The Advent Calendar, Lemons, and an Astronaut

 I set a goal of completing the Advent calendar by the end of October. It is complete and has been given to Lindsay and family.

This was an ambitious project for my crafting abilities; something I learned quickly after starting. At one point, I was a little bummed and didn't think it would turn out too well, but I am pleased with it. At some point, you have to realize you aren't the craftiest person, but you can either buy something or enjoy the process of making it even with its flaws. 

The problem began with the linen being a tad stiff to make perfect little pocket squares. I loved the linen while stitching up the numbers. It has a metallic sheen to it and seemed like the perfect choice, but it was stiff and made it very difficult to make corners poke out no matter the poking and clipping.

While lining them and making the squares out of the stitched pieces I was quite discouraged, but I wasn't about to give up with all the stitching in the project. I got those all done which took a good bit of time to do and realized that I needed to come up with a plan to make up for the lack of uniformity needed.

I determined that I needed to mount them on rectangles to make up for the corners. Draw the eye away from the corners...was the plan.

I had originally planned to use the red tartan plaid because I really love a tartan plaid. I think I know why now...I found I have quite a bit of Scottish in me from my recent DNA test. Ha Ha! 

The plaid just seemed so busy with the stitching, so I made a trip to the fabric store and found a red and green fabric that were basically the same pattern with different colors and the plan came together then.

I thought the quilting process would be downfall on this project, but thanks to Youtube and the Missouri Star Quilt Company video on binding that turned out to be the easiest part and I procrastinated for no reason. Now, I don't think I will be taking up quilting anytime soon, but the video was very helpful.

I did hand stitch on the back to make it look neater. Again, I felt like everything else had to be really good to distract from the pockets not being even. 

I added a dowel painted silver and some ribbon, bows, and charms.

It is not perfect at all, but the finished product turned out much better than I was expecting and Lindsay likes it so that is what matters.

I finished it with two days to spare in the month.

Now, onto Tucker, the astronaut.

Lindsay found this outfit last year at Halloween at the most wonderful seconds store locally here. She grabbed even though it was way too big because of my love of space. She has tried for a month to get him to try it on. I have several pictures she sent me of him crying in it each time. She even went shopping two weeks ago for another costume since it seemed he was not going to wear it. 

He loves Paw Patrol and they found a cute costume, but the moment he found out it had a headpiece....well, Lindsay figured she was just wasting money so she didn't get anything. 

She had decided that if he didn't want to wear one she wasn't going to push it and he could just wear a Halloween shirt.

The day arrived and he wore it most of the evening and enjoyed it. They went to the two closest neighbors who had a treat for him and then they went over to a friend's house for the evening. Lindsay put some candy outside her house with a sign. Her neighborhood is one that lots would have come to since it is a sidewalk neighborhood, but not so much this year. 

Tucker has had very little candy in his life. Lindsay is all about him being healthy. He knew instinctively what the candy was all about and was quite interested in it. I Facetimed them later and he was still thinking about candy.

They just know! Paul Allen learned early on that it disappeared so he ate as much as he could sneak in his mouth before getting home. 

No mama or school teacher enjoys the sugar rush that follows.

He is the cutest astronaut I know. Spoken like a true grandparent.

And lemons. Tucker stayed with me on Friday. He had his Halloween activities at school on Thursday and I just needed a day of Tucker. We picked a 5 gallon bucket of lemons off the tree. They have come much earlier than last year. They weren't ready until early December last year. I don't really know what that means... An early winter and maybe an actual winter? Who knows? IT is 2020 after all. 

Either way, we pulled them off and he enjoyed putting them in the bucket. We then took some to the neighbors in the cul de sac. He LOVED doing that. 

We brought the bucket inside and I thought I would deal with them later, but he was not having that. He handed them to me one at a time to place on the counter. He likes doing tasks like this.

I picked another bucket today, so I would say the harvest this year altogether was 2 and a half 5 gallon buckets. It was less than last year. I will squeeze the juice in the next few days and freeze then in 1 cup containers. I had juice for quite a while last harvest.

I wish I had enough light and space in my yard to do an orange tree.

As with counting down the days to Christmas, I am counting my blessings. Being a grandparent is at the top of the list 

AND views like this. Full Blue moon tonight on the water.

Sandy