One Stroke; Two Stroke

First things first, Happy Birthday to my beautiful Mother! I love you Mom!

Rochelle, my neighbor, and I took a One Stroke painting class this week at Michael's. Bless Rochelle's heart for getting me out of the house and away from my troubles. We took the One Stroke class where we each created a birdhouse. Here's my attempt, not to bad considering that I have tried the One Stroke painting thing before and could never get the hang of it. It was so much better with an instructor to telling you what you are doing wrong! My leaves and stuff aren't perfect (which is a step in the right direction for me, since I usually give up if I can't do something perfectly!), but from far away it looks pretty good if I do say so myself. Not to sure what I will do with it, I still need to finish a few things on it, but it was kinda fun. I think we are going to try to take a couple more classes and see what we can do.

Never heard anything about the interview I went to a couple of weeks back. Which is kinda weird since they usually at least send you some kinda rejection letter. Anyway, I have a couple more interviews this week with some agencies, so I'll just focus on those.

I've decided to enter three things in the state fair this year, since I always say I wished I had entered something. They always have a blue ribbon on some kinda ugly crocheted toilet paper cozy, so I'm sure I could win something! I'm entering the crocheted sweater I did for Mom last year, the pink sweater I just did for my niece, and the pink drawstring purse. I have to get them out to the fair Monday or Tuesday, which will be a pain since I have interviews in the afternoon, but hey what else do I have to do???? I'll keep you posted

Attack of the Yarn

Ok, I've been hording yarn. It was on sale is my best excuse. I have no idea how much I have, but I plan to log it all into a spreadsheet so I at least know what is on hand. This picture is about 2/3's of it, and it's all a mess. All the knitting and crochet websites I peruse all say this is the "Year of the Stash" meaning you aren't supposed to buy any more and only use what you have to make something. Wellll, I've tried, and I have made a few things, but it obviously out of control! I did call the local paper and they are going to print my name and email address if anyone wants to start a knitting/crochet club, so we will see if anyone responds.

I am almost finished the little sweater for my niece, I'll probably get it done this weekend. It's cute, but may be to big. She's a tiny little thing!

Hot Flashes

Lordy, I think I'm having a hot flash! I'm only forty-three so it might not be a real hot flash yet, but man! I don't know why crocheting would make me break a sweat!

When I went back to the little sweater, I finally figured out how to make the left side decreases while continuing in the 3-chain mesh pattern the sweater called for. It was pretty vague, so I had to do and redo several times before it looked right. Only one more front side to go. It is a wrap around sweater so there are two front sides that taper down in the middle, and it goes really fast once you figure out what you are supposed to be doing! Starting right side tomorrow.

Ok, I'm still hot so I'm going to sit in the swimming hole, well it's really the hot tub, but we turned off the heat for the summer so we could take a cool dip in the water. The weather is still in the 90's and no rain in sight. Most of my carefully planted flowers are kaput, we have a water ban in effect so I can only water by hand, and frankly I got tired of doing it. Blah!

I think I will sort and categorize my yarn stash starting this weekend, it's getting WAY out of control! I'm trying to only make things from my stash and not buy any new yarn, so I plan to do a bunch of hats and scarves to give to charity. I think I may try to get and Elkridge Knit Club together to make stuff for the Elkridge Love Mission which is a local mission some folks have put together to help folks in our town. I have two bags of yarn to donate to the cause if I can just get some knitters and crocheters to do the work. I think they have food, meals, clothes and such there. I've been meaning to contact them for sometime to help out and I just need to do it. I will do it tomorrow, I promise.

Perspective From a Greyhound's Nose

I haven't taken pictures of my two greys in a while so I wrestled (or rasseled as my southern Momma would say) with them to get a nice portrait of each from the nose up. Not an easy task when you are working with a greyhound snout! Here is Hans (a.k.a. U Too Handsome on the racing circuit) looking cool as a cucumber. At 7 he takes everthing in stride, and will even model hats and scarves once I'm made them. I don't know about trying a sweater on him, his legs are awfully long! Well, maybe a wrap around number?

And then there is Gigi (a.k.a. Cruizing Electra) who is 4 and still rather skittish. You can tell I had to wrangle her down to get a picture, and she looks pretty freaked out! But they are good puppies and I love 'em.

I stuck gold recently when I got a deal in the mail for a craft book club, one of those where they give you some books for a buck and then you have to buy 2 more in 3 years. Well I couldn't resist and finally got my order today! Here are the 6 (count 'em) books I got for $24.50 which included the shipping and handling! A $125.00 deal! They are awesome and I have already chosen some patterns to make. Look out friends and family!

My lovely neighbor Rochelle gave me a bag full of crochet thread that was her Mother's before she passed away a year or two ago. There were a couple of unfinished items in the bag that her Mom had been working on, I'm sure it was difficult to part with them. I saw a darling little clutch purse in one of the books that I am going to make for Rochelle out of the unfinished items from her Mom's "stash" as we call it in the yarn world. A little something to keep jewelry or something in, and I thought I might add some pretty beads to it also. I'll keep you up to date!

Still working go the sweater for little Toothless, the pattern got confusing so I had to step away to rest and go back with a new perspective. I'm almost half finished!