! It's been such a long time since I posted anything but I got inspired by this beautiful tree. I've been looking at all the kousa dogwoods and they're all nice, but this one is amazing - covered with flowers!

Thanks to Sarah for taking the pictures and inspiring me to blog again.  (No one can keep up with her :-)

Flood Stage

Here's a little river in the center of Dover.  This is what happens when we get 3 days of rain.  I can't complain - I missed most of the rain but I got to see this.  It was roaring!

The rivers are wild all over southern New Hampshire. It's getting to be a regular thing every spring. 

I heard peepers for the first time this year on my way home tonight.  I love that sound.  Happy Spring!

Dad's Kindle

I was thinking about this for a long time but I finally made up my mind to get my father a Kindle for his birthday.  He likes it - doesn't he look cool reading it?

It's pretty fun - now I have to make up mind about buying one for myself.  I'm really tempted :-) 

By the way, can you see that cool case on the table?  It's temporary but I bet it's one-of-a-kind!

Happy Spring

Here's a nice way to celebrate spring.  Make some beautiful, delicious marshmallows.  Here is the recipe.

Katie made them and I cut them.

Don't they look good?

Bruno and his toys

This is inspired by Bruno's cousin Emily. If you click on the link you'll see that they really do look like cousins.  He loves his toys too but he doesn't sleep surrounded by them. He prefers to lie down on top of them. His toys are a lot smaller than Emily's and his attention span is a lot shorter than hers. He looks like he could use a good brushing!

January

Here's how my house looks now - a fringe of long icicles. When I open the front door some of them snap off. I have to watch out they don't fall on me.

The other day I was emptying out my lunch bag when I got to work and I couldn't figure out why everything was all wet. Then I found two little icicles at the bottom. They must have fallen in when I wasn't looking. It's a new way to refrigerate your lunch :-).

I hope you're having a happy winter!

Some of the projects

Here are some of the projects I've been working on, mostly for Christmas presents. I actually started pretty early this year but of course I was still doing a few at the last minute. Well, there are a couple that aren't done yet, but they're coming along.

I made this wall hanging as a project for a quilting class. I really liked the design so I wanted to try it.
Here's the finished penguin. He looks a lot better with his face. I think he has a big nose. Chris has a penguin collection so when I saw this pattern I wanted to try making it for her.

I made these holiday cats for Earleen. Last year I made her cats for the seasons but she needed some holidays to provide some variety. I hope you can tell which cats are for which holidays.

I had lots of fun making this hat for Raf. He picked out the colors. It's called Urbanista. I liked it because you knit it sideways - something different.

Sarah and Katie both work in cold offices so I made them some fingerless gloves.

I made this double-sided cable scarf for Nathan. It was a fun pattern. I think it's nice and thick and cozy.

I also experimented with another hat pattern. It came out bigger than I expected but I think it fits Nathan pretty well. It's really warm. The pattern is called Tychus.

Here he is wearing both the hat and scarf.Here's a string grocery bag I made for our yankee swap. It got swapped quite a few times. I don't know if that's good or bad. :-) It matches Sarah's sweater ball but they're going to end up in different places.

After a few freezing days in Boston I decided to make a new hat for myself. I wanted something that was loose enough so I wouldn't get "hat head." I sort of thought this would be a little floppier but it's pretty good. It doesn't squish my hair anyway.
There are a few more things that I need to get pictures of, so more to come later...