Hexis again!

I am back to knitting little hexis

although I am going about it VERY slowly.  My students are amazed that these are so small and they are also amazed at how they are knit.  I can see them wanting to keep going and learn new things!!

I have been reading the Narnia series to my kids a chapter a night, every night.  We are now on the third book and they look forward to it.  I look forward to it also - a time to snuggle and enjoy them.

Please click on the links on the sidebar to see the other fabulous things crafters are up to.

Sewing Hexis Together

I can't believe I waited so long to sew these things together!!  It really is not that hard - these are only sewn on two sides, but as I add more above and  below, I'll catch in the sides that are left open.  This row of 18 only took about 30 minutes!  Ok.... talk to me in a bit when I have sewn 200 and still have more to go :o)

 This is the book I am reading right now.  Almost finished (boy am I a slow reader - not really, but I don't get much of a chance to spend time reading so it appears that I am slow!).  I love Robin Cook and our library just got this in a few weeks ago and I have taken a small break from the homesteading books.

I'm sharing with Tami, Ginny, Sara, and Nicole and Tuesdays Gone.

Weaving & Reading

These are placemats hot off my smaller loom.  They need to be cut apart and then they need their hems.    There is even a potholder in there!  I love weaving!

 Still reading this book.  I am thinking I was made for a bigger plot of land and a more simple life.....this totally appeals to me.....growing most of my own vegetables and fruits, having a few hens for homegrown eggs....of course I would need to be vegetarian because I would never be able to eat the pets :o)

I have several more books like this that I took out from the library and am enjoying them greatly.  I have all kinds of things growing.  I found this great site called Sprout Robot where you plug in your zip code and it will tell you what you can grow and when to start - so cool.  I now have more seeds to start growing!

Take a look at Tami and Ginny's blogs to see more great things people are working on.

Works in Progress

This is some of my current knitting (in addition to the hexi puffs!)

 In true fashion, this little scarf came with me on my vacation and stayed put in the bottom of my knitting bag.  Well.....by the time we came home, the needle had fallen out of the stitches and a few had unraveled - this particular scarf is now in a pile of things that need to be "fixed" before I can continue with it :o)  The books are all about homesteading - they have tons of great information on growing your own food and creative ideas of how to do it in relatively small spaces.  I am totally enjoying them.

 A few weeks ago we moved our patio table and chairs to the front of our home.  We created a little barrier/wall with half wine barrels and now have a very nice place to sit and eat our meals.  You can usually find us out there for lunch and dinner.

 Each barrel holds a different vine/bush - we have Bougainvillea, Red Raspberries, Blackberries (which have tons of fruit and the kids keep eating them as we walk by) and a Pink Jasmine.  When they have all grown in, it will offer us a little more privacy.

 In each barrel, near the front, we have planted carrot seeds - just around the perimeter of the front half.

 Hopefully we will get tons and tons of carrots.

 And....more carrots :o)

 This is our little plot on the side of our driveway.  There are two crookneck squash, two zucchini, one eggplant, one artichoke (that I don't think is going to make it), two celery, and the rows have more carrots.  Can you tell we love carrots??

 The celery is being grown from the bottoms of celery that I bought at the grocery store.  Another pinterest idea.

 These are potatoes.  I researched growing potatoes from potatoes that had been purchased and there were basically two schools of thought.  The first was to put the potatoes in a bucket and cover them completely with soil, then let them grow.  The second....

 was to cut them in half (or several pieces) and lay them cut side down in a deep planter.  As the greens grow, keep adding soil until the level of the soil reaches the top of the planter.  I am conducting an experiment on which method works best.  Will keep you posted!

 Yet another idea I saw on Pinterest - a salad table.  I truly didn't want to build something as big as was shown in the picture, so I just got another long planter and planted all different kinds of lettuce.  In just a little while, we should be able to pick our salad for dinner each night.  How cool it that?!

 We have one raised bed in the back yard and I kind of went crazy on what I decided to plant out there. Who knows if everything will grow and give vegetables.  Above is corn.

 Tomatoes and beans - you can't really see the beans.

 Green cucumber, yellow cucumber and a volunteer pumpkin plant.  There is also a pepper plant up there at the top right.

 Our one lone pumpkin.

Our first beans ever from our garden.  Can't wait to cook them up!

Please head on over to Tami and Ginny's for more works in process!

Hexi Puffs on vacation

We have been on a fabulous 15 day vacation.  It was so relaxing and fun1!  We drove all over Arizona, Utah and Colorado visiting Native American Ruins.  What a learning experience for all of us!

 With all that driving and hotel time, there was quite a bit of time to knit.  I chose to knit hexis because they are small, easy to do and I have the pattern memorized.  I also need close to 600 of them to make a blanket so I was hoping to make a dent in what is still necessary to knit :o)

 After our first leg of our journey - these are what was finished.

 This is what I knit somewhere in the middle of the journey.

 And here they are in total - I think there are 41 - not too bad for 15 days of work!  :o)

AND...this is the book I am reading right now.  I am trying to grow quite a bit more of our vegetables and herbs - even thinking about chickens.

See more cool stuff at Tami's and Ginny's!

Fish Blanket

I've been working steadily on putting the Fish Blanket together.

 All the vertical stripes are done and now it's just a matter of crocheting the horizontal stripes.

 Still a few rows to go, but mostly done.  A border will need to be added as the ends do not line up as neatly as I had hoped.   I'm not quite sure what type of border this needs or even what color.

 My favorite fish.  I love the fun and happy color of this one!

 The back of this blanket along with the book I am currently reading.  I am almost done with it and have enjoyed it immensely so far.

A close up of how this method of attaching pieces together looks on the back.   Kind of reminds me of Frankenstein!

Look over at Tamis's and Ginny's for more yarny type fun.

In Progress

These are all my hexis.  I started "puffing" away at the first of this year and told myself I would not count them until this bowl was so full I couldn't add anymore without them falling out.  Boy has it been hard not counting them.  In the beginning, for the first couple of weeks, I did keep a running tally in my head.  But as the weeks went by and I kept losing track it got harder and harder to figure it out.

 The time came as I tried to add this weeks hexipuffs to the top.  They wouldn't stay!

 I dumped them out - don't they look fun, all piled up, their colors so random?  I am reading that book right now - I love murder mysteries and this one sure fits the bill.

The kids helped me to line them up and count them - 97 hexi puffs so far!!  Pretty darn cool!

See more Wips at Tami's and Ginni's.