On Butterflies

My favorite creature has been the butterfly since I was a little girl. There is something about the life cycle of the butterfly that is so unique. It starts out as a tiny egg on a leaf and then out hatches an ugly caterpillar. After much eating, it spins itself a chrysalis and stays "asleep" for many weeks as things begin to change dramatically. One day it will pop out of its chrysalis...a beautiful butterfly!
 I have always loved the way butterflies flutter around... sometimes soaring, sometimes fluttering from flower to flower, and sometimes sitting still with its wings wide open absorbing the sun.

When I was about 13 or so I began collecting some butterflies for  my very own collection. The funny thing is that in reality I have not caught many of the butterflies! Most of them have been given to me.  My siblings have caught butterflies for me, my Dad has brought some home from work, and friends and neighbors have given me butterflies. I even have a couple butterflies from Africa from a missionary family!

Butterflies in the freezer *

Two moths being pinned

My many Butterflies and Moths

* You might be wondering why I have butterflies in the freezer... it looks and sounds really strange, I know :-)  I read somewhere that one of the most painless ways to kill preserve a butterfly is by putting it in the freezer. They will keep fine in the freezer for months until you pin them and then put them in your collection.

Hand Warmers

I just made these hand warmers as a gift for a friend using a pattern called Emerald Green Handwarmer by Creative Yarn   The pattern is very easy to follow and the hand warmers are fast to knit!  I made a few changes  to the pattern because I used a different type of yarn that needed smaller needles. Here is the pattern with my changes:

To make these hand warmers you will need:
1 ball sock yarn (4 ply) you can make a couple pairs of hand warmers with one ball
Size 3 US knitting needles
Size 8 US knitting needles (or whatever size you have that is bigger than size 3 :-)
scissors
tapestry needle


Moss stitch:
Row1: *k1,p1*
Row2: *p1,k1*

Stockinette stitch:
Row1: knit across
Row2: purl across

Double Moss stitch:
Row1-2: *k1,p1*
Row3-4: *p1,k1*

Hand warmers: (make two!)
Cast on 42 stitches
Work in moss stitch for 4 rows 
Work in Sockinette stitch  for 16 rows
Start Double Moss stitch and repeat the pattern rows 8 times ending with row 4 .
Work in Stockinette stitch for 6 rows.
Work in Moss stitch for 4 rows. 
Bind off loosely in Moss stitch using size 8 needles.

Finishing: 
Fold your knitted work in half  and sew the sides together. (you want to sew on the inside of the hand warmers so fold the right sides together)
Sew from top down about 2 cm
Sew form bottom up 8 cm ( I think I did mine around 6 1/2 cm)
Leaving about 3 cm to 5 cm hole for the thumb.

Winter Pictures

Hello Everyone!

I thought it would be fun to share some winter pictures with you from the past several years. Looking over these pictures brings back memories of winters with lots of snow... not like this year which has been jumping back and forth with cold snowy days and then warm rainy days.
But I guess this probably has been a  great winter for everyone who doesn't like too much snow :-)
Well anyway here are the pictures. Enjoy!

Our back yard covered with snow

Holding a couple of beautiful and intricate snow flakes

Nathan playing Hockey... oh so fun!

Joseph pulling Timothy in a sled

Sledding with our favorite sleds (photo taken by Nathan)

Which one is your favorite? 

Blessings,

~Rachel

Happy Valentine's Day!

Roses from Daddy

So Beautiful!

Doesn't the piano look so pretty :-)

Heart Pizza Mommy made for Dad

Business Cards!

Over the past couple months I have wanted to make my business cards.

The weeks passed and nothing happened.

But that all changed last week when I realized I needed to get serious and make my business cards :-)

So...after much trial and error, a long (very helpful) phone conversation with my older brother, some much-needed help with pictures and photo shop from another brother, and ideas from Mom... I now have 250 business cards printed!

I wanted to share some pictures of my business card in  process.

Tools for designing my border

My border all ready for Microsoft Publisher

Mission accomplished!

 Through the whole process I was so blessed by my older brothers coming alongside me and helping me come up with these beautiful business cards!

And oh! I have some exciting news; well at least for me :-) I now own the domain name "sincerelysewn.com" !

So now you don't have to put "blogspot" after "sincerelysewn".  

It's so much fun making these kind of steps in my business :-)

 Well that's it for now!

Stepping into the Blogsphere

my family

                                 

Hello Everyone!

I have decided to make a big leap into the Blogsphere!

When I first started this blog I thought I would only use my blog as a website to sell my embroidered cards. But recently I have decided to use my blog for blogging about my everyday life as well as continue my shop on this blog  :-)

I am looking forward to taking you on a journey, as I share with you what is happening in my life.

May the Lord bless you as we begin this journey...