What to Do With That Leftover Yarn

After making my Zuzu's Petals cowl I had some leftover green yarn.  I really hate leftovers.  My favorite thing is when a knitting project uses absolutely ALL the yarn (o.k. so there are always some little trimmings, but I'm talking all useable yarn.)  Not only was this bright green yarn leftover, but it was some of my handspun yarn too!  What to do?  

Well, we have a "Nature Table" in our house like those used in Waldorf School classrooms to designate the change in seasons.  It's on the top of our little studio piano which belonged to my grandparents who purchased it in 1936.  The piano is the one my dad learned to play on, me and my brother learned to play on and now my son Sam is learning to play on it too.  Usually there is a playsilk laid on top with some wooden figures, nature items that pertain to the season like driftwood, stones, crystals, leaves, flowers etc., craft projects and a seasonal postcard.  I thought maybe I could knit some trees to add to the winter collection.  

After searching on Ravelry for a while and not finding what I envisioned, I found this pattern of gnomes made out of a wine cork.  I thought I could just make the hat portion, knitting it longer, and voila you have the trees I made above. The tree tops are stuffed with wool and simply slipped them over the wine corks (on the smallest tree I cut the cork in half first.) They measure a scant 3 - 5 inches tall and took me all of a hour or so to knit.  What do you think?  I was really pleased with how they turned out and they add a little color to our mostly white winter display.  And color at this time of year in Minnesota is a valuable commodity let me tell you.  What do you do with your leftover yarn?

Joining in with Linda for Creative Friday.

A Birthday and Lemonade from Lemons...

I had my birthday yesterday and what a day it was! I awoke to "Happy Birthday MAMA!" from my son followed by a pancake breakfast (that I didn't cook - yay!), beautiful flowers, scrumptious truffles, lunch at Lucia's (our favorite restaurant in Minneapolis), thrifting at the Goodwill and a day spent with my husband who took the day off. I'm so grateful to have such a giving loving family!

Our birthday ring showing I'm now 38 (oh so close to 40 - agh!) and have a winter birthday, love gnomes, live in a yellow house and have a son who can't be left out so hence his birthday bee was added. I love this tradition of the birthday ring which we started for Sam, but now use to celebrate everyone in the family including Grandma!

Lovely yellow roses adding such joy to our house with the bleak and frigid weather outside. The lovely vase was my Grandmother's and really makes any bouquet spectacular.

Here's our table's winter centerpiece with a fantastic needle felted King Winter I purchased from darialvovsky on etsy.

I was so excited to finish my Snow Gnome for the winter display. Dan calls him a Snome! Silly , but fun.

Sam had his first scissor incident today. He was making a dragon out of a plastic bag (I think he got the idea from kites we've seen) just shredding it to bits. Then he must have gotten bored and snipped 2 holes in his pillow form IKEA. It's a good reminder to Mama to be in the same room with him while he's cutting - oh well! So, I took some inspiration from Wee Folk Art and appliqued some wool felt hearts to cover the holes. I think it turned out well, although where I start the blanket stitch and end is a bit messy. But, the pillow was saved! Thus lemonade from lemons.

My Nature Table and Center Piece

My favorite activity as of late has been arranging flowers from the garden for our table centerpiece and for our nature table (really just a shelf in our bookcase - our house is small.) In Minnesota the winters are long so in the summer I go plant crazy as their time here is short.

Her's our dining room table with a bouquet of Cosmos and Lady's Mantle flowers and leaves. Their color is so golden I used my son's gold silky to match and I'm so happy with the effect. We put Dan's father's day card out as the sailboat makes me think of summer on the lake when I was a kid. To represent fire we have our candle, fire gnome, and fire angel (her colors are yellow, orange and red so my son called her a fire angel when we first got her - ditto with the gnome. I guess you could say he likes fire as he's a Leo with red hair!) Lastly, I put out one of my felted flower puzzles just to have more flowers.

This is our small nature shelf. I found it hard to photograph as it doesn't get a lot of natural light. Currently it has the first 2 purple cone flowers from our yard along with more lady's mantle flowers (they look great with everything!) Gnomes are all over our house as I love to knit them, so here is no exception. I choose pink and yellow as our summer colored gnomes who I imagine are helping bring about the flowers in our garden. We also have a few butterflies, a bluebird on her nest, a couple of mushrooms (not too common in our yard which has pretty sandy soil), rocks and a yellow silky. My mom gave me the picture of the girl blowing a danelion and I just loved the old fashioned feel it emits. She purchased it from a company called Moonlight & Roses (http://moonlightandroses.com/) who carry these large postcards and cards with all sorts of fairy, sprite, and gnome designs. I'm currently trying to pick out a card for Fall, but having a difficult time choosing.