I finally got a new camera. It is this one. I haven't use it a ton yet, and I'm not sure how I feel about it . I wanted one that could take cool picture at night. I went out and took a few tonight, but it was freezing and I didn't have much to shoot. I'll keep you posted on how I feel about it. It has some neat functions though.

I finished up another few christmas gifts this week. I made these two bags for Andy's sister and her girlfriend. I think the unicorn one is hilarious. I hate unicorns, but she loves them. I decided to switch fabrics for the handles, so the unicorn bag could look like it had rainbows coming off it. The other gift that I finished is for Andy's dad. His dog died last Thanksgiving and he was really broken up about it, so I made him a quilted wall hanging with photos of the dog on it. I still need to get a dowel to put through the top so it can hang. I took it to show and tell at quilt club and a couple different ladies came up to me to say how neat they thought it was.

It was the gift exchange at quilt club this month. I got an apron which was pretty neat. The lady that got the basket with the lining I made was really happy with it and came up to tell me how neat she thought it was. Then another lady told my how she thought it was a great gift idea, so I felt pretty good about that.

If you read my blog regularly, you probably saw the photos of my not so new house. I showed the dungeon bedroom that is barely big enough to fit the queen bed. Well, there are no heat vents in the room and the closest one is on the other side of the living room. So the bed room gets cold as shit. I put our thermometer in there and the temperature was 45 degrees. We have our electric blanket on the bed and were freezing the whole night with it set on the medium setting. We're going to have to sleep with it on the highest setting. I hate this stupid place.

This year Andy and I didn't put up a christmas tree. Instead I decorated our Norway Pine with some small balls my mom gave me and yarn. I think it makes a pretty fun, but the branches are too flimsy for real lights. Oh well, it's still fun.

Novemberrrrrrr

It's almost the end of the month which means I'm about out of time for making my two-post-a-month goal. So here I am.

I have two things to talk about. Thing the first: I am attempting to fix my motorcycle by myself this winter. I started the job earlier this month by taking the carbs off. Here is a picture of my bike all mutilated. The boat in the background isn't mine in case you were wondering. The metal thing on the ground next to the bike is my carbs and the air chamber. I spent an afternoon trying to take them apart, but there are 8 screws that hold the air chamber on and one of them is completely stripped. I spent an hour trying various things to get it out and nothing worked. So that's where I'm stuck right now. I'm pretty miffed that I can't get the damn screw out. If I don't find a way, I'm basically completely screwed.

The second thing I have to talk about is sewing stuff. I finished a project for my step mom for christmas and a gift for the exchange at quilt club. When I first started quilting my aunt gave me a little kit to make a table runner. I gave it to annette when I finished it. She liked it a lot despite the very poor construction on my part. This year she asked for a new one. This one is a million times better put together than the old one. It's nice to realize that i've actually made progress in the quilting realm.

For the gift exchange at quilt guild everyone who wants to participate is supposed to make a small "kitchen" item. I decided to get a basket from the thrift store and make a fun lining for it to use for rolls or fruit or a key/change basket or something like that. I kept running in to problems making it. I had no pattern and have never pieced anything with such an odd shape. It took some creativity to make a pattern that fit the basket properly. I had planned on crocheting the boarder, but it didn't work out since I needed finished edges (which to get would require me to shorten the sides) so I ended up just binding it. I never put a binding on a rounded edge before, but I watched a tutorial on youtube, and I think it went pretty well.

X-mas ?

So it appears to be approaching the holiday season again already. I've been thinking about gifts and what I will give and make people this year. So far I have made three things to distribute as gifts and have two more halfway done.

Spoiler alert for Ali. Do not read this or look at the following picture or your present is ruined....I'll put it at the bottom just in case. So first I'll show a picture of the gift I made for Andy's mom. I saw a lady at quilt club working on this and asked if I could have the pattern. She brought it too me at the next meeting. I'm not thrilled with the colors. The lighter orange reminds me of mac and cheese. I think it ruins the scarf, but Andy's mom likes the burnt orange color and this yarn was the best I could do.

I think the scarf is neat, but it's more of a spring or fall scarf. The yarn is light and thin, so it won't really offer a whole lot of warmth when it is 10 degrees outside.

I made another gift for my friend Erin, but I don't trust her self-control so I'm not going to post any pictures of it on here until after I give it to her.


So for Ali, I made this pillow case. I got the pattern for free at Joann Fabric. I thought it would be pretty easy. The pattern was really small and had instructions to increase it to 12". But you needed two patterns across and two down. Having not used this type of pattern before I thought I was going to end up with a giant pillow, so instead of following directions, I made it 8 inches. When all was said and done, each block was only four inches, so I had to add some sashing. After finishing everything the whole pillow was only 14 inches. I'm not thrilled with my sewing job. The seams are terrible, but I added yo-yos to hide the seems. I'd never made yo-yos before, but people always ask me if that is what I'm working on when I do this paper piecing project I do, so I thought maybe I'd try it so I knew what they were talking about.

I'll post picture of the other things I'm working on once they are complete.

The Collected Works of Nicole Larson

Today I was thinking about all the things I had to write throughout my schooling. Then I thought about what it would look like if they made a library stocked solely with things I had created. To give you a brief glimpse into the library, I will supply you with a short list of titles:

"Loud Mouth Peter and the Big Coloring Contest" circa 1st grade (title blatantly copied from a Nancy Carlson book)

"The Life of Me" an autobiography circa 3rd grade

"Santa Hired Cows" a christmas story circa 5th grade

and more recently....

"How I know Hitler Drove a Volkswagon Beetle" circa 11th grade

and unofficially titled

"A day in My Life at the Prison Camp" circa 12th grade in which I discuss the pros of hard labor, poor living conditions, and little food.


I think I should strongly consider developing this library.

On a more normal note....my life at the moment: my computer died so I had to send it in to get repaired. I'm currently using my old computer which is slow, has a poorly functioning b button, and, and has randomly and inconsistently working volume (perhaps you recall the post about said computer from a few years ago). I should get the computer back in 7-10 business days. I'm not exactly sure what happened to it, but it stopped charging the battery and then started shutting off at random. Now it won't stay on for more than 20 minutes at a time. Stupid.

I also still never got a new camera either, so I don't have any new photos to add.

I finally got my motorcycle moved into storage this weekend. I friend is letting me keep it in her garage up here. I haven't been able to ride for nearly a month because it's been leaking gas. Now it refuses to start, so it appears I have to learn how to fix motorcycles over the winter. I had to load it on to a trailer and strap it down for the drive over to Erin's. It was interesting to say the least.

Work is still going ok, but in the past 2 weeks, 2 people have quit, so we're not doing the best on staffing. Anyone want to work at Mayo?

Other than that, it's been same old same old. Hopefully next time I write it will be on my repaired laptop...And who know, maybe I'll get that camera and add some pictures....

Bag Lady

I've been really bad about meeting my goal of two blog posts a month..... I should have posted this yesterday. Oh well.

I've been doing a bit of sewing lately. I started crocheting again so I wasn't doing much with my machine, but last weekend Andy babysat so I stayed home and had craft time. I made a few tote bag things that I've showed on here before. I got some Vikings fabric from my aunt Tracy with the intention of making Meg a tote (don't tell her, she only knows she's getting a "present"). I had extra fabric so I made another. Then while I was at it I made a strawberry shortcake one with other fabric I got from my aunt. I thought I might try to sell the extra Vikings and shortcake ones on ebay. Then I was telling a friend about the bags and she asked if I could make one for her niece, so I made a tinkerbell one too.

Then after all the bags I though I ought to make something that would let me sew but also crochet. My mom used to make baby blankets that she'd sew together and then crochet around the edges. I happened to have a baby print fabric (again thanks to Tracy) and the right type of floss/thread/yearn (i don't know what the type I used is technically called) to use on the edges so I started working on that. I don't have a picture of it yet because it's not done. I'll try to post one when I finish it. But this will be complicated by the fact that my camera decided to break.

Maybe three Christmases ago I got a digital camera from my grandma. I like it a lot, but was thinking lately about maybe upgrading. Then my camera died, and the decision to upgrade was made for me. When I try to turn it on, the lens will pop out but then it makes an awful grinding sound and the camera shuts back down without drawing the lens back in. I got the picture of the bags using my webcam, but I don't think it would be very convenient to continue using my laptop as my primary camera...I'm still undecided about which camera I would like to get though, so it may be awhile before I get anything.

On a different topic, Andy and I have taken the canoe out a few times in the past couple of weeks. I caught a pretty nice northern on one of our trips. I look silly in the picture because it was super windy, and it looks like i'm going for a fist bump because I'm holding the fishing line up so it wouldn't get tangled in the fish. Notice i'm not even wearing my normal fish glove to protect me from the disgusting slime and smell of fish. I'm such a big girl.

On a different trip my jig got snagged in a tree when I was casting a little too aggressively. When I jerked the line back to get it out, it shot off of the tree ( a good twenty feet away) and wizzed right back at me and smashed into my finger. The skin broke in a couple spots and it immediately started to swell. I put my hand in the water to attempt to keep the swelling down, but I still wound up with a pretty swollen and colorful finger. This was last saturday and my finger is still a little sore a week later.

Camping Time

Labor day weekend I went on my third trip to the boundary waters. This trip we launched from East Bearskin Lake which is about thirty miles west of Grand Marais. Our campsite was a 2 hour canoe trip through bearskin lake and onto alder lake. This time I actually got a picture of me carrying the giant back pack. It weighed about 50 pounds. I squat down to pick up the backpack and it's so heavy I can't get up on my own. One time Margaret tried to help me up, but it failed and i ended up looking like a turtle who'd been flipped on it's back with it's arms and legs flailing.

We spent a ton of time fishing and exploring the area. This trip was our best as far as fishing went. We caught a ton of small mouth bass and kept a couple for lunch. The second day we were there we went on a trip to a waterfall. There were actually three different falls and you could climb higher and higher on a trail to see each one.

The first night we were there was beautiful and had a gorgeous sunset. I took a bunch of neat picture but only put one on here. I also have a picture of our campsite. If you look on the left, you can see our food hanging in the tree to keep it safe from bears.

The second day was really annoying as far as weather goes. It was raining when we woke up, but cleared up a bit. It was chilly too. But then the sun came out and it was nice. Then twenty minutes later the clouds would come back, it would get cold, and start raining again. This happened all day. You'd get so hot when the sun came out that you'd take off some layers of clothes, but then it would get cold and rainy again and you'd have to put more layers on.

We went with andy's mom and sister. It was a lot of fun to spend quality time with them out in nature. We're planning on all going up again next year, but they want to get a cabin. Andy and I will just ditch out on the cabin for a couple days to do some real camping.