Saturday Afternoon Balloon Fest

Just sharing more hot air balloons from The Great Southeast Balloon Fest. Thanks to Froggie for the phone call to say they were up...we would've missed the whole thing! Less than 10 minutes after the call and they were already landing. There's always tomorrow. :P

Three getting ready to land next to the parking lot of Food Lion. It was pretty cool to watch. I had never seen this many balloons land so close to each.

We thought this one was too cute. Click to make 'em bigger....two teeth holding toothbrushes.

These almost passed directly overhead. I thought it was a pretty interesting angle anyway.

This is the one I got in the photo yesterday that was too dark to see. He was almost too dark again today. The sun was going down and making it hard to get good shots of the ones that actually got close to us.

Another silhouette...I love these. This one looked like a plaid design. I have to admit...not my favorite. It looks a lot nicer this way. :P

Hope you're all not getting bored with balloons. We love watching them and we get them here at least once a year. The kids really enjoy it and so do I. Maybe some day we'll hitch a ride in one.

Hugs!

The Great Southeast Balloon Fest

I just wanted to share some photos from this morning and yesterday morning. This weekend...our little town is hosting The Great Southeast Balloon Fest. They have competitions for the balloons and there's also musical entertainment, food and fireworks. It's family friendly fun for the weekend. Who doesn't love to see a sky filled with hot air balloons?

When I took this photo this morning...I intended to delete it later. I thought it was definitely the worst one yet. Once I opened it up...I changed my mind. I really like that little bit of sun reflecting on the side. I think it's actually my favorite now. :P *You can click them to make them bigger*


This one was just pure, dumb luck. Yay! I caught the balloon with the state logo on it! A few more seconds and he would have been gone behind the trees.

This is my best one from yesterday. The sky was really hazy and this one just happened to be crossing almost directly overhead. I had to pull the car over to get it but luckily there wasn't much traffic out here.


Another one from yesterday....hazy sky. It isn't a very clear photo but I like that there's a group of them together. This morning the sky was better so I'm hoping that tomorrow will be even better still. I'm hoping to get out and snap some more photos when they go up again but not sure that's gonna happen. I think the kids will enjoy seeing them too. They've been in school when all this is going on. They did get to see a couple this morning but the majority of them don't pop up until after they've gotten to school.

Hope you enjoyed the photos...just wanted to share. Now back to the knitting.

Hugs!

My First Sewing Project

As promised...a day late....my "new" sewing machine and my first sewing project. First off...my cute little machine. I have him in his own little corner with enough space to do my small projects. If I ever get brave enough to try something big...we got problems. :P

I really like that it's smaller than most machines I've seen. It doesn't take up as much room which is good because I don't have lots of room to spare with a house full of kids. lol I haven't played around with all the settings yet. There are so many different stitches to try still.

Some photos of my first project. It's a little bag with a wrist strap. It's not quite finished yet since I need a zipper and the one I had was much too big. I'm going to try to get one today that will fit so I can get it done.


Here's a photo of the lining. I am so excited. I lined a bag! How awesome is that!? Lucky for me, I have my Mom close by to yell for help if I need it. She made sure I understood what I was going to do but she told me she was leaving me to it unless I called for help. The best way to learn is to do it yourself. Trust me....come zipper time...I will be yelling for help. :P


I even did the square bottom on my bag! It's a bit crooked on one side but I'm still proud of it. Not too shabby for a first time bag maker I don't think. I think it kinda looks like one of those brown paper sacks.

I have a pattern printed out to make bags from old pillowcases and I want to try that one next. I need to go thrift store shopping and see if I can find some decent pillowcases. Hopefully I'll find some cute prints or bright colors to play around with. Recycling is a good thing. I don't know how good I'll get with it but I think I'm gonna like this sewing thing. :)

Now, I gotta go finish a little bag I'm knitting and get the little man's pool/beach bag done. He goes to the beach next month so he's going to be needing it.

Hugs!

Dish Rag Tag

I'm late posting again...nothing new for me lately. :P I was tagged second on our team for the Dish Rag Tag. The box took way too long getting here. I received it, finally, on Friday. I knitted like a crazy person to get it done and back out on Saturday morning. We have to live up to our name....Phaster Than Phelps.

Here is the box with instructions, pattern and my goodies. The candy is gone...was gone before I finished knitting my cloth to put in the box. I love my cloth that was knitted my tagger...Susan in Tx.

Susan sent me this cute and useful button. It has instructions on how to do Kitchener stitch. Awesome! I've haven't seen any of these around here and I do like it. I'll keep it handy for sock knitting. :)

She also included these beautiful stitch markers. I love them! I love the colors! I used them while I was knitting the pattern for the Dish Rag Tag. :) You just can't have too many lovely stitch markers.

The box is off again and on it's way to the next stop. I totally forgot to take a photo of it going into the post office. :P I sure hope it travels faster this time.

I've done no knitting at all for two days. I have a stinking cold again and it's not even winter yet. Spent today feeling kinda yucky so to cheer myself up...I set up my cute little sewing machine and played around with that for a bit. I just need one little thing to finish off my first project. I'll post some photos tomorrow to show it off. It's a little rough but I'm pretty proud of it anyway.

Hope you all had a great weekend.
Hugs!

Springtime Baby Blanket

I finally finished my Ravelympics project. Woo Hoo! I originally planned to do two but decided against the other one since things have been so crazy around here. All these sicks children have really stressed me out. I think it's time to take a break.

This is my Springtime Baby Blanket. I knitted it with I Love This Yarn in Orchid. I used a US Size 10 needle to give it a bit a drape....baby blankies should be soft and cuddly. The first photo was taken inside and it's pretty true to color.

This photo wast taken outside and you might need to click it and make it bigger. Yeah, the blanket isn't properly blocked but you can see the design pretty well when you enlarge it. :p
I've put it up for sale on my Dishing Knit Out blog and also on Ravelry for $3.00.

Sick update....Ms Thang had a stomach virus and strep throat...she's feeling much better now and goes back to school tomorrow. Skaterboy has a pretty bad ear infection but is also feeling much better today. He's going back to school tomorrow too. Mama needs some quiet time!! It's impossible to relax when the kids are sick.

Still waiting on my Dish Rag Tag box. I've been tagged already but the box isn't here yet. :( I am so ready to get it knitted and sent back out. I want my team to win this thing!! My team is Phaster Than Phelps.

Hugs!

Lots OF New Happenings....

I haven't posted in a while...lots of happenings going on around here. We're busy right now "sharing the love"...by that I mean...passing around some nasty bug. The little man had strep throat was and so sick but he's feeling better. I had a stomach virus and now Ms Thang is taking her turn with it. Her fever keeps spiking pretty high...up to 103 at times so I've been busy trying to keep it down and watch her closely for any changes...good or bad.

I haven't gotten much knitting done the last day or two but this is my progress so far on one of my Ravelympics projects. It's a baby blanket of my own design. I hope I get some time tomorrow to knit on it since I do have one more project to do for the Ravelympics and I am so afraid I'm not going to make it to the finish line with both of them.


This is the other new thing around here. I found out about this from a sweet new friend, Shawn. She is also deaf and asked me if we had one of these. I had never heard of it so she pointed me in the right direction. It took less than two weeks to mail in the application and someone to show up at my door to install it. It's a Sorenson Video Phone for Ms. Thang to use to make calls. This thing is AWESOME!! It hooks to the computer through a router and then displays on the television. She can use it to make phone calls to anyone...anywhere. They have interpreters for making calls to those who don't use one or who are hearing. It has a camera and she sits in from of the TV where the camera is located and signs her message to the interpreter who in turn voices the message to the hearing individual. If she calls someone who also uses the device...they simply sign to each other using the camera...kinda like a webcam but on the TV. We're pretty excited about it. Just knowing she can call 911 if she needs to is a huge relief to me. Shawn...if you happen to read this...THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!


This gentleman....and I use that term loosely :P....is Shirl's son Will. He loves to give us a hard time about knitting and how we are killing the poor sheep of the world. I don't think he believed I would post this photo so ... HA! I posted it!! He actually did knit a row too.

Okay, I am off to try to get a little knitting done. Oh, how do you like the new blog design? I need to work on the sidebar a bit...hard to see some of the words. Hopefully I can fix that...I really like this new look.

Hugs!

*edited to add....tweaked it a little....I think you read the sidebar better now. :P*

Dog Days

I thought I would do a little update on the "baby". Now I should say "babies" as you'll see later in the post. :P

This is Maggie when we first got her. She's about 4 months old now and she is a big baby. Not just big but pretty rambunctious and much too active to be a "house dog". We spent the day Saturday making her a place outside big enough to get some of that energy out.

Here she is with Skaterboy enjoying her new home. They raced back and forth so many times....she kept trying to "herd" him. lol He even tried to fake her out and get a head start but she's pretty quick and she caught him almost every time. She's a husky mix...not sure what she's mixed with...she would make an excellent farm dog. It was funny watching her try to herd the boy.

Posing for the camera. She's so funny. Check out those ears. lol I'm not sure what's bigger...the ears or that tongue!

This little fella is Maggie's new baby brother. Is he cute or what?! No name just yet...still trying to figure that out. He's a chihuahua/shih tzu mix. A little fat roly poly baby. He's eight weeks old and so sweet. Maggie wanted to say hello but he was not interested. Maybe later when he's more comfortable here.

A little close-up of the adorable face. He mostly just sleeps but he's spoiled rotten already. He wants to be held all the time and refused to sleep alone last night. He's claimed a blanket and a spot on the couch. When no one is holding him...that's where he insists on being. Hopefully these kids will decide on a definite name for him soon.

Hope you're all having a great weekend. The weather has been nice...not too hot for a change and we enjoyed our time outside yesterday. It's still extremely dry and we're heading towards mandatory water restrictions. We desperately need some serious rainfall here.

Off to do some knitting on my Ravelympics projects. I don't want to get behind and not finish them.

Hugs!

Dish Rag Tag: The Sequel

I made it into Dish Rag Tag: The Sequel. I had heard of the Dish Rag Tag but really didn't know what it was about. Toni sent me a message and gave me a heads up so I hopped over to check it out and decided it sounded like fun. If you're curious or possibly interested on joining the fun hop over to Yarn Miracle and read about it and sign up if you'd like. There's plenty of slots left right now.

*edited the links...should be working now. Thanks!

Hugs!