Firstly, let me say I'm sorry to have worried some of you after my previous post. Perhaps I should not have posted while feeling down in the dumps. Though I still have much on my mind, things are much better this week, so please don't worry everyone. My lovely sister is going through an extremely difficult time at the moment and I'm thinking of her all the time. (She is well in health, so no scary health issues or anything like that, thankfully.) In time I know all will go well for her, and with that in mind I'm turning my thoughts in more positive directions. Thank you for the mails of concern I received though--you all are terrific!
Next week is Halloween, it's just days away, and we've not a piece of candy in the house yet. Halloween is celebrated here in Norway, with lots of focus on the most spooky aspects of the holiday. So there's lots to pick from at the shops. When I was last at the supermarket I noticed a lot of Christmas candy and treats on the shelves. The holidays seem to have sprung up all of a sudden. Then again, I've been in a crafting "tunnel," holed up in my craft room beavering away at things, that I've almost forgotten the holidays are right here and now! LOL!
A LOT of sewing here this week. An on going project has been making two sets of reversible placemats (six mats in each set). These are being made for my aunt and uncle. They run the charming The Old Mill Bed & Breakfast in Jonesborough, Tennessee. If any of you get to traveling in eastern Tennessee, look them up! They asked me if I'd make them some oval-shaped placemats for their dining room. Here's a look at what the two sets look like. One reversible set with a blue & white color scheme (see above), and the other reversible set with a cream & burgundy colorway. Just a couple more mats to make and this project will be all done and sent off to them. The mats are very simple. But sometimes simplicity works best. And I love the fabrics and with just a flip of the mat there's a different look on the other side.
I keep saying more bags are coming...They are! These autumn-hued fabrics of sage green and soft red checks are being made into two different bags. Some orders/requests and smaller projects are taking precedence at the moment, but I do hope to have some bags and other goodies available for sale very soon--just in time for holiday shopping!
The dark turquoise linen fabric I just couldn't resist showing--the color is gorgeous. So are the matching velvet ribbon and glass pearls with the fabric. I bought these to make up into some cushion covers to replace some old ones in the living room, now that we're nearing finishing sprucing up that room. We have some turquoise/dark turquoise bits & pieces in the room now, so this fabric should tie in nicely. I'm looking forward to start making the cushion covers as I love working with linen.
So much in progress--it's hard to show everything all at one, so these fabric samples will have to do for now!
Off the needles now are the fingerless gloves in the scrumptious self-striping yarn shown some posts back. LOVE these gloves! Because I fell hard for the fun multicolored yarn, I bought four 2oz/50g skeins. I used almost two skeins for the gloves, and with two skeins leftover there's maybe enough for a scarf or matching hat...hhhmmm....
There is a mix of rain/snow falling from the sky--very much an indoors kind of day. Charlie here is giving an example of what we're doing today...just resting, just gentle things. Dear husband has a cold and isn't feeling too well. So I'm playing nurse today and keeping the house quiet so he can rest. I'm heading downstairs now to make a pot of soup--mushroom and barley. Soup and crusty wholewheat rolls--perfect comfort food for today. Wishing you all a weekend of cozy comforts--ENJOY!
Happy Days...and Happy Halloween! :o)
After receiving some very sad news the tail end of last weekend, this week has us here at Chez Pink Purl laid a bit low and blue. Since this news belongs not to myself, but to a family member, someone very dear to me, I feel I cannot write about it here in respect of her privacy. The news has had my heart and mind drifting elsewhere this week. 
Happiness is the prospect of pumpkin pie! I've been craving pumpkin pie for weeks now. Fall hardly arrives, there's barely a nip in the air and pumpkin pie is calling me. A taste of home is pumpkin pie. The autumn holidays make me a wee bit homesick, Thanksgiving especially (my favorite holiday) as we don't get back home to the States for this holiday usually going over for Christmas instead. And now living in a country where pumpkin and pumpkin products are not used much, this mini store of canned goodies for fall will taste more the sweeter. My dear husband brought these home earlier this week. He bought them from a "better" supermarket in Oslo where they have a small selection of American food imports, including some seasonal wares like these. So I have two cans of sweet potatoes (a Thanksgiving must have is my Momma's sweet potato casserole) and four cans of pumpkin (one for a Thanksgiving pie and the rest for treats later on throughout the holidays). The delicious possibilities beckon...But Thanksgiving is a bit over a month away yet *SIGH*...So pumpkin delights will have to dance in my head for now. It doesn't take much to make me happy. A can of Libby's Pumpkin will do! 
This week I've been multi-crafting again. I have orders to fulfill that I've steadily been working on. I've also been doing a little more work on a couple of holidays gifts and the quilt. If I can manage some spare moments, I hope to begin working up this Christmas cross stitch and make it in to a wall hanging or Christmas/advent calendar and attach some small rings too so that tiny treats can be fastened to it. This cross stitch pattern comes from an issue of last year's Familien (a Norwegian ladies magazine, rather similar to First for women in the States...Is First still around? Familien features some nice craft projects). "God Jul", shown in the embroidery chart, is Norwegian. It literally means "Good Yule/Yuletide". It is an expression used like we would "Merry Christmas". I found some embroidery threads in my craft stash, but was missing a few, so I bought the extras today. Some years ago I did a lot of cross stitch, but I haven't done much of it in recent years, preferring yarn and fabrics instead. With the holidays around the corner, I thought this fun design would be fun to work on. If I can manage to make this in time to count down to Christmas...Well, we'll see.
I have noticed off and on within the online crafting community talk of yarn diets. A recent yarn sale was my undoing and I fell completely off the wagon! (There's just something about the phrase "on sale now" that makes a girl's heart sing, doesn't it? hehehe!) For much of the year I did good, slowly whittling down the yarn mountain and resisting temptation to buy more. Then this sale at my LYS (local yarn store)...Oh, my...But look at all this scrumptious yarn! Some of it will be made up into a couple of projects to sell here, as well as a couple of balls of wool to use to make felted flowers. So there are plans for this lot, not just the result of a mere moment's weakness. ;o)
Charlie's happy about the new yarn. Although he's happier to look out the window. He only likes yarn when I'm working with it. Yarn balls in a basket or lifeless on a chair or cushion do nothing to spark his interest. He needs a live wire, and likes to pounce on the working end of my yarn whenever he can. It's hard to do knit in secret with a cat in the house.
Tea and treats...yum! Here's the Snickers cheesecake I made this weekend! It became a little too golden around the edges (ok, brown!) and it collapsed and cracked a bit while it cooled, so not the best-looking cake ever...But what it lacked in looks it made up for and then some, in taste! This was incredibly scrumptious! It's our new favorite cheesecake. And we love cheesecake, especially the homemade kind. I found the recipe for this cake on the internet. See the new 
This weekend I also made some muffins. I'm nuts about muffins and love to make different kinds, keeping some in the freezer for snack attacks. Pictured here are zucchini chocolate chip muffins. I used the last zucchini from our kitchen garden to make these. (The buckets of rain of late blimped this last zucchini, which we didn't even know was lingering in the garden, to borderline monster zucchini proportions! This lone zucchini yielded a lot once it was shredded up, so some for these muffins, the rest went into the freezer for future muffins.) These muffins are simply gorgeous--lovely with lots of chocolate chips in! And with a cup of tea, they're the best afternoon pick-me-up. See the new 
Here the green gingham cozy fits a 2-cup tea pot (great for tea for one), and can also serve as a cozy for a tea cup/sauce or mug, keeping that cup of tea/coffee warm (very handy while working or in front of the computer and loose track of how long that cup of java's been sitting there). This 2-cup size is so practical and we use them a lot. I like to make these cozies and have also made ones in patchwork and with embroidery too. If you'd like a tea cozy or mug warmer, I'd be glad to make one for you to your specifications--tea pot size, color preference, etc. And I also make cozies/warmers for Bodum, and similar style, coffee presses, like this blue gingham one(below) with the ties for easy care and fit.
We've just sampled some of the muffins...And with the cheesecake, it's been treat heaven this weekend. But I'd better move and try to burn some of this off! LOL! A walk sounds good. After a week of crashing rain off and on, it's delicious to see the sun shining today. It's a very fall day--crisp breeze, wood smoke lingering in the air, the scent of leaf mould and damp earth, sparkling sunshine...Love it! So in a little bit we're heading out for a walk to savor this gem of a day!
