It's Always Saturday

she went to bed after 11pm, then woke up at 3am, and again at 5am...
we opened presents at 6am, she couldn't wait any longer

Oh my stars... can you feel that full body releasing stretch from head to toe? It's coupled with a big old yawn and in a minute or two there will be a big sigh too. What a lovely (yet weather-wise, ugly) few days its been. We haven't had a lick of snow, and the sun has shown for all of 10 minutes. I think we entered some sort of strange time continuum. Every day is feeling like Saturday and no matter what time it is, it never feels like the time that the clock says it is.



he was the hardest to wake up, and decided to take up the whole couch.
he is taller than me these days.

 I'm sure you know the feeling. (Not the feeling of having a 14yr old taller than you... ignore the captions, they don't go with the text.) I imagine the sensation of time crawling and flying at the same time will last straight through the new year, at least for us. Not a single one of us has a single have-to-do commitment until January 3rd. That means random little projects here and there, watching lots of movies we have missed renting, unexpected gatherings with visitors, sleepover parties, too.many.sweets, complete overhauling of bedrooms to make way for the new gifts, several visits to drop off donations at Goodwill as a result, a few more sweets, going to bed early and sleeping late, ignoring the beeps from our cell phones, keeping the Christmas tree up all week despite my usual need to take it down the very next day, a party or two, and oh am I being nagged by the desire to knit and there is a total lack of projects before me!  See... it is your typical Saturday, all week long.

about a bazillion apps at the touch of your finger...
haven't decided if that is a good thing or bad thing yet. he has had his new pjs on for 3 days.

Needless to say, my time here will be spotty throughout the next week. I am sure once things return to normal in our home, it will get back to normal here too. I always feel like this time of year isn't for blogging anyway. You should be loving your family, not reading stuff from me. So... turn that computer off, grab another sugar cookie, and start a game of Monopoly with someone. Though, don't ask me to play, because it is the only game I won't play with anyone in this house. They all cheat and won't ever trade properties with me.



Wishing You The Merriest Of Holidays and a JOYOUS New Year...
with love from The Bogerts.

Boo's Bunting

For Mom

I am betting my Mom isn't going to visit my blog today and thus I feel safe risking her seeing her Mother's Day gift early. She asked for something special this year, and I was very happy to oblige. Mom asked me to make a photo/frame collage with images of parts of the kids. Sounds strange at first, but she has held and loved them since birth and swears to know every inch of them by heart. She wanted something to capture the growth and their being right now.

Here are a few of the images I took and how the collage came out...

I think she'll like it! This really didn't take much time at all to make so there is still time to make one for your Mom. I bought the frame at Target and was able to use their Kodak kiosk to print the images. Makes for a wonderful keepsake, don't cha think?

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY LADIES!!

She Gets It

This past weekend, Lauren was quite the Christmas Elf. She has been working for weeks on handmade goodies for each of us, and had one last gift in mind for Daddy. While he was out on an errand, we pulled out the sewing machine, and tada... he has a bag to take treats to work in. She was a baking fool too. She insists on doing everything... rolling the dough, cutting it, putting it on the cookie sheet, and despite a very tired Momma wanting to go to bed, we were frosting cooled cookies well after bedtime. And truly, is there anything better than dancing by tree light?

These are memory making moments. I hope to hold onto them, year after year, and I hope she does too. Her brother broke my heart the other night. We were talking about gift giving, and how all the gifts currently under the tree are handmade. I asked him what he was making. He asked if I would take him to the store to buy gifts. Again, I said, make something. He said he would rather be given a candy bar than a drawing on a piece of paper. Oh how mad/sad/disappointed that made me. Tell me it is just because he is 13. Tell me he will come back round to appreciate the things we make for each other. Until then, I know she gets it.

Christmas Eve Morning

Momma-made gifts under the tree... Santa doesn't bring those ones.

Mission Accomplished

EEEEKKKKKKKK!!! I did it!!! I finished Jacob's Christmas quilt and with time to spare. I am so so excited about this and I can't wait to give it to him Friday morning. I ended up making it much smaller then I thought I would. It is just a bit smaller then twin size. Perfect for keeping him warm while playing video games or reading a book. EEEEKKKKKKKK!!! Did I mention I am excited about it?!?

More Than I Can Chew?

In yesterday's post I mentioned that I would talk more next week about Jacob's Momma-made Christmas gift. That was the plan anyway... I was going to start it next week and thus blog about it. However, last night, I started doing the math for his gift and had a mild panic attack. I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this one. Let me tell ya about what's going on...


If you have been reading for a while now, you might remember that Lauren and Andrew both received quilts for their birthdays this year. You might also have noticed that I didn't get around to making one for Jacob. I had way to much on my plate when his birthday rolled round, and although I had terrible guilt over it, I promised myself that he would get one for Christmas. Well, obviously, it's Christmas and the boy needs his quilt.


I bought the fabric a while back, so I am all set there. I am using an Anna Maria Horner Palette Pile with lots of yellows, greens, and blues, with some browns too. I hemmed and hawed for a while over the pattern I would use and finally settled on a String Quilt with help from a tutorial on Film In The Fridge. I started drawing a little diagram, and running the numbers... I need to make NINETY SIX squares to get the size I want!! OH MY STARS!! Those 96 squares become 24 larger squares that make up a really cool diamond pattern... but dang, it is going to be a ton of work.


So I am scrapping the mental timeline I initially had set for this project and making it my top priority. I cut all the fabric this morning and started piecing the facing together. I am about 20% of the way done with that. I may decrease the number of total squares so that it is 20 total blocks instead of 24, but we'll see. I won't be able to work on it again until Monday, since Jacob will be home all weekend. I hope, hope, hope to be able to finish the facing by Monday... or lunch time on Tuesday at the latest. Then, I will make the quilt sandwich on Tuesday.


Then... I gotta spend Wednesday and Thursday doing book club stuff. You know, the cleaning and the cooking. Eeekkk!! Friday, I can start the actually quilting and hope to have it done by next Monday (the Monday before Christmas). I am getting tired just thinking about it. Good thing I have most of my other handmade gifts finished already!!

Christmas Crafting

With last week's book contribution deadline behind me and the dining room project squared away, I have jumped head first into my Christmas crafting. For the past few years now, I have made an effort to hand make something special for each member of my family. The is Ron, Jacob, Andrew, Lauren, Mom, Dad, and Sister. I never officially take "The Handmade Pledge" that everyone talks about in the crafty community because there will be plenty of trips to Target in my near future, but still everyone gets *something* made by me.

Since learning to knit two Christmases ago, the ideas for things to make have really expanded. I mean seriously, how many pairs of homemade pajama pants does one kid really need? It is wonderful to have other options! Like sweaters, and hats, and mittens, and cowls, and now... SOCKS!!

I attempted to knit a pair of socks once. It was about 2 months into my knitting career, lol, and I totally sucked at it. When I would knit on double pointed needles, I would get ladders in the spaces between the two needles. My alter ego, Carrie, that likes things to be perfect couldn't stand those tiny little gaps. So, my one sock was ripped out and the yarn given to my knitting guru, Lindsey, and she knit my socks for me.

Fast forward two years, picture me and Lindsey and some other ladies sitting in the Barnes and Noble cafe after yoga last week. Lindsey pulls out a ball of yarn and in about an hour she has whipped up about 4inches of an ankle of a sock to be knit for her Dad for Christmas. The yarn was a heavier weight, not sock yarn, so it was a quicker knit. And the pattern was simple and quick to memorize. Although my alter ego was telling me "no, Kerry, don't even think about it... you get ladders when you knit socks, and besides you'll never finish them in time, and you have too many other things to do..." I told her to shut it and I popped into the yarn store on Tuesday and grabbed what I needed to knit up a pair.

I started it Tuesday afternoon, turned the heel by that night, finished the foot and toe yesterday morning, started the second sock in the afternoon, and hot diggity dog is was done by bed time!! Seriously, I just knit two socks in about 36 hours, a good chunk of which I was sleeping during, lol. So more like 24 hours. The best part... NO LADDERS!! See, I learned to twirl my needles moving a few stitches each time so that the seem is never in the same place. *sigh* Now I want to make some for myself.

I won't say who these are for... just someone on my list stated earlier. LOL... I have too many snoopers in my family that are no doubt dropping into the blog to see what is going to be under the tree in a few weeks. I will tell you some of the other projects though and who they are for...

Ron - a hat and hmmm... maybe some quick socks
Jacob - a quilt! (more on this next week)
Andrew - yet to be determined, he is tough this year
Lauren - a sweater and maybe some leg warmers or a cowl
Mom - she snoops so I am not saying
Dad - a hat
Sister - she snoops too and I am not telling

So... what does your Christmas crafting list look like?

Gifts Revealed

I know, I am late to blogging today. Sorry, I went into a psychotic cleaning mode and couldn't stop! I am talking floors washed, stairs vacuumed, baseboards washed, stuff's dusted, and yeah, I even tackled the basement. There were saw horses up (from the kitchen remodel), boxes every where, paint cans in odd places, and OH MY STARS... the floor! It so totally needed to have the shopvac run over it. I am just now sitting down and relaxing with a round of bowling on Wii with Ron, Jacob and Lauren. Calling me a multi-tasking Momma... I Wii bowl and blog... at the same time. I am good.

I was sorta at a loss for what to write about today. Then it hit me... I never showed you guys some of the secret Christmas goodies I made and gifted. The top one was a hat I made for my Mom. The yarn is Berreco Peruvia and the pattern is called "Robin's Egg Blue Hat". My Mom loves to gush to her friends at the YMCA in the water walking class she takes about what I do. Only problem is, she doesn't wear my jewelry. She doesn't wear any jewelry really. I thought this hat would be perfect with one of my beads. Now she has a bead to show off to her friends!


So, um, yeah, my sister's gift is only half done. But she understands. There are "Super Easy Leg Warmers" from the book Last Minute Knitted Gifts. The yarn is "Dream In Color", my absolute favorite. They have colorways that make my mouth water. I actually just ordered up some of their "fatty" sized yarn for a new sweater for myself. YUM! What I love about these is the length. They are supposed to be 26ins long, but I cast off around 22in. Still plenty long at that length! Just long enough to slip over your heel and keep some of your foot warm.


This is another sister gift. This time, a cowl. The Dolores Park Cowl to be exact, with some modifications. The yarn is Misti International Alpaca and is some of the softest yarn I have ever had the pleasure of working with. And again... yum yum yummy colors. It was a super fast knit and that worked because I couldn't give her two unfinished gifts. HA!

Comment Caroling

I was on the torch one day last week and as I listened to Christmas music, singing to myself, I thought to would be fun to randomly sing a Christmas Carol in the comment sections of my favorite blogs. I was going to do a whole blog post about it and turn it into one of those chain games where everyone links to a bunch of people in their blog post about it. Alas, I never got around to it, but I still think it would be fun. AND, I realized I better write about it and claim the idea as mine, mine, mine before someone else thinks of it!!

Okay, since I couldn't pull off the next best internet blog tagging game, the least I could do is a quickie tutorial for you. A week or so ago, my friend Lindsey asked for some help on jewelry gifts for her Step Mom and Mother In Law. This is the project we came up with.


It is pretty easy to make and if you have the materials, shouldn't take more then an hour or so to do.

The Grandma Bracelet

Materials:
1/2in wide 20g sterling silver flat wire cut to 1 1/2in strips
20g sterling silver round wire
3in of sterling silver rolo chain
Toggle clasp

Tools:
Alphabet stamps

Hammer

Bench Block

Wire cutters

Files
Round nose pliers
Chain nose pliers
Nylon mallet
Metal hole punch
Liver of Sulfur
Polishing cloth
Tumbler


Step 1: Start by filing the sharp edges of the sterling strips where you'll be stamping names. In our example, we have a name tag for each sibling in the family and it is their children that are on the tags. (Ex: 1 tag for Lindsey's kids, 1 tag for her brother's children, 1 tag for her step brother's little ones.)

Step 2: Organize the letters you'll need to stamp names on the tags. I like to have all the letters I need right in front of me. Work from the center out, with the metal strip on your bench block. For the example shown, we stamped the "G" in Logan first. Then work your way out. Have fun and wiggle they letters, it'll drive you crazy trying to make them line up perfect. (DON'T use your good wire working hammers for this!! Grab your hubby's junky house hammer!!)

Step 3: As you are stamping the letters, give the letters a few good whacks for a clean impression, but not too hard or you'll have an extra outline from the outer edge of the stamp. The metal will start to curl as you go, don't worry about it! When you have all the letters of the names stamped, use your nylon mallet to flatten the metal back out.

Step 4: Using a metal punch, add 4 holes (one in each corner) to the center tag. On the two outside tags, put a hole in each corner on the side that will line up with the center tag, and put ONE hole in the center of the outside edge. I wrapped the tags against the handle of my hammer to get a slight arch to the links. That makes the links hug your wrist just so.

Step 5: Using round nose pliers and 4inch pieces of 20g sterling silver wire, make wire wrapped loops to link the tags together. It gets a little tricky linking the third and forth holes together, but go slow, you'll get it. I really like the chunky look of over lapping the wraps too. But you could put a bead in between or a little crystal... mix it up.

Step 6: Time to attach the clasp! I attached a toggle loop on one side with a wrapped loop. And the other side, I use a length of chain and the bar side of toggle. Adjust the length of chain to adjust the finished length you need on the bracelet.

Step 7: To finish things up, oxidize the bracelet with liver of sulfur and tumble for an hour, polish to highlight the stamping.


There ya go! You'll have to forgive any typos or weird phrasing, lol... I just threw this one together. Have fun with it.

And....

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle All The Way...
OOOHHHHH, what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh, HAY!
Jingle Bells, Jingles Bells, Jingle All The Way!

Frenzy Prep

It was a weekend full of holiday preparation around here. It started on Friday with a work Christmas party with Ron' co-workers. While we were there, getting our eggnog on, the kids went to my Mom's. While at my Mom's, Lauren got a work out in the kitchen. In our family, Christmas cut outs are a three day process... make the dough and chill it (day 1), roll and cut and cook (day 2), then decorate (day 3)!


Lauren loves rolling dough, and frankly, she's better than I am at it. At one point, my Mom's back was hurting pretty bad, so I needed to take over the rolling. That tube sock over the rolling pin was frustrating me and Lauren chimed in with "Momma, you need to roll it like this.... with the palm of your hand". Little Miss Smarty Pants.


Even though I went to my Mom's Saturday morning to pick the kids up, they just couldn't be torn away from my Mom's house. So, I went back home to a very quiet house, and they came back a few hours later. I was surfing my favorite blogs in my down time and found this sweater pattern on Ravelry. I kicked it out in a matter of hours!! I have been trying to do so much knitting lately that I forgot about crocheting, and I am actually really good at crocheting!! How could I forget that? So now Little Miss Smarty Pants has a matching sweater.


The kids' holiday parties at school are on weird days this year. You would think they would have them on the 23rd, the last day before vacation. This year though they are on Thursday the 18th. So, we cooked up some of the yummy Rolo Turtles that we made for teachers last year. A bell jar full of these is a deeeelish gift, if you ask me. Plus, the kids get to make them for the most part. They unwrap the Rolos, put them on the pretzels, then Mom pops them in the oven, and pushes almonds into the warm chocolate. If you have a cookie exchange coming up anytime soon, these take about 10minutes to make and I am telling you they will be a huge hit!

All this holiday prepping frenzy and then we go and have a 57degree day! It is just down right weird. It doesn't feel Christmasy today. I am dreaming of snow for the rest of the week though. Oh, I almost forgot... I have a meeting set for Wednesday at the Gallery Store to bring them a-last-minute-gift-buying-batch-of-new-bracelets. That means I will have some new jewelry pics to share tomorrow!! Can you stand the suspense?

What I Want For Christmas...

Just in case my Mom, Sister, or Husband was wondering what I would like to see under the Christmas Tree...

And it is delicious eye candy too!

Vintage Pyrex Casserole - I love the color!!
Metal Roller Skates - These sold already but I still love 'em. (a cool decorating find)
Candy Apple Coffee Table - Pricey, but I think it would ROCK in my living room.
Multi Stripe Strip Quilt - OGM... fan-fraking-tastic!
Yellena Prints - I think a trio of these, framed, would be a great touch to the kitchen.
Wood Grain Plate - So cool.
Sleek Bubble Bustier - I could pull this off.
Something from Jessica Doyle - Everything is fabulous in this shop.
Mad Hatter Tea Cup - I bet my morning coffee would be even better in one of these.
Autumn Waste Not Scarf - I love these colors no matter what the season.
A Wacky Wall Clock - in lime please.
Vintage Scarf Bedspread - yeah, I am so looking for scarfs and making one of these.

Now this is a pretty lofty list. It's a few of my favorite things. But, no, I don't actually expect to get a $500 bedspread... lol. Hey, it's Christmas... a girl can dream!

Feel free to post links to a few of your favorite things in the comments!! What are you wishing for? *I mean, apart from peace and joy in the world, lol*

That Was Fast

Tuesday it was a ball of yarn... today it is a mitten for my Dad. (Mom, make sure Dad doesn't see this!!) I am loving all the projects that are available on the knitting/crocheting website Ravelry. If your on it, friend me, and you can track all the projects I am working on that I won't be showing here, lol. This mit was made with a pattern by Kate Gilbert (I actually went to high school with her). This pattern, Gifted, was so easy to do, and I need easy!! I remember that when we were growing up, my Grandma Kester would knit mittens for everyone. My Mom would give her a couple of balls of Red Heart yarn from Walmart and a few days later we would have new mittens. My kids wear some of the ones I used to wear!! Now that I am a grown up crafter, I know about "good yarn" and "bad yarn", so no more Red Heart mittens... these were made with Reynolds Smile yarn. I just happened to pick out my Dad's favorite colors... green and yellow. I can't wait to give these to him. He'll be packing snowballs to throw at my boys in no time.

Another finished project is a special Christmas gift for my god son, Ben. He is getting so big!! And he already has a new sibling on the way. I wanted to make him something he could grow into and then have it be passed on to his little brother or little sister. Is this or is this not a "Kab's Kid Sweater"?!?! Bright turquoise and stripes in royal blue. I know I have made these beads before. LOL. This is my first baby sweater ever. And I learned a ton. The pattern was from Knot Another Hat and it is by Gardiner Yarn Works. The yarn for this is Heirloom and its cotton (if I remember right).



Next up... leg warmers for Lauren.

Commence The Christmas Crafting

I told myself that I wasn't going to do anything related to Christmas until after Thanksgiving. Last year I think I started to early and used up all my Christmas spirit. By the time the big day rolled around I had already overdosed on the holidays and wasn't in the mood. But that is no way to spend what should be a such a magical time of year.

So, I told myself I would wait.

But I can't.

I have a rather ambitious (for me) list of handmade goodies I want to make for each member of my family. I haven't officially taken "The Handmade Challenge", because there are too many things I'll end up buying at Target, lol. But, everyone gets something handmade with love from me. If I am going to make things... I need to get started if I want it all done in time. So, I am braking my pack with myself and I got started on my list.

My list has all the projects for each person listed and narrowed down to just the right project for them . This afternoon I went for an outing with my good friend Lindsey to the local yarn store. I am fully loaded with all the yummy yarn I need to get the jobs done. I'll share a few here along the way. Unfortunately, I come from a long line of present snoops and I know my Mom and sister wouldn't be able to NOT look here to see what I am making. LOL.