Yes I do blog and it's Tuesday

Let's see...  Meri noticed that I hadn't blogged for a while.  I guess since last Wednesday!  

So... what's been going on...  

Last Friday, a former co-worker of mine and now former co-worker of Robb's, retired.  She'd been with the company since the 90s and was always great to work with.  She was Robb's right hand man.  Now she'll be living on a lake closer to her kids and grandkids and quilting the days away. 

I'm so jealous!  No light at the end of the tunnel for me yet.  

Her retirement party was Thursday after work so she could hit the road promptly at 5 on Friday for freedom.  The party was a lot of fun visiting with former co-workers that I haven't seen since Robb's company Christmas party.  The newer/younger employees did a "grazing table" which one of our friends kindly replied with, "it's what we call a buffet dear..." lol, but really it's not.  Well kind of.

The food was either in little crocks or right on the butcher block paper spread out on the table.

So really it's a buffet for people who don't want to do more dishes than they have to.

Clever...  and yummy.  A larger charcuterie board, if you will.

On Friday night, I cornered Jen and she and I shopped through my sweater knit stash for something suitable to make her Christmas present that I'd promised.  She has a comfy sweater that had been splotched with bleach and wanted something similar but without the bleach.  We found some  gray and white loose knit (in the right in the pic) that I'd picked up in Los Angeles last February.  And the gray on the left was perfect for the accents in the sweater.

I was/am hesitant to cut into it until I had a good sample made first.  So I cut into the many many yards of this blue knit that has aged in my stash for probably 10 years.  

Apparently like a fine wine, because it looks so cute on Jen!  

Seriously it does.  It does NOT have hanger appeal tho.

and I should probably finish up the hems...

It'll be a wearable muslin.

The only addition that she wanted done to her sweater was to make it longer so she could wear it like a dress if she wanted.  This might be TOO long, but it looked so comfy I might make another just for me.  The pattern that I'd forged off her original sweater is now packaged up with the label "Jen's sweater".  It WILL be reused.

In the meanwhile, I've taken the sleeves off of the striped shirt that I made for Meri and added some flowiness to the sides for more comfort.  The sleeves are now black.  BUT when I took the striped knit in to Joanns to find a match, it suddenly looked navy blue in the light if I held it up to black.  Then if I held it up to the navy blue knits, it looked black.  

Kind of a gold vs blue dress scenario...

So she's getting the black sleeves that she requested.  One sleeve is on so far and as soon as I get that on and the sides seamed up again, I'll take it back to her to try on again.

The first blouse fit her well except for being a smidgen short in front.  She wears a tank top under it and it looks adorable.  She's wore it to a party last weekend.  I'll have to make more of those and figure out how to make it longer...

So... we finally got a couple inches of snow on Sunday night.  It had been promised Saturday night and we know exactly where the snow line was on Saturday.  It was a block north of our church.  Casey's had no snow, our church sidewalks had 2.5 inches.  My sidewalks are not clear yet, mainly because so many people dog walk on our street that they packed it down before we got to them with a shovel...  So I spread salt on it this morning and hopefully we'll see pavement before nightfall.

The Christmas tree parts sat in our entry way all weekend and we finally had a chance to get them tucked away in the garage yesterday morning.  

I'm not sure which is more "normal" for us...  Living with 5 large chunks of artificial Christmas tree in our entry way/dining room or having them packed away.

Probably the first one.

Someone mentioned that they didn't think artificial trees shed so much.  Ours is just shy of 20 years old and within a few more years of this shedding, we'll be hanging ornaments on naked wires and calling it good.  

AND finally, an advertisement for a friend.  A friend from my sewing guild's husband (is that right grammar?) wrote a book/ebook since retiring.  Go purchase it on Amazon!  He'd be a great blogger...

I'll mention that to him this weekend at our meeting.  He'll be reading an excerpt from it and autographing my book for me.

Ok - enough for today.  I hope to get a lot done today. Probably won't, but thus is my hope.