Same Old Sorta

Small town parades are marvelous, and mostly unchanging.

High school marching band...

Homecoming Royalty riding in convertibles...

Grade school kids marching happily in costume...

Class Reunion Gatherings (that's The Hub's float there, Class of 1970). But this parade had a couple of new additions:

Precarious sitters who made me very very nervous...

and an antique harbinger of things to come.

Frantic Friday

We're in the middle of a 5 day GrandGirl/GrandDog visit, it's Homecoming Week (which in small towns, involves not only the entire school, but the whole town), The Hub's 40 year class reunion is this weekend (which means we had to hire a babysitter.., and I'm running their blog, so there will be lots of picture sorting to do), I still have one more SAFF workshop to prepare, and it's October already!  No time to say hello, good-bye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.

Since much of my time is taken up with The Girls and Girly Things (you know- hair curling, muffin baking, giggling), this is all I have to show you- the hooked seat cushion cover is coming along swimmingly, though I'm going to have to pull out the outermost willow trunk loops- no tree in any universe is shaped like that. I doubt I'll get any more done until Sunday evening, but I love how it's shaping up.

Thursday Tab- Barcelona Dolls

I have absolutely no information on this paper doll, except that she's from Barcelona. And the clothes are gorgeous.

Novacaine Wednesday...

Yep, more dental procedures. More needles. More drooling. I'm hoping that this is the last one for awhile.

While I wait for the numbness to fade, here's my progress on the rug-hooked seat cushion:

I'm not going to have enough of the olive green to finish the last portion of that hill, so it'll have other greens in there (it's Folk Art, it doesn't have to match). I think I'll do the tree trunk next, so that the halves meet up.

The back looks cool too, though you can see a couple of spots where I crossed-over, which is a no-no. However, Blog Commenter Fran pointed out that there are *those who find exuberant mis-matches to be Art as well. I love those people.

And for Joanna- I am very much looking forward to parking my read end on this thing- it'll be so much more comfy than a plain folding chair.

*Deanne Fitzpatrick

Monday Misc

(note: I was off on another page entirely, when I realized that today is Tuesday. It's going to be that kind of day, I fear)

There isn't a whole lot going on here. Actually, there is tons going on (nearly all of it prep for SAFF workshops), but nothing upon which I can wax snarky (I'm fresh out of ink jokes). And very little of it is photogenic. However

I am making progress on the Horseshoe Lace sock. The lace pattern works perfectly with my generic sock pattern (60 sts on 2.75mm needles) and this yarn is yummy (wool/bamboo), but it won't photograph at all. I tried about six times to get a good shot (in all lights and several settings) to no avail. The colors wash out completely. Even scanning (which is what I did for the above) mutes the colors. The actual yarn is a nice springy green and purple, not that sort of blah brownish/greenish that shows in the scan. This project has been relegated to car knitting for the interim, however, because

I'm sort of obsessed with the hooked chair cushion cover. I was happy find out that I could move the hoop without pulling the loops out of place (which is a good thing, since the piece is larger all around than my biggest hoop). I've already had to adapt the design- the little stems and leaves, and the petal detail on the flowers just won't work. So instead, I'm aiming for that staple of Primitive Art: the amorphous blob. I think I have that one down pat.

On the TV front- I was really disappointed with the first episode of The Event, and nearly turned it off in boredom. But last night's installment ramped up the action, and interest. Let's hope they can maintain the momentum. And it's always wonderful to have Chuck Bartowski back on my screen.

Hookin' Happily

I thought I was going to make small wall-hangings for The Grands with the Monk's Cloth that I bought at NCFF, but after remembering what my backside felt like from sitting on terrible chairs for three days running, I decided to make a chair cushion cover instead.

I waffled between a sort of sampler design, with spindles and yarn and wheels and such, and a pastoral design.

I went with the pastoral/colonial/traditional. I drew a very rough sketch of the notion on some graph paper (the finished cushion will be about 18" x 18"), and then I cut some templates from tablet paper. I traced them with a Sharpie on the cloth, and then drew in the other elements. Even-weave cloth makes drawing straight lines fairly easy (as long as you actually follow the straight line, as I did not on the first pass for the cushion bottom edge. Luckily, none of the lines will show through the hooking). I may make little leaves on the willow fronds, but I figured that I didn't need to draw them in.

It took me most of the evening to hook one sheep (this isn't going to be a quick-finish project), but I'm really pleased with the handspun yarn loops. Of course, since it's handspun (and my handspun at that), the yarn width isn't uniform- some of the yarns are heavier (in places) and some are thinner. And some of the more uniform yarns are too thin, so they had to be doubled or tripled. Though I'm not having too hard a time with it, all of my handspun yarns are 2-ply, which is a bit trickier when it comes to hooking (getting both plies in the hook).

My loop height isn't completely uniform, but it's not too bad. This is a perfect use for handspun yarns. I can never bring myself to throw any out, so I have tons of little balls, and bits and pieces of leftovers in lots of colors, so I shouldn't have a hard time coming up with different greens for the hills, bright colors for the flowers, and several blues for the sky. And should the worst happen, I can always make more...

Since the loops are formed with non-uniform yarn, the fact that they aren't lined up regimentally isn't as obvious, or critical. I don't know if I will need/want to coat the back with some sort of glue for reinforcement or not, since this piece will get a lot of wear- this project is intended to be functional, not just decorative.

I am also not sure how it'll go when it comes time to change the hoop position. The hoop itself has a very long screw (it's a quilting hoop), so it can accommodate thick fabric, but the rings may pull the loops out of place. The Hub may have to build me a larger frame for the piece but I'll cross that bridge when I hook to it.

How do I know that fall is officially here?

Because of this

and this

and this

and this

and this

and this

 But mostly I know it's fall because of this: