Thursday, November 22, 2007

80th Birthday

Here's our grandson, Josh, helping me present Great Grandpa Lorne with a Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cake in honor of his 80th birthday, this past Saturday. There were 13 of us, including the new baby, on hand to help Lorne celebrate his birthday... 4 generations were represented at the table ... how special.

We feasted on baked ham, scalloped potatoes, pineapple sauce, salad, prawns and loads of raw veggies and dip until we were absolutely stuffed! Even Great Grandma surprised us by having seconds ... but, she saved a bit of room for the ice cream cake, which was very yummy! We were to also have a fruit platter, but I didn't discover I'd forgotten about it until after everyone had left ... classic me!

I'm currently 'miffed' with my knitting project (a cardigan) ... it's a Debbie Bliss aran pattern which called for aran tweed, but I subbed cashmerino aran. I had 10 balls, and by the pattern (& my) calculations, I should have only required slightly more that 9. Well, the back and two fronts are done and I'm 3/4's through the sleeves and I'm down to practically nothing yarn-wise. I guess I'll have to take the sleeves out, speed up the increases and have 3/4 sleeves, instead of full length. I'm not in the mood to deal with this right now, so I've tossed it in my basket and am doing my best to ignore it. Yes, I've already contacted the store where I purchased it to see if I could get 1 more ball in the same dyelot ... no go ... :P*******

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Creative DNA

There is definitely an artistic or creative gene that runs in our family. My dad is so amazingly talented, it's scary. He learned how to be a 'joiner' or finishing carpenter, as a young person in Scotland. He always had a project on the go around the house, either furniture or some kind of home improvement, and it was always done flawlessly. When he retired, he was looking for a new hobby to fill his time, so he took up wood turning. Within three years, he reached 'Master' status and took third place in North America in a local competition. Since then, he's been published in a British wood turning magazine, sells his pieces to folk world wide and is highly respected and renowned in the wood turning world. Apparently, Diana Krall has one of his pieces!

He loves to come into my workroom and see what I'm doing and to see if anything I'm working on would cross over into his world. I was showing him a card making class that I was putting together, using Basic Grey rub ons for embellishments. He wondered if they would work on wood, so I gave him one to try out. Here's what he came up with ... it's called a Japanese Wish Pot and it's stunning. It also helped me with my course, because I could show yet another way to use these fabulous rub ons.



Dad also made me a few gorgeous shawl stick pins, so now not only does his craft have a correlation to scrap booking, but also to my other favorite thing ... knitting! I once needed size 25mm needles to do a mobius cape and couldn't find them anywhere. So, I went to the hardware store and bought a 25 mm dowel and took it over to Dad. He cut it, put it on his lathe, made a point at the end and then capped the other end with an adorable hand made wooden button. Ta-da! So talented

He gave us a scare this week when he needed to have another angiogram/angioplasty done, with a new stent installed in his heart, but all is well and he's back home, feeling great and thanking God for His goodness to him. Love you, Dad!

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Pumpkin Day

Here's our little 'pumpkin' wearing his new hat for the occasion. He's up to 8lbs. now, and 6 weeks old, so the newborn sized hat from "Itty Bitty Hats" now fits him.

Grandpa was working from home and took some time out to snuggle with Ethan when he and his mom popped in for a visit. Brinkley wanted in the picture too, to show off his costume!