A Little Yarn On The Side

I have finished something!!!! Sorry, didn't mean to shock anyone. I know what a surprise a Finished Project is around here.......

......which is a new month, so I shouldn't be surprised that the newest ornament kit has arrived, though the fact that I received the shipping notification AND the ornaments on the same day was new.  The new kit will involve some gluing, though I just love how they look and really do want to make them.  I had put one set into my Summer Stash-Dash Basket, and decided it was time to start on them: Okay, start on the easiest one.  This kit actually has FIVE ornaments, so I won't feel quite as bad if I mess one up.  Actually, as long as I get to count it for a Finished Project, I might not feel too badly at all.  Being almost a month behind on projects is terrifically motivating.................

Seriously--it's been over a week since my last post--you would think I would have a finished object or two to show you, wouldn't you?  HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?????? First, I have washed, starched, and ironed the ribbon table runner, and I don't think it lays any flatter than before.  I will actually use it as I've gone to all this trouble, but I think we can scratch this off as a potential gift idea.  I try to avoid giving gifts that involved a whole lot of swearing--that just feels wrong. Speaking of swearing, the gauze pants are progressing.  In the future , I swear I will have the sense to alternate difficult, fussy projects with easy ones.  Going right from the ribbon to gauze was just insane, and Theo only agreed to hang out with me from the safety of the thread chest box:  I think you might be able to gauge the level of frustration by the progress on the sock, since you can't see that twitch above my left eye..... Andy went rafting wi...

Now that the party is over, I'm caught up on the canning, and the garden is going to have to get along without me until we drop below 100, I am concentrating on my hip again, so this morning I went down to the gym for some weight lifting and some pool walking.  I've decided that it must be something about being almost naked around a bunch of strangers that really brings out the best in people, because I always meet such nice people when I'm in the pool.  Today was Wilma, who is 82 and who goes to the gym 6 days a week.  While we were talking, another woman showed up who has had both legs amputated below the knee and who is apparently a Monday-Wednesday-Friday regular.  I think any excuse I can come up with for not exercising has just been annihilated, so I'm going to drag my sorry self there again tomorrow morning.  After spending time with them, I came home determined to tackle that blasted table runner and stitched the remaining red ribbons: and almost ...

We had a fabulous time last night and got to catch up with lots of great people.  I'm pretty wiped out, but I have to show you this: A friend of ours does portraits for everyone when they turn 50, so this is Andy with the one she did for him.  It's hard to blow it up enough to see, but she gave him a mandolin earring, and reflected in one of the lenses on the glasses is a ball of yarn and needles to represent me, and on the other side is a cat just peaking over the edge.  It's wonderful--we had to hang it up first thing this morning.  Don't you just love it when people share their creativity?  I just love this picture. Today Andy went out with a friend to listen to some blues, but I am resting and staying well away from the heat.  I don't know why barbecuing is so popular in the summer.  It was over 100 last night, and bright bulb that I am, I had invited everyone over for barbecued hamburgers and sausages with a selection of my homemade mustards...

We're having a party for Andy's 50th birthday tomorrow, so things have been a bit busy around here, but there has been some crafting! First, R obin had suggested pinking shears as a way to rescue the second frog blanket,  so even though it's a completely lame project (piece of fleece with pinked edges), I'm counting it as a finished project: When it has an intended recipient, I'll embroider the name on it to spiff it up a bit.  I could have left it as a bigger blanket and let my two oldest nieces duke it out over the frogs, but the baby gift bin was running very, very low lately. I also finished an almost-identical pair of socks for me!  Really, I gave up trying to get self-striping yarns to ever really match, but I take full credit when they match out of sheer dumb luck.  I bought this yarn while still living at my old house, so that puts it as at least 8 years in the stash, and there's something always a bit thrilling about using up Deep Stash.  ...

And I sort of got to use the new thread chest.  I tried, at any rate.  A friend of ours had a birthday Wednesday, and his wife surprised him with a dobro (resonator guitar) .  I was excited because I knew I had an embroidery design of one of them, and I hadn't made a music bag for him yet.  After a little brainstorming for something funny to say, I came up with Some days I crack myself up--though it could be the heat as it's been 100 degrees or so for the last several days and it really isn't that funny.  At any rate, the really exciting thing about this design was that it was laid out in Madeira colors--which I now have!  Usually, I have to sit down and go through each color online because my software imports the color numbers as belonging to Sulky, so this company's designs come through as a bizarre array of purples and oranges.  But I had the color chart!  So, after fixing it on screen so I could see it clearly, I pulled open the "warm" ...