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Monday, October 30, 2006

Freedom at Last!


Back to the doctor today for final checkup after the heart stent... clean bill of health... he says I can do anything I want...grin So, we almost immediately got into the hot tub for the first time in two months. I cannot say how wonderful that warm water felt... After supper, I actually got to do the dishes... This wonderful man of mine has waited on me hand and foot for two months... almost literally. So tonight he got to sit in his chair while I did the dishes...
Chuck bought this alpaca blend Bernat yarn for me while he was here. I decided today to make this scarf... The pattern is on the Bernat label... it is also on the website, but only available to members... Well, I subscribed as a member several days ago, but it keeps telling me my membership is not activated yet...
"just click on the button and a new membership password will be sent to you" it says....well, I'm still waiting for that email to get here after several times of clicking on that button..grin
Anyway, I finished the last of the yarn.... with 28 stitches to go... looks like this yarn will be like the Homespun... I will keep having to buy just one more skein... grin
I hope everyone had a great holiday...

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Knitted Shawl Finished....

I originally bought this Wool Ease Thick and Quick yarn to do the KAL with firefly on her blog i live on a farm... (see this post) It's a blend of lamb's wool and acrylic, so I thought it would feel wonderful as a lap afghan. It does feel wonderful and is very warm, but as I finished more and more of it, I realized that I did not like this yarn in this pattern... I pulled it out and changed it to this pattern... It's a numbingly simple pattern, but the garter stitch will hold the heat and make this a wonderfully warm early winter shawl.
Now I will have to get more yarn to do the KAL....hmmmm

Friday, October 27, 2006

What a Lovely Five Days...


We haven't done much of anything. Jim, Don, John and Tomomi came last Sunday. What a lovely day that was. Three of the sons here at the same time... it was better than Christmas. He is leaving tomorrow to spend a week with his dad and will be back for a day on his return to Dallas to the airport. I miss him already. This is a photo of the lane in our meadow... he took it during a walk yesterday...

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Guess Who Came To Dinner!


Never underestimate the power of the door bell to change your entire outlook on life! DH answered the door... I heard a voice I recognized and I looked around for Brigit to be running all over the furniture and barking...but there was no Brigit.. so I walked on into the den and my heart flipped.(Reference
this post) It's a 22 hour trip and he said he made it to Dallas on the 20th, stayed over in a hotel and rented a car yesterday morning. He made it home about 1pm and still looks quite tired. He's only home for a couple of weeks and then must return to Iraq until the end of January 2007, but what a gift those couple of weeks are.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

1st Cloisonne' Egg

Well, duh....
Do you think they really mean it when they put in the instructions that you should wait "at least" 24 hours before firing in the oven.... hummm...
In my own defense here.... the gold outline had been drying for 24 hours, but I guess it was too thickly applied and didn't dry completely. Perhaps this is where the magic words "at least" come in...
This kind of finish for the eggs will take much longer to do. But I think once I get it figured out, they will be much prettier and the finish will be permanently fired and will be top rack dishwasher safe. That pleases me. It will take several throw-away eggs to perfect the technique though... and my supplier only had 3 (that's 3...three!) eggs ... so will have a wait for more to arrive.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

1st Place In 7 Categories!


Don't ask me what they all are...grin John was so tickled that he called me as soon as they got home on Saturday. I know Tomomi won 1st Place in the Completely Hand Quilted category. She was going to send me a picture with the ribbon on the quilt, but the blue ribbon disappears in the blue of the quilt!

Snowflake Monday (on Wednesday!)

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Is It a Cloche?


I was crocheting along a few weeks ago with no idea what I even wanted to make when this little cloche happened. (Still trying to get rid of that Homespun yarn...sigh) Now that I have it, I have no earthly idea what I will do with it because I look totally idiotic in any hat other than a wide brim Southern Belle type hat... and who wants to wear one of those these days...
Well, it's almost 2 months of no smoking. The desire for a cigarette is still here ... but not as bad as it was a month ago. Maybe it will continue to fade.. we can only hope.
We have had a couple of wonderful days of rain. The sound of it on the roof and the smell in the air were glorious.
If you are looking for a wonderful Christmas gift... easy to make and can be made of recycled materials... here it is... I really like this site called tiny happy.com.

Friday, October 13, 2006

I Think I Remember Now...


why I have never really taken up knitting... If I put it down, I can never tell by looking at the stitches on the needles where I am.. It's not that I can't do the stitches, it's that I get so frustrated and always just start over... after a while the whole piece just gets put down and forgotten. Which is a real shame... I love knitted work... the way it looks and the way it feels. This swatch was done a couple of days ago to see if I could keep up with the pattern that has been put on firefly's blog for her knit-along. It's a very easy pattern and I have enjoyed knitting it. Then I tried it using a larger yarn and longer cast-on and the moment I put it down mid-row to talk to my DH... that was the moment it ended... I could not recognize the stitches to tell where I had stopped. Any words of wisdom?? tips?? advise??

What's Your Element?

I found this little ditty on Pat Winter's site and had to try it...grin

Your Element Is Water

A bit of a contradiction, you can seem both lighthearted and serious.
That's because you're good at going with the flow - but you also are deep.

Highly intuitive, you tune in to people's emotions and moods easily.
You are able to tap into deep emotional connections and connect with others.

You prefer a smooth, harmonious life - but you can navigate your way around waves.
You have a knack for getting people to get along and making life a little more peaceful.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

October....already

We went to breakfast yesterday. There was a man standing in the front door and as we walked past him my first instinct was to say "Excuse me!" .... and then I realized he was a Wal-Mart full size figure of a dread pirate holding a plate of candy! As we came on inside, the edges of the ceiling were hung with spiders; there was a severed hand moving itself all around the floor; the pumpkin in the corner had Dracula rising every couple of minutes..... where has the year gone? Halloween is around the corner....
I have to admit that this is the first year in a long time that I am quite happy to be done with. I feel like I have spent all year with restricted activity due to illness of one kind or another and I am so very ready for all that to pass on to another dimension (or whatever!)
These are the last two of the painted eggs until I get to the feed store to buy more. It looks like the cloisonne' pen will have to be ordered since the art store here does not carry them. The owner said he could order them for me, but I have to check and see if Dick Blick is less expensive.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Doll #1 (as in First Try!)


A couple of weeks ago, I decided to try to make my own doll. (I don't know why..) So I took a pencil and drew off what I thought looked like one on a piece of muslin. I folded the muslin, pinned it so it wouldn't slide around and sewed around the doll outline. By gently pulling the front forward and the back backwards, I sewed a dart from the chin to the top of the belly on the front side. Then I cut a slit in the back and turned the doll inside out (... which is harder than it looks as the arms and legs are very small!) I stuffed the arms and legs individually, sewing across the groin and armpit area as each one was stuffed. Then I stuffed the head and body, closing the open slit by handsewing it using a slip stitch. Here is another example of trying to get rid of that Homespun yarn... By pulling out the cotton thread that keeps the Homespun together, I found that it makes a very soft fluff that is great for the hair. After a couple of false starts (sounds better than "have no idea what I am doing") , I found that by combing out lengths of the yarn, it would hold together and could be sewn onto the head. Now... I looked at it for a while and could not find any inspiration to continue. So I crocheted the little dress to fit it. Something was still not right. The face I painted on it was awful. Then I decided to paint it white... the whole doll. (Should be done before the hair... just so you know!) So today, I decided to try another face... then I decided to paint on clothes...the clothes looked funny against the white...so I painted the body again.. pink this time... So here we are... having to wait for the paint to dry... Will update in a day or so... (grin...fun project)

Monday, October 09, 2006

My New Favorite Book

I found this book on a half price table at the local used book store. It just reached out and grabbed me, so of course I bought it... and as they say, the rest is history. I have done a search online and find that Amazon.com.uk has a list of 38 books written by Mary Jo Hiney and they are all like this...
The ideas inside are so lovely I just want to lock myself in my workroom and stay until I do them all. Each piece has complete instructions and patterns showing exactly how to make the article. But... they are not quite as easy as they look and some of them are quite time consuming.
I finished this little girl ornament yesterday but it has had a few modifications from the pattern. That's the beauty of these patterns...they lend themselves to whatever you personally want to do with them. I will be making more...

Blue Vinca


This is another blue that I did because my DH loves the color. I'm finding these little eggs to be quite addictive..grin I have found online some paints used for painting glass that also have cloisonne' pens and I think they would be wonderful for this. No one can find one of the cloisonne' pens here in town, so I may have to order them. There is one more place to look, so we'll see.
Yesterday was a really good telephone day. Calls from grandsons that we don't get to see very often are always a wonderful surprise.
Our friends from Virginia have called several times and there is no expressing how much their concern means to me. Pat, thanks for all the encouragement and advise...

Sunday, October 08, 2006

I'm Home...



Well, I got home from the hospital around noon yesterday. The cardiac cath went well and I had to have one long stent. It seems that the front coronary artery was 90% blocked. I am still feeling the occasional bounding in my ears and neck, but am assured that it will pass as the stent becomes better seated.
As I could have nothing to eat or drink prior to leaving for the hospital on the 6th, I kept myself busy by painting this egg for DD. She wants to do her house in the tropical look.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Tomorrow is the Day...

I am so ready for tomorrow to get here. The call came this afternoon and will have to be at the hospital at 12noon tomorrow. I guess when it comes right down to it, I am nervous. It's really a lttle disconcerting to think about someone running something up through your heart... not to mention the 1 in 500 chances of a stroke or heart attack... but if it will help stop this pounding, I'm all for it. Dear daughter and her oldest son will be here tonight... Can hardly wait for that. Will hasn't been to visit in a very long time and I am really looking forward to his visit.
This is one of the latest eggs. I finished it today, along with several others. There are only 2 blank eggs left and I will have to get some more..grin I will put another up tomorrow morning.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Sadness

What's happening in our world? When I was younger and the adults in the family would talk about how things had changed, I would grin, shake my head and blow it off as nostalgic thinking. Today, I understand a little better. Yesterday's shootings in Pennsylvania leave me unable to speak. What is happening to us as a society when an adult male can find no other way to avenge his own hurt than to tie up and execute young grade school girls who not only had nothing to do with his problem, but are also completely defenseless? Three school shootings in one week. Since when does killing our children find it's way to the top of the list of "Things To Do Today"?

The 6th of Oct. will be 6 non-smoking weeks... I wish I could say "Wow... everything tastes better!" or "Wow! I feel so much better!"... but the fact is... nothing tastes any different and I certainly don't feel any better... I still want to smoke and I still have that slight tight feeling in my chest... I now have a horrible taste in my mouth and probably just as horrible hallitosis (not to mention gingivitis) because of the constant nibbling on something sweet to kill the smoking crave... I have gained at least 10 pounds and this is not good since I was already quite overweight...The only positive I have found is that I don't cough when I get up in the morning... Does anyone have any idea why I am still putting myself through this?
OK... enough on that... This little velvet heart ornament is another in a long line of "keep myself busy" projects... and I really like the way it turned out. I may have to make many more for my Christmas tree... grin..