30 October 2016

Back to the Regular Schedule

Hello Readers!

I've had so much to say today, this is the second post of crazy. Crazy is good though! Keeps you on your toes!
We're going to talk about art and other things in this post.

Apparently I've been busy again! 
Let's do this....grab a cuppa something, settle in, enjoy!

 You all saw this little bag in a previous post. I finally got the handle sewed on.
 It measures 6x2x5 inches...somewhere in that range. I didn't actually measure it. It is crocheted from plastic bags made into plarn. The little silver rings are acrylic.
It was a fun little bag to make! There are rings all along the length of the handle as well.
 You all saw this bag in the last post when it was only a few rounds tall.
 These are its handles before they actually became handles. The green tubing is oxygen tubing. Rope. Any flexible plastic tube would work. I taped three 1/4 inch lengths of tubing together and crocheted a cover that would fit.
 Then I sewed those covers to the tubing. I'm not crazy about these handles but they do work. They're kinda fat for a handbag. They'll work though.
 I've stalled on this project at this point. I cut some corrugated plastic signage to the size of the bottom of the bag and gave it a stiff bottom. The plastic was covered in dark blue polyester fabric and then sewn to the bottom edge of the bag. Doing that gave the bag nice structure.
I am going to attempt to put a zipper in this bag. Only one side of one handle is actually sewn to the bag at this point. I'm thinking I should probably put the zipper in before putting on the handles. I've never installed a zipper before. We'll see how it goes as soon as it happens.
 This is my newest crocheted market bag. Still in the works. Going steady and smooth. Should be done in a day or two.
 I finished the cotton thread water bottle bag. It was waiting on that braided handle to be done for better than a week. I like the braiding disk.
 It's big enough to hold a 20oz bottle with a bit of room to spare. I crocheted it out of crochet cotton thread in various colors, plus purple. 
 I made a few brooches earlier today. This one I finished yesterday. The green and purple dog. He kinda looks like a reindeer.
 Another dog like brooch. Dogs are not my animal. I make awful dogs more often than I get them right. Dog though.
 Bird brooch.
 One eyed cat brooch.
 Purple cat brooch.

All of the brooches are felt applique sewn with embroidery thread. They have lapel pin backs.

Crochet has happened a lot here of late...
 This chicken pot holder no longer exists. I messed it up something fierce! It was a practice run. I don't generally follow any pattern when I crochet. I can read patterns, I just prefer to wing it most of the time.
I tore it out and tried again.
 I was aiming for a pair! :) Goal met!
I'll be giving these as a Christmas Gift. I got them right on the first try the second time!
Cute little devils aren't they??? You can go to etsy and buy the pattern or you can go to youtube and watch one being crocheted. I went the video route. It will point you to etsy if need be.
If you know how to crochet, these are pretty easy to make and they are cute as can be!
 I found this little basket in another basket earlier this afternoon. I was looking for the loom flowers I made some months back when I found the little basket. I didn't find the loom flowers, just the looms.
 I crocheted this little wire basket months and months ago. You can see from the crappy picture of it in my hand that it is a tiny little basket. I need to drag out those spools of wire and crochet 11 more of them in 11 different colors. I don't know what else that wire is good for. I thought it was something completely different than what it is when I bought it. It wasn't too hard on the hands crocheting with that plastic coated wire. It's like very thin plastic clothesline wire. 





 You all saw the colorful plarn market bag in the works in the last post. I finally got around to making another ball of bright yellow plarn to finish this bag and mark it off the list! That might happen in the next few days as well.
 I have a few other projects in the works too though, so who knows what will happen! The yellow bag is ready to have its strap sewn on. It also needs a button of some sort as a closure. 
The little green man climbed out of my felt storage bag when I was gathering supplies for the brooches. I haven't seen him in at least six months! Now that he's back in the light of day, he might get his hair finished and some clothes one of these days.
I started the blue bag yesterday. It's the beginnings of a crossbody bag sewn together in a coil with blue acrylic macrame cord and gold crochet cotton thread. It's coming along nicely. 
There are some little crocheted and embroidered bumble bees hiding under the wips also. Three of them in various stages of completion. There will probably be a whole swarm of little yellow bees with black stripes and netting wings to hang on my Christmas tree. There will be at least 3 at any rate.

I leave you with the north field, planted to wheat.  Five weeks and four days into its growing cycle.

The leaves have already started falling off the trees. That's an elm tree to the right and I'm not sure what that little tree on the left is. The chickens have cleared the underbrush from the marijuana growing along the trench. It is dying out for the year. It's wild ditch weed, I didn't plant it. If I were gonna plant some weed, it would be weed worth smoking! 
The wheat field is looking wonderful to my untrained eye! That is my favorite color of green in the whole wide world! Always has been! 
I haven't seen any cows yet, but the possibility is there that cows will show up. 
Stay tuned!
You know there will be art and crochet and all manner of things handmade show up here, might be cows as well! I like cows.

Thanks for hanging in there for a two parter! 
Whew! It's over!
Remember though....
Be kind to one another!
It matters!
Peace
831

The Possums Who Come to Dinner

Hello Readers!

Today I'm going to talk about opossums.  


In a previous post, might of been the last post...? ...anyway in a previous post I told you all about that fool opossum that thought my painting table was a good place to explore in the kitchen. He's a she and she has a friend who is a tad smaller than she is.

I've only seen her little friend once. I found that one on the kitchen table as well. 
And once again, I have only myself to blame because possums don't know any better! You leave the door open and they think it is an invitation to come right on in and wreak havoc if they're so inclined.
I got busy ....not really busy...more like engrossed on somethings or another on the world wide web the other evening and lost all track of time despite there's a clock on this screen. It was dark outside before I closed the front door. It is hard to see outside in this room so I hadn't noticed the sun had gone down.
I was headed to the kitchen to fill my cup when I realized, too late, that it was dark outside.
I closed the door anyway cause I really didn't want possums in the house. Still don't want possums in the house!

Just because I prefer they stay outside, doesn't mean they will when I give them opportunity to come on in and make themselves to home! This one was considerably smaller than the one that sat in the basket on the shelf where paints are stored. That possum is a nice plump specimen! This guy was little in stature, not skinny, just little and stank to high heaven! Unlike the one caught in the paint basket, this one did not grin at me. This one snarled and growled and raised his hackles at me. Then it promptly knocked a container of odds and ends tools off the table, across the kitchen floor! His mama taught him well, put up a fight! But his little spectacle didn't really concern me too much. He only did it once and he really didn't have his heart in it!

I went on through the kitchen, right past that belligerent youngster, into the laundry room to turn on the light and open the back door to give Junior an escape route.

I shooed him off the table with the bristle end of the broom and herded him toward the laundry room. He threw a few more things on the floor on his way down to the floor. Graceful, possums are not. Do you think he went straight out the back door? Heck no. That would have been too easy! No, he hid behind the laundry hamper and refused to be herded with the broom. I shut the laundry room door into the kitchen and left that smelly possum and Lola in the laundry room. He eventually made his way out of the laundry room and down the back porch steps into the great outdoors where he belongs.That cat is of no help at all in getting possums out of the house! She's no help in keeping them out either!

This little possum has appeared to have moved on as this is the only encounter I've had with it. And I do not have pictures to show you....darn! This happened four or five days ago.

The other one though....yeah she's sticking around. There's free grub on occasion!

 


 Last night she had leftover rice with ham chunks and bell peppers. I wasn't real crazy about the combination either! That's why Lotty, that's what I've named her, got it. She took her sweet old time eating this stuff. She came back three times that I know of. She runs whenever she sees me walk past the door and if I'm not quiet about walking through the house, she runs when she hears me so I only see the back end of her going down the stairs. I dumped some oil from a can of tuna onto that rice when she wasn't looking. She wasn't on the porch at any rate...It must have improved the taste as the bowl was licked clean by morning. Except she didn't eat any of the green pepper. Those chunks were scattered all over the rug. No biggie, really. I just swept them onto the ground and the chickens came along and cleaned them up.


 Boo!

Don't try to take pictures of a possum on a dark porch, through the front door glass while you're sitting in the dark as well. Especially don't use the flash. It makes that table top look like I haven't dusted in 20 years! And it makes possums turn into demonic looking creatures. 
Course, if that's the look you're going for....well, that's how it's done apparently.
That's Lotty looking all devilish, eating a bowl of leftover scrambled eggs and zucchini. She doesn't like zucchini any better than she likes green peppers.
She's a bit of a messy eater. The porch always needs swept afterwards.

Are cookies good for possums? Probably not.



 But look at that little face! She loves cookies. Linda was right about that! 
Linda is my sister. She is the one who provided the white chocolate chip cookie to give to Lotty. 
Linda used to have her own resident possum. His name was Tony and he lived on her front porch. She generally fed him cat food but Linda's husband used to go to the store specifically to buy Tony Oreo Cookies. He lived on their front porch in a small dog house Linda had put there for the neighbor's cat who wasn't allowed inside. Tony moved in instead. He stayed for a few months and then moved on on his own accord. When I told her about the possums she said Ma had already told her. She offered up the advice that I MUST feed them cookies! "They LOVE cookies!" she said. She gave me the cookie, I gave it to Lotty.



 She munched and munched and munched! She was so into that cookie she didn't even realize I was right at the door with the camera. The porch light was on and I was using the flash. She didn't care. She just kept eating.
 And when we pan out to see the entire scene... Lotty has a spectator. Miss Lola had checked that cookie out right after I put it on the porch and deemed it not to her liking. She didn't need that cookie! Look at the size of that cat! She must of been on the porch when Lotty came to visit. I doubt Lola arrived on the porch after the possum.
 Lotty has snarfed down every crumb of that cookie and is now washing her face with her front paws. She has fingers on her front paws much like a raccoon. She licked all her little fingers clean and then washed her snout. Lola watched from the porch railing.

they have cute little feet

When Lotty finished her bath, she snuffled around the perimeter of the front porch, presumably to check for additional cookies. Upon finding nothing of interest she ambled on down the stairs.
 See ya later!

I know Lotty is a girl because when she went down the stairs, I could see the underside of her belly. She has a pouch. Boy possums don't have pouches.

If I continue to offer her leftovers, she will probably stay through the winter. But she's a mind of her own and I'm sure what I want or think really doesn't matter to her. 
I will enjoy her while she comes around and be happy she chose to stay as long as she does.

I do want her to stay out of the house though. Opossums are not allowed in the house. Under the house is OK, but not in it.

Thanks for reading about Lotty and the Juvenile Delinquent. I am in hopes JD has moved on and won't return. I think one resident possum is plenty. But if he does come back, I guess he and Lotty can fight it out where it works for them. I don't know that JD is a boy. I just know he's a youngun.

I'm sure there will be more chapters in the saga of The Possums Who Come to Dinner. 
Until then....
Remember....
Be kind to one another. 
It matters!
Peace
831 

 

17 October 2016

Another Installment of Crazy..

Hello Readers!

I'm just sitting here listening to Bad Company and contemplating a blog post. 

I really don't have a great deal of stuff to show you today. I've been busy making plarn and crocheting mostly.  Better start again after having looked back at all the photographs you will see shortly. I really haven't accomplished a great deal since the last post. That was a week or so ago? Making plarn takes up a bit of time. While making plarn I sat in front of this pc watching Forensic Files, Divorce Court and Street Food videos from around the world on YouTube. I guess that beats the heck out of wasting my time sitting in front of this machine playing useless games. I do that enough on my phone!
I did get a bit of crocheting done since I was here last. I try to crochet in front of the pc but it always goes astray and I end up playing those useless games instead of crocheting. I listen to podcasts on my phone in the livingroom while crocheting. My phone updated itself almost two weeks ago and my podcasts wouldn't play, nor could I listen to NPR. Last Wednesday I went to the nextech office in town and had the girl behind the counter set it right again. They don't call those things smart phones for nothing. Mine's surely smarter than I am in a lot of areas!
A lot of these photos are of stuff I made weeks ago and forgot to include. 

I was certain I had taken a picture of the north field since the last post but there were no new ones to show. I will try to keep up with the field throughout the growing season, which will not end till next July. I suspect, no, no, I HOPE we get some cows to look at during the winter. The field is as green as it can be right now. Growing like crazy! Grazing cows would be a nice addition. 

I'm sorry to say I've missed a few photo opportunities in the last few days. 

The moon was absolutely gorgeous last night.

Mr. Possum came for a visit at 5 o'clock this morning. I was sound asleep when I heard a noise in the kitchen. I thought it was the cat climbing on stuff she shouldn't be climbing on. I hollered at Lola to get down from there! A bit later I heard a bigger crash and came fully awake. I got up to see what the hell that cat was doing. Wasn't the cat at all. She was sitting in the livingroom right outside the kitchen when I came out of my room. Mr. Possum was on the shelf beside the table where I do painting. He was sitting smack dab in the big basket of craft paints that sit on the second shelf up from the floor. He had knocked my strategically placed piles of projects in the works....right on the floor scattered everything on the table and somehow managed NOT to spill the paint water. How he got on the table, I don't know. He was awfully quiet about it all as it happened. Remember I was asleep until the crash happened. 
He sat there, just looking at me as I calmly asked why the hell he was in the house. Then he bared his teeth at me as though he were smiling. Looked like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Possums aren't aggressive in the least. I wasn't that close to him.  He had knocked a ball of yarn off the shelf onto the floor along with a boatload of other stuff. I picked it up and threw it at him. He seemed not to care. I couldn't do anything but wait for him to leave. Lola was having nothing to do with this circus. Murray was MIA. She didn't even bother coming home last night. I went back to bed. Shut all the lights off and crawled back between the sheets and left Mr. Possum to his own devices. I'm sure he filled his belly with cat food while he was here. I should have taken his picture but I wasn't thinking. I was half asleep. After I had gone back to bed, five minutes later I heard him leave. I got up to make sure he had indeed taken the route out he'd taken in. He was headed down the front porch steps last I saw of him. It's about that time of year, I won't be leaving the front door open at all hours. I have only myself to blame for the kitchen mess. Possums don't know any better!

I stepped out on the porch in the grayness of dawn to see Mr. Possum on his way. There was a thick fog all about. It was still dark at 5:22 a.m. but light enough to see with the light of the moon and the yard light. It was almost as pretty as the moon was last night. It was chilly this morning, in the lower 40sF.
At any rate. You all won't be seeing those sights unfortunately.
I do have a few things to show you though, so we better get on with it!
Enjoy!

Last post I told you all the things I forgot to take pictures of that you may see in a future post. This post contains some of those things. I think I missed one or two....
At any rate these are all 4 x 6 inches. Markers on colored writing paper. I don't know if they'll end up being postcards or book covers. Or something entirely different than that. Who knows!

 The paper started out orange.
 green
 green
 pink
 yellow
 orange
 green


I am pretty sure I had all these pictures oriented correctly before I added them here. What's up with Blogger changing things up like that?
 The eyeball is upside down too....
This eyeball was going to be the eye for a cyclops cat but the eye is all that materialized so far. It's a little less than two inches across. Markers on book page paper. (end papers) I did the eyeball three or four days ago. I don't know, they all run together sometimes.

 I am not fond of the color pink! I have a boatload of pink yarn and a boatload of white as well... I decided to make some backings for mug rugs. I'll do applique on felt with felt and sew them to these instead of using felt like I usually do for mug rugs. The bottom on is a bit big to be a mug rug so it will be a hot pot mat instead. I made these earlier today.
 Actually I've spent most of yesterday and today doing little more than sitting on my backside crocheting. I started this plarn bag yesterday. I ran out of yellow plarn so will have to make more before I can finish this bag. It needs a couple more rows of each color. It's a bit short at this point.
 When I ran out of yellow plarn I started crocheting with acrylic yarn. This will be a small market bag within a day or two. The colors look totally off on my monitor. They are dark blue and a grayish smokey blue color. I've no idea what size hook I'm using as it had been rubbed clean of that information when I acquired the hook. For some reason someone scratched it off. I use this hook a lot with acrylic yarn.

The day before yesterday I dragged out my scrap bag of felt and made some felt brooches for the swap instead of the ones I showed you all the last post.



 They're all in the 2-2.5 inch range.
 I don't know if the lapel pin backs are acceptable per swap rules but they were done by the time I thought to check. I wrote my info on a sheet of white paper and colored it with markers to match the brooch. I then glued those little papers to the brooch.
I used some of these metal lapel pins for the innards of the bird brooches. I have a shipload of these lapel pins. Some of them are worthless as far as monetary value. They work great for this application though. I also have big safety pins that would have worked but the lapel pins were on the shelf six feet away. The safety pins are way off in the kitchen, pinned to the inside of my wool bag that I sometimes take along when I leave the house.
Either way, I'm set for the swap. I really like the bird pins the best. I'd trade the others. Though I really do like the purple bells. 

This will eventually become a little brooch too. Dog made with scraps of felt. I'll sew him together with embroidery thread and put a double pronged lapel pin inside him.

This is about as Halloweeny it's going to get around my house. This little rubber skeleton hangs from the ceiling in my deskroom year round. He's about a foot tall. He's hung in that spot for years!
Yes, that is a Grow a Boyfriend and a scorpion in acrylic. All kinds of weird crap like this on the walls of this room where all writing takes place. The fella with the deer is Jimmy Johnson, says so right on the picture. My youngest son brought me this photograph maybe 10years ago. He said he got it at the bait shop in town. He's a stinker of a boy, used to be a bigger stinker of a boy when he was younger. He didn't come right out and say he swiped it, but that's what he did. He doesn't know who Jimmy Johnson is anymore than I do. "But look at that deer, Mom!"
I drew the abstract behind the skeleton shortly after I moved into this house, so about 11 years ago.
I got the Grow a Boyfriend from my sister for my birthday a few years ago. Best kind of boyfriend to have! Just keep him locked up in his packaging so he can't give you no shit! I haven't heard a peep outta this one EVER! LOL 
I'm pretty sure one of my sons gave me the scorpion. I have several scorpions.

I'm just rambling now....thanks for hanging round till the end! 
Remember ....
be kind to one another!
It matters! 
Peace
831

09 October 2016

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
831

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