Dreaded Daylight Savings Change

Tonight we set our clocks ahead one hour. Not only do I lose an hour of sleep but I have to adjust all of the clocks. This includes the one in the car that always seem to confound me. Such a simple concept but I always have to get out the manual.

I usually set the household clocks ahead during the day so I can get used to the time change and go to bed early which makes it on time. So tonight I ate dinner at 5:30 which is really tomorrow's 6:30 -- does that make sense?

I'm heading to the gym in the morning -- I sure do hope the attendant remembers the time change and is there early to open the door! The past few days I've been doing more jogging than usual. I'm never going to break any land speed records but at least I've knocked my per mile time down to 11.5 minutes.

Today I got my hair done so that means tomorrow I'll be sweating the dye out. Not a pleasant smell or look but I'm expecting a light turn out at the gym so hopefully I won't offend too many. I told my barber (yes, I said barber) that I'd like to start thinking about my hair for Holly's wedding in June. He asked if he could do my hair that day, which I thought was very sweet. Or maybe that meant he had little confidence in my ability to pull it off. Either way, that's one thing off my plate for that day.

Tonight I've been watching Bridget Jones's Diary -- it still amuses me. Makes me think there's hope for all of us.

Love to Needle Felt

One of my favorite things to do is needle felting. I struggle to make time for it, which is really frustrating since it is so fun to do. I began several years ago with a kit I got on Ebay:

It didn't have quite enough of the blue roving for the background but I like it anyway. I used it on my table at a craft show to fill up some space and could have sold it several times over. It's not that it's a fabulous piece. It happened to be the Mt Bruce Sheep & Wool Festival and people were buying everything that had anything at all to do with sheep.

My next needle felting effort was a figure. Now before you say it, NO, it's not a squirrel. It's a chipmunk.

Sorry if I sound a bit sensitive, but I thought it was a perfectly good likeness of a chipmunk. Everywhere I take it, poor 'Chippy' is called a squirrel. He lives behind the glass doors of my secretary -- far, far away from my wire haired fox terrier, Maggie.

For Christmas I decided to make a gift for each of my friends in our quilting stitch group. Now, I'm never one to plan too far ahead and this was no exception. I got the idea for making felted pins the night before our gathering. I used some felted wool that had misbehaved when I was making a bag, cutting out 3" circles from it. Using various pieces of loosely spun wool yarn, wool roving, and felted wool nuggets from laundering many felting projects, I proceed to needle felt designs for each gal. Some pins were embellished with antique glass buttons, others were plain. Here are some pins I made while demonstrating needle felting for the Black Sheep Knitting Guild meeting last month.

I really do enjoy needle felting. To me, it's very relaxing and freeing. You just select a beautiful piece of roving and start punch, punch, punching away. I've got a pretty healthy assortment of roving, most of which I've bought from local people at the Spinners Flock fiber sales.
One thing to remember -- never look away while you're needle felting. A poke from the needle it truly painful. Ask me how I know!

It's going to be a rainy weekend after a high today near 70 degrees. I think I'll have plenty of opportunity to get something crafty done.

Challenges

Last week my quilting stitch group met for our monthly meeting. We were supposed to bring a finished quilt from the challenge gauntlet that had been laid down last year. Ok, so I didn't finish my quilt. I did get the top done but I expect I will have it machine quilted by my friend Jackie. It turned out much larger than I originally thought -- 77" x 87" -- what was I thinking?! Way toooooo big for me to machine quilt on my Bernina and if I hand-quilted it, my niece might never get it.

I really like the way it turned out and it will be perfect for her. I bought the fabric in Manhattan after I visited her when she lived in Hoboken. Yes, that was 2 years ago. Time flies. The fabric is a great Japanese print and I used either white, red, or black fabric around the print squares. Now she's living in California and that's a long way to go to visit but I'll get there someday.

In the meantime, I've got my challenge to finish for next year. It's a four block quilt by Terry Clothier Thompson and I've had the one block done for years. I tried desperately to get my group to cut me some slack and make it a wall-hanging but nooooooooooo, they wouldn't have any of that. Plus I have the rest of the pieces already cut out, just need to hand applique them down.

I do like the way it came out but it's been so long I'll have to try and find the class notes and pattern so I can finish it in this decade. Not looking good to be finished by next February. Too many other things to get in the way.

Out Damn Spot!

Tonight I finally got around to laundering the sweater I was wearing when my Mom asked me to load the ink cartridges in her printer. Now, she had been monkeying with them for awhile to no avail. Could not get them into the proper slot. Hence, the smudges of ink all over the cover of the printer. But never fear, her darling daughter (ME, of course) would be by to rescue her and insert those bloody cartridges into their proper spot.
Lucky for Mom, I had taken off my newly finished Einstein Jacket:

and instead got the black smudges on a cotton sweater that some poor soul in Australia had knitted for the fine folks at Macy's. After trying to remove the ink with Mom's bath soap, I relented and decided a little hairspray would do the trick once I got home.
So tonight the spots are long gone, as our former Tigers baseball radio announcer used to say. Out damn spot, as my Mom would say.

Leader or Follower?

For me I have to say I'm a follower. I have a rather large collection of sheep. I think that means I like to be part of the flock. Oh sometimes I take an occasional turn and stand out for a change. I've been guild president for both quilting and knitting guilds. Given a choice, I'm happier just blending in. I'm perfectly content doing the same thing day after day with as few bumps in the road as possible, thank you.
I like my job and I'm pretty good at it. There's a certain comfort in being an SME (subject matter expert). But there are times when life takes that mundane lifestyle and rips the carpet out from under you. Our company stock is suffering huge losses. Our main customer is selling off it's bits and pieces so much so that there may not be any work left to do before too long. There have already been cuts in some of our other departments. We're all just waiting for someone to show up at our desks with 'the box'.
Each day my co-workers and I discuss the endless possibilities, sounding much like Scarlett O'Hara -- 'where will I go? what will I do?' Then again, it doesn't pay to dwell on what we don't really know will happen. Oh fiddledeedee.
My cubemate Lisa and I have joked about opening up a roadside chili stand. We discuss the stand's offering -- toppings, crackers, etc. -- and how we'll expand when the idea takes off. Of course she'll be out at the corner to bring in sales. She's tall, blond, and slender and I'm, well, not. There I go again, content to bring up the rear.......someone has to stir the chili!
My mother often says 'this too shall pass' but the process sure can be agonizing.

Time Well Spent

Shouldn't we always make good use of our time?  Tonight, after working out, I made my way over to AJ's Cafe in Ferndale to knit with my knitting group.  I arrived far ahead of the others so I ordered a sandwich and hot cocoa and picked out a table near the window.  As I waited for my friends to arrive a different kind of group began to assemble.  First one, then another.  Several mentally and physically disabled young people ambled in, anxious to perform in what turned out to be their 'Talent Show'.  Check that, they were cognitively and physically impaired, as my daughter the special ed teacher would say.

This was not the usual quiet Monday night, no sirree.  First we heard 'Rascal Flatts' singing a tune, then there was 'Michael Jackson' dancing to Billie Jean, then a new take on 'Mama Mia'.  The hits just kept on coming.  The crowd clapped, not always in rhythm, and cheered wildly for each 'act'.  I thought to myself, what joy they have in their lives.  They all loved performing and felt so much love from the audience.

I doubt I would garner such applause performing the same numbers.  Maybe some hoots and hollers, and undoubtedly a lot of laughs.  Especially trying to do the Michael Jackson Moonwalk -- I never did master that move.

I did get a bit of knitting done on the cloche that I cast on last night.  Maybe I didn't get as much knitted as I would have liked but my enjoyment came from watching the special acts at the cafe.  Not a bad use of time in my book.

Brisk but sunny Sunday....

Today is my Mom's birthday.  A bit of a melancholy day for me as a co-worker lost her Mom suddenly last Sunday.  You have to enjoy each day you have with those you love because you just never know when you'll lose them. 

I started the day by sending Mom an e-card.  A silly sort of card that plays music and the candles on the cake dance around with canes, like old vaudeville characters.  Next I stopped at the local Dale and Thomas Popcorn shop to pick up what's become the expected gift -- a six-pack variety carton of flavored popcorn.  Mom loves popcorn and even shares it with Dad.  But today, my plans went awry -- no six packs!  I chose 4 bags of various flavors in their place, which delighted Mom to no end.

I took along 3 hats to felt in her washer, since it's the old fashioned type that agitates the heck out of things.  I used Lion Brand Wool which felted quite well, surprisingly.  I've never used a 'big box' store's yarn before but have to say it made for a nice, dense fabric.  

I need to cast on a new cloche style hat out of some Lopi I've had for a bit.  The cloche will have some sort of needle felting embellishment added at some point in time.  I think they really look much better with a little doo-dad added.

After Mom's I headed to Costco for a 'few' items.  $213 later, I packed up the car and headed home.  Ok, so maybe the seven bottles of wine added to the total but virtually everything else was an essential item.  You know -- socks, salmon, omeprazole (Prilosec), tampons, AAA batteries, and on and on.  Remember though, that even if you forget to bring your coupons don't let that stop you from saving money -- spot that coupon brochure in the cart ahead of you and ask meekly if you could have that coupon for the omeprazole, as I did today and the shopper kindly handed it over to me.  Yes!  $4 saved plus another $3 for the tampons I didn't even spot on the coupon page.  Very nearly paid for a bottle of wine!

Almost forgot to give the 'inches lost' update.  As of this morning I've lost a total of 28 1/2" since I began working out last April.  No wonder things fit better!

Time to cast on.....