A new toy

Mom, Janet, and I had a wonderful weekend together. Janet arrived Thursday afternoon as I was getting home from school, and she was able to stay until after I left Monday morning.

On Friday and Saturday, we took Mom shopping and out to lunch. Mom said it was like a mini vacation, and Janet and I agreed. Sunday was kind of a lazy day. Dave worked out in the yard, and Janet and I helped a little bit here and there.

I had jury duty on Monday and had to leave early. Janet was able to stay until after lunch. I'm glad of that, because I didn't get home until later afternoon.

As for the new toy...

It's a Sentro knitting machine, and this morning I cranked out my first twisted headband.

I learned a lot from this project. One thing is, I think these look better on people with long hair!

I took my sample to school, and the kids loved it. This may become my project for the year!

Since I had such positive feedback, I decided to crank out another one this afternoon. I switched tables and found that one 4" shorter worked a little better for me. 

The machine is a little noisy, so I know Dave would not appreciate me cranking while we're watching t.v. So, I think I'll crank in the daytime and do the finishing at night. I wonder how many I can make in a day?

If at first you don't succeed...

 

I did try again with the Oliver Twists thread, and I messed up on the second ring. Rather than trying to fix the mistake, I decided I should set the beautiful hand-dyed quilting thread aside and work with size 20 Lizbeth. So, I now have the first round of Hannah finished in size 20. Now I need to decide if I want to use different colors for each round or do it all in one color.

There wasn't much time for crafting today. My sister is visiting for a few days, and today we took Mom shopping and went out to lunch. While Mom took an afternoon nap, Janet did a bit of flower arranging for me.

I've had this coffee mug for years. It was my go-to mug, but it was dropped while we were doing dishes and broke. So, I glued it back together and decided it would make a great little vase. I love the way it turned out! I might not be able to enjoy my morning coffee in this mug any more, but I can still admire it.

Why stop with one mug? Daughter Joanne gave me this pretty little mug, but the balance was wrong for me. Now it's filled with flowers (artificial, of course... I tend to kill plants) and I can enjoy it on a daily basis.

The third mug that Janet transformed for me is my Handy Hands mug from a couple of years ago. I love the shape and the color of this mug, but it's too heavy for me. I sure am glad that my sister has a flair for flower arranging!

Hannah, round 1

 

It took me a while, but I finally decided that my new tatting project would be Hannah from Bonded with Tatting - doilies by Laura Bziukiewicz. I started making the doilies in this book in order. I still haven't finished Star of Bethlehem, mainly because I haven't found the safe place I stashed it in while organizing and cleaning!

I may have to redo the first round. As I was tatting the last ring, I realized that I joined to the wrong picot between the first and second rings. A non-tatter probably wouldn't notice it, but I think it will drive me crazy!

Clean up

Last month, Jane posted about cleaning up her list of blogs that she reads. I decided it was time to do the same thing. It made me a little sad to think that I've lost contact with so many people over the past decade. I probably deleted 3/4 of my blog reading list. Most that I deleted had not blogged in the past five years or more, and many had not blogged in ten plus years. 

Yes, I did take a three month hiatus from blogging. I needed the break. However, I found that I was not nearly as motivated to create when I wasn't keeping a record of what I created. Of course the good part of taking a break was that I finally got my craft supplies in a manageable mess! I still have to look for things, but I have a much better idea of what I have and where I might find it. 

At one of our recent Tollway Tatters meetings, Sue asked if she could have a sample of the Oliver Twists thread that I had blogged about way back in 2012. Luckily, I was able to find it a couple of weeks ago. I gave samples to both Sue and Denise. 

Why samples? Back when I purchased the thread, I was able to get it from DS9 Designs. From what I can tell, it is now only available from the UK, and the shipping costs almost as much as the thread. So, sharing samples with friends was a no brainer. 

As often happens, one thing leads to another. I'm ready to tat something beautiful with this thread, so I'm perusing tatting books. My corner of the living room is a mess. I have tatting, knitting, and quilting books by my chair as well as multiple works in progress. Isn't life grand?

Finished

 

I finished the baby blanket this morning. The edges look a bit ruffly in this picture, but it looked much better after I washed and dried it. I didn't think to take another picture before wrapping it. I'm pleased with the way it turned out, but I think I prefer just ending with the waffle stitch pattern. The directions I followed called for four rounds of single crochet edging. I did two and then called it quits.

Now that I've finished the baby blanket, I really should finish the other one that's nearly done. However, I am a little bored with crochet, and I think my tatting shuttles are feeling neglected. It must be time to tat!

Two!

 

I have two waffle stitch afghans in progress. I've been working on the top one for several months. I started the bottom one this weekend. I decided I needed a waffle stitch baby blanket for a baby shower this Friday. I guess you know what I'll be doing for the next several days!

One done

 

I finally finished the first of seven dishcloths for daughter Alison. This has been my carry-along project so that I can work my way through all of the dishcloth cotton I've discovered while cleaning and organizing. Yes, there's a lot of it!

I have about 20 minutes between the two high school lunches, so I spend that time knitting. At the pace I'm going, I will be knitting dishcloths for a long, long time!