14 December 2016

time to catch up

Hello Readers!
Long time, no see! Time to catch up! 
My last post was made on November 8. My calendar says today is the 14th of December. If you read regularly you will know there is gonna be a lot to see today. Better get yourself a cuppa something before you dive in if you intend on reading my commentary along with looking at the pictures.

I have been away so long because my old body rebelled big time against my wishes! I had a major attack of the gout for 8 days and three days later I threw out my back. Doc says I have arthritis in my back. I don't want it. Take it back!
At any rate I'm doing a lot better today and this blog post needed to be written. 
Enjoy!

I'm still working on the granny square project. Crochet will show heavily in today's ramblings. It's not hard to crochet with your feet up, laid back in the recliner. There were no youtube videos but I have gone through a fair number of podcasts while sitting in my recliner over the course of my absence.

Let's get on with it!


 All these granny squares are not the same size. They range from 5.5 inches to 7 inches. I will adjust their size when it comes time to put them together.
 I have no clue what will be made from them.
 At the moment there are 58 granny squares made from the 365 Days of Granny Squares 
Project. And 2 more, one I simply made the pattern up as I went along and I made two of square #57.
 I couldn't tell you which of these are number 57 unless I really studied them.
 Some of them need blocked more than others. Blocking will occur when it's time to put them into a finished project.
 My color choices are a bit weird in some of the squares...
 and in others the color combos work quite well.
 I use what I have.
 It will all work out in the end once they're sitting side by side and on top of one another. I do think some of them will become a throw for the sofa.


 Here it is....number 57
and again, #57
I'm not sure why I thought I needed to do two of them. It was an easy square to make. 
So now there are 60 and one half granny squares made. I got one laying next to me that is half finished. I screwed up round three on it and haven't figured out how to make it work yet. 

I've made a few bags of one kind or another since the last post.
 Market bag made from plarn. The plarn is made from plastic door covers and vinyl tablecloths. The tweed looking parts are door covers. Blue and green are tablecloths.
 This one is a smaller market bag. More purse size. The orange is halloween pumpkin bags (kinda like trash bags, but a whole lot thicker!) and the tweed looking part is a halloween vinyle tablecloth. I spent 60 cents for the materials in this bag. Halloween clearance!
 Market bag. door cover and tablecloth
 Market bag. Made from Halloween door covers. The door covers had either a gory door scene on them or day of the dead skeleton. The skeleton one was mostly purple. It's used in the bag above this one. This one is made with the gory door covers. I should of taken a picture of them before I cut them into strips for plarn. But alas, as you all know by now, I did not think of that. I really like the way the door cover plarn crocheted into this tweed looking material.
 Crossbody bag made from vinyl tablecloth plarn in orange and blue. I have a boatload of orange plarn from Halloween tablecloths acquired in the Halloween clearance aisle of my local Dollar General. I was in there the week after Halloween and scored all the door covers and tablecloths that were in that clearance bin for a whopping 4 dollars and some change. Everything was perfect for my needs AND my budget!
 There is a bag somewhere in this post made from the same yarn as this dish cloth. My mother says it's too pretty to be a dish cloth. Cotton yarn remnants. It is dish cloth/wash cloth size.
 Market bag made entirely of vinyl tablecloth plarn.  I do have to admit that I have invested a few dollars in vinyl tablecloths to turn into plarn. But at a dollar a piece, they are cost effective as one can get about 150 feet of plarn from a 54x108 inch tablecloth. Some of them are bigger than that. The round one I accidentally bought got a bit more than 150 feet.
 close up of the Halloween door cover crocheted. This is the gory door cover.
 This isn't finished yet, still needs a button.
 This little coin purse/pouch is crocheted from white acrylic yarn. I spray painted it with fabric paint and dripped acrylic ink to make the spots. I couldn't get the black sprayer to work the next day when I went back to spray the other side so I changed plans and used purple instead. I sprayed the string used to sew it together as well. I intend to fasten a black or silver button for a closure. All depends on which button I can find to fit through the loop.
Here are a few of the plarn balls made over the last month. 

 A whole grocery bag full of plarn balls.
Some tablecloths cut into strips. The strips get tied together to make the plarn. 

 Murray, the crazy one! She looks pretty tame in this picture but 2 seconds after I took this picture, that cat was attacking the arm of the sofa instead of sitting pretty like she appears to be doing. Feel free to use Murray as a model for drawing or painting.
 I sewed together this little felt brooch last night. I've lost track of how many of these little brooches I've made thus far. Over 2 dozen of them.
 The north field, planted to wheat. This was taken Thanksgiving Day. It was gorgeous out that day. Upper 70s, slight breeze. Lots of company, good food and a few good laughs as well. Oh, and a road trip too! That road trip to Hays was fruitless. We had intended on meeting up with a bunch of others at the Golden Corral for Dinner. The parking lot was PACKED full so we went to Wally World and gathered an untraditional Thanksgiving Dinner and took it all back to my brother's house where everyone else had been instructed to congregate once we called them and snuffed out any idea of eating in Hays. It was a nice little road trip with 2 of my sisters and Ma.
 And then it snowed. Week before last I do believe is when the snow fell. We didn't get very much snow, couple inches at the most. It was all melted a few days later.
 It did snow heavily at times. You can barely see the bright green wheat on the other side of the fence out there.
 This crazy cat really wanted to go outside that day it snowed. She's not a happy camper because I will not open the door and let her out.
 Here's another picture of Murray that you may use as a model for drawing or painting. She takes good pictures.
And I leave you with this sad looking Miss Lola who has absolutely no reason to be sad. She was begging for treats. That sad little face did get her some treats too! She won't mind if you use her for a model, so go right ahead!

Thanks for hanging in there to the end.!~
Remember...
Be kind to one another!
It matters!
Peace
831


08 November 2016

I've Been Playing with String Again...

Hello Readers!

I changed the header the picture to show off the north field. It sure is green! There's a possibility it will get some snow (gasp!) Friday or Saturday. It's gonna get chilly in my neck of the woods. But as you can see in the picture, it was a gorgeous afternoon today. Got up in the higher 80sF. 
You'll see another picture of the north field later in this post.

As the title suggests I have been playing with string again. Mostly that play has involved crocheting with said string. I'm plowing ahead with the granny square project. You will see a good number of them. I am working on number 51 of 365 at the moment. I had to run off to a birthday party and visit my former cat, Tommy, who is now named Jack so that one didn't get finished in one sitting like all the others. I've actually made 52 granny squares in total. I started the granny square project on the 8th of November this year. I whipped one out without a pattern day before yesterday. It turned out pretty decent for having winged it.
Anyway, if you don't care to see all these granny squares, just scroll right on past them and you'll see playing with string also involved some sewing of felt. Oh and there's a drawing down there also. There would be two drawings but I forgot to take a picture of the card I drew for my sister's birthday today.

Here are the granny squares along with a few words about some of them.

 Some of the them look a tad wonky but once they've been blocked they should be more square.


 This one I need to do a do-over. I didn't do this one exactly right. It will work, but would be much better done correctly.




















 I really like this one. I wouldn't want to make a whole passel of them for a blanket though. Those petals took a bit of time to crochet. It is a very nice square though.





 This one above is the one I winged it on. No pattern. I was just happy it turned it out square!
 This is another one I wouldn't make a bunch of for a blanket. Those bullion stitches were bigger pain than the flower petals! This granny has taken the longest of any so far. About an hour.


 Does this look like a heart to you? Yeah, me neither! I got into February and there was a week of heart squares. I didn't do so hot with some of the hearts. I call this one the blue blob square.
 Another heart shape that isn't quite heart shaped. I call this one Ameba square.
 This one kinda resembles a heart. Almost. Looks kinda like a blue kidney bean too though!

 Well you made it through the granny squares. 
There will be more granny squares in the next post. There are four of them in the stack I did today that have yet to be photographed.

 I see blogger is messing with my pictures again....grrrrrr.
I sewed some more brooches.
 I gave this one to my sister for her birthday.
Yesterday was my oldest brother's birthday and in four days it will be another of my sisters' birthday.
 These little things are addictive! I cut out all the pieces for these over the last three days. I sewed them all together in the last two days. I finished them up early afternoon today.
 Ma liked the mushrooms the best.
 I'm kind of partial to the fishes from this batch.
 Three of these brooches have a large safety pin instead of a lapel pin like the other two. Does anyone know what the devil I did with that box of lapel pins? I seem to have hid it from myself.

I did this postcard last night.
 Markers on mat board. The other side is blank at this moment but I intend to do something on it.
 Here's a nice picture of a sleeping cat. Feel free to use Murray as a model for practice drawing. She won't mind at all.
This is the north field on the 14th of November.
 North field 16th of November. 
I took a stroll out to the field to take this one. I didn't actually go out in the field to take this, but close. I didn't feel like getting my sweater covered in dried out weeds so I didn't venture passed those. There are still no cow sightings, unfortunately. I might traipse out into the field if there were cows. Pray for cows! LOL And pray some show up in the north field in the near future. I think cows could be entertaining.

Ma and I went to the Dollar Store before we picked up my sister Susan at her house to go to sister Elaine's birthday party and I noticed the Co-op had covered that giant pile of milo you all saw in the last post. They covered it with a huge sheet of plastic and then vacuumed sealed it to the pile somehow. There's another pile of milo, much smaller than this one, on the other side of this pile that is also covered in plastic. Guess it will sit there until they truck it all off to where ever it is milo is trucked off too. That's whole lot of truckloads of milo!
This is the best I could do sitting in Ma's truck in the parking lot, across the street from the Co-op. 

My sister Susan had a stroke last week. You might include her in your prayers too. A mild one, but she's still a bit wobbly. She's going to physical therapy twice a week and getting better day by day. Doc says a few weeks and she'll be doing much better. I hope so. I had to drive her car to Phillipsburg to the birthday party cause the three of us, Ma, me and her, wouldn't all fit in Ma's truck. And my car was still dead at the time. Susan couldn't drive. Hell, she can barely walk! Though she does alright so long as she uses the walker. She keeps trying to fall over. The walker helps. She says she will graduate to a cane in a couple weeks. She wants me to fancy up her walking stick so she can be hip like me! (I use a fancied up cane myself.)

My car is not dead as I type. I bought it a new battery today. It's been dead for a few weeks now. People been on to me to get a new battery so I have wheels. I really didn't care about having wheels.
Looks like I'll be headed to Nickerson for Thanksgiving. I really don't know what the plans for Turkey Day are. Maybe I'll just sleep through it. I've been in long sleep mode for a few weeks now. I'm babbling now...
Alright! You all have seen enough of me today!
Thanks for hanging in there to the end!

Remember...
be kind, be good to one another.
It matters!

Peace
831

Followers