Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Up and down ...

I took several items to enter in the Owen County Open Class Fair last Saturday.  Supposed to work but county prez sent me home because I was ill.  (I must have looked awful to bring her to do that.)  Shouldn't have gone in the first place.  Actually I think I will be making up for it by working two other 4-hour shifts this week.  But I hated to let them down that day.

Besides jewelry, canning, a foliage plant and crochet, I entered that hooked mat "Prim Rose" that I posted a picture of here a few days ago.  And a woven rug that you might be interested in.  Since this was my first run of weaving I was amazed that this beginning project received a reserve champion ribbon!  This encourages me now to advance into more difficult projects and take full advantage of having a 4-harness loom.  The rug I entered is a simple over-under cotton rag rug.  Here's a picture but not a good one I'm afraid.  Looking at it here I see it is fairly straight along the sides.  My weaver friend, Paul, has given me tips on the selvage edges so I can do better on the next run.  I still have lots of this off-white cotton warped on the loom, so I will weave with that for now until I work it off.  Then when I'm done with off-white I'll change to a linen color warp I have and try something else.  I'm thinking of doing some place mats and a table runner.  Then I want to move on to various colors of warp.  But man, warp is so pricey!  This could get out of hand ! LOL !  ;-)

Sort of a blurry pix of the woven rug I entered in the fair ...
Everything else I entered in the fair got a blue or red ribbon (sigh) no grand champions this year.  But there's always NEXT year ...

Now, if I can just get back to normal, health-wise!  On the plus side, I went to the dentist for my 6-month check up yesterday and everything in my mouth is AOK.  Good.  I needed some good news yesterday from someone with initials behind his name.  While laying around the past week, feeling bum, I have finished two good books.  And done lots of crocheting.  But here's the not so good news; I cleaned the guest room last Friday and put the hooking away for a while ... Yes, I know, that was a big mistake.  When will I ever finish that runner rug, you ask, if I keep putting it "away"???  Right now it is draped over the banister in the front hallway.  That will remind me to get with it, right?

The corn is all out of the garden and we're estimating that from two 30' rows we had maybe six meals of corn on the cob and I got one (yes, 1) pint for the freezer.  Pathetic.  All that's left in the garden is peppers, tomatoes and some sick looking flowers.  Wendell is babying along the veggies with a dam around them and watering every few days.  Today we're going to Terre Haute.  It is supposed to be almost 100 degrees but it will be a fun day anyway regardless of the heat.  I need to get him away from the work of this place.

Have a blessed week and KEEP COOL!

Thursday, July 12, 2012

This n' that ...

Got another row done on that blessed runner rug ... have been feeling a little under the weather but some sulfa drugs from the dr. has made me almost back to normal.  I have pushed myself nonetheless because the county fair is next week and had some things to prep for that ...

Here's the latest progress pix ... Yeah!
Or maybe I should show it like this!  That at the bottom ... that's THE END!
I can hardly believe I am so close to the end of this rug and trust that nothing will happen to deter me from completing it this time around.  It has been years since I started it; I can't remember when exactly.  Still have to finish that other rug; the woman with the red hair.  Then I can start something FRESH!

Wendell dug the garlic yesterday and it is so pathetic.  Some plants were just nothing, others looked like one bulb.  The (very) few larger ones are about the size of a hulled walnut.  But it is drying on the front porch and I'm thankful for what we have.  He dug up what was left of the green beans; the rabbits ate them to just a leafless stalk.  Last night something charged the garden electric fence in two places, breaking it down but the corn, tomatoes and peppers are still intact.  I think some of the plant-eating animals are getting desperate now, there is so little vegetation left.  The queen Anne's lace is the only thing blooming in our prairie area.  Rugged coneflowers even failed me this year.  The black eyed Susans looked good for a while then one day I looked and they seemed to wither overnight.

Other things are drying up too ... I heard an interesting statistic on the news two days ago.  In the last reported month only 84,000 new jobs were created in the U.S.  However the same month 85,000 people went on disability.  Scary, no?

I'm reading a really good book of short stories about women.  It's called Ordinary Lives.  Since I've lived 67 years I can see something of myself in each story so far.  I feel normal.  Not the "new normal", the old kind.

PS ... I passed the PAP test, too.  I'm good to go for another year!  Of course there is always that 50 # I want to loose but ........
PPS ... I know that for some reason you can't comment here and I am sorry.  I miss your comments!  I continue to look at all of the settings but believe it has to do with my AVG virus tool bar which "they say" is active but shows as turned off.  I will continue to search for the answer ...  I love to get emails! jaf1944@gmail.com

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Yeah!

Well, something good's come from all this heat at our house.  I'm hooking again!

Finished another row of the dreaded runner rug today.  Fourteen rows done, four rows to go!  I'm thinking finishing the hooking will be easy now but the steaming and binding ... all together another story .... stay tuned.

Progress as of 7/7/2012.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Praying for rain ...

Yes, I guess everyone is ...  Here's my avatar doing a rain dance in the kitchen ...
I'm willing to try anything!
It seems I'm telling everyone I talk with that I feel like a prisoner in my own home.  It is so hot, with temps over 100 degrees every day for the past 8 days, that I have just been inside most of the time.  Or in the car going somewhere inside, etc.  

Wow!  Only in the early a.m. do we open the doors and windows, and actually, since it hasn't rained for some time, even then there is a really funky smell coming from the river I guess.  So that isn't even enjoyable.  Some of the other unusual things happening are leaves and bark falling from the trees, and wild animals coming near the house (more than usual) to nibble on the flowers and herbs I am watering.  Wendell and I have been capturing water from the washing machine to water the new trees and my flowers.  Also, I have been surprised at how much water I'm getting from the kitchen sink.  I put an old dish pan there to catch water from washing produce, hands, rinsing dishes before they go in the dishwasher, etc.  I find I'm emptying it onto my flowers several times a day!  Thank God for small blessings.  We're doing lots of things to conserve water and electricity...

I'm sure this is boring to you, but I think it's just a taste of how we might all be living in the future.  Along similar lines, I heard the other day that a recent Gallup Poll showed that for the first time middle-aged, middle-class American adults felt that they were doing better than their parents but thought that their children would not be doing as well as they did.  I hope that is wrong.  It just doesn't seem "American" somehow.  

Here, in pictures, are some of the things I've been up to lately:

I cut the first five rugs from the loom and here's one of them, a denim woven rug.
I co-hosted the June meeting of Jolly Homemakers Extension Club.  Our theme was Flag Day.  I did the decorating and here's a pix from that event.  I placed lots of different types of vases around the big horseshoe table configuration, with flowers from my gardens.  Red, white and blue was much in evidence!  I did an American flag trivia game with 10 questions and Sandy A. won a hooked flag pennant for answering the most questions correctly!  Congrats Sandy!
Also regarding Jolly ... I was asked to decorate the bulletin board at the Freedom Community Center for the annual Achievement Day event.  Here's what I did ... the theme was "Coming Home" and I made a patchwork, so to speak, of pictures taken in Owen County, centering my charm quilt wall hanging in the midst of it all.  Got lots of compliments on this one; people enjoyed looking at the pictures a lot!
I completed this little mat in about two weeks!  Yes, I know ... I have two other rugs started!  But this really has me motivated to hook now, and today I got out the big runner rug and have begun working on it!  (Yeah!)  This is a Maggie Bonanomi design from her book, "With These Hands".  (not a very good quality pix I'm thinking ...)

I hope it rains and is cool at your house.  Wishing the same for me and mine ...