I have been a bit slow at my crafting lately. By the end of the day I am bout as worn out as can be and can only manage about 30 minutes of work before falling asleep.
Luckily, B's first day back at playschool is next Wednesday. Then I will have some time - three days a week, three hours each day - to get all of the things accomplished that end up taking my evening craft time away from me.

The picture here is of some wonderful handmade goodies that my friend Darcie sent me. They are some of the items she offers for sale at her Etsy store, Dream Land Treasures. She sent me a couple of her shoebags and a cute crcheted tote. Check her out, she has some nice items.

The pieces of B's Wallace doll have now been cut out and sewn, but not stuffed or attatched. After I complete that step, I get to make his clothes - a pair of brown pants, a white shirt, a red tie, green vest, and brown plaid slippers. My son has been obsessed with Wallace and Gromit for quite awhile now. He IS Wallace, according to him. (Luckily, he tells me I am Gromit! He also says his dad is the penguin from "The Wrong Trousers".)
I spent a some months with this inmy mind and searching for the right type of pattern and the guts to go ahead and cut the felt.
I ended up using the Nekomimi doll pattern from Runo the Dollmaker's site. There are so many great patterns there. If you scroll on down you'll see al types of doll patterns. It's a wealth of information and instruction.
So this is what one can accomplish in the middle of the night when one is pregnant and going through the whole "I really need to sleep, but I am wide awake and need to do something" part of the 9 month journey.

Hubby's socks are finished. It's great to have them completed. The pattern is from Nancy Bush's "Knitting Vintage Socks". I changed it up a little to be a gauge that I prefered, fit my husband's feet, and to make them work for doing both at the same time using the Magic Loop method. I wish they could have been longer, but I used almost every yard of yarn as it was. I think the next socks I do will be toe-up and two at once with the Magic Loop technique.
I have quite a few projects that would like to be next in line. I want to make a Wallace doll for my son (he is obsessed with Wallace of Wallace and Gromit), a vest for him similar to the one Wallace wears, golf club covers for the hubby, socks for me, and various Christmas presents.
Where to begin?

Yesterday I canned all of the tomatoes that we had from our garden. We've been eating tomatoes everyday since about July 10th or 12th. I really don't mind eating tomatoes everyday. But, we were getting more than we could eat, so we decided to can all we had. It ended up processing into one gallon of canned tomatoes ( 1 quart and 6 pints).
This is the first time I have canned on this size scale. In the past I have made my grammommie's red pepper relish in half pint jars. There has only been three to four jars, so I never needed any big deal canning equipment.
Yesterday, I went to the local hardware store in downtown Graham and bought a big boiling water canner with rack, a pack on pint jars, and the super useful tongs to lift the jars out of the boiling water.
I came home, cleaned the kitchen, washed peeled and cut the tomatoes, then had to stop for dinner. Wonderful hubby brought dinner home from BB-Q and Ribs Co.. We don't eat there often, even though it's not far away. It just seemed to go with the process of canning tomatoes to me.
Then I gave the kid a shower, read him his stories, came downstairs and started the cooking and canning of the tomatoes. I started the whole process at around 2pm in the afternoon and finished it just after 10pm with a break for dinner and bedtime. Whew!
Hubby and I are now looking quite forward to some of his grandmother's recipes that just aren't the same unless you use home canned tomatoes. Mainly, he likes her stuffed peppers and her spaghetti. (Spaghetti from a Scots/Irish/English descended family living in the sandhills of North Carolina. It's not very Italian. But it's good.)
Bruce handled all of the afternoon neglect with his usual destructive tendencies. We had to have a clean-up time after dinner. ( this is where my mom would say "Just put him in front of the TV!" - but that;s another post.)
Hopefully I'll have some creation pictures to share before long. I've a couple of things in the works.
If anyone has any good pickled okra recipes, let me know. I love my okra, and I'd hate to waste it on a recipe that ended up not being very good.