Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Gearing up for summer!

It's going to be a wonderful summer full of tatting, spinning, weaving, crocheting, and it all begins one week from today for me!


In yesterday's mail I received these wonderful gifts from TypsTatting. Thank you, Margaretha! The bag is a wonderful size for carrying around my projects, and it has lots of generous pockets inside. It will come in very handy when Mom and I drive up to Minnesota to visit two of my daughters in June. The dishcloths are wonderful! I knit my own dishcloths, because I like them so much more than store-bought. They're thicker, and the bumps help make clean-up a breeze. Margaretha was also kind enough to include a ball of Twilleys Twenty crochet thread. It's in shades of brown, and right now I'm craving chocolate!

I've been on a drop spindle kick lately. I'm trying to learn how to spin, without great success, but I am determined. I know I can do it. I think I just need some time with someone who knows how to use a drop spindle so that I can pick up some hints.

Last night I was looking through Etsy shops (a very dangerous pastime!), and I found the hat pattern I've been looking for. No, I didn't know that it existed. I knew what I wanted, and I knew that someone out there had to have created it. Now all I have to do is find my size J crochet hook. I really do need to clean up my sewing room!

I"m making progress with "Stella Alpina"... maybe I'll post a picture of my progress tomorrow. I've also been reading The Girl Who Played with Fire. I'm about 3/4 of the way through it. The third book in the series will be released this week. While I could do without the foul language and the descriptions of the side of life I'm happy not to be a part of, the story lines are intriguing, and the plot unfolds in a way that keeps me reading! When I finish with this series, I think I may return to the kinder, gentler Agatha Christie or Patricia Wentworth!

9 comments:

  1. What awesome goodies! Are you a member of Ravelry? If not, join up! There's a large spinning community there and they can help you out with any questions you have about spindles. I'm looking forward to summer, too. Wish I could get out of working until September...

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  2. Congratulations that is a lovely bag you have won. Enjoy your summer break, you have lots to look forward to

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  3. I coveted that bag! LOL! I have a ball of that same brown Twilley's - it was given to me!

    I think my lace guild is going to do a drop spindle spinning class some time this year. Two people have offered to team up and give it anyway. So I've been drooling over the many "tools".

    Lucky you - summer off! So wish I could do that!

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  4. I really envy you! There will be no tatting--or crafts of ant kind--for me for awhile. I broke my wrist in three places last week while at work! I am so depressed. I've got to come up with some way to tat. That's my therapy! Now, I have no therapy. One positive note, though--I broke my right wrist and I am lefthanded. So, there is something good in all this.

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  5. So glad that all of your goodies arrived safetly. Enjoy your summer break!

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  6. I love that bag, too! Looks like you are busy with your tatting and I will remember these books. I may want to read one! ♥

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  7. Lots of room in that bag for all the tatting you are going to have time to do in the next few months! I eagerly await what issues forth from your talented shuttles, Diane, now that the pressures of work are receding quickly into the past. (Perhaps you will be smitten with late-night reading, as I have , over the past few weeks - can you tell? I cannot seem to shut up!)

    Congrats on your win and Happy Hols!
    Wordy Fox : ))

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  8. I am looking forward to seeing progress on Stella Alpina.
    I agree with your ambivalence about grim stuff in detective books...they are fiction so the authors have a choice about what they include. Too much "realism" seems gratuitous, to me anyway!

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  9. A road trip in the summer sounds like fun.

    Beautiful bag!

    I like the idea of shades of brown colored thread, hummm, wonder where I can get some.

    Enjoy your time off, I look forward to seeing what wonderful things you create this summer.

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