Water, water everywhere!

The remnants of Hurricane Fay have merged with some front from the North and dropped a whole lot of rain on us. To say I'm getting cabin fever is putting it mildly. I haven't been able to get out for three days because there's a small lake in the front yard. You'd think this would be the perfect time to work on a project or two, but I can't get to the store and get new sewing machine needles so I can't sew, I'm tired of knitting and crochet at the moment, and unispired for tatting or anything else.

Plus, they've decided that it was a brilliant idea to move everything out of the storage room this week, so I'm too busy supervising the organization process to get anything done anyway. I need to get out of this house! I'm losing it! Help!

Ooooooh! Turned out awesome!

Ta-da! The first bottle necklace (which started as the second one) is done!

Like it?

How do you feel in your skin?

I'm just disgusted with the state of the attitude of the world today. I had to turn off Rachael Ray today because I was just getting so upset and depressed.

They were talking about women who'd lost a lot of weight and finally felt "like the person they always were inside." One woman retook her wedding pictures because she'd been so upset on her actual wedding day that she hadn't even invited anyone. Now that she'd lost a bunch of weight she wanted to capture the memory of herself as a beautiful bride.

That's a lovely sentiment in some ways, but the thing that upset me is that we weren't addressing the real problem. I think that losing weight and getting healthy is a great thing. My problem is that you can't say one day that people need to have self-esteem and be happy with who they are then turn around the next day and say that you can't really be happy until your skinny!

Make up your minds!

Do we need to be happy with who we are or who we want to be? I'd like to be thinner. I think I would look better thinner and I'm not exactly jumping in front of the camera now, but I'm still happy with who I am.

I'm just tired of the mixed messages. Getting healthy is great. That doesn't mean you need to be tiny. Some people are not meant to be tiny. You can't live your life waiting for the moment when everything you see in the mirror becomes everything you want to see!

So, I guess the question is, does everyone want self-esteem to be based on who you are or how you look?

The only spiders I'll ever like . . .

Other than Charlotte, of course. I made a couple Halloween cards last year with some little tatted spiders on them. I decided to make some more and try to market them this year. What do you think?

Curses! Foiled Again!

The lavendar cardigan was cut along the front facings! Argh! Okay, now I have to try and figure out what to do with the fronts since they're useless to salvage yarn from. Hmmmm, there's something to think about.

Maybe I can sew them into a purse and line it. I must have some lavendar fabric lying around somewhere. Everyone cross your fingers that this works!

Frogging Friday!

Three more sweaters to frog for yarn! For any non-fiber freaks out there, frogging means to rip apart a finished/semi-finished piece to recycle the yarn or fix a mistake. (Comes from the idea of rip-it, rip-it, ha ha, get it?) Well here are my latest vicitms:

So excited! I got great yarn out of the last three, just haven't had a chance to reuse it or photgraph it yet. I was disappointed that the last lavendar sweater had a hidden surprise. The V-neck shape was cut out of the piece, so I lost a lot of yarn, but I still got a fair amount. Just goes to show that you can't take for granted that the edges are whole under a collar. Hopefully that won't be any such surprises with these latest sweaters, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Musings on Movies

Those of you who know me, know how much I looooooove movies. I grew up watching old movies with my grandmother. After my mother died, while things were still good between my step-father and my grandmother and I, we used to go out about every other week on Sunday nights and go to the movies and out to dinner.

Well, we went and saw a movie today, ("Dark Knight," second time we've seen it) and it got me thinking about something that popped into my mind a few weeks ago. At the time, we were leaving the theatre from seeing "Get Smart," and I was thinking about how at least some of the critics had ripped it to shreds. Now, I'll admit it wasn't "Casablanca" or "Citizen Kane," but it was exactly what I was expecting it to be. It wasn't meant to be extremely intelligent or an exact rehashing of the series. It was meant to be fun and silly. That's what it was. Sometimes I go to the theatre wanting to see something that's going to make me think or cry or scream or laugh. It depends on my mood.

I think I've stumbled upon the reason critics all seem to expect too much from some of these movies. They always seem so "disappointed" with whatever they're seeing. This is the problem as I see it: They've all forgotten how to enjoy going to the movies. I think it's inevitable whatever your job is. There are times I hate knitting or sewing or whatever project I'm working on. It's just the way that things happen. I think it's kind of sad that if your job is going to the movies, you end up hating to go to the movies.

When I was in high school, I considered majoring at college in theatre and journalism with the hopes of becoming a theatre or movie critic. I'm so glad now that I didn't persue that. Because, now I get to give my simple honest opinion to my friends and family. I've rarely seen a play or movie that I didn't enjoy at least on some level. Because we see just about every movie that comes out, people ask my husband and I for our opinions, and I love to give them, but no one is expecting me to analyze every element of every performance.

I'm just so glad that I can still have joy in going to the movies.

Adventures in Unravelling

Hooray! Three more sweaters to unravel for yarn!

No matter how I adjust them, the pictures don't do justice to the incredible colors of these three sweaters. I'm sooooo excited to rip them apart and turn them into something new. Even though, I have no idea what that new thing will be yet.

My Minions Rise Again!

More socklings have emerged from my strange brain. Some of them need names, so I'm opening the floor for suggestions:

Any suggestions will be considered, though some only for a moment. Check my shop for more sock critters!

Swirl Hats Make a Comback!

The mountain of recycled and discount yarn called to me yesterday. I was sitting in my chair trying to figure out what to work on, and I heard it. "Use us! We're lonely and feel unwanted!"

So, I flipped through pattern books, but didn't find anything that I liked that I had enough of any one yarn to make. I decided to venture into the terror of the dusty archives in my brain. I looked into the shelves of patterns I've created and abandoned in the bookshelves of my mind and came out with. . .

Ta-da! The Swirl Hat:

This is not the one of the ones I worked on yesterday, but one of the original Swirl Hats! (sounds like a strange band or something, doesn't it?) I'll post pics of the new ones when I get a chance to take them. I've nixed the pompom on the new ones because it just didn't speak to me. I love this pattern. I think I'm going to have to buckle down and actually type it up sometime. I'll put in on the bottom of the to-do list. That means I should get to it sometime around December . . . 2020. Man, that list is getting away from me!

So . . . today was hubby's third day of jury duty and my third day of going completely insane.

Okay, I've been insane for more than three days, but now I'm starting to notice it. It seems like everything my hands touch are fighting me. The yarn won't behave, I stabbed myself with a sewing needle, I fell on my butt trying to walk to the bathroom. . .

Oh, and about that falling on my butt thing - tip for the future: don't land on a Playstation controller. Funny circle bruise on my hip from the analog stick. Sorry, had to share.

I did manage to make some sock critters, but didn't do anything else particularly interesting. Just tried to think of excuses he should have used to get out of jury duty. I mean, he has an auditory processing disorder. I know he really does because sometimes he says he's listening and then looks at me after I'm done and says "I'm sorry, I was listening, but it didn't stick."
Yeah, loads of fun having a husband who has a hearing problem, ADD, and can't process information he hears. I don't know if a) he didn't hear me, b) something shiny distracted him, or c) it went in one ear and out the other.

If I didn't love him so much, I'd have killed him by now. I guess that's how every woman feels about her husband from time to time. Well, gotta go kick him out of my chair. He looks too comfortable. ;)

It's done!

Well, here are the first pics of the completed scarf.

So there it is: "One Perfect Rose"

I was going to place two 3-d rose squares, one at each end, but Dorothy Parker's poem "One Perfect Rose" kept repeating in my head and I decided to put just one 3-d rose as the second motif on one side and not balance with another on the other side.

Now, for anyone who knows how symmetrically-minded I am, you know that this was a major step away from my comfort zone. I'm very pleased with the results, though, so I may have to spend less time obsessing in my quest for symmetry. Now, when Chris gets home from Jury Duty, I'll have him take pics of me in the scarf (in the nice hot sunlight, ugh) and post it to my store. Hooray!

Isn't it purty?

So here we go, the first pic of the scarf from the recycled yarn!

Not a great pic, I know. But it's dark, wet, and muggy outside, so I had to snap a quick pic inside. I think it's turning out really well. I guess I'm about half done now. I'll just have to see when it feels long enough.

It's soooo soft and wonderful. I really want to keep it! But I won't. I'll sell it when it's done. For now, I just get to enjoy feeling the wonderfully soft yarn running through my fingers as I work on it. One of these days, I'm going to make something wonderful and soft for myself.

Finally!

Well, at last I've finished disassembling two sweaters and washing the yarn to reuse. So far the scarf is turning out well, pictures to come! But for now you can see the pink yarn drying in hanks:

Keep in mind, I wound all those hanks by hand and at least the same amount of green yarn as well. If I wasn't aching for a swift before, I definitely am now. Literally!

I also figured that I might as well work with the second little bottle with something I have a lot of to avoid a similar situation as the predicament I found myself in before. Since I have a lot of black DMC tatting thread, that what I'm working with. I've got the bottle covering done and I just have to work on how I'm going to turn that into a necklace.

The thread ends are still there because the glue hadn't dried yet. I still need to get something better than just Fray-Stop to keep the ends secure before I cut them any shorter. So far, I really like this one, though. I hope it continues to turn out well.

Well, now that I've jinxed it, I might as well go work on it some more.