In My "Spare" Time: Year 17, Week 47, Day One (week 933)

Year 17, Week 47, Day One (week 933)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
12-02-17 Saturday

77 low, 82 high, partly cloudy with the sky filled with sheep like clouds crossing the sky. Light breeze and lots of sun. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach department of Tourism.

The infection in my feet has kept me from doing much of anything. At times, walking from my truck to the door is all I can handle. Shopping is sometimes a real test of endurance. The feet are healing quite well, and the pain has shifted from a raw scraping feeling to more like a bruise. My best course is to stay off them as much as possible, and elevate them when possible also. Also they hurt at night many times so getting a full night’s sleep is tough, so getting as much sleep as possible during the day is important when possible.

For Thanksgiving, I planned on walking over to my nephew’s home, which is about a block away, which is about the maximum of my range if I put my mind to it, but it was raining really hard, so I drove over to their parking lot, which cut the walk to about a third, and by that time and distance, the rain had dropped to a drizzle. My job for the gathering was to bring flavored coffees. Everything else was handled by the three other families.

The awning is still not up and my equipment is still in storage. It looks like a while before I can do any wood working again. With my feet the way they are, that does not bother me as much as it should.

The one craft I have done something on is crochet. I have made a skip-stitch scarf where there are three stitches, then a space and then three more stitches along the length. It came out pretty good. It is about seven feet long. I have to tie in the ends, but it is otherwise done.
I started a wave stitch dishcloth where I do graduated stitches from very short to long and back down again across it, then change colors and do the exact (at least supposed to be) opposite stitches going back the other way. I got a ways into it and found I am not even in my stitches, I do a standard row of stitches between the waves. As of this moment, the last straight row I did is not straight. A quick glance indicates that I have added stitches here and there which causes it to curve.
To take a break, I decided to do a simpler stitch dish cloth – double crochet, triple crochet, double crochet – as something that can be done quickly. I have only had a couple sessions with this one so it is not too far. It will, though, go quickly as I am making it smaller than others I have done. This one is 25 stitches across. Many dishcloths I do are 30 stitches across. Five stitches does not sound like much, but it shows when beside each other. I always make them square and the five extra stitches adds up to about 200 stitches for a whole piece.

It won’t be too long before I will be starting my Christmas Cards. I am gathering my card stocks and paint, and have started the process of eliminating designs that are too difficult or not worth painting.
I looked at copies I have kept over the years. I don’t want snow men, Christmas trees, even if they are palm trees. Eliminating those reduces the choices greatly. It is the same problem I have had with the Christmas ornaments I carved. There is a limit on how many versions of snow men and trees you can do. In both cards and ornaments, one does not want to copy something you have done before. I have to get to work searching for ideas.

I don’t see much wood working in the near future. I will work crochet and will paint my Christmas Cards. Beyond that, I don’t see much else happening.

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