Antiqueing..

Is that how you spell it? Hmmm, hope so..LOL

I spent some time this weekend roaming around the antique mall in my hometown. I started on Friday with my Mom. The dime store has converted half of its space into antique booths, so we explored those while out and about. I found 2 wood spindles that are working great as Nostepinnes. I didn't know what a nostepinne was until I saw one on a knitting show on PBS last week. When I saw these 2 things in a bowl in one of the booths - for $1 each - I snatched them up. They work just like a nostepinne should work. However, now that I've researched them online a bit, I realize they are wooden spindles - probably for an industrial loom, as they have metal pieces on the ends....oh well, I'm repurposing them well and they look great in amongst my things in my sewing room :)

Mom and I also checked out the new yarn shop, as well as the new quilt shop in town. Both shops are great and I expect we'll both be spending some time in each one. I even sold a few pincushions to the quilt shop for them to sell on consignment for me. Win win :)

Well, apparently the antique bug wasn't satisfied, so on Sunday I went back to town and roamed the large antique mall for a few hours. It took me 2 1/2 hours to poke my nose into every booth they have - this place is huge. It has 2 upstairs and 2 basements....whew! Anyway, I found a neat windchime of glazed pottery for $1.25 and a glass flower frog for $2.50. Then, as I was at the 2nd to last booth in the place, I noticed all these planks of wood stacked up against the wall. The tags on them identified them as cherry, hard maple and walnut! They were huge pieces of wood, and none of them over $11.00 a piece! So, a quick call to DH and I was lugging one of the pieces down the stairs for him. Then, I learned that everything in the mall is 10% off if it doesn't say "firm" on the tag! Whoa! All told, I got to shoot the antique bug in me for a while for $9.23! Not bad :)

Oh, I finished the crochet bag this weekend. Mom likes my variation much better than her version of the pattern. She followed the pattern faithfully and got a very floppy bag out of it. I followed the pattern and got a circle - it wouldn't turn 3-D for me at all. I finally ripped the whole thing out and revised the bottom - now I have a very nice bag to hold my odds and ends of yarn bits. I'm liking it :)

We're having a yard sale at my sister's house next weekend - so the house is in an uproar as DH and I are pulling things to get rid of. The criteria for this sale: if it hasn't been touched in more than 3 years, it's going. There are a lot of things I love, but I'm not using, and since we need the money, it's time to get rid of them.

Some Good News Today

Finally, some good news in our house. I received a letter today saying that my unemployment benefits are guaranteed - the contest the company was asking for was denied. Thank God. That's one less worry on my shoulders.

It's Been a Rough Weekend...

I'm already counting the days until winter. The lovely snow, the concept of no bugs makes me absolutely giddy.

I spent some time yesterday digging out dandelions in our back yard. You see, we finally got some rain Friday night and the dandelions were popping out a little strong. Also, our older neighbor has been making comments about the yards down the street being overrun with dandelions, so I took my hint and dutifully began digging them out yesterday morning. It was a gorgeous day, the sun was shining, it was warm, there was a bit of a breeze...enough of one that I didn't bother worrying about mosquitoes....my mistake.

Apparently, they were out on sneak attacks yesterday. I currently have 6 mosquito bites on my legs, 5 of them around my ankles. I also have 3 spots where I bled and now have a rash - I can only think I bumped up against something that isn't agreeing with me. We have no poison ivy in the yard, so I really don't think it's that....but I have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow for other matters, so I'll be sure to ask him about them...

I so absolutely despise mosquitoes. We live in a bowl with large hills surrounding our town and a river running through it. It's basically a swamp that breeds mosquitoes from April until October. Since the wind only swirls around down here, none of them ever leave. We love to have fires in the backyard in the evenings, but I have to bathe in mosquito spray in order to enjoy them, which means I'm sticky and uncomfortable all evening, so I'm not really enjoying much....oh well, DH still likes doing them.....it's just so weird, though. Those mosquitoes never bother DH, just me. Oh, and the Insane Gardener next door....I thought it was the perfume I was wearing, but I'm not working now, so no perfume.....when does the snow come back??

A Sad Time..

For the life of me, I can't find a picture of Tiger. She's our 15 year old cat that we rescued from the local pound when she was 6 weeks old. About 2 weeks ago, we noticed a lump on her shoulder that we couldn't explain. It was about the size of a quarter. Yesterday I realized it had grown to equal the size of her head - in 2 weeks. We just got back from the vet with the diagnosis that it is cancer and she has anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months to live.

I realize she is getting older, but it's so hard to have to say goodbye.

Life Around here Lately..

Life has been pretty eventful around here lately. I turned another year older at the beginning of the month, and DNephew did, too. We had a sweet little birthday party together - he got to take home the bulk of the haul. But, he turned 2, so it makes sense :)

I didn't manage to get his quilt done for the party. In fact, it's still not done yet, but I am working on it every day. And yesterday I learned that my sewing machine is designed to save my life in the case of a catastrophe! Yay! I replaced a blunt needle when I sat down at the machine yesterday, and apparently I didn't tighten the screw that holds the needle in place well enough. About 2 lines of sewing later, the machine blew up at me - well, that's what it seemed like anyway - because the needle fell out of it's assigned place and the machine made a lot of nasty sounds before I could get my foot of the peddle. So, after I settled myself and the dog down a bit, I started looking things over. Apparently, when something like this happens, the button to disengage the needle arm (you know, you hit this when you're winding bobbins) flicks automatically! Yay Singer! I was so impressed with this little detail and how they saved my life - or at least an eye ;)

So, I replaced that needle to find that the new needle was a dull one to begin with. Ugh. That was enough excitement at the machine for me. Time to go back to my hand work :)

And what have I been working on lately, you might ask? Well, 2 things, actually. One is a new knitted afghan that I've fallen in love with. You can see a pic of it here (it's episode 219 and is the green afghan). It's a challenging pattern for me, being a new knitter and all, but I love it. I can do all the stitches, which is a major hurdle for me, and I'm loving watching the pattern develop. I also love the feel of the knitted fabric. I grew up with crocheted afghans all over the house (Mom is a master crocheter) and this is a very different feel. DH has proclaimed he likes it, too :)

The other project is a hexagon quilt I started about 6 years ago. I had just finished a queen-sized hexagon quilt that was scrappy, (I'm still quilting that one, by the way) and wanted to downsize the size of the hexagons drastically. The first quilt has hexagons that are about 4 inches on a side. This new quilt has hexagons that are 1 inch on a side. I spent months designing the layout of the quilt and have the bottom border done at this point. This is one of those projects that I work on like crazy for a month or so, then don't touch it for a year - which explains why I have only a bottom border done in 6 years. Well, anyway, I've been working on it again and loving it. It's especially good to work on while listening to a book on tape. I'll get pics for you next time I post about it.

The last thing I'm going to talk about today is the new arrival to our yard yesterday. Two of our five cats are indoor/outdoor cats. One is allowed to be this way, the other is an escape artist. So, yesterday they are both outside (it was gorgeous and sunny) and when DH got home from work, we notice Felix is stalking something across the road (he's not allowed across the road), so we start yelling and hollering at him to stop whatever he's doing and get back in the yard. He complies, and we then notice that there is a baby bunny across the street from our house - so cute and so tiny! He wasn't even tall enough to have his ears top the curb. Ok, so all is well, we go inside and proceed with our evening of dinner and TV and knitting ;)

Fast forward to 11:00 and we start to hear this screaming outside. Well, Mookie, the other kitty, is still outside. Guess what she found? The baby bunny was in our backyard and Mookie was playing with it. Luckily, I got out there fast enough to break them up, but that bunny was petrified. Mookie went back inside and the bunny hopped over to the neighbor's yard...but now I have to contend with kitties that want to go outside and can't so we can save a baby bunnies life. Ahhh, life in the city. The things you never expect to see. It reminds me of the possum we saw waddling down the street a couple of weeks ago...

Warning! Rant Mode On.

Ok, I have 2 confessions to make before I go into my rant, I do not watch Top Model and I am not a fan of Tyra Banks. However, last night while I was flipping through the menu to find something to watch, it was on in the background. I couldn't help it, I got drawn in.

Ok, so we're at the end of the show where the judging is happening. Each girl goes before the judges with her best photo shot and they either praise it or insult it. There isn't a lot of constructive criticism happening at this point. Also, all of the girls are dressed somewhat similarly in short skirt things and high heels. So, we get to one girl that comes out to the end of the runway to get her judgment. The blatantly gay black judge makes a snide comment about the shoes she's wearing. To which Tyra starts chiming in with nasty names at the girl - "skank" was one of them and I can't recall the other two.

To this, the girl, quite politely, asked them if they were kidding. At which point, the judging moved from her current outfit to her photo shot - which they insulted quite well, too.

Fast forward to the very end of the show where the judges rank the girls on how well their photo shot is. This girl was ranked second to last and was given a lecture by Tyra about how the girl was "defensive" and "combative" and none of the judges would want her on their photo shoot or to work with her. She needed to work on this.

How dare Tyra Banks lecture this girl for standing up for herself in a polite manner when she had just called her a skank?!? I cannot believe the gall of this woman. No, woman is the wrong word for Tyra Banks. I'll leave it to you to decide what she should be called....it's not appropriate for polite company, though.

Long Time...

Ok, I admit, I've been missing in action for a while....lots of stuff happening behind the scenes that just isn't fun, so we'll ignore all that for now.

I've been working on DNephew's quilt for some time now. I spent a day at Mom's new apartment getting it basted - Thanks for the help Mom! - and have been attempting to quilt it by machine. For all of you ladies out there that do this frequently, what's the trick? I am having the hardest time getting this done! I've managed to get the main lines quilted - horizontal and vertical - and am now attempting to do all the diagonals. There was a slight hiccup when I realized my chalk pencils just weren't cutting it and I had to make a pitstop at the local quilt shop to see what they had for chalk markers, but other than that, I've been working on it a little bit each day. And that's about all I can do! I sit at the machine shaking because I'm terrified I'm going to really mess this quilt up. I am not a machine lover - give me handwork anyday - so I know that's part of it. And this is my first time attempting machine quilting - I understand it's not easy at first. But the anxiety I'm feeling is unreal! I have to force myself to sit down each day and do at least one line. When I finish with that, I jump up and run to my comfy chair and my handwork project and attempt to control my hyperventilating.....it's crazy.

So, needless to say, DNephew won't be receiving his Big-Boy quilt at his birthday party this Saturday. I thought 3 weeks was enough to get it quilted and bound, but it just isn't happening. Sorry buddy! He'll get it soon, though, I promise!