Here is a picture of the fingerless gloves I made Catie.








I have been listening to a self-help mind control (that is me controling my mind, not someone else controling my mind) and it has been helping. There is a centering meditation that is one of the exersizes. I really like it but I find that sometimes I seem to skip sections of the recording. It's like I go to sleep and miss parts, but I am not asleep because I am still aware. I know it sounds strange, but there it is. Even though that is happening, I am getting better sleep and I have been remembering my dreams, which I haven't been able to for months. All in all I am pleased with the program. I am saving up to buy the exensive course.

My Spinning

My good friend is letting me borrow her combs. The kind that you prepare wool for spinning with. You comb the wool until it's light and fluffy. I am able to spin with out pre-drafting when I do this.













Here's a picture of what the wool looks like after it has been carded.










And here it is on my wheel.






And the finished product. This skein is about 70 yards. It's a single (not plyed), because my wheel doesn't have a big enough opening for a very large ply. Since I am just now spinning with out pre-drafting my yarn singles are still lumpy and bumpy. So if I ply the singles I will have a very bulky yarn.





I haven't been making any jewerly because I have been concentrating on finishing Christmas presents I was knitting. This is a picture of one of the pair of fingerless gloves I made.






This is one of a pair I made with a double braid. I took the pattern for the gloves in the first picture and adjusted it for the double braid. I made a pair for Catie that had a cetic braid. But I haven't taken a picture of them yet. I will post it later.

Have a happy and abundant New Year.

Barbara

Trimmed the tree tonight. I always enjoy doing that. I buy some shortbread cookies. Don and I drink tea or eggnog and Catie drinks hot chocolate. We put Christmas music on and then look at all the ornaments we have collected over the years
I started collecting ornaments for each of the kids when they were babies. I would get one for each year. So that when they grew up and were on their own with families of their own they would have some ornament to start with that had some sentimental value to them. This year Jeni got married and I packed up her ornaments and will be sending them to her and Jamey.



This is a picture of Jeni and Jamey on their wedding day.












This is what the tree looked like when we were done. The big tree is the family tree. The little tree to the left is Catie's tree and the small tree on the right is my tree, which I shared with Don this year, so it was our tree. :o)

My life has been a bit crazy lately. Catie had her play rehursals, trying to fit the rehursals and homework together was a nightmare. Catie was up late some nights getting her homework done. But now it's all over and the play went off without a hitch.

Thanksgiving was nice. We went to Jefferson City, MO to be with Don's family. There wer 31 one of us there. Luckly one of Don's sisters just build a big house so we were all able to eat and meet at one place.

Since my daughter Jeni changed the date of her wedding from "some time after the first of the year" to November. I have set aside her blanket to finish some other projects.


I made a couple of monkeys for my grandsons. I forgot to take a picture of the monkeys I made, so I posted the picture off the pattern. The monkeys do look like the example. I made one a tan with dark fun fur and the other I made with dark wool and a kind of reddish fun fur.



These are a pair of fingerless gloves I made for my friend Heidi. She told me that her hands get cold in her office when she is typing on her computer. So I thought a fingerless gloves might do the trick. She is a blingy type of gal so I am putting a row of swarovski crystals down the center.


This is one of the pair of gloves I am making for my friend Cricket. She's a smoker and her hands get cold when she has to go outside to smoke. I used the same basic glove pattern I used for Heidi's gloves but I used my own cable pattern instead of the one the pattern calls for. After I get the other glove finished I am going to make Catie a pair with a celtic weave pattern on them. If I get any good I will make a pair and see if I can sell them in my etsy shop.

Halloween is only a week away. This year has flown by so fast. I am going to a festival in Lebannon (a town close by) called Witches Night Out. I went last year and had a blast. Now it's a year later.

I sold somemore jewerly on Etsy. More earrings. I was chatting with some other shop owners the other night and they are encouraging me to
list some of my yarn. So I took a few pictures of a skein that I am going to list.


It's a Columbian wool. It's a nice green/blue varigated color. I still have a whole bunch of it. I bought it at a wool swap for next to nothing. I think it was a one pound ball. Anyway I have LOTS of it left. This one skein is 192 yards.

We changed from regular HD to DVR HD yesterday and at sometime during the installation the dish was bumped or what-ever and now we are not gettig any satlitle receiption. Don is not very happy with our satilite provider's service.

I dropped my phone into some water yesterday and the screen is gone so I have to run to ATT today. (The fun just never stops.)

Catie and I worked at the local football game consessions last night. We slung hamburgers, hotdogs, brats, candy and a whole lot of other things for 2 1/2 hours. We did this to help earn money for Catie's Washington DC school trip. The work wasn't bad at all. But I did notice that a lot of little kids run loose and hopped up on sugar at these types of games.

Don's sisters were here yesterday, just passing through town. They stopped by and we went out to lunch.



I was pretty tired after the fantastic cheeseburger I had at Five Guys. I think we were all feeling a little full.





I have been working on some new pieces of jewerly. I have also been playing with polymer clay. I made these bangles out of polymer. It was pretty fun.







I made all the beads for this necklace.












I really like these earrings. I don't know if they can accutally be called steam punk but they do have a steam punkish feel to them.











I have been seeing these kinds of rings all over and thought it might be fun to try to make one. I think I did a pretty good job. Next time I will embed the wire part of the ring directly into the clay and not use a ring finding.









This is a pendant to a necklace I made. The chain is attached to the heart. I am thinking of putting it in my Etsy shop.

Etsy at last

Well I have done it. I posted some of my jewerly on Esty. I have had a few things sell. Mostly they have been people that I know through Facebook but that's a beginning isn't it?

I don't know if I can make any money selling my things on Etsy, but maybe I can make enough to support my hobby habit. A friend of mine told me that sounds like an addiction. Maybe it is.

Alot of people keep looking at my knot ring. I only have a few sizes avaliable so I guess I need to make more with a wider range of sizes.

Tomorrow is my birthday and Don is taking me to JD McGriks. That is my favorite resturant. It's an Irish Pub.

On Saturday I am having a birthday party with my good friend Heidi. Her birthday is within a handful of days of my birthday so we decided that we needed to have a joint birthday party. It has been such a long time since I have had a birthday party. This party is going to be a costume party and the theme is Life is a Witch. Everyone must come dressed as their favorite witch. The people I have invited thought it was a fun idea and started telling me who they were going to come as. I invited 8 people and 6 have comfirmed that they are coming. Not too bad.



I have just finished a wood agate charm necklace. I am very pleased with it. The beads are such a nice color. Now I am going to make earrings to match. I have enough beads and charms.

Wow, I hadn't relized that so much time had passed since I last blogged. I guess a lot of things have been going on.

Let's see... We bought a new car. The Malibu need extensive front end repair. We put a down payment on the new car for what it would have cost us to fix it. We had it for 11 years and it had a lot of miles on it.

The new car is a Honda Civic. We got a pretty good deal on it. The intrest rate was .09 percent. They were having a special to bring in customers. It was working because the day we went they had quite a few customers there.

Catie started school on the 19th of August. She told me she was ready to go back. I guess it really sucked getting to see your friends so little during the summer and only talking to them on the phone or through texting.

My spinning wheel is out of commision for a little while. The screw holes that hold the bobbing housing striped. Don says that the wrong kind of screw to do the job. So he is going to put the correct screws in.

I took pictures of my jewerly and posted one of them on etsy. I put up the swarovski braclete

and earrings up. I hope I sell it. When I put it on ebay it didn't sell. Of course people on ebay are looking for a deal and the lowest I could go on it was 23.00 dollars. That's what I put into it and that doesn't count the time it took to make it. This picture doesn't really do it justice. When the light is on it, it sparkles very nicely. I will post the rest when I can think of good discriptions to go with them. Don will help me with that so it shouldn't be long.

My knitting is going along. I have about 4 WIPs. I am still working on the blanket. I am at the second border and I don't have a circular needle that will go around all of it. After I am through with this second border the block will measure 58 square inches. When I am finished the blanket will be 74 square inches. I am waiting for the Addi Click adjustable needles to come in at the LYS. It's been about 3 weeks and I am getting a little frustrated with them. I need to have this blanket finished by Christmas. The border I am going to start is a plain stockinette stitch, so it should go pretty fast. But it is worked in the round so that is why I need the addi clicks. I can add lengths of cable to get the size I need. I am also working on a pair of boot socks for a friend. The pattern is pretty easy it just involves a lot of ribbing. The socks are 16 inches long. There is a nice lace pattern on the back of the sock. I don't do lace very well, but I don't think I will have a problem with this pattern.

Grizzles Baseball Game

We went to a Grizzles baseball game tonight. The were playing the Normal Corn Huskers. The Grizzles won 16 to 5. Not much of a game but there were fireworks right after the last

I took some pictures with my phone and I saved them to my exturnal chip but I can't seem to find the pictures on the chip. I can view them on my camera but not when I put the chip in the computer so I don't have any pictures to post.

Catie got her face painted with a baseball with fire. It was pretty cute. Oh Well. Maybe I will have some pictures next time I post.

Today started out with me, waking up to itchy legs. Friday I went to a friends house and we sat out on her patio. Unknown to me, I was eating up by bugs. I really didn't feel them on Saturday, but Sunday night they started itching and this morning it was terrible. I don't have any skin left on my shins.

I found a picture from my visit to Washington that I like. Actualy I copied it off of my daughter-in-laws facebook photo album. This is just after we were finished eating at the resturant that Don and Jon shot the oysters. It was right by a marina with lots of sailboats.

I got my first commission for a piece of jewerly last week. I am excited. It's for a good friend so I really want it to be good. She wants me to make earrings like the egypitain spiral bracelet I made. It will be a bit tricky but I think I can do it.

I am working on a tubular herringbone necklace. I am going to make it about 20 inches in length. It is silver with a three small lines of blue winding around it. Very pretty. You really can't see it clearly in the picture.

Happy Fourth

Happy Fourth of July!

Today is beautiful. The sun is not too hot and there is a slight breeze. I have some pictures of my garden. It's really growing. I found some June Bugs on my basil. I didn't want to put chemical pesticides on it so I looked on line for a more natural one. I found a lot of receipes for several repelleants. I just didn't have all of the ingredients. So I improvised. The receipe I settled on called for rubbing alcohol, chayanne pepper and dish soap. I used instead vodka, chili powders and dish soap. I haven't seen a June Bug since I used it.

My basil seems to be taking off. Both plants have almost taken over the whole herb section of the garden. I have sweet basil and cinninamin basil. The cinnamin basil is really good with roast. I have a lavender plant but it doesn't seem to be doing very well. I have been told that lavender doesn't like humidity very well.

Don's cucumbers were really overgrowing. He hadn't put up the lines for them to climb up. So they were really everywhere. When he put the lines up we had a heck of a time separating the cucumbers and the greenbeans.

The carrots are getting big, but we are not quite sure when to pick them. You can see the carrot unter the greens on some but not on others.

We went to a Cardnials game last Monday. We went with a group of Don's co-workers. We took the Redbird Express. The Redbird Express is a bus that takes you to the game. You can board the bus at the mall just down the road from where we live. The bus was really nice. We have taken our car to the game and have also taken the Metro-link. The bus is by far the best way.

My visit to Jon and Melanie was fantastic! I now remember how much I really liked living in the northwest. We went whale watching but didn't see any whales. We did see a lot of porpises, bald eagles and harbor seals. The weather was very nice. About 75 degrees. It rained a couple of times but only Washington mist.

We went to Pike's Market on Sunday. Lots of nice flowers and fruit. We bought apricots the size of peaches. The cherries were everywhere just like I remembered. There were all kinds of neat things there. Handmade jewerly, leather goods, clothes almost anything you can think of. I even got to buy some devil's claw for the strained muscle ointment I make. There was a street band playing and they were pretty good.

They were a funky-folky sort of band. Pretty eclectic bunch.

We went to the Pt. Defiance Gardens. The roses were in bloom. There were so many different types. I wish I could of taken all of them home with me.

Today we are off to Troy IL. for one of Catie's softball games. Her team won last Thursday. Thier first win of the season. It was pretty nice since it was Catie's 13th birthday. Here's a picture of her batting. Nice socks, huh. They were suppose to be tyed diyed but the couch couldn't get them. One of the girls does have them though.

Below is the video of the sailing we did on Mother's day.

This Thursday we are off to Washington state to visit Jon and Melanie. We are planning to visit McCord AFB while we are there and drive around Seattle a bit. Maybe take a trip to Pike's Market. On Saturday we are going whale watching. It has a 60% chance of rainning on that day but I don't think the whales mind being wet. So perhaps we will spot a whale or two.

I'm still having a hard time learning how to get the pictures and text lined up right. So please be patient if the format is strange.

We'll we are off to the game.

Spinning Wheel

I bought a spinning wheel this week and I have already made a skein of yarn. It's about 116 yds. It looks pretty good. The first skein I spun is the purplish one. The one I did on the new spinning wheel is multi-colored .

My peonies have been blooming. The white ones bloomed first. Then the red, dark pink and the light pink ones are the last. As you can see the white ones had a red/dark pink center. They were very pretty.

We went sailing on Mother's Day at Caryle Lake. The wind was light and it was a nice peaceful time. Catie was a little bored. Don liked it and he wants to take lessons. I would like to too, but I think that if only one of us takes lessons the he/she can teach the other to sail. Don is also looking at boats on line for sale.