Crafts I make for my familly

 

 

 

 

I never did feel I lead a normal life, being a mother with 4 kids, married to a fire captain and working alongside him as a fire fighter for 6 years.  There were many times we spent hours and even days in the engine running one call after another and not slowing down.  We relied on our friends and neighbors to help watch our kids.

Marcus, in the first picture also ran calls with us for a few months. My daughter Lisa, in the last picture ran with us as an explorer. Sonya (in the middle) never wanted anything to do with the firedepartment (lol) but we respected her decision on that matter.

My kids and their famillies are all spread out now. Marcus lives 2 hours from me and I get to see him and my grandkids every 3 months or so. Sonya lives in El Passo, Texas. We manage to make a drive down there twice a year to visit with them on two week vacations.

Lisa and her kids live way up in the boonies in Oregon and we rarely get to visit them. So this is another reason I am not your typical grandma.  My grandkids live away from me and I don't get to visit them as I'd like to.

I compensate for this by knitting and crocheting socks, hats and gloves for them. To me, this is like sending them a hug and there truly is a whole lot of love going into the items I knit for them.

 

I felt I should make an entry about Warren because it seems thats all I talk about in chat forums  (mostly I am the one who initiates this subject and everyone tolerates my jabbering on about my hubby.

Warren and I were in El Passo Texas visiting my daughter last month. This was supposed to be a 2 week vacation but 3 days after we arrived there, Warren began having severe pain in his abdomen.  We took him to the Del Sol hospital (15 minutes away) and we barely got him to the front desk before  he colapsed right infront of the receptionist. He was taken imediately into a room, an I.V. was inserted in his wrist and Morphene and Fenegran was administered. I was impressed with this because I know most hospitals would've wanted tests first before giving him this kind of meds. While they were doing these tests they found a hernea also!!

Tests found a kidney stone inside his right kidney that pretty much consumed his kidney and needed to be operated on. The reason he did not have pain like this before is because it was inside his kidney. But his kidney had backed up on him and was swollen....causing the pain.

We came right home, and made appointments for urology specialists to look at him. The local specialists would not touch something this big and referred him to Loma Linda hospital in So. California.

This surgery lasted 5 hours and they didn't get all the stone. They felt there needed to be a second surgery. So we came back 5 days later, and they did the second surgery, where they found 3 more stones the size of a centimeter. They also said there was debri left over from the first surgery that was in the ureter and they cleanned this out.

Warren is recouperating ok. Being a Fire Captain, its hard for him to sit in his chair all day and do nothing. Before he can go back to work full time tho he has to have surgery takeing care of this hernea and surgeons won't mess with that for atleast 3 months. He is looking at maybe light duty but he is waiting to hear what his batallion chief will tell him.

Its been a joy having Warren home. He does all the cooking and just having someone home to talk to is truly a treat!!!

 

When my kids were growing up I had an obsession with makeing afgahns and sweaters to keep them warm. They got married, and my interests in crafting shifted to makeing  their houses looking pretty. They had kids (now 9 of them to date) and one on the way.  My interests lay in doing things for the grandkids cuz all of their houses are stuffed full of my afgahns, doillies and tableclothes. lol

So now I'm older. I have different problems like arthritis in my fingers and I change the range of motion in my fingers so satisfy that problem of pain.............and then there is the problem with my feet getting cold all the time so hence, the idea of socks came into my life.

This passed few years I have researched all kinds of different ways to make socks.......toe up, cuff down....sideway socks...socks with two circular needles,,,socks with 5 dp needles. And I have books that could fill a library with tons of patterns. Still, I am obsessed with socks...and probably always will be.

Marc's doilly

THIS ONE I DID FOR MY SON MARCUS . HE IS MY BEST CRITIQUE AND SO FAR ITS PRETTY GOOD CUZ HE IS ASKING FOR MORE.

pineapple table cloth.

With all the socks I'm doing I think some where I should mention that I do crochet. I crochet doillies. I did this tablecloth for my daughter Sonya.

 

Now I tell you,  Warren is very picky indeed when it comes to stuff that goes on his feet. He's either standing on his feet all day long in either his steel toed work boots or his protective fireboots all day long. By night time his feet are pretty swollen and tender.

He would have liked these socks to be longer but I already put 2 balls of Wool Ease into this pair. I'm not showing you how big his calfs are but that is another ball for sure. I made some increases in the instep so they would fit snug. He is a size 11 foot but his calfs go up another size. lol This took me 3 weeks to make.

marcus's blue doilly

^{_{I think this was one of the last doillies I crocheted. I broke my  left index finger in two different places and as you know, I couldn't bend it for many months but after excersize and therapy I am able to knit.}} 

_{^{Now I knit socks sweaters and shawls. I occasionally will go back to a doilly but I feel it after I get done for sure!!}}