Better Homes & Gardens has challenged us over at All People Quilt again. These litte guys are cute! 
I used two small yellow buttons and a larger blue glass bead for the hanger. The backing for these snowmen was from a man's wool jacket I picked up thrifting and brought home and felted. The rest was all scraps I have saved from various projects. These are going to look festive tied to packages.
After the flood this year in Cedar Rapids, Iowa...my daughter adopted one of the flood kittens. A friend of her's makes these kitty teepees and gifted one to my daughter when she heard of her generosity. She makes them with her Mother and sells them here at local craft shows. As you can see from the photos, the hut is a hit with Dexter.
This is the current project in the hoop. Take a look at the spool of thread. A rubberband will keep your tail of thread from unwinding and making a mess. I have been using this trick for years and came up with it as a fluke.
This box was a gift from a secret sister several years ago. It is one of my favorites with the pin cushion on top and plenty of storage. It is very beautiful.
And last....two moe little finds. The pitcher will be a Saturday morning pitcher for syrup, just the right size. I believe the bowl will sit on the table next to my rocker to catch threads.
A minor harvest from a garden that will soon see a devastating frost. It is late in coming for us this year, always a blessing. I have lost my basil to a light frost this past week, but the rosemary is holding up beautifully. Cindy over at My Romantic Home had a great recipe for part of this pile of rosemary. I still have quite a bit more to harvest. Being in Zone 4, it will not over winter and I have quite a few plants in the house already.
I could not find a more appropriate quote with the upcoming election. My daughter and I are voting for different people, but that is what freedom is all about. I am knitting the house socks for her.
Another Friday spent thrifting with my friend Penny. You would think this was the norm, but that could not be farther from the truth. I have just been very lucky to do this two weeks in a row. We started early and went to several places as well as lunch. It is great to have a friend who enjoys searching through another man's junk to find the few treasures buried out there.
My Grandparents got me started collecting shells when I was very young. I can never pass up good deals. Penny has been sprinkling them out among her miniature roses in the small bed in her back yard. 
These little shell balls are adorable. I have no clue how the lady made them or even what she used them for....I think I will use them as plant buddies for right now. They are light weight. The doily under them was a thrift store find, too.
I collect heart shaped rocks when I am walking. The little one bottom left hand corner was in the Black Hills when Bruce and I were walking along Needles Highway. It appears to have a little rose quartz in it.
My dear friend Penny and I went thrifting on Friday. This beautiful pot was sitting there waiting for me to walk by....again. I had been to the store a couple of times and had seen this pot, and decided that with a price tag of $7.95 it probably was not for me. Everytime I went in over the course of two weeks, I had the same conversation with myself. Then, on Friday, someone else had moved the pot to a different location and covered it with a hat. It took me a while to locate it, but once I did, it was coming home with me. I love handthrown pottery. I should have bought it the first time through...but now I know it is a treasure. Note the little acorn at the bottom of the handle. My daughter thought we should use it for syrup. Sounds like a good excuse to make waffles to me!
I started this sweater last week for one of my granddaughters. It is almost finished, but I wanted to share the progress. I really like the feel of this yarn and I am sure she will love the color.
I bought the beautiful amethyst stitch holder (which just happens to be my boyfriend's birthstone) from HookedOnEwe. She has a most delightful shop on Etsy. Christy is very generous and sent me a free little lamb stitch marker along with my stitch holder. How cute is he? She is shipping from overseas so it does take a little longer, but her things are well worth the wait. She makes knitting needles, too.
Those of us that garden will most likely use mulch. It keeps the weeds down and the soil moist and cooler. I have been mulching my houseplants now for years. I find the beach glass or glass stones at thrift stores and garage sales cheap. They may have been at home in an aquarium or a vase to support flowers in a previous life, but now they add beauty to my plants that I move in and outdoors. Although there has not been a frost here yet, there is definitely one coming soon. The dining room is filled with plants until I can figure out where to put them all. The plant in the photo is an allspice tree. It has a rosemary topiary, two bay trees, two Meyer lemon trees and a red leaf peach tree to keep it company....as well as the polar bear. Each of my plants has at least one "plant buddy". It might be in the form of a small glass slipper or something as simple as a few shells.
Fall is my favorite time of the year. I love the smell of apples cooking and have often, on the weekends, had a crockpot of cider with cranberry juice simmering on the counter in the kitchen. The house sells wonderful and the sound of the rain outside makes me happy to be inside. The best place to rest a mug of cider would have to be an apple mug mat, don't you think? The hand dyed embroidery floss was a beautiful match to the hand dyed wool.
I have been journaling for more than a dozen years and have many journals accumulated. I began mostly to keep my thoughts and dreams and day to day occurrances. It got to be a chore instead of a pleasure. I began to edit the sad or bad parts of my life out of the journals and it bcame more and more difficult to write in them. Soon, I started writing in special or family favorite recipes because I knew I would not lose them if they were here. Then there were the magazines I could not bear to throw away because of a picture I loved or an idea I wanted to try. There were the wonderful, inspiring or funny quotes that came into my email or the stickers that came in junk mail. I began to clip and throw these items in a basket. Every time I go visit my sister, Cathy, I take a journal with me. She spends time going through each one, sometimes writing down some of the same things I did. A few visits ago (long after she also started keeping her own), she asked me to tell my daughter that if anything were to happen to me, she would get one of my journals. That was when I realized, although my journals are different, they are who I am.
