Snowy Selfie Sunday

Hi everyone. It’s Millie and Walter here. We showed you some snowy pictures on Friday and here are the selfies we took that day.

Don’t worry. This isn’t dandruff.

It was so nice to have some snow but today we are getting rain and most of our snow has disappeared.

I like my selfie in profile.

We had lots of fun playing outside and after we were done this is how we both looked (although we don’t have a picture of Millie)

Zzzzzzzzzzz…

Even though our snow is going away today there is sure to be more on the ground in the next few days.

We’re joining The Cat on My Head for their Selfie Sunday blog hop. You should check out the hop to see some of the other selfies. Thanks for stopping by.

Nature Friday – It’s Snow Fun!

Hi everyone! It’s Millie and Walter here. We are happy to report that we got our Christmas wish to finally have some decent snow to play in! (Be sure to click on the images to get a bigger view)

It’s a winter wonderland!

The snow smooshed down the beautiful grasses in our perennial garden, but it was bound to happen eventually. 

What are you doing back there dad?

The snow wasn’t deep, but it came down wet, so it stuck to everything!

What a tranquil scene

We had fun wandering around and occasionally doing some zoomies, too.

Uh oh! I think I see Walter stalking me.

See if you can spot Walter in the next picture. You might have to click on it to make it bigger.

Do you see him?
I blend in so well Millie won’t see me coming.

We hope you enjoyed seeing our winter wonderland. Luckily, we haven’t had any warm weather, so the snow is sticking around for a while plus we’re expected to get a little more snow almost every day for the next week!

Join the Nature Friday Blog Hop

We are joining the LLB Gang for their Nature Friday Blog Hop. You should pop over to their blog to see all the other posts.

Hooking on Hump Day – Mont Blanc Jacket

Hi everyone! It’s Cindy here to tell you about the crocheted jacket I recently finished. This is the second garment I’ve made from designer Tatsiana Kupryianchyk of LillaBjörn’s Crochet World and is called the Mont Blanc Jacket. Tatsiana creates well written patterns and has many videos to help you along the way.

Mont Blank Jacket

For my jacket I chose Scheepjes Stone Washed XL in Deep Amethyst for the body and Scheepjes Furry Tales in Aladdin for the cuffs and collar. It might seem intimidating to work with fuzzy yarn, but Tatsiana produced a method that makes it much easier than you would think. (I won’t give away the secret here but just want you to know it was very easy to do)

This jacket has many design features I like such as pockets in the front and a pleat in the back.

The pockets were easy to do too.

The pleat gives you a little more room in the body of the jacket.

Here is a closer look at the pleat that also was easy to do.

Pleat detail

Back collar and pleat

One thing I did differently from the suggestion in the pattern was I didn’t make the furry cuffs as long as the pattern says to. I think the proportions are better for me this way.

My cuffs are about 5 inches long.

This pattern is worked from the top down, so you can try it on as you crochet. I also made the pockets longer than the pattern suggested and worked the jacket length to where I thought it looked the best. The final addition to the jacket were the buttons that Charlie custom made for me.

Stained wooden buttons made from a dowel

Using a 1 1/4-inch maple dowel, Charlie first drilled the holes then cut slices of about and 1/8 inch thick. He happened to have some purple stain that was a perfect match for the yarn. I love the way the buttons work with the jacket.

When the jacket was completed, I still had quite a bit of yarn of both types left over so I decided to make a matching hat.

Mont Blanc Hat (my pattern)

Mont Blanc Hat

Mont Blanc Hat with the cuff opened.

For the hat I started at the top and worked in rounds. For the first two rounds I just did single crochet and then, starting on the third round, I worked the same stitch pattern that is used for the jacket. It was easy to keep trying it on as I went for a perfect fit. When I was happy with the length of the main yarn, I used a slightly modified technique to attach the furry yarn as the jacket pattern and kept working until I had the size I wanted. I’m happy with how both the jacket and the hat turned out and love the way they look on me.

I love a jacket with pockets

The pleat looks great in the back

Both the jacket and hat are nice and warm

Overall, I’m happy with how the jacket and hat turned out and would recommend this pattern to anyone. You can find the pattern from LillaBjörn Crochet on Ravelry or Etsy.

I’m joining the The Loop Scoop Yarny Link Party (formerly known as Hookin’ on Hump Day). You should stop by to see some of the other projects people have posted.

Nature Friday – Christmas Card Edition

Hi everyone! It’s Millie and Walter here. We always like to share some of the nature we find in our yard on our annual Christmas card so today we will give you a close-up view of the nature pictures on this year’s card.

Let’s see some of the interesting nature from our card this year.

Our mom loves trying to capture pictures of the birds in our yard. They move fast so sometimes she has to get lucky to get a good picture. This is one of her favorites this year.

White Breasted Nuthatch

You know we love all the flowers in our yard, but our dad had fun this year taking pictures of the dahlias in a nearby arboretum. This pink one is a real beauty!

Many of the flowers we have planted in our garden are attractive to all sorts of pollinators and butterflies.

Giant Swallowtail on Clematis, Mrs. Robert Brydon

That clematis is a non-vining or bush clematis, and our parents enjoy watching all the bugs that use it.

Finally, we have a look at a frosty Rozanne Geranium.

For those of you that aren’t on our Christmas card list here is a look at both sides of our card this year. Feel free to take a copy for yourself.

Front

Back

We hope you enjoyed seeing the nature pictures from our card this year and we wish all of you that celebrate it a Very Merry Christmas!

Join the Nature Friday Blog Hop

We are joining the LLB Gang for their Nature Friday Blog Hop. You should pop over to their blog to see all the other posts.

Hooking on Hump Day – Christmas Stockings

Hi everyone! It’s Cindy here to tell you about the Christmas stockings I made. Last year I finished a small quilt that we hung on our fireplace. It’s a bit small for the space so this year I searched online for a Christmas stocking pattern to crochet so we could add them to our display.

The stockings were hung from the quilt with care…

First a little word about how I hung them. Since the stone on the fireplace is so irregular, we couldn’t attach anything to the stone to hang the stockings from. Charlie found a 1/4″ dowl that was already stained and would work perfectly for that spot. To attach it to the quilt I used a matching brown thread and sewed three loops that hang down from the quilt. The dowl slips through the loops and even close up it’s difficult to see.

Now let’s get to the stockings. 

Charlie’s stocking
(Blue yarn is Red Heart Giant in Dark Country Blue – possibly discontinued)

I found the Country Cottage Stocking crochet pattern for free on the Who’s Homemade website. On the pattern page there are also links to paid patterns on Etsy and Ravelry and a video to show you the entire process.

Millie’s stocking
(Red is Caron One Pound in Claret)

The pattern instructions are well written and with the video there is no way to go wrong. I went “shopping” for the yarn from my stash and was happy to find colors that coordinated well with the quilt.

Walter’s stocking
(Green is Caron One Pound in Grass Green)

The only thing I did differently from the pattern was I added four rounds to the main stocking before adding the cuff to make them a bit longer.

Cindy’s stocking
(Purple is Red Heart With Love in Aubergine)

I like how the use of post stitches gives you a more closed fabric for the main body of the stocking. The toe was easy to work and with the help of the video the heal and cuff were no problem either. The white yarn is also Caron One Pound. It’s always nice to be able to work from your stash and create something new that will be a part of our holiday decorations for years to come.

I’m joining the The Loop Scoop Yarny Link Party (formerly known as Hookin’ on Hump Day). You should stop by to see some of the other projects people have posted.

Christmas Card Selfie Sunday

Hi everyone. It’s Millie and Walter here. We’ve gotten lots of Christmas cards from friends and family and from all over the world. 

We’re both sitting nicely.

Dad’s got some good treats so that helps!

We donned our holiday scarves and posed with all the cards we’ve received so far. This year our mom printed all our e-cards on card stock so they aren’t curling. 

All this posing is making me tired.
Come on Walter! Usually I’m the one laying down.

As usual we’re beating our pawrents on the card count.

Millie & Walter

16 Snail Mail cards

17 e-cards

Total Card Count – 33

Mom & Dad

9 cards*

We took these pictures a few days ago so don’t worry if you don’t see your card. Can you find your card? Here’s a picture without us that also shows the cute Christmas stockings our mom made for all of us this year.

(click on the image to make it bigger to find your card)

We’re joining The Cat on My Head for their Selfie Sunday blog hop. You should check out the hop to see some of the other selfies. Thanks for stopping by.

*One card from Chewy.com, one from our Mail carrier and one from our dentist! BOL!

Selfie Sunday

Hi everyone. It’s Millie and Walter here. We’re expecting wild winds in the next 24 hours and we hope we don’t loose power.

Just a couple of pups hanging out on the bench.

So far this season we’ve only gotten some dustings of snow but we hope we get some real snow soon. We’ll keep you posted!

We’re joining The Cat on My Head for their Selfie Sunday blog hop. You should check out the hop to see some of the other selfies. Thanks for stopping by.

Nature Friday – Fall Leaf Beauty

Hi everyone! It’s Millie and Walter here. On the days it hasn’t been raining we’ve enjoyed hanging out in the yard while our dad takes pictures of some of our fall leaves.

Let’s see what dad’s found to show us.

We like being outside when the weather is nice. There are lots of different types and colors of leaves in our yard.

What a fun day we had while dad was doing his pictures.

We hope you enjoyed seeing some of the cool things our dad photographed in our backyard. 

Join the Nature Friday Blog Hop

We are joining the LLB Gang for their Nature Friday Blog Hop. You should pop over to their blog to see all the other posts.

We also want to dedicate this post to our dear friend Arty from the LLB Gang who sadly went to the Bridge just over a week ago. He was a great friend to everyone in Blogville and will be dearly missed by everyone, especially his family.