Another Day of Pickin'

The plan was to paint the fence. However, before we set out, we checked and re-checked the weather and thunderstorms looked likely. We went to run an errand and on a whim, decided to check out an estate auction at an old farm...and you probably know the rest of the story. We ended up being at the auction for most of the day.

The mini was pretty stuffed:















And, we had a first:



Yes, we finally had something sticking out of the roof. This was a coat rack that SO bid on. In order to sit in my seat, I had to twist myself around the coat rack. Luckily, we did n't have far to go to get home.



I bought a spinning wheel which dates from sometime around 1800 to 1825 and is buried at the bottom of the pile in the Mini. I was very excited to get it. And, very excited to get a nice quilt made out of feedsacks:







This was THE one I really wanted out of about 8 available at the auction. I was very excited to get it -- it was the best one there.

Siesta Key Socks

Finally, finally, finally, after what it seems like forever, I finished this pair of socks:















I bought the yarn in Florida and it had been dyed to matchthe shells and sand from the beach where I was staying. So, they are really like a souvenier, right? Not just another pretty pair of socks...

As Promised...

I finally took a picture of the infamous blue hoodie:














I apologize for not being a very good photographer. I see great pictures all the time on other blogs and wonder how...

Must say, this wore me out on knitting a sweater for a little bit.

How to Do Boring Things

I know, I know, we should all be so grateful to have each day and for what we have...BUT, sometimes things are B-O-R-I-N-G. I believe this falls under the heading of "Human Nature".

Such is the case with embarking on what seems to be the most exciting project in THE WORLD and then after the initial splash, you have to settle down and start slogging away.

I really want to give a talking to that person who said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".

Right now, I'm battling boredom with this project:














It's going to be a knitted blanket -- As you can see the squares look very quilt-like. But, man, this is slow going. One of these squares takes a lot longer than I expected. Maybe I will have a knitted blanket by Halloween for scary movie-watching.

So...I've made a number of large knitted projects and have come up with a couple of strategies for dealing with the in-between time. Here they are:

1. Alternate chunks of the tedious project with other things so that it stays fresh or
2. Do at least a small amount each day
or
3. Consider the project a meditation and decide it doesn't matter how long it takes.

I seem to like approach #1 for knitting the best.

I use #2 when I'm in total overwhelm mode.

#3 is for the worst of all: re-doing something, ripping something out and large cleaning projects.

So far, I've made two of these squares and now I'm on break finishing a sock before going back to make square three.

Sit and Spin!!!

The knitting addiction grows...like rust that never sleeps...I've ordered a spinning wheel to spin my own yarn. Since my last blog post, I took a whole day spinning class in preparation for the wheel. I got more than I bargained for -- in a good way. The instructor started out with, "So, you've just shorn your sheep..." Yes, we started right from the point of washing the dirty fleece and progressed from there which included dying some fleece as well.

Here are a few snaps from the day:


Here we have some carded fleece ready to be spun -- nothing fancy.











Here is a little bit of yarn I spun from some fleece I already had. As you can see, it is a very bright green. The other women in the class kept pointing out how bright the color was. But, the bright green of my yarn went along with my bright purple toenail polish and hot pink flip flops, glitter on my shirt and Nine Inch Nails hoodie sweatshirt -- contrast that with the many shades of brown birkenstock shoes worn by my classmates and the cream colored yarn they were spinning.









Now, we are getting somewhere! This is the result of two different yarns I spun -- one the bright green in the previous photo and the other from some the fleece dyed in class. I call this Mint Chocolate Chip!










I was so excited after I got the yarn made that I immediately whipped out a pair of size 10 needles to knit with it. I didn't know I was supposed to learn how to put it into a skein...rats! But, I just couldn't wait. The other students looked at me like I was crazy, which I am...Now, as to the yarn, yes it's a little bit slubbed and not really supposed to be, but the good part is that I love slubbed yarn and in fact, ultimately, I want to spin lots of textured yarns.

Two more weeks before the wheel arrives. It's coming from New Zealand!

Food & Fellowship

I randomly grabbed a book titled "Food & Fellowship" out of the box of cookbooks I bought at an estate auction a few weeks ago -- If you want to see more details about that, see the post titled, "Marie's Recipes".

It's a church cookbook from Rockville, Maryland published in 1982. On the surface it seemed unremarkable...I'm not a fan of self-published community cookbooks because they all seem alike to me and certainly wasn't expecting what I encountered.

Marie, the owner of this book, had heavily annotated the recipes, but not in the usual way of making comments about whether the recipe was good or whether she had changed anything when making it. What makes this unique is that she annotated the book with comments about the people who contributed the recipes!

Here are some of the recipe titles and the annotations:

Recipe - Dinny's Country Cheese Ball from Lois Harris
Comment - "Lois is Daniel's Washington "grandma" and an incredible cook"

Recipe - Favorite Cheese Ball from Peg Sherman
Comment - "Peg is a former member who is the American Baptist's "official observer" at the United Nations"

Recipe - Authentic French Onion Soup from Dot Root
Comment - "Dot is a lovely, joyous Christian who is waging a fight against an unusually incurable form of cancer. She's been a real inspiration."

Recipe - Minestrone Soup from Lois Nuse
Comment - "Lois was the church secretary and the one who really ran the church. They just moved to Florida to retire."

Contrast the last comment with this one:
Recipe - Vichysoise from Ruth Taylor
Comment - "Ruth is the new church secretary" (but no notation that she is now REALLY running the church)

Recipe - Copper Coins from Sharon Harris - Ewing
Comment - "Sharon is an American Bptist minister in Boston. She was first in her seminary class -- a brilliant scholor. She was the first person who grew up in Twinbrook to go into the ministry. The recipe is good, too."
The comment about the recipe cracks me up!

Recipe - Stir Fried Spinach from George Zachariah
Comment - "George was church moderator for two years. He came to America from India 25 years ago. He is a philosophy professor."

Recipe - Spicy Apple Muffins from Emily Kinnamon
Comment - "My brother's some-time girlfriend -- she's like a sister to me"
Now, Marie is getting a little gossipy. Was Emily a friend with benefits???

Recipe - Jello-Cheese Salad Mold from Paul McGrath
Comment - "Paul was blinded by diabetes and has undergone 2 kidney transplants. Still, he works -- as an accountant."
I did not add the punctuation. I think Marie was wondering about a blind accountant.

Recipe - Forgotten Cookies from Sherry Haire
Comment - "Sherry has a 21 year old sister who is retarded and now Sherry teaches handicapped kids."

Recipe - Kang - Pao Chicken from J. Bennett Easterling
Comment - "When he isn't making spicy oriental food, Ben works for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He also likes Bill's jokes, which says a lot about the man..."
Again, I did not add the punctuation. I believe Bill was Marie's husband.

I've gone through the whole book and yet, I cannot determine who she was writing these notes for???

In Defense of Paint By Numbers

As you know, SO and I have been making the rounds for the past several months at a fair number of antique malls. When this all started, I was only interested in a couple of things, but interestingly, as times has passed, my list of things that I hunt for has grown. Oddly enough, that list now includes paint by numbers pictures.

I won't pretend that I don't still see that they are cheesy, but I'd rather view them as SO observed: "they are impressionistic, it brought art to the masses..." I prefer that romantic view.

They are also inexpensive to collect -- Over the weekend I found several framed pieces and spent less than $50. Amongst the purchases were these two that I'd eye-balled several weeks ago and went back to claim:

















These poor things were so dirty...which led to an exploration on how to clean them...which led us down the path of trying squished up white bread...which didn't work...so I left the white bread at SO's cause I don't eat it...which resulted in my getting a text message that I left my bread...no one wants that bread!

We ended up cleaning the paintings with fair success with just a damp paper towel. It was crazy to see how much prettier the colors were once we cleaned off some of the dirt. These two beauties were just $12 for the pair. My kitchen has a bit of a Mexican decor so that's where they are going once framed.

Now, I'd just love to find a paint by numbers featuring some type of oriental scene...