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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Skip stitch scarf. Just have to weave in the ends.

Wave dish cloth. about a third done. The ripples in the fabric show my mistakes.

'alternating rows dish cloth. 

Stuff I made...

I'm trying to post here a little more often. Being a busy writer and spending time with family doesn't always leave me a lot of time for blogging. So forgive me while I play catchup...

I will eventually be posting about the house renovation, just have to dig the pictures I want off the portable hard drive, sort and resize them, and put together an explanation. Working on the house is an ongoing project, so we're far from completed yet. This was just Phase 1 of a long string of things this old house needs to have updated. We kind of ran out of money, so it will be a while before we can get anything else done.

Anyway, almost all of today's post is about crochet. So on to the recent projects...

Remember the crocheted bald & naked dolly from my last post? Well she now has clothing and hair. My granddaughter loves her, and named her Rosie. So here's Rosie, who had 100% removable clothing, right down to her white granny panties.

 That ombre yarn on the dress is from that last thrift store visit. The rest is from my stash.


I didn't think of the buttons for the straps until after I designed the jumper, so they are on the back. Pretty easy to get on and off.



The panties were made first. Must have proper clothing!

I didn't follow any patterns for the clothing, it was all trial and error. You should have seen Terralyn's eyes light up when she saw the doll. Makes it all worth while.

Halloween was coming, and since I've had a full year of crocheting holiday decorations for the house, I had to make something for that as well. I planned to make garlands again, so I started thinking about ghosts and pumpkins, and began researching patterns online. I wanted something on the small side. One night I sat down with hook and yarn and made a ghostie freehand.

Well, he turned out too big to hang on a garland and I didn't like the idea of looking up inside his winding sheet, but he happily sat on an end table in the living room for quite a while.

Then I found some pumpkin and ghostie patterns online that looked promising (can't recall where I got them) and went to work.

The initial pumpkin was far smaller than I wanted, about the size of a quarter. So I increased the size and got the jack-o-lantern I wanted. It was just a matter of adding extra rounds with increases. Each one is doubled; in other words I made two pumpkins for each side, decorated them with faces using yarn and my terrible embroidery skills, and sewed them together with the bad side inward before adding the little stem. Below you can see the results.

This is one side of each jack-o'-lantern... These are about the size of golf balls.

And here's the other side. Where they were hung, both sides could be seen. The pumpkins were going to be alternated with ghosties on a beaded garland, so a dozen was plenty.

Here are the ghosties I chose, a really neat pattern. One again, to get the stiffness I wanted, I made two for each and sewed them together. Getting French knots in the right spots for eyes was a little challenging because I was using worsted weight yarn on a big blunt needle, but it worked.

The beaded garland. With a string through the top of each ghost or jack-o-lantern, and some trial and error, I was able to space them out properly along the garland.

The finished result. My helper hung them in the wrong area, and we moved them later, but I took a couple of quick shots.

You can see how I hung them. The fine little strings really don't show that well at a distance.



That knot at the top helps hold the crocheted decorations between the pony beads.


Actually, we used that area with the hanging baskets for the second garland, which somehow I neglected to get a picture of after it was done. All I have to show are the component parts below, as I finished them. But they were hung on an orange pony bead garland base, and alternated just like the ghosts and jack-o-lanterns.

I knew from the get-go that I wanted black bats, and had to try a couple patterns before I found what I wanted. While I was researching all that stuff, I kept seeing the Mexican Day Of The Dead skull motifs, and decided I had to have skulls. I had just the right color yarn for something a little more sinister.

I never used the bigger bat with the feet, because the little ones were perfect. Love those bright orange eyes. The first skull I made was far too large and floppy, so I modified the pattern and came out with this: 

As with the first garland, everything is doubled. Lining up the eyeholes in the skulls proved problematic, so I would up crocheting little discs in 4 bright colors and shoving them inside. They stayed in place nicely and gave the skulls some 'pop'.

Now a lot of people might wonder, why go through all this trouble to make decorations when you can buy some really nice things after the holiday for quite a bit off? Or perhaps get something from a local crafter and avoid all the mess and hassle. Well, maybe it's hard to understand, but I actually enjoy making things. I like the planning process and all the little surprises along the way. As with writing, what I had envisioned and what the end result was are often two different things, but that's the beauty of handmade. It's always one-of-a-kind, and there's a lot of self-satisfaction that goes into being able to say, "Yes, I designed and made this myself." My family gets a big kick out of looking at my creations, and I like to think of them as heirlooms for future generations. I will be leaving something tangible of myself behind when I part from this mortal coil. It also says a lot about how my time here was spent. 

I do most of my crafting at the end of the day. It gives me a chance to unwind while I watch TV, and something else to focus on if I'm not particularly interested in whatever is on. I'm still sitting with family regardless of what I'm occupied with. Writing is my primary occupation on the days when I am home, and that requires incredible concentration, and so I must shut out most of the world. By evening I am done writing and want to be in a more gregarious situation, though I still prefer it to be fairly subdued. I could be wasting that time online involved in social/political debates, taking pointless quizzes, or playing games. Those things don't necessarily lead to anything remotely productive, though I suppose they provide some self-satisfaction.  

I see people endlessly bent over their smartphones and I have to wonder, just what is the big attraction? I stare at a far larger and very bright screen for hours during the day, so the last thing I want to do is stare at one all evening too. So no thanks, I'll pull out the crochet hooks and yarn, the beads, buttons, and other trinkets, and make something. That's more my style. 

Till the next time,

Year 17, Week 41, Day One (week 927)

Year 17, Week 41, Day One (week 927)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
10-21-17 Saturday

I am mixing in the past few weeks in the same post as I don’t have a whole lot of new stuff to report.

The weather, for the most part is dots of showers coming off the ocean, some from the north, some from the south. Today there were no showers and partly cloudy.
The early showers prevented yard sales, for the most part on many weekends, and one simply do not waste time going out, though there are sometimes sales under cover.

Right after the storm, the area looked like winter, where only dark leaves were on the trees, no new growth at all. Lots of twigs were visible too, which added to the effect. It was interesting, but did not feel like the tropics. In subsequent weeks, new growth came out and a variety of greens now show. One of my most favorite colors has always been what I call “spring green”, the color of brand new leaves. Some trees developed patches of that after the third week.

A month later, some of the palm trees still have all their fronds facing west. The winds off the ocean reached beneath the eastward fronds and lifted them fronds off the tree so the west fronds are all that is left. It is rather interesting to see. It is more what you expect to see in tropical pictures.

Most of the debris is now gone there are a bunch of stumps around the area where the tops of the tree was removed to clear the roads. Once in a while, I see interesting piles of wood. It costs extra money to remove the trunks. Some of these trunks may sprout branches and fill out.

Two weeks after the storm, I ran my route to see what the conditions were and found three yard sales. The next week I found three more. The weather and my condition has not been favorable to yard sailing since.

Any walking or standing is out. It is surprising how long it takes for infections to heal. I have a doctor taking care of the wound but the infection I have has to be knocked down first, and then heal the wound.
I missed the turning club meeting this Thursday. I went to the doctor in the early afternoon and, getting home and getting to bed was my first priority. The treatments take it out of you. When you cannot get your foot in a comfortable position, driving is not fun. It was Friday that finally I remembered we had a meeting. I was supposed to bring the bring-back prize and never had a chance to give it a thought. I must say that my feet have been my number one concentration. At this moment, the infection is down to a rash and should heal quickly now. Even if I remembered the meeting, I doubt I could have made it. 

It hurts to look at all the wood that was along side of the road, that I could not take home. I am still not in condition to even consider wood working. 

It is late October. Most years, I am working on Christmas Ornaments at this time or at least struggling to find ideas for designs that I have not done,  and am rushing to have them done by December First. I have a couple designs I would like to do but am not able to work on them yet.  One, rocking horses, were designs from last year.... ouch!!!

The awning I work under has not been put up yet. It will take some repairs to the frame first. Once that is up. Then my equipment can be moved back there and I can get to work again. The neighbor has been kind enough to let me keep my stuff in his garage. He is remodeling his house and these are not YET in his way.  We need to move the stuff soon, though.

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