Stepping Up for November

I talked to a friend who surprised me by saying he read my blog now and then. That in itself did not motivate me to write more but tonight I got an email from BlogHer that promised writing prompts from NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) Ok I will try. I will try and even if I fail I will hold my head up and take stupid pictures of myself to direct your attentions away from my failures HA!

Forgotten Poems Day 3

Indigo Blue       Oct 7, 1981

This is of promises
Turned indigo blue
Whenever it happens
I think of you
The times that we had
Still shine in my head
There are so many things
I wish I had said
And then when the ocean
Turns indigo blue
Again I find myself
Thinking of you
The words and the silences
Were one between us
The touching, the holding
And sometimes the lust
No one understood
How we felt, me and you
In our own little world
Of indigo blue

 It's a secret who this is about but there are more poems dedicated to that person coming up. Looking back, yeah I'm seeing why it didn't work, but man was it painful for a few intense years wondering what could have been.

Forgotten Poems Day 2

1977

Future Premonitions
           (To a Milkweed)

How much will the
common milkweed
have evolved in
three million years?

Will its ivory white
sap have turned
green as the result
of too many radioactive
particles in the air?

Will it have shrunk
to the size of the
Lilliputians of
Gulliver's Travels
or will it
have grown to giant
proportions to become
the national tree
of some future nation?

Ok so how corny was that? This reminded me of something that happened while I was living in Colorado Springs. I was out for a walk one day when I saw some milkweeds actually being grown as ornamentals. Coming from farmland USA it was WEIRD to the max. I stopped to smell the milkweeds every time I saw them after that. They are quite fragrant.

The Forgotten Poems Day 1

OMG seriously o.m.g.

I got most of the rest of my stuff out of my daughter's shed yesterday and I went through a tub and found a book of my poems dated 1977-1991. I had forgotten all about them. I think I'll blog them for posterity since the only thing I can leave my kids and grandkids are youtube videos and facebook crap.

I must have been a senior in high school when I wrote this first one:

Para Tu

When the flame
goes out
what is left?
A mere puff
of smoke
or is it
something more,
something no one
will ever understand?

For a fleeting
moment
its presence
is felt
and then
it's gone too.

Relief.
The body
relaxes
sinking slowly
into a state
of quiet
peacefulness
and the mind
is
at
rest.

The NIGHT of the BAT

Imagine if you will a cool rainy night in May. The sounds of a small city, amplified by the damp air, drifting through your open window. Sleep evades you until well after the Witching Hour. You finally drift off but awaken at 2:46 AM hungry and in need of a pee. Yogurt, potty and back to bed. Thankfully sleep visits quickly this time.

4:09 AM- you awake again , not sure why. Suddenly something whizzes by your face! You watch in horror as a small fluttering figure circles the room, barely visible in the gloom, and you remember the words of your friend..."HERE THERE BE BATS!"

We were talking about mosquitoes when the subject came up. "No mosquitoes here, the bats keep them down and oh ,by the way, they get into the house. Is that going to be a problem for you?" Wait...what?

I guess I really didn't believe her. I had never seen a bat in a house (I did see one in a Catholic Church once during a funeral but that's another story). She even showed me THE BAT NET once while we were watching Dancing With the Stars. THE BAT NET is a large fishing net she uses to capture the naughty the naughty bats that dare come in. She releases them back into the wilds here in beautiful Danville IL (ha!) so they can continue to keep us fairly mosquito free.

 I watched the bat fly around and around until it spiraled into the ceiling fan and was thrown with a thud against the closet door.

"Good- I hope it stays down."

It didn't.

It fluttered and flopped and resumed it's endless circling, coming way too close to me for comfort. I knew I should just get up and go get THE BAT NET but being the little girl that I am I just laid there and quietly FREAKED OUT. I covered up completely with the sheet and Grandma Inez's yellow quilt and promptly had a hot flash. Great, terrific, wonderful. I waited it out then got chilled from the evaporating sweat. Lovely, just freaking perfect.The bat now seemed to be trying to escape, (how did you get in here anyway? I need to know!!) and was making a racket louder than would allow me to ever get back to sleep. I put a pillow over my head to try to drown out the noise because I didn't want to expose my arm long enough to reach for the ear plugs on the nightstand. It didn't help. I braved exposure long enough to turn the window fan on, half for the white noise and half in hopes it would frighten the creature downstairs. I got so cold I had to sit up and find the other quilt. I had just settled back down when....

SILENCE! NO BAT NOISES!

OK where is it? Kitchen, stairway, bathroom? Oh crap what if it's in the bathroom? I NEED TO PEE AGAIN!

15 more agonizing minutes, no BAT NOISES. Oh hell, I might as well get up. No sense in peeing the bed and having to deal with that mess.. The sun is coming up and I can see pretty well but I flipped the bathroom light on anyway and peered inside. NO BAT- YAY!

Did my thing and crept into the kitchen to make coffee- NO BAT YAY!

remembered I was cold and went to get my robe from off the back of the bedroom door and THERE IT WAS hanging in the corner...silent...motionless...UGLY!!!!

It's still there. I'm too exhausted to go o get THE BAT NET.

A Plethora of Pretty Pillow Tops

And it continues. The piecing and embellishing of the pillows. Next step....get the backs on them. Any questions?

The Making of the New Old Pillows

You didn't seriously think I went away never to return did you? I'm just busy. Really Busy. Here's a little taste of just one of my projects. 

Not only am I sewing again I have been quite the social butterfly. So fear not...I am here, I am creating and I'll try to tear myself away from it all to share it with you!

Creating Order from Chaos- The Unexpected Dishcloth Post

This past holiday season my friend, Laura, asked me a couple of times to make her some dishcloths in pastels to put in a bath type gift basket. I kept insisting that I didn't have those colors of cotton yarns but she could buy the yarn and I'd do it. I didn't hear back from her and the thought went the way of most things- right out of my mind.

I was cleaning/consolidating some of my craft supplies in anticipation of my big move to my own space (I'll miss my little pink room here but YAY! STUDIO!) when inspiration struck. Why not make my own dishcloth cotton yarn from the massive amount of crochet thread I bought over the summer? I was going to donate a bunch of it to the Yarn and Yak knitting group at the library but the more I looked at it the more I thought "This could work".

I ended up with a nice pile of dishcloth yarn, found an easily memorized pattern and made three lavender cloths in very short order. I got one big 30 gallon garbage bag of thread down to a 13 gallon bag (along with some owl hat yarn even). I still plan on donating another 13 gallon bag full to the knitting group. That still leaves me 362761473891643789154 skeins of yarn and balls of crochet thread so I think I'll be okay for a few months.

What I bought for $100 this summer

Pattern found at http://www.bestfreecrochet.com/2011/11/24/328-camo-print-dishcloth-maggie-weldon-maggies-crochet/

I still managed to let this thread and yarn go to the knitting group.

Knitting a dishcloth takes sooooooooooo much longer than crocheting one.

I took some yarn to my new place. Still have the bag of 100% wool here and whatever else is out in the shed. I plan on treasure hunting after lunch.

Stuck in a Rut

Sorry about the lack of posts. I am simply not in a blogging mood. I will be moving soon- long story but it's all good. New space is great, location great- moving in winter, yeah, not so good. I'll keep you informed

Here's a sneak peak of the new digs:

The Porcupine that Ate Middle Earth

Two awesome things happened to me today. 

#1) I picked up a Lord of the rings Risk game that I  begged asked for on freecycle.org.

#2) I found a super cute pattern for a porcupine pincushion HERE

I had to hand color some white felt but it worked out okay lol. Put said pincushion on LOTR  game board and behold....The Porcupine that Ate Middle Earth!

I will add more pins as soon as I find where I lost put them.

Super Sale and Can Knitting and Crocheting Burn Out be Far Behind?

OMG how much knitting and crocheting can one person do? Me thinks it might be time for a change in creative outlets. But I still have miles and miles of yarn and crochet thread. I guess I'll keep going until the first of the year and then decide. Here are a few things I have finished lately that are now for sale in my Artfire shop. (You DO NOT have to join Artfire to buy items there...just sayin) Oh and BTW I have a Coupon Sale going on there....Just enter DANCESWITHPITBULLS at checkout for a whopping 40% off!

A Little Facebook Challenge

My Pond friends Beth and Chrissy and I were talking about a crocheted cowl pattern that Bethie posted to my Facebook. I decided to see if could make one in an hour like the gal had said in the link.

I clicked on the Lion Brand website to get the pattern. OK looks easy enough.  But wait...a size P hook?!? I ain't got no size P hook! I dug through my other crochet hooks, the wooden ones until I found the biggest one.

  Next I dug through the bulky yarn stash. I had some of Thick n Quick but not enough to make the cowl so I grabbed the ball of teal. 

After a quick swatch I realized it wasn't bulky enough so I added a strand of Yellow Gold.

I set the Timer and away I went!

45 minutes later it was done!

I apologize for the Green Bay colors lol.