Let's Do This!~

Hello Readers!

We are going to jump right in with both feet for this post. There's a lot to talk about and a lot to show. 

The last post was made 16Aug16. 

September flew by in a whirlwind of activity. 

The Kansas State Fair was the highlight of last month. I entered Five things in the fair in various categories of competition.

FP 19 wasn't complete yet when I was here last so here's a picture of the finished canvas

 hanging with its competitors at the fair. The abstract to the left was not in the same category as the fish picture and the other two.It took the blue ribbon! 

 Here's another picture of it finished. It's leaning up against the shelf on my desk in the living room at the moment where the lighting isn't so good.  

Mr Spider, whom you've all met before took a red ribbon.

I should have taken a better picture that included a better shot of the little turtle you can almost see who beat out mr. spider for the first place ribbon. I personally thought my spider was better executed than the turtle but I wasn't the judge so I'll just be happy with my red ribbon and keep my opinions to myself! 

I was completely and thoroughly gobsmacked that my plarn crocheted market bag got a blue ribbon.

IT was up against some very strong competition in the 100% recycled art category. I'm' not sure I would actually call it art, but it is 100% recycled from plastic grocery bags. 

that's a terrible picture!

I entered this faux ostrich leather handmade book in the journal category. I think I may have misinterpreted the guidelines for the journal category. I think journal and automatically I think blank book. All the other entrants were journals that were filled with information of various kinds. I didn't place with this entry. Live and learn!

The last entry into the 2016 KANSAS State Fair is Bert.

You all met Bert awhile back. He was big hit at the fair. He took home a blue ribbon as well as the judges comments about him. I don't know why I got the judges comments back as well. None of the other entries came with such a bonus. I wish they had!

At any rate, I did pretty good in the fair season this year. Goals were met.

I had a great visit with the kids for sixteen days. I didn't take a whole lot of pictures while down there. I always kick myself for not taking pictures after the fact. And I showed a few pictures off on instagram while they were occurring. Feels like cheating for some reason, when I share them again on the blog.

 This is the grand champion pumpkin for this year. I weighs upwards of 650 pounds. I forget the exact weight. Somewhere around there. This wasn't the biggest pumpkin at the fair though. There was another that wasn't in competition that weighed 970some pounds. It was a direct descendant of last year's record breaking heaviest pumpkin in the state. That one weighed 1034 pounds. I don't have a picture of the 970 pound beast but I do have some seeds for its parent that will be planted come spring! 

As far as I know, there has never been a giant pumpkin at the Rooks County Fair. We may have to change that! I'll keep you posted about the giant pumpkin experiment once the experiment begins.

From here on out I will be rambling on about whatever photo is next in line to be rambled about.

 My son and I went to the hardware store while I was away from home one day. I discovered this cool storm drain cover in the sidewalk.

 The boy and I went on an adventure to the big city (Wichita) and spent a couple hours traipsing around the salvage yard in the rain. My old body didn't enjoy the experience as much as my mind did. I love digging around in junk. We were on the hunt for a few things. We bought two sun visors. One for my old blue beast and one for the boy's wife's car. It was a lot of fun! Even the rain couldn't dampen the enjoyment. I did pay for the excursion the following days with lots of aches and pains. I've recovered since though. Ready to do it again.

 There were baby pigs at the fair. These little guys were only a few hours old. Pigs are my favorite critters at the fair! These were in the birthing barn. The veterinary school at the University of Kansas in Manhattan runs the birthing barn at the fair. There were lots of farm animals in the birthing barn. Cows, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, ducks...all of them somehow associated with the beginning of life. Little kids love the birthing barn. I guess big kids do too...

 Olivia with an ear of field corn she retrieved from the corn field next to where the kids live.

Vegetable eating dog. The kids have two such dogs.

 She's a very friendly dog who loves to have her picture taken. That's the other vegetable stealing dog on the sofa behind us. His name is Half Pint.

 This cat missed me terribly if the way she acted when I came home is any indication. I just like this picture of her feet on my flowered dress. 

Before I went away on my trip I had a flurry of crochet going on. I still have a flurry of it going on but that just means progress is being made!

 Same bag in both pictures. It's made with acrylic yarn. The handle/strap is two lengths of aluminum chair crocheted together lengthwise and then sewn on the bag. This one is about 6x8 inches or so. I didn't measure any of these when I took the pictures.

 Same bag, just showing you how it's put together. I crocheted the bag itself. The flap is woven and the handle is braided. It's all made from the same fabric. And it weighs a ton! The fabric is from cashmere sweaters. It's a pretty good sized bag.

I started this crocheted basket long before I ever went on the September trip. I picked it back up a few days before I left to go down to Hutchinson. It was almost done when I left. I finished it when I got back home.

 I love how it looks on the inside. It is made from a cereal box cut into string. I crocheted cotton string around the chipboard string to form the basket. It's not a very sturdy basket, but it is a cool one! You could put light stiff in it, don't get it wet though or you'll end up with a big ol mess on your hands!

 This market bag is crocheted with tshirt yarn.

 Fabric bracelet. I made this one while at my son's house. It's made with the seams of the cashmere sweaters the bag you just saw is made from. I added other seams from other sweaters and lots of different strings and whatnot. It's sewn together with embroidery thread. 

It isn't exactly my style, but I was on a roll and made another one.

 This one is made from felt scraps and snippets of yarn all embroidered together. I like this one even less than the first one. It isn't for me to decide if it's any good or not though. That's up to the one looking at it.

 I don't know why blogger insists on turning pictures upside down. 

This is a little green coin pouch made from plarn. Plarn is made from plastic bags. These plastic bags are marketed as dog poop collection bags. They make excellent plarn! It is about 4 inches wide x 3.5 inches tall or so. It has a plastic pearl button as a closure.

 A messenger bag crocheted from two types of string. The pink is acrylic yarn and the green color is crewel embroidery yarn.

 Crossbody bag crocheted with sock weight acrylic yarn (orange) and crewel embroidery yarn(green). The chain was too long for the strap so I crocheted the chain into the bag all around the top. This one measures somewhere around 8x6 inches.

 Another bag. This one a small market bag. It's a nice soft bag, roomy. Crocheted from fuzzy thick acrylic yarn. 

I very seldom buy yarn. People give me skeins of yarn they no longer want or have found somewhere and thought of me when they came across it. That means I have little control over what colors of yarn I have to work with on any given project. I just go with the flow and hope it all works out alright with other people's choices of the colors. So far, so good.

 Back in July a box came in the mail that contained 1000 pipe cleaners of various colors. When I ordered the pipe cleaners I had a basket design in mind. That design didn't work out and we ended up with this instead. I kinda like it. Yep. Liked it so much there are three other baskets farther down the list here. I think you'll only get to see two of them though. The shallow one didn't turn out all that great.

 I go from crocheted baskets to woven baskets to coiled sewn baskets.

 I really like the wonkiness of it. It is a big sturdy basket that will last a very long time.

 Same basket all three pictures. I cut up a leather coat some time back and saved all the seams, thinking surely they could be used for something! Well this coiled sewn basket is the result. I sewed the coils together with white crochet cotton thread and then crocheted the coils together with jute cording. I also sewed some of the jute in. 

I believe this to be the best basket I have ever made.

 Water bottle bag crocheted from acrylic yarn remnants.

 Pipe cleaner basket pencil cup.

 pipe cleaner basket. this one is about 4 inches tall x 4 inches wide.

 Crocheted purse. Acrylic yarn and textured yarn (tan). The strap is chain braided with the textured yarn on the braiding disk. Won't be doing that again. It worked out alright was just a PITA to get it done!

 Another water bottle bag. Acrylic yarn remnants.

 Water bottle bags were hot and heavy on the radar. Acrylic yarn remnants. Most water bottle bags have straps/handles braided on the braiding disk with the same colors of yarn in the body of the bag.

 I did a few drawings since the last time I was here. 

ATC - markers on cardstock

 ATC markers on cardstock

 ATC yellow crocodile's kittens

markers on cardstock

 handmade book with a crocheted plarn spine. The spine is yarn made from dog poop bags crocheted onto covers made from plastic signage. Book measures 5 x 7 inches and has copy paper pages numbering around 50 pages.

 3x3 inches drawing paper--markers

 ATC mandala

markers on canvas paper

 Works in progress... Couple of bags...the pink/white one is acrylic yarn. It needs a tassel made for the point on the flap of the bag and the handles tightened up with a few more stitches where they're attached at sides of the bag. The green one needs the handle/strap sewn to the bag. I'm still debating if I want to take the time to give the green bag a lining. I'm very pleased with the way the green one turned out. It is covered with those little silver rings in the bowl, as is the strap. I could easily sew a zipper and lining in it.   The little green roll is a roll of dog poop bags. They come three to a package for $1. That plarn is so soft! I have some black ones, some black and white striped ones (think zebra) and some white ones with purple bones. And I found some other plastic bags in pink and in blue that work into plarn that is very similar in feel to the green stuff. There will be more plarn projects in the future.

 I got some new pets. Bunch of guppies. Too many guppies! Ma got them for Mother's Day from my sister Susan. Ma didn't really want fish to begin with and she was just tired of having to take care of them. She was going to give them all to Carrie to feed to her goldfish in the pond in her sunroom but I said I'd take them. The cats might find them entertaining. Her cat, Charlie could have cared less about those guppies. Murray thinks they are pretty cool! She sits on the stool by the table where they sit and watches and watches them. Carrie will get some of these guys to feed to her goldfish as there are way too many fishes in this tiny tank. And some of the girls are fixing to drop babies any day now.

 This thing turned into a pouch. It was originally the bottom of a bag that I was about halfway done crocheting when I decided I didn't like it at all! The whole thing would have reverted into yarn had I been able to find the right end to pull to get this to revert back into yarn. I couldn't find the end though so I turned it into a pouch.

Last, but not least, another water bottle bag. This one is acrylic yarn and crochet cotton crocheted together. 

 I entered a fabric brooch swap over at AFA. I forgot the brooches are to be made of fabric. This one has a base of fabric, but the fabric doesn't show at all. Aluminum bells, plastic button. I might just keep this one.

 Burlap and lace brooch. It also has a yellow plastic disk and a plastic button. That's not really burlap. It's crocheted jute cord.

 This one isn't exactly done yet. I still gotta figure out what to dangle off that ring. This one has a plastic disk with acrylic yarn and green plastic plarn braided on the braiding disk and then sewn into this shape you see here.

 Crocheted acrylic yarn and plarn. The yellow is embroidered acrylic yarn. It still needs a pin put on the backside.

 There's a little doll trying to be born. No clue what will happen here. This will be a tiny little thing whatever it turns out to be. that paper its laying on is a 3 inch square.

 Crocheted fabric yarn rug. Ok, it's not really big enough to be a rug. It's like a rug though. I'm using it as a pad in my chair.

 I've been practicing drawing faces. I think this one will get painted and turned into a magnet. I do know I need lots of practice before I can say with any certainty that I know how to draw people. At the moment, I do know how to draw people. I just don't know how to draw people well. Lots of practice is needed.

I know I am forgetting a few things. 

There's the two headed mermaid postcard I didn't get a picture of. Some of you saw it over at AFA. I forgot to steal Gem's pictures of it. 

Annie's kitty book is finally done and in her hands. I sent it to her in a colorful altered envelope in honor of her seventh birthday. She was thrilled with getting a colorful envelope. I didn't get a picture of it either.

There are five or six postcard size drawings done in marker that are sitting on the desk here in front of me that I neglected to photograph. Perhaps you'll see them next time.

For now....I leave you with a brand new field of winter wheat.

 It was planted on the 22nd of September. Sure didn't take long for it to sprout! Looks like we will be keeping an eye on a wheat crop this year. Let's hope for better luck with wheat than he had with soybeans last year. 

Thanks for hanging in there till the end!

Remember....

Be kind to one another!

It matters!

Peace

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