Owl Vest

A certain young man will be turning 2 in the coming week, and needs a little something to take the Fall chill off ... this owl vest has been in my queue for some time and I finally got around to finishing it. The pattern is for a smaller child, but I took a tip from another blog pal and added in a seed stitch strip on either side, substituting the seed stitch for the ribbed border.

I was fortunate to find the perfect buttons for the eyes, at only .99 for a card of 7 -- bargain! This yarn was leftover from hubby's cowl/fingerless mitts, so the whole thing was truly very thrifty.

I've been away from blogland for the last several weeks as I was out of town in Winnipeg, for 2 weeks, and then the last two weeks have been nose-to-the-grindstone, designing scrapbooking classes for the Fall/Christmas Season at the store. Oh, by the way -- take a look -- this magazine contacted me and asked me if they could publish one of my designs in their blog -- wahoo!

I made a last minute trip to Winnipeg to visit my best friend, Connie. Her husband had gone into emergency with severe back pain, which was determined to be as a result of a crushed disk. The doctors decided to do some further tests and the outcome wasn't good -- he was diagnosed with bone, brain, liver & lung cancer. He just turned 50 in April. Needless to say, it was all very unexpected and a complete shock to all. While I was there, he had surgery to replace the disk and then gamma knife surgery to deal with the lesions on his brain -- all quite successfully. We are now waiting, while he heals from these procedures to hear what/when the next course of action will be. If you're praying people, please remember Byron, Connie and their kids: Kerri (Ken), Ryan & Adam in your prayers.