Cardiac Collage, Toilet Paper Advent Calendar and Christmas Quilt

Cardiac Collage is coming along.  I played with placement today, thus the delay in getting my post typed.  8 squares/rectangles done, 9th one started.  Need to think a bit more about color now, as I'm out of some of the colors, and am still wanting to spread the color.  There's so much give to the squares, I'm currently thinking 9 squares will do it by the time I get them edged and attached and then a border of somekind.

More ideas of what you can do with your toilet paper rolls.  I think the advent calendar idea is pretty cute.  You could paint each roll, or cover with paper (construction paper or wrapping paper), to make it less brown and dull.  Cut cardboard to fit the ends.  Glue one then fill with trinkets, gum,candy etc, attach the top so it can be easily removed.......I won't be doing this, have no little ones at home or grands...but I think a pretty cute idea.  What say you?

One of the Christmas Quilts I've made.  This one for my younger brother's wife.  She has a huge Christmas Village she puts up every year so thought this fabric was perfect.  I am not a "real" quilter..I mean I don't do special cuts or traditional designs or have a special machine etc.  I just find fabric I like, tear or cut pieces and stitch them together.  Then quilt by going around the designs.  She puts this quilt out every year.  I think Christmas is at her house this year...from memory anyway.

Cardiac Collage Afghan, Peruzzi Leather Purse, and Toilet Paper Rolls for Halloween

Cardiac Collage got a vacation while I was tarveling recently in Italy.  But, there is now the beginnings of the 7th square so it's coming a long.  Whether it will end up being a 9 square or 12 square ghan remains to be seen.  My current plan is to make 9...see how I like it and whether adding more to the existing squares or adding more squares is the way to go.  Since this is without a pattern....it truly evolves.  Once completed it will be donated through my charity, Bridge and Beyond to benefit the Homeless.

What's a trip without souvenirs?  Not sure I'm able to answer that question.  I'm a person who dislikes buying purses.  They either all look the same, are too big, too heavy, or too expensive...or don't have good pockets or something.  For years, I had stopped buying leather or pretend leather purses due to the weight on my shoulders and got "into" Vera Bradley's cloth purses.  But, while the prints are fun....they almost always clash with what you're wearing.  AND the particular style I liked they stopped making.  Florence, Italy is known for fine leather goods, hand crafted, durable, fashionable etc.  Guccio Gucci was a Florentine.  Even in antiquity, leather making was a big thing in Florence.  In part, because of the Arno River.  Tanning leather was a messy job, and a smelly job.  Lots of water was necessary in the process of doing the work and in cleaning up afterwards.  Peruzzi has been making fine leather goods in Florence since 1948.  I love this purse, it's not heavy on my shoulders, it's not large or small..a good inbetween size.  The strap is very adjustable to be a cross body or over the shoulder.  Italy has been the #1 country on my bucket list, so was pretty excited to travel there.  Been blogging about it with lots of pictures on my travel blog.  Traveling Suitcase.  Come travel virtually with me.

AND, yet another idea for you with re-using, re-purposing, and re-cycling your toilet paper rolls.  Just in time for Halloween.  Isn't this a cleaver idea!  Those of you with your children at home ought to get a kick out of this.

Recycling, Fire Starters and Your Lint

Hello Readers!  I've been away on a marvelous trip to Italy for a couple of weeks and so, haven't been blogging.  I'll be jumping back in, but do have some catch up around here to do.  Took me close to an hour earlier today to open and sort the mail.  Am always amazed how much mail you get...even if you've got bills set up for automatic payment and do things on line.  Once I got done with that, I had several inches of paper to put in the re-cycle bin.

The picture above is yet another idea of ways to recycle your paper toilet paper rolls.  You're suppose to collect your lint from the dryer, and stuff the lint into the roll (tightly).  One set of directions says to melt wax and pour in while the roll is standing up.  Wait for it to cool, and flip over and pour wax into the other side.  Again let it cool and store in a zip lock bag.  The gentleman who has video's out there telling you this, says they'll burn about 20 minutes...that's certainly enough time to get a fire going inside or out in your fireplace and or while camping.
**Also found a video from a woman who didn't add the wax (assume her's wouldn't burn as long).  She the wrap the rolls with newspaper (a way to recycle it as well), and using twistie's that she had plenty of wrap the two ends.

There's been no more knitting since the last post, so no new pictures to show you there.

Recently read this book on my Kindle while aboard the plane making my way to and from Italy.  Read part on the way over and finished on the way back.  Everytime I thought it would be a story of human triumph......Bothersome because it's a true story.  I can't decide if I liked it...I don't generally like things that are bothersome and unresolved.  I'm trying to decide if I'll read the 2nd book called Amelia's Destiny.

I'll be updating my travel blog soon with information, pictures etc from my recent two week trip to Italy.  Swing by for a visit, Traveling Suitcase

Cardiac Collage, Toilet Paper Rolls, and Island at War

Cardiac Collage a few days ago, when I thought I would get around to writing a post and didn't.  Bottom left square needed, as you can see a couple of inches on the top to fit and then the block above it needed ends tucked and some additional knitting on the outside edge.

Here it is more recently.  Took this photo last night before bed...and the colors are a tad off cause it wasn't very light in the room, and I tried to adjust in the photo software.  Bottom left block completed with the couple of inches it needed to fit.  And now you more clearly see how much is needed for the outside edge on the upper left square.  Plus I turned the top left square and think the colors are better that way to balance out the lights and darks.

Island at War, a very interesting series I highly recommend.  It touches on England's failure to recognize the importance of the geographic location of The Channel Island's leading up to War.  It deals with occupation by the enemy, The Germans on this small island community and how differently families copped.  It deals with the problems of being the occupying enemy.  What's the saying, all's fair in love and war.........maybe not in reality.

The Island was fictional in the series, called St. Gregory; but the stories are real, a combination of stories from Jersey and Guernsey Islands.  The filming took place largely on The Isle of Mann.

You may recognize the lady above as one of the primary characters from Downton Abbey...and Jammie from Outlander, though in a much smaller roll.

And here is a colorful idea for re-pursing toilet paper rolls.  Not sure how easy it is to cut the slices you need to turn a toilet paper roll into a lantern.  Not sure I think this is one of the better ideas, but I guess if you were decorating for a childs party it might be cute?  I think these are colorful, just not sure how easy it is to accomplish and whether it's worth the time to paint them, or cover with paper?  What do you all think?

Pasta, Poppers, Toilet Paper Roll, and Cardiac Collage

I love lite pasta dishes.  I love that you don't need lots of ingredients, and that you can do almost a one pan meal in about 15-20 minutes.  Onion, mushrooms sauteed, add fresh cut up tomatoes (these are homegrown from our neighborhood market), a handful or two of mix salad greens...lightly stir, add al dente pasta ( I like the very lite angle hair for summer).  Blend, add olive oil if it seems to dry (though usually the tomatoes provide enough liquid or almost enough.  Season with fresh grown pepper and Italian cheese of choose.  

Poppers.......another idea of what to do with your empty toilet paper rolls.  Aren't they pretty!  Fill them with candy, trinkets for youngsters.  I also think you could wrap some gifts this way. Jewelry for example would work...maybe not all jewelry, but rings, some necklaces and bracelets, pendants.  Some hair accessories would work also, ribbons, barrettes, pony tail clips.

Sorry the pictures are out of order.  Here's the meal on the plate from the stove top view you saw in the first photo.

 Cardiac Collage continues to grow, both in the number of colors used, as well as in the number of squares, and the size of the squares/rectangles.  Below picture is quite crooked.  Squares aren't perfect, but they're not as crooked as they look in the bottom picture.  The square pictured on the bottom is the largest.  I like size of it, and will probably add a edge here and there to others blocks to make them close to the same size.  The two most recent colors added are:

The blue and the brown seen in the last square.  Can add a bit of those colors to already existing squares, but don't want that to always be the colors on the edge so won't add it to all.  Will start another couple of blocks with those colors.  The peach color is retired, all out of that, and close with the darkest purple and one of the greens, so need to mix these blocks up to have colors throughout.

Cardiac College, The Great Train Robbery...Toilet Paper Rolls Again

Cardiac Collage is growing.  Got 6 blocks, or parts there-off done.  Managed to tuck some ends after this photo was taken.  Surely don't want to wait til the end have a ton of them to do at one time.  The arrangement above isn't what it will be, I can see there's no orange in the 2nd row, so need to mix that up a bit, and there's no dark dark purple in the 2nd row either.  It's good to take pictures along the way to see, study the color combinations and balance there-off.  

Didn't find just a picture or poster of the move, but did find this video.  This is a two part story.  Part One is the story from the criminals side of things.  How they planned it, who was involved and their mind set.  Part 2 is the Scotland Yard perspective and how ...one by one, they got them.  Some arrests were pretty quick, others took a while.  This is a true story, so found the whole thing fascinating.  This is one hubby chose, he's not watched any of the others I've posted.... He likes more action stuff so this worked from his perspective.  I highly recommend this.

More, what to do with your toilet paper rolls.  I didn't find this particularly interesting or creative...after all we can make yarn balls without using the toilet paper rolls, or we can wind into cakes if we have winders...but, one thought came to mind with this method.  You could slide these over a paper towel dispenser (at leas the type with a rod), and your yarn would unwind nicely while you knit or crochet?  Perhaps I'll give it a try.

LOl....well, just thought this humorous ditty worth a share. 

Afghans, Shawls, Toilet Paper Rolls and Ladies in Lavender...Oh MY!

Cardiac Collage is coming along, it's growing both in numbers of pieces and size of the pieces.  You can see some irregularity in shapes due to some slightly different texture with the various yarns...one problem when you use bits and pieces.  But, I think when things are pieces together and playing off each other...then it get's laundered and blocked, it will be alright.  I'm enjoying the pieces parts, the mish mosh look to it.  The irregularity to it, speaks to cardiac events. (participating in Slow Sunday Stitch, see blog badge in right side bar--yippee, haven't been able to participate for several weeks, and just realized, thought the link is correct and the badge is correct, I've been referring to it as Slow Stitch Sunday...oophs)

I mentioned in my last post (please scroll back if you missed it), things you can use toilet paper rolls for.  Mentioned that I had saved several pictures of things that seemed like a good idea to me....but, could only find one (the bird seed thing in the last post).  YIPPEE in a totally unrelated file I stumbled onto some of the other pictures I thought I'd saved.  And, this is one of them.  Depending on where you live, this isn't one you can do much with now...but come next Spring.  Now I didn't read the article about this idea, but think...once you start the seeds you could plant the whole roll? Vs having to to try and remove the seedlings?  Thoughts??

Been awhile since I've posted about another enjoyable British series or movie.  Since I've been able to be a bit more active, less sitting and icing...equates to less watch my ipad.  That, and I was out of town for two weeks.  I had started watching this several week prior and just now got back to it.  Finished watching it last night.  Sweet sweet movie.  Very enjoyable, but than what's not to like with both Judi Dench and Maggie Smith!  Highly recommend this.

For my cross stitching friends.  A gift I made long ago for a shower gift.  Long enough ago, pre-digital, so this is a scan of a an picture, thus the quality is lacking.

Headway, even if minimal with my drop stitch (elongated garter stitch) shawl.  You can see the two cakes of yarn are basically the same colors but different intensities or different levels of how vibrant the colors are.  I think it will be an interesting look.........at least I hope so, as the fiber was $$$$$.  It's super soft, fingering.  The lighter version is BAAH New York, (Island Sorbet) 400yards, (100% SW Merino) the darker version is Swanky Sock 378 yards (10% cashmere, 10% nylon and 80% superwash merino Magpie, a local in the Park City area from my understanding.  You can see the pattern beginning to show with small drops, than larger drops...light and dark.  You can also the dreaded needles I moan about in the last post, Loops and Threads.  See how the cord won't lay flat at all...

And more importantly look at the significant bump where the cords joins the needle.  Horrible things.  Happy to say it's knitted off those needles onto the wonderful ChiaoGoo.......what a difference.  No bump to work over and the cord does NOT coil.  Worth paying twice as much.  Note to self, that's a mistake you don't repeatl

Home Again with Yarn and Needles, Don't buy Cheap Needles!

Isn't this a cleaver idea?  Spotted this and some other ideas the other day for how to use/re-use toilet paper rolls.  I thought I'd saved about half of them, but when I went to look for them, they weren't in my files.  I tried doing this while out of town using my ipad...and always seem to have issues with stuff when I don't have my trusty computer.  It's simply rolled in peanut butter and then bird seed.  Tie it on a tree or slide it on a branch.  Birds don't need this right now, but come winter, might be nice.

This is a possible layout with blocks from my start with the Cardiac Collage AFghan.  You'll remember I started this sitting in the ER while hubby was having a Cardiac Event.  No real pattern....amounts of color and size vary.  I want it to be very sporadic looking.  I've got 2 other sections started, but they didn't make the picture....And, as time goes on this may not be the arrangement, but you get the idea.  The smaller squares (15.5 x 11.5 so far) were easier to tote on the plane on my recent vacation, as well as the sitting at the hospital.  Then I can put them together.

A wee start on a shawl with fingering weight yarn and size 4 needles.  I had the yarn with me, but didn't have the right size needles so bought some at Michaels....horrible things they are.  Loops and Threads.  They were cheap and the join from the needle to the cord is horrible.  I had to really coax the yarn/fiber across it with my finger nail.  Didn't get very far before I decided I really needed better needles.  This was my first attempt at elongated garter stitch (wrap and drop).  Hard to see in the picture but there are several rows of single wraps and drops and then 2 wraps and drops  to give it a light airy lacy feel and look.   Next picture will be after purchasing nicer needles and actually being able to knit comfortably.

Now home, and am once again working on Jeweled Lines, the last section so picture of completed ghan soon.

Added some notes about luggage and packing cubes on my travel blog, Traveling Suitcase, if you'd care to check it out.  Our trips was 2 weeks at Park City, Utah.  More to follow there.