Crafty Catch Up

 I have been obsessively knitting little bears. I ran out of bear-coloured DK weight yarn so knit one with doubled sock yarn. He came out a little larger than the others. That's him on the right. As I was knitting him, a name didn't come to me like when I did most of the others so I put out a call on Facebook for suggestions. I got about 15 great names which I have recorded and may use on future bears. 

His name is Everett. The next day I knit the little guy on the left and for some reason the name Berram came to mind. Both their sweaters are leftover yarn from the Persian Tiles blanket.

Bertram and Everett

This is the gang of remaining bears in order of their creation - starting with (from L to R) Ernest, Davis (because his nose kinda looked like the moustache of Blue Jay player Davis Scheider), Reginald, Rusty, Everett, and Bertram. I have two others knit but not fully finished and one other is on the needles.

Happily four others have gone to live with deserving people. Percy went to Karen, 

Buster to Judy W, 

Stavros to Eugenie, 

and an unnamed one to Dolores for her granddaughter.

While on the plane on the way to Spain, I crocheted most of the linen stitch dishcloth. I just had a few stitches to finish up when I got home. (oops, it's upside down)

Crocheting linen stitch is very easy. Basically it's *1sc, 1ch, repeat from * end with 1sc. Then on the next row, do the sc in the little hole created by the ch stitch.

I had some of the girlies over for stitching today. It had been almost a month since I'd seen them. I was going to have them over last Sunday but the weather was going to be crappy and it was the Canadian men's hockey Gold Medal game so I suggested not hosting. They came here today instead. 

I worked on 'The Light of Winter', making many counting errors, picking out those errors and re-stitching. Argh! This evening I stitched down to the bottom border so tomorrow at stitching I can just stitch the leaves and flowers that go on the 'stems'.

I can't believe it's March already. I have so many fun things coming up.

One big piece of new is that Scooter is going to be staying here for a few weeks starting this Friday. His mom and her husband are having their house staged

One big piece of news is that Scooter is going to be staying here for a few weeks starting this Friday. His mother and her husband are having their house staged then will be listing it for sale. Their plan is to move out until it is sold. Scooter will be with me during that time. It works out well because he can house-sit while I'm away during part of March Break at the retreat my nieces invited me to.

Alexa and I hope to book our flights to Amsterdam this week for our Christmas Market Rhine cruise next December. My task tomorrow is to make an appointment with our travel agent to get things set up. We've also been looking at Viator for Activities in Amsterdam before embarkation. We plan to fly over a few days early to acclimatize to Central European Time and get some sight-seeing done before getting on the ship. Last time I was there was July 1981 so I'll be happy to get reacquainted with the place. I also plan to eat lots of Edam and Gouda cheese while I'm there.